“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a drink?” Kastor held up a short glass half-full of amber liquid when I came out of the restroom. “Our status as mortal enemies doesn’t have to mean we can’t share a beverage.”
I was pretty sure that was the veryleastof what our status meant. But the more chances I had to physically interact with him—up to a point—the better my chances of infecting him.
“Um…sure. Water would be great. Service in your stable was disgraceful.”
“Alas, we no longer have bottled water. We can grow our own food and raise our own livestock, but for everything else we have to make do with what we’re able to confiscate. I suspect you and your friends have been living much the same way?” I nodded as Kastor took another glass from the cabinet. “You’re welcome to fill this from the sink in the bathroom.”
In spite of the anxious rush of my pulse in my ears, I let my fingers brush his as I took the glass, desperately wishing I knew whether or not the virus could be spread by such casual contact.
“Are Maddock and Finn really brothers?” I called as I ran water into the glass with my wrists still cuffed together—if he wanted to pretend this was some kind of social visit, I could certainly oblige him with some self-serving gossip. “Were you really there when they were born?” I drained the short glass in three long gulps, then refilled it.
“I was.” Kastor watched me through the open doorway. “They were born right here, almost eighteen years ago, to a human woman about your age. She was an exorcist named Abigail. A beautiful woman. The boys both got her eyes.”
Finn had eyes? And they were hazel, like Maddock’s? Not green?
So presumably he’d had a body too?
“Abigail was human? Not a breeder?” Instead of returning to the chair with the eagle claw legs, I boldly crossed the room to sit on the loveseat, opposite the arm he’d perched on. “Why wasn’t she possessed?”
Kastor’s brows arched over my decision to move closer, but he made no comment. “I didn’t award her to anyone as a host in part because she was completely insane, and we couldn’t be sure that the problem was purely psychological.”
As Meshara had told me, if any of Abigail’s issues stemmed from brain damage, she would not have made a suitable host.
“And in part because she was carrying my child,” he continued, as if that first bombshell hadn’t already blown me away. “We didn’t realize there were two of them in there”—his vague gesture at my stomach gave me the creepy-crawlies—“until they came out.”
“Insane…? Two of…?” Phrases swirled through my head like debris caught in a storm, and nothing seemed to settle long enough for me to grab on to. I could no longer feel the glass in my grip. “Yourchild?”
He nodded perfunctorily, and a strand of brown hair fell over his forehead. “We weren’t sure it would be a boy, but we were hopeful.” His smile took on a boastful cast, and for a second it was hard to keep in mind that he was actually an ancient evil being rather than an arrogant teenage boy. He’d selected his host very well—Kastor’s stolen face was coldly handsome, and difficult to look away from. “As it turns out, it was actuallytwoboys. I believe your people would call that a miracle.”
He was right about that—in fact, theonlymiracles I believed in anymore were babies.
“We?” I took another sip of water, then cleared my throat. “Who’s we?” Did an insane pregnant exorcist count as part of a demon’s “we”?
“Everybody.” Kastor’s grand, wide-armed gesture seemed to take in the entire planet. “All of Pandemonia knew about Abigail’s pregnancy. It was celebrated. She was revered. It isn’t every day that a human woman carries a demon’s child.”
“It isn’tanyday that I can conceive of.” I looked up from my half-full glass to frown at him. “In what sense could Maddock and Finnpossiblybe your children?” Demons didn’t have any true physical form in the human world, which meant they had neither the parts nor the…fluids necessary to create a child. “Did you possess their biological father’s body?” I couldn’t see any other way for the conception to have happened.
“Child, they weren’t conceived by a human father, possessed or otherwise.” His patronizing tone felt extra insulting coming from a face not much older than my own. “Finn and Maddock are the first—and as far as I know, theonly—children ever fathered by a demon in his natural state. And they were conceived inmynative world.”
What?
“How is that possible?” I was so stunned I could hardly get the question out.Surelyhe was lying.
Kastor shrugged, but the gesture was too casual to be believable; he was bursting with pride over whatever he was about to say. “Abigail is the first human in history to survive a trip to our world. And she came back pregnant. Insane.” Another shrug, from the arm of the velvet loveseat. “But pregnant.”
“I don’t…” I took a deep breath, and my tongue suddenly felt dry in spite of the water. Hecouldn’tbe serious. “Do you have any proof?”
“Finnis the proof.” His brown eyes shone with feverish excitement. “Haven’t you ever wondered how he’s survived without a body of his own? How he can take over anyone else’s whenever he wants?”
“No…” I wasn’t answering his question. I was denying the implication. “He’s not a demon. He’snot!” The only thing Finn had ever been truly sure of in his entire life was that he was human. “He has a conscience. And he never gets sucked into hell. And he can’t access his hosts’ memories. And he doesn’t hurt their souls!”
“I know!” Kastor looked almost insanely giddy. “He’s a very nearly perfect hybrid of our two species. The best of both worlds—except that he can’t access human memories. But that’s an acceptable loss, considering that he doesn’t need a physical form to stay in your world, and that the hosts he takes arereusable,because he doesn’t have to consume their souls!”
Finn was half-demon. So was Maddock. Their insane exorcist mother had been impregnated by the ruler of a secret all-demon city, in the demons’ native world. My horror on their behalf was so profound it defied expression.
“How?” I asked at last, and the question sounded hollow with shock. “Why doesn’t he need a body?”
“We assume it has something to do with his demon genetics. He has an incorporeal form, like his father….” Kastor laid one hand over his chest. “But he’s native to this world, like his mother. However it happened, Finn is the key to unlocking the same abilities in the rest of us.”
