Eye of the Storm (25 page)

"The first demon waves came in much as the other cities have experienced," she says. "They struck all at once, all over the city. San Diego didn't have the kind of evacuation full scale that we did. This part of the country got those early influxes of hellkin a lot more with the cloud cover. Even so, they set up ward beacons all over the city in blocks scattered at intervals, so if there was an invasion, they'd know within a couple blocks of where each invading group was. The San Diego Summit was able to push back the first two waves that way, but with the third their numbers fell and the norms who tried to bolster them fell with them. The fourth and final wave took them out, and the city's been declared overrun."

"Any survivors?" Mira asks.
 

It's a strange question after the other cities have been decimated completely.

"It's unlikely." Alamea puts her feet on the floor and leans forward, elbows on her knees like she's trying not to pass out. Maybe she is.

"When was the last time you slept?" I ask her.

Her lack of answer is answer enough.
 

Alarmed, I make a move toward the desk. "You need to sleep. Now."

Asher and Billy Bob both look at me like I'm sprouting fungus out of my ears, and I glare at them both.
 

Alamea starts to shake her head, but I go to her and put a hand on her forehead.
 

"You're all clammy. How long has it been? Days?" This is bad on so many levels. She's our leader, and if she can barely sit up straight, there's no way she's fighting so much as a half-grown imp. "Good gods, Alamea."

"I'll sleep when this is over."

"You're going to sleep now," I say. A flash of fear goes across her face, and suddenly I understand.

She's not just keeping her eyes propped open because she thinks an attack from the hellkin could come any moment. She's afraid to sleep because she's not sure she's safe even here at the gods damned Summit.

"Get the shades," I say to Mira.

She gives me a strange look, but she goes.

There's a cot covered in supplies in the corner of Alamea's office. It's clear she hasn't been using it for sleeping.
 

Asher opens her mouth, and I turn to stamp out any protest, but instead she just says, "I'll put up some wards on the door."

"I'll keep watch outside," says Billy Bob.
 

Alamea starts to shake her head.
 

"No," I say. "You're going to sleep. You're going to have to do it with seven shades sharing your office, but they'll make sure you're safe, and it'll serve the additional purpose of keeping them a bit safer because I'm willing to bet that whoever wants them dead isn't quite willing to risk outright chaos if they kill you too. Look on your much-needed nap as a service to them if you have to."

That gets a half smile out of her. Asher and I clear the cot of papers and books and weapons. There's even a pillow buried under all that shit.
 

Ten minutes later, she's surrounded by shades and fast asleep.
 

Naturally, that's when I see smoke rising from the direction of Vanderbilt.

"Fuck," Mira says.
 

As usual, I agree.

Billy Bob is camped outside Alamea's office as he promised, but Asher comes with us as we hurry down the stairs to the lobby. How she manages the stairs that quickly with her bulging belly, I don't know. The area is quiet in the early hour, but there are a pair of Mittens at the front desk looking like they both want to cry.
 

I don't really blame them. I'm belting on sword belts that aren't mine, and Mira does the same, both of us grabbing equipment from the stashes around the edges of the lobby.
 

"Any idea what's happening?" I ask the Mittens.

"Hardy's over there, but it doesn't look good." The Mediator-in-Training who speaks can only be about fifteen, and his voice has barely settled into the lower registers.
 

"Nothing looks good right now," Mira mutters.

That assessment grows more relevant the closer we get to Vanderbilt. There are norms running around, and some are crying. Smoke billows from one of the dorms. I see a small shape run by an upstairs window, lit by the glow of fire.

"Imps," Mira says. "Fuck. Would imps trigger the wards?"

I look up, horror filling me faster than that smoke will fill a room, remembering what we were told when we got into the city. "Not imps. Kids."
 

Hardy told us they were putting the kids in the dorm and the parents and other adults would sleep outside in tents. Now the dorm's on fire.
 

I take off running for the building. Sure enough, at the entrance, people are dragging and carrying children out the doors.
 

"Stay down here," I tell Mira, pointing up at the window above us. "If I need to toss kids out a second story window to save them, I will."

She stays, and I go, closing the distance to the door.
 

There are several adults, and I point to one at random. "Where's the highest risk? What's the structural safety like?"

The woman starts at the sight of me, but she recovers quickly. "Third floor seems to be where the fire started. It's not contained, but so far most of the kids are out of there. It's the second floor where a lot of them were still sleeping."
 

I don't know how long the third floor can burn before things start to collapse. I run into the building and head for the stairs. And look over to see Mira.
 

"The norms are on kid-catching duty. You and I are stronger and faster and we can carry more of them at once." She's not wrong.
 

We both leap up the stairs. "You take the second floor," I say. "I'm going up to the third to see if any kids are still up there."

She nods, the movement tight and jerky. I take the stairs up four at a time, thankful the building only has three floors.
 

"Anybody up here?" I bellow the question into the hall. The roar of the fire is audible from where I stand, down at the far right end of the corridor. I run toward it.
 

"I'm here to help! Is anyone here?" I try to raise the volume as I repeat those two sentences.
 

"Help!" I hear a cry ahead of me, behind a closed door.

I reach it in seconds and feel the door. It's cool to the touch. "Are you in there?"
 

"Yeah!" It's a small voice, scared and tinny. "I can't open the door!"

"Get away from it! Tell me when you're away."

"I'm away!" The cry is almost a wail, as if the child thinks I'm going to leave them there.
 

My kick blows the door off its hinges, and the kid shrieks.

"It's okay," I say. The room is quickly filling with smoke, and I grab the kid. "Are you alone in here?"

Her hair's in pigtails and stuck to her forehead with sweat. "I'm alone."

"Can you run?"
 

She nods, her sweaty little face against my cheek.

I put her down in the hallway and point. "Go out that way. I need to see if there are any more kids down here."

"There are," she says. She points. "Alexis and Joachim are that way. I think they're dead. I heard Joachim yelling, and then he stopped."

Fuck nuggets. "Which door?"

She points again, past the curtain of smoke.
 

"Go on. I'll find them."

She runs down the hall. I run in the opposite direction. "Alexis! Joachim!" I shout the names into the increasing din of the fire.
 

No one answers, and I hope the little girl was wrong and that they're not dead. Most of the doors are open, and I check each room I pass for any children. None. It should fill me with relief, but each room I pass that doesn't contain Alexis or Joachim makes my heart sink a little more. My lungs burn with the smoke inhalation, and the fire has engulfed the end of the hall already.
 

I almost miss the muffled crying.
 

It's not coming from a dorm room, but a bathroom. Without my enhanced hearing, I would have missed it.

"Alexis? Joachim?" I scream the names into the bathroom.

"Here, I'm here!"
 

I can't tell if it's Alexis or Joachim, but I don't care. I run into the bathroom and stumble as I hear something break away at the end of the corridor. The building's starting to come down.

"I can't see you, kid, you've got to come out!"
 

The door of one of the bathroom stalls past the urinals wags, and I make for it. There's a maybe nine-year-old kid on the toilet, not using it, but sitting on it. On the floor in front of him is the other kid.
 

I scoop up the unconscious kid in one arm and the conscious one in the other. "Hold on to me," I tell him.
 

There's another crumbling noise and a fiercely loud crack from the end of the corridor, followed by a
whoosh
of air that almost makes me stumble again. The outer wall must have broken away.
 

The influx of air hasn't helped us. Fire licks down the corridor toward us, and I grab each kid tighter and run back the way I came. The conscious kid screams, probably more at my speed than the heat blasting at our backs.
 

I don't care if I scare them. I leap down the stairs, hitting the landing hard and skidding forward on my knee. Taking the next flight the same way, the kid keeps screaming.
 

The remaining flights I run down, and finally a gust of stale outside wind reaches my nose. We barrel out of the residence hall and onto the dying grass of the quad. I hear a yell go up around us, and I turn in time to see a fire truck come squealing around the corner. There's no sirens. No need for them. Someone managed to get to the fire department and back. I fall onto my knees on the grass as the first streams of water hit the building, and the kids both tumble out of my arms.
 

"We need a doctor!" I don't know if there is one handy. My voice sounds like it's gone through a wood chipper. The night air tightens the skin of my face, and a cold sweat breaks out on my forehead.

Someone comes rushing over and picks up the unconscious child, bundling them away.

The kid who was sitting on the toilet takes a gulping whoop of air and looks at me, eyes full of terror.

"Sorry for the landing, kid," I say hoarsely.
 

He stares at me. I don't expect a thanks — I probably made the whole fire trauma thing worse by pulling a mutant near-flight routine on the way out of the building, but I don't really care right now. I give the kid a wan smile, and he dashes away.

Looking around for Mira, I spot her with a gaggle of norms and a couple Mediators. She sees me at the same time and makes a dash for me. "Any more kids missing?" I ask her.

"Those were the last ones," she says. "I got the second floor cleared."

She looks at me, easing to her knees in front of me. "Your face is bright red."

"Hazards of paleness," I rasp. "Doesn't matter if it's fire or the sun, apparently."

I know I just woke up not long ago, but I feel weary to my marrow.
 

"How did this happen?"
 

Mira closes her lips, and I can tell she doesn't really want to answer.
 

"Incense," she says, and from the twitch at the corners of her eyes, it's taking everything in her reserves of self control not to roll them.
 

"Incense."

"One of the kids found some matches and some sticks of incense in the dorm room."

I look at her, and if my face looks half as blank as it feels, someone could replace it with another face and I wouldn't notice.
 

Around me, frantic parents are still holding onto their children like they snatched them back from the jaws of death itself. The gushing rush of water sizzles as it drowns the flames.
 

Mira and I both look at each other, and I know we're both remembering how Gregor burned down her house just a couple weeks ago.
 

I'm so used to everything being demons' fault that I forget people can die because of a few matches and a stick of incense.
 

I let Mira drag me to my feet and don't pull my hand away when she keeps holding it.
 

"San Diego just got wiped out," I say, and someone looks up, startled. I give him a tight nod. "San Diego is gone, and we almost lost the remaining children of Nashville because of some incense."

The man who jumped at my words is staring at me, and I look at him.
 

"Do me a favor," I say. He gapes at me. "Add fire safety to the list of things you're teaching people."