Eye of the Storm (43 page)

"An alarm. Like the wards we set up around the city. Like any wards, probably. Like a web." I see what he's saying now, and something bright and hot and alive blooms in my chest, something I haven't felt like this in ages.

Hope.

"Exactly," says Gryfflet. "Big spells need to be supported by a framework. Think of it like a tent. You knock down one pole, and it starts to fall down. If we can get even a few of the Summits to help us, it could work. Breaking a few of the symbols might be enough to crumble the rest."

Excitement flashes between us, and even Mira looks like she wants to believe for a moment. But then her face sours, and she kicks Alamea's desk again. "You're forgetting something. People are going to freak out if you tell them you're taking the Mediators away. They'll shit themselves at the idea of our world being left defenseless, and they're not going to just blindly trust that wiping out the Mediator line will end the hellkin threat. And even if they do, some will probably want to help it along and just kill us."

She's right.
 

Mira's words puncture the buoyancy in the room, and I can almost hear it deflate.

Alamea and Evis have both been quiet, but now I see that Alamea is watching my brother. And he's staring at the blank monitor of Alamea's computer.

"Storme, what do you do for a living?" Alamea asks.

Bewildered, I sit back on my heels, tugging the sparring jacket up over my boobs. The starched material rubs on the web of welts and stings. "Well, right now you're the one who pays me."

"This isn't your real job, and you know it. What do you do for a living, Ayala?"

"I…work in PR."

Mira's mouth drops open, and Evis looks up, startled. The smirk on Alamea's face is undeniable.
 

"Do you think your friend Candy is still alive?" she asks.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Candy is indeed alive. She answers her phone on the third ring.
 

"Ayala?" Her voice is full of absolute disbelief.

"Yep, it's me. Since the world didn't end yet, do you think you could do me another favor? Do you think you could get back to Nashville in the next few days? With your crew?"

"Dave got eaten."

"Oh." I don't know who Dave was. "I'm sorry, Candy."

"Thank you." She's quiet for a moment. "I think I can get to Nashville with daylight to spare if I leave now. I've got a motorcycle, and the Channel Five van is still in the parking garage. I can show some of your people how to work the camera, and I can do the rest. I worked my way up."

"Thank you. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important."

"Ayala, you made my gods damned career with that last segment. If this is half as earth shattering as that was, I'll be happy to fetch you drinks for the rest of your life."

"It's not the earth I'm trying to shatter," I say. "Call me when you get into town. We'll send someone to meet you."

After I finally shower the blood and grime off my body and dress in a pair of soft leggings and an oversized black tunic borrowed from a Mitten, I spend the rest of the day with Mira, combing through the Summit security footage to find pictures of the shades.

We're both quiet as we watch, trying to find good shots of as many shades as we can.
 

"I should have taken pictures of them," I say in a hushed voice somewhere between hours two and three of searching. I still feel a tickle in my mind. With Sol and Luna gone, it feels almost like my alpha status has been revoked. I can feel Evis when he's right near me, but right now I can barely catch a hint of him.
 

Or maybe it's just that I've lost so many of them in such a short time.
 

I haven't had time to process any of this.
 

Mason's face shows up on the screen, and I hit the spacebar on the computer to pause.
 

Mira looks at him there, then at me. "He was desperate to find me the other day, you know."

I know what day she's talking about, of course. I look at the floor.
 

"I know I was pretty messed up," she says. "Saturn…it hit me hard. Miles too. I know why you didn't come to tell me what you were doing."

"It was a stupid idea. I shouldn't have gone."

"Shut up, Ayala. It was the right choice. We were dangling from a hook over the hellfire, and you took a chance to find a fire extinguisher."

"There wasn't any fire. It was cold there."

"It's a metaphor. I'm trying to tell you how brave you are."

I meet her eyes, swallowing. "I can barely feel anything lately," I say. "But when I was waiting for Gryfflet to open that hells-hole for me to jump in, I almost made him stop. I should have told you."

"That's what I was going to say. If you'd told me earlier, I would have tried to stop you. When Mason came to get me, I knew it was already too late for that. I thought I could go with you. We know how well that worked out." She gives me a wry smile.
 

She's putting on the stiff upper lip act right now, but I know her too well for this.
 

"Seeing the two of you running toward me is the only thing that gave me the strength to actually go," I tell her.
 

"He wanted you to know how much he loved you," Mira says. "He told me that, when he was trying to break through my grief fog. He already knew he didn't plan to live through this. He told me that he loved you and that he wanted you to be proud of him and that he wanted you to know that you really did teach him love. That's why he jumped in that hole. To prove it. To prove he had learned love enough to be selfless."

"Mason said all that?" My throat feels dry and lumpy.
 

"Yeah, I wasn't very talkative when he came to get me." Mira sighs, her eyes on Mason's face on the monitor. "If it takes all of us dying to keep the demons out, you know I'll go down with you, right?"

"Hopefully it's not going to come to that," I say. "There's no one I'd rather greet the end with than you."

We're both silent for a moment.
 

Fuck it.

"I love you, Mira," I say to her. I swivel my rolling chair toward her and scoot until my knees touch hers. She doesn't scoot away, and I can feel that something's changed. Neither of us seem to have the ability to flinch away from each other anymore. "We earned a reprieve here, or were given it. And however we fix this, I want you to know that. I love you. However many days we have left on this planet, I want to spend them with you."

"I would have gone with you," she says. "If the portal had let me through, I would have gone into hell with you."

"I know," I tell her.

I go to find Asher that evening, after Mira and I fetch Candy from downtown and maneuver the Channel Five van to the Summit.
 

Asher is in Gryfflet's conference room, holding Eve again as usual.
 

She looks up when I come in, and her eyes brighten.
 

And she's not alone. The other Summit witch who was present at Eve's birth is in the far corner, watching me with an appraising look.
 

"You ought to put some salve on those marks," the new witch says. "They're going to scar. They're mystical wounds."

"Let them scar," I say. I think my words sound as tired as I feel. "Who are you?"

"This is Colette," Asher says. "I've known her almost as long as I knew your mother."

Colette is in her sixties, with all white hair cut in an asymmetrical bob. Her skin is pale and freckled, with wrinkles forming around her mouth and eyes.
 

"Can I trust Colette?" I ask Asher bluntly. I don't have time for niceties. Plus, I'm saving my PR skills for the camera.
 

"As much as I can." Asher's response isn't entirely assuring. "Colette and I are old, old friends."

"How long have you worked for the Summit?" I ask. Something about the emphasis in Asher's words is making me think.

"Since college," Colette says.
 

"Asher, do you have old friends in any other Summits?" I ask the question mildly, but Colette's eyes turn to brown agates.
 

"Yes," says Asher.
 

I don't think I'm ever going to know the full story of what's going on here, but if it saves the world, I'm not sure I care. Watching the way Colette carefully adjusts her expression back to neutral makes me wonder a lot of things.
 

"Hypothetically," I begin, walking forward and holding my arms out to take the bundle that is Eve from her mother, "if I were to ask you a direct question, could you answer it?"

"Depends on the question," Asher says promptly.

"Some questions shouldn't even be asked." Colette frowns, crossing her right leg over her left.
 

"Yeah, well, I left my manners in hell." I'm going to use that excuse as far as I can ride it, because at least I got something out of that experience. "Could the first Mediators do magic?"

I half-expect neither of them to answer. Colette begins to speak in a lecturing tone.
 

"Very little is known about the early Mediators."

"Bullshit. Plenty is known, but I think we were all fed fiction instead of what really happened." There's no way I'm going to get around the gag spell on Asher, and watching Colette, I know I'm right. She's under it too. The Summit has always employed witches. I could make the assumption — erroneously, I think — that the witches are loyal to the Summit and that Asher's agenda is in line with the Summit's.
 

"The problem with conspiracies is that people are really bad at keeping secrets," I say to baby Eve, cuddling her against my chest. "Unless there's a way to make them."

The baby gurgles. She's awfully cute. I'm not one for kids, but I like this one. She's small and looks kind of edgy with that little faux-hawk of black hair and her purple Mediator eyes. I've seen little kid Mediators before — hell, I was one — but I never hung out with the bitty babies.
 

"I think you're going to be able to do magic, Eve," I say to her in a sly whisper. "You're a quarter demon and half witch. I think that's enough. I think that once upon a time, the first Mediators decided to cast that spell and let their ability to do magic die with them."

Something occurs to me. And it might just get around the gag spell, since it ought to be historical fact that is more widely accessible.
 

"When was the first Mediator seal created?"
 

Eve gurgles again, and her tiny fingers brush my hand. She's watching me, her little mouth in an O that makes her look adorably like she's just discovered a clue.
 

"Rome, around two thousand years ago." Colette's eyes now show a tinge of respect.
 

"Could such a spell be duplicated now?" I ask. I need to know if it's possible for someone to remake this spell if we manage to break it. Eve is still staring at me. I wonder what she's thinking.

"Only by a very specific type of person," Colette says, and it's obvious to me that she's choosing her words very carefully. "And it would take more than one."

I follow her gaze to Eve.
 

"Gryfflet's working on how to break the spell," I say. "But you two already know how, don't you?"

This time I get the answer I expect: silence.

"Just help him," I tell them quietly. I kiss Eve on the forehead and hand her back to her mother.