Storm in a Teacup (8 page)

"Just some humans getting frapped." For the first time, a ghost of uneasiness mists his eyes. I don't feel sorry for psychics. I don't, I don't.

"I found a letter. Something about her being chosen. Spark anything?" Sometimes psychics seem to work off keywords. Say the right one, and they go into a trance and shit. For real.

Not so this time.

"All I'm getting from this place is a phrase." He's looking at the armchair again, his gaze honed in on the handprint. Someone had time to flail.

I count off twenty-seven seconds of silence, so I prompt him. "Which is?"

"Too much to bear."

CHAPTER TEN

Too much to bear.

Typical psychic bullshit.

I head home with every intention of an hour or two patrol followed by a bubble bath. And then work tomorrow.
 

Because of Gregor, I've spent my favorite day off wading through lice-ridden clothes and gore.
 

My phone rings as I'm pulling into my parking garage. It's Ben again. I could ignore the call, but if I do, he'll just call me again. And again.

My bitchiness meter is about to go to threat level red. "Ben, make it quick. I have had a very long day."

"I heard. I just wanted to see if you were okay."

I slide into my reserved space and shift the car into park. A day of sifting through human remains, and I'm fine. One sentence from Ben and a headache blossoms in my temples.

My silence apparently makes him think I'm not. "Ayala? Ayala, I'm so sorry about all this."

I hear a crunching noise. It's my teeth, grinding together like ungreased gears. "Ben. I'm fine. I'm all full of peaches and cream."

"Gregor shouldn't have you running around like this."

"You mean doing my job? What, you think it will upset my delicate constitution? Thanks for the concern." Not really. My thumb hovers over the red button, and it takes all my willpower to resist that extra bit of rudeness. "Was there something you wanted? I have a patrol to do."

"You're going patrolling after today?"

A sigh hisses through my teeth. "Paranormal responsibility. Preternatural abilities, inborn strength — I gotta do something with it."

"At least let me come with you."

Now I do hang up on him.

I turn off my phone just in case he calls back.

Some Mediators would just stay home after a day like today. Maybe most of them. I've never been able to do that. The only thing that alleviates that constant weight pressing on my heart is slicing up hellkin. Even so, I'm hoping I don't find any jeelings tonight. I head to Belle Meade instead of Forest Hills. So I'm a little skittish after almost getting shredded by a trio of monsters. Sue me.

This patrol goes easy enough. I sneak up on two imps fighting over a dead squirrel and decapitate them both, and when the rest of the area proves silent, I call it a night and go home to my bubble bath.
 

The scent of vanilla warms me, and for a few minutes I forget all about my missing birth mother, hellkin wearing human hair, balancing the cosmic whatchamahoosit, and Lena Saturn.
 

I take the loofah to my arms and relish the rough fibers against my skin. It distracts me so much that I rub it on my left shoulder without thinking. The scabs on my shoulder flake off into my bathwater under the loofah's movement, and I press my lips together. Ew. At least it doesn't start bleeding again.

Now that I'm not oozing blood and demon goo, I trust my skin not to seep on my ivory silk robe. Natural silk on the outside, refined in the liner, it rubs my skin like rich cream.
 

Call it a contradiction, but my life includes enough splats and demons. I like luxury when I can nestle into it. I pour myself a glass of jasmine-infused sake and drift into my bedroom.

The alcohol spreads through me like a drowsy massage, and I cuddle my feather duvet against my body.
 

If only I didn't dream in red.

When I get to work Monday morning, Alice has her hair in a bouffant and has switched her lipstick to bright purple. It clashes horribly with her hair and crimson nail polish, but she waves a cheery hello as I enter the office.
 

I plan to spend the morning getting caught up on my actual work. If Gregor's hunch gets me fired, I'm going to make him pay my salary. He can be responsible for keeping me in sake and silk, for all I care.

I find an email from Ben in my inbox.

"Sorry if I offended you yesterday. I just hate seeing splats. Makes me sick. Let me know if you want to talk. -B"

Ben means well, but he treats me like I belong in a tower with golden hair flowing over a balcony. This is real life, and my hair is bright orange. He's living in a dream world. I have to live in this one.

At eleven forty-six, Alice buzzes me. At first I only hear a snapping sound.

I pause before I speak. "Um, Alice?"

There's a loud crack. She's chewing gum again.
 

"Ayala, you've got a call on line three."

"Who is it?"

"Hazel Lottie. Are you calling strippers again?"

"She's a source," I say, then realize that sounds like a confirmation. "On a missing persons thing the Summit's having me look into. And she's not a stripper, she's eighty-bajillion years old."

"Ageist."

"Just put her on the phone."

There's another loud spack as Alice cracks a bubble at me, but I hear the click of the phone line switching over. "Hazel?"

"Lawdy, y'all have the worst hold music I've ever heard." She's not wrong; if elevator music had a love child with disco, it would create something like our hold channel.

"I'll pass that on to my boss. What's up? I assume you didn't call to assess the background noise."

"Can you come meet me for lunch? I'm downtown, and I need to talk to you."

Nobody wants to tell me what they want these days. "I have a meeting at two. Is that enough time?"

"It'll do, dear. Meet me at the Hard Rock. I'm back by the Cadillac." She hangs up on me. Karma. I hang up on Ben, Gregor and Hazel hang up on me.

At five past noon, I slide into a booth across from Hazel Lottie. She's ordered me a Coke and lounges across from me, picking at some buffalo wings.

Hazel waves a hand at me and sucks on a chicken bone.

I order a cheeseburger and wait while Hazel polishes off the rest of her wings. It takes two and a half Cokes worth of time, and the waitress brings me two full glasses with an eye roll after I drain the second.

I point at the clock on my phone. "Hazel. It's quarter of one."

"There's a clock behind you, dear." She takes a long swig of her sweet tea, and her wrinkled lips smooth out with her wide smile.

Clearly whatever news she has isn't daunting.

"I'm afraid I wasn't entirely truthful with you, honey." She stretches her smile even wider, and I'm afraid she's going to split the skin of her cheeks like sun-aged paper.

"I know. But I don't know what you lied about or why."

"I heard about The Righteous Dark and their rather ignominious fate. Lawdy, what a mess."

Literally. "I found a letter from Lena to the drummer."

"Do you have it with you?"

I twist a napkin into a snake. "It's at home. But it was short. She said she was chosen for something, just like he said she would be. Do you know what she thought she was chosen for?"

That Hazel's smile tightens into a straight line tells me she does.

"What is it, Hazel? More hells-worshiping bullshit?" I stop. "Sorry for the language."

Hazel flaps her hand in the air. "I've heard the word shit before, child. Even said it on more than one occasion. Don't baby me."

"Yes, ma'am. I apologize."

She nods, waving her hand again. "Lena told me that she and the band had found a new way to worship the hellkin. I reckon I'd never heard the like of it, but she seemed to think it was the path to enlightenment. Or whatever you want to call it for her particulars. All I know is she thought the demons were going to come spirit her away and give her a gift. Something she wanted more than anything else in the world."

"Was that why she needed all the money?" I've never met a capitalist demon, but there's a first time for everything.
 

Hazel heaves a sound like air escaping a whoopee cushion. My burger arrives before she can answer me. She starts talking as I eat.

"She said she needed the money for food and clothes and to take care of Remy while she was gone. Said she'd be away a while, but that she'd be back to bring the band to glory."

I choke on my lettuce. It sounded like something on a reality television program. That one with a witch who makes you pay seven grand to spend two months in a meditation school and promises you success in everything after. They only take on silver-spoon suckling trust fund psychics and the kind of witches and humans who got a Lexus for their sixteenth birthday. Not tough to guarantee success when you've got a multi-million dollar safety net under your daring leap of faith.

Take care of Remy.
I snort, recalling Remy's giant stash of smack.

One important thought is wedged between Hazel's words. "So Lena thought she'd be back."

"She didn't think she'd be back; she believed it. She knew it."

"And you believed her."

Hazel shifts her bony shoulders. "I thought she might be lying. She had thousands of dollars saved up. I thought she might be going to Bora Bora or some exotic castle in Moldova to be a musician-in-residence and that all the demon talk was just for show. If she came back after a few months and told people she'd been playing princess in the underworld, who'd tell her she was full of it? I figured she had a plan to fool the idiots in her band."

People tend to think that, but sane folk don't joke about consorting with demons. If people are willing to talk about it, they're serious. I'm liking this less and less.
 

"How long exactly has she been gone?"
 

"About seven weeks." Hazel slurps the rest of her soda, moodily gnawing on the straw when no more comes through.

Nothing new there. "And you have no idea where she could have gone? If she met someone?"

"No, but she gave me this." Hazel holds out a small disc of metal about three inches across. It's almost an exact replica of the one Gryfflet found. The one the Summit confiscated from an apartment filled with thirty-two gallons and change of human slushie.

My heart does a sideways jump, and I catch a breath and smooth it out just before it becomes a gasp.

"Hazel, I need to call the Summit. What she gave you could be extremely dangerous."

"Why do you think?"

"Because I think one of those is how the demons found and mulched the members of The Righteous Dark."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I only saw one of the talismans before this week, and now two have turned up interspersed with a demon conference, three smushed musicians, and one mystery female exploded from the inside. And hair necklaces. When I add all those things into Gregor's little hunch, I grudgingly admit to myself that he might be on to something.

I like Gregor. But why does he get to be right all the time?