Any Port in a Storm (9 page)

"Oh, fuck you."

I look at Wane, who seems unfazed by Mira's expletives. "How'd you get into all this?"

"I've known Mira for a while, and I saw a few shade victims this summer at the hospital."

"In obstetrics?" The maternity ward doesn't really seem like the place where a torn up norm would be found.

Then it hits me what she means.

"No," I say. "You saw some of the mothers?"

"Only two. One male and one female."

"One of the dudes who gave himself to the demons to get knocked up showed up in your ward?" I can feel the breeze from the ceiling fan on the whites of my eyes. I know hellkin worshippers are off their rockers, but a pregnant man coming to a hospital for a pre-natal exam pushes even their stupidity past the normal limits I'd assume they have.

Wane laughs, but it's a curt, brittle sound. "He came with his partner, who was also housing a shade in her womb. Well. They weren't actually enwombed."

I don't think I really want to know the anatomy and mechanics of demon-human pregnancies. I saw enough when I was there to watch Saturn explode out of his mother.

Mira and Wane exchange a glance, and Wane throws back the rest of her OJ.
 

"I've got to go. If he comes back, you'll call me." Wane's pronoun usage is in no doubt, and she doesn't make it a question.
 

I expect Mira to give Wane some sort of shit, but instead she just nods. Maybe Saturn hit her on the head even harder than I thought.

When the door closes behind Wane, I peer at Mira. "Are you sure you're okay?"

She motions at me to follow her, and she slumps onto the sofa in her living room. "Been better."

"Were you and Saturn…"

Mira looks at me as if I've suggested she do it with a frahlig. "Uh, no. Not into dudes."

"You and Wane?"

"Ew. She's like…family."

We're silent for a moment, and I suddenly wish I had a rewind button.
 

"He's my friend. After what happened this summer, I went to go find him. Got to know him." She scrubs her fingers through her hair, which falls into her face. Her eyes glow violet in the morning light. "I don't know why he'd do this to me."

I don't know either. Saturn trusts both of us, but maybe not enough. I just wish he'd told me whatever it was he'd planned to tell me.
 

"He didn't tell you anything, did he?" It's a futile question, and I know it. Before Mira even shakes her head no, I expect her answer.

"Look," she says. "Saturn's a scary motherfucker. When he gets scared? There's something to be scared of."

I don't know what's worse — that Mira's absolutely right, or that neither of us have a clue in all six and a half hells what it is that would get him that terrified.

CHAPTER NINE

I meet Carrick and the other shades at half past midnight in the crook of the Cumberland River just before it widens into a lake at the Old Hickory Dam. The breeze off the water is cold, even though where we are, we can't even see the river.

I look at my phone where Gregor indicated the slummoths have been seen. Why no one just sent another group of Mediators to take care of it is beyond me. Even so, I draw both blades as we set off. The last thing I want is a repeat of what happened at the Opry. Gregor's not with us tonight, and if I'm the only Mediator here and another group of us shows up, I don't know if I could stop them this time, or if they'd even see me.

We walk southward. I know we're not far from Cinder Road, and not far beyond there, there are houses. Demons don't usually venture this close to human habitation, and it's a good thing, too. We're skirting the Tailwater Access Area, which is a chunk of park land that butts up against the lock and dam.
 

The rush of water from the dam reaches us even here, and I begin to wish the moon would hurry up and rise. It's almost full, and I wouldn't say no to a bit more light. We walk along the edge of the park, and after a few minutes, we reach Cinder Road.

Carrick is up a little ways from me, but Miles walks beside me. His presence is a small comfort, but my uneasiness grows as we turn southwest. The crickets sing loudly here, and if there are slummoths, they're not at the park.
 

We're heading toward a neighborhood.

I've fought hellkin in populated areas before — hell, I killed a shade in the middle of my favorite brunch spot once — but I hate it. Killing demons with norms around not only puts us on display, but it plunks their cozy little norm-butts right in the middle of danger. Not even witches and morphs stand a good chance against hellkin without proper training, and psychics are lucky if they see the damn things coming a half second before they get splatted.

The first street light appears just as the crickets go silent.

Aw, hells.

I nudge Miles with my elbow, nodding at the air and motioning to my ear. For a moment, I can almost feel something, like a pulse in the wind, but then it's gone, and every shade with us suddenly seems more alert.

I'm not stupid; I know they have their little shade ways. I think being around them as much as I am makes me think I can pick up on it.

The area around us is now silent except for the quiet padding of bare feet on asphalt and the light scuffs of my boots. Fourteen shades plus me. That's good odds, right? Even if we were pitted against eight snorbits and a bunch of slummoths and rakaths again, we might be able to do okay.
 

My breath comes faster, and I hate that physical representation of anxiety. I ignore it, imagining my ears like satellites, trying to pick up any sounds not made by the fifteen of us here on the road.

The river in the distance. A car honk a mile or so away. A plane overhead.
 

No natural sounds reach my ears.

And then I hear a scream.

Carrick points like a bloodhound, and the fifteen of us break into a run. Our feet slap the asphalt, and I try not to think about the fact that the scream sounded like the scream of a child.

The road comes to a T, and as one body, we all turn north. There aren't a ton of houses up this direction, but the scream came from here. We pass one mailbox with a chicken on it, and the scream sounds again.
 

"Spread out!" I bark. "Half circle that way!"

Carrick and six others break off and veer to the right, and Miles and I lead the charge north. There's a single house ahead of us, lights on downstairs and a Big Wheels in the driveway.
 

The screams sound so much louder against the night's backdrop of silence. I feel my own breath like wind rushing into and through my chest.

It fills me with stillness and certainty.

The first slummoth appears around the edge of the green-sided house. I erupt into motion, and my first slash with my sword adds a spray of kryptonite green to the olive of the siding.

A sound like screeching steel rises through the air. On the other side of the house, I hear the same sound doubled, tripled, quadrupled.

At least five. Great.

I've taken this beast across the chest and stomach, and a hot smell like decay and metal boils out of the slummoth with a pile of entrails. It takes a staggering step forward, and I cut its head off. The head lands on the demon's intestines.

Around me, I hear the snarls of shades and the sickening cracks and squishes where the shades' hands and feet meet slummoth slime.
 

My path clear, I dart around the corner of the house and stop short at the edge of their back porch.

A woman brandishes a chef's knife at a wounded slummoth. The demon drips green blood and grey ooze on the wood of the porch. Behind her is a small child, huddled next to the prone shape of a man wearing blood from shoulder blade to hips, the red his own and the green demon.

The woman's managed to sever the slummoth's clavicular tendon, and its right arm dangles at its side. Her knife — from a three hundred dollar knife block — wears a green-grey sheen.

I don't waste any more time. In one motion, I leap, rolling over the porch rail and landing on the cedar-stained wood.
 

I don't care that the kid is watching. I take the demon's head off.

"Call the Summit," I tell the woman.

The noises behind me make me turn. I don't wait to see if she obeys me.

I count three more dead slummoths before I round the northeast corner of the house, but I still hear snarling and the sound of dying demons.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Miles rip off a hellkin head with his bare hands.
 

From the woods to the north, five more demons appear. All slummoths. Their movements are apelike, sacklike, the shimmer of their slime visible even from here.

They're not headed for this house.

Through the trees, a porch light glimmers.

"Carrick!" I bellow his name into the night. "Up five, northwest!"

Not waiting for him or any of the other shades, I make a break after the slummoths.
 

I think I hear someone yell behind me, but I don't care. When the house appears, its only light the one on the porch, I yell as loud as I can. "Stay inside!"

I don't know if the house's inhabitant will hear me, but it's worth a shot.

Two of the slummoths break from their formation and come my way. The other three make for the large picture window at the front of the house.
 

Shit, shit, shit.

I run straight at the pair of demons. They screech at me, froth bubbling from their mouths. They're close together, but if I hit one, the other will flank me.

I have the stupidest idea ever.

I let my arms relax and my swords droop, running at the demons. Ten feet. Five feet.

At the last possible second, I bring both blades up. Throwing myself at the space just between the hellkin, the points of my swords connect with slimy skin. They pierce the slummoths' chins.

Hot pain slices across my middle. I shove my blades farther into the demons' heads, then jerk back.

Gasping, I stumble to the side just as I hear the crashing tinkle that tells me the other three have busted the window.

Hells.

I can feel wetness trickle down my stomach, but I can't let this homeowner get splatted.

I give myself one deep breath, and I jump over the slummoth carcasses and race up the porch stairs, throwing my swords in and diving through the window. I'm lucky there's a couch. I hit it and roll, a crunch of broken glass against my back.
 

Better back than front right now.

I land a couple feet from my blades. My one recovery breath cost me, and the demons are already up the stairs.
 

Stairs are about the last thing I want to do right now.

I hurry up them as fast as I can, hopping over a toppled brass floor lamp on the landing, my feet cracking pieces of matte emerald glass. Somehow the bulb survived. The shadows in the stairwell are long and clawlike.

A man's scream cuts the air. The claws are coming for him.

"Lock yourself in a closet or jump out the gods damned window!" I yell, and from the slam of a door, he's listening. The door won't exactly stop the slummoths, but it'll at least slow them down a bit.

I take a minuscule pause and listen. The sound of my own breath is all I hear, and that scares me more than taking on three more demons when I'm already injured.

Slummoths are not quiet.

Demons don't do stealth.

The upper level of the house only seems to hold three rooms and a bathroom. The two guest rooms are untouched, and the slimy footprints on the wood laminate floor go straight to the master suite.

I pretend I don't see the drops of blood falling as I walk forward.

Just as I reach the threshold, something explodes though the window.

Not something.

Carrick.

All three slummoths fall upon him, materializing out of the clawlike shadows. Carrick screams as demon teeth sink into his shoulder. I know that feeling all too well.

I make it the remaining fifteen feet into the room and drop my short sword with a clatter. The hellkin don't look up, and I take my saber in both hands like a baseball bat.