Any Port in a Storm (8 page)

I drive Miles to the football field in East Nashville where Gregor and Carrick are still drilling the shades. Part of me hopes we'll turn up and find Jax, his skin golden brown in the floodlights, dodging and doing high knees with the rest of them.
 

We don't.

Instead we find the shades in formation, listening to Gregor with rapt attention, Carrick pacing off to the side in the still-healthy untrimmed grass.
 

The lights are dingy and only about half are functional, but the sight of the shades' naked forms under the lights gives me some small amount of comfort.

That small comfort is chased away when I do a quick headcount, wondering who's not there. Then I remember. Rade, Thom, and Sez are all dead, and Jax is now missing. And Saturn is at Mira's.
 

Five down. In the space of a week. I don't like it.

I don't get close enough to join in, but Gregor and Carrick each give me a wave as I walk back to my car. The beacon in my pocket presses against my leg.

I make it to Mira's in thirteen minutes. Her porch light is blazing, the Samhain lights wrapped around the railings cheery red and orange. Since my last visit, an array of squash has appeared on a table next to her porch swing.

I knock on the door.

No one answers. A moment later, I knock again, harder.
 

"Mira! It's Ayala!" I holler through the heavy oak door.

No way she's sleeping. I double check the texts on my phone — sure enough, she said to come on over any time after two. It's two forty.

I pound on the door with the heel of my hand, peering to the side of the door. The curtains are drawn, but light shows in the cracks. Looking closer at the door, I inspect it for any signs of forced entry. There aren't any. I kneel on the porch swing and press my ear against the cold glass of the window. Nothing.

The door's locked — any good Mediator makes sure to do that — and I know I won't find any keys under the squash on the table. I try calling Mira as I walk around the side of the house.

Inside, I hear her phone go off with the X-Files theme.
 

The drapes are drawn at all the windows, and I try to peek through the living room window anyway. The waves of fabric show me a patch of floor, and that's it. The phone goes to voicemail, and I hang up.
 

The sound seems to have been coming from the living room.
 

I try to convince myself that Mira's just in the bathroom, but it doesn't work.
 

I dial her again.

The X-Files theme comes on again. In my ear, I get three rings, four rings, five—

"Heh-oh." The voice comes through muddled and heavy, but it's Mira.

"Mira, it's Ayala. Are you okay?"

I hear a deep intake of breath sucked between clenched teeth. Inside the house, a thud reaches my ears.

"Yo! Mira!"
 

"I'm here." Her voice sounds like she's speaking from the bottom of a hole. "Front door."

I hurry to the door, waiting to hear movement on the other side. When the latch finally clicks and the door opens inward, I almost run through it. But the sight of Mira stops me.

She blinks at me; her left eye's pupil largely dilated while the right is a pinprick in the bright light of her foyer. Dried blood crusts her left cheek and down her neck, matting her black hair against her skin.

She sways on her feet. "Fuck me."

I catch her right before she collapses. She's almost a deadweight against me, and I loop my arm under hers, hoisting her in. I kick the door shut behind me and shuffle to it to lock it again. Mira squints in the light. I hit the dimmer with my free hand as we pass, knocking it down a few pegs to quiet the brightness.

Mira gives a tiny sigh of relief. I set her on her sofa, a puffy maroon piece that she sinks into, her head lolling back. I flick her on the nose.
 

"Stay awake, asshole."

Her lips give me the smallest tug of a smile, and I look around me.
 

Next to the rug, there's a smear of blood on the hardwood. It's close to the window. If she was lying there, that would explain how I could hear the ringtone through the glass.
 

I know without running down the corridor to look that Saturn isn't here. "Did Saturn do this?"

Mira's head bobs, and I can't tell if it's because of the concussion or an affirmative.

I hurry to her, sitting beside her on the sofa. "Mira. Wake up. You gotta stay awake for me. Remember how much I hated you when I got concussed and you woke me up all night? My turn. Payback's a bitch."

I get another little smile at that.
 

"Did Saturn do this?" I repeat the question.

This time I know it's a nod. Fuckity fuck fuck.

"Why?"

She pulls in another breath, and it whistles past her lips, which are chapped and red. A trickle of blood must have worked its way across her cheek while she was passed out on the floor, because she's got a macabre half smile like the Joker. Thankfully, it's just blood and not an actual cut.
 

"I tried to stop him from leaving."

Mira closes her eyes, breathing in deeply and exhaling, like it's all she can focus on doing. I don't blame her. I've had bad concussions before, and they're no fun.
 

"Did he say why he had to go?"

"He said he'd tell me later. But that he couldn't."

"Can I get you anything?"

"Ice pack. Kitchen."
 

I get up and make a beeline for the freezer, where I find a squishy blue ice pack and a dish towel and wrap the ice pack into a burrito. I also grab a cup and fill it with ice water.
 

Back in the living room, the only sound is Mira's ragged breathing. I press the ice pack into her hands, and her eyes flutter open again.
 

"Thank you."

I call Carrick and leave him a message, letting him know I'm staying at Mira's. I don't mention Jax or Saturn. After I've gotten the blood cleaned off Mira's face and her settled into bed — and alarms set on my phone so I can wake her every couple hours — I start to leave the room. Her voice stops me in the threshold.

"He's scared, Ayala."

I turn, meeting her gaze. Her eyelids droop, and she swallows the concussion nausea, blinking headily at me.
 

"Did he give you any idea of what?:

She doesn't have to shake her head to tell me no.

I leave her door cracked and step lightly down the hallway to Saturn's recent guest room. The sheets are clean and neatly pulled up to the pillows. No blanket, as expected. I find one in a trunk at the foot of the bed and spread it out over the sheets, crawling between them after undressing to my t-shirt and underwear.

The sheets smell like mulled wine, warm and spicy, even though they're cool on my skin.

It's hard to try and sleep knowing I'll just wake up in two hours, but I try anyway. My thoughts run through the day. Alamea. Gregor. Carrick. Jax. Miles. Now Saturn.

Saturn must have been desperate to knock Mira out cold. And he could have done it with less force than he did. Sloppy.
 

What is Saturn so afraid of?

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next day passes in a blur of press releases and panicky business owners, and I've never been so grateful to put out PR fires in my entire life. Laura's out at a conference, so I spend the entirety of the workday shut in my office, guzzling water.

After work, I take a short patrol to the Cumberland, dispatching a pair of frahlig demons within the first hour. Their clusters of slimy teeth drip fish guts, and killing them quickly is just as much an incentive not to let them dribble on my leathers as it is to follow my birthright.

It's a relief also to see hellkin acting normally, and I think I go to the riverfront to hunt frahligs as much to prove to myself that they'll be there as anything else.

When I get home, Carrick is in the kitchen, chopping up flank steak into bite-sized pieces.
 

He looks up when I come in, and I wrinkle my nose. You'd think I'd get used to the constant smell of raw meat. Nope.

"I ordered you dinner," he says.

"What?"

"You like Thai food on Tuesdays." He points to the microwave, where I can see a rolled tight paper sack. "Summer rolls and pad Thai. Tea's in the fridge."

"Well, hell, Carrick. Look at you go."

"Just being friendly." Then he waggles his butt at me. Thankfully, he's wearing shorts.

"Cheeky is more like."

He doesn't laugh at my butt pun. I sigh and retrieve my dinner, throwing the noodles on a plate with the summer rolls. The tangy scent of my dinner finally chases away most of the bloody steak smell.

"Did Nana get fed already?"

He nods. "She's running around the apartment."

Mister Domesticity in action. "Are you okay?"

"I can't take care of some things around the place? You don't make me pay rent."

"That's because most places of business have a dress code. Like getting dressed, at the very least." I shove half a summer roll in my mouth and plunk down at the table. He's never this nice to me. "You heard about Jax then."

He pops a piece of raw beef in his mouth and nods.

"You think he's dead." I say, surprised at how evenly my words come out.

Carrick chews slowly, then swallows. His eyes frown at me, even though the rest of his face manages to stay impassive. A tendril of auburn hair curls on the side of his neck. "What we're doing — you know eventually Gregor is going to point us at an enemy."

"Yes."

"And that when enemies fight, people die."

I feign shock. "Really? Tell me more, O Agéd Wise One."

He hates when I throw his age in his face. He frowns for real now. "Some of them are going to die. You know that."

"I don't think Jax is dead."

Carrick snorts, which sounds even sillier coming from someone who's busy stuffing his face with raw meat. "Ayala, if he were alive, he would have come back by now."

I think of Saturn, and the knot the size of Little Rock on Mira's head. But I don't disagree aloud. Instead, I change the subject. "Are you going back out tonight?"

"I thought I'd stay here with you. I put Terminator on."

"Are you flirting with me?"

I want to beam at him when he blushes, but then he wrinkles his nose. "I'd sooner flirt with Nana."

"Ew."

Speaking of my bunny, she comes hopping around the corner and skids to a halt at my feet. I reach down to scratch between her ears, watching her velvety little ginger nose twitch. "Don't worry, Nana. I know you'd kick his ass."

Her foot starts thumping on the tile.

"Tomorrow night we're supposed to go up to the Tailwater. Gregor said he had some reports of slummoth activity."

"I'll go with you," I say absently. If frahlig tooth-slime is gross, the slummoths turn it up to eleven. But these days, they're among the easier hellkin for me to face.

Carrick nods, scraping his meat chunks into a bowl with the cleaver. I watch him as he cleans the cutting board and the knife. For being a four hundred year old human-demon hybrid, he's a surprisingly okay roommate sometimes.

And anyone who puts on my favorite Schwarzenegger series of their own accord gets brownie points from me.
 

I take my plate and Thai tea into the living room after Carrick and his meat bowl, Nana hopping behind us.

Wane opens the door for me when I arrive at Mira's at nine-thirty the next morning to check on her. She's wearing Star Trek themed scrubs today, and she gives me a tight smile when I come inside.

"How is she?" I ask.

"Better. Her pupils are the same size again."

"Hey, that's a good sign."

Wane goes into the kitchen, and I follow her, taking a glass of orange juice when she pours it and hands it to me.
 

"Is she awake?"

"Damn right, she's awake," Mira says from behind me.
 

I turn around, and she rolls her eyes at me. At least the bruising on her temple is starting to fade, and she's able to stand up without swaying. "Copy catter," I say.