Any Port in a Storm (19 page)

"Got another job coming up, and it could get rough," he says. "I just wanted to give you a bit of a warning."

To my surprise, he comes to stand beside me and places his large, square hand on my shoulder. It might be the first time in my life he's shown any affection for me whatsoever.
 

"Rough how?"
 

"Hells worshippers. Trying to pin down where exactly, but they're about to become lunch for a horde, and its our job to make sure that doesn't happen."

A horde. That sounds not fun. "I guess the norms are easier to track than the hellkin."

"They are that. As soon as we get them figured, I'll send up a flare. Should be within the next couple days."

Goody. I'm about to lose another weekend. It's a stupid thing to get plaintive about when a year from now, Nashville might all look like the Opry, but I could use a break. Even a half a day where something isn't going in the shitter.

"Just let me know," I say, turning to walk back to my car.

"Storme," he says.

"Yep." I crane my head to look at him.

"Best put on your big girl britches for this one."

"All I've got are big girl britches, boy." I flip him off as I walk away.

There's someone curled up in front of my door when I get home.
 

At the sound of my footsteps, the lump unfolds into Mira. Her eyes are red, and her usually healthy skin looks sallow and pale.
 

She gets to her feet as I approach, and I hurry to reach her in case she decides to fall or swoon or something else suitably un-Mira-like.

"You look like you took a stroll through the hells. Who squashed your bunny?" I cringe the moment the words leave my mouth, saying a mental apology to Nana, who I can hear scrabbling at the tile on the other side of the door.
 

Mira looks around and shakes her head.
 

I get the hint. I put my foot at the base of the door to ward off any chance of escapee rabbit, and Mira and I slide through into my apartment. Locking the door behind us, I motion to the living room. "You go sit. I'll get you something to drink."

"Just water."

"Are you sick?"

She scowls at me. "Fuck off."

"Hey, you're in my house." I bring her a cup of water, and she takes it. "What's with the paranoia? Spill."

I realize that's probably not the best command to give someone holding a full cup of liquid, but she's clearly not up to catching that foible right now.

"Carrick's not here, right?"

"He and the shades are off rescuing puppies from crazed murderers."

"Thoughtful." Mira sets the cup down half empty on the table and turns toward me, her knee almost touching mine. She reaches in her pocket and pulls out a smushed, folded piece of paper. "I found this on my gods damned pillow."

I take it from her. "Please tell me you didn't find it when you woke up."

"Oh hells no. I found it on my way to bed."

I unfold the paper and recognize Saturn's hand almost immediately. He writes more nicely than Mason did, but it still makes me a bit heartsick. Mason's final note to me is in my bedside table. I don't let myself look at it anymore. But this is no love note.

I'm sorry. Be careful. The shades are being used.

Then at the very bottom as if he thought it would somehow be less noticeable:
I miss you.

"These critters read too many romance novels," I mutter.

"He doesn't miss me that way," she says.

Nana scuttles around my feet, nudging a ball filled with baby carrots against the sofa. With her cheek pinned up against me, I can feel her little fuzzy mouth worrying at the stub of carrot poking out of the ball. I reach down to pet her, and she twitches until she realizes I'm not trying to steal her carrot.

"You know what this sounds like, right?" she says.

"Like he's warning us about the shades. Or about who's controlling the shades." Either way, it's not good news. "Could be he's talking about Carrick. Or Gregor. Or Alamea. Hells, he could be talking about me."

Both of us fall silent. Part of me hopes she'll defend one of them, but she doesn't say anything else for a minute.

"He's not talking about you."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

Helpful.

"You wanna hang out here for a while? We can order pizza."

Mira starts reaching for her phone before I finish talking, and I hand her the remote.
 

I get up and go to my room to change, hearing the sound of gunfire on the speakers before I get to my door. I feel like I'm walking a tightrope of razor wire and there's nothing but demons under my feet. One of these days I'm going to slip. Or lose my toes.

Normally I'd be excited for the weekend, but this time all I see in front of me is a horde of hellkin. Ain't I the lucky one.

I wish Mason were here.
 

When Mira finally falls asleep on the couch, I bring her a blanket just like she did for me and wish I had something besides leftover pizza — of which there's not much — to offer her for breakfast.
 

I lie in bed for a while, staring at the ceiling. I wonder where Mason is. Egypt, maybe, or perhaps he got bored there and decided to walk the length of the Great Wall. I don't know how he managed to cross an ocean, but I know he found a way. He's nothing if not resourceful.

For a moment, I try to remember what it was like for him to be here, the heat of his body against the cool sheets. The way we slept hand in hand. I've never trusted anyone the way I trust him. Even now; his leaving wasn't any kind of breaking of that trust. He didn't leave because of me or anything I did. He left to be who he needed to be. That's fine.
 

But I miss him.

This is the longest I've allowed myself to dwell on Mason in a long time. I roll over on my side, eyes on the night table where Mason's note is tucked into a drawer. I hear Nana's little sigh from her bed not far from mine. She is always a reminder of Mason, since he gave her to me. He knew I had a soft spot for bunnies.
 

I miss having someone to trust.
 

Funny how I went through so much of my life relying only on myself before Mason. I miss knowing I could rely on him. He always came through. Good to know I have myself as a fallback.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Morning comes too soon, and my body feels the confusion of not having to wake up at my normal time to get to work. I share a breakfast of cold pizza with Mira while Carrick looks on curiously. He's silent until she leaves, but as soon as the latches on the door are fastened in place again, he gets serious.

"Tonight's the job," he says.

I blink at him. "Tonight? Already?"

"Gregor's got them pinpointed. Got the message just now. Or rather, just when I woke. Gregor thinks we should be in place by an hour before sundown." Carrick yawns and stretches as if this news is about movie times and not going to rescue crazed, hells-worshipping norms from the murderous objects of their misplaced affection.
 

And this, my first official day as Alamea's own personal Mediator.
 

When I call her, though, she's on board with the plan. "Gregor told me about it," she says, her voice non-commital. "Just let me know how it goes."

We drive out around noon, and though I offer Carrick a seat in my car, he decides to ride with the others instead.
 

Gregor has been carting them around in a yellow school bus. Thanks, but no thanks. While most kids only have to deal with bullying and puking, Mediator kids get the added bonus of entrails and slummoth slime. If I never see the inside of a school bus again, it'll be too soon.

Who knows, maybe the shades get some sort of secondhand nostalgia at the school bus thing.

The day is warm for early October. The back seat of my car is loaded with gear, including my flamethrower, Lucy.
 

Yes, I name my flamethrower.

The front seat is littered with road food. Gummy morphs in varying stages of transformation (color-coded by animal — my favorite are the bright blue bears), pizza flavored bagel bites, and the spiciest jerky I can stomach. I also have three bottles of Coke stashed in a cooler under the front seat and a half-frozen gallon of water next to it.

According to Gregor, these hells-worshippers are gathering on the edge of an old middle Tennessee plantation that the wealthy owner just renovated in order to triple its value.

Something tells me a few scores of hell-zealots won't help the MLS listing.

The plantation is between Sale Creek and Soddy-Daisy, and the latter name made Carrick laugh so hard I thought a chunk of raw steak was going to rocket out of his nostril. It's also a two and a half hour drive from Nashville, in the southeastern-most corner of my territory. It'll put us within only a few miles of the Chattanooga sludgepile that has overtaken nearly the entire border of southern Tennessee.

The sun shines throughout the whole trip, bathing my car in gold and making it smell like meat and feet. I don't even mind; if I try, I can pretend I'm on a real road trip like little norm teenagers take in the movies.
 

The only road trips we got as Mittens ended in blood and chasing each other around with hellkin entrails.

In spite of the cheery drive, snacks, and Johnny Cash's A Boy Named Sue blasting on the way down, I feel nervous. I don't know if it's my new job with Alamea or the prospect of facing a horde of hellkin with fourteen shades at my back. Or both. Saturn's note also has me pulled into its orbit, and I wish he'd been as literal and straightforward as most shades usually are.

After two hours and twenty-three minutes on the road, the sun begins its dip toward the horizon as I pull onto a road called Worley in what Mira would call "butt fuck nowhere," following the printed directions from Gregor to a single-lane paved track lined with oak trees 1800s style gas lamps, unlit.

Just west of the plantation, a dirt road branches off from the house's mile-long driveway. The kudzu and other less desirable foliage that was trimmed out of sight on the driveway creeps toward the dirt road, green tendrils finding purchase on the gravel edges. I can't see any indication that Gregor and the others have come this way — the road seems recently graded, with no dual tire marks that a heavy bus would leave behind. I have the GPS tracker he gave me, to make myself easy to find.

The woods around me feel warm and peaceful, and I can't help looking off to the south, knowing that only fifty miles away, the land turns to pockmarked pustules of sulfur and swamp.

It's hard to think of that with the calls of cardinals echoing through the trees. None are the
chip chip
of alarm; all are the birds' normal songs breaking the silence.

I text Gregor, pulling over to the side of the road where it widens briefly to allow passing cars. After fifteen minutes, he still hasn't responded. I hope we don't completely lose cell service, though the GPS tracker will work fine without it.
 

When he still hasn't responded in another ten minutes, I pull the car back on the road and follow its winding turns the rest of the way to the spot marked on the GPS. Parking the car about a quarter mile away, I get out and lean on the door, looking around. The sun has begun to sink toward the horizon, and with it, my mood.