Any Port in a Storm (36 page)

"Would you prefer the alternative?" I ask. "Gregor auctioning off the shades like mercenaries, wielding them like weapons, and keeping all the profits to pad his pockets?"

I don't bring up the part where the shades are the victims in this. I think she already knows. I only hope she doesn't look at them as potential collateral damage. Mira and I might be the only two Mediators who don't think that's what they were born for.

When her alarm beeps for her two o'clock meeting, we've managed to hash out a plan for the gala. Samhain's on a Saturday this year, and that'll just about shut down the city. With so many law enforcement members at the ready and the full Summit convened for the gala, we'll have Gregor pinned down. Ironically, he's up for an award for his work with the shades. I volunteer to introduce him, and that's where we'll strike. When he's on stage. In front of the entire Summit.
 

And we'll end this for good.

Alamea leaves her office shortly before I do, and I finish up jotting down some notes before folding my notes into a tidy square and tucking them into my pocket. I don't trust them to the digital world, and I have no intention of any of Gryfflet's tech witches or any prying eyes in the Summit coming across what I've written. Paper can be burned. Ones and zeroes will never be erased.

I'm just locking the door to Alamea's office when Ben Wheedle walks around the corner.

For a split second before he sees me, I seriously consider running away. He is, as usual, the last person I want to see.

He starts when he sees me, his long eyelashes framing his violet eyes in boyish surprise. Ben's got farm boy good looks and knows it. He's one of those dudes who thinks he's a Nice Guy, but for him it just means doing what he thinks is right for other people without bothering to ask them first, then getting all in a tither when they disagree. Like say, assuming I want to be kissed when I'm yelling at him.
 

Yeah, that's a hint. Mixed signal. Who could blame the guy? Excuse me while I try to restrain myself from punching him again.

His eyes go from my hand on the door handle to my face and back, and he gives me a sad smile that doesn't make me want to punch him any less.

"What?" I say.

"You know she's going to turn on you," he says.
 

Well, that's new.

"Care to elaborate on your new super future seeing skills?"
 

"I don't know why you're always so mad at me." Ben squares his shoulders and adjusts the belt on his jeans.
 

"Then apparently your memory is about as useful as your ability to pick up on social cues."

He frowns. "I've told you over and over. This summer I was trying to protect you. I thought you needed help."

"I did need help. The kind of help that actually pays some attention instead of haring off and making assumptions. Instead, you spied on me for Alamea, didn't even try to get the actual story from me, and managed to get me imprisoned and almost killed. Yeah, thanks. And let's not forget that you seem to have a massive problem with the word
no
."

"Ayala," he tries to start talking again, but I cut him off.

"When you've asked someone out fifteen thousand times and they keep saying no? Find someone else, for cripes' sake. I'm not a fucking fantasy, Wheedle. I'm a human being. Don't you get all self-righteous on me and act like erasing my ability to speak for myself is some sort of chivalrous concept. It doesn't make you a friend, and it doesn't make you a gods damned hero. It makes you a serious asshole."

His eyes go wide, and for the first time, I see a spark of anger take root. Good. I can deal with angry Ben a lot more that sad puppy Ben.

"You want to talk about Alamea?" he says. "Let's talk about Alamea."

I don't even think he realizes it's a non-sequitur, but that fits his pattern. Selective hearing is like his superpower.
 

I throw up my hands. "Sure. Talk."

"She's going to turn on you, just like she turned on me," he says. "As soon as I was done being useful to her, she cut me out, tossed me aside, and moved on. To you, looks like."

Ben takes a step closer, and I cluck at him. He stops, putting his palms out as if he expects me to throw an uppercut at his chin. I still want to, but I won't unless he gives me a reason. And words, as stupid and slimy as his words might be, are never a reason.

"I don't think you know what's happening," he says in a low voice. "What's going on in the Summit. How many groups are breaking off into factions."

This ought to be good.

"Alamea's in trouble, Ayala. She's barely holding onto her hold on leadership. Nobody's happy about her executing the guys, even if they did try to kill her and that's technically her right. Most people think she's been too lenient about the shades, and now with some of them on a rampage through the city, those people are getting upset." He holds up one hand as if to say he knows what I'm going to say, because of course he thinks he knows what I'm going to say. He always, without fail, thinks he knows the inside of my head better than I do.

"So you're saying little birdies are telling you that the Summit's more bent out of shape over a couple shades than the hordes of all six and a half hells," I say. "Ain't that charming."

Surprise and frustration battle on his face. "You don't understand."

"Oh, of course I don't. What do I know? Enlighten me."

"Ayala, this is serious."

"Like a heart attack. Maybe even two whole heart attacks." I nod solemnly, and I watch as that little spark of anger bursts into a teeny tiny flame. Does he actually think I've missed all this? I was here when the Summit busted out the fisticuffs. And Ben took one on the chin then. The memory makes this conversation a hair more bearable.

"I'm trying to save you," he hisses. "She's going to go down, and she's going to take you with her. She won't be the leader for much longer, and it's going to be your head on the chopping block without her if you keep trying to help her. Things are bad, and the second she thinks you've outlived your usefulness, she'll turn you out and feed you to the people she knows are gunning for her."

Gunning for her. Interesting choice of words. We fight with swords, but the assassins definitely brought firearms to the party.
 

My silence seems to work him up even more.

"You know I'm right. I know you can feel it."
 

"Tell me," I say, my voice even and neutral. "Just how important is it to the Summit to keep the hellkin from turning Nashville into another Mississippi?"

He blinks. "The demon kills are down, lower than ever before. They're not the danger right now."

"It's adorable that you think that."

He ignores me, and his voice turns insistent, pleading. "Let me help you, Ayala. With Gryfflet and Gregor — I know Gregor trusts you, he won't hold you working with Alamea against you — we can make sure you don't go down with her."

I've got a headache. My temples throb, punctuated by each progressively more asinine sentence he speaks. "Do you ever hear a single word I say? Ever?"

"I hear every word you say," he says softly. "I always have."

"Oh, dear gods above and below. Get a fucking grip, Wheedle." This time I take a step toward him, and he actually retreats. "We are born to fight the hordes of the hells. That is our calling and our purpose. We are the front line. We are the infantry. We are the blades that allow the norms to sleep safe. I don't give a slummoth's shit about whatever politics you think you know about. Our job starts at sundown when the demons come out, and it will continue until they are all dead or they fear us enough not to stick their noses into our world ever again. We keep the balance. The balance is not who leads the Summit, and you don't really know a gods damned thing."

He doesn't respond to anything I've said, because of course he doesn't. "Be careful. I don't want to see you die."

"Next time you see a hells-hole, Wheedle, jump through it." I turn on my heel and walk away, resisting every reflex in my body that screams at me to put my fist in his face.
 

If there's one thing I learned from this, it's that he seriously thinks the Summit's at breaking point.

This is going to be a gala to remember.

If only Ben would get over whatever fucked up fantasy he has in his head for me. At this point he's stuck a flag at the top of Masochism Mountain, and I'm not sure I could actually be mean enough to him to make him understand that I will never be his. I will always be my own person.

I wish he had more layers — anything beyond the dubious helpfulness level of a two-year-old with a chainsaw.

I wish that last sentence of his was a threat.

A threat I could deal with. He keeps thinking I'm his friend, and he can't grasp that he's long since made me an enemy.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

As soon as the sun goes down, I meet Mira in Percy Warner Park, where Saturn is supposed to show up to hear our plan. Miles is laying low — one glimpse of him by any shade in Nashville, and his whole
dead
persona will scamper right out the window.

Mira's dressed in leathers seamed with stretch fabric to allow more freedom of movement. I'm going to have to ask her who her tailor is.
 

She approaches me where I wait under Saturn's old tree, and I can see in her face that she's still a bit pissed at me. I give her the warmest smile I can muster, and I mean it. Or at least I'm trying to mean it. I'm not used to working with other Mediators. It feels like I'm trying to wear someone else's broken-in shoes.
 

One look at Mira's answering smile bolsters me, though. "Hey, stud. I hear you and your shade buddies took out another bucket o' demons the other night."

"You're not wrong." I kick the tree root next to my foot. "Remember when facing one demon by itself was a lot?"

"Please. I wear demon chum and try to get them to fight me all at once, but they're too scared."
 

Her blustering tells me that things might just be okay. I motion at the trees beyond the clearing. "Saturn say exactly when he'd get his naked ass here?"

She pulls her phone out of a pocket and looks at the time. "Sometime in the next five or ten minutes. He should be here."

I tell her about Ben and what he said about Alamea.
 

"Wheedle's a dick," she says succinctly. "And of course Alamea's out for herself. She wants to keep her head attached to her neck. Doesn't mean she's going to throw you under the busload of demons."

Couldn't have said it better myself.
 

"Wane says hi," she says. "She and some of her witch buddies are doing a pre-Samhain shindig Friday night before the gala, and she wanted you to come. They'll be with their circles on gala night, but they always do a little get-together and play video games and drink wine all night. Last year was pretty fun if you want to join in."

"I suck at video games, but I'll come. Do I need to bring anything?"

"Nah. Nothing at all, even clothes. Everybody's sky clad."

"Wait, what?" Naked, alcohol fueled video games sounds a shit ton more like Beltane than Samhain, and after a moment of watching my face, Mira busts up laughing.

"I'm joking, asshole. Wear whatever the fuck you want."

A rustle sounds in the bushes, and I turn, expecting Saturn. Mira falls silent, following my gaze.

We've been talking like a couple half-trained losers, and we missed it. The silence isn't just the lack of our voices. It's everywhere.
 

"We've got company," I say.

"You think?" Her swords hiss out of their scabbards, and mine echo the sound.
 

"I checked. There aren't any active hells-holes in the park close to here." That doesn't mean the demons couldn't bus in, but I specifically tried to pick a place where there hadn't been any for a while. The only time one was reported here in the last five years was the day Saturn came bursting into the world.

Scanning the woods around us yields no telltale pink glow, which thankfully means no jeelings. I've had enough of them lately.