First, the square was still littered with shocked, innocent civilians, most injured, many dead.

Second, the fake exorcists were racing after us now, two of them trying to slide fresh clips into the grips of their guns, and they weren’t alone. Sister Pamela and Deacon Bennett were running as well, along with several other, older Church officials, and none of them looked the least bit winded from the sprint.

Third—and most terrifying of all—every single one of the Church officials chasing us stared back at me with eyes that shone in the dark like a cat’s. And suddenly I understood why our proximity strength hadn’t faded. The surviving degenerates may have fled, but there was no shortage of the Unclean in the town square.

The town of New Temperance—my hometown—was being run by demons.

“Did you guys see that?” Each grinding thump of my shoes against pavement bounced back at me from the brick walls of yet another dark alley, and I wondered if I’d ever walk on Main Street again. Why hadn’t anyone told me that claiming my exorcist birthright and being declared anathema meant giving up daylight and sidewalks forever?

“See what?” Devi snapped. Finn was hanging back for me—I didn’t yet have their stamina—and since he was in Maddock’s body, she was hanging back for him, shooting us angry glances every couple of seconds while Reese maintained the lead she clearly wanted. “The part where a pack of degenerates attacked a large congregation on live television for the first time since the end of the war, or the part where you called the Church out in front of all those innocent people, further pissing them off and endangering yet more innocent lives?”

“I didn’t call anyone out!” I was huffing, though the rest of them sounded fine, and a glance back told me we’d finally zigged down enough alleys and zagged across enough open lots to lose our fake-exorcist pursuers.

“Bullshit!” Devi grabbed my arm, trying to haul me forward at her pace while she yelled at me, but my legs couldn’t go any faster. I jerked free from her grip and Finn moved between us in the tight space. He shot a warning glance at her, but he couldn’t stop her mouth from moving even faster than her feet. “They were trying to take us alive—”

“They were…shooting…at us!” My words were disjointed, punctuated with short gasps for air. My lungs burned.

“They would have shot to wound,” she insisted as one alley faded into the next, broken only by short sprints across deserted streets. “To slow us down. They took Carey alive, and he wasn’t the first exorcist they’ve plucked off the street, which seems to suggest that they wanted us alive too. At least, they did until you tried to tell two dozen civilians that their exorcists are fake and we’re the real thing. To the Church, the truth is like a disease—they can’t let you infect anyone else. You practically dared them to kill us!”