Storm in a Teacup (16 page)

After sleeping on my deep, ponderous question, I wake up with an answer.

My world hasn't changed much. I'm still a Mediator. I will be until some demon gets the better of me or I retire to live out my life in the old Mediator home, boring young MITs with stories from my glory days. We're the good guys. We're the ones who keep the balance, who make sure that for every weight added to the wrong side of the scale, we bounce up and down on the right one. It's what I do.

So these new creatures are just weights added to the wrong side of the scale, and I have to start bouncing.

It never mattered who my parents were before, and it shouldn't matter now.

That part's harder for me to get past the lump in my throat.

It's finally Friday, and the day goes by quickly. By the time I wave goodbye to Alice, I've decided to go back to my regular patrols for the weekend. A nice quiet evening in Forest Hills. Never mind that the last couple times I was in Forest Hills, I almost got eaten and saw the missing girl I'd been hunting for spawn a new species of evil.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I keep my Friday and Saturday night patrols short. I'm in no hurry to run into any more of the creatures, especially after seeing their nest. Both nights, I see roaming gangs of norms. I call the cops on a couple of them when it's obvious they're casing a house, but I can't interfere. The fuzz don't like it when we invade their jurisdiction, and the best way I can help is to right the balance. Which means finding these creatures, as much as I don't want to. The one thing I can do is make sure it's on my terms this time.

I need a plan, and I need one now.
 

I have an idea.

I don't keep a ton of surveillance equipment, because I prefer getting off my ass and skewering baddies to sitting in a tree wearing a jacket of leaves and watching them pick their noses.
 

Okay, I've never actually seen a demon pick its nose.
 

There are things I want to watch without getting too close. Among the equipment left over from my recon training is a night-vision scope good up to a mile. From the bridge, I should have a clear shot of the warehouses, and with a molecule of luck, I might be able to get an accurate count of the creatures that have made their homes in Nashville.

I park my car by the river and hoof it onto the bridge. The only thing demons don't seem to like is being suspended over running water. They're fine strolling beside it and fishing with their claws, but dangle them over it, and they get stressed out. I still bring my sword, but I don't expect to need it.
 

I follow the pedestrian path to the apex of the bridge and set up the tripod for the scope. And then I wait.

After an hour, my eyes are dented from pressing them against the scope's rubber, and I haven't even seen a bunny hop by. Then again, if these hungry critters are ripping humans apart, they might also be interested in bunnies.

Aw. Bunnies.

After two hours, I start to think I've wasted my time. In the movies, whatever private dick is on the case usually finds what he's looking for after a quick burger and a sassy comment. Maybe I should go get a burger. They never show just how much thumb twiddling really goes into stakeouts.
 

Three hours go by, and I'm ready to go home.

When four o'clock rolls by, I yawn and bump the scope to the side.

Something flickers.

I kick the metal of the bridge. You've got to be fucking kidding me. Four hours, and I've been scoping out the wrong gods-damned warehouse.

I find the flicker again. It's a creature. Naked as the day it was spawned, tracking around the edge of the warehouse. Another one approaches from its left flank. I haven't seen two at once before, and the sight is like an ice-cold finger behind my ear.
 

Two more enter the frame of the scope. This time one of them is carrying a corpse as if it were a sack of sugar. No straining. No tensing. Just hauling it along like it weighs nothing. That's four. I don't have to wait long before a fifth shows up. They all vanish through the hole in the warehouse wall, which is barely visible even with the scope.
 

I don't know what chills me more — the sheer number of them when I was hoping to have thinned the horde or that they show no animosity toward one another. Normal demons don't get on great. Normal demons fight like cats in a sack given half a reason, and these things seem to be cooperating with one another.
 

Cooperation suggests intelligence, or at the very least some sort of group awareness. A pack mentality at its basest form, or a legion at its highest.
 

It's clear that this warehouse is their home base. A nest, Gregor called it. I don't even know how many Mediators it would take to clear out that nest with all of them in it. A dozen? Two score? Fuck. We'd have to take it out all at once. Probably from the outside.

As I'm cursing mentally and pondering explosives, another creature flickers past the scope. Then two more, each with a corpse slung over its back.
 

It's suddenly very cold on the side of this bridge, and it sure as hell's handbasket isn't the temperature.

Gregor and Alamea might be able to figure this out on their own, but I'm not going to sit here and cross my fingers for them. They need my help if they're going to take these things out. How many did I count? Eight? I'm barely a match for one.
 

From the bridge, I have a decent vantage point over the main entrance to the warehouse. It's obvious they use it to come and go, and the one entrance means one exit. I look at my watch. Four thirty-three. If they're all inside now, maybe they will be at another time. Maybe we could catch them with their panties down.

Not that they wear panties. Come on. Give me a break. It's just a figure of speech.

The city commissioner eyes us askance when we blow up buildings, but she might make an exception if we're taking out day-walking, half-demon hybrids who are snacking on the populace. Explosives seem like the best option to get them all at once.
 

We'd have to make sure there weren't other exits. And that means posting surveillance on the other sides of the warehouse. Seal it off. Make sure they can't get out. Then pound them into the dirt along with their filthy pile of dinner.

If it's going to work, the surveillance is going to have to get put in place when they're not there.
 

It's a lot of planning to do. If I'm going to go to Gregor and Alamea with this, I need to work out the kinks first.
 

Time for me to put on my plotting pants.

I hope they chafe less than the leather.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Either my plotting pants got thrown out with my semi-monthly tattered clothing pile, or I never had them to begin with, because after an hour of trying to figure out what to do, I have a headache.

But that could be because it's five in the morning.
 

So far I have a sketch of the warehouses along with the position of the surrounding freight cars. Oh, and I marked the entrance with an X.

I never claimed to be a brilliant strategist.
 

Mediators aren't trained to be generals. We're trained to stay alive. I can count the number of coordinated strikes I've participated in on no hands. Most of us stick to the shadows and the alleys and slay demons the way we find them — one by one.

The problem is, they're switching up the game on us.

I do have one advantage — I've been inside. Gregor's going to have to listen now. That many creatures, and close enough they could hit downtown if they spit? He's not going to be happy.

I call the Summit at half past six and make an appointment to meet with Gregor and Alamea at eight tonight. My bed beckons like a seductive lover, all cool cotton and fluffy pillows, but I ignore it. Today'll be a long one. I've gone on no sleep before.

There's one thing I want done before the meeting, and it's going to have to happen before work if my barely-hatched plan has any chance of succeeding.
 

I need a witch.

I call Gryfflet and wake him up. He doesn't even seem to hate me much — if the relief in his surprised yawn means anything, it's that he probably thought I was dead.

He agrees to meet me at eight-thirty at Madeline's, a brunch spot near my apartment. There's unintelligible graffiti strewn across the building next to mine when I walk past it. Already their maintenance people are out there with paint remover and scrapers, but I don't like the reminder that the unbalance affects the behavior of norms. The presence of large numbers of hellkin shifts inhibitions. Makes people more likely to say, graffiti a building. Or hurt each other. It adds to the urgency of the weight in my chest.

I get to Madeline's at eight-fifteen and order two coffees — just for me — and a plate of eggs benedict. Madeline's always has that early morning feel to it, even if you go at noon. The air smells like coffee breath and toast, and the decor makes me think Hazel Lottie is their interior designer, but they know breakfast. I'm in my favorite booth, right next to a window that looks out onto the street. For once, the humidity hasn't set in yet, and human commuters are strolling along the sidewalk looking like they ought to be whistling.

A very rumpled Gryfflet appears right on time and slumps into the booth across from me. "Morning."
 

He doesn't say good. I've never seen a witch awake before noon who did. Even the word "morning" comes out like an epithet.

I have a very specific question for him, and I wait until he's done ordering a strawberry waffle and a cappuccino to ask.

"What do you know about security systems?" Witches have pioneered the security industry since the 50s. Magic is more reliable than electricity, and most humans are put off by any indication they could sprout feathers from their ears if they break into a place. About one in three witches you meet has some background in security, and if I combine those odds with Gryfflet's knowledge of sound, he might just be able to rig up something to help me.

"Feeling a little sketchy about your apartment? Don't you live in the Triton building?" He frowns at me.
 

He's right; I do live in the Triton building. It's the most secure apartment building downtown, which is half of why I chose it. The other half is the view from my balcony. I'm right below the penthouse.

"It's not my apartment. Something else I'm working on. Do you know anything about security systems or not?"

"My dad's Gryffin Asberry, of Asberry and Vont Home Fortress Systems."

"Your dad is Gryffin and he named you Gryfflet?"

Gryfflet doesn't blink, but the corner of his mouth tightens.

Asberry and Vont. The meat of his last sentence processes in my brain.
 

They're the ones that provide the security to my building. That's got to be how Gryfflet knew which building I live in. I'm the only Mediator there, and it's two blocks from here.

"So I guess that's a yes."

"It's a yes. I apprenticed with Sterling Vont for two years. I prefer music, though. I work for a label when I'm not doing sound at The Hole." His waffles arrive, along with my eggs.
 

Yum. Eggs benedict. I pick up my fork.
 

Something crashes through the window, smushing shards of glass into our breakfast.
 

It's a commuter in a business suit, his jacket sandwiched between his elbow and his body. He's alive and quivering like my perfectly poached eggs were two seconds ago.
 

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me." I grab the commuter by the scruff of the neck and tug him off the table. "You okay? What did this?"

His mouth opens and closes a couple of times, then snaps shut when a shadow darkens the window. A naked shadow. Fuck me.

Not what I meant.

People aren't screaming. They're so used to demons looking demon-y and never sunbathing in an open window that they don't know how much of a shitstorm their lives just became. And I don't have my sword.