The Stars Never Rise

“Grayson, right?” I stared at the clear, pinkish shampoo pooled in my skinned palm. “What do you want, Grayson?”


The toilet seat squeaked as she shifted, and she spoke loud enough to be heard over the patter of water all around me. “I want my brother back. I want Reese to exercise more caution and less impulse. I want Finn to be happy. Also, I kind of want some pizza, but even if we had the money, calling for delivery is out of the question, thanks to the fugitive lifestyle.”

My mom used to order pizza sometimes, when we were still little and she was still healthy. And employed. I could remember the aroma of onions and pepperoni, and the grease that had soaked through the bottom of the box.

I gave Grayson a frown she couldn’t see through the curtain. “I meant, why are you in here? While I’m showering.”

“Oh. I brought you a towel.”

“Thanks.” I smeared the shampoo on top of my head and began to lather, and the artificial strawberry scent brought back memories of helping Mellie rinse suds from her hair when she was five and I was seven. Mom had decided we were old enough to bathe ourselves, but my sister’s long, thick hair was virtually unmanageable for a kindergartner.

Melanie loved smelling like strawberries.

“Also, we didn’t get a chance to talk much when you came in, so I thought, if you’re going to be with us, you and I might want to get to know each other.”

“That’s nice of you.” I tilted my head back to rinse my hair, and the pressure on my throat made my voice sound strained. “But I’m not sure I’ll be staying with you.”

“Why not?” Now her voice sounded strained. “We took a lot of risks to find you. We could have been killed. Finn saved your life.”

“I know, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am, but the Church has my sister. I can’t leave her.”

Grayson was quiet for a moment. “Is she an exorcist?”

“No, she’s only fifteen.” And based on the fact that we had different biological fathers, I was betting she never would be an exorcist, even at my age. “And she’s pregnant.”

Grayson’s soft “Oh” echoed deep within my soul. “They have my brother too. He’s not pregnant, obviously. But he’s an exorcist.”

I let the suds slide down my forehead, then closed my eyes. “You left him?”

“No. When they came for him, he made me hide. I can’t fight the Church, and it’s not like they’d give him back if I just smiled and said ‘Pretty please.’?”

No, they would have taken her as well, because if her brother was an exorcist, she might be one too.

“I don’t know where he is. Or if he’s alive.” The ache in her voice made my heart hurt.

“How did it happen?” I asked as I rubbed conditioner into my hair. I didn’t actually expect her to answer, but I really wanted to know just how much she and I had in common. “Finn said your parents were breeders, like my mom?”

“Yeah, but we didn’t know that then. We didn’t know Carey was an exorcist. We still don’t know if I’ll be one. I was your sister’s age when Carey was triggered, almost a year ago. Now I understand that his abilities came in kind of early, so our parents didn’t have a chance to harvest him before the degenerates came for him. He was still two months away from his seventeenth birthday when the first one found him. It happened on our way home from school. His hand started glowing and instinct took over. He fried his first demon in broad daylight, in front of several witnesses.”

I rinsed the conditioner from my hair and pretended I couldn’t hear the pain in her voice, because I didn’t know how to gracefully acknowledge it.

“Someone must have called my dad at work, because he came home early. He tried to harvest Carey, but we didn’t know what was going on. We thought he’d lost his mind. We thought he was trying to kill us.” Her voice hitched with the obviously painful memory. “We heard sirens, and Carey told me to hide. The police shot my dad, then took my brother. They didn’t know I was there. I don’t know what happened to my mom.

“Maddock and Devi showed up later that night, looking for Carey, and found me instead. I was alone and terrified. I’ve been with them ever since. Almost a year now.”

So she was sixteen. She looked younger than that. She reminded me of Melanie, even though physically they had little in common.

“What about Finn and Reese?” I lathered the bar soap and had already washed my face when I realized that our dead hostess had a special squirt bottle of soap just for face washing.

“Finn was already with them. He and Maddock are a package deal. Reese came next, after me. We’d been making our way through the badlands for a couple of months, driving when we could find gas, walking when we couldn’t.”