Eye of the Storm (36 page)

For another minute that seems to take an hour, Mira doesn't answer. Then, without meeting my gaze, she gives a tiny shake of her head.
 

"I'll text you when…when the baby's coming," I say stupidly. I don't know if it matters.
 

Nana hops up to my feet, and I kneel to scratch between her soft, red-brown ears. After a moment, her fuzzy bunny feet hop away. She heads right back to Mira. I wish I knew what to do.

Carrick and I leave Mira there, and it feels to me like the gravest of sins.

I just don't know what else to do.

The hours pass in a blur. Whispers of Asher being in labor make their way through the Summit, and it lends an odd frenzy to the movements in the lobby. Somehow, in the face of everything, the birth of Asher's baby takes on life as a symbol of exactly that: life.

Looking down the gullet of so much death, a baby seems quite the marvel. I think if Asher hadn't specified exactly who she wanted at her birth, someone would have badgered her into delivering the baby in the Summit amphitheater with all Mediators and refugees in attendance.
 

They even mostly forget about Carrick.
 

When Asher sends for us, we head up to a vacant conference room not far from where Gryfflet has been set up. Alamea, Sal, a Summit witch I don't know, several Mediators I know by name (one of them, Gary, tried to kill me a few weeks ago), and three norms I don't take up the rest of the space in the room. The norms look bewildered but excited. I'd bet my favorite sword that the norms are witch, morph, and human. No psychics, which makes me wonder why.

Asher's contractions are coming quickly now. I'm not sure why I do it, but I leave Carrick's side and go to her. I don't know what to do. Asher's still standing, leaning on a wingback chair someone brought in. I heard her snap "Gravity!" at someone who asked why she's not lying down, and I don't think anyone would be of a mind to argue.

Alamea's speaking urgently into her phone across the room, and she looks at me before hanging up. I imagine we're on high alert, since sudden baby is a pretty damn good distraction from the potential for apocalypse at hand. I don't know what everyone else in the room is thinking, but I can't stop the tension that tightens my gut, wondering what we're all here to see.
 

Somehow Asher seems anything but ruffled, in spite of the sweat that slicks curls of black hair to her forehead and wets the tattoos on her chin. She grasps my hand when I offer it and breathes through the next contraction.
 

"Thank you," she says quietly. I know everyone in the room can hear her.
 

"For what?"

"I'll tell you later."

I can't help the small laugh that leaves me at that, and Gary my-would-be-assassin scowls at me. I flip him off.

Everyone in the room is mired in anticipation but Asher. I meet her eyes, and I know she knows. She knows why we're all here. Every person in this room was a calculated risk.
 

The next contraction hits, a mere half minute after the first.
 

"You were with my mother when I was born," I say, as Asher huffs and puffs next to me.
 

I see a couple heads turn at my words, but I ignore them.
 

Asher nods over gritted teeth, squeezing my hand tight.
 

"I'm glad I can be here for you," I tell her.
 

This time her grip tightens from emotion, not a spasming cervix. Her free hand goes down between her legs, somehow managing to reach around her belly. I'm impressed at Asher's ability to self-midwife.
 

"The baby's crowning," she says.
 

I'm sure my face looks about as blank as a scrubbed whiteboard. "I don't know what that means."

"It means I can feel the head. It's time for me to push. Will you catch the baby?"

Give me a jeeling to fight barehanded any day. Asher wants me to catch a baby? What's she going to do, squeeze it out hard enough to punt it?

"Uh," I say, aware that a whole room of people is watching me fumble this.

"Kneel in front of me," says Asher.
 

I don't know what else to do but obey. She squats, bending her knees wide.
 

"You're going to have to get your hands close, and the baby'll be slippery."

I'm so glad I washed my hands. I try to ignore the fact that I barely know Asher and I'm about to get up close and personal with her nether bits without anything resembling an OB-GYN degree. Wait, did she say the baby's going to be slippery?

Asher starts to yell, and my hands leap up to her crotch because I don't know what else to do, and at this point if I don't do this, the baby's going to land on the floor. I can feel Asher's thigh muscles tight against the backs of my hands, and holy hells, I can see a round dome covered in blood and goo and hair peeking out. Then there's a face. A tiny face. My hands touch tiny ears.
 

For a moment, nothing else happens, and I look up, but all I can see is Asher's belly, shaking with the effort. Her legs relax slightly, and she gulps in breaths. Baby. There's a baby head in my hands, and the rest of it is still on the way.

"I'm going to push again," Asher gasps.

I brace myself, widening my knees' stance on the floor. If nothing else, maybe I can make it so the baby skids down my outstretched arms and waterslides into my chest. Asher yells again, sounding like a battle cry, and shoulders suddenly appear, and then just as suddenly, the baby's tiny body follows. Arms. Hips. Legs. Feet.
 

The baby is as slippery as slummoth slime, the cord slapping against my arm. I hate myself a little for the comparison, but I scoop the small creature into my arms like I've seen in the movies. Support the head. Even I know that much.
 

"Female," someone says.
 

Asher sinks to her knees beside me, and I try to hand the baby to her. She shakes her head for a moment and breathes. The baby smells of blood and sweat and newness. Dimly, I'm aware of the others in the room crowding around.
 

"The baby's father," Asher says, "was a shade called Kelby. She was conceived before your Gregor stole him away and corrupted his mind."

Around me, there's a murmur, but I can't pay attention to that.

The baby hasn't made a sound, and that pings some small alarm in me. Her mouth has gunk on it. I dip my finger into the baby's mouth to clear away the mucous. Her mouth opens, and I hear a rattly intake of air as she takes her first breath.
 

She's alive. In my arms. A live baby.

The baby's eyes open.

They are shining, luminous violet.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Behind me, the room breaks into chaos.
 

All I can see in front of me is the pair of violet eyes looking up at me out of the face of Asher's baby. Like me, Asher ignores the tumult, looking down at the baby.
 

"I want to call her Eve," Asher says.
 

I can't help it. My eyes fill. "Thank you."

We both know what comes next.
 

"You should hold her," I say quietly, and over the din of voices behind me, I know only Asher can hear me. "While you can."

Asher sits on the floor, leaning back against the wingback chair. I can tell she's exhausted, but she seems also triumphant as she takes baby Eve Anitsiskwa from me. I tuck Eve into Asher's arms, wishing my brother was here with me. Evis would marvel at this child, at all of this. I feel him in the distance still, awash in grief. I hold the picture of Eve's tiny face in my mind as firmly as I can, hoping it comes through to Evis. I want him to know that Kelby helped make someone beautiful before Gregor made him into a monster.

Gryfflet and Alamea sidestep around a pair of arguing Mediators and edge over to us. Gryfflet's face is unreadable, Alamea's like stone.
 

"Your baby is a Mediator," Gryfflet says. Asher nods, and Gryfflet's grey-blue eyes meet her dark ones. "You knew."

Asher doesn't answer. She motions at me, and I pull a folded towel from the table behind me and hand it to her. She wraps baby Eve in the towel, and I feel a strange surge. The cord springs away from the baby, cut by magic.
 

Gary's voice behind me is like a shock from a cattle prod. "What are we going to do with the baby?"

I'm on my feet before I can form a thought. "What did you just say?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the Summit witch look long at Asher. Some form of understanding seems to pass between them, and the witch leaves the room.
 

"Mediator babies have to be taken to the compound."

"There's no one at the gods damned compound, asshole," I say. An idea hits me. "There's no one to take a bouncing baby Mediator right now, and in case you haven't noticed, the rest of us are a little preoccupied with making sure we're all around a week or two from now."

"It's the law." Gary states it like there's a phalanx of gods flanking him to back him up.
 

I see the norms exchange looks. None of them look familiar to me, a white man with a pensive expression, a young black woman who looks like she doesn't know what she got herself into, and an old Native man who seems to be fighting back a laugh.
 

The other Mediators in the room are Sal and Rena and Glenn, and they all look about ready to deck Gary.
 

"Son," Sal says, "we've got bigger fish in the fryer right now."

"Don't you call me that, old woman." Gary has a bubble of spit on his lip. Asher, still cradling Eve in her arms, looks unperturbed.

None of us are ready when Sal's wizened brown fist licks out and lands smack in the middle of Gary's face. She draws her arm back in, flicking her knuckles once and wiping a splatter of blood from her hand onto her flannel shirt.
 

"Ain't none of us got time for that kind of horse shit," Sal says. "I say Asher should keep the child for now. Ain't no reason not to. For fire's sake, Gary Winham, if you come at me I will put you down, boy."
 

Gary looks about ready to spit rocks, but he seems to realize that everyone in the room will be on Sal's side if he aims any more vitriol at the older woman. "I'm going to tell everyone this witch banged one of those shades. I'll tell them there's a Mediator baby here."

"I think they already know," Asher says, this time quirking a small smile at Alamea. Alamea nods, and I think I see a smirk hovering at the corner of her mouth.
 

The witch who left.
 

As the others bicker, I find myself looking at Carrick, who gazes back with a thousand thoughts in his eyes.
 

A few hours later, we're left alone in Gryfflet's conference room. Alamea brought in a cot and a heap of blankets, along with a large plastic bin with no lid stuffed with pillows and blankets as well. Little Eve will have a makeshift bassinet.
 

I text Mira to see if she's okay, but she doesn't answer. Alamea promises to check on her before she leaves the conference room, and the reminder of Saturn and Miles sends that pit of grief sinking in me again.