“I assume you’re not talking about the bumps and bruises.” Nedes was covered in marks presumably inflicted when the angry mob had hauled him off to the kennels. “I had nothing to do with those.”
“He’s blind,” Kastor snapped, then turned back to the prisoner. “Nedes. Tell her.”
But Nedes didn’t seem to know what to say, so I stepped closer. “Relax,” I said, when Kastor’s grip on my arm tightened. “I’m not going to exorcise him. A dead demon spreads no germs.”
At that, both of the guards frowned, and I realized they had no idea what was going on, other than that whatever their prisoner had contracted was evidently communicable.
“Nedes!” I shouted, and the blind demon jerked upright, startled. “He’s not just blind,” I told the rest of the room. “He’s very nearly deaf.”
“You said two days.” Panic echoed in Kastor’s voice, and I wasn’t the only one who heard it.
“Obviously, direct contact with bodily fluids accelerates the process. He’s the only one I’ve swapped spit with. Except for you,” I added with a smug smile, and his scowl darkened like storm clouds. “I’d guess you have another day, at best, before you go blind, deaf, and numb.”
“Kastor…?” the guard on the left said, his young face lined with fear. “What the hell is she talking about?”
Their leader let loose a fierce roar of fury and lunged past me. I stumbled to the side, then turned to see Kastor holding a dripping, crimson chunk of flesh with what appeared to be a tube dangling from it.
I choked on my next breath, and Grayson squeaked in shock behind me. The guards let go of Nedes, who fell to his knees, then onto his side, the gaping hole in this throat pouring blood onto the floor.
When I’d recovered from my shock enough to look away from the fresh corpse, I saw the guards wiping sprays of blood from their faces with their sleeves. “Way to go.” I turned back to Kastor, who still held Nedes’s severed trachea in his right hand. “If they weren’t infected before, they are now.”
Kastor threw the bloody chunk of flesh at Nedes’s body. “Go downstairs to the auction room and take two hosts for yourselves. Anyone sleeping, so that you don’t have to touch them to possess them. Bring a third one here, but leave him in the hall.”
“But those hosts are all sold,” the guard on the right said. “There are only a few that haven’t been picked up.”
“I don’t care!” Kastor roared. “Just take clean hosts foryourselves and get one for me. Knock on the door when you get here. Donotallow any contact between the bodies you’re wearing now and the new, uninfected ones.”
“What’s wrong with those two?” The guard on the left waved one hand at me and one at Grayson.
“They’re carriers,” Kastor snapped. “Theybroughtthis thing here.”
I gave the guards a big smile, and they both stepped away from me, more terrified by the contagion I carried than any demon had ever been by the flames I wielded.
“You’ve already got it, dumbasses,” Grayson said, and I was pleased to realize that she’d followed the entire discussion.
“Go!” Kastor shouted. “Hurry. And don’t touch or talk to anyone on your way.”
“You can’t stop it,” I called out as the guard closed the door behind them. “Everyone who touched me in the marketplace has already been infected.” That was a bluff. I couldn’t be sure how easily it spread through casual contact, but Kastor didn’t need to know that. “Soon your whole city will have the virus, and there won’t be any uninfected hosts left. Your people will flee our world voluntarily rather than live trapped in bodies that can’t see, hear, or feel anything.”
“I won’t be here to see that happen.” Kastor advanced on me, and I saw violent intent in his eyes. We were no longer useful for his plan to breed another Finn. “Neither will you.”
“Stay back!” I held my cuffed hands out, and flames burst from my left palm. Kastor hesitated, but only for a second. Then he lunged at me so fast I saw little more than a blur. He grabbed my arms and twisted them away from us both. Pain shot through my wrist and elbow, and the flames in my palm died.
I could have revived them. I could have fought to slam my flaming palm into Kastor’s chest, but exorcising him wasn’t part of the plan. I needed Carey’s body alive.
Kastor pinned me to the floor, one hand gripping my left arm. His other hand reached for my throat. I bucked and twisted beneath him but couldn’t throw him off.
A sharp, high-pitched sound of fury came from behind me, and Grayson appeared over Kastor’s shoulder. She blinked Finn-green eyes at me, then grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him off me. Kastor flew across the room. His back slammed into the wall, and he slid to the floor.
Grayson blinked, and her brown eyes were back.
Kastor shook his head sharply once, then twice. He stood unsteadily, but his eyes never lost their furious focus.
I pushed Grayson behind me to protect her, my heart slamming against my chest.
Someone knocked sharply on the door. “Kastor?” an unfamiliar voice called. “We got you a new body. Rufus choked him out. He’s all ready for you.”
Kastor gave me an evil smile, one hand on the wall to steady himself. “Nice try, Nina,” he said. Then he closed his eyes and crumpled to the ground.
