Eye of the Storm (37 page)

Curled up in a swivel chair as much as I can, I watch Asher nursing Eve. The baby is quiet — I've yet to hear her make so much as a squawk.
 

Gryfflet is sitting at the end of the table with his head sandwiched between his palms, mouth slack as if he's going over figures in his head.
 

"Spit it out, witch," I say to him. "Maybe we can help."

"Asher can't," he mutters. "Okay. Okay. She wanted everyone to know that the father was a shade and the baby is a Mediator. There's got to be more to this. Shade and Mediator sperm is viable. There are no female shades. Mediator women are sterile."

I look at Carrick, something dawning on me. "Witches and humans can have children. Witches and morphs can't. Morphs and humans can, but the babies are all morph. Dominant."

Carrick's eyes open wider. "Edith," he begins.

"Was human. Asher is not."

The flash of absolute triumph on Asher's face gives it away. Gryfflet looks confused — he doesn't know who Edith was, but I can't stop here. It's a minuscule sample size. A sample size of one is anecdotal. I'm no scientist, but I know that. Even so, my gut screams at me.

"Shades can have children with witches, but not humans. And…" I stare down at Eve, whose mouth is latched on to Asher's breast. "The product is Mediators."

"But Mediators are born to human parents all the time." Gryfflet looks like his head wants to explode.
 

I'm stumped again. "There's something here we need to find. Something important enough that Asher is trying to get around that gag spell for."

I close my eyes, thinking through the past weeks, searching for any bit of information that might be even tangentially relevant.
 

"The shades are the link between Earth and the sixth hell," Gryfflet says slowly. "The demons have been killing the older shades, but not the new."

"The newer shades are the stronger link," I say. "I've been protecting them. And the demons have to know that they're tipping the balance in their favor, because they're the ones making baby shades. We're certainly not doing that."

"And the demons want you alive," Carrick finishes, his eyes on me. "They know you're protecting their…nest egg."

"And…" A thought comes to me, slow as the creeping fog. "They won't kill me because they probably think Sol and Luna would follow."

A wild idea grips me.
 

It's a stupid idea. A horrible idea. It's very possibly the worst idea I've ever had, and it's not even technically mine.
 

"Sol and Luna," I say. "When I met up with you guys, when Saturn…"

I swallow, breaking off. I close my eyes tight, ignoring the fluttering in my chest. It's insane. Beyond batshit.

"They showed me that I could go into hell. For revenge, I think. But what if I could find an answer there?" Out loud it sounds so ludicrous that I'm half afraid Gryfflet and Asher will combine powers and trap me in a magical prison until Alamea can lock me away somewhere.
 

"In hell," Carrick says.

Gryfflet drops his hands from his face. His palms smack the table. Behind him, Eve burps.

"We can't get answers from Asher, and if you're right, Gryfflet, if she believes so strongly that the history we know is wrong, we might have to get them somewhere else." An inexplicable excitement grips me. Here's something I could do. Sol and Luna made it through, there and back. If I'm now tied to them, if I'm as much part of the link as they are, maybe I could too. And if the demons want me alive enough, I might just make it back.
 

The thought is absurd, but nothing about right now is easy or safe.
 

Gryfflet looks at Asher. "Is that even possible? We'd have to find a hells-hole. And how would Ayala even get back? Even if she found another way back to Earth, she could end up in Kathmandu instead of Nashville."

This time when Asher meets my eyes, I see a blaze of pride. "No need. I know how to open one. And get her back." From her face and the way she beams, I think we've finally asked the right question.

Looks like I'm going to hell.

I listen, half-aware, as Asher and Gryfflet discuss the specifics. Gryfflet's face is the color of chalk, and Asher, still cradling Eve in her arms, has that ever-present sheen of perspiration. Sometimes when she speaks I can almost feel her larynx contract when she gets too close to something she's not supposed to say. Her sentences will suddenly veer off in another direction. Asher doesn't even seem to notice; how long has she been under this gag for it to be so second nature to feel the words she wants to say slipping out of reach.
 

As they speak — Gryfflet harangues about dimensions and quantum mechanical theory I wasn't aware he even knew — it slowly sinks in that I am planning to go into hell. My skin tightens and chills, my hairs standing erect all over my body.
 

Carrick notices and comes to sit beside me. "You don't have to do this."

"I do." As soon as it was decided, I felt it. I have to.
 

It's a strange sensation, that knowledge. Now that it's settled, I feel a pull I can't explain. It reminds me of the draw we felt to the alpha shade in Seattle. I try not to think too hard on the fact that it's likely a pull to a demon I'm feeling.
 

"Has any Mediator ever done this before?" I ask.

Gryfflet cuts off short, and he and Asher both look at me. Eve makes a little sleepy gurgle.
 

"Not on record," Gryfflet says succinctly, but he looks to Asher, and in his face I see the same uncertainty I feel. Our records might be wrong.
 

Asher doesn't answer, but I'm finding I can read her body language. Maybe. I could be wrong.
 

"Cool, I'm a trailblazer," I say, but my voice cracks instead of portraying any kind of buoyancy.
 

A small, panicked part of me shrieks that maybe Asher planned all this, fabricated the relationship to my mother, used even baby Eve as a pawn to make me trust her only to send me to my death, that she's a hells-worshipper and the last hope of those batshit zealots to end this sorry world. It's possible. Maybe even likely.

After a moment of silence, Asher and Gryfflet begin talking again.
 

"Why can you talk about this?" I ask suddenly.
 

No one needs to ask who I'm talking to.
 

"Because it's theoretical magic that has become open knowledge," Asher says. "Physicists have figured it out, but thankfully haven't tried it."

Someday, maybe I'll ask her why they haven't tried it.
 

I mean, I always just assume I'm stupider than the average physicist, but this is an interesting way of confirming that theory.

For a while I just listen, not understanding much except the words themselves, as Gryfflet and Asher — and occasionally Carrick — throw around magical terminology and bits of quantum mechanics. It lulls me into a strange sense of quiet. When Asher gets up and places a swaddled Eve into my arms, I let her, kicking my feet up onto a chair and settling back in my own with Eve against my chest. The baby is warm, now clean and dry, and I sniff her head experimentally. I've overheard random norms talking about the smell of baby heads.
 

It just smells like skin to me.
 

Nonetheless, the little bundled baby feels like hope in my arms.
 

"Hello, Eve," I say quietly to her. Her eyes flutter open, and she looks at me. She's only hours old, this little creature.
 

She doesn't answer, of course,
 

Those violet eyes, Mediator eyes, stare up at me out of that itty-bitty face. Her skin is a light golden brown, a bit paler than her mother's. She has a mop of hair directly on the top of her head like a toupee, and that is shiny black just like Asher's. I can see hints of Asher's features in her face. The shape of her nose, the curve of her skull.
 

A deep sadness grips me, looking down at Eve Anitsiskwa. I fear that Asher had her out of necessity and not desire to bring a child into the world. She had to know what would happen. Asher was there when they took me away from my mother. Perhaps it wasn't necessity, but desperation.
 

Gazing down at Eve, I touch her soft cheek with the palm of my hand. My fingers brush the small fringe of hair that feels as soft as down. If she gets to grow up, it's going to be in a different world. I just don't know how different.
 

"Okay, Storme," Gryfflet says.
 

I look up from the baby, the pad of my thumb stroking her cheekbone.
 

"I'm going to open the portal in Centennial Park," Gryfflet says. "I want it fully within the wards. We'll get a group of trusted Mediators to guard —"

"No!" The vehemence of my reaction shocks even me. Eve blinks, but doesn't fuss. "Not Mediators. The last thing I need right now is them seeing me go into hell. They'll never let me live if I make it back."

I leave it unsaid that they might kill me especially if I make it back — how would they understand me surviving a venture into the sixth hell? They won't.
 

"Okay," says Gryfflet. "Shades?"

"Shades," I say. "I can call them to me when we leave the Summit. Which we should do separately. I don't want to draw any attention to what we're doing."

"Are you going to tell Mira?" Carrick's voice cuts into me, through the general waves of anxiety that are making my skin tingle and freezing my thumb where it rests on Eve's cheek.

I should. It's the right thing to do, to let her know I'm taking this trip. As much as I wish I could go to her right now, to be with her and help her grieve, to let myself grieve for Miles and Saturn, I know she doesn't want me there. How can I possibly add more pain and fear to her right now?
 

"I can't," I say. My voice comes out so quiet that it's almost a whisper. "She'd try and stop me."

Or worse, she'd still be in the holding cells, almost catatonic and not even look up. I don't know which would be awful. If I make it back, she can beat the shit out of me if she wants. If I don't make it back, well. It ain't gonna matter.

Carrick looks at me, his eyes thoughtful. He gives a belated nod.
 

Slowly the tingle of terror dissipates, and I lean down and kiss Eve on the forehead.
 

"Centennial Park," I prompt Gryfflet. "You just tell me when to jump through the hole."

"It's not that simple," says Gryfflet. Then he stops. "Well, okay. It is that simple. But that's just the getting there. You're going to have to get back."

I don't say that getting back at all is optimistic, but I certainly want the option.
 

"Remember those discs that Hazel Lottie used?" Gryfflet asks.
 

"How could I forget?" I swallow the tang of bitterness in my mouth with distaste.
 

"From what Asher's been telling me, those discs serve as a focal point for the hells-holes, anchoring them to a specific time and place. We're going to give you a makeshift trip line so you can trigger it when it's time for you to come back. It'll be connected to a focus we have here." Gryfflet's fingers twitch against the table. "You just have to make sure not to lose your bit of it, or you'll be stuck unless you find your own hells-hole, which could dump you out anywhere on Earth. We think."

"You think."

"There's always the possibility that the hellkin open up hells-holes to other planets, too."

Asher's tight smile confirms that.
 

"Will I be able to breathe?" I can't believe I'm just now thinking of that question. Logically, if the demons can breathe fine here, their land has similar atmosphere, but I'm not sure I can afford to assume.

"Sol and Luna were fine," Carrick reminds me.

"Good point."

I don't know what we're really hoping to find out, but Asher seems to think this gives us a chance. Something that could give us an ace in the hells-hole. Something the demons haven't figured out. Something that'll make them dance the can-can, I don't know. But we're running out of time. We're sitting smack in the eye of the storm as cities die around us, and if we don't try something risky, our part in this game will just be over. Done. That'll be it for Earth, and little Eve and Nana and everyone else won't have ground to learn to walk on. Or to hop on.

"How long do you need to get ready?" I ask Gryfflet.
 

"Couple hours. You should try and get some sleep."

Carrick watches me and Eve with sadness tugging the corners of his mouth down. "I'll get the others ready. Have them wait near the Parthenon."

I'm not sure if I'll be able to sleep, but when I hand Eve back to Asher and head to a cot in a nearby office, warded by Gryfflet, I find sleep comes easy. It's waking up that's going to be the nightmare.