The Stars Never Rise

“Wait, what do you mean? How can they all be fakes?”


“They can’t actually exorcise a demon.” When I started to mention news footage of exorcists on the front lines, charging into battle against the Unclean, he stopped me. “They’re soldiers. They know how to shoot, and if they’d wanted you dead, they would have shot you on the spot. That’s what they’re good at. But killing a possessed host doesn’t exorcise the demon. That just releases it, which means the demon is then free to search for another host. That’s harder for the demon to do once it’s been disembodied. Going from one body to another, they just…” He shrugged. “They do this cold-kiss thing. I hear it’s pretty horrible.”

“I can verify that.” I shuddered at the memory.

“Disembodied demons have to find someone who’s sick or hurt or under some sort of chemical influence. Or even just someone sleeping. If the demon finds a body before he’s sucked back into hell…ta da! You have a newly possessed citizen, which means the ‘exorcists’ have failed.”

“But what about all the Latin and the holy water and the symbols of faith?” Elements we’d come to associate with exorcists after a lifetime of seeing them on the news and on posters, decked out and armed for battle in their iconic, silver-trimmed black cassocks. “What about their training?”

“Bullshit.” Finn dug out a can opener from a shallow box full of utensils. “Demons can’t even understand Latin unless they’ve possessed someone who speaks it. Which is why they always speak the local language, no matter what that is. So if you’re trying to fight evil with stupid incantations, you’d have just as much luck with pig Latin as with the real thing.”

Wow. “What about holy water?”

He clamped the halves of the can opener over the top rim of the stew can, then twisted the handle. “That might piss them off if you hit them in the face, but I suspect the spray-bottle approach works better against naughty cats than against demons.”

I almost laughed. Almost.

“Symbols of faith? Like the column of fire?” Exorcists wore them on chains hanging from their necks, echoing the brands burned into their cheeks.

“Seriously?” Finn tossed the can opener back into the box, where it rattled against the other utensils. “That degenerate this morning tried to eat your face off—which would have been a real shame, by the way.” He grinned, and I actually felt myself blush. As if we had nothing more important to discuss than how much he liked my face in its not-devoured state. “Do you really think she would have run off screeching if you’d been wearing a bonfire charm?”

I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders. “I guess that would have been a little out of character for a monster so intent on consuming my nose.” And my soul.

“Exactly. Faith-based symbols don’t work, because not only do demons have no faith, they’re not in spiritual opposition to any faith either. In the land of opposites, demons and the Church would not stand on opposing sides. Demons and humanity would stand on opposing sides. All of humanity. Sinners and saints. Men and women. Children and adults. Consecrated and civilians. It’s not just the Church versus demons. It’s us versus demons. All of us.”

“Wait. So then…” I couldn’t finish that thought. My mind was blown. The world no longer made sense.

The Unified Church was the final authority. It had been since the demon horde had killed off two-thirds of the world’s population—devouring many of its souls—and devastated three-quarters of the American landscape. The Church was strict and cruel and domineering, but it had saved us when no one else could. It had exorcised the demons, and walled in the surviving cities to protect us from the remaining degenerates roaming the badlands. That was why people had put the Church in charge in the first place.

If it hadn’t exorcised the demons, then…“How…? Why…?”

Finn pulled the detached lid from the can of stew, then gestured at me with it. “I like you. You ask all the right questions.”

“So, what are the answers? If the exorcists are fakes, and the Church can’t fight demons any better than anyone else, why are they in charge?”

“Great question.” He tilted the open can over the empty pot on the right burner, and thick beef vegetable stew poured out in chunky globs. “And if I had the answer, I’d give it to you.”

“Okay. But…the Church used to have real exorcists, right? Otherwise, how would we ever have won the war?”

“Exorcists aren’t born every day, but I think it’s reasonable to assume the Church had a few at one point.”

“Like Katherine Abbot, right? The naturalist?”

“Naturalist.” Finn shook his head and tossed the empty can into a plastic trash bin against the wall, where it landed with the clatter of can against can.