Storm in a Teacup (37 page)

"Don't touch that."

Her fingers recoil into soft fists, straightening. "Why not?"

"Last time I saw one of those, it summoned almost thirty demons to a clearing."

Laura takes two full steps back and sits on Alice's desk. "What?" She looks down the hall at the glow of daylight. "But the sun's still up."

I nod at her. "That doesn't mean it's not dangerous. I don't know what's been done to it."

The little bubble wrapped disc sits on the floor. I pluck it off the carpet with only my thumb and forefinger like it's a dirty diaper instead of a summoning spell for a demon horde.

It could be tonight. But I don't think so. Last time, the disc glowed long before it did its flash of light trick. Now its luster is only that of shiny metal.

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Watch it till it boils."

Laura frowns. "You're not going to keep it here, are you? Isn't there someone you can give it to? Your boss — your other boss?"

"We're a bit on the outs right now. Alamea took some issue with my...methods." I phrase it as delicately as I can, but Laura didn't build this business for herself on her charms alone.
 

"They want to kill the — what did you call them? — shades?"

"Yeah. They do. I thought there was another way, they think there's only theirs. And the highway's no option for a Mediator."

"Why don't you want to kill them?"

I've left Mason out of it, and I still want to keep his name to myself, as much as that might make me the crazy lady trying to protect her demon lover from the righteous balancers. Lover.
 

I can't go into all that with Laura, but I can tell her the first reason.

"One of them saved my life. He could have taken it a thousand times by now and hasn't. He chooses to be more than a monster."

"Then some of the others might do the same."

"They already have." I drop the disc in my bag. "I've got to go...deal with this."

I turn toward the door, feeling off and unbalanced, like I'm standing on one side of a teeter-totter without seeing who's on the other side. Any shift of weight may drop me on my ass.

"Ayala."
 

Laura's voice stops me with one hand on the doorknob. I turn to look at her. Her brown eyes are glassy with shock of information or tears, but she tightens her lips together before speaking again.

"For what it's worth, I think you're doing the right thing. You'll always have your job here."

I nod my thanks. "Please don't tell anyone about this."

"I won't."

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

I call Gryfflet three times before I get home, but he doesn't answer. There aren't any other witches I trust.

The disc in my purse makes me more than nervous, like it's a grenade with the pin pulled, or a land mine that may or may not be disarmed. I can't do anything about it now.
 

An electronics store a couple blocks from my building catches my eye. I need to get Mason a phone, some way to contact him when he's off starting a shade revolution.

I stop and pick out the most simple phone possible, get it activated, and tuck it into my bag next to the disc from hell.

Mason's left me a note, saying only that he's with Saturn and will be back later. His handwriting has changed. The careful letters on the lined page are even and measured, almost like a computer font. I plug his new phone in to charge and program my number into it first thing. On a second thought, I add Gryfflet's and Laura's. In case of emergency.

I don't know how Laura would respond to getting a call from a shade, but I didn't tell her his name.

The day is bright, and the drenching humidity has faded enough for me to open the balcony door and sit outside with a sandwich for lunch.

I nibble off the crusts and work my way into the center. A couple bites later and the remainder of the sandwich looks like the bat signal.

My phone rings just as I pop the bat's head into my mouth.

I answer it with a gummy "Hello?"

The bread gets stuck in my throat, and I cough.
 

"Ayala, it's Mira." Her voice sounds tight.
 

"Hi, Mira." Water. Need water.
 

"Are you okay?"

"I just choked on a bite of sandwich, but I'm fine."

"That's not what I meant. I heard about your hearing."

That pulls another cough from my lungs. "Not something I expected a week after getting a medal, but I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" There's a note in her voice I can't place. She's getting at something.
 

Gryfflet's parting comment surfaces in my memory. He told me to take care. And he said he couldn't tell me where he was going. Why didn't I press more?

"Is there some reason I shouldn't be okay? Besides the hearing?" The line is silent. "Mira? What's going on?"

A muffled male voice sounds on her end, and I hear her shush him. "Just checking in on you," Mira says brightly. "We'll have to catch up soon, bitch."

Then she hangs up.

What the fuck is going on?

Mira didn't call to just check in. And whatever the real reason for her calling me, she couldn't risk someone else hearing her. Not just any someone. Mediators.
 

Fuck me.

There's nothing I can do about any of this just now, so I set the talisman — still wrapped in its plastic — in the center of my dining room table. I have to resist the urge to pop the bubbles.

With my luck, doing that would trigger the disc and all the demons would land in my living room.

Still no glow. Just metal wrapped in plastic. Maybe Hazel sent me the wrong one.

After twenty minutes of staring at it, I decide it's not going to do anything and settle in to watch a movie. I should have just stayed at work.

Two action films and a rom-com later, I'm still alone in my apartment as the sun's final glow deepens into green and then cerulean. Halfway through a sci-fi movie about a morph captured by aliens, I order Chinese food and miss so much of the plot that I only half watch the rest.

It's now after two, and Mason's not back.
 

He didn't say when he'd return, sure. But my stomach's twisting, and it's not my hot and sour soup or the giant spring rolls doing it.

My gut's the best alarm I've got, and it's telling me something's wrong.

I pull on my leathers and gird up with my favorite sword and my daggers. The drive to Forest Hills seems to take twice as long as usual, even though there's no traffic whatsoever. Trying to remember where I can park closest to Saturn's home clearing makes me almost miss a turn.

A flash of brown flicks in front of the car.

My foot hits the brakes, and the car skids to a stop inches away from a wide-eyed doe. It stares at me for a moment, eyes reflecting green in the headlights, then calmly steps into the ditch on the left side of the road.

I try to retrieve my heart from my esophagus.

The good news is that if the deer are plotting the murder of motorists, there aren't any demons in a mile radius. I don't know if that goes for Saturn or not. I find the tiny pull-off not far from where he lives and set off in the direction I remember.

The woods are quiet, but not silent. The scurry of rodents, the creak of the crickets, the whiny rattle of the cicadas — all band together in a muted chorus. Still no demons.
 

I think I'm getting close to where Saturn stays. I have to risk it, or I'll never find him out here. "Saturn? It's Ayala. Are you out there?"

Standing still makes me nervous, so I keep walking in the same direction. After another thirty steps, I repeat myself.

"You shouldn't be here." Whirling to my left, Saturn appears from behind a tree, naked as a jaybird.
 

"I'm looking for Mason."
 

"He left two hours ago."

"Did he say he was going somewhere else?"

Saturn cocks his head. "You are worried about him."

"I haven't seen him since this morning."

"He didn't say where he was going, but I assumed he was going home. Like I said. Two hours ago."

"You're not worried."

"Mason isn't in any danger from most things."

"It's not most things I'm worried about."

Mason isn't home when I return.
 

My apartment is cool and empty. My bed is neat and unrumpled, just as I made it this morning. My nerves are none of those things.

Okay. Saturn said he wasn't sure where Mason was going. He just thought Mason was heading home. Home.
 

It strikes me that this is the first time I've acknowledged that both Mason and Saturn consider my apartment Mason's home.

That I consider my apartment Mason's home.

I crawl into an empty bed for the first time since Mason first appeared, but I can't sleep in it. I don't even bother to get into my pajamas.

At seven o'clock, I call Gregor.

He answers with a sleepy grunt. "What do you want, Storme? Do you know what time it is?"

"Noon."

"Bullshit. What do you want?"

"I want to know what's going on." Say, kill any new shades tonight? Like my live-in lover? Fuck.

"You've got a hearing in a couple weeks."

"I know that. Everyone I've seen is acting weirder than that."

"I don't know what to tell you. You disappointed a lot of people." His tone makes it clear that he's one of them, and I scowl even though he can't see me.

"If there was any chance you were killing beings who had free will and as many odds of choosing to live peacefully as you do, would you still want them all slaughtered?"

"I knew this had clouded your judgment. Whatever they've told you is a lie. They're killers, Ayala."

"Yeah, well so are we. Whether it's right or wrong depends on what side of the sword you're on."

"I'm not having this conversation. You'll have your hearing, and the Summit will decide your punishment."

Good to know they've already made up their minds that I'll be punished.

This time I hang up before Gregor can.

He doesn't try to call back.

I pull myself out of bed at half past eight. I can survive on little amounts of sleep, but my eyes feel like someone dumped a sand dune under the lids. Seeing Mason's new, untouched phone still plugged into the charger in the kitchen makes them prickle, and the tears sting all the more for my eyeballs' dryness.

I've never felt this cut off from everything.

There's a knock at door just as I hit the brew button on my coffee pot.

It's Gryfflet, and he holds up a bag of bagels and a cardboard drink holder with two giant-sized coffees.

I open the door, but stand in the doorway. "It's early, Gryfflet."

"You think I don't know that?" He yawns as if to prove his point. "Hence the coffee. Can I come in?"

Stepping aside, he shuffles in and this time takes off his shoes.
 

"Where can I put this?"

"Kitchen."

"Look," he says. "I felt bad about the way I left the other day. You're in a rough spot, and I was bitchy."

"You came over three hours before your normal wake-up time just to say you're sorry?"

"I wanted to come when only humans would be up to see me here."

A flush rushes through my cheeks. That shameful to be seen being nice to me, eh? Word must get around quick.

"Which one is mine?" I motion at the coffees.

"They're both yours." Gryfflet grins. "I already chugged mine in the car."

I shrug and pick one at random, taking an experimental sip. "Vanilla. Good choice. Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

Gryfflet opens the bag and pulls out a bagel, handing it to me. "Everyone's pretty nervous right now."

"You working full time with the Summit these days?"

"They pay well. And the hours sure beat working every night show at The Hole."

"Fair enough. But you didn't answer my question." The coffee's cool enough not to burn the roof off my mouth. Gods, I'm sleepy. I don't think I closed my eyes for more time than it takes to blink all night. I flick off the travel lid and gulp down half the coffee.