Storm in a Teacup (32 page)

No one, no matter how small, likes demons.

If the bugs are silent, I'm getting close.

I hear it.

A muffled whump and a grating
skree
. Behind a giant sycamore, two demons are attacking a man. He screams as a slummoth tears down his shoulder with four inch claws.

His naked shoulder.

Just like his naked legs and bare feet that pummel the ground as he kicks to free himself.

That's not a man. That's a shade.

And the demons are killing him.

One slummoth and a rakath. I can take those. The slummoth's slime-covered skin glistens in the light. I flank that one first; rakaths are less of a threat. I dart forward, and my sword comes down on the slummoth's neck, separating the head.
 

The head falls onto the shade's chest.

Now the rakath's noticed me. Its eyes glow lavender in the darkness. Before it can move, I put both swords through those glowing eyeballs.

It screams, but it doesn't die until I jerk both of my arms to the side.

Decapitation works just as well when you take off half the head.

"Are you okay?" The shade is bleeding from a deep wound down the side of its neck. If I'd been a second later, there'd be a third head littering this clearing.

The shade's hand closes around my ankle. With one quick jerk of his arm, I'm on my back, feet toward him. I kick, heart picking up a tap-dance in my chest. You've got to be kidding me.

"I just saved your life, asshole."

The shade doesn't seem to care. He climbs on top of me, warm blood dripping onto my leather with the pat-pat-pat of summer rain.

Halfway up, he collapses, dropping two hundred pounds of weight on my stomach. His indigo eyes glaze; his head falls to the side. I scramble out from under him.
 

Now that he's on his stomach, I see the deep gashes down his back. Crevasses. On either side of his spine. I don't know if the demons did that to him. They're even marks, almost too even for claws to make.

He stirs.
 

One leg flops on the ground like a giant piece of elbow macaroni, broken in several places.
 

Can I take the chance that Mason can bring this one around? I couldn't even get to Mason right now if I tried.

This shade could wake up stronger. Try to kill me.
 

He's wounded. I can't kill a wounded creature. He's not a demon, and I can't explain why the demons were trying to kill him. His eyes open, dark as the night sky.
 

His lips move twice. Two one-syllable words, but I can't hear him.
 

"I can't hear you," I say.

He mouths it again, and his eyes shift to my swords.

Oh.

Kill me
.

I hesitate, and his eyes harden. "Are you sure?" I ask because I have to.

His chin dips. That's as much of an affirmative as I'll get.

I make it quick.

Then I call for a body pickup. Mixing a shade into this bunch is going to confuse Alamea.

Let it.

I stumble back to my car. Again I can feel the shade's weight on top of me, feel the patter of his blood dripping on leather. I hadn't seen the extent of his injuries.
 

As I open my car door, the thought strikes me.

He wasn't attacking me because he wanted me dead.

He was attacking me to make me kill him.

For the first time in my life, I know the Mediators are very wrong.

Mason's still not home when I arrive back at my apartment. I get a text confirmation of the body pickup. Let Alamea get the news about a dead shade turning up courtesy of Ayala.
 

Never mind that it was a mercy killing.
 

Was that why my mother agreed to host a shade in her flesh? To end things? Did she know it would be the end?
 

There's also always the chance that one of the shades I've killed was my half-brother.

The thought leaves me hollow, but not as hollow as finding a half-brother and discovering that he's been tearing apart the populace.

I shower and pop a frozen pizza in the oven, curling up on the couch with a cup of tea. You'd think I'd want wine on a night like tonight, but tea is calming. Something about the scent of chamomile always does it for me. The Mediators all seem to be a tea-drinking bunch; that's where I get all my tea and coffee. They give it to us for free.

Probably because almost getting dead on a nightly — or at least weekly — basis frays the nerves a bit.

I don't realize I've fallen asleep until I feel Mason's warm hand on mine, tugging my fingers from the handle of my mug.
 

"You're back," is what I try to say. It comes out in a whumffled sort of murmur into my arm.

"I'm back." He sits next to me. "How was your meeting?"

I straighten my shoulders and flex my cramped hand. "Awful. They think I'm betraying them."

"They know about me?"

"They suspect. Ben told them about the meat. I should have been quicker on my feet, told them I was using it as a lure." I just now thought of that. Where was that handy thought five hours ago?

Mason's dressed, which means he'd been home for a minute before waking me.
 

"It'll be okay." He doesn't look like he believes it.

I remember the shade I killed and sit up straight. "I saw demons trying to kill a shade tonight. They roughed him up bad enough that he asked me to kill him."

I don't think Mason's surprised. His eyebrows scrunch together for a second, and then he shakes his head.
 

"Looks like everyone wants us dead," is all he says.
 

That sounds about as cheery as a dead bluebird on a Sunday morning.

"What next?" Like it or not, Mason and I are a team.
 

"Saturn said he heard some whispers about more births coming soon."

"More? To replace the ones the Mediators killed?"

Mason nods. "I don't know what the demons are doing, but Saturn thinks they are desperate."

"For what?"

He shrugs, then goes still. I'm starting to learn that going still is Mason-body-language for fidgeting. He's nervous. I'm nervous. I suddenly want a whole lot more chamomile tea.

"Ben," he says suddenly.
 

"What about him?" I don't want to talk about Ben. Hell, I don't want to think about Ben. I can still feel his lips slamming against mine. Who does that?

"He told your people that you betrayed them. Are you mad at him?"

"I'm more mad that he thought me screaming at him was an invitation to kiss me."

"He kissed you?"

Mason stands and walks two steps away, then turns and comes back. He goes still again.
 

I watch him, fascinated at what I'm seeing. Mason's jealous. Of Ben. There're implications to that. Implications I can't entertain until I'm fully awake and caffeinated.

"I punched him."

"What?" Mason sits back down again. He's so uncensored, this shade in my home. He doesn't try to hide what he feels. Or maybe he just doesn't know he broadcasts it.

"I punched him. He kissed me when I wasn't okay with it. So I punched him in the stomach and told him I'd kill him if he tried it again." It gives me a warm little glow, actually. Nobody makes me do shit I don't want to do. I remember the bondage guy I left out on the street with a twenty taped to him and smile.

Mason smiles back. "Do you want to go to bed?"

Any other guy on the planet, and I'd think he meant something else. There's a warmth in my belly that says I sort of want him to mean something else.
 

No, Ayala.
 

I can't be that stupid. I don't know what would happen if I were to sleep with Mason beyond the sense of sharing a bed with him. Would he impregnate me with a quarter-demon monsterling? I can't take that chance, and I don't trust a condom enough to risk it.

Oh. My. Gods. I'm really thinking about this like it's some sort of possibility. Having sex with a shade.

Mason's still sitting there waiting for my answer, and my neck grows hot.
 

"Yeah, Mason. Let's go to bed."

We settle in, me under the duvet, him with just the sheet as usual. But tonight he lies just a bit closer, and his hand grips mine instead of just cupping it.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The morning dawns, as mornings do.
 

Today it comes a little too soon.

The warmth of my bed and of Mason next to me contrast the chill of my air-conditioned apartment, and I don't want to get up. But I have to go to work.

On the drive, I can't stop thinking about last night. Do I really want to sleep with Mason? In some ways, he's so like a child. Would I be taking advantage? He looks like an adult man, but he was just born months ago. He just happens to have the memories of the woman who birthed him shaking around inside his skull.

I don't like complicated. Someone must know that, because that's all I'm getting these days. Everything was so simple before demons started siring full-grown men in evil-worshiping human women — and men.
 
These men get to be mamas. Fancy that. Where are they finding all of these people? It used to be easy. Me Mediator. Here sword. Mediator stick sword in bad guy.

Ugh.

It's starting to rain when I pull into the parking garage at work. It only does that when I don't have an umbrella in my car. Looks like I'll be ordering in for lunch today.
 

I could have a kebab. Or some orange roasted duck from Ping's down the street. I could spend the next four hours ruminating on lunch.

The office is dark.
 

I frown at the door and jiggle the knob. I might keep Mediator hours from eleven to seven, and Laura might follow my lead because she's the boss, but Alice is human and comes in at nine. The shadows turn the wasabi green walls to olive.
 

I have a key. Somewhere.

My key ring is a jumble of metal. That's what happens when you put locks on everything. It takes five minutes of fumbling before I find the right one. I go straight to Alice's empty desk and put a big dot on it in permanent marker. Not losing that again.

Alice must be sick today. I flick on the lights and turn up the air conditioning from its night setting at 77 degrees. All is silent except for the click and whir of the HVAC starting up.

My office is warmer than the rest of the space, but I settle into my chair to work, pulling out a bundle of restaurant reviews I'm meant to synthesize into a report on Nashville's foodie world.

An hour later, the front door slams.
 

"Alice?" Laura's voice calls from reception.

"She's not here." I pull my fingers from my keyboard and go to my doorway to greet Laura. She's wearing a dark purple suit that makes her look like an eggplant.

"She's not here? Where did she go?"

"She wasn't here when I arrived. I figured she'd called in sick."

"Not to me, she didn't." Laura frowns. "I'll call her."

I follow to Laura's office and lean on the door jamb as she dials. No one answers, and she opens up Alice's file and dials a second number. No one picks up there, either.

"Did Alice live with anyone?" I should know this. Alice has been here for almost a year, longer than the previous receptionists. All I usually hear about is her new boy toy.
 

"Her mother passed away right before she started working here," Laura says absently, dialing another number. "She doesn't have any family."

That pricks me with an unexpected pang. I've never taken the time to get to know our receptionists. Gregor's faxes had a tendency to scare them off faster than you can say human-kebab, and most of them never lasted any longer than a cat in a ring with twelve Rottweilers.
 

"I saw her a couple nights ago." Or was it last night? My life. An ever blurry stream of the same old. "She was just starting to work for an old lady part time for some extra cash. I can stop by the lady's house after work and see if she's heard from Alice."

Hazel won't like that any more than I do, but if Alice isn't answering, she might be in trouble. Or sick.