The Stars Never Rise

Or how he’d found me.

I lurched for the door we’d just come through, suddenly sure I’d made a horrible mistake. What if I’d run from the police and the exorcists straight into the arms of some pervert stalker/murderer? Or even another demon? Sure, he’d killed the degenerate hunting me and helped me flee the men aiming guns at my head, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have his own dangerous agenda.

“Nina, wait!” he said the moment my hand touched the cold doorknob. “I have blankets. And food. And…answers. Some of them, anyway. You must want some answers.”

I hesitated because he hadn’t tried to physically stop me from leaving. And because the lure of answers was more than I could resist.

“If you go out there, they will find you.” He set my school satchel on the floor between us, obviously a demonstration of goodwill. “And asking your friends and neighbors for shelter would be like painting targets on their backs. Your face is probably all over the news already, along with whatever lie they’ve cooked up to explain what happened at your house tonight. They’ll probably say you’re possessed. They’ll definitely say you’re a murderer.”

I turned slowly, my hand still on the doorknob at my back, and the boy was watching me. “Murderer?” The word wouldn’t sink in.

He nodded. “Matricide. And they’ll probably tack on a charge for theoretical infanticide, because in killing your mother, you’ve denied some poor baby the chance to inherit her soul.”

“But…she wasn’t my mother. She was a demon. No one could have inherited her soul.” The soul she’d stolen from my real mother years before I was born. The soul that was almost completely devoured by now, if her physical degeneration was any sign.

“Yeah.” He shrugged and shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “They’ll probably leave that part out.”

“How do you know what they’ll do?”

“That’s what they did to us.” He leaned against the grimy wall of the warehouse’s entryway. Through the open door on his left lay the rest of the building—one huge, open room, as far as I could tell. “They broadcast lies in public, then hunt us in private, hoping for tips from the people they’ve turned against us.”

And that was when I made the connection—part of it, anyway. “You’re one of them. One of the fugitives they’re hunting.” Possession is suspected. “You’re the reason the exorcists are in New Temperance.” If he and his gang hadn’t brought them here, the police would have been first on the scene at my house, and things might have gone differently. Maybe. Things certainly couldn’t have gone much worse.

Another shrug from the boy, who had yet to introduce himself. “Sorry about that.”

“Where are the rest of them? The news says there are…more of you.” They’d shown two pictures, but I couldn’t remember the names….

“There are, but my friends don’t know about you yet.”

I frowned as another layer of confusion settled over me. “What don’t they know about me?”

“That I found you. That a degenerate found you first. That the Church knows you exist.”

“The Church has always known I exist. My mother had a parenting license.” And, evidently, a demonic parasite. Admittedly, an odd combination. “Why were you looking for me? Why was the degenerate looking for me?”

“It’s kind of a long story. Do you wanna…?” He gestured toward the larger room again, where, presumably, there was somewhere to sit.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” Well, anywhere other than the dark, creepy, abandoned warehouse I’d already followed him into. “I don’t even know who you are.” I kept my back pressed against the door in case I needed to make an escape.

“Fair enough.” He smiled, and his green eyes sparkled in that beam of moonlight. “I’m Finn.”

“Finn who?”

He shrugged. “That’s all I know.”

“You don’t know your last name?” Yeah. Right. “I thought you had answers.”

“I do. But not that one.” He cleared his throat, apparently nervous now that I’d stumped him with what should have been an easy question. “Listen, the rest of this is kind of a long story, and I’m freezing, so why don’t we talk over there?” He tossed his head toward the far corner of the warehouse, where I could barely make out some camping equipment and blankets. “There’s another exit on that side of the building, if the urge to flee strikes again.”

But I wasn’t ready to let go of the doorknob, and he could tell.

“Okay, how ’bout this? Here.” Finn knelt and slid a long scrap of wood toward me on the floor. “If any of this starts to feel creepy or dangerous, you can beat me with that and make your escape. Only, I’d consider it a personal favor if you’d avoid the face,” he said with a crooked grin that was probably supposed to look disarming. And almost did.