Any Port in a Storm (32 page)

Her eyes widen, and she nods. "I will. I'll call you."

"Good. Thanks for the pie!" I bolt out of the diner and run west along the road. Three blocks later, I feel like a complete ass, because he could have easily turned in any direction after leaving the Waffle Spot.
 

But then I see it. A realty sign stuck in the turf another block up on the left, with FORECLOSURE on it in big letters.

If you're going to squat in a house, why not one of those?

I approach the house cautiously — after Saturn knocked out Mira, I don't know if he'll be pleased to see me or not. When I get to the lawn, though, I'm close enough to see through the side window.

It's not Saturn I see.
 

It's Miles.

I'm so startled that I forget to duck when he looks my way, and he sees me.
 

A moment later, I see a flash of paler skin that has to be Saturn. Then around the corner, I hear a door open.

I stumble forward toward the door, and for a moment I don't even consider that Miles might think I'm with Gregor. I just pitch forward into his arms.
 

If he planned to fight me, he changes his mind right away. His arms encircle me, and I hug him as hard as I've hugged just about anyone. He's durable. He can take it.

Over the dark skin of Miles' shoulder, Saturn's looking at me, his expression unreadable. I pull away from the hug and flip him off. "You fucking broke Mira's head, asshole," I say. And after a beat, "I'm glad you're not dead."

Saturn looks around, his eyes scanning the space behind me. He's still wearing the tank top and shorts. He's even wearing flip flops, though they look like he found them in a dumpster. He probably did.

"I think you should come inside," he says.

I oblige, following them both into the house. I notice Saturn doesn't make a move to touch my shoulder, and I'm not sure if me tackle hugging Miles counts.

Just to make sure, when we get inside, I reach out and touch my fingers to Miles's shoulder, meeting his eyes. After he stares at me for several seconds that make me want to grab my swords, he returns the touch.
 

Amazing how something so simple can make me relax.

Saturn keeps his distance, and I don't try to go any closer.
 

"What's going on, Saturn?" I ask. "Carrick and Gregor told me Miles was dead."

Miles looks at me. "They said that I was dead?"

"Yeah. Which you're clearly not. Go you."

He and Saturn exchange a glance, and again I get that little buzz of shade communication, whatever it is.
 

"Hey," I say to Miles. "I saw what happened. I got intercepted by a horde of demons. By the time I finished killing them, it was already done. Were you there?"

His body goes still, and he looks at the floor.

"I didn't do it," he says quietly.
 

"I know you didn't." I'm surprised by the forceful fire in my voice. I know Miles wouldn't do that, that he wouldn't harm a norm. "Is this why Jax left?"

Saturn takes a deep breath and walks over to me. He reaches out a hand and touches my shoulder. I return the light touch, and I let my hand linger on his arm for just a moment. The relief that fills me is potent. It washes through me, a reassuring wave of knowledge that I did not misjudge them. I do know them. They are my allies, and they mean me no harm.

"Jax left because he suspected such a thing might happen," Saturn says, his voice a little hoarse.
 

I'll be damned. Is he feeling something? An emotion? Saturn?

"I found him in Kentucky," I say. "Mira and Wane and I tracked him up there, thinking it was you."

Both Saturn and Miles look surprised at that.
 

"For someone on the lam, you stayed close to home," I tell Saturn.

"I wanted to be close enough to help if something happened."

I nod at him. "So tell me what's happening."

Miles sits on the carpet, and I follow suit. The house is empty, and there are no lights. It's full twilight now, and the house darkens with each passing minute.
 

"Gregor is using us," Miles says.

"Mira got your note," I say to Saturn drily, "so we kind of figured."

"He's using Carrick too," Saturn says. "I don't know how much Carrick knows."

I wonder if Carrick knows Miles is alive.
 

"Go on," I say. By their silence following my statement, I can't tell if they're unsure of what to say, or if it's so bad they don't know how to say it. The quiet ticks on, and my brain starts making up worst case scenarios.

It doesn't prepare me for what they say.

"The plantation owner paid Gregor," says Miles. "Half a million dollars."

"What?" For a moment, his words don't even compute. I can't make sense of them. Paid him for what?

Then I remember what Gregor said to me about the job. That a wealthy plantation owner had hells-worshippers encroaching on his land. Of course, he made it sound like the zealots were in danger, but he didn't tell me they were in danger from him.

It takes a solid half a minute for it to really sink in what they're telling me.

A Mediator took money from someone to kill norms.

Holy fucking hells.

Every hair on my body springs away from my skin, and my tongue is suddenly stuck to the roof of my mouth. This isn't what we do. We don't kill norms. We never kill norms. This isn't what we do.

I don't realize I'm saying it out loud until Miles scoots closer to me and puts his arm around my shoulder.

"Ayala," he says. "It's okay."

"It's not okay." My teeth chatter, and I clamp my mouth shut.

"It's not okay," Saturn agrees. In his voice I hear relief, as if my reaction erased the final lingering doubts he had about my complicity in this horror.

In the dark of the foreclosed house, I see only their silhouettes. Miles right next to me, and Saturn two feet away. I can't see their eyes, but I feel them.
 

Gregor has been accepting money to kill norms. No wonder he wants to catch the murdering shades. They threaten the viability of his business model.

I want to throw up. I lean into Miles's arm, thankful for the anchor of his too-warm skin.
 

There is nothing I know to say.
 

But I do know one thing.

I have to stop Gregor, even if it means burning the Summit to the ground.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

It takes some convincing, but I manage to get Saturn and Miles to agree to let me tell Alamea.

She's trusted me. Now it's my turn to trust her.

From their little foreclosed squatter central, I try to figure out how to text her. I wish we had some sort of code word, like "banana hammock," or "Poughkeepsie." I settle for asking her to meet with me first thing tomorrow, and on a whim I say it's about the afghan Ollie gave her as a gift.
 

She'll think that's weird enough that she'll know something's up.

I say goodbye to Saturn and Miles, giving them each extra long hugs. I do smack Saturn upside the head once for Mira. He doesn't say anything. I think he understands.

When I get home, I go straight to my room and shut the door with Nana. She hops around, but eventually finds her bed and snoozes away, and I lay there, hoping Carrick won't be home when I fall asleep.

Sleep evades me for several hours, elusive and slipperier than a greased golgoth.

"First thing" when Mediators are concerned is usually around ten in the morning, and I make it to the Summit by ten on the nose. I bring donuts and coffee for Alamea, orange juice for me.

I miss coffee. I used to love the stuff. Now even carrying Alamea's latte makes me want to blow chunks.

To my surprise, she meets me at the front door to the Summit, keys in hand.
 

"Let's go for a drive," she says.

We get into her Jeep, and I wedge her coffee in the cup holder that to me, looks about as stable as setting it on the dashboard in front of the steering wheel. She waits until we pull out of the Summit parking lot and turns left toward the park, the Parthenon lit up gold in the morning light.
 

"I thought you might want to make sure we were unobserved," she says. I hand her a donut.

And I tell her what Saturn and Miles told me.

"You trust them?" Her words come out around an audible lump in her throat when I finish.
 

"With my life." If I'm right, that's exactly what I'm trusting them with. My life. And hers. Probably Mira's too.
 

A car cuts her off, and Alamea leans on the horn, slamming the heel of her hand into it. The Jeep's horn is a sort of pitiful thing, but the way Alamea beats the living tar out of her horn's button is not pitiful at all.
 

It kind of scares me.

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

She laughs. She keeps driving down West End Avenue, past I-440 and farther south until we end up in Belle Meade. We're passing the Belle Meade Plantation before she finally stops, and I shove another donut in my mouth because I really don't know what to do. It tastes weird after my orange juice.
 

Alamea pulls into the Belle Meade Country Club's driveway and stops the car, not caring that the security people eye us askance and point at the Mediator plates as if we've rolled up with a wagon full of dead skunks.

"You know," she says, "I used to think you were the strangest damn Mediator I ever knew. You never turn up at the Summit unless you have to. You have never had friends."

I almost object there, but…she's not wrong.

"You regularly racked up the kills, though, so I figured you must've at least known what you were doing. When Gregor said he had a project for you this summer, I just thought he was trying to get you to, I don't know. Engage. Be a team player." She makes it sound like I'm a member of a varsity football team and not born into a group of demon-fighting, doomed losers.
 

"So glad you had such a lofty opinion of me," I say.
 

"I didn't," she says.

"I sort of got that."

"But let me tell you, Ayala Storme. When I saw you that day at Miller's Field, it wasn't puppy love for that shade Mason I saw on your face. It was purpose. You had something that we are supposedly born with. You found your truth and you fought for it." Alamea doesn't meet my eyes. Instead, she looks straight out the windshield of the Jeep at the traffic on Harding Pike. "It's funny. I worked my whole damn life to get where I am. I fought my way up through the ranks at the Summit even when I thought the gods damned politics of it would kill me. And I got to the head spot. I thought that'd be it. Those three men I killed in front of the whole Summit this week, they were in my MIT class. We were promoted together. And they tried to kill me. And you, this strange little Mediator half my age — you saved my life. You saved the whole Summit last summer, and now I have this feeling you're going to save it again."

Astounded, I try to keep my mouth from falling open.

"I respect you, Storme. You're a good woman, and you're a good Mediator, and I want you to help me make sure that Gregor pays for the filth he's spread across our title." Her eyes grow distant, and in them I see the same pain of betrayal that I feel.
 

I swallow, my mouth tasting of gritty sugar and oranges.
 

"I can't do it alone," I say, at a loss for any other words.

Alamea laughs. "No one's asking you to. That's not what this is about. It's not about you playing a hero, even though I know you're heroic enough. It's about salvaging what we can of this Summit, this city, this state — before it's too late."

I nod wordlessly. It takes me a few minutes to find my tongue again.
 

"That's what I want," I say. Then I stop. "What about the shades?"

"What about them?"

"They're people." I try to make my mouth form the words I want. All I know is that I have to try and protect them. They're caught between demons who want them dead and Mediators who don't want to try and understand them, and that will pulp them if no one looks out for them. "I want them safe too. I know there are Mediators at the Summit who want them all dead. The demons want them all dead. I want them to at least have a chance."