The Stars Never Rise

“?‘Hey’? Seriously?” I spared a moment to be grateful that my voice worked when the rest of me seemed to be malfunctioning. “I pass out under your care, then wake up half paralyzed to hear that some kind of ‘horde’ is in our area, and that’s your opener? ‘Hey’?”


Finn shrugged while I glared up at him. “I almost went with ‘Get up and help me pack before we’re overrun by a horde of degenerates,’ but I was afraid that might lead to more panic than the situation actually warrants.”

“There’s a limit to how much panic that situation warrants?” Because I was pretty sure the only thing worse than fighting one mutated demon was fighting a whole horde of them.

“Degenerates aren’t exactly a rarity in our line of work, so if you panic every time you get the opportunity to do what you were born to do…well, let’s just say that the number of exorcists who panic is inversely proportionate to the number of exorcists who survive.”

“Good to know.”

“Still, you should get up before we’re overrun by that horde of degenerates.”

I pushed myself into a sitting position, and the blanket fell into my lap. My head spun. When I started to tip over, Finn put one hand on my shoulder and one on my lower back to steady me. His hands were warm through my shirt when the rest of the warehouse was cold, and they felt good. I wanted to enjoy the feeling, but I didn’t know him. I didn’t know why I’d passed out or what he’d had to do with that.

The number of girls who let strange boys touch them in abandoned warehouses after waking up from unexplained blackouts was probably inversely proportionate to the number of girls who survived.

I cleared my throat and sat up straighter, and he let me go. “What the hell happened? What did you do to me?”

“Nothing, I swear.”

I started to argue, but he spoke over me as I struggled to make my legs obey commands from my brain. “Nina, there are some things you don’t know yet. Things I was going to explain when you woke up, but you were out for longer than I expected, and now we’re kind of…out of time.”

“Because of the horde of degenerates?”

“Yeah. Although the Church’s ‘exorcists’ and the police are also looking for us. So we need to pack everything we can carry before my friends get here.”

Running for our lives. Again. Was this how he lived? “Fine. I’m a little busy relearning how to walk, but I assume you can talk and pack at the same time?”

He smiled, and I tried not to notice how green his eyes were in the light from the lantern. “I’m a proficient multitasker, yes.”

“Good. How long was I out?”

“Almost seven hours.”

“Seven hours!” I glanced up at the windows near the ceiling, searching for any sign of daylight while I did the math. “So it’s, what, three in the morning?”

“Just after.”

“Why am I so weak?”

“You’ll be fine in a few minutes.” Finn backed away from me, and when I didn’t fall over, he grabbed a duffel I hadn’t noticed before, then sank to his knees in front of the box of utensils. “Your body did most of the hard work while you were passed out.” He dropped a small box of plastic utensils into his bag, then followed those with the can opener and a large box of matches. “Most exorcists start coming into their abilities around the time they turn seventeen. I’m not sure why that is, but Reese thinks, evolutionarily speaking, the exorcists whose abilities matured before their bodies did were hunted and killed by degenerates.”

Reese! That was the other name mentioned on the news. Reese and Devi. Reese was the big guy, and Devi was…I wasn’t sure what Devi was.

“He thinks those who matured later were better able to defend themselves, so they lived to pass on their genes. Either way, seventeen seems to be the magic number, give or take a few months.”

“And because I’ll be seventeen next week my abilities have matured, so the degenerates can, what? Smell me?”

Weird.

“Or sense you. Or something like that.” Finn disconnected a small propane tank from the camping stove, then folded in the sides and closed the lid, so that the stove looked like a small metal suitcase. The dented outside said it was well used, but the shiny inside and lack of burnt-on crud said it was also well cared for. “But they can only sense you during that transitional period, between the time your abilities start to manifest and the time you gain full control over them all. Which can’t happen until you’re ‘triggered.’?”

“Wait, abilities? Plural? I can do something other than fry demons with my bare hands?” Because, honestly, that one was both awesome and scary enough on its own.

He slid the camp stove into the bottom of his duffel, then tightened the seal on the propane tank and slid that in after it. “That’s the big one, but yes, you’ll develop a few other advantages that help you hunt both degenerates and demons in their prime.”

“Like what?”