Eye of the Storm (12 page)

The night air feels different, though. There's a heaviness to it that feels foreign. In spite of the wind that rustles the bare branches of the oaks and hickory trees around the Summit, it feels too still to me. The other seem to sense it as well.
 

No screams pierce the air, but we're close enough to the university that I can hear the hum of refugees there, and a few plumes of smoke rise from their fires into the sky. The sight makes me nervous, even though I know warding the university boundaries were the first thing that the Summit took care of when they cleared the immediate surroundings of demons.

West End Avenue is dotted with cars. At traffic lights, they're piled five or six deep, many with dents and gouges in their fronts and sides. We keep to the sidewalks. Cars are too easy to hide behind for the smaller demons. Once an imp hid under mine. Stupid fucking ankle biters.

I see Asher's spell before I see the demon. Something silver and spiraling cuts through the air above my head, shooting off ahead and to the right. I duck, spitting a curse word and drawing my swords. A guttural grunt of dying sounds ahead, and the two new shades sprint off toward it. I feel their surprise a moment later when they reach it, see the dead slummoth through their eyes before they return.

Asher gives me a grim smile. "I got it."

I quickly revise my still-forming impression of her.

Most spells are ineffective against demons, but that one certainly wasn't. Even though I didn't see it myself, the images from the shades tell me that it was…thorough. Between that and what she managed when we left the cabin — and helping Ray the Almost Lunch — Asher is looking more and more formidable by the hour.

"How'd you come up with that?" I ask, peering off to the right as we pass parallel to the corpse. It's behind a red Volkswagen, and I can't see it with my own eyes.

"I didn't," she says. For her homey looks, her voice is as sharp as my sword. "But I'll try to teach the others, if you and Alamea would like. It takes some skill."

"What exactly is it?" I know next to nothing about magic, in spite of having a magical tattoo of my brother's blood that takes up most of my back, but I'm still curious.
 

"It's a weave of air and water that's essentially a flying ball of blades." The fierceness in Asher's voice causes me to mentally revise my impression of her even more.
 

"Remind me not to get on your bad side," I say.

That gets a smile from her, like I've just given her the best compliment she's ever received.

I think I like this woman.

We make it to the I-440 on ramp without any more incident. I don't have to ask the two shades to scout — they clamber up the soundwall bordering the interstate, and the highway is clear. At least here it is.

I nod to Evis and Asher, and we follow onto the ramp.
 

It's eerie to be a pedestrian on one of my city's busiest freeways. Eerier still to see all the deserted cars. I try not to look at the blood on the windows, and as I step over a half-mangled corpse, I don't let myself look down.

My denial doesn't help. Too easily I can see Chattanooga and Atlanta in my mind. And Jacksonville, perched on the edge of death.
 

"Here," says Asher. She points to a section of the wall, and we follow her over.
 

Removing her backpack, she starts to pull out bottles and bunches of dried herbs.
 

"Watch the wall," I say to Evis. Shades aren't the only ones who can climb.

I face the freeway with the other two shades while Asher works. Curious as I am, I'd like to watch what she's doing, but I don't want my curiosity to get her dead if a pack of markats comes howling out from the frozen traffic and barfs acid all over her.

The shades emanate pride and wariness both, their attention fully trained on their task.
 

It's still a very strange sensation for me to feel them, stranger still to know that their pride comes from me. They are doing work I want them to do, and it brings them joy. My acknowledgement of them even mentally brings an additional wave of it.
 

The shade on my left is the one who hasn't spoken, and I want to ask him his name. All the other shades I know picked theirs, and every last one of them chose a name that is matrilineal. In a strange way, they are their mothers as much as they are themselves. They carry the memories of their mothers in their minds.
 

They're a philosophical wet dream.

The highway is still quiet. Looking up at the clouds, I feel claustrophobic. I haven't seen the sun or the moon or the stars in weeks.

"Sol," the shade to my left says, pointing at his chest. He turns, looking at me intently. His eyes are full of hope for my approbation. "Sol."

I don't know what to do but stare.

He points to the other shade on my right. "Luna."

Even I know that much Spanish.

How much of my thoughts can they hear, if they've just named themselves after the sun and the moon?

I don't have time to ponder. I hear the grating sound of claws on metal not far away to the left. Sol and Luna zero in on it immediately, sensing that I want them to hold until we know how much danger we're in.

The group from the Summit that took the next section is probably over a mile away, and I hope that means that whatever demons are coming at us right now aren't coming with the blood of Mediators on their claws.

The roar that follows the grating claws is one I recognize. Slummoths.

My swords hiss from their scabbards, and I ready myself on the highway shoulder. We can't just take off toward them in case something else is sneaking up from behind, but I also don't really want to risk letting demons get too close to Asher.
 

"Incoming," I say.

"I hear them." There's a clatter of bottles. "I'm working as fast as I can."

"I'll cover her," says Evis.
 

I shoot him a grateful look over my shoulder and gesture Sol and Luna forward. Bloodlust rises in them, and through them, in me.
 

Evis can feel it; I know he can. My bond with him isn't quite as open as the one with Luna and Sol, but behind me I feel the tension in his body and the way his fingers tighten into claws. Anything coming at Asher while we're fighting is going to end up in chunks.

The slummoths appear behind a black SUV a hundred feet away, about ten of them.

Gods, I remember when that many demons coming at me would make me shit myself.

I don't have to cue the shades. We roll into motion, them weaving between chunks of bodies and vehicles. Twenty feet from the slummoths, I launch myself onto the hood of a silver sedan, springing over the roof and vaulting from the trunk with a sound like a struck drum.

I hit two slummoths midair, sword points landing true smack in the middle of their throats. Green blood sprays out from their arteries, and a quick jerk of my blades leaves them half-decapitated on the ground. Sol and Luna are like tornados of dismemberment. A slummoth arm flies through the air, narrowly missing clocking me in the face. It douses my shoulder with demon blood.
 

There are only two demons left, sprinting at full speed toward Asher and Evis.

Much as I know Evis would like to be in on the fun, I don't want to risk our fierce new witch friend.
 

I'm faster than the slummoths. I catch one of them at the base of the spine, and it screeches and falls forward, hitting its face on the rear bumper of a car. I leave it for Sol, leaping to the side to rip my blade through the other remaining slummoth's neck.

I see the bright pride on my brother's face where he still stands ready at Asher's side.
 

She straightens from her work at the wall, one hand unconsciously on her protruding belly. There aren't any symbols or anything that could mark the wall as magical. No incantations or theatrical silliness like in the movies, but from the way she gives it an approving once-over, I know she's done.

Luna and Sol behind me radiate excitement.

Asher looks at me, then looks at them. "I think it's your bad side everyone ought to worry about being on." She puts the last of her bottles back in her backpack and shoulders it, pointing. "Next spot is a quarter mile that way."

The next two spots go quickly with no demon interruptions. I think of Mira, somewhere up the highway. I don't even know if they started at the north and worked south or the other way around. I wish I could feel her like I can feel the shades. Then again, she's with Saturn, who appeared after our Summit meeting just in time to join Mira's team, and from this far away I only get a spark of him.

Seeing him alive was another tiny bit of hope, though several of the other shades are missing, too far away for me to sense.
 

The clouds feel like a ceiling above our heads, and with the sound barriers of the interstate on either side of us and the asphalt below us, I feel like we're in a hamster tunnel.
 

Lights dot the highway at intervals, little halos of yellow, but they don't do much to illuminate anything.

Asher works at the final spot, her face grimly satisfied. She's got a smudge of sage oil across one cheek that shines with a few flecks of mica dust. Evis watches her every move, fascinated.
 

I wonder just how much magic shades can work or if it's just a Carrick thing. Maybe Carrick's mother was a witch. I've never asked him.

Around us, the highway is much the same. The air is oppressive, full of the scent of death and the more acrid tang of gasoline. I've given up on guessing how many dead bodies surround us. The only glimmer of hope is that there aren't nearly as many bodies as there are cars. Some of these people got away somehow. How far they got, I don't know, but it's something.

It takes Asher about five minutes to finish. She straightens up when she does, a small smile dancing on her lips. Even as she struggles somewhat ungracefully to right her balance.

"Something amusing?" I ask her.

"It's almost done," she says.

"You're not finished?"

"No, I am. I mean the rest. I can feel the other points." Asher reaches into her bag and pulls out a paper map of the city. Murmuring over it, she touches one oil-slicked finger to it, and tiny lights blaze into being on the paper, ringing the city center in pinpricks of gold. "Even without the remaining ones, we're pretty much covered. But with them, we'll have immediate warning."

"Which ones are missing?" I step closer to get a better look at the map.
 

Instead of gesturing to the paper itself, she points up the highway. "Just that one and three others."

Just then, I hear a scream in my mind.
 

Saturn.
 

Mira.

I don't think. I run.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

North to south — that's the direction Mira and Saturn were working.
 

It means they're less than a quarter mile from us.
 

Luna and Sol are right behind me, but my desperation gives me added speed, and they can't overtake me now. The interstate curves around, keeping everything more than a few hundred feet away out of my line of sight.

I trust Evis to protect Asher — and Asher I'm sure can take care of herself.

Deserted cars flash by on either side of me. My feet churn, hitting asphalt and the squish of corpses alike. It takes less than thirty seconds for me to close the distance to where Saturn and Mira should be, but it feels like thirty years.

Time stretches out around me.
 

When I reach the spot, I skid to a halt. The bodies here are more than half demon, but I smell fresh blood. Shade blood. It has to be Saturn's, even though Miles was with them too. It wasn't Miles I heard scream in my mind.

And there's another person's blood across the windshield of a nearby Jeep. That's Mira's.

I feel faint, and I reach out to support myself on the side mirror of a Cadillac that's missing its driver's side door. It's not a lot of blood, but it is her blood. Even though it's impossible, it almost smells like vanilla. Or maybe it's just that her scent lingers. Either way, I try to calm the skittering panic in my mind.