The Stars Never Rise

Eons? Cycles?

“Yes, Kastor is the wolf,” he continued. “And you are the sheep, and by the time he’s done playing with his food, you’ll wish you’d died alongside Adam Yung, devoured by merciful flames.”

The jump in my pulse was part fury, part terror. I held up my glowing left hand and stepped forward. The demon pulled a gun from behind his back and aimed at Anabelle.

Before I could even process the threat or its purpose, Finn tackled Anabelle and Melanie, temporarily taking my sister and my friend out of the line of fire. “Get him!” Finn shouted.

I lunged for the former deacon, my left hand ablaze, but the demon was faster, even in the new, dying body. He pressed the barrel against his temple.

“No!” I shouted.

Bennett pulled the trigger. Blood and liquefied brains exploded into the lobby from the hallway, and I caught a brief glimpse of the carnage already laid out inside.

“Damn it!” I backed away from the body, turning to put the massacre in the lobby at my back, clutching my own stomach in horror as more tears filled my eyes.

Bennett was beyond my reach, no doubt already searching for a fresh body. I might never know whether she found one or got sucked back into hell for want of a host.

But there was no time to mourn the lost opportunity.

“Nina, we have to go,” Finn said, and I turned to find him pulling my shocked sister to her feet. Anabelle sat blinking and stunned on the floor, leaning against the wall. “With any luck, the cops are headed back here from the gate.”

And with that reversal in the concentration of security, we might just make it out of town alive.

“Come on!” I hauled Anabelle up with one hand, digging Flores’s keys from my pocket with the other. “Are you okay?”

“I will be,” Anabelle said, one hand on the wall for balance, while she avoided looking at all the blood. “I just can’t believe she was a demon, hidden right in front of us.”

“She’s not the only one. Anyone wearing embroidered sleeves is possessed, Ana.”

Anabelle blinked at me, visibly struggling to process that new information—and the fact that she’d been days from consecration herself. But we were out of time. She’d have to process on the run.

“What about you?” I asked, turning to Melanie. “You okay?”

“I think so,” she said, staring at the body on the floor. “Still tired and thirsty, though.” And obviously in shock over everything she’d seen and heard in the past ten minutes.

“You can hydrate in the car. Let’s go.” We raced down the hall with Mellie half supported by Anabelle and Finn, and took the last corner so hard and fast I almost slammed into the wall. The parking lot was ahead, past a single glass door, and through the tall pane I saw red and blue lights flashing in the distance. In the direction of the south gate.

I pressed the bar on the door, and we burst out of the building, every breath puffing in front of our faces as we ran past the sparsely populated first and second rows, headed straight for the only car in the third. I shoved the key into its slot and twisted, and the car gave a soft thump as all four doors unlocked. We piled in, sirens growing louder in the distance as the colored lights flashed faster and brighter, and my heartbeat raced to match the pace.

Finn sat up front with me and I started the engine as Anabelle slammed her rear door. I shifted into reverse and backed out of the parking spot, thankful that it was too early in the season for snow and ice. Finn twisted to stare out the rear windshield as I pulled out of the lot and onto a back street, determined to take the longer but less visible path to the town gate.

“What’s the plan?” Anabelle whispered, and in the rearview mirror, I saw her wrap one arm around Melanie.

“Some friends—fellow exorcists—are waiting for us between here and Solace.” Assuming they’d shaken the fake exorcists pursuing them.

“You’re an exorcist?” Mellie’s eyes looked huge in the mirror. “You exorcised Mom?” she asked, obviously putting the pieces together, and I nodded. “Is Officer Jennings an exorcist too?”

“No.” He twisted to look at her. “My real name is Finn, and I don’t always look like this,” he said, and when she started to ask another question, he shook his head. “It’s complicated, but I promise I’ll explain everything once we’re out of town. For now, we need to be quiet.”

We rolled down darkened streets with the headlights off, pulling into alleys and onto dark shoulders whenever another vehicle approached. I turned left a block from the wall so we could approach the gate head-on, and for several moments I let the car roll slowly forward, still unnoticed, while we evaluated the situation.

“I only see two guards,” Finn said. “They must still think you’re in custody at the courthouse.”