The Flame Never Dies (18 page)

“But you didn't want her to know you'd seen,” I guessed, and he nodded.

“What
is
it?”

“I don't know.” I took the baby back from Anabelle and noticed that Eli held a canister in one hand. “Is that what I think it is?”

He glanced down, as if he'd forgotten what had brought him back to the SUV. “Oh. Yes. I didn't find any diapers, but this was in the bottom of a box with some protein bars and a jug of water. There's a baby bottle too.”

When he held up the canister of powdered baby formula, I remembered that Reese had packed it in the box of emergency provisions and put it in the back of the SUV when we'd left Ashland, “just in case” our two vehicles got separated.

“Thanks,” I said when he set the canister on the folded bench seat. “Could you mix one up for me?”

“I'll do my best.” Eli took the formula and headed back to the other vehicle for water and the bottle.

“I guess I'll try to find a bag for this.” Ana held up the soiled shirt, wadded into a tight ball. “Until we can wash it.” When she followed Eli toward the other car, I cradled little Adam in my arms and paced a few steps between the vehicles.

“Okay, little man, this is it,” I whispered as I walked, and he closed his tiny eyes against the glare from the setting sun. “I love you. I know you can't understand what I'm saying, but I hope you'll always know that. And your mother—she would have moved heaven and earth with her own two hands to be here with you if she could have.”

I lifted the little bundle, and his eyes fluttered, then fell shut again. I laid a kiss on his impossibly soft cheek, and my tears left dark spots on the makeshift blanket.

“Nina, he might be okay,” Anabelle said, and I jumped, startled by her quiet approach. “You never know.”

“I do know.” I wiped my cheeks with my spare hand and tried to smile at her. “He
will
be okay. I need you to take him now.” I held the baby out to her, and she smiled and started to take him—then looked closer at my face.

“Nina…
Noooo…
” Her eyes widened and she crossed her arms over her chest, refusing to take the baby. “Don't you even
think
about it.”

“There's no other way. I failed Mellie—I can't let her son down too. Take him, Anabelle.”

“No.” She shook her head and took another step back. “Just wait. He might make it on his own.”

But if that wasn't the case, we wouldn't know until he'd already died, and by then I couldn't help him.

“Take him. Please don't make me put him on the ground, Ana.”

“Nina, please…” But she held out her arms, tears standing in her eyes. “Don't do this to me. Don't do this to
him.
He's already lost his mother.”

“I need you to take care of him. Anathema will help you, and if they can't, Eli's people will. Tell Adam about Melanie for me. Tell him about his dad. Tell him how much he meant to all of us.”

“Nina, wait…,” she begged as I placed the baby in her arms.

“And tell Finn…” I sniffled and wiped tears from my face. “Tell him I love him.” I pulled the knife from my pocket and dropped the sheath onto the ground as I backed away from the edge of the road, toward the overgrown field beyond. “Tell him I love him
so
much. But this is how it has to—”

Gravel crunched at my back, but before I could turn to look, something whistled through the air behind me.

The world went dark again.

I woke up on the third-row bench seat, my knees tucked up to my chest. After a disorienting moment spent blinking into the dark, everything came back to me and I sat up straight, terror clawing at my insides like a cat in a cloth bag.

“Adam!”

But there was no one else in the car.

Eli had hit me. There was no other explanation for the crunch of gravel behind me before I'd lost consciousness.

I climbed over the seat and opened the back door, then stepped out into the night. Metal squealed behind me, and I turned to see the interior of Eli's car light up as he opened the door and got out. Another silhouette sat in his passenger's seat, and I recognized the outline of Anabelle's hair.

“How
could
you?” I marched toward him, fire raging in my gut even as agony squeezed blood from my heart one miserable beat at a time. “I wanted him to
live
! That was
my
choice!” Two feet from him I pulled back my fist, but Eli made no move to defend himself.

“Nina.” Anabelle pushed open the passenger's-side door and stood. “Adam's alive. He's been waiting for you to wake up.”

“Wha…
What?
” Shock drained the blood from my face, but I didn't believe her until I saw the squirming bundle cradled in the crook of her arm.

“He got lucky,” Eli said. “Sometimes there's a soul or two in the well, Nina. The Lord
knows
we work hard to put them there.”

“But you didn't know he'd live when you hit me.” Anger roiled within my voice. “You were willing to let him die.”

“I was willing to keep you alive,” he insisted. “The Lord isn't done with you, Nina. He wouldn't have given you the gift of exorcism if he wanted you to throw it away, and I trusted that if the Lord has a purpose for Adam as well, he'd find a soul for the child.” Eli shrugged and glanced over his shoulder at Anabelle and the baby. “I guess I was right.”

I didn't even realize I still wanted to punch him until my fist crashed into his jaw. Eli's head rocked to the side and he stumbled back a step, but he took the blow without complaint. “I guess I deserve that.”

One punch was the very
least
of what he deserved, but…

Adam's cry pierced the night and I turned to him, startled. And that's when it hit me. He was
alive.

I was going to see Mellie's baby grow up.

Anabelle smiled. “Get in the car. We can't let him cry out here.”

I sat in the backseat, startled to see Meshara buckled in next to me, and Anabelle put Adam in the crook of my arm, then handed me a bottle. While he drank, she and Eli climbed back into the front.

“How long was I out?” I couldn't tear my gaze from the baby's face, and the soft little sounds of contentment he made while he ate touched some fragile part of me I hadn't even known existed. I'd never seen anything so tiny and helpless. So utterly dependent upon the world to keep him alive.

But Adam was not born into a kind world.

Anabelle angled her watch into the moonlight. “Just less than an hour. He's about eighty-five minutes old.”

Still so new. So fragile. So…precious. “And we're sure…?”

“I've never seen one die after a full hour,” Eli assured me, rubbing the red mark across his jaw. “Hell of a punch,” he added as an afterthought.

“Exorcist, remember?” I decided not to tell him how badly my hand hurt. “How long has she been like that?” I nodded at Meshara, whose labored breathing had gotten loud.

“Since not long after you went down. We wanted to put her out of her misery—for Mellie's sake—but couldn't until you woke up.” Because if they'd released the demon while I was unconscious, Meshara would have gone right into my undefended body. She would have done that on her own, if she'd had any idea my body was undefended.

“She looks so miserable.” Her eyes were unfocused and she didn't react to our voices or Adam's cries. She wasn't blinking anymore because she couldn't feel how dry her eyes had become. When I put my hand on her shoulder, she didn't jerk in surprise, or even look up. I gently pressed my thumbnail into her skin, leaving an indentation but not breaking the surface, and got no reaction at all.

My sister's body had become a prison for the monster inside it, cut off from all sensory input, and though her breathing sounded horrible, it showed no sign of stopping. Meshara would live until her stolen form literally starved to death. Or choked on its own spittle. Or was torn apart by degenerates.

She was a startling, horrifying vision of what the Church had in mind for Kastor's people, and it was no less than they deserved. But it was too hard to watch while it wore my sister's face.

“I'm ready to let her go,” I said finally, and Ana took the baby without being asked. Eli carried Mellie's body to the wrecked SUV, and her still form blurred beneath my tears as he laid her across the middle bench seat. He left me alone with her, and for several minutes I could only crouch on the floor, resting my head on her stomach. Listening to each labored inhalation.

“I'm so sorry, Mellie,” I said as tears rolled down my face to soak into her shirt. “I'm so sorry I let this happen to you. I hope there wasn't any pain. I hope you didn't even know….” I sat up and wiped snot from my face before it could fall on her. “I wish I could undo it all….”

But the only thing I could still do for her was set her free.

My entire body hitched with sobs as I placed my left hand over her chest. Twice I tried to call forth the flame that would fry the parasite from her ruined body, and twice I failed, because when I looked at her, I saw not the demon, but my sister.

Finally, I took a deep breath and spoke to Meshara. “From whence you came, bitch.” Fire burst from my palm and shot through her chest. Meshara's eyes opened wide. She jerked once, twice, then a third time, but never made a sound.

“For Melanie,” I whispered as I removed my hand from the smoking hole in her chest. Then I pulled a blanket from the backseat and draped it over her.

I cried all the way back to the car.

W
hile Anabelle and Eli cut an extra shirt into strips of cloth with which to pad the baby's diaper area, I changed Adam's soiled wrapping by moonlight on the backseat, suddenly wishing I'd paid more attention to what would happen
after
the baby came. At the current rate of consumption, we would run out of wipes in a few days, and I had no idea what to do with the messy clothes until we had a chance to clean them.

Adam sucked on his palm while I rolled him onto his side to make sure his back was clean, and the mark on his spine caught my eye again. “Hey Eli, have you ever seen anything like this, other than on Grayson's back?”
And on mine…?

He turned to look at Adam from between the front seats. “I've seen some interesting birthmarks, but—”

“It's not a birthmark. Mellie, Grayson, and I didn't have it until…” I frowned. “Actually, I don't know when Grayson and I developed the discoloration, but Melanie's showed up a couple of weeks after we escaped from New Temperance. It was just a small spot at first. Like a bruise.” But Adam had been born with the full version.

Eli folded his stack of cotton strips laid across one knee. “Maybe it's an allergic reaction to something you came across in the badlands.”

“But Grayson lived out here with the rest of Anathema for months before they found me and Mellie.” My thoughts flew so fast my head spun. “We all three got the mark after we left New Temperance, but none of the guys did.” Reese, Finn, and Maddock regularly sparred with their shirts off, and while the scandalous display of flesh had shocked me at first, after a month or so it had seemed routine. And…nice.

“But it can't be gender specific, because Adam has the mark but Devi and I don't.” Anabelle added her strips of cotton to Eli's pile. “And it can't be something that affects just exorcists, because Melanie wasn't an exorcist but Devi is.”

“We had an outbreak once, when I was a kid,” Eli said while I carefully reswaddled the baby the way he had shown me. “Two of our members died, but
everyone
who got sick developed a rash.”

Anabelle stuffed the soiled blanket into the bag of clothes Adam had already gone through. “What kind of sickness?”

“Sore throat. Fever. Brother Isaiah said it was some kind of virus—lots of them cause rashes.”

My goose bumps doubled in size. “You think the demon virus could have caused the stripe on Mellie's back?”

Eli shrugged. “It's all conjecture, but for Melanie to transmit the virus, she'd have to be infected with it, even if she's just a carrier. Or
was
just a carrier, until Meshara possessed her. If that's true, then humans actually
can
get the virus—they just don't exhibit the full range of symptoms until and unless they're possessed.”

“Then how come the rest of Anathema isn't infected?” If that
was
what the mark indicated.

Eli shrugged. “We won't know that until we know how it's transmitted.”

“Well, obviously Mellie transmitted the virus to the baby in utero. So we know it's blood-borne.” Anabelle tied the stack of cotton strips into a bundle with a piece of twine from Eli's backpack. “If the virus were airborne, the Church wouldn't need a carrier, and using one would be too dangerous—any demon she breathed on would be infected. But she passed it to you, Nina, which suggests that it
can
be transmitted through direct contact.” Anabelle shrugged. “You're the one she had the most direct contact with.”

“She spent a lot of time with you too,” I pointed out as I stroked Adam's soft cheek with my thumb. “And Grayson spent most of her time with Reese, yet she's evidently infected and he's not.” The baby stared up at me, and when I slid my pinkie finger against the tiny palm that had escaped the T-shirt blanket, his fingers curled around mine.

“So, what's the connection between you three Kanes and Grayson?” Anabelle asked, kneeling on the front bucket seat so she could see the baby over the headrest. “Grayson's the outlier. You three are all genetically related, and she's not. You're from New Temperance—even Adam was conceived there—and she's not.”

“Grayson is from Constance, right?” Eli asked with a glance at the baby.

“Yeah. She and her brother, Carey, were bred as hosts there, just like…”
Just like Melanie and I were.
“That's it!” I sat up straight with the revelation, startling Adam, who began to fuss. “Grayson, Melanie, and I were all born to demons.” I stared through the window at the darkened SUV, where my sister's body still lay. “And so was Adam.”

Melanie hadn't passed the virus on to her son.
Meshara
had done that. “Growing inside a possessed body must do something to us genetically. Or at least physically. Something that enables us to carry the virus. And the Church would have known that about Melanie. The second our mother was exposed, they'd have known Mellie was an ideal carrier for their plague. But my guess is that they didn't expect Kastor to take so long to get his hands on us. And they probably didn't expect Melanie to get possessed.”

“Their Trojan horse isn't going to make it to the gates.” Anabelle sank back into her chair with a defeated sigh and stared at the SUV. “It's not that I'm rooting for the Church to win, and I
hate
that they used Melanie as their weapon. But Kastor is our enemy too, and since Mellie's not going to make it to Pandemonia, it kind of feels like she died for nothing.”

I closed my eyes, stunned. Meshara had stolen
everything
from my sister—even the chance for her death to have meaning.

I
couldn't
let her death mean nothing.

“Melanie wasn't their only Trojan horse.” I'd caught the virus from my sister, which meant that whether they'd meant to or not, the Church had turned me into a walking contagion, capable of spreading their virus to any demon I came into contact with without ever even having to expose myself as a threat. “Kastor wants me?” I glanced from Anabelle to Eli as they twisted to look at me from the front seat. “He can have me. But he's going to get a
hell
of a lot more than he bargained for.”

It only took them a second to catch on. “Wait, Nina, let's think about this,” Anabelle insisted, and Adam began to fuss in my arms as if he knew exactly what was going on. “If they've got Grayson, the city's already infected. You don't need to go.”

“With any luck, Reese and the others caught up with Grayson before Kastor's people could get her to the city. If that's the case, the demons who took her are dead, which means neither they nor Grayson will be infecting Pandemonia. And if Grayson
is
in the city, the others will need help getting her out. Either way, I have to go.”

“But what about Adam?” Ana looked horrified. “You can't just abandon Melanie's baby to…what? Go spread disease in the most dangerous city on earth?”

“I'm not abandoning him. You two are going to watch him for me.” I tried to hand the baby to Anabelle, but she frowned and crossed her arms over her chest.

“You're all the family he has left, Nina!”

“And the most important thing I can do for my nephew”—now that he didn't need my soul—“is make sure Kastor will never, ever get his hands on this little guy. I
have
to go to Pandemonia, Anabelle.”

Ana turned to Eli, desperation shining in her wide eyes. “Say something! Talk some sense into her.”

Eli opened his mouth, his forehead furrowed, and I held up one finger to stop him. “Don't even start.
You
said the Lord gave me an exorcist's gifts for a reason.” I was far from sure I believed in Eli's warrior religion, but I
did
believe in purpose, and the Unified Church had unwittingly given me a hell of a one. They'd given me a way to avenge Melanie and protect Adam.

They'd given me the ability to bring all of demonkind to its knees.

Eli nodded, then turned to Anabelle. “She's right. Nina's been given two gifts—exorcism and contagion. And they both seem destined for Pandemonia.”

“But…what about the baby?”

I looked down to find him sleeping in my arms, and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to stay there, holding him, looking for signs of Mellie in his tiny features. “With any luck, I'll make it out and come back for Adam, but the odds aren't in my favor. Anabelle, I need to know that if I die, you'll do everything you can to protect him and give him a good life.”

“Nina…”

“Please, Ana. For Mellie.”

“Yes. Of course.” She exhaled heavily and stared at the baby with tears in her eyes. “You know I will. I just don't want to lose you too.”

“And will you help her?” I turned to Eli. “Can Ana and Adam stay with you and your people?”

“Of course they can. But we get raided too, Nina. Ours isn't an easy life, or a secure one.”

“I know.” But those both applied to my life too, ever since the moment I'd discovered that I was an exorcist. “Just do your best for Adam, and I'll do my best to come back for him. That's all any of us can ever promise.”

We buried Melanie on the side of old Interstate 70 as the sun rose over the badlands. Eli and I took turns digging with our only shovel while Adam napped and Anabelle wrapped my sister's body in the nicest blanket we had, to cover up the smoking hole in her chest. Though I could hardly see it anyway through the tears steadily blurring my vision.

Eli closed the grave with shovelful after shovelful of dirt while I clutched the baby to my chest. In the hundreds of times I'd pictured Melanie's labor and delivery, I'd never once pictured my sister lying in the hole I'd known would have to be dug afterward.

We marked Melanie's grave with a cross Eli made from scraps of wood and the nylon cord from my bindings. He'd carved her name on the short length of the cross with surprising aptitude. But as the crimson morning sun shone down on my grief, I realized I would probably never again see either the cross or my sister's grave.