The Stars Never Rise

“We were never supposed to be her children,” Mellie continued in a horrified, haunted voice. “We’re her business. Souls to steal. Bodies to wear. Right?”


“In your case, a body to sell,” the demon corrected, and Melanie shuddered all over. “Nina is my next host, born and bred for that very purpose. But you, dear Melanie, are an investment. My payment plan. You can’t imagine what a young, healthy body is worth to the right people.” And by people, of course, she meant demons. She shrugged, and the gesture looked painful, as if her joints resisted the motion. “You would have been worth more as an eighteen-year-old virgin—of legal age—but at least you’re not a total loss. I’ll just consider this a lesson learned. Next time, staple the investment’s knees together.”

“Next time?” I was cold with shock. My teeth wanted to chatter. “You’re going to do this again?” Stop talking and run. Every survival instinct I had was demanding my retreat. But I had to know. “Have you done this before? Did you breed our mother for this?” Demons could not be born, nor could they age. They could only move from host to host as each body wore out, consuming one irreplaceable soul after another. Had this demon conceived and raised our real mom, only to steal her body and soul when she came of age?

“I bred both Leona and her brother when I was in possession of their mother. The money from his sale kept me fed and clothed while I searched for your father.” She glanced at Melanie. “And your father. How else is an independent demon supposed to make a living?” She shrugged, and both of her shoulders creaked with the motion. “Leona was never really your mother, though. She never met either of your fathers. She never carried you, in her womb or in her arms. She never changed a diaper or warmed a bottle. That was all me.” The demon clutched a possessive handful of her shirt. “Leona was just a host and an incubator, who turned eighteen on the day I harvested her. The day I left her mother’s dying body in favor of her young, healthy one. She thought she hated her mother, like you thought you hated yours, but she never got the answers you have now.”

“How could you sell your own children?” Melanie demanded from my left, one hand laid protectively over her abdomen.

“We sell what we have.” The demon took in my look of horror and seemed to enjoy it. “We all sell what we have. And you don’t have much, do you, Nina? What did you sell?”

“Shut up.” Was the demon seriously questioning my morals?

“What did you sell, Nina?” she repeated, and Melanie looked at me with round, sad eyes.

“I fed us,” I spat, backing away from her again. “I did what I had to do so we could eat, when you would have let us starve. What kind of business sense does that make, anyway? How were you going to sell half-starved host bodies?”

“I wouldn’t have let you starve,” she insisted, but she was lying. I could see it. For whatever reason, maybe because she was sick—and she was obviously sick—she’d lost sight of the goal. She’d abandoned us as investments, like she’d abandoned us as children. “I know what I’m doing. She”—she glanced briefly at Melanie—“is worth enough that I won’t have to breed any more brats for another generation or two. Which is good, because you took that option right off the table, didn’t you?”

I didn’t answer. I had no answer.

“Sit.” She plucked the kitchen phone from its dock. “I have to make a call.”

We didn’t sit. Melanie’s hand tightened around mine again, and we backed slowly toward the front door because we already knew what our not-mother was about to discover.

“It’s dead!” She threw the phone across the room, and Mellie flinched when it smashed through the window over the kitchen sink.

“The service was cut off six weeks ago.” I fought the urge to look back and see how close to the front door—and potential escape—we were. “That’s what happens when you stop paying.” We’d had to prioritize. Phone or heat.

I didn’t have anyone to call, anyway.

“Sit!” she roared. The demon actually roared, and my fingertips started to tingle with a strange warmth, like pinpricks of fire. When we didn’t move, she lunged through the kitchen and halfway into the living room in a single step, and though I’d seen it before—that very morning—I was startled all over again by a demon’s ability to make human bodies do things our physiology shouldn’t have been capable of.

Our “mother” had abandoned her human guise entirely now. She moved as if her body had too many joints. As if her bones were too long. And maybe they were. She wasn’t yet as deformed and animalistic as a degenerate, but her body was no longer fully human either. When had that happened? Was that why she slept all day—so we wouldn’t notice?