Any Port in a Storm (23 page)

I have to look up to meet her eyes.
 

There's fear there, lurking like a ghost just behind her, backlighting her. It haloes her, haunts her. For that moment, I see her as I've never seen her: completely and utterly alone.

"Whatever you do, don't let them take you," she says.
 

Then the moment passes, and the Summit leader stands before me again. "Hold out your key."

I obey, my tongue numb with shock.
 

"Place your thumb and forefinger on either end of it and press."

I do, and though the device doesn't appear to have any seams or buttons, light emanates from it in a small radius.

The walls around me light up with symbols, many of them moving. They swirl around the cell, the effect after the drab grey dizzying. Some spiral, others snake across the walls.

"We don't have much time," she says. She points to the wall in front of us, where a series of circles spins slowly. Each circle is the point of a hexagon's corner, and it rotates while she gestures at it. It's about as wide as a hand. "This is the failsafe. Only the Summit leader knows it exists. And now you. If you're ever imprisoned here again, you will be able to find it. Make note of its level in comparison to your body. It's always at this level, and though it's mobile, with or without the key, you can activate it."

I nod. "Is there a pattern?"

"No. You have to press them in sequence. That's it. Once you press the first two, it stops rotating." She demonstrates, and the symbols around the cell turn static. She touches the remaining circles, and the wall opens. "Hurry."

I follow her out, still pinching the black key she gave me. The walls and floor outside the cell bear designs as well.
 

"Red line leads to the elevators. Blue leads to the stairs. Green is a dummy line." Each line she points to has sporadic arrows.
 

I turn to look at the cell we just vacated. It has a number. Cell 429.

"How did you find the cell without the light before?" I ask, hurrying to keep pace with her long strides.

"Who says I didn't have a light?" Alamea gestures at me, and I stop pressing my key. The lines on the floor and symbols on the walls vanish. Then she starts walking again.
 

From behind her, I see nothing. When I reach her side, I catch the faintest glimmer. It's only when I get ahead of her that the shapes blossom again.
 

I press my key once more and follow.

"Without the key, if you need a path, go to the center of the corridor. The same failsafe exists there as well."

I don't ask her why a failsafe would be necessary. When we get to the elevator, she waits for me to put in the code.

743367.

She gives me a grim smile as we ascend.

"I hope you'll never need to use it," she tells me as I pocket the key. "Keep it somewhere safe."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

There's a parade in the lobby.

At least, that's what it looks like.

After the grey of the Summit dungeon, finding the lobby full of Mediators is a surprise. Finding them all crowded around Gregor makes it an unpleasant one. What in all six and a half hells did he tell them?

The groups of Mediators gathered around him are a mosaic of emotion. Those closest to him are beaming, clapping him on the back and looking at one another excitedly. Those on the fringes are exchanging looks that are all wariness and no excitement. A few look distressed, their eyes flitting back and forth between those grinning at Gregor and those struggling to keep their faces impassive.

It makes me afraid that I'll need what Alamea just gave me sooner rather than later.

I almost don't notice Alamea split off from me. She clicks away in her heels, a smile on her face, greeting one of the Mediators with a hand clasped on his shoulder. A few minutes later, my phone buzzes with a text from her that just says:
Come back tomorrow.

If working for Alamea means spontaneous days off for good pay, I think I can handle that.

"Ayala!" Someone calls my name, an older Mediator named Billy Bob whose actual given name is Billy Bob. He's my height and grizzled as all get out, skin pink from too much sun, silver-grey hair kinked and frizzy and only barely tamed with an elastic at the nape of his neck. He always wears green cargo pants and matching green t-shirts from the army surplus store, and when he walks toward me I can count three blades on him that are visible, which means at least another five aren't. He also usually smells like he last wore deodorant for Y2K.

I wave at him, unsure of what to do.

A partial cheer goes up as faces turn toward me, but it sounds half-hearted and fractured, as if the people in the room don't know what to make of me. That's fine. I mostly don't like them, so I can deal with it. As long as they don't try to separate me from my head, they can think I'm the worst.

Just a couple months ago, they were all cheering and awarding me a Silver Scale, which considering I murdered a score of shades to earn it, about sums up my complex relationship with the Mediators who are the closest thing I've ever had to kin.

Gregor's saying something about me to the people in his immediate vicinity, and a couple of them give a whoop, which makes the people on the fringes of the circle scowl.
 

Even better, Ben Wheedle appears on the stairs.
 

I do my best to ignore him.
 

Billy Bob reaches me and smacks me hard on the back. I wince, and he apologizes.

"Sorry, kid. Forgot you got yourself gored by a jeeling." He beams at me.

I wasn't wincing out of pain, but I give him what I hope is a grateful smile, and his smile grows wider. For the name and the smell, his teeth are unstereotypically even and white.
 

"How're you doing, Billy Bob?" I ask him. "Haven't seen you in a while."

I ignore the crowd staring at me and focus on Billy Bob's preening.
 

"Been down Memphis way, chasing couple packs of markats." He pulls up the sleeve of his t-shirt to expose an inkblot-shaped mark in healing pink tissue. "Them fuckers thought they could take me down. No siree. Spit all they want, but I got 'em. Whole lot of 'em. Not as many as you did in, though. What a kill spree, kid. One for the books."

"Well, I'm just glad there weren't any markats in my bunch," I tell him. "Can't abide the spit."

Markat demons spit. A lot. And their spit is a pH of about 1.5, so if you don't get it off your skin in five minutes or so, you get souvenir Rorschach tests to show your friends, like Billy Bob's got on his arm.

Billy Bob seems tickled by my statement, and he smacks me on the back again and trundles off.

A familiar face appears through the crowd. Devon. One of the Mediators Mira said was loyal to Alamea, and one of the first to question our extermination order on the shades. I also saved his ass back when I helped blow up the warehouse and earned my Silver Scale. His face stays neutral when he sees me, but I catch a small crinkling at the corner of his eyes.

I go to him, but I don't greet him directly. Instead, I stand near him.
 

"Thanks for the food," he says, his voice quiet.

After his rescue, he was in a body cast for weeks. I couldn't stand him getting stuck with hospital food, so I hired a caterer to deliver his meals. Sometimes I'm a big softie. I can still beat you up.

"You're welcome," I say, just as quietly.
 

I look at Devon, where the scar on his face is still pink against his pale skin. It takes a lot to scar a Mediator like that. I know he's got more, too. He almost lost an arm over the summer.
 

"Fucking traitor," someone says behind me.

Devon and I both spin, but I can't tell who said it. Silence spreads out from us, though, and people start shifting away from Devon and me.

I check my phone, mostly hoping for something I can answer to get me out of here. There's a text from Mira.

Works for me. I bail.

She meets me at her front door and actually hugs me. "You shit head. Next time don't get that close to dead."

"I'll do my best."

"Clearly your best is enough."
 

Joan Armatrading is playing on her stereo, and she's got papers spread out all over her dining room table. I sit down, wishing I knew what to do with myself.
 

"Let's see it," she says when I'm settled in my seat.

"See what?"

"Your jeeling battle wound. Puncture like that's gotta leave a nice scar. Might even get to keep that one."

I consider my options. I obviously don't have a scar. I could tell her it wasn't as bad as people said, that I must have been concussed and delusional from various demon fluids getting into open wounds. But something makes me not want to lie to Mira.

Pulling back the neckline of my shirt, I show her the unblemished skin.

She looks confused for a moment, then I see her sit back. "So what the fuck happened?"

Alamea's motives I'll always second guess at least a little. Desperate people do desperate things, and she is a desperate person. But Mira didn't have to trust me with her secret about Wane, and weirdly, if Saturn trusts her, I'd be stupid to ignore that. Saturn's a good judge of character. He likes me, after all.

I tell her everything — everything except for the secrets of the honeycomb hell under the Summit. That's one thing I'll keep to myself. And Nana. I might tell Nana.

Mira's brown face looks ready to turn green when I'm done. She pushes her chair back from the table and sits with her knees splayed, elbows leaning on her legs. "Gregor."

"Yeah."

"Motherfucking Gregor."

"Yeah."

"He ordered that many norm deaths. How many?"

"I couldn't count."

"And the shades?" She looks up at me, eyes panicked. "He made them do this. And they listened. And Miles is dead?"

"Yeah." I don't know what else to say. There are so many levels of oh-fuck-no in this that I've lost track of them all.

The table smells like lemon. She must have just polished it.
 

"Do you think this is why Saturn left?" she asks suddenly.
 

That gets my attention. "It could be. His message could have been referring to Gregor."

"And Jax," she says.

"I found a Mediator beacon in Jax's house. He left it somewhere he must have know I'd find it."

"Ayala," Mira says. "Do you think it was Gregor who tried to kill Saturn?"

Fuck.

I don't have an expletive strong enough.

Mira and I look at each other, and I know we're both thinking the same thing.
 

"How long has Gregor been doing this?" Her voice sounds shrill and grating, like I feel.

"At least three months," I say. "I think he knew about the shades before any of this started. He must have had Carrick stashed somewhere in the area, though how he found him I have no clue. He used me to find the local shades. I think he would have blackmailed me if I hadn't have done it willingly."

"This is enough to get him executed," Mira says.

"Yeah, well. Good luck. Half the Summit was about ready to bust out the ticker tape today."

"You're joking."

"Ask Devon. He was there. I was standing by him and someone called me a fucking traitor." For a moment I allow myself to entertain the idea of Gregor deposing Alamea and taking over the Summit. The thought makes me angry enough to spit teeth.
 

"What are we going to do?"
 

That stumps me. I'm still not used to being part of a we.
 

"I have to keep Gregor thinking I don't know the truth. He's getting cocky. He was soaking up the cheers and ass slaps like a biscuit in gravy today." My throat feels dry again, and I feel another blip of anxiety thinking of having to go home where Carrick is.

As if reading my mind, Mira asks, "What's Carrick's role in all this?"

"I don't know. He seems on board with Gregor, and he seems to do whatever Gregor tells him to do. I'd be stupid not to assume he's keeping tabs on me. At least he fed Nana while I was gone."