Storm in a Teacup (17 page)

Even Gryfflet just looks shocked. I don't have time to warn him. I stretch one leg out under the table and sweep him from his seat onto the floor.

The creature smiles.

My ass freezes to the booth.
 

This is the first time I've seen any display of emotion from one of these things. No pain, no joy, no anger.
 

The curve of its lips twists fear into my gut.
 

I blink, and the creature has the petrified commuter by the neck. Fuck, these things move fast. No one else seems to have caught its quicksilver motion yet, but everyone in the tiny diner hears the snap of the commuter's neck and the popping squish as the poor guy's arm comes off.
 

Now people start screaming.

I ignore them.

Gryfflet isn't moving, and he's in easy reach of the creature, his face spattered with bright red from the arm removal like a kid's splatter paint project.

The creature has its back to me, but I only have two daggers, one in each boot. I reach under the table, my breath a taut bubble in my throat. My fingers touch the hilts of the daggers, and I pull them out with only a split-second hiss.

The noise hasn't done anything. Or if it has, the creature didn't notice over its mouthful of suit. And I'm not talking about stitched fabric.

I raise my arms back from my ankles. My elbow bumps the table with a sharp crack. Shit. Oh, shit.
 

I expect the creature to spin, drop its arm, and fly at me.

It doesn't. It's still busy eating man-meat. Why didn't it notice that?

Then I see Gryfflet. His face is still. I thought he was paralyzed from fear, but I must have missed how his irises went cloudy. He's doing something, and whatever it is, it's keeping the monster focused on its meal.

Which sucks for the commuter, but it'll be a good thing for all the screeching norms who are huddled under their tables.

I can't take the thing's head off in one swipe this time. It's not going to work with eight inch blades. I need to think of something else, and fast. Gryfflet has sweat beading on his cabbage-y face, and his tongue flicks across his upper lip, eyes locked on the creature.

Maybe I don't need to take the head off. Maybe I just need to sever the spinal cord. My mark has its back to me, and its head is bent over the arm. Wet suckling sounds come from whatever it's doing. I can't think about that.

I tuck my knees under me and stand on the booth. I'm sweating now, the perspiration dripping down each temple. If I miss this strike, there are going to be a lot of bodies joining Mr. Meal here.

My left hand is slightly stronger, but my right is more accurate. I know what I have to do. I hope it will be enough. It has to be enough.

I slam the right dagger down right on target. I feel the small pop where it hits the spinal cord and my left dagger slices two inches into the left side of the monster's neck.

And my plan goes all to shit.

The creature drops its breakfast and spins around, eyes wild and smile replaced by a red smear across the lower half of its face. Its movement wrenches my hands from their hold on the daggers. The monster's legs wobble, but it doesn't fall. I snapped its spinal cord. This thing should be dropped.

It's not as tall as the last one I fought. With me standing on the booth, its head is at my waist level. I back up one step pull my right knee to my stomach and kick. My heel connects with its head.

The head detaches from the body and flies between two potted plants, banging into the wall with a thud.

Field goal. Three points for me.

This time, there are the police to deal with.
 

They start by telling the terrified breakfast-goers that the guy was on PCP or bath salts or something. I don't think that helps, because now the smell of urine has joined the aroma of coffee-breath and eggs in Madeline's, and it doesn't all belong to the guy who became a monster's brunch.

I sit next to Gryfflet at the booth where our breakfast and the commuter came to die. He's licking his lips once every seven seconds.
 

"That guy," he says. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Lick. "Part of the reason you called me here this morning?"

"Yeah. But I didn't exactly expect him to show up."

"What was that? It wasn't human."

So the PCP story wasn't going to work with Gryfflet. I didn't really expect it to. "Remember that talisman you found?" At his impatient nod, I go on. "Long story short, it led to one of those —" I point at the yet-unbagged creature's body on the floor, "— getting spawned. By Lena Saturn."

Gryfflet's eyes bulge, and he gives another convulsive lick of his lips. I feel the urge to hand him some lip balm. He's going to need it. "That's not possible."

I hate it when people say that when a monster's just smashed a commuter through a window onto their breakfast. At my irritated look, he mutters under his breath.

"It shouldn't be possible." A shudder ripples his entire body. "I know what we just saw, and I know what I felt. It felt wrong. That thing felt wrong."

I think of the sandbag weight I've had in my chest for a week. Wrong covers it pretty well. But what happened to that businessman is a few steps up from wrong.

"What was it you were doing to the thing? To distract it?"

Gryfflet taps one fingernail against the tabletop, an inch away from a smear of egg yolk and blood. "I put a cone around its head. Filtered the sound away from its ears like a shield."

"You can do that?"

"It's not easy."

"Could you do it for a wider area?"

His head turns a couple ticks to the side. "What exactly are you asking?"

I don't have time to answer. A homicide detective walks up to us, feet crunching shards of glass. He takes one look at the two of us, then glances at the corpse.
 

"Mediator?" He looks at me. I nod. "Witch?" This time he looks at Gryfflet. Who also nods.

The detective points to the milling group of witnesses, all nursing coffee and trembling, some enough to dribble coffee over the sides of their cups. "All those folk over there say you saved their lives. Mind giving me a rundown of what happened here?"

He's speaking mostly to me, like I'm an authority or something. I guess I am. The law enforcement agencies really hate demons. Hellkin make all sorts of messes. I think they like the idea that we drew the short straws, so they commingle pity and admiration, which creates a sort of fuzzy respect. That's how the detective's watching me as I tell the story. I don't tell him I know what's wrong with the creature. If there's anything the police would like less than demons, it's hellkin in human suits who can walk in the sun.

I make sure to mention Gryfflet's role in stopping the murderer, which makes his cabbage-like face take on a decidedly beet tone. I've been questioned by the cops before, and I zone out as I go over the facts twice. If you ever have to do it, don't be afraid to repeat yourself. It's not the time to take liberties with style.

Across the diner, a familiar blocky figure enters, making eye contact with me from twenty feet away. Gregor. Perfect. There's a large cuckoo clock that hangs above the bar. Nine twenty-two. Time doesn't stop even when someone's life does.

Now I know I'll be late for work.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Laura doesn't fire me on the spot, but I get the feeling she wants to by the spluttery "You...you..." that comes out of her mouth when I call her to tell her I won't be in today.

Sometime last year, a couple of other Mediators with the day job blues tried to get legislation passed to make employers give extra personal days to Mediators. It's still tied up in litigation, and I didn't care when I first heard about it. Now I'm wishing I'd added my name to the petition.

We don't have a union, but if we went on strike, it would probably get some attention. Though letting the populace get munched on by demons wouldn't set the best precedent for peace talks.

Gregor tugs me aside as soon as the detective is finished with me. Gryfflet's nervousness buzzes the air. His fingers flicker and fidget at a speed that I thought was reserved for the wings of insects. I follow Gregor to the door after a clipped beckoning gesture from him. At first I think he's going to scold me, what with the you're-in-deep-shit face he's wearing.

Outside, the mugginess is picking up in the air, transcending the early-morning cool with sticky humidity. I brush some hollandaise sauce from my shirt where it splattered, which does nothing but leave a few sticky smears.
 

"Number four, eh?"
 

I look over at Gregor, who looks like he ought to be lighting a cigarette. If I squint at him, I can almost see the fifties.
 

"I didn't go looking for this one. It landed in my lap. And ruined my breakfast." My stomach gives a helpful rumble to emphasize my words.

Gregor folds his square hands in front of him. "It looks like you're a part of this now."

That rankles, and I bristle like a cat who's just run into a pack of rottweilers. "I've been a part of this. Alamea handed me the second talisman and told me to deal with it. I dealt with it in my own way. If she'd given me enough Mediators to do my job, we could have taken out the bouncing bundle of demon spawn and the twenty-odd demons who came to greet it. But she didn't, and there's no way Ripper, Ben, and I could have handled it. Y'all are the ones who cut me out." I leave out my mother, but I know he's thinking it.

He inhales through his teeth. "I was trying to keep you out of it for your own safety."

A snort would be appropriate, but I hold the impulse. "Safety was never part of the equation when I was born with these eyes."

"You seem to be holding your own, anyway." Gregor tightens one side of his mouth. "Meet me at the Summit in an hour. We'll have an early meeting with Alamea and decide what to do next."

I wait for Gryfflet outside of Madeline's, and he emerges ten minutes later looking paler than usual.
 

"You okay?" He impressed me in there, using whatever magic he did to stop the creature from hearing my movements. For as nervous as he seems without hellkin around, I wouldn't have expected it from him. Brave.

"I'm fine." Gryfflet scuffs a foot against a crack in the concrete. "You never got the chance to tell me why you called me here."

My car's still at home, and I'll need it to drive to the Summit. I indicate to Gryfflet to walk with me.
 

A crowd has gathered, trickling in to fill the street. The press hasn't arrived yet, and for that I'm thankful. We escape just as I see a news van round the corner. Past the crowd, the street is empty.
 

"I found a whole nest of those creatures," I tell Gryfflet.
 

He pauses for one second, then resumes his pace beside me. "A nest? How many?"

"At least eight or ten. And there's no way I could take them out myself. I'm going to meet with the Summit leaders in a bit and see if they'll go for my plan."

"You have a plan?"

"I want to take out the building they're in. It's a warehouse over by the old train tracks, but it's going to take some tricky surveillance to make sure we hit it right." Tricky is one way of putting it. Miraculous might be another. Posting cameras around a building full of supersensory, superstrong demonoids isn't going to be like dropping a water balloon on a neighbor. "They can't know we're coming."