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.”
His eyes widened. “You’re serious.”
I nodded. “It’s kinda badass.”
“Though most of us don’t object to blunt force trauma when the occasion calls for it.” Finn shrugged and gestured with the rifle he was still aiming. “Or bullets.”
I glared at Finn, then turned back to Eli. “I need both of you to put down your weapons so we can focus on our mutual enemy.” I shrugged, aiming for casual confidence. “You know. Evil.”
Both of them glanced at me. Then they glared at each other. Neither boy lowered his weapon.
My temper spiked. “We’re in the middle of the badlands with a corpse on the floor and the Church on our tails. We are not each other’s biggest problem. So, Finn, put the damn gun down!”
Finn’s bright green eyes narrowed and his jaw tensed. “Not until you back out of his reach.”
“Striking a human would be a blight on my honor, and she’s obviously not possessed,” Eli said as I moved closer to Finn. “The jury’s still out on you.”
Finn’s glare grew colder, but he flicked the safety switch on his rifle, then lowered it. But he didn’t sling it over his back.
I turned back to Eli. “Your turn.”
When the sentinel took a deep breath, I realized that trusting Finn and me was as much of a risk for him as the reverse was for us. Maybe more. He lowered his bloody crowbar but didn’t put it down, and I decided that was the best we were going to get.
“Now I have to go find—” Something moved in the shadowy doorway behind Finn, and I exhaled in relief as Tobias stepped into the marble foyer from the back hall.
But he wasn’t looking at me. He wasn’t gloating over having escaped my custody, nor did he look chagrined. He didn’t even seem surprised to see the body on the floor, or Eli, with his gore-covered crowbar.
Eli’s gaze tracked down from Finn to the boy now at Finn’s side. His eyes narrowed and his arms tensed as he raised the crowbar like a bat again. “Step away from the Unclean.”
I tried to move in front of Eli, to shield Finn, but he pushed me aside.
Finn lifted his gun again. “Do not touch her!”
“I’m fine,” I insisted, my pulse racing as the tension between the two of them resurged. “Finn’s not possessed. He would never hurt—”
“Not him,” Eli growled through clenched teeth. “The little one.”
Chills rose the length of my spine as I turned to follow his intently focused gaze. He was staring right at Tobias.
“No.” Panic tightened my throat as the sentinel focused his destructive zeal on the child I’d committed all of Anathema to helping. The child I’d begun to think of as an older version of my unborn niece or nephew—an innocent, dependent upon us for survival. “No. He’s just a kid.”
“Tobias was my nephew,” Eli said, and shock surged like fire through my veins. I hadn’t told him the boy’s name. “Then an Unclean raiding party ambushed our division four days ago and took him. You’ve been traveling in the company of a demon, Nina Kane.”
I glanced at Tobias, expecting
