Any Port in a Storm (42 page)

Even though the Summit announcement only went out to Mediators, word travels quickly, and my name is apparently on the evening news.
 

I can't call Mira. I can't endanger her by letting her be seen with me. Not her, or Ripper, or Devon.
 

I'm shaking and about to cry when Carrick takes my phone from me and points to the balcony.

It's full of shades, crowded onto the small space shoulder to shoulder.
 

When Evis wakes up, they all greet him, and though they were all hunting him not long ago, they somehow manage to reassure him that they don't mean him harm.

I sit with him again for a while in my room while everyone bustles around, and after a time, he speaks.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I don't want you to hate me even though I was going to kill you. I only wanted to because Gregor said you hated me and that you were going to find me and kill me if you could. He said you had all the other shades for brothers, and you didn't need me. He said I had to kill you first."

I decide in that moment that I'm going to kill Gregor just a little bit deader for that.

"He lied," I say. "These shades are my friends, and they might be kind of like my family, but they're not my brother. You are."

It's weird, seeing my face on someone else. We're not exactly the same, but we could be fraternal twins easily.
 

"I'm the one who's sorry," I say to Evis quietly. "I should have searched for you. I think I was afraid I would find you dead."

I think I was afraid I'd find him as I did, murdering the populace. But right now I don't care how I found him, even though the memory of him telling me he was going to kill me like Migs and Kelby killed Jaryn will probably haunt me forever. That's what trust is, I suppose. Knowing someone can hurt you and giving them the chance to.

We're both taking a chance on each other.

Saturn and Udo go out and return with heaps of boxes from liquor stores, and they start packing up my things.
 

"Go," Miles tells me. He pushes my suitcases in front of him instead of pulling them. "You and Evis and Carrick, go. We'll take care of everything."

"I don't know where to go," I say dumbly.
 

Saturn presses a paper into my hand. It's covered with his precise handwriting. There's an address on it. Southern Kentucky. "Jax is there. He found a place to live. You can stay with him."

Jax found a place to live.

"Nana," I say. She's in her cage, wuffling at the bars and pawing at the latch. I reach through and scratch between her ears.

"Mira will take her," he says. "You'll see her again."

I don't know if it's because Nana was a gift from Mason or because I'm used to her little red furry body hopping around everywhere or because I feel like everything I know has been severed, but the tears spill over, and I cry, dropping tears onto Nana's fur.
 

I feel about three years old, like I'm just entering training for the first time and they just handed me my first sword, too heavy to lift.

It's Evis who makes the tears stop. He puts his hand on my shoulder, his other turning my face to look at him.

"You did this for me." The wonder is written across his features, and it stops my tears like turning off a faucet. "You don't hate me."

I shake my head. "I don't hate you. Not at all."

I wonder how many times I'll have to say it before he really believes me.

I make Carrick drive us to Kentucky. He doesn't have a license, but he learned almost a hundred years ago, so he's had plenty of practice.

We arrive at two in the morning, and Jax greets us. It's a small double wide, and he says he met a nice old woman who wanted to go to Hawaii and asked him to house sit. He shows us the note she left him, her three aquariums of fish, and the goat out back Jax says hates him.
 

"The goat's mean," he says. "But I can't eat it."

Jax puts Evis in the bedroom with him and shows him where to find the chest freezer full of venison. He's been hunting, and it's full to the brim.

There's only canned fruit cocktail, ramen, and instant rice in terms of Ayala food, and I'm going to have to go to the store unless I want to share with the shades.
 

I guess if I cook it, it's not that bad an idea, though I don't want to take their food supply. They get cranky when they're peckish.

Jax has Carrick and I in the master bedroom, which is weird to me until Carrick rolls out a sleeping bag on the floor at the foot of the bed.
 

He pulls out the giant book I've seen him reading.
 

"What is that?" I ask.

"Old magic." He holds it out to me, and I take it. "I brought it with me from England. A witch coven there gave it to me long ago."

I can't make out the writing. It must be Middle English or older. I hand it back to him. "Anything useful in there?"

"Many useful things."

"Like what?" Asking him about this gives me a chance to not think about Nashville or the panic that threatens to leap onto my back at any given moment.

"Curing illnesses, finding lost things, making monsters, gaining strength."

"Gaining strength?" I ignore the making monsters bit. I don't want to know.

"You certainly don't need more of that," he says.

"I feel weak," I say. Even the words feel weak coming out of my mouth.
 

"You are anything but that," he says.
 

"The entire world Summit will be against me now. And even though Alamea said no further punishment, I will have to avoid Mediators. Some will try and kill me on sight and call it an accident. Like Gregor did with Miles." I take a shaky breath in, trying to wrap my mind around this being not a dream or a nightmare and just being real. "If there is anything you think might help, please tell me. Even if it's just a lark."

Carrick is silent for a long moment.
 

"There is a spell. It's a variation on the one that created the original Mediators."

I start at that. I knew we came from magical origins, that our genes were altered to make us our own species,
homo sapiens libra
, but I've never given it much thought. "What is it?"

He hesitates, then flips through the book. It takes him several minutes to find it. Some of the pages are dogeared, but not this one. The facing page is taken up by a large design. At it's center is a stylized yin yang. It spirals out in lines like the branches of a tree — or its roots.
 

"It's a tattoo," he says.

"What does it do?" The lines of the design capture my eye, make me follow them. I go over to Carrick and reach out, tracing them with a finger.
 

"It increases strength, speed, stamina."

"Just a tattoo can do that? Some ink on the skin?" My skin tingles at the thought; I've never gotten any tattoos.

"Not ink," he says. "Blood."

My finger halts on the page, and I pull it back. "Whose blood?"

"A demon," he says.
 

I flinch.

"Or a shade."
 

I meet his eyes. A tattoo of shade blood that could make me stronger, faster, give me more endurance.
 

I remember Alamea's text.
This is not over, and you will be needed.

And the reason for her depositing the equivalent of two years' salary into my account.
I'm on the clock.

Double-0 Ayala, reporting for duty.

"Let's do it," I say.
 

Carrick looks at me, shock written across his face. "You mean it."

"The demons aren't going away. Gregor is out there somewhere, and we'd be foolish to think he won't be back and bring hell on wheels with him. So yes, I mean it." I point at the design. "Where does it go?"

He winces. "Your back. Over your spine, which gives you strength to stand and connects your nerves to your whole body."

My back. Which is covered in still-healing scars.
 

"Do it."

Evis volunteers his blood, and Carrick goes into town in my car and breaks into the single tattoo parlor there. He brings back a machine, and I don't question him. He's lived four hundred years and says he knows how to do this, so I'll trust him.

I'll buy the tattooist a new gods damn set of machines if she wants.

I lie facedown on the bed, Evis at my side, watching his blood drip into a little sterile pot on the nightstand.
 

He squeezes my hand.

The needle touches down.

Some hours later, it's finished.

Carrick gently cleans it with soap he stole, covers it with a thin layer of ointment, snaps a picture with my phone, and bandages the tattoo. It takes a lot of bandages. My back is alight from the nape of my neck to my tailbone.
 

Evis and Jax retreat, each of them gently touching my shoulder — a safe distance from where the needle traveled.

Carrick shows me the picture. The design is meticulous, and he worked quickly. It's deep red, almost seeming to glow. It's going to clash with my hair and eyes. I guess nobody's aesthetics are perfect.

"You'll heal fast," Carrick says. "Probably faster than normal."

Now that he mentions it, the swelling from the bruiser Evis gave me has already gone down, and my lip is normal size.
 

I look up at him, and he jumps.
 

"What?"

He shakes his head. "It's probably just the light."

"Bullshit. You can see in the dark." I get up painfully, shuffling to the large antebellum vanity that's out of place in this modular home. I flip on the lamp and look in the mirror.
 

I immediately turn the light back off, swallowing hard.

I feel different. It's hard to put my finger on, but it's there, like a traveling itch.
 

I've just made a choice that will change everything for the rest of my life, and everyone will know.

Not because they'll see the tattoo.

Because of my eyes.

They're indigo.

Acknowledgements

In the dedication for the first book in Ayala's series, I wrote, "To Kristin and Jes, who always keep fighting." This was for two of my dear friends who, like me, had a very-very-very hard year in 2014 and early 2015. Two months after STORM IN A TEACUP came out, the two stars of my favorite television show Supernatural, launched a t-shirt campaign called Always Keep Fighting to benefit those who suffer and survive every day with invisible illnesses like depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, and more.
 

This book is very much a product of an ongoing fight, as is Ayala's life.

As someone who lives with invisible illness, it was important to me to include this note. That little synchronicity between my last book's dedication and Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles' campaign fits very well with one of the major themes in Ayala's story as well as the show Supernatural. When I first wrote STORM IN A TEACUP, I had never seen a single episode of Supernatural. (Yes, yes, I know. I lived under a rock from 2005-2012.) Though I am unaffiliated with the show, I believe deeply in the message shared by Jared and Jensen to keep fighting.
 

It's hard. Life likes to kick us in the ass, and unlike Ayala, we can't physically kill our demons. We have to live with them, keep them at bay, and sometimes fight them off without swords.

Sometimes it can feel like we have our own personal hells-hole that follows us around, spewing out demons faster than we can kill them.

This book is for you. Bravery isn't about not being scared — it's about keeping on when you are. It's about looking the monsters in the eye sometimes, crying sometimes, and yes, sometimes making butt jokes and swearing until you laugh.

I urge you, if you're reading this and your personal fight feels like it's too much to bear, to reach out to someone. There are people who want nothing more than to talk to you when you are hurting and to fight beside you.

You can find international suicide hotlines at
www.suicide.org
, including specific lines for LGBTQIA youth, military veterans, and more. Reach out. There are people ready to reach back.

About the Author

Emmie Mears is an author, actor, and person of fannish pursuits. Born in Texas, the Lone Star state quickly spit her out after a measly three months, and over eight states and three different countries, Emmie became a proper vagabond. She speaks four languages and holds a degree in history. She writes science fiction and fantasy and loves to weave in sociological and psychological threads through her novels...which was probably not what her university professors had in mind for using her degree. Emmie is the head of a pride of cats in the suburbs of DC, and she's pretty sure at least one of them thinks she's its mother. Slightly obsessed with Buffy and Supernatural, Emmie haunts the convention circuits and joins in when she can on panels and general tomfoolery. She is the author of SHRIKE: THE MASKED SONGBIRD (2014), STORM IN A TEACUP (2015), and ANY PORT IN A STORM (2015). Emmie is open to bribery in the form of sushi and bubble tea.

She spends most of her time causing problems and ruining worlds.
 

She may or may not secretly be a car.

You can connect with Emmie on
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website
, or check out her sexy-book writing alter ego
Eva Jamieson
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Want More?

Shrike Series

Shrike: The Masked Songbird (
Available Now!
)

Shrike: Rampant (Coming September 2015!)

Ayala Storme Series

Storm in a Teacup