“Okay.” Eli turned toward us, wiping his hands on the clean cloth. “She’s nearly ready to push,” he said, and warring threads of fear and joy tangled inside me.
It’s normal, Nina,I told myself.Someonealwayshas to die for a baby to live. Donating your soul is an honor.
The Church had been right aboutthatmuch. Right?
At least you’ll get to see the baby first….
But suddenly I was scared.
No, I wasterrified.
“Let’s hope it goes quickly.” Eli repositioned Meshara’s foot on the headrest. “We’re losing daylight.”
“Canshe push?” Anabelle asked. “I mean, if she can’t feel the contractions…?”
Eli shrugged. “I’m hoping she’s only lost thefeelingin her muscles, not the use of them.”
“So…now what?” I glanced from Meshara to Eli to the sun as it slipped deeper toward the western horizon.
Eli gave me the first smile I’d seen since “Mellie’s” fake labor had foreshadowed the real thing more than twelve hours earlier. “Now we wait for the next contraction. And get ready to meet your sister’s baby.”
I had a clean towel wrapped over my arm and a knife in my pocket. I was ready to say helloandgoodbye.
“Push!” Eli shouted, and I echoed the command inches from Meshara’s largely useless right ear. Having decided that I didn’t need to actuallyseethe miracle of birth, I’d taken up a position of support at her back, against the passenger’s-side door. I sat sideways on the bench with one leg folded on the seat, and between contractions Meshara leaned back against me.
Her hair still smelled like Mellie. She looked like Mellie. And she was about to deliver Mellie’s baby. Those subversive facts worked against me emotionally, even though I knew I was holding a demon. Cheering on a monster.
“Okay, stop!” Eli yelled, and I repeated the command into her ear. She still felt no pain, but she’d started to sweat, a clear indication of the effort her body was expending.
“When he was in Tobias’s body, Aldric said the same kinds of things,” Anabelle said, continuing our discussion of Meshara’s mysterious illness between contractions. A discussion that kept me from dwelling on the purpose of the knife in my pocket. “He only took one bite of the chocolate Reese gave him the day you exorcised him. He said it didn’t taste right.”
“I remember. He couldn’t feel his bumps and bruises either. Or that burn from the campfire. It’s safe to assume he was infected with whatever Meshara has.”
Eli’s gaze was still trained on Melanie’s stomach. He’d been amazing through the whole thing, though surely nothing in his life with the Lord’s Army had prepared him to deliver a demon’s baby, from a body that couldn’t actually feel the birthing process. “But he never went deaf or blind, did he?”
“I’m guessing he would have if he’d spent much more time in Tobias’s body,” I said. “The incubation period seems to be about two days. Meshara’s been in Melanie’s body for six or seven days now—”
Eli looked up sharply. “That long?”
“Yes, and she appears to be near the end phase—total loss of all sensory input.”
“You think this is actually fatal?” Anabelle asked. “I mean, she seems fine, other than the obvious.” Being completely cut off from the world through the loss of every sense she should have had.
“At the very least, it will lead to demons starving themselves, either because food is no longer appetizing or because they can’t feed themselves when they can’t see, smell, or feel their food.”
Eli glanced at Meshara again as if to confirm that she couldn’t hear us. “This disease, or virus, or whatever it is…it seems to be taking away everything demons want from the human experience. I’m guessing that’s more than coincidence.”
“I think it was engineered. By the Church.” I looked up at Anabelle. “Is that possible? Do you know if the Church has the kinds of facilities that would require? The kinds of doctors? Or scientists?” We’d all been led to believe that kind of technology—anything not required for a general medical practice—had been either abandoned or destroyed after the war.
Ana nodded slowly. “They’ve been actively—if quietly—recruiting science graduates from the universities since long before I was ordained. Rumor has it they kept parts of the Centers for Disease Control up and running after the war, to be sure they could protect what’s left of humanity from illness, which is honestly the last thing we need, after everyone we’ve lost to the demon horde.”
Though the truth was that we’d been losing humans and their souls to demons for centuries before the war began. We just hadn’t known it.
“It’s down south in Miseracordia,” she added. “Which used to be called Atlanta.”
“So it’s possible, then?” Eli said. “They could have made a disease that would…what? Take all the fun out of possession?”
“I think we’re well beyond just ‘not fun.’ ” I gestured to Meshara for emphasis. Her head was propped on my shoulder, her eyes closed. Her breathing was normal and unlabored. She was literally experiencing nothing between contractions during the most intense moments of childbirth. “The Church figured out how to isolate demons in our world just like they’re naturally isolated in their own world. Total sensory deprivation.” Thinking about that, I suddenly understood why some demons—and presumably some humans—might rather feel pain than feel nothing at all.
