“Finn doesn’t know, does he?” I said when my demonic host returned with a towel and a small trash can, which made him look slightly more service-oriented than evil. “He doesn’t remember any of it.”
Kastor handed me the towel for my finger, then watched while I picked up the rest of the glass and dropped it into the plastic trash can. “He knows Maddock is my son, but considering how surprisedyouwere by the knowledge, it doesn’t sound like he’s realized that they’re brothers. Maddock didn’t start talking to him until more than a year after he died, and it was at least a year after that before we discovered that his imaginary ‘friend’ was real. And that he could possess a human host. Just. Like. Me.”
My goose bumps were back, and they were bigger than ever. “So, if Finn can jump from body to body, why can’t his brother?”
“Maybe Maddock could, if he were deprived of his own body, as his brother was.” Kastor shrugged. “I intend to find out when I’m done with him.”
“You’re going tokillMaddock?” I dropped the last of the glass into the trash can, suddenly wishing I’d put a couple of the smaller slivers into Kastor’s drink. They would have looked like ice, and I would have enjoyed watching him choke on blood as they sliced his throat open from the inside.
“Not until we’re sure he can’t sire a half-breed child of his own.” Kastor took a long drink from his glass, and it took effort for me not to sigh in relief. I’d just poisoned the leader of an all-demon city. No matter what else went wrong later, that much couldn’t be undone, and Kastor was now a walking contagion. “Who knows what miracles those born of my genetic line have to offer,” he continued. “Someday my species will exist as permanent residents of your world. Like Finn. If Maddock can play a part in that process, he is safe. If he cannot, we’ll see if freeing him from his human body sets his incorporeal spirit loose, as it did for his brother. If that’s the case, don’t you think it’s cruel to leave him tied to a less evolved physical form?”
No, I didnotthink that.
His eyes narrowed in my direction as he took another drink. “How close are you to my boys, Nina?”
“Why?” An uneasy feeling settled into my stomach—something told me story time was nearly over.
“They were sired by a male demon and carried by a female human exorcist. We’ve been waiting a long time for a chance to replicate the process.”
I felt the blood drain from my face when I realized what he intended. “You can’tbreedme!” I stood so fast my headswam.
“Of course I can. Which of my boys would you prefer? Maddock?”
That time when I refused to answer, his smile spread to take over most of his face. Evidently I was the worst liar in the entire world. “Finn, then. I should have guessed. Either way, you shouldn’t find our little experimenttooterribly unpleasant.”
I almost told him that he was out of luck—that the Church had made sure I could never reproduce—but I was afraid if I took that possibility off the table, he’d have no further use for me, thus no reason to keep me alive. “Not even if you possessed me first,” I growled instead, and Kastor shook his head.
“That won’t work, I’m afraid. Abigail wasn’t possessed when she conceived, and we really need to replicate the process as closely as possible.”
“But Abigail wasn’t impregnated in our world.”
“Well, we don’t have much choice about the location. I’m not sure whether you’ve heard, but the door between our worlds only works one way now, so even if we could get you there, we couldn’t get you back. We’ll just have tomake do, under the circumstances. Fortunately…”—Kastor crossed the room toward the unopened door on the far side, then threw it open with a dramatic flair—“we’re going to get two shots at this.”
When he stepped out of the way, my stomach heaved, threatening to send up whatever scraps of food it still held.
Framed in the doorway was a bed draped in satiny green linens and covered by a beautiful, if old, canopy. On that bed lay a girl in blue jeans and a wrinkled tee with some kind of gag tied between her lips. I would have recognized her from her curly brown hair even if I couldn’t see her face.
“Grayson!”
Kastor let me push past him into the bedroom, and Grayson’s damp, reddened eyes widened when I sank onto the bed next to her. She tried to say something, probably my name, but couldn’t through the gag.
I pulled the material from her mouth, and it sagged against her collarbones like a cloth necklace. “Nina! Help me sit up.”
“Are you okay?” I pulled her upright on the bed, and she rolled onto her back, then tucked her bent legs through her arms so that her wrists were cuffed in front, like mine. “Did they hurt you?”
“Not yet, but their plans aredisgusting….”
“I know, I—”
“Finn’s here,” she whispered, hardly moving her lips, and my eyes widened as fresh tears welled in hers. She’d always been able to hear Finn, even when he didn’t have any vocal cords with which to speak. And he’d obviously given up Carter’s body so he could sneak into the demon city. His hometown.
“Finn,” I whispered, blinking away tears of my own before they could fall. I hadn’t expected to see him again. Not that I’d actually seen him yet.
How long had he been there? Had he heard what Kastor had just told me? Were Maddock and the others in Pandemonia?
Her tears spilled onto her cheeks, and when I helped Grayson off the bed, she stumbled into me on purpose so she could whisper directly into my ear when I righted her, blocked from Kastor’s sight by my head. “He wants us to—”
“My men brought her in yesterday, shortly before you showed up on my doorstep.” Kastor leaned against the doorframe. “If good things really come in threes, I’m expecting the rest of your friends to turn themselves in at any moment.” He laughed at his own joke, and I realized he had no idea how close his prediction might be to coming true. “Would you two like to decide for yourselves who’ll be the first to give our little experiment a go, or should I just flip a coin?”
