Eye of the Storm (2 page)

We're back at the cabin before nightfall, not that the sun's path has anything to do with level of danger. Anymore.
 

It feels strange to see Jax settle in to play Halo after going to visit Nana, like nothing in the past few days happened. Carrick and Gryfflet put their heads together over the dining table, the faux-grain vinyl covering peeling away from one edge of the surface. It keeps catching on Gryfflet's sweater. A loop of gray yarn dangles from his stomach. Neither of them appear to take any notice of me, but I can feel Carrick's awareness, just like I can feel Evis behind me, Jax on the sofa, and Mason somewhere out back with the two new shades who have no names. He's laying feed for the deer, trying to coax the animals to come in closer. And trying to teach the new shades how to hunt things that don't walk on two legs.

The shades have learned the hard way that even with the warding we've beefed up around the cabin, roaming too far is a recipe for blood. And because they've spilled enough deer blood around here, I'm not sure any of the local whitetails will fall for Mason's lines of hay pellets. I guess we'll see.

Mira heads right for our room and shuts the door.
 

Our room.
 

It feels so strange to say that, too. Yet another complication I'm not sure either of us are really ready to face.
 

Evis pulls up a spot on the couch next to Jax and grabs a controller. The two of them spend the next hour gleefully headshotting aliens and each other, their reflexes good enough that they'll probably even school the throngs of adolescents in the multiplayer lobbies once we can get them hooked up to proper internet.

About an hour and a half into their shooter session, the sound of Carrick's and Gryfflet's raised voices protrude over the volume of artillery.
 

"I don't have what I need here!" Gryfflet bangs his fist on the table. His sweater is snagged again, and he looks down at the trails of yarn like they're that straw and he's the proverbial camel spine.
 

"Couldn't you have thought of that while we were still in Nashville?" Carrick's voice, by contrast, is somewhat measured, though the fact that he's speaking loudly is evidence enough of his irritation.
 

"If I'd have known I'd need the library, I would have just packed that into the trunk." Gryfflet turns snide, and I get up from my perch on the arm of the couch.
 

"You two. What's the problem?" Out on the porch, I hear Mason thump up the stairs, but he doesn't open the door to come in. I ignore him and the sudden dearth of
pew-pew-pew
from behind me.

"The Summit library contains all the relevant texts for studying the imbalance," Gryfflet says. "And the Summit library is not here."

I meet Carrick's eyes, and it doesn't take a lot of empathy to feel the same annoyance he feels. "Nobody thought of this before we left Nashville?"

"We're having to take a different angle on this." Gryfflet sounds like he's talking to a two-year-old and trying to explain why it's a bad idea to wedge one's head between the bannister bars. "When we left, we were trying to tackle how things changed that allowed the demons to change our weather."

"Didn't we decide that's the new shades' doing?" I can feel them out back with Mason, their minds tempests and their reflexes still jumpy after the fight. If I weren't inside their minds, if I weren't tied to them with the absolute certainty that Mira and Gryfflet are safe with them because I will it, I wouldn't have let them within a mile of this place. But I am in their minds. And I know exactly what they feel. They won't so much as pluck a stray hair from a t-shirt without permission. I'm their alpha, but alpha or not, they're more demon than human.
 

"We did, but there has to be more to it than that." Gryfflet shoves his chair back from the table, running a hand through his greasy hair. He showered this morning — used up almost all the hot water — but he's been fiddling with his hair so much that the oils from his hands make him look like he hasn't bathed in days.
 

"You really can't do anything here?" I don't like this. From the look on Carrick's face, he knows where this is going, and so do I.

"Not enough for us to have a real chance at anything." Gryfflet plucks at the dangling loop on his sweater. "I should go back to Nashville. I have my car. I can make it to the Summit."

"Not so fast, witch," I say. "With demons daywalking, you're about as safe in a car as a fish is in a bowl with a tiger in the room. Plus, not to go all Leia Organa on you, but you might just be our only hope, so I'm not letting you get dead, Obi Wan."

Gryfflet blinks at me. "At least you admit I'm one of the good guys now."

"The Jedi have questionable morality, but that's not the point." I look at Carrick again. If Gryfflet needs the Summit library and trusts the Summit Mediators not to flambé him the second he turns around, maybe it is our best shot. I don't like it. But I guess I don't have to. I can count on one finger the things I like about our current situation, and from the look on Carrick's face, that one finger is about to crook into a half.

I can deal with the situation because most of the people I love are within shouting distance of me.
 

But I can't let Gryfflet try and get to Nashville alone.
 

Carrick's mind has already made the short sidestep to the same conclusion. "I'll go down with him. My mind's of more use than my biceps right now, anyway."

There's a thud on the back porch, and it makes me twitch even though I know it's just Mason and the two nameless shades. Looks like they got themselves a deer after all. Or maybe a wild hog.

I glance toward the back door, the wheels in my mind trundling along. "How about you take the new two with you? They already recognize you as my second-in-command, and they're…capable."

I can still feel Gregor's brain squishing against my knuckles. They weren't really even my knuckles, but they might as well have been. All I had to do was think how much I wanted Gregor dead, and these two new shades made it so. The thought is more than a little unnerving.
 

Carrick doesn't immediately object, but Gryfflet looks like he wants to. In fact, he looks positively green at the idea of spending an hour in a car with them.
 

Jax and Evis have stopped all pretense of playing Halo at this point. Evis puts his controller down on the coffee table.
 

"Do you think that's a good idea?" Jax asks, his words careful.
 

That doesn't help the color of Gryfflet's face.
 

"I think Carrick can handle it, and they won't hurt anyone because I don't want them to." It sounds stupid when I say it out loud.

"We can't trust them like you can," Gryfflet says. He stands up, closing the book on the table in front of him.

"I know. But you're going to have to trust me."

Carrick nods. "I think she's right."

"When do you want to leave?" I'm embarrassed by the hitch in my breath when I say
leave
. I don't want them to leave. I want them all here, plus the shades still in Nashville, plus Wane and Alice and Laura and Alamea and everyone else I give a shit about. I want to stay right here in this little cabin where we have the illusion of safety and where goodbyes don't feel as final.
 

"Even if it doesn't matter, I'd feel better not leaving until sunrise," Carrick says softly.
 

Just that little declaration assuages some of my nerves. We'll at least get another night. I probably won't sleep much, but if they leave now, I for sure won't catch any winks.

Mason and the other two shades come in, the porch door scudding against the jamb behind them. I'm certain he was listening out there, and the two nameless new shades both smile at me with the innocence of children. Really, really scary children.

They already know what I want them to do. I suppress the shiver that wants to run up and down my back.
 

I wasn't born a morph. I never expected to be alpha of any pack.

CHAPTER TWO

Carrick, Gryfflet, and the two new shades leave at daybreak, driving off into a thick, heavy fog that still bears the deep blue-grey of pre-dawn. I feel the fog in my fingertips, its weight without wisps that envelops the cabin. Mira, Jax, and Evis stand with me on the front porch, but Mason's nowhere to be seen.
 

Back inside, I set the kettle on to make hot cocoa. Mira half-heartedly cracks our last few eggs into a bowl. Peering into the freezer, she sees the filet mignons I bought for the shades when we were hunting hosts barely a couple weeks ago. There are six or seven of them left, and the rest of the freezer is stacked with venison.
 

"Yo, Jax," Mira says. "Mind if I thaw these out and Ayala and I eat a couple?"

"You want to eat our meat?" Jax asks, settling back onto the sofa. He's becoming quite the couch potato.

"Well, I plan to cook it first."

Jax shrugs. "I don't mind."

Mira tosses two filets in a bowl of warm water and sets the eggs in the fridge. "Feel like steak and eggs," she says to me by way of explanation.
 

My stomach growls, but if she's cooking, I'm not going to complain about the wait.

Or filet mignon for breakfast. I'm not completely uncivilized.

I can't help but fret about Carrick and Gryfflet. It's almost nice to fret about something very specific rather than being consumed by the fear of what's coming. Not so nice I want to hold onto it forever, but it makes a suitable accompaniment for the grumbling in my stomach.

Mason's presence in my mind grows closer and feels…troubled.

There's nothing new about that — he's always troubled lately; we all are — but this feels different.
 

When he comes through the back door thirty seconds later, I see why.

He's leading a woman with him, and she's pregnant.

I'm so used to seeing the shade host mothers that for a moment my brain doesn't even compute seeing a normal pregnancy. She looks about to pop, but for once not literally.

Something else occurs to me.
 

"The wards didn't ping," I say. Mira's head snaps up, which makes me feel marginally less stupid for the delay in my own reaction.
 

"She's a witch," says Mason.

"The wards should still stop a witch," I say at the same time Mira says,
 
"Nobody's supposed to get through the gods damned wards."

We don't look at each other, but in my peripheral vision, I see the minute upturn of her lips.
 

"I'm a really, really good witch," the pregnant woman says.
 

Mason shrugs. Jax and Evis watch over the back of the sofa.
 

The pregnant woman is about average height. Her hair is shiny and black and looks like the prenatal vitamins have been working overtime. Her skin is damp from the fog, or maybe it's that fabled pregnancy glow. Her eyes are warm brown, a beautiful brown, the kind of brown I imagine Mira's would have been had they not marked her immediately as a Mediator instead. They're big and ringed by heavy black lashes, framed with smile lines. The woman's brown skin is warm too. It reminds me of the sun we haven't seen in weeks.
 

The tattoo on her lower jaw reminds me of Tamar Solomon and some of the other people I saw around Seattle. Instead of the three vertical lines from lower lip to chin like Tamar had, this woman has diagonal lines from the corners of her mouth to her jawline, one vertical center line, and three diagonal dots on each side of that. Above the collar of her shirt, I can see more ink peeking around her clavicle and stretching toward her shoulders. The tattoos are blue, deep blue.

Her age is the only thing that seems out of of place with her pregnancy. She's got to be in her early forties. It's not completely unheard of for morphs and witches to keep their fertility into their mid to late thirties, sometimes a bit later, but even so.

"Okay, then," I say to the pregnant witch. "Who the fuck are you? Did Gryfflet send you?"

"My name is Asher Anitsiskwa, and I wasn't sent. I saw you on the news and realized who you were."

"You saw me on the news." Everyone's seen me on the news, but Asher is the first person to just turn up on my doorstep. Plus, her pronouncement doesn't tell me anything about why she's here.

Mira meets my gaze. I know she knows what I'm thinking. If this woman could get past the wards and wanted us dead, we'd probably already be dead. Since we're not, she probably doesn't mean us any harm. Even if she did, at this point, it's three shades, two Mediators, and Nana against her, and at probably nine months pregnant, she's not getting far no matter how good a witch she is.

"I don't have time for bullshit," I say, turning back to Asher Anitsiskwa. "Tell me exactly why you're here and how you found us."

My tone is flat even to my ears, but Asher's lips give a little twitch that looks like surprise.