Eye of the Storm (17 page)

I make myself look away from Ben Wheedle.
 

I try not to think about my arms around Ripper's waist as we rode the motorcycle down to the house today, how full of life and warmth his body was then as we maneuvered corners. Now he's just dead.

And the strange detachment I noted in his voice. He didn't want me to know even then that these people meant something to him. How much of this man in my arms did I fail to get to know?

Alamea gestures to me to put Ripper's body down. I hesitate, shaking my head. But then I see where she's pointing. The crowd of Mediators and Mittens all clear away from the symbol in the center of the floor, the yin and yang we all walk over every day. The lined depiction of the balance we try to keep, caked in dirt and grass from our preparations of war.

It seems right — or as right as it can — to place Ripper's body down in the very middle of that symbol. I lay him out gently, his arms at his sides. I can't tell which of his wounds killed him. It doesn't matter.
 

I can hear Jocelyn and Alison crying behind me, and they're not the only ones. Ripper was respected, as he should have been.
 

I back away from his body, my hands sticky with his blood. Mediators come forward and surround him in a circle. This isn't a ritual; we don't have many funerary customs in the Summit. Maybe it's the fact that we feel one trip and a slip away from hell, or maybe it's that we've all seen a lot more death in the past few weeks than we ever wanted to, but suddenly the lobby of the Summit feels like a sacred space. There are swords and supplies stacked up in tidy and untidy piles all over the edges of the room, but in its center is something raw and effulgent.
 

But it won't bring him back.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Later, once some of the others have cleared the lobby, I meet Alamea in her office. I think she expects me to jump down her throat for letting Ben out of the Summit prison, but I know we need every able body we have. And he's that, at least. I can't help but feel a certain grim satisfaction that he was greeted with the sight of his dead friend when he got out. It's horrible, and it's wrong, and I feel it anyway.
 

Maybe if Ben had worked with us instead of against us "for our own good" we would have stood a better chance. Instead Ripper, Mira, Devon, and I spent the last several months dodging demons and Mediators alike because we didn't know who we could trust. That is Ben's fault directly, even if Ripper's death isn't.

Devon. I haven't even thought of him lately. I wonder where he is. He might even be dead too.

Alamea asks what happened in the cellar, and I tell her to the best of my ability. "Looks like their neighbor was a hells-zealot, and somehow he seemed to know Ripper would come."

"Ripper got Jocelyn pregnant when he was just barely out of training," Alamea says. "She wanted to keep the baby, even though she knew he wouldn't be able to be an active part of the child's — Alison's — life. She met Bart a few years later, and even though she was still in love with Ripper, she married Bart. Ripper visited when he could. Bart was…remarkably understanding about the situation."

I think I understand what she means, and my heart breaks a little more. "I never knew."

"I made as sure as I could that few people did. Ripper trusted me with his confidence." Alamea exhales slowly, almost a sigh but not quite. I wonder how many other confidences she carries in silence. "He was very proud of Alison, even though he thought she resented him. He loved Jocelyn, and Alison. And I think he and Bart loved one another as well."

I think of the way Bart held Ripper's hand, so weakly, but so sure Ripper meant him comfort. And Alison called Ripper
dad
. Maybe she never had before.

We sit in silence for a long moment.
 

My skin feels tired. All of me feels tired. I want to curl up and sleep for a month.
 

"I don't know if my idea will work," I say. It's an abrupt subject change, but I can't grieve right now. I push the image of Ripper's body out of my mind, try to make my arms forget the weight of him. "If one lousy teen hells-zealot can summon that many demons to a storm cellar, holding the lines might be futile."

"Maybe," Alamea agrees. "But with the wards, we'll have a jump on them. Besides, we'll be ready to move at midnight tonight."

My head snaps up. "Tonight?"
 

"We need to move quickly." The tiniest hint of panic cracks onto Alamea's face, then vanishes. "I don't know how much time we have."

Until we turn into Atlanta, she means. She's not wrong.
 

Mira finds me as I leave Alamea's office two hours later. It's already almost nine, and I want to try and get some kind of nap before spending the dark hours killing things. The Summit is eerily quiet, with most of the Mediators out organizing everyone for tonight's mission.
 

Her face looks as wan as I feel, but some tiny part of me quiets at the sight of her.
 

"Hey," she says.

"Hey." I want to reach out and take her hand, but we're still in that fuzzy state of apocalyptic gloom, and I don't know if it would be welcome.

I also don't know if either of us want the entire Summit knowing yet. Then again, I don't have a road map for this. Every breath I take is a reminder that I might not have many more remaining, and as romantic as it would be to spend the remaining hours on earth going at it like bunnies with the woman I love, I'd much rather have a world around to have sex in later.

"Alamea tell you? About Ripper's family?" Mira falls into step beside me. I'm going to have to ask her about Ben, but I don't want to. Not now, when even thinking his name makes me want to put my fist through a wall.
 

I nod. "Did you know?"

Mira shakes her head. "Nope. I found out from Ben. He recognized the women."

I guess we're going to talk about Ben then. I make a concerted effort to restrain my violent impulses, channeling it aside for use later when I can put my fist through demon skulls instead of innocent walls.

"Why'd Alamea let him out?" I ask. I should have asked her that, or maybe she should have told me. Maybe she's feeling more scattered than I thought.

"All hands on deck," Mira says. "He's capable, if you point him in the right direction and make sure his feet take him in it."

"And babysit him every step of the way," I mutter. "You said he knew about Ripper's family."

"Far as I can tell, he and Alamea were the only ones."

For some reason, that makes me angrier, makes my knowledge of Ben's betrayal of Ripper cut even deeper.
 

"Just keep Ben away from me as much as you can," I say.

"Believe me, I don't want to spend any more time with him than I have to."
 

We reach a conference room at the far end of a corridor. All's quiet as we push the door open and go inside. No one's in here, not even Nana.
 

When Mira sees me looking at the corner where her cage was, she gives me a sad look. "Jax put her in the holding cells for the night. She's got plenty of food, and he set a couple of the younger Mittens to watch her. Good kids. Bunny patrol will be safer for them than whatever shitstorm we kick up tonight."

It feels fucked up to put kids in the beehive of doom downstairs, but I can't fault the logic. It's the safest place here.
 

"Don't worry. Alamea hooked them up with an Xbox and a year's supply of Die Hard and Expendables and Terminator movies."

Summit babysitting, done right. Bunnies, blood, and head shots.

Nothing Nana's not used to anyway.
 

I sit down against a wall. A moment later, Mira joins me. She sits about an inch away, close enough for me to feel her body heat. Her shoulder touches mine.
 

"I'm going to miss that fucker," she says.
 

That's all she says, and I just nod because if I say anything, I'll cry, and I can't afford to cry right now.

Instead I just sit there, my arm against Mira's, feeling for all the world like that tiny touch is cold, fresh water when I'm dying of thirst in the desert.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It's a relief to not be in command for once.
 

Alamea is our general, and she gives orders to all the Mediators and Mittens about how exactly we're to go about cleansing Nashville's center of hellkin. Even though the efficacy of such a plan still sticks in my brain as dubious — and even though it was my plan in the first place — I can't help but sense the permeating relief that steeps the air around me.
 

Mediators hate feeling helpless as a rule. If nothing else, this possibly-futile idea of mine is giving all of us a purpose for the night.
 

We've divided the oblong center of the city into a series of concentric circles and quadrants like a dart board. There's a hush over the city, a multifaceted hush that is at once the silenced voices of the dead and the calm before whatever tumult we're about to experience. The clouds above feel oppressive, heavy, as though they might drop down upon our heads.

The shades divide themselves among the various squads, and as much as I'd like to have Carrick or Evis or Mason or Jax or Saturn with me, I know I'm the only one who feels comfortable with Sol and Luna, so it's the two of them that join Mira and me and a small gaggle of other Mediators, Mittens, and witches. The lead witch with us is Asher again, and I'm thankful for that. She knows what she's doing. I can trust her to hold her own even if shit goes down the toilet. After closeting herself with Asher for an hour, Alamea seems to accept her help and trust her own judgement with the whole being nine months pregnant thing. So now Asher's with me again. Alamea took Ben. I caught a glimpse of him with her as they vanished to the south.
 

She knew better than to put him with me.
 

This plan is a risk; we all know it. We're leaving the Summit virtually undefended, with only a few hundred norms armed with swords they can barely wield to keep it safe.
 

We work through the first few sections tersely, but with no interference from hellkin. The ward-line surrounding Vanderbilt and the Summit stretches and snaps into place as our groups expand outward from the center. By three in the morning, we're almost to the I-440 circle.
 

The night feels too quiet. There's no trouble at the Summit; the wards behind us would be blaring if there were. And no trouble with us as well. As Asher finishes her touches on a new line of wards, I can almost feel the thrum of them like a giant spiderweb of protection laid out over my city.

"Something's wrong," Mira says, voicing what's in my head.
 

"I know," I murmur.
 

There's nothing we can do but wait.

Mira goes a few steps away to call the phone tree, and from her hurried conversation I can tell everyone else is on edge as we are.
 

She shakes her head as she comes back. "Only two teams have encountered hellkin, and they ran."