Eye of the Storm (13 page)

I comb the immediate area, around each bumper terrified I'm going to come face to face with Saturn's or Mira's bodies.
 

"They're not here," I say after a couple minutes. Evis and Asher come around the curve of the road, and neither of them seem overly out of breath.
 

"What happened?" Asher demands.
 

I realize that to her, it just looked like I took off running. I'm not sure if Evis heard what I did.
 

"I heard Saturn scream," I say, scanning the area around us for any sign of activity.
 

Asher doesn't ask, just sets to work on the spot that Mira's group missed. I feel the minutes ticking away as she bustles about, but I know she needs to do it. I can't leave her — running away just now was stupid of me.
 

Because I don't know what else to do, I pace around the scene.
 

Whatever happened here, they managed to take down a large number of demons. I count twelve slummoths or so — it's hard to say considering Saturn and Miles took them apart. By the Jeep there's a small pile of harkasts, and through Sol's eyes I see the swiftly-fading pink glow of a jeeling.
 

We're not far from a ramp. I know we're supposed to report straight back to the Summit, but I don't care.

The moment Asher finishes her work and pulls the zipper shut on her backpack, I move.

I set off, following the scent of Mira and Saturn's blood, the others close behind me.

Much as I want to run, I hold back the urge.

My restraint doesn't pass through to Luna and Sol. They range ahead, staying in my sight. It alleviates some of the frustration that seems to pull me back like a thick rubber band.
 

If the trail continues, it means they're still alive.
 

Instead of veering back toward the Summit, the blood scent heads north, away from safety.

"They were pursued," Asher
 
says from behind me.
 

I nod. My neck and shoulders feel tight, like I've got a barbell braced on them.
 

Even now that we're off the highway and the wards are set for our section, I feel like we're trapped in a tunnel.
 

It's smart of them to move north instead of toward the Summit and the campus full of refugees, but I can't tell yet if they moved this way by choice or necessity.

I hate the silence of the city right now. The animals seem to have completely fled, and the lack of buzzing and chirping and flapping drains the atmosphere of life. It's like the glimpse into hell I got through Luna's mind. No natural sound. I wonder if the trees themselves would flee given the chance.

Half a mile up the road, the trail fizzles and stops. There's a pair of corpses in the middle of the road, one on top of the other. They smell like early rot and like Mira and Saturn. Past them, there's no trace of my friends.

At first I think I'm imagining it, but I run back and forth across Albion Street, trying to catch even a hint of them. The way Saturn screamed, he has to be bleeding like crazy.
 

I fight the urge to shriek into the air.
 

We're only a block from Nashville General Hospital. Grimly, I hurry in the direction of the entrance. Sol and Luna skirt the building with me, and we meet back with Asher and Evis at the deserted Emergency Room.
 

"They didn't come this way," I say flatly.
 

"We should go back to the Summit." Asher adjusts her backpack on her back. Even though we've been moving quickly for the better part of a half hour, she isn't even out of breath. Maybe she's one of those pregnant woman who still does interval training.

She's right, and I hate it.
 

 
I can't feel Saturn in my mind, or Miles. I try to find them, but all I catch is a blank.
 

I don't answer Asher, just turn south on the next road and head in the direction of the Summit.

The walk back seems to take forever. We encounter three small packs of hellkin, but none of them give us much trouble. Asher's blade-ball spell takes out one entire trio of harkasts before the shades and I have time to move into action.
 

Evis positively beams at her, and she gives him a tight return smile.

By the time we reach the front doors of the Summit, a couple of the other groups are returning. I see Hardy already inside, and Billy Bob and Sal's groups meet us in the parking lot. Sal's got her arm in a sling, but she looks otherwise fine. Billy Bob is grinning ear to ear and smells even worse than usual due to the golgoth slime that has hardened his flannel shirt into a shell.
 

"Party," is all he says. "We crashed it."

I want to smile at him, but I can't.

I hurry up to Hardy in the Summit lobby. "Any word from Mira?"
 

He looks at me, clearly startled. "She was in the sector right next to you. I thought you'd end up meeting up with them."

I tell him what we found, and his face goes stony. Billy Bob halts in his dissertation on the correct way to puncture golgoth boils.
 

"Gonzales? She's gone?"

My murderous look is nothing compared to the snarls that come from Sol and Luna. Frantic, I wave at them to calm down. Fuck, but this could get bad. Billy Bob looks about to piss himself, eyes darting back and forth between Luna and Sol like they're velociraptors and he can feel their long claws in his belly already.

"Not gone," I say, voice clipped. Even though he's right. Gone is the best word for it. But I'm not going to believe it yet. "Are the other groups all back?"

Hardy nods. "Everyone else is back. One team stopped at the campus, but they're on their way."

"I took the last point on Gonzales's leg," Asher says, holding her map out to Hardy. He gives her a jerky nod of approval.
 

A scrawny Mitten comes barreling down the stairs. He stops halfway down, eyes wild. I realize it's the same Mitten who remarked on my eyes earlier. Right now he doesn't seem to care if I'm human, shade, or a platypus. It's me he looks at when he stammers the news.

"J-J-Jacksonville fell," he says. "And Raleigh."

I can't help the gooseflesh that sweeps over my arms any more than I can help the stab of fear in my heart.
 

I nod at the kid, doing everything in my power to keep my fear from showing on my face. "Did you just come from Alamea?"

Even the kid's nod bobbles. "Charlotte and Asheville are preparing."

Preparing.
 

The Mitten flees back upstairs, leaving the lobby full of people in stunned silence. Somehow the words echo through the domed room, punctuated by the fading sound of his footsteps. All I can hear is the rugged breaths of a few dozen people wondering how many they have left.

Four cities in a day.
 

This is going to be a long night.

Mason is with Gryfflet and Carrick upstairs, and I go to them, trailing Evis and Luna and Sol.

One look at my face, and both Mason and Carrick embrace me at once. It's an awkward group hug, all elbows and locks of hair in my face, but it alleviates a tiny bit of the pressure in my chest.

Nana's cage is over in the corner, and she's curled up asleep. At the sound of people entering the room, though, she stretches and gives a toothy bunny yawn. I wave at her over Carrick's shoulder. Her nose twitches.

Gryfflet looks up from a pile of scrolls and herbs at the far end of the conference table. "Mira can take care of herself," he says.

Somehow it's the right thing to say. He's right.
 

"I know," I say. I need a distraction. Extricating myself from under Mason's armpit, I sit down in a chair at the center of the table. "How's it coming?"

The formerly-cabbage-faced witch looks over everything on the table with a feverish glint in his eyes, darting a sideways glance at Asher, who is still glued to my side. "Most tracking spells are pretty simple because you know what you're looking for. Finding what you don't know you lost is a whole other thing. But I'm getting there."

He blathers on for a few minutes about magic theory that may as well be astrophysics to me, but I trust he knows what he's talking about. Carrick stops him once to interject, and the two of them go back and forth for a moment, throwing around words like
unintentional catalyst
and
offset cost
. Asher jumps in there, much to their evident surprise, but they start prattling again at something she says, and soon the three of them are bouncing around ideas. They could be discussing economics instead of magic.

Carrick seems to realize that I've tuned out, because he reaches out from across the table to take my hand again. He doesn't say anything just looks at me, lips in a tight smile.
 

Something occurs to me. "I forgot to tell you," I say. Motioning to Luna and Sol, I introduce them.
 

Both Gryfflet and Carrick look so startled that for a moment Gryfflet even puts down the parchment in his hand.
 

"They spoke to you?"

"Sol," says Sol.
 

After a beat, Luna says his own name, but haltingly. "Luna." But he beams at me.

"Luna helped us before we left today," I say slowly. It dawns then why Sol said nothing before. "Sol, did your mother speak English?"
 

He looks at me, face blank, but Luna's grin grows wider.
 

Sol saw the images in my mind of what I was missing. The sun. The stars. The moon. He chose two of those words for their names.
 

And another thought: all shades choose matrilineal names.

They've not just called me their alpha; somehow I became Mama Shade.

Their grins are so bright they may as well be celestial bodies, and their minds go supernova.

"Well," I say. "Well."
 

"Your life is weird," says Gryfflet, picking up the papers again.

I don't disagree.

"Does that make them my nephews?" Evis asks suddenly.

I don't even know what to say to that.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Midnight comes and goes with no sign of Mira.
 

I leave Gryfflet's conference room — well, he kicks all of us out except Asher and Carrick— at half past one, and the others go to find food, leaving me to pace in solitude.

I don't know what takes me to the roof of the Summit, but that's where I go. The corridor outside Gryfflet's room is too quiet. Everyone's leaving him be, but I don't want to be closed in right now.
 

There's a sort of widow's walk around the Summit itself. When they do tours for the little wide-eyed norms, they bring them up here where they can peek through the dome from above. On clear days, the dome sparkles like diamonds.

Tonight it just glows softly with the lights from within. The glass is all newly replaced after Evis and his buddies smashed through it a few weeks back.
 

Looking out over the city, it feels like it's on life support. The skyscrapers downtown that used to be lit up at night are dim, only a few windows showing any sign that people were ever there at all. I don't know if the lit windows even mean anyone's there now. Chances are some folks just forgot to hit the light switches in all the panic of the evacuation.