“And something about the fact that he’s a soulless monster makes you think he can be trusted?” I eyed a faded sign lying in the middle of the exit lane, its pole bent almost in half.
Oakley, Kansas.Prewar geography had never been my best subject, but that was enough to tell me we hadn’t hit Colorado yet.
“The fact that he wants to maintain his control of the city means I can believe him. Unfulfilled promises lead to revolt, which is how he came into power in the first place,” Meshara said. “If Kastor says I get a new body, I get a new body. And that day can’t come fast enough.” She squinted at the road. “Is your sister nearsighted?”
“No.” ButIhad a mild case of myopia. “So what kind of hoops does a demon have to jump through to earn an exorcist as a host? I mean, who’ll be wearing Nina Kane next season?”
“What?” She squinted at the road as if I were nothing more than a fly buzzing near her ear. “Mumbling is a sign of low self-confidence. Speak up.”
“What’s going to happen to me when we get to Pandemonia?” I repeated, each syllable exaggerated and loud. Pregnancy shouldn’t have affected her hearing. Surely she was just trying to scare me.
“Oh. He’ll either auction you off or give you away as a political favor,” she said as if the details didn’t truly matter, and my stomach began to churn. “But—” Meshara frowned and glanced down at her stomach, where her left hand still rested. “This thing’s kicking hard enough to bump my fingers, but I can’t feel the movements from inside. Is that normal?”
“I don’t think so.” I frowned and sat straighter, anxiously trying to assess the problem without access to my hands or any medical knowledge whatsoever. “Melanie could definitely feel the baby kicking.”
Meshara shrugged and returned both hands to the wheel, her pale brows drawn low.
“If I actually gave a damn, I might postulate that your sister felt what she wanted to feel—you know, because shecared—and I don’t feel what I don’t want to feel. Because I don’t really give a shit about your little niece or nephew, beyond its value to me as a human shield.”
The truth of that statement made me shake with fear and burn with rage. I couldnotlet her get back to Pandemonia, because when she abandoned Mellie for a new form, my sister’s body would die and the baby would die along with it.
As best I could tell, Meshara was driving west on what was once Interstate 70, and if her speedometer and my estimates were anywhere near accurate, she’d covered more distance in a single day of driving than we’d managed in the past five days of traveling with the Lord’s Army, mostly because—as Reese had pointed out—cars could go faster than horses and they didn’t have to stop to eat or rest.
We were already too close to Pandemonia for comfort.
“But I thought the whole reason you guys possess human bodies is to experience things a demon can’t in its natural form.”
The demon tilted her head—a decidedly human gesture—and seemed to be giving the question serious thought. “Well, yes, in the sense that we can’t experienceanythingin our natural form. We have no sight and very little sound, and absolutely no taste whatsoever. Our sense of touch is limited to pressure, which means we can tell when we bump into something or someone, but that’s it. There’s no pleasure. No pain. We literally spend eternity crawling around, experiencing nothing.”
Which was why our world drew demons like bugs to a porch light. The human form was like a sensory buffet laid out before a child who’d never eaten.
An evil child with no self-control.
Meshara squinted as she guided the SUV off the road to avoid a fallen tree, rotting across all four lanes of cracked pavement. “But we have individual tastes, just like your people,” she continued. “Some like to eat—you shouldseesome of the gluttons waddling around Pandemonia—and some like music. Some live to dance, some stare at bright colors all day long, and we have an entire faction dedicated to wearing interesting and stimulating fabrics.”
She glanced at me as she pulled the car back onto the road, bumping over an unseen chunk of concrete in the process. “And, of course, we have several distinct groups of masochists, who like pain because it’s the strongest sensation they can elicit. And then there are those sick bastards who actually like being pregnant.” She shuddered at the thought. “The aching joints, indigestion, and feet kicking my ribs from the inside were bad enough, but numbness and dead taste buds are worse than pain. I thought women liked pregnancy for the excuse to eat whatever they want. What’s the point if you can’t taste anything?” She glanced at me with a wry shrug. “You may think possession is distasteful, but I swear there’snothingstranger than growing a human being inside one’s stomach.”
“The baby’s not in your stomach, it’s in your uterus.” Which she should know, considering that she had access to everything Melanie had ever seen, read, or felt. “But it’s not evenyouruterus…” My anatomy lesson faded away when what she’d actually been saying finally sank in. Worry tightened my chest. “Wait, you could feel the baby moving before, but now you can’t?”
Meshara shrugged. “That part’s a relief, really.” She squinted and bumped over another rift in the road. “I can still see the little parasite moving. I just can’t feel it.”
“That’s not normal.”
“All I care about is that it’spreferable.” The demon suddenly sat up straight and slammed her foot down on the brake. I flew forward, and my seat belt bruised me from hip to shoulder, driving all the air from my lungs. If not for the belt, I might have gone through the windshield.
Before I could suck in enough air to shout, Meshara had released her own seat belt and shoved open the driver’s- side door. “What’s not normal is how badly I have to pee!”
“Just now?” I’d had to go forhours,even with nothing to drink, and she’d had two bottles of water during the drive without so much as a complaint from her bladder, as far as I could tell.
“Yes. Sit tight!” she shouted as she lunged from the car and fast-waddled toward the grass. I lost sight of her when she ducked behind an abandoned car with a sapling growing through the engine compartment, but after a couple of minutes, which I spent sawing the nylon cord against the broken armrest at my back, she returned, still pulling the stretchy fabric of Melanie’s maternity pants over her bulging belly. Only, something about her baby bulge looked…strange.
“Meshara!” I twisted for a better look, tugging as hard as I could against the frayed cord around my wrists. Being near a demon made me stronger than I’d have been on my own, but not as strong as I’d have been in the presence of several other exorcists. And nylon was very strong, for its weight. “Something’s wrong.”
“What?” she snapped as she dropped into the driver’s seat. “You’re mumbling again.”
“Your belly. I’m telling you something’swrong.”
Frowning, she pulled up the hem of her shirt, and her eyes widened even before she could push down the top of her pants. The fabric seemed to be…bunching. As if the flesh beneath were contorting. She pulled the elastic material down to the base of her bulge and we both gasped. “What the hell isthat?” she demanded, while we watched her stomach roil as if her guts were waging war beneath her flesh.
