The Flame Never Dies (24 page)

“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 for yourselves and get one for me. Knock on the door when you get here. Do
not
allow 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. “They
brought
this 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.

Kastor had left the building.

“Finn!” I whispered urgently, racing across the room toward the door. “Take Carey's body!”

“But it's infected,” Grayson hissed.

“Yeah, but it shouldn't start showing symptoms for at least a day, and Finn can leave it whenever he wants.”

But as long as he wore Kastor's face, we had the keys to the kingdom.

Carey's eyes opened, and they were Finn-green. The strength and beauty that had looked cold and arrogant on Kastor suddenly looked warm and…hungry for me.

My heart leapt into my throat, and the thrill of a minor victory mingled seamlessly with my delight and relief at seeing him again. Even in a body that had been trying to kill me seconds earlier.

We adapt quickly or we die. I was more than willing to take the demons' lead on that one.

“Brilliant as usual, Nina.” Finn reached for me and I helped him up. Then he pulled me close for a kiss I didn't want to end, even though his beautiful new mouth tasted like whiskey.

“That is
so
strange!” Grayson stepped closer and ran one hand down his cheek, staring up at him. “You look like Carey, and you sound like Carey.” Her eyes watered again. “At least, more like Carey than Kastor did. But you're clearly Finn.”

“Yes. It's both weird and wonderful. And I'm sorry about your brother.” I tugged them both toward the door. “But we have to get to Kastor and his guards before they can tell anyone what's going on.” I let them go and threw open the door just in time to see several men disappear into a stairwell at the other end of the hall.

“Come on!” Finn raced down the hall with Grayson and me on his heels, and his new speed and strength caught me by surprise, even though I'd known what Carey's body was capable of. We gained ground on the stairs, and when Finn got within reach of the closest, he grabbed the man by the back of his neck. “Heads up!” He turned and threw the demon up the stairwell toward me.

The guard landed on his back on the stairs, and I heard the distinct crack of bone. He screamed, and when I knelt to slam my flaming palm down on his chest, his pitch reached an inhuman range. In seconds his newly stolen body was dead and the demon was cast out of our world.

Grayson raced past me, and seconds later Finn shouted “Heads up!” again. A second demon flew toward us, and Grayson pressed her back to the wall of the stairwell just in time to avoid being flattened. I raced down the steps toward them both, my hand already in flames again, but Grayson dropped onto him without a moment's hesitation, her own fire already ready to go.

She was a natural. And it probably didn't hurt that she'd spent the past year watching her friends and surrogate family do that very thing on a daily basis.

We took off after Finn again and found him frying a third demon, as the fourth disappeared through a metal door into another part of the building. I leapt over them both onto the first-floor landing, then threw open the door and stepped into a hallway lined with closed doors.

The hall was empty.

“Damn it!” I stepped back into the stairway. “The last one got away.”

“So, was one of these Kastor?” Grayson gestured up the stairwell toward the three burned-out bodies.

Finn shrugged Carey's broad shoulders. “There's a seventy-five percent chance the answer is yes, but we won't know unless we find the one that got away. Maybe not even then.” Because even if we caught Kastor, he probably wouldn't admit who he was.

“Doesn't matter whether he got away or not,” I said. “What matters is that
we
have Kastor's face. And I know just how to put it to use.”

F
inn pressed me against the kitchen counter, his hands at my waist. His breath stirred my hair, and I breathed him in, marveling at his new scent. His new build. Yes, his body had once belonged to our greatest enemy, but before that, it had belonged to Carey James, an innocent and, by all accounts, noble fellow exorcist, who'd loved his sister as much as I'd loved mine.

I couldn't imagine a better home for Finn's spirit, even if it was only temporary.

His lips brushed my ear, and warmth trailed down from the point of contact to settle into my stomach. “I was really hoping you had something more personal in mind when you said you knew how to put me to use,” he said as Grayson finished filling the third small spray bottle, then turned off the kitchen sink.

“I would have if I'd said ‘you.' ” I stood on my toes for a kiss, but it was really his arms around me that I loved most. Melanie's death had been devastating, and there'd been no real time yet to mourn. But going through that without him was even harder. “But I didn't say ‘Finn,' I said ‘Kastor.' ”

I took one of the three cylindrical plastic bottles and handed another to him. “Okay. Cheers.” I lifted my bottle, and Grayson and Finn both tapped theirs against mine. Then we each took a big drink, but rather than swallow the water, we swished it in our mouths, then spat it carefully back into the bottle.

“This is
so
gross,” Grayson said, holding her bottle up for a repetition of the process.

“This is biological warfare.” At my signal, we all three drank, swished, and spat again. Then we screwed the spray nozzle lids on our bottles and shook them up to spread the germs.

“Are you sure this will work?” Finn gave his an experimental spray into an industrial-sized drawer full of silverware.

“No, but I spent hours considering every possible manner of distribution, and what I learned from Nedes is that transmission through shared bodily fluids is the fastest, most effective means of infection.” Unfortunately, that meant that Finn wouldn't have much time in Carey's infected body. “So other than kissing everyone in Pandemonia, this is the best I could come up with. But if you have a better idea, I'm all ears.”

Finn shook his head. “Kissing
anyone
else sounds like a really bad idea.”

Grayson peered skeptically through the clear side of her tap water weapon. “Considering that the alternative seems to be urinating in a spray bottle, I fully support the saliva tactic.”

“Okay, then. Everyone understand the plan?”

“Finn is Kastor.” Grayson opened the massive commercial refrigerator and sprayed her bottle inside. “He should be able to carry that off since he grew up here,” she added, and Finn nodded, grimly acknowledging that fact. I still wasn't sure how much he'd heard about his parentage, but if he was traumatized, he was keeping it all inside, at least for the moment.

With any luck, we'd both have time to grieve and vent after we'd dealt with the demon scourge.

Grayson sprayed a metal bin of tomatoes and potatoes, then turned to me. “You and I are his guards. Rufus and Gidri.”

Those were the names of two of the guards we'd killed in the stairwell, and Finn recognized them both as having been with Kastor for years.

“They're both assholes,” he'd said. “Rufus has a sweet tooth. Red licorice is his favorite. Maddy and I used it to bribe him to look the other way when we wanted to sneak out of the apartment.”

Gidri, he'd told us, loved weird hats—when he was off duty—and snacked on beef jerky.

We hadn't found any jerky on hand, but I'd discovered a bag of cherry-flavored licorice in the kitchen pantry. I slid several ropes of the candy into my pocket so that they hung out into plain sight, and held up my spray bottle. “Ready?”

“As I'm ever gonna be,” Grayson said.

“Kastor, lead the way!”

Finn scowled—he didn't like his assigned part—but tucked his small spray bottle into a large cargo pocket over his right leg, then led us out of what turned out to be a prewar hotel, long ago converted into an apartment building for Kastor and those he deemed most worthy to live near him. Maddock—and Finn, unbeknownst to anyone else—had grown up in a suite on the top floor, mostly raised by a series of human nannies.

On the street Finn took the lead, and Grayson and I walked behind and on either side of him, like a proper entourage. I snacked on Rufus's candy, trying to get into character and forget that I hated licorice. There were no cars. Pandemonia—the downtown section, at least—was a walking city, and we'd gone less than a block from the hotel when people began appearing on the street.

Everyone stopped to wave at or yell a greeting to Kastor, which confirmed my suspicion that we would not be able to go unnoticed. We'd have to hide in plain sight and convince everyone else that we belonged.

“Most of Kastor's guards are gruff and generally unpleasant,” Finn whispered, waving at a very large woman in a very small top across the street. “They don't let anyone get too close to him, and they don't say much, other than ‘Move along' and ‘That's close enough.' ” Finn stopped and turned to confer privately with Grayson and me. “He told you that he's Maddy's father?”

“He told us more than that,” Grayson said, and the color drained from Finn's face.

“I've heard rumors.” He cleared his throat softly and looked right into my eyes. “I've heard a lot more than Maddock has, because I've always been able to go places he couldn't, without being seen.” Finn frowned. “Well, I guess that hasn't
always
been the case. But my point is that everyone knows Kastor is Maddy's dad. No one else has ever fathered a child in demon form. Kastor is like a celebrity here. Everyone expects to see him, but no one expects his guards to let them get too close. You can use that.”

Grayson and I understood. Finn should be visible, but untouchable.

We'd just begun to hear the racket from the marketplace when the first bystander recognized me, an event I'd been expecting but dreading. “Is that Nina Kane?” The man turned to walk backward in front of Kastor, the bright purple legs of his boxer shorts swishing with every step.

“Not anymore,” Finn said, and the man took a closer look at me as I bit off a chunk from a red rope of candy.

“Rufus?” he said, and I nodded. “I thought you didn't like walking around…like that.” He held both hands in front of his chest in a cartoonish imitation of breasts.

Finn stepped in before I could answer. “My guard needed an upgrade.” He twisted to glance at me. “Show him the fire.”

I finally caught on when he glanced pointedly at my left hand. The man in purple gasped and stumbled backward when flames burst from my cupped palm.

“Holy shit!” he whispered.

I took another bite of licorice and maintained a gruff silence, trying to hide the fact that my pulse was racing with nerves and I was starting to sweat. Finn nodded and glanced back at Grayson. “A matched set,” he said, and she showed off her own handful of flames. “Gender is irrelevant. What matters is power. Make it known.”

The man's eyes widened, and then he nodded and spun to run toward the market.

“Nice save,” Grayson whispered.

Finn made a satisfied noise deep in his throat. “This just might work.”

I wasn't quite ready to agree, but we had no better plan.

Everyone turned to stare when we walked into the market, and my heart pounded deep in my chest. I saw the problem almost immediately. We wouldn't be able to spread our contagion while everyone was watching us. “Kastor,” I said softly, and Finn stiffened. “Perhaps the people would like a demonstration of your power.”

Kastor had been in Carey's body for at least a year, but if I was right, he hadn't done much to show it off before, and if there was anything all of demonkind had in common, it was the love of a good spectacle.

“Of course. Gidri, help me give the people a show.”

He stepped into the center of the marketplace, and Grayson cleared a circle around him, as any good guard would. Then “Kastor” began to talk, and while he had the crowd's attention, I slowly, quietly backed toward the edge of the gathering until I stood next to a meat vendor's cart. When I was sure the vendor was captivated by the demonstration, I gave his cart several good sprays, concentrating mostly on the unused kabob sticks and paper cups, for fear that the heat cooking the meat itself would kill our virus.

I moved from one cart to the next while Finn and Grayson performed, listening for the oohs and aahs for timing, and contaminated every item of food and clothing I could find with a generous helping of my own germs.

“Show us the true power of fire!” someone from the crowd shouted as I worked my way back to Finn's side, having infected every edible or wearable thing I could get my hands on. “Burn someone!”

Everyone else cheered, and the demand became a jovial but bloodthirsty chant.

I probably shouldn't have been surprised by their willingness to kill one of their own, considering how many humans had cheered when the Church lit poor Adam Yung on fire in New Temperance. But at least most of my fellow citizens had thought they were saving his immortal soul.

The demons just wanted a show.

“Rufus!” Finn shouted as soon as he saw that I was back. “Give the people what they want!” His eyes sparkled with amused irony, and with a secret jolt of excitement, I realized I'd just been given permission to exorcise a demon in the middle of the marketplace in Pandemonia with total impunity. In fact, the crowd was demanding that very thing.

“Do you have someone in mind, sir?” I asked, and “Kastor” shook his head.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sure you all recognize the infamous Nina Kane, scourge to our kind the world over. Now I present her as a host, defeated and worn by my own loyal guard Rufus, who will now wield her appropriated power for your entertainment. Rufus!” He turned back to me and gestured to the crowd. “Choose from among the volunteers.”

No one was actually volunteering. In fact, the crowd had gone silent, brimming with an almost tangible mix of fear and excitement.

I looked out over the possibilities and found Dione among them. I was seconds away from singling her out when I realized that she was blinking a lot. Heavily. Her eyes were struggling to focus, which told me that she'd already been infected through casual contact with me the day before. Until she figured out what was happening to her and abandoned the infected host body, she was a walking contagion. A soldier unknowingly fighting for the good guys.

So I selected a man from the gathering at random. “You.” It was the man in glittery purple boxers, who'd first spread the word about “Rufus” and “Gidri,” at “Kastor's” request.

The crowd burst into fierce whispers, and several people pushed the man in purple to the front. He didn't try to run, but he looked more terrified than I'd ever seen a demon look. I marched toward him, and the crowd backed away, widening the ring around us.

I held my left hand up in front of him, and flames leapt from my cupped palm.

The man in purple began to visibly sweat. I pulled him toward me by one arm—his shirt didn't contain enough material to grab—and whispered into his ear. “I'm not Rufus. I'm still Nina Kane. Soon all your friends will join you in hell.” His eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to scream.

I slammed my hand onto his nearly bare chest.

The roar from the crowd around me almost drowned out the screams of the demon as I burned him from his host's body. They cheered as if I'd won an election or lowered taxes, but as near as I could tell, they were actually celebrating their fellow citizen's excruciating pain and expulsion from the human world. The same thing could happen to any one of them at “Kastor's” whim, yet they
reveled
in the pain and terror of one of their own.