Taken By Storm (28 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Everybody offers to come with me except Mira, and I turn everyone down to ask her.
 

Carrick and Mason can put their heads together on this idea of the original Summit's tracking spell in case this sketchy lead doesn't pan out, Jax can keep killing zombies, and I'm too afraid to risk Evis.
 

He looks back and forth between me and Mira, and at first I think he's going to protest and insist on coming along. Instead he just kisses me on the cheek, which is a first.
 

When I knock on the door and tell her what's up, Mira's ready immediately. We put Nana back in her cage, which I hate doing. Bunnies should be allowed to be bunnies, but I don't want anything to happen to her if someone accidentally leaves the door open and she runs out into the woods.

Mason hasn't even asked about her, and for some reason, that makes me sadder than I think it should.

Granted, he's been otherwise occupied.

This lead on Gregor isn't really near me at all; it's down in Burkesville, which is all the way over on the other side of Bowling Green. Aside from being in the same state as I am, technically it's closer to Nashville.

Mira and I hop in the car and start driving. She's quieter than usual. I miss her swearing.

"You ready for this if it's actually Gregor?" I ask.

"Born ready."

Her answer is the equivalent of getting a text message response of
k
.

"Are you sure you're all right?" I don't know why this is bothering me so much, but her quietness jangles me.
 

"I just want all this over with," she says.
 

"Hopefully this will be a good first step." I turn the car down a state road.
 

It's only about three in the afternoon, and with another hour and a half before sunset, I shouldn't have to worry about demons on the road. Somebody's gone and changed the rules, though. Instead of keeping my eyes peeled for death-wish deer, I'm hoping a blitz demon doesn't come screeching out of the underbrush and flip the car.

The road winds around through the hills and trees. Neither Mira nor I have put on any music.
 

"Do you think Mason came back because he wants a relationship with you?" The question comes so suddenly that I have to wait for my brain to process it.

"I don't know," I answer slowly. "If he did…"

I don't want to think about that right now.
 

Silence takes over the car again. I don't like it.

"I don't really care if he did or not," I say. Mira's head turns quickly my way. She waits for me to continue. "He packed up and took off. Left me a bunny and a six word note. What does any sane person even do with that?"

Mira cautiously opens her mouth, then shuts it again.

We pass a road sign so worn that it's illegible. I frown at it.

"He really hurt you." It's not a question.

"Well. Yeah." I don't think it could have been anything else. Haltingly, I go on. "I loved him. He loved me. And he left. All those romance novels Carrick reads — that never happens. If they love you, they're supposed to stay."

It sounds so childish when I say it out loud. Even I know relationships aren't that simple, and I've had a whole three of them. One boyfriend I gave up on after six months, a girlfriend who gave up on me (for good reason), and then Mason.

"Do you still love him?" For some reason, Mira's voice seems to come from far away, like she's talking from outside the car.
 

Her question stops my train of thought about derailed relationships. "I don't know if I can answer that."

"Oh."

"As simple as I wish everything was, it's not. All I know is that him coming back is fucking with my head." Saying it out loud helps. It's true. What in all six and a half hells gives him the right to swoop back in here and turn up on my balcony? I'm frowning hard enough to make my forehead tired. "I don't fucking know, Mira. I did love him. A lot. It wasn't just that he saved my life, but we grew to trust each other."

"And he broke your trust when he left." Somehow, she sees right to the core of it.

"Yeah. He broke my trust. I think it would have been better if there were somebody else or something. A concrete reason I wasn't enough. That there was someone better for him."

"Maybe there's someone better for you."
 

Startled, I look at her. Love isn't one of the things I've ever prioritized. It just sort of…happened. Or I ran screaming away from it when Ben Wheedle wouldn't stop pestering me.

"Maybe, I guess." Then I give her a wry grin. "Maybe I'll find out when this is all over."

I expect her to roll her eyes at my choice of words after our talk before, but instead she just turns to me and smiles.

We roll up on the address Alamea gave me, and I already don't want to go in.

There's just something about a burned out brick building that just screams
you're gonna die in here.

It's the only edifice within a half a mile, and I think they forgot the glowing neon signs that blaze IT'S A TRAP whilst playing ominous music from a PA system. We're parked at a convenience store, and there's a stretch of field and trees that leads to the building we're aiming for. It'll at least allow us to sneak up from behind the murder house.

"Is there an ejector seat on this mission?" I ask Mira as she's strapping on her swords.
 

"I don't think so. We're supposed to see it through at least, Storme. Get your shit together."

"I've got a flamethrower, does that count?"

"I'll allow it." She winks, seemingly back to her old self.

I strap Lucy onto my back, threading the tube through the sleeve of my shirt. We tromp through the soggy grasses. At least the fact that they're half mush negates some of the sound, an advantage entirely negated by the squelching of our boots in the sponge-like ground.

It's a relief to be out with Mira again. She's one of the few people I know will have my back no matter what.
 

We approach the brick building from the back. There's a dim light inside, and for a moment I almost say
aw, hells no
and bail, thinking it's one of the hellkin-summoning discs. But upon closer inspection, it's a golden glow, not a white one. Like a lantern.
 

"Someone's definitely in there." Mira pulls a small pair of binoculars from her belt and peeks through them. "There's a small table with a kerosene lantern on it. That's it."

Score one for me, but who uses kerosene these days?

There's a rickety door hanging by two of its three hinges on the north side of the building. The door swings open, and Gryfflet Asberry walks out.

"Oh, fuck you." I draw my swords, stalking toward him. "You have got to be
kidding me
."
 

"Hello to you too, Ayala." Gryfflet's face has gotten too lean for me to call it cabbage-y anymore, which is a pity because I want to serve him up boiled with some pork roast and potatoes.
 

"If you're about to sic a shit ton of demons on me, I am going to cut off your face and feed it to a really dickish goat I know."
 

Mira comes up beside me, her own blades drawn, looking nonplussed. She knows how much I hate Gryfflet and why.

"I didn't think you'd come if Alamea told you I was going to be here." He looks back and forth between me and Mira. "You two thought you could take on Gregor alone?"

"Oh,
fuck you
." Saying it again is even more satisfying. "Why can't you ever act like a normal motherfucking human being?"

"You mean like you?" He smirks at my eyes.

I'm going to kill him. Forget feeding his face to the goat. If he keeps talking, I'm going to eat him myself.

"Witch, you are outnumbered and wasting precious patience." Count on Mira. "Ayala's got this whole thing about not killing norms, but I'm more progressive than she is."

Gryfflet's face may have lost its flab, but it goes a whiter shade of pale.

I give her a relieved look.
 

"Start talking, Gryfflet." I poke him in the shoulder with my sword. Not hard enough to break skin, but it does leave a tiny tear in his t-shirt.
 

He flinches. If this was Alamea's idea, she is never going to hear the end of it.

"Alamea wanted you to talk to me, because she knows I figured out the truth."

She's never hearing the end of it.

"What elusive sacred truth is this?" I think I've had enough everything for the day. Maybe for the decade.

Gryfflet points to the building. "Come inside."

"Aw, hells no," says Mira, stealing my line. "Here, come inside my Blair Witch habitat and let me have you stand in the corner while I whisper all the secrets of the universe to you."

This is why I brought her along.

"Look, I'm not going to hurt you." Gryfflet's starting to look agitated. "I've got wards around the place, and I'd rather not be outside of them for too long."

"Are you living here?" I ask him.
 

My question must startle him, because he stops twitching for a moment. "Yes."

"Why?" He had a pretty cushy set up at the Summit before he pulled a Houdini.
 

"It's part of what I have to say. If you just come inside, I'll tell you."

"Gryfflet, the last time I went into a house to follow a lead, I watched a good friend get blown up and almost died myself. Spill something useful, and I'll consider following you into your abandoned house."

"Okay," he says. He licks his lips, looking around so nervously that I realize his opening act of smirking and sashaying at me like I couldn't beat Gregor in a fight was just that — an act. Either that or hordes of hellkin are about to explode out of the treeline and eat us all.

They don't.

"There's something you need to know about how our world works," he says. "And why you Mediators are here."

"Get. On. With. It."
 

Mira keeps looking to the tree line like she's expecting the same thing I am, to see a legion heading our way.

"Okay. There are six hells, right? Six hells dimensions."

"I guess." We always say
six and a half hells
, but whatever. In theology classes at the Summit compound, all the little Mittens learn about the six hells.
 

"Well, there weren't always six. There used to just be one."

Mira blinks at Gryfflet. "That's nice, but there are six now, so will you get to the point?"

"We don't need all the back story. Just tell me what you dragged me out here to tell me." He has to know I'm the last person who wanted to see his face, so he must be really desperate. A nervous tingle zigzags up my back.

"There are six hells. Each one didn't start out as a hell. It started out as regular dimension, like ours."

"Like ours." Mira repeats the words, and they sound like marbles in her mouth.

What he's saying dawns on me, and Mira makes a slightly strangled sound.

"Six and a half hells," I say.

Gryfflet Asberry nods. "We're the half. We're next."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

"What the ever-loving fuckles do you mean, we're next?" Mira asks.
 

"The balance is upset," I say, hating how stupid it sounds, like the balance got its delicate fee-fees hurt and is responding by punting all of us into a hungry horde's belly to get back at us.
 

Gryfflet nods, looking around. "Can we go inside now?"

We follow him into the building, where he closes the door and boards up the windows.
 

"I only left that open so you could see in. I didn't want to spook you."

This Gryfflet reminds me of the person I first met at the Hole in Nashville, working the soundboards and hating his life. Arrogant, Summit-flouncing Gryfflet was not my fave. Maybe all it took was the threat of a hell dimension dropping on his head to let the air out of him.

There isn't really anywhere to sit, but Gryfflet offers us a pair of rolled up sleeping bags.
 

"Expecting company?" I ask.