Taken By Storm (18 page)

I can almost feel my face flatten into a two dimensional space. "Yes."

"Have you told anyone?"

I don't answer, because I have a feeling she'll know if I'm lying.
 

She shows no anger, just gives a little sigh. "Times change."

"I suppose they do."

Her smile now has a hint of irony. "We know a bit more about change and adaptation here than you all might think back east."
 

I make a memo to myself to read more history.
 

"Alamea understands, and I think you do too, that things are about to shift dramatically in our world."
 

Gesturing vaguely to the east, I raise an eyebrow. "Your city is on lockdown and the populace is getting murdered. I think it already has."

Tamar gives me another considering look. "It's your intention to kill Gregor Gaskin."

"Yes. I know he's here. I saw him. And he put a horde of demons on my trail somehow." It strikes me that he could have used one of the talismans that Hazel Lottie used with the Righteous Dark, the flat pieces of metal that draw demons to them.
 

"Out at Suquamish Sleeps. So I heard." Her face flashes from stoic to impressed for a moment, then back again. "I wanted to meet you face to face. Thank you for coming. If you continue to be a help and not a hindrance, you won't find enemies in the Seattle Summit."

I'm so shocked that I take a full step back. My heart fights to beat. I've spent so much time in the past several months of censure just trying to exist outside of the one place I was born into that her declaration at once terrifies me and gives me a comfort I thought was lost to me forever.
 

I open my mouth to thank her, and a boom crashes through the air.
 

The sound is so strange that I don't even realize it's a gunshot until Tamar falls to her knees, blood soaking her teal button down.
 

"Fuck!" I look behind her, where the shot came from. I only see a figure running northward toward the museum.
 

I'm used to swords. I fall to my knees beside Tamar and press my hands to the wound. The bullet went all the way through, and it's sheer luck that it didn't hit me on the way out. If I'd been standing four inches to the right, it would have.

The sound of footsteps makes me unsheathe my short sword, clumsily because my dominant hand is pressing down on Tamar's stomach.
 

Three Mediators, all with the same black hair as Tamar, circle around me. One of them shoulders me aside, taking my place with her hands over Tamar's wound.

"Can I help you?"

One of them shoots me a look that's almost hostile. "We'll take it from here."

"If you tell me what I can do, I'm happy to help."

"I said we'll take it from here. We take care of our own." The man glares at me, and I take a step back.
 

"Ayala," Tamar says. She's grimacing in pain, but she waves a hand at the man to shut up. "If you need to contact me, have Udo call Mavis."

I nod at her, and they take her away. For a long moment I watch them retreat, thinking of how Udo said there were whispers of threats against Tamar's life. Turns out those whispers are gunshots.
 

I don't have any proof, but I'm pretty sure this is Gregor's fault too.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I call Mira on my way back to the car, but before I can tell her what happened, she interrupts me.

"Devon, Ripper, and I are moving up to your cabin," she says. "Bringing Nana with us."

"Wait, the cabin? You can make it there now? It's only been a week since you stopped drinking the tea."

"Apparently that's enough." Her voice sounds as conflicted as I feel. "We can't go much further, but we've been testing it every day, and it's just a bit more each time. Carrick said we can stay there, because the wards are working so far, and he wants our help tracking down the Hopkinsville shades."

I tell her about the alphas, and she goes quiet.

"Well, that's balls."

"Pretty much." Udo and Evis aren't at the car. A moment of panic grips me, but there's a note on the windshield that just says,
heard gun
. They'll track my scent back here.
 

"Any luck finding Gregor?" Mira asks.

"I saw the fucker," I say. "Just caught a glimpse of him, but it was definitely him. Between that and his demon delivery service, I'm going to make sure I kill him extra dead when I do find him. Right now I'm thinking I need to find the alpha shade here."

Quickly, I go over the way we all sensed him earlier. Every time something like this comes up, I'm afraid she's going to think of me as a little less of a person.
 

But as usual, Mira surprises me. "What if you follow that sense? Drive around and try to pick up on it? It's kind of like looking for a particular ear of corn in a field going row by row, but it's the best idea I've got."

"You might have a point." I see Evis and Udo returning, and they both speed up when I wave. "Thanks."

"That's what I'm here for. Bunny care and general advice." She sounds tired. I don't blame her.

"Be safe."

"You too."

The shades and I decide to implement Mira's plan tomorrow during daylight. None of us have really slept in days, and while they don't need it as much as I do, they're looking pretty haggard. I can only imagine how I look.

My wounds have mostly healed, but crawling into bed the claw marks in my side throb with my heartbeat. Evis and Udo have passed out in the next bed, and eventually their slow breathing lulls me and I fall asleep.

We spend four hours the next day driving up and down Seattle's barren streets. The cloud cover hangs extra low today, with a slow drizzle seeping from it like sweat from pores.

Starting in the north, we work our way slowly south, back and forth and up and down every street on the map with Udo in the backseat diligently coloring in the ones we've hit. It's almost sundown when we curve toward the waterfront and Evis sits straight up in the passenger seat. It doesn't matter that he's just gone full alert like a pointer, because I feel it too, and I can smell the apprehension exuding from Udo in the back.

My fingers feel cold on the steering wheel. All types of fears race through my mind. Will this shade be able to control us? Is that what he's doing to the others? Or is he just sort of a figurehead, powerful but not omnipotent? I hope that being a generation removed from these shades will keep us out of the worst of his influence, but I don't know. I've got Lucy, my flamethrower, tucked away in the trunk of the car.

If the cold takes us over, that's one way to heat things up.

I follow the sensation, which is a strange feeling, like following your nose to a concert in braille. There's no one on the streets, so I'm not worried about parking tickets. I pull over, and the three of us get out, Udo and Evis watching while I gear up. Lucy goes on my back, and I only hope these shades we're tracking don't know what she does.

The air outside is chill. It's December now, and the winter solstice will be coming. Usually this time of year things are gearing up for Solstice celebrations, lights hanging from shops and homes, pine boughs decorated over doorways, the scent of cinnamon in the air.

But right now Seattle is dark and covered in weeping clouds, and it smells only of wet concrete and fear.

Fog creeps in over Puget Sound. I walk with Evis and Udo at my side, both of them taking care to stay close.
 

By the harbor, there's a few small outbuildings about the size of the cabin in Kentucky. The sense of cold and magnetism grows stronger. I think if I closed my eyes and followed that sense, I'd open them to see the alpha shade's indigo ones staring right back at me.
 

"How many do you think are in there?" I ask the question softly. I don't even know how many we can take. It took all three of us to take one the last time, though that was with the unpredictable Frank factor included.

I think back to the warehouse in Nashville I helped the Summit blow up. There were over twenty shades in there. The thought of walking into that outbuilding to find something similar makes my entire body feel like it's been hooked up to an electric current.
 

Udo gives the building a considering look. "No more than five."
 

His words — and the confidence with which he speaks them — give me a small bit of calm. About the same amount I'd feel from a pat on the back, but it's something.

"How do you figure?" I can't seem to make my feet move forward.

"Mavis told me they've killed and two hosts and eliminated others who disappeared at the same time as possible hosts."

"One in three. Good math." I think about that for a moment. "And we've killed one more. So there are four in there total, including the alpha. We should probably bet that there could be more, but that at least gives us an idea."

Evis gives me a grim, sad smile.
 

I look back at the outbuilding.

Gregor's given me an idea. A really, really bad one.

"You two guard the front door. I'll be back." I leave them at the main exit, but there is one other possible in and out of the building. One small side door that looks nailed shut anyway.
 

The nails won't matter. There are a couple old barrels under an outcropping of roof, and I kick one of them apart. The wood is dry and splintering. Lucy takes to it like it was made for her, and flames lick up from the wood. I pile the pieces up against the side door.
 

Shades don't like fire.

I don't feature getting burned alive either, but this might be enough of a deterrent for us.

I meet Udo and Evis back at the front of the building, and without needing me to tell him to, Evis kicks the door down.

Four shades stare back at me, not fearful, not any emotion I can recognize.

I know the alpha on sight.

He towers over the others, which I know is just coincidence, but that doesn't make me feel any better.
 

They have to smell the smoke from outside, but none of them move. The floor is wood.

I turn my flamethrower on it.
 

One of the shades lunges at me, and I hit him with the fire. The cold pull emanating from the alpha chills me, and I feel a tug upon my mind. Evis and Udo draw back behind me. They don't like fire either.

Closing off the valve again, I draw my swords. Smoke's filling the building, and the shade I hit with Lucy roars in pain.

I shut it out, hit the switch that makes me pity him, turn it off. There's time to cry over my methods later.

He's covered in second and third degree burns. I step forward and decapitate him, ending his suffering.

The other two underlings rush me. I hear the sizzle of their feet as they hit the burning floorboards, and they hiss at me in anger and pain. Evis and Udo spring into action, intercepting one of the shades. I wonder how long before the alpha steps in to protect his people.
 

I don't have to wonder long.

A snap reverberates in my mind like the crack of a glacier calving. It staggers me, long enough for the advancing shade to punch me in the face. My cheek ignites, bones cracked. I can feel them. I duck out of the way of the shade's next swing, coming up on his left side with a kick that knocks his feet out from under him. I take his left leg off at the knee. The shade screams, grabbing at my ankle. He loses that arm, followed by his head.
 

Running at the alpha is the craziest thing I've ever done.

I can't afford to worry about Evis and Udo. The alpha watches me vault at him, impassive as a mountain and as dangerous as a volcano.

His powerful fists hit my forearms, sending my blades spinning and shockwaves zigzagging up my arms.

But he doesn't strike further.

My arms throb, and I shake them out.

He watches me, his eyes so dark indigo they're almost black. Behind me, I hear the sound of muscle tearing and cartilage snapping. The blood I smell isn't my brother's or my friend's.