The Flame Never Dies

Reese only relented when he realized he was outvoted.

“Watch the nomads,” Maddock said on his way out the door. “If they come any closer, call on this.” He tossed me one of our handheld radios.

I gave him a mock salute and clipped the radio to my waistband. As soon as they were gone, Finn took up watch at the window while I knelt to help Tobias with his—formerly my—sleep roll.

“Hey, Tobias, how long had you been with your new parents before we found you? Do you remember?”

He shrugged, and I held my finger in place over a length of black cord holding the bedroll closed so he could form a clumsy bow. “I dunno.”

“And you don’t remember your new parents’ names?”

Anabelle shook her head at me from across the room, where she was taking inventory of our hygiene supplies. But I couldn’t leave it alone. If demons adopting kids was going to be a new trend, I wanted to know as much as I could about how they were pulling it off.

“They just said to call them Mommy and Daddy.” Tobias stood from his messy but functional nylon bow and pressed his knees together in a stance any first grader would recognize. “I gotta go.”

The courthouse had half a dozen restrooms, but none of them had been functional in decades. “Hang on, and I’ll take you out—”

But he was out of the room and halfway down the first of two dusty marble staircases before I could even stand.

“Tobias, wait!” I called, and Mellie rolled over on her bedroll but didn’t quite shake off sleep.

The rapid patter of the child’s footsteps echoed below me as I stomped down the spiral stairs after him. A second later Finn’s boots clomped from above as he followed both of us. “Tobias!” he shouted, but the boy’s footsteps didn’t slow.

When I hit the first-floor landing, I stopped to listen for the echo of small shoes to figure out which way he’d gone.

Down the back hall, toward the rear door.

I followed Tobias into the back of the building, marveling at how well the courthouse had held up under a century of neglect. Stone floors and walls didn’t crumble or mold like carpet and drywall, and though many of the windows were broken, most of the doors were still intact, which had kept out the larger animals. And because the building had been stripped of furnishings shortly after the war, there was nothing left inside to rot or mildew.

“Tobias?” I called, my boots nearly silent on the grimy marble tiles.

Muffled footsteps whispered against the floor at my back, and a grunt exploded behind me, followed by a blunt crack. My heart hammering, I spun to find an unfamiliar man splayed across the floor at my feet, the short end of a crowbar lodged in the side of his skull.

I jumped back, startled, and my pulse raced so fast my vision swam.

Standing over the dead man was a boy about my age, wearing torn jeans and a dusty black cowboy hat, his feet spread for balance, his jaw set in a firm line. He wore prewar vintage Western boots, absent the spurs I’d seen in history textbooks, and despite my shock—or perhaps because of it—I wondered how he’d managed to walk so softly in footwear that looked stiff and unyielding.

His skin was dark, his eyes a piercing golden brown, and he wore a simple silver cross on a thin chain around his neck.

With a startling bolt of intuition, I realized the boy was one of the nomads—and he’d just killed the stranger who’d snuck up on me.

“Don’t move.” Without looking away from me, he braced one boot on the dead man’s jaw and wrenched the crowbar free with a wet sucking sound. Then he wielded it like a bat on one shoulder, ready to swing again, blood dripping from the short, bent end of the metal.

“I am Eli Woods, sentinel in the Lord’s Army.” His gaze narrowed on me. His grip tightened on the crowbar. “You have ten seconds to convince me you’re not one of the Unclean, or I will bury this in your skull.”

Uh-oh.

I took a step back and my spine hit the cool stone wall.

Eli wasn’t a demon, so I couldn’t exorcise him, and I wasn’t going to hurt a fellow human in anything less than self-defense. Which was starting to look like a distinct possibility.

“Five seconds.” He studied me, and I found no recognition in his eyes. “Who are you?”

Obviously nomads didn’t watch the news. They didn’t have television. But if they had a radio and had picked up any of the Church’s broadcasts proclaiming the infamous Nina Kane to be possessed, giving him my name wouldn’t help him trust me.

“Um . . .”

“Three seconds.”

I sucked in a deep breath and held his gaze. Then I spat out the truth. “I’m Nina Kane. But I’m not a demon, and I can prove it.”

Eli’s dark brows rose beneath the wide brim of his hat. “You can prove you’re not a demon?” He was either surprised or skeptical, but I couldn’t tell which because his face only seemed capable of scowling. His grip on the crowbar tightened. “That’s a new one. Start talking.”

But as I tried to figure out what to say, I realized that without a demon there to exorcise, proving my claim would be nearly impossible. I held my hands up, palms out, to remind him that I wasn’t armed. “Okay, I could prove it if there was another demon here for me to kill, but since there isn’t, you’ll just have to take my word for it.” In my whole life, I’d never wished for a demon, but in that moment, I got close. “I’m an exorcist.”

“There are no exorcists.” He pulled the crowbar back to swing, and my heart fell into my stomach. “They’re all demons the so-called Unified Church uses to hunt down its enemies.” He shifted his weight and leaned into his swing. Pulse racing, I dropped to the ground on my knees. Pain radiated up my legs. The metal bar swung over my head with a fierce whoosh. I scrambled around the dead guy’s feet and stood, backing away from Eli with my arms out. Trying to look harmless.

“No, wait! I’m not one of those exorcists.” I would have been relieved that he knew about the Church’s black-robed fakes if he didn’t think I was one of them. “I’m the real thing! So we’re actually on the same side—”

“Drop it!” Finn shouted, and I turned to see him in the doorway, aiming his rifle at Eli.

“Who are you?” the sentinel demanded, crowbar still held at the ready.

“That’s a complicated question.” Finn’s focus on Eli never wavered. “Come any closer to her, and you won’t live long enough to hear the answer.”

“Eli, please put the crowbar down.” I forced my voice to remain low-pitched and calm. “This is Finn. He’s with me. He’s not going to hurt you.” I turned to Finn. “This is Eli Woods. He killed the demon who snuck up on me, and I think we should all be friends.”

Finn glanced at the corpse on the floor but looked unconvinced.

“Finn, put the gun down,” I said.

“Him first.” His aim at the center of Eli’s worn-thin button-up shirt was a steady threat.

“Okay, boys, someone has to go first.” I turned back to the self-professed sentinel. “Since you obviously don’t recognize my face or my name, I’m guessing you haven’t seen or heard the news recently?”

He shook his head. “We don’t have television or radio.”

“We who? The Lord’s Army?” I said, and Finn gave me a confused look. “What is this army?”

“We are the last of the true believers.” Eli’s words had the formal cadence of an official pledge or creed. It sounded a little too much like the Church for comfort, but Eli—and presumably his nomadic army—were no more fans of the Unified Church than I was. “We are a beacon of light and truth, shining in a world of darkness and corruption.”

“Humble too,” Finn muttered.

I ignored him and focused on Eli. “It’s nice to meet you. And your army.” I cleared my throat and tossed a warning glance at Finn. “Are you familiar with the saying ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’? Because that’s kind of what we’re looking at here. The Church has been hunting you guys for decades, and now they’re hunting us too because of what we know and what we can do. Since we’re on the same side, maybe you could reconsider lowering your weapon?”

Eli took one hand from his crowbar long enough to reseat his black cowboy hat, briefly revealing short, tight curls. Then he reclaimed his expert grip. “You’re exorcists.” It wasn’t a question. He was repeating the part he obviously found hard to believe.

“We’re true exorcists. We hunt demons, just like you.” I gestured to the body at my feet. “But instead of puncturing skulls, we incinerate the bond between parasite and host and fry the demonic bastards back to hell.”