Taken By Storm (26 page)

I'm babbling. I never babble like this. Now I'm nervous.

"It's just…we're not even in Nashville. If Gregor makes a move, how are we going to even know?"

Somehow I don't think that's her real concern, but I go with it. "He won't yet. He'll lay low for now. I just broadcast his name all over the state."

"I hope you're right. I don't want to miss our chance."

"You bored, Gonzales?"

"
Psht
, never."

After that, we both manage to drift off.
 

When we get up the next morning, Ripper has run out to the store and bought eggs and tortillas enough to make a huge breakfast burritos. None of us have turned on the TV since we got back last night, so it comes as a surprise when a now-alert Alamea tells us between giant bites of burrito that my little news spot went national.

And an even bigger surprise when she tells me she helped make that happen.
 

"I called a conference with the other Summit leaders. They thought it would be a good idea to remind everyone that we share a common goal." She gives me a dry look. "I think I perhaps owe you a retroactive apology for any jabs I took at you over your previous place of employment."

"Apology accepted," I say absently. National coverage could work for us with Stage Three. "If you have that kind of pull, how would you feel about plastering Gregor's face all over the country?"

Her eyes widen. "Interesting." She ponders that for a moment. "Would you be open to a bit of constructive criticism of that plan?"

Carrick looks up from his bowl of raw venison with an amused smirk.
 

"I've known Gregor most of my life. If you do that, he'll dig himself so deep underground he might end up in the Earth's core. But your story went national, and your ambiguous little smile is going to haunt him every time he closes his eyes." Alamea drinks half her orange juice in one gulp.
 

"That was sort of the point," says Mira.

"I figured as much." Alamea leans back in her chair, massaging the quad on her right leg. "If you go completely silent, he will go completely crazy. He'll be looking over his shoulder every time he hears a noise. Paranoid Gregor is sloppy. He's most dangerous when he thinks he's safe, which works well for us. And you just sent a loud, clear message to him that he's anything but safe right now."

I look at Mira, then around the table at the others. Gods, but this kitchen is crowded. I'm starting to feel claustrophobic, and from the way the shades are all intermittently still as stones and twitchy, I don't think I'm the only one.

"What do you all think?" I ask.

"You're running a democracy?" Alamea asks, her voice far more amused than I like.
 

"I trust their judgement," I tell her. "They deserve at least that much from me after all the shit they've gone through with me."

"I think it makes sense, based on what I observed of Gregor," Carrick says. "Beside Alamea, I believe I spent the most time working with him. He's an obsessive planner, and he prefers to leave nothing to chance. You just did two extremely unpredictable things. He can't predict what you're going to do next, so it would probably be best to let him stew."

Jax is over on the couch, not eating his breakfast, but he's turned on the television on low.

"I think another unpredictable thing just happened," he rasps. He points at the TV and turns up the volume.

SHADE BODIES FOUND MUTILATED IN THREE CITIES.

The headline is bolded at the bottom of the screen.
 

"Why is this news?" No one has cared about shade deaths before, why now?

Mira's on her phone, scrolling through news alerts with one long finger. "Because demons did it. And left them in public places."

She holds out her phone. News or not, the media aren't showing shades the same respect they would any other brand of human. The picture on her screen is gruesome.
Mutilated
doesn't cover it. The shade on the screen is only a few ticks this side of splatted. Except the head.

"That's —" My voice drops off, and Carrick immediately grabs his phone and starts dialing.

Miles and Saturn, who have hung back for the past several days, are at my side in an instant.
 

"Lawlor," Saturn says.
 

Jax points at the television with a shaking hand. "And Beex."

These aren't just any shades. These are our shades.

I look at Carrick, who has his phone pressed to his ear. I know he understands what's happening. He's the only survivor of his generation.

"They're making room for version 2.0," I say.
 

I don't have to say it twice. Everyone knows it's true.
 

"Well," says Alamea, "now we've got martyrs."

I stare at her, open-mouthed. My throat feels thick and tight with grief. Carrick is still hanging up and dialing different numbers. A couple times he murmurs into
 
the phone, nods, and hangs up.

"Who was the other one?" I ask, unable to look at Alamea.

"Hux," says Carrick. "And Hayn. Harkan said they were together when they got hit."

All of us look at Jax. Evis comes up behind me and puts his hand on my shoulder.

"Last night," I say. "They were aiming for you guys. Specifically."

"We got lucky." Saturn and Miles exchange a long look. Only in my world is pulling barbed quills out of each other's hides lucky.

I feel like every molecule in my body is going to fly apart.

Alamea's phone rings. I'm sure her mailbox is full by now. Everyone who has her number has probably called her, and already this morning she's ignored three calls. But this one, she snatches up.

"Talk."
 

Whoever's on the other end of the line must be very soft-spoken, because I can't understand a word. Alamea's dark skin might hide the fury mine would show with red blotches, but Alamea's eyes become twin maces, and I don't want to be in the way when she decides to unleash.
 

"I'll get back to Nashville. Call the others."

 
She hangs up, looking like she might go supernova or burst into a thousand pieces right in front of me.
 

"This isn't confirmed," she says, but from her voice she more wants to believe it's false than actually does. "That was the leader of the Washington D.C. Summit. He said there's been demon sightings. Today. In downtown D.C."

"Today," I say blankly. "Like this morning? Before sunrise?"

"I mean an hour ago. The sun's been up since eight something." She doesn't look as shocked as she should.
 

"Is this some sort of…possible thing?" Mira's gripping her breakfast burrito tight enough that eggs are blubbing out the end of it.

"It's happened once before that I've seen." Alamea's voice goes soft, and I know exactly what she's referring to.

"Mississippi," I say. She nods.

I look outside, where rain is still falling. It's December, and no snow has been seen yet. Or sun. I can't remember the last time I saw the sun.

"Has anyone been paying attention to the weather?" I ask.
 

"Most of the country has been under cloud cover for the past two weeks." Alamea looks pleased that I noticed, though I'm not sure pleased is a word any of us really feel right now. Again I hear her say,
now we have martyrs
and I can't help but shudder.

"You're saying the hellkin can leave their little hells-holes in broad daylight and no one ever thought that was worth mentioning when it's, oh, I don't know, our lifelong job to kill those things?" Mira's volume raises until she's almost yelling.

"Not in broad daylight. And they won't, if there's even a chance the sun will find them." Carrick puts his phone down on the counter and drums his fingers against the edge. "But this means they know the sun isn't coming out."

"Something's tipped the balance, hard." I look at him. "It has to be these new shades. There's nothing else that's shifted…"

I trail off, my back suddenly itchy.

"Except me," I say.
 

"It's not you." Alamea and Carrick say it at the same time and so definitively that both their heads snap around to look at each other.
 

Alamea gives Carrick a wry smile, then turns to me.

"It's not you, Storme. It's the shades. Version 2.0, as I think you said. They're tethered too tightly to the hells-dimensions." She flexes her broken ankle under the table. "I need to get back to Nashville. I'm not going to the Summit, but I have trusted people there. You have my number."

Pulling her chair out, she unsplints her ankle and rolls it around. I stare at her. She heals like me.

She catches me looking and smiles again. "Leader perk. The rest of the benefits are horrid. Now," she says. "Anyone care to join me?"

She looks at Miles and Saturn. They look back.

"You boys look like you can handle yourselves."

Alamea takes Miles, Saturn, and — to my surprise — Devon and Ripper back with her to Nashville. They all assure me they'll check in often, but I'm not sure how much they'll be able to.
 

Saturn promises he'll gather as many of the remaining shades as he can. I think aside from the ones in the cabin, there are five more from his generation.
 

The rest are now dead.

The cabin is now the five of us. Carrick, Evis, Jax, Mira, and me. As claustrophobic as I was feeling with it full of so many people, now that they're gone, it feels empty.

Every time someone leaves lately I can't help but fear I won't see them again.
 

Carrick and Evis go to hunt, promising to stay within the wards, and Jax spends the day playing shooters.

I wish I knew what to be doing. I go into my room to give Nana some time to run around, and Mira follows me.
 

"Watching Jax play is giving me a headache. I can only watch the TV if I'm the one with the controller." She sits down on the bed and reaches down to scratch Nana between the ears when she hops out of the cage.

"You can play with him if you want. Evis does."

I sit down at the foot of the bed, then lie back. I don't even think I can process everything that's happening right now. It feels like I'm trying to explain a black hole while looking at the sun through a straw.

"Nah," Mira says. "It's quiet in here."

She lies back next to me, turning her head so she can see me.

I don't say anything for a minute. There are words in my chest that I want to get out, but I don't know how to make them not hurt. I don't think it's possible. I'm not sure there's anything scarier than telling another person how you really feel about something this big. "I'm afraid I'm going to lose them all."

Their faces blur in my mind, and I can't tell if it's my memory or if I'm tearing up.

"I know," says Mira. "I almost told Saturn not to go."

"Think he would have listened?"

She pauses, looking at a point somewhere beyond my nose. "I don't know. Maybe."

"I wish I could see the future." On second thought, no I don't.
 

Mira seems to sense that I already regret those words. "It's probably better this way, but that doesn't mean it doesn't suck donkey balls."

"I keep catching myself thinking stuff like
when this is all over
. But I don't know if it's ever over. Or if it is over someday, it'll probably be long after we're both dead."

There's something in her face that I can't read. "Yeah, you're probably right. We always knew we probably got the truncated version of life, but it's always a surprise when the end draws nigh, eh?"

In spite of her light tone, I think she means it. "What have I done, really?" Nana wuffles at my dangling foot, then hops away. "I mean, I don't know if I've ever done anything that's actually for me, or if anything I have was ever really mine."

Mira rolls over on her side, and her eyes meet mine. She reaches out and brushes a stray hair off my face. The gesture surprises me, both in its suddenness and in the small shiver that goes through me. But a second later, her hand is gone, and I'm not even sure if it really happened.

"How about this," she says. "If it so happens that this does end and we're able to have a life outside of this gods-forsaken hells-hole of a territory, we say fuck the sacred calling and go somewhere we've never been. Together."

I look at her. She's not fucking with me; she means it. "You've got yourself a deal."

She smiles, a rare true smile. My phone buzzes in my pocket.
 

I flinch instinctively, pulling it out. I might be hallucinating, but I think Mira's blushing.

I look at who's calling.

Any thought of what might happen in the future vanishes as the past pops up to stare me right in the face.

It's Mason.