Eye of the Storm (30 page)

He stops as a couple guffaws break out, and I can't tell if they're because people don't believe him or because they know Ben's part of the reason I was up to my hips in the shit.

"— She's been in the shit. Laugh if you want. But at least stop to think that if you kill her right now, you might just be eliminating the one reason we've been spared when literally every other city around us is now a city of dead." Ben's face looks as bleak as I've ever seen it, and I'm not even sure of what I'm hearing here.

A murmur goes through the crowd, and Alamea watches Ben, appraising.
 

"You might kill her and nothing will happen. We'll stay on our little island here and hold out as long as we can. But you might kill her and within minutes, hells-holes might open all over our city and swallow us all up." Ben's voice swells with more confidence, now. The crowd's quieter, and I can almost hear the gears in Mediator skulls clanking as they think about what he's saying. I couldn't have made a better case for myself. "All I'm asking is for you all to consider that. Look around you. Go walk around the camp at Vanderbilt. Pat a kid on the head. Go look up at the sky and try to find where the sun is behind all those clouds. And ask yourselves if killing Storme is worth the risk."

The scary thing is, I think some of the faces in this crowd don't care about the risk.
 

I think some of them were just waiting for an excuse to take my head.

In the crowd, beyond Ben and surrounded by angry-faced Mediators, I see the unmistakable face of Asher Anitsiskwa, her eyes unreadable, her arms folded softly across her very-pregnant belly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I've never really had guards before. After considering the holding cells with Nana as a viable option to prevent my head being separated from my body accidentally-on-purpose by a stray sword in the hands of a non-risk-averse Mediator, we decide that I'll stay in the office next to Alamea's and that Hardy, Sal, Asher, Lex, and a few other Mediators Alamea's willing to trust will guard me to make sure I stay alive. The psychic brigade that joined us to kill Gregor are filtering through the Summit to try and catch wind of any danger early, and I think their presence causes even more unrest because every Mediator who sees them knows what it means.
 

I update Carrick from my new domicile, clinging to his voice though the phone and the tenuous sense of his and the rest of the shades' minds. If he agrees with Mira that I should have gone with them, he doesn't say so. There's something in his voice I can't place, and it sets my chest to aching.
 

"I miss you," I tell him.

"Of course you do. I'm delightful."

"I'm trying to be mushy here."

"You're crap at it." I hear the affection in his voice.
 

When I first found Carrick sitting on my sofa next to the late Gregor Gaskin, I didn't know what to think of him. I spent the next few weeks wondering if I'd rather kick him or give him a noogie. Now I yearn for those days, and the ones that came after where I learned slowly to rely on him. To trust him to watch my back. When I realized he was being played for a fool just as I was. I remember pulling rakath spines from his chest and shoulder and letting him do the same for me.
 

All of the shades have a part of me. Evis shares my blood, my hair, my heart. When I look at him, I see myself, and I know he sees himself when he looks at me. Mason shared my home and my bed. Jax has cared for Nana like she was his purpose for living. Miles and I searched for both Saturn and Jax together. I watched Saturn's birth, for gods' sake. Sol and Luna are like children who desperately needed a home I could give them. I'm so tied up with these strange men that I don't know if I could survive losing any of them now.
 

I talk to Carrick a while longer, listening to the others bicker in the background. When I finally go to hang up, I hear his softly English-accented voice say my name.

"Yeah?"

"I miss you too."

He doesn't give me a chance to respond.
 

Later I'll call back and talk to the others.
 

I just don't think I can handle talking to more than one of them in one go. It feels too much like goodbye.

Alamea herself brings us dinner. Powdered eggs covered in processed cheese and salsa with a couple rolled up tortillas.
 

"We're losing them," she says after warding the door.

"No shit," says Mira. She hasn't left my side.

Alamea gives her a droll look and hands us our plates of food. "They feel like the demon threat is too insurmountable right now. You and the shades, on the other hand, are visible. Present. A task they could complete if they needed to."

"She's not a gods damned fetch quest," says Mira.

"I'm not saying she is, but if enough of the Mediators decide killing Ayala is the logical course of action, there's not much I'll be able to do to stop it." Alamea's face says she knows damn well they'd go through her if need be. "We need to unify them. Give them something they can fight for."

"You mean more than having a city to live in and lungs that aren't plastered to a wall somewhere?" Mira supplies.
 

For once, Alamea laughs. "Apparently that's not enough, is it?"
 

I think she's laughing so she doesn't scream. I don't blame her.

"What do you want to do?" I ask.

"I thought I'd ask you that. I have a thought or two, but I'd like to hear where your mind is."

My mind. What's in my mind? Don't let the shades die. Don't get dead. Try not to let the city go to hell. Fight the hellkin, win the war, save all the bunnies in Nashville. Give Nana a sunbeam to lie in again.

But something to unify a group of people that seems intent on killing me and my family?
 

My silence seems to disappoint Alamea.
 

"Sorry," I tell her. "I think I'm fresh out of motivational speeches."

Mira looks pensive, sitting in the corner of the office with her plate of food balanced on her knees. She's looking at a tortilla as if she's not sure whether to eat it or use it as a tissue. "I have an idea. It might be a really bad one."

"Do share," says Alamea.
 

"What if you tell them about the territories? Bust open the Summit secrets?"

Alamea gives a slight twitch. "For what purpose? To just open up certain secrets could add to the chaos rather than detract from it."

"Depends on how you do it. Make it clear that you're doing it without the permission of the World Summit. That you're breaking with them because you believe it's the right thing to do. Let them know that you've had this pressing on you throughout your entire tenure as leader." Mira's voice gains strength and confidence as she speaks, and I find myself considering what she's saying. "Tell them about the territories and how if they save this world, they might actually get to see it."

I think of Mira's home, now burnt to ash. Her hallways covered with art photography from Nahua and Mexico. Of her knowing that's where her family came from but never, ever being able to go see for herself.
 

Alamea goes silent, and I wonder what she's thinking. I wonder if there are photos of faraway places in her home, a crystal beach, mountain ranges, the lands of her ancestors in Africa — hells, a desert full of sand and mirages, who the fuck knows. The thought makes me realize just how little I really know about Alamea the woman. She's not one to volunteer information.

She's considering Mira's words; that much about Alamea the woman I do know. I can see on her face that she dislikes the idea for its potential chaos, but if I know her at all, she's carefully weighing the risk factors.
 

The silence stretches out like a wide rubber band pulled back by a cartoon rabbit.
 

"If I were to do that, it would have serious ramifications not just for our city, but for the Summit as a whole. And me, if we live through all this with the structures of our Summit intact." Her gaze is on her own feet, but she's looking miles away.

"If we live through this," I say carefully, knowing I'm showing my hand, "I'll tell the entire Mediator world myself. This way at least you have some element of control."

When she opens her her mouth, I hold up a hand.

"I've got something in place, so if those asshats downstairs succeed in taking my head off, it'll happen either way." It's a lie, and Alamea might know it, but even if her bullshit detector's going off, this is another risk-assessment situation. "We can't go on like this, and you know it. We're not a bunch of hammers to be wielded by the World Summit. We're people."

"I know," says Alamea. She taps one long finger against her thigh. "There was a time when there weren't territories. Long, long ago."

"Glad to know they leave that out of the history books," Mira mutters.
 

It's a strange feeling, the slow stripping away of the agency you've thought you had your whole life. I grew up with a set, delineated sphere of purpose. I thought I had choices I could make for myself. But in the past few months, I've learned just how much of my own choice was nothing but a farce. As fake as a beauty queen's petroleum jellied smile. The Summit has controlled where I lived, what I did, what I learned. As far as conspiracies go, it's a good one.
 

Alamea looks defeated. "There are reasons. Or at least, they've always told me there are reasons. I'm less certain of that now."

"Oh, you mean now that these territories we're locked into have isolated us in little cages where we can be picked off and then picked out from between demon teeth?" It's the first time I've seen this kind of molten anger ooze out of Mira about this, but I don't blame her. I can't. I feel it too.

"It's all I've ever known too," Alamea says. "We're not brought up to be free thinkers."

She's got that right. We're pointed in a direction and told to
sic 'em
.
 

"You could help fix it," I say quietly. "This could give people something to hope for. Also something to distract them from the whole
kill Ayala
idea."

A flicker of pain crosses both Mira's and Alamea's faces. I'm touched.

I can see that Alamea's decided. She nods and takes a deep breath she doesn't let out for several seconds. I wonder then about the gag orders she's under, the spells. If she can even do this thing.
 

Her face is covered in sweat when I meet her eyes, making me doubt.
 

It's as if she can read my mind again.
 

"Gryfflet and Asher have helped me with something," she says softly. "They shouldn't have been able to affect…it."
 

The way Alamea says
it
sounds like she's referring to the bogeyman that's followed her around her whole life.
 

Mira and I both say nothing.
 

"We thought at this point, drastic measures may be necessary." Alamea wipes a drip of sweat from her temple. "I'll do it."
 

Alamea and Mira smuggle me down to the amphitheater's staging area, where I tuck myself out of sight and Alamea promises no one will come in that way. I wouldn't believe her, except she locks the door and shoves a desk in front of it. Mira stays with me, as I knew she would.

The conversations in the amphitheater grow in volume until I feel certain almost every Mediator in Nashville is in here. Probably because it's true; Alamea even called people off the patrols, saying it might catch the demons off guard a bit. But I can feel the shades moving around the city and know they've taken over the duty of watching our perimeter while this meeting is going on. From where I'm leaning against the wall, I can see Alamea going around the room and dismantling each of the cameras. A hush descends over the amphitheater. I can't see any Mediator faces, but I know they have to be wary, reserved, apprehensive.
 

When Alamea begins to talk, Mira reaches out and weaves her fingers with mine. The touch of her skin feels like water, soothing something parched deep within me.