Taken By Storm (36 page)

The tingle I feel grows stronger.

"Ayala!" I spin on my heel.
 

Gregor's woken up, and he has a knife through Evis's throat.
 

How no one saw him crawling around behind us when a moment ago Evis was fighting between Carrick and Jax, I don't know. With a strangled cry, I take three steps forward. Evis's eyes are wide and shining with terror. Blood spurts from his neck, running in a rivulet down his chest.

"One more move and he dies," says Gregor.

The pulling sensation in me presses at the edges of my consciousness. I can't shake it.
 

Mira and Alamea are still fighting off the few remaining demons, and Carrick has a jeeling head dangling from his hand.

"No," I say. Not now. Not this. Not my brother.

Not my brother, who Gregor warped and twisted and made a murderer. Not my brother who never asked for any of this. Not my brother, who our mother for whatever sick reason decided to bring into the world to find me. Not the only blood relation I've ever known. Not my brother. Not my motherfucking family.

The roar that escapes me isn't human. My eyes flash red, and I surge toward Gregor feeling like the propulsion of a thousand rockets is behind me.

Someone beats me to him.

The two shades, who have been standing stock still and watching me. Before I can blink, they're at Gregor's side and then Gregor's arms are flying in opposite directions and Evis falls forward onto his knees, his head still firmly attached to his body and blood gushing out over his chest.

I see one last look of shock on Gregor Gaskin's face, and then his face departs from his body and his brains spatter both of the shades who just crushed it between their fists.

The room falls silent, so silent, the sound of breathing even gets lost.
 

The two shades turn to me, and in a flash they're placing Evis's body at my feet. I drop to the ground, pulling him to my chest.
 

He's alive. Then Jax is there, pressing his bare hand to Evis's throat where the knife punctured it. Jax's eyes meet mine, and in them I see the strange reversal, see the still-visible scar on Jax's throat where it almost got ripped out and where both Evis and I applied our hands to stop his bleeding.

Now he does the same for my brother.

Carrick comes to us too, his face impassive.

I look up, into the eyes of the two shades who just saved my brother, and I know. I know why they did it. I can feel them in my mind, just like I've always felt the whisper of the others like I breeze I couldn't quite catch.

I don't have to catch the breeze now. It lives in me.

I am their alpha.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

I feel them, and I understand.
 

Through their eyes I see myself, standing guard over Mason's body against one of their own. I see myself defending a shade. Where language hasn't clicked with the others of this generation, something about my protection of Mason did.

Again I remember in Seattle, the calculating gaze of the alpha there. The way the Hopkinsville alpha watched me, assessing me as an equal.

These shades have judged me to be their better.

On a conscious level, I finally recognize the minds of my shades, my chosen family and my blood. It's beyond an awareness of scent. It's recognition of their essence, their signature.

The minds of these two new shades are chaotic and violent. They are confused and famished. They are hungry for meat and itching to kill, and it's only my presence that keeps them from attacking the easy, passed out prey that is Gryfflet and the psychics.

I only have to think of Mason and they are at his chains, yanking on them. The chains don't break, but the fasteners securing them to the floor do. The shades uncouple the shackle anchors from the floor, and one of them scoops up Mason's body, trailing his chains on the floor.

We open the door to the room to chaos.

The corridor lights flicker and spark, and the floor is littered with dead demons. And norms. My heart crunches when I see the bodies of two of the morphs who came with us. Somehow our other contingents made it downstairs. I only hope some of them made it back up.

Carrick and Jax each walk out half dragging one of the unconscious psychics. Alamea supports Riley, and Gryfflet stumbles out in front of us, supporting himself on the walls. The second feral shade carries Evis, and I stick close to him, Mira beside me.
 

Part of me wants to say that killing Gregor should have been my job, but the other part, the pulling part, knows that it was.
 

Through the minds of these shades, I can feel the crunching pop of his arms as they detached from his body, feel the way his skull crushed in with the force of their fists. I can feel the spongy wetness of his brain smashing between their knuckles.

It's as if I killed him with my own bare hands, wielded through the bodies of others.

My breath is shaky and flutters like a glen filled with monarchs. The part of me that wants to run screaming into the depths of my own mind I shut off hard, desperate to keep the terror I feel at myself in check. These two shades are unknown quantities. I don't know where they came from or how they ended up in that hell dimension to come through the hells-hole here. If I show weakness, will they turn on me?

I slam dunk the thought into the recesses of my mind. I can't think of that. Not now. Not while they're carrying my brother and my ex-lover out of a maze that feels like a living portent of things to come.

Hell is coming to Earth, and by the way no one but the shades and Mira will look at me, I wonder which I'm a part of: Earth, or hell.

My feet have stepped on so many bodies that when they finally touch the soggy-but-solid grass outside the farmhouse, I pitch forward and almost fall.
 

The two new shades place Evis and Mason carefully on the grass, Jax still following with his hand pressed to Evis's neck. Evis is awake, but Mason still isn't.
 

Morning happened while we were in hell, and even without the sun I couldn't possibly be more grateful for the outside light.

Alamea gets on her phone as soon as we're out, and soon the Summit contingent appears, down to five Mediators, all of them covered in gore. Devon and Ripper are among them, Ripper sporting a makeshift sling made out of his flannel shirt and Devon with a nasty gash across his temple. The witches and morphs soon follow, and the rest of the shades aren't far behind them. Miles and Saturn lead Harkan and Sanj out of the trees, and Saturn scoops Mira up in his arms faster than I think even I could move.

I sit on the wet ground between Evis and Mason while everyone buzzes around me. The two new shades — I'll need to ask them their names, somehow — seem to have already pegged Carrick as my second in command, because they are sitting and watching him. He assesses them right back, and I'm hoping he finds a way to communicate with them. I'm not sure if they can talk. Their minds are like tiny tornadoes in the back of mine, and as much as it terrifies me, I don't know that I can do anything to change it that's not killing them.
 

Someone pulls a van up and we load Mason and Evis into it. I get in with them, as does Mira. To my surprise, Alamea takes the wheel, with Gryfflet in the passenger seat.
 

We drive back to the cabin in silence, and they help me get Mason and Evis inside.

Once they're settled on the sectional sofa where I can see them, I sit down at the table with a glass or orange juice.
 

Gryfflet and Alamea are speaking in low voices about whatever it is that Gryfflet's been working on, but I can't bring myself to pay attention.
 

It takes Alamea saying my name three times for me to snap to it.

"The Summit will track down any remaining associates of Gregor's that they can find," she says. "I will trust you to deal with the two shades who…disposed of Gregor himself."

Alarm courses through me. I can still feel them, even though they're with Carrick and Jax, who are driving them somewhere they can hunt. "Deal with how?"

"Control them," she says bluntly. "It seems they have imprinted on you, and while I trust you and the other shades I know, you and I both understand the risks here."

I am the shade whisperer, coo coo cachoo.

"What next?"

Alamea turns to Gryfflet and points at him. "He keeps working on his spell. I suggest you keep him close. Perhaps here."

I don't like the idea of Gryfflet living with me, but he came through today. Big time.

"What about Ben Wheedle?" I ask.

"He's still in holding. I expect the news of what happened today will disseminate rather quickly throughout the Summit. I believe Ripper was going to also reach out to your friend Candy at Channel Five. It would be a decent morale booster for everyone to know that you took care of Gregor Gaskin."
 

There's that euphemism again.
 

It also seems that Alamea made the jump between me saying no and the shades pouncing on Gregor like I'd pointed at him and said,
sic 'em
.

"And me? What am I supposed to do?" I can't go on the way I have, whack-a-mole-ing things when they pop up. I need to go on the offensive, and I need to figure out how to do that, fast.

Alamea just looks at me. "Get ready for the war."

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Carrick and the other shades are still out, but I can feel them coming closer and know they'll be home soon. It's eerie, this sudden forged connection. I can't tell how much of it was there all along, but I can tell it's been slowly awakening from the very beginning. I'm not just me anymore, and I haven't been for a long time. There's a we, and I'm a part of it.

Part way through the afternoon, Evis has healed enough to get up and move into the guest room, where he curls up with a book and Nana, who he stole from my room. I sit with him for a while, not talking, just stroking Nana's back and watching my brother read. The sight of Gregor's knife sticking out of his throat will haunt me forever. Evis smiles at me when I get up to leave, and I smile back until the door is shut.

Mason finally wakes later that night after Alamea has left and Gryfflet has retreated out to the back porch to meditate or take the healing foggy vapors or whatever. Mira spends the afternoon napping in our room, leaving me alone with Mason for only the second time since his return.

When I look down at Mason, his scarred face breaks into a smile that's like the sun bursting triumphant through the interminable clouds outside. Though it's not as strong as with the others, I can feel that pull with his mind, too.
 

"Hey," I say.
 

"Hey."
 

I brush his hair back from his face. "I'm sorry about what I said to you."

"No, you're not."

He's right. I have a right to be angry. "I'm sorry that what I had to say hurt you."

"That's better." He swallows and closes his eyes. He doesn't move. Maybe it hurts too much.
 

"When you got taken, I couldn't stand the thought of those words being the last ones you heard from me," I tell him. "That's a really shitty way to leave this, and what we had wasn't shitty at all."