Any Port in a Storm (31 page)

She needs a majority.

Her eyes on the crowd are calculating and unruffled, but I know she has to be panicking. The first minute has passed. A majority by now would have been a mandate.
 

Slowly, more hands raise. My arm starts to tingle from blood rushing away from my fingers, but I do my best to keep it still in the air.
 

I'm afraid to look around, afraid of the implications if more than half of these people don't put their hands up. The time ticks down, and someone gives a ten second warning. I don't allow myself to look.

One of the Mediators on the dais guarding the assassins is counting.
 

I draw in a deep breath and let it out through my nose, trying my best not to hold it.
 

"The Summit votes for execution," he says after a long beat. "Three hundred seventy votes in favor."

Barely half. Barely.
 

I feel sick as the Mediators pull the hoods from the assassins' faces.
 

I know these men, of course. Not well, and not enough to know much more about them than their faces or names, but they are Mediators, and they share my path.
 

Or they were supposed to, anyway.
 

I always forget why the floor in front of the dais is seamless and smooth. It's not an aesthetic choice. It's pragmatic.

We don't stay sentences in the Summit.

Alamea wields the sword.

Forty-five minutes later, I slip out of the Summit, managing to avoid most of the Mediators present. No one tries to stop me. Whatever fissures exist, whatever they think of me personally, none of us will take any joy from three of our number dying due to treason. It is a quiet exodus from the Summit's halls today.

The sun's on its way to the horizon, and a dull blanket of clouds is rolling in above me.
 

I reach my car, rummaging in my pocket for my keys. When I look up, there's something sitting on the roof of the car.

It's a rubber duck.

I pick it up, turning it over in my hands. It's warm, which is strange. There's not much else remarkable about it. Bright yellow, big eyes. Squeaks.

Its bill has pink lipstick.

Alice.

The duck falls from my fingers, and with neuron-quick reflexes, I catch it before it hits the ground.
 

The shades. They've hit Percy Warner, the Waffle Spot, the warehouses.
 

I've been a complete fool.
 

They're going for my office.

I peel out of the Summit parking lot with a screech of tires and the smell of burning rubber wafting in through the air ducts in the car. I dial Mira as I drive. She doesn't pick up.

"Gods damn it," I say, just as her voicemail answers. "My office. The shades are hitting my office. Hurry."

Me against three. I don't know if I can handle it. I don't care.

I'm lucky the one cop who pulls out behind me sees my Mediator tags and flips off the squad car's lights seconds after flipping them on. I careen in and out of traffic, thankful it's not rush hour, but not caring about any of the people who honk at me. The minutes seem to tick by on the dash clock like seconds, and no matter how far down I press my foot on the accelerator, it doesn't seem to slow them.

It takes me twelve minutes to get there, and when I leave my car parked in the fire zone outside the building, one of the security guards starts to yell at me until he sees my face and my hands on the hilts of my swords.

"Out of my way, Gary. There could be more Mediators coming. Let them past if you see them." My swords leave their sheaths with a hiss of steel and a whisper of death.
 

Gary backs off and fumbles for his radio. Just before the door closes behind me, I hear him telling central security to let any Mediators pass.

Good Gary.

The elevator is faster than me sprinting up the stairs, but it still takes too long. I almost smash the mirror in the elevator out of pure frustration. When the sliding doors finally open, the hallway is quiet, as if even the building knows something is wrong.

I reach the office door and throw it open. Parker leaps up from behind the receptionist's desk, and I fight the urge to kiss him.
 

"Ayala?" His gaze goes right to the pointy steel in my hands, and he swallows, taking a step back.

"Where's Alice and Laura?" I look around, listening for anything out of the ordinary. All I hear is the air in the vents and the percolation of the coffee maker.
 

"Uh, Alice is in your old office and Laura's in her office. Meredith and LeeLoo are at an event today." He looks at me, fear making his Adam's apple bob.
 

"Get them. Quick. Hurry."

Parker doesn't move.
 

"Fucking hells, Parker! Danger! There's actual danger happening, and it's not me! Go!"

He goes, almost falling over his rolling chair to get into the hall. I watch the door. There is only one other entrance to the suite, and it's got a desk in front of it, because Laura has a crush on the fire marshall and is always hoping he'll come by and punish her.

When nothing comes through the door and a breathless Laura comes up behind me, I try not to look at her. "Stay behind me."

"What's happening?" Alice asks. I notice that they all immediately follow my order, though.

"I'll explain as soon as you're all safe."

I peer out of the door to the office. The corridor is clear, and I wonder if I missed something. Maybe there's not actually a threat.

But the duck was warm when I touched it. Maybe I just got stupid lucky and picked it up moments after it had been set down.
 

I press the button on the elevator. Laura, Alice, and Parker all stand around me, shoulders tight and eyes searching the hallway for danger. As the ding sounds through the air, for a moment it seems like I jumped to the wrong conclusion. I herd them into the elevator, and the doors slide closed.

A bang echoes through the hall, and just before the doors close completely, three dark shapes close in on the suite we just vacated.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY

Alice is the only one besides me to see them, and she lets out a startled yelp as we descend. I get crap reception in here, but I grab my phone and call the front desk.

"Evacuate the building. This is Mediator Storme. You have three hybrid creatures in the building, and they are not nice. Get everyone out."

The receptionist squawks, and I hear her yell at security before she hangs up.

Mira's just bursting through the door in the lobby when we arrive on the ground floor. I point at her and just say, "Run!" Then to her, "Get them the fuck out of here!"

I hurry over to security, and Gary's barking orders into his walkie talkie, his eyes trained on the monitor for the fourth floor.

"Have they come out of the suite?" I ask.
 

Gary lowers the walkie, but keeps it in his hand. "Yeah. They made for the east stairwell. Will gunfire stop them?"

I shake my head. "Nothing but beheading will stop them."

"What do you want to do? Can you take them?"

"All at once? No."

I hate this. I want this over once and for all. I know where all three of these murderous bastards are, and I want them gone. But part of learning to fight is knowing when you can face a foe, and this is not that time. Not alone. Not even with Mira.

"Don't engage," I say after a long pause. "Track them until they're off premises. Can you see them on camera now?"

I look down at the monitors, and even before Gary points, I see them. They're coming out on sub level one from the east stairwell, and I know from there they can hit the streets through the garage.

Sure enough, they go straight to the garage and vanish off the CCTV.

I close my eyes and breathe, trying to concentrate on Alice, Parker, and Laura being alive. This is not a failure, because they're not dead. They are not pieces on the floor. They are not reduced to blood spatters and pools.
 

What would three pissed off shades do if they missed their marks?

I'm moving before I can finish the thought. "Gary, make sure someone watches the feeds. If you see them come back, you dial the Summit right away. I'll get someone on trigger response."

I don't actually know if I have that power, but if I'm Alamea's special assistant, I'm sure as hells going to try.
 

My car is parked terribly, but there's no ticket on the window. I call Mira as I drive.

"Yo," she says. "I've got your buddies. We're at a bar on Demonbreun. Where to next?"

"Can you get them in a Summit safe house?"

She pauses. "Yeah. You sure that's necessary?"

"I'd rather them all stay in one piece. Or three, but no more than that."

"It's done. Where are you going?"

"The Waffle Spot. If those fucking shades couldn't get Alice and company, I'm going to make sure they don't get Grace." For the second time in an hour, I hit the gas hard enough to spin out.

When I pull in at the Waffle Spot, there's no sign of any disturbance. The parking lot has been power washed since the shades last visited, and all traces of Dirk's remains have been blasted away with high-velocity streams of water.
 

There are a few cars, but since it's before the dinner rush and too late for lunch, there are plenty of spots. I hope Grace is here.

I park and hurry up to the door, thankful when she's the first person I see. She looks like she's just starting her shift, with her apron clean and pressed and her hair pulled back in a tight brown bun.

She doesn't look happy to see me, but she also doesn't throw the pot of coffee in my face, so that's a good sign.

"What are you doing here?" She looks behind me as she asks it, and the coffee twitches in the pot like the water in the cup in Jurassic Park.

"I just came to check on you."

"Oh." She motions at me to sit at the bar. "I thought it was about the guy."

"What guy?" Now she's got my attention. "Was he wearing a hat?"

"What? No." Grace walks behind the bar as a bell dings, placing the pot of coffee on the hot plate. "Hang on a sec."

I wait while she delivers a plate of chicken fried steak — at least I think that's what it is, considering all the gravy — to one of the only tables in the back corner. She comes back and hands me a glass of ice water and a straw.
 

She leans on the counter in front of me. "Want some pie?"

I blink at her. "The guy, Grace."

"Well, have a piece of pie and I'll tell you about him."

Lordy.

She slides a plate of blueberry pie in front of me and hands me a rolled up fork and knife. I flick off the sticky band and take a bite, gesturing at her to talk. The pie's actually not half bad. You couldn't pay me to drink the coffee in here, but the pie's good.

"He's come in a couple times in the past week," Grace says. "He's usually underdressed for the weather."

My ears perk up at that. I take another bite. "What do you mean, underdressed?"

"Tank top. Shorts."

Tank top. "Any visible tattoos?"

"One. Saturn."

Fuck me.

"You said he's been here a couple times?"

"Yeah, he just left, actually."

"I'm sorry, what? You're feeding me pie and he just left?"

Grace looks at me, alarmed. "I didn't know he was that important! I thought he was just another Mediator. He has eyes like yours, but darker."

Sweet baby Hecate. "Which way did he go?"

I dig in my pocket and throw a twenty on the counter, not caring that the pie's probably two bucks.
 

Grace points to the west, away from Gallatin Avenue. Her mouth is open as if she's trying to catch a passing fly.

"Did you see anything else that could indicate where he was going?"

She starts to shake her head, but then she hesitates. "He had a realty brochure with him."

Okay, that's new. "Thanks, Grace. If you see any naked guys with hats, you lock yourself in the gods damned walk-in, you hear?"