Storm in a Teacup (19 page)

"I think it'll work. The witches can do what they do, we'll do what we do. Kill demons." He says it sort of absently, like he's talking about an accounting report instead of poking things with sharp metal objects. Or, in this case, setting them on fire.

I frown at the empty basket. "So what's good here?"

"Seafood pasta. Baby clams, shrimp, mussels. It's delicious."

Uh-uh. I don't trust seafood in a landlocked state. I don't care what witches claim they've done for the food preservation world. "No seafood for me."

I settle on a nettle ravioli that fits my prickly mood. Ben gets the pasta. If he's barfing in an hour, it's not my fault.

I'm feeling more nervous than I should be. This isn't a date, and I can't tell if my anxiety stems from Ben's presence or just my fear a half-demon monster's going to drop a suit in my food again before I can eat it. Somehow, I feel more alone with Ben than I do by myself in my own apartment. I can almost hear the crickets as we sit in silence, me picking at the crumbs of bread, him fiddling with the hem on his linen napkin.

The food arrives in a blessedly short amount of time, and I throw myself at it like it's a set of gleaming abs. Ben takes smaller bites. If he's not done by the time I am, I'm going to thank him and bail. Except he drove here. Damn it.

I polish off my ravioli in about six minutes, and he's not even halfway done with his whatever-he-ordered. Maybe it's not the seafood after all. Lamb? Beef? No clue.

He puts his fork down and looks at me. "Ayala, can we talk?"

Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

My face must be contorted in some awful rictus of horror, because I see his Adam's apple bobbing along with his earlobes. It's almost impressive. But I don't want to have another chat about how not interested in him I am.

"Look. I know you don't want to hear it. I just need to...put it out there before we go into this warehouse thing. I need you to know how I feel about you."

Oh, gods damn it all to the six and a half hells. Why don't I have anything to stuff in my mouth? The bread is gone. My ravioli is gone. I pick up my water glass and dump several ice cubes into my mouth and crunch them hard.
 

My teeth feel like I've bitten down on aluminum foil instead of ice, but it helps distract me.

"Okay," I sputter around my mouthful of crushed ice.

My feet move under the table like they're doing a square dance. Heel, toe, heel toe. Damn you, Ben Wheedle. Why can't you just take no for an answer?

"I've known you since we were Mittens together. Just out of our first expeditions, just given our first metal swords. You were always the one I looked up to, wanted to be like. You were so serious all the time, except when you'd say something funny and it was so unexpected you'd make the whole team of us laugh. And remember how mad Gregor would get?"

Memory lane. That well-trod path. I've never been much for getting its mud on my shoes. Past is past. I know I've known Ben a while. I've known all the Nashville Mediators a while. There aren't enough of us to get lost in the crowd, and Ben was always that kid who didn't realize I really meant
go away
when I said it.

I watch Ben, stilling the movement of my feet. My heart feels like a maraca, and I hate this feeling. This is why I don't date. I hate these feelings. These I'm-gonna-hurt-the-shit-out-of-you feelings. And of course, the flip side.

Ben. Say what you're going to say. I can feel my eyes boring a hole in his face. Just say it, damn you. So I can rip the bandage off. Say it.
 

"I've been in love with you since I met you. I know you don't feel the same way, but I want you to know."

It sounds suspiciously like an in-case-we-get-dead confession, and I don't like that. He doesn't even know me, not really. He loves the idea of me. I ignore the love part and scowl at him. "Ben. We're not going to die."

It's his turn to be silent. He asks the waiter for a box and the check, and neither of us says a goll-darned word until he pulls up in front of the Triton building.

"Thanks for dinner," I say. Not awkward at all.

I get out of the car, digging in my pocket for my keys.
 

Ben waits until the doorman closes the door behind me to leave.

I get two whole days without having to see him. And at least then there will be demons for a distraction.

Demons tend to be good for that.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The night of the warehouse bombing arrives like it's been laying in wait.

Setting the surveillance went as smoothly as pig on a greased waterslide, so smoothly that the whole thing is now making me jitter like I've injected pure caffeine into my veins.

I still have two hours of slow wick to burn through before everything goes boom. Twenty-two Mediators. Five pounds of plastic explosives, set at intervals around the warehouse by a pair of witches and a Mediator who moonlights — daylights? — as a member of the bomb squad.

If the camera feeds are correct, there is a window between four-thirty and six when almost all the shades seem to be home at Ye Olde Hearth of Evil. It confirms what I saw that night with my scope from the bridge, and it's the one thing I feel at all certain about.

Right now, it's one and I'm already dressed to impress in my softest, most pliable leather. I could be wearing the heavy-duty stuff, but it just hampers my movement, and if I'm going to be puree de Mediator tonight it's not going to matter what fashion statement I'm making. I run over the plan in my head again.

We'll surround the building. Charges have been set on the outskirts down the most likely escape routes, so if the monsters try to get away, we can hit another series of switches and make them go boom, baby. We'll be clustered at bottlenecks to catch any stragglers, which we should have outnumbered four to one.
 

I repeat the plan over and over. So many things can go wrong tonight. I wish I had more confidence. All I know is that I have to try and take out these bastards, or there won't be a Nashville left for us to defend from the demons. I can almost feel the scales tipping in my chest, and it makes me feel sick.

Sick and jittery. Great way to go into tonight.

I meet Gryfflet at half past two outside the Triton building. He looks like he's ready to spew all over the sidewalk. I don't blame him. This is a lot of pressure for a sound guy.
 

"Ready for tonight?" I ask him. It's the stupidest question. Who's going to hop up from foot to foot like a boxer and thumb their nose and bellow a yes? Not Gryfflet Asberry. Not Ayala Storme.

Maybe Ripper, if he ever bellowed at all.

"I kind of have to be. I don't even know why you need me now. I already helped them set the charges and the surveillance." He's right. But Gregor wanted him along, so here he is.

"You helped me at Madeline's. A bunch of people would have gotten splatted if it weren't for you."

"I was more concerned about me getting splatted, to be honest."

"Hey, that's fair. Just keep that in mind tonight. Don't get splatted."

"I think I can remember that," he says, voice grim.

The rest of us are meeting at the end of the bridge that lands on the warehouse side of the river. When we get there, we're early. Only twelve or so other Mediators are milling around by the water's edge, including Ben and Ripper. Gregor and Alamea are here as well. I'm on Gregor's detail tonight. I asked to lead my own, but he pulled rank and subsumed me into his.

The rest of the group trickles in over the next hour. Everyone looks as antsy as I feel. The witches stand out. They hold still where the Mediators pace and move, fluid muscles needing the action. I've never been great at sitting still myself. We bounce around the concrete like agitated atoms; the witches almost look like they're glued to their spots.

There are only three witches. Three of them, twenty-two of us.
 

I feel tonight like someone's been adding sand to the weight on my chest in a continuous, slow, hissing pour. What I wouldn't give to feel light and quick right now.

Gregor raises his square hand in the air, and suddenly the movement of Mediators halts like he's pressed pause. He signals to two of the teams, including Ben's. Every body in this group is sheathed in black.
 
They slip into the night, and the darkness closes around their departing backs.
 

Five minutes of only breath pass before he raises his hand again. This time Ripper's group and one other vanish the same way. Another five minutes, and it's our turn.

We're taking the northeast corner of the warehouse. I recognize the two other people on our team — a woman about my age with black hair and brown skin called Mira and a pale man called Devon who has a wide scar down one cheek. I've met Devon a few times, and I've never asked about the scar. It takes a lot to leave a lasting mark. I don't want to know how wide or deep that cut was to leave such a reminder.

We reach our positions in about seven minutes. By now, all the creatures should be tucked into their gruesome beddy-byes, should be snuggling up to their body parts and dreaming of carnage. If they even sleep.

And then we wait.
 

The corner of gravel we've picked is at the end of a train car, the warehouse visible on the right side. We're opposite the warehouse's entrance, but if the shades come this way, we've got charges lined at five foot intervals starting ten yards beyond the building. If we need to reroute them in our direction, that should be enough to do it.

Those who have the detonators are supposed to hit the switch at seventeen minutes past five.

Don't ask me. I didn't choose the time.

The minutes slide by, sucked into the warehouse like my thoughts. I think of the bodies inside, the blood, the rotting flesh. And the stench. I've smelled a lot of stenches in my time, and that's up there with the worst of them.
 

I feel uneasy. It's the waiting that does it to me. Once the button gets pressed, I'll know what to do. I will. It's knowing the seconds on the clock are speeding toward something that I can't control. And the second five-seventeen hits, all control goes boom like the warehouse.

This has to work. It has to.

The night air is soft. Even the humidity is like a velvet touch against my face. The moon is almost full, but it set at two tonight. Lucky for us.

With Nashville's light pollution, there aren't many visible stars, and a muggy haze coats the sky like a frosted glass.

I don't even hear it coming.

There's a muffled oomph and a rush of air past my face that blows a lock of my hair onto my lips. I jump away from the feeling and hear the smattering of feet on gravel that is Gregor and Mira doing the same. But Devon. I don't see Devon.

"What the fuck was that?" I'm glad to hear that Mira has a potty mouth as bad as mine. Makes me feel better about myself. Or it would if Devon hadn't poofed into nothingness.

My head swivels toward the warehouse, where there's a flicker of movement just as a large object disappears around the corner. My stomach does a roll over. "It took Devon inside."

Inside. Into...there. I remember too well what it's like in there.

"That's impossible." Gregor heads behind the train car, looking around and under it as if he expects to find Devon crouching and playing a joke.

"I'm serious, Gregor. I just saw something that way." I point to the corner where the thing disappeared. I don't know how it moved that fast or how I didn't hear the cursed thing coming. Especially on the gravel. Even we can't move that quietly.

I pull out my phone. It's three minutes after five.
 

Mira beats me to it. "We have to get Devon. There's only fourteen minutes before that whole thing blows."

"And they know we're here now." Three seconds and everything we've been doing for the last four days has evaporated into uncertainty.

And Devon's in there.
 

I can't leave him in there. I can't. Maybe it's the horrible scar, but I pity him. He shouldn't have to die like the rest. I know I'm probably too late. I know he's probably dying as I stop to assess it. I know what awaits him in there. The knowledge is heavy and rotten in my heart.

I also know I have to try. "Don't hit the button!"

My legs burst into a sprint. I hear Gregor's heavy tread behind me, churning the gravel. But I'm faster than he is. I have both swords drawn in five strides, and the warehouse looms up before me, all corrugated steel and menace.

The corner. We're opposite the entrance. I choose the shorter end of the warehouse and veer to the left, skidding on the loose ground. I right myself as I round the corner to the right. The entrance is ahead, and each step feels like death in my boots.

I'm not going to make it out of this alive.

But maybe I can get Devon away before they blow it.

Just maybe I can throw him out of there.

I dive through the entrance, one burst of gratefulness for my leathers filling my mind as my hip hits the rough pavement. My arm hits something soft, and I force the thought out of my mind.