The Flame Never Dies

  Maybe that was because he’d never felt any of those things on a regular basis before. At least, not that he could remember.

  “Did you think he’d been born without a body?” Kastor picked up his glass and crossed the room toward me again. “How would that even work?”

  “I don’t…” I shook my head, mentally wiping the disturbing question from my mind. “What happened? How did he die?”

  “Abigail killed him.”

  “His own…?” I couldn’t finish the thought. My mother’d tried to kill me too.

  “Insane.” Kastor shook his head and clucked his tongue, like one of the elderly teachers from my elementary school. “It’s a shame, really. She was catatonic when I got her back into your world, and I was fine with that. I mean, you’re a decent conversationalist.” He tossed a magnanimous gesture my way. “But all Abigail ever really did was scream, so I much preferred her silence. When the boys were a couple of years old, she woke up.” Kastor snapped his fingers. “Just like that. She saw the twins, but she didn’t love them.” He frowned. “I thought that was a human mother’s entire raison d’être? Loving her kids? But Abigail took one look at her boys—a matched pair of them, identical down to the double crowns on the backs of their heads—and started shouting that they were Unclean.”

  I shuddered at the thought. Poor boys. Even if they didn’t remember any of it.

  “We didn’t know she was half-right at the time. We thought they were human. We were only keeping them around in case they grew up to be exorcists like their mother. But Abigail just yelled that they were demons, and then she lunged for the boys. She got to Finn first. Only we didn’t call him Finn yet then.”

  “You couldn’t stop her?” I demanded, tears standing in my eyes while my hand clenched around my glass. “You’re a demon. You’re faster than humans.”

  “She was an exorcist. And I was in the next room.” He pointed to a closed door on the other side of the room, seemingly insulted that I would doubt his strength and speed. “I heard the shouting, but when I got to the doorway, she’d already crushed Max’s throat. The boy was dead before I could get to him.” Kastor shrugged. “I thought it was a shame at the time—the loss of a potential exorcist host. But in retrospect, if he hadn’t died, we’d never have known his true potential.”

  “Max? Finn’s name was Max?” That wasn’t the most important of the questions flying around in my head, but it was the only one I couldn’t seem to set aside. Finn wasn’t even really Finn?

  “Maxden. Maddock renamed him later, and by then he seemed to have no memory of ever having a brother.”

  My hands felt cold, and that had nothing to do with the cuffs around my wrists. “What happened to Abigail?”

  “I ripped her throat out.” He sipped from his glass. “It was a messy solution, but swift and efficient.”

  “A messy…?” I stared at him with utter incomprehension. “You pulled Maddock’s mother’s throat out in front of him when he was two years old? After he’d just seen her kill his brother? No wonder he doesn’t remember Maxden! He probably blocked the memory to escape psychological trauma! How could you do that to your own son?”

  Kastor stood, and he seemed to swell with the motion, as if the threat he embodied was suddenly even greater. “My native language does not have words for the concept of parenthood.” His voice sounded deeper. Harder. “Just as we cannot die, we were never born. We are truly eternal. None of us has ever conceived a child before—much less two—so you see, I am a pioneer among my people. I’ve done something no one else has ever managed to do, and unless it someday becomes clear that someone else can, both my existence in this world and my authority in this city are secure. But don’t mistake my genetic donation to a set of half-breed human twins as any kind of emotional attachment.

  “I tried to stop Abigail from killing Maxden because he was mine. But I did not mourn his death. I did not miss his presence. I have been more disappointed over misplacing my favorite shirt than I was by the death of my son.” He leaned so close to me that I scooted back until I hit the end of the sofa, and then I had nowhere else to go. “So do not lecture me on how I should have anticipated Maddock’s trauma or empathized with it. His screams did not bother me. I simply had him removed from earshot so I would not have to hear them.”

  Furious on the boys’ behalf, I didn’t realize that nervous sweat had compromised my grip on my half-full glass until it slipped from my hand. It shattered on the floor, spraying water and sharp shards everywhere. “Damn it. Sorry.” I slid from the couch onto the floor to pick up the largest pieces, which was more difficult than I’d expected with my hands still cuffed, and suddenly I realized an opportunity was staring me in the face. I gripped the next piece of glass too hard, and it sliced into the pad of my thumb. “Shit!”

  Kastor set his own glass on the coffee table and headed into the bathroom. When I heard him rummaging beneath the counter for a towel, I spit into his glass as quietly as I could, then let a single drop of my blood fall into it, to be sure he got a good dose of whatever virus I was carrying.

  The blood hung there for a moment, suspended in amber whiskey, so I stuck my finger in and stirred until the color disappeared.

  “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 surprised you were 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 to kill Maddock?” 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 did not think 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’t breed me!” I stood so fast my head swam.

  “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 experiment too terribly 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 to make 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 are disgusting….”

  “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?”

  “Carey…” Grayson sobbed as more tears fell from her eyes. “Please don’t—”

  “Carey’s dead,” Kastor snapped. “But I have access to all his memories. I know how much he loved his baby sister. You were the last thing on his mind before he died.”

  “Carey…” Shocked, I sank onto the edge of the bed. Kastor had Grayson’s brown curls and her chocolate-colored eyes. They had the same skin tone. Hell, he even had her freckles.

  How had I not seen it?

  “I’m so sorry, Grayson.” I took her hands in both of mine and had to close my eyes to keep them from watering again. “They got Mellie too.” I wanted to tell her the rest—about Adam—but I didn’t want Kastor to know my nephew existed.

  He shrugged. “The only surprising part of this is that you two are surprised. The best way to defeat one’s enemy is to get to know him, and the best way to know him is by stealing the memories of those closest to him. Or her, in your case. Your sister was the obvious choice.”

  “Finn wants us to exorcise him,” Grayson said softly, and Kastor stood straighter. Stiffer.

  “Finn is here? Now?” He glanced around the room as if his incorporeal son might suddenly become visible. “How do you know?”

  “Grayson’s always been able to hear him.” And I’d always been jealous of her gift.

  “He wants us to exorcise you. But I can’t do it.” She turned back to me, frowning. “I mean, I can. I exorcised the demon from Serah, so I’ve been triggered, but I can’t. It’s Carey.”

  Kastor shook his head slowly. “Sentimentality truly was the downfall of your species. I am not Carey James. He’s been dead for quite a while now.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said to Grayson, mentally fitting together the beginnings of a new plan. “We don’t need to exorcise him. How long has she been here, exactly?” I said, standing to meet Kastor’s gaze. “How many hours?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, his brows arched, as if my question piqued his curiosity. “Okay, I’ll play along. It’s been about twenty hours. Since shortly before you arrived. But she’s been unconscious most of that time, sleeping off her body’s physical transition to exorcist. What does that have to do with Finn?”

  “Has she been here the whole time?” I asked, instead of answering. “Have you touched her?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re implying, Nina, but—”

  “Have you had any physical contact with her at all?” I demanded. “Are you the one who tied her up? Did you put the gag on her?”

  “Yes,” Grayson answered for him. “When I woke up. We had the same discussion you two just had. But that was hours ago.”

  “Good,” I said, my gaze glued to the demon. “Kastor, you’re about to be a very sick man.”

  His laughter was loud and hearty. “I’m all ears,” he said, and I realized he still thought he was playing with us.

  “Do any of your possessed Church scientists have memories of working on a virus?”

  “I don’t know.” Kastor looked intrigued, but not truly threatened. “None that have been reported. They haven’t all been possessed yet, though. We’re saving some for after we have Finn in custody, so we don’t wear the host bodies out before they can be of use.”

  “Then here’s what you’ve been missing.” I could hardly resist a smile. “While you were here playing monarch, the Unified Church was developing a virus that only affects possessed human hosts. They injected my sister Melanie with their virus, and then they let us escape with her, knowing that you’d try to capture us if you knew we were in the badlands.” I shrugged at Kastor. “Looks like they were right.”

  Grayson’s eyes were huge. I could tell she wanted to ask if I was serious, but she was exercising self-control.

  “Very clever, Nina,” Kastor said. “But you’re lying. There is no such virus.”

  “There is, and Grayson and I are both contagious. We don’t have any symptoms because we’re not possessed, but because we were each born to a possessed mother—as was my sister, Melanie—we make ideal carriers. I spit and bled in your drink while you were in the bathroom, so you’re definitely infected,” I said with a pointed glance at his empty glass on a table in the next room. “But if you had direct physical contact with Grayson when she first arrived, chances are good that you were actually infected then, which means you’re farther along the time line than I knew. You should start to exhibit symptoms sometime tomorrow.”

  “Bullshit!” Kastor roared. He was no longer amused.

  “I can prove it.” I turned to face the wall. “Grayson, will you lift the back of my shirt?”

  “Okay.” Grayson hesitated for a moment, then lifted the cotton with her cuffed hands to expose my s
pine. She gasped. “What is that?”

  “The discoloration along my spine? That is the only visible sign we’ve found so far in the human carriers. Melanie had it too.”

  When Kastor’s footsteps stomped toward me for a closer look, I turned, pulling my shirt from Grayson’s grip in the process. I held my hands out and let flames burst from my left palm.

  He stopped in midstep, still several feet away.

  “Look back through Carey’s memories of Grayson,” I said, and he scowled, obviously unaccustomed to being given orders. “Look for memories of her as a small child, or wearing a swimsuit.” Even modest swimwear would have shown part of her back. “Does Carey have any memories of his sister’s back? Does he remember any birthmarks or discolorations?”

  Kastor frowned, and when his gaze lost focus, I knew he was sorting through his collection of stolen memories.

  “No,” he said at last, and I knew from the angry furrow in his brow that he understood exactly what I was about to show him.

  “Turn around, Grayson,” I said, and she gave me a single wide-eyed glance, then turned. I lifted her shirt, and we both saw the pale brown stripe stretching up her back. “My guess is that the color develops there because your nerves run through your spine, but that’s really just a theory.”

  “Nerves?” Kastor’s voice sounded strained. “What kind of so-called virus is this?”

  “It affects your senses. In fact, it kills them. You’re about to lose the very things your species loves about being in our bodies.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Kastor spit. He glanced at Grayson as she turned back to us. “She clearly has no idea what you’re talking about. You’re lying.”

  “Grayson wasn’t there when Meshara lost her sight, her hearing, her sense of taste, and, by the end, all physical sensation. But if you don’t believe me, go get whoever brought Grayson in. The host would be a woman, around twenty years old. Her prepossession name was Naomi, and she kidnapped Grayson, what? Two days ago?” I glanced at Grayson for confirmation, but she could only shrug. She’d lost all sense of time just like I had. “She should be exhibiting symptoms by now. Tomorrow you and Felix will as well. Oh, and that guy from the market! The one who kissed me. Nedes. He’s definitely infected.”