Storm in a Teacup (42 page)

"So are you. Good for us." Too many people in here. I look up at Mason, who gives me an encouraging nod. If he's at ease and Saturn isn't ripping Ben's head off, I must have missed something. Like Yalta, or Versailles.

I only hope I'm not Poland in either equation.

"We wanted to be here when you woke up. You're a hard bitch to kill." Mira gives me a tight smile. "Did you know you lost almost seven pints of blood?"

That explains the IV. And the bruises on my inner arm.
 

"Is Alice okay?" Aside from Gregor, she's the only one I don't see.

Mira opens her mouth, but Alamea motions at her, and Mira snaps her teeth shut.
 

"We thought she would benefit from a retreat with the Summit in Mumbai."

"You sent her to India?"

"She was a wreck, Ayala," Ben says. "We could barely get her to let go of you. She needed to be somewhere peaceful, so we sent her to stay with the yogis who train the Mediators in Mumbai."

Maybe they'll deprogram any lingering demon sympathies Alice might have been harboring. I don't think she'll need it. Getting plastered half-naked to the ground in a circle of demons, Mediators, and shades is probably enough of a deterrent for interest in the darker underbelly of the world.

My breath hitches. "The demons. What happened to them?"

"We killed most of them. The sunrise took care of the rest." Alamea glances over at Saturn, her expression about as easy to decipher as the metallic gray walls of the Summit's holding cells. "If it wasn't for Saturn and your...friend Mason, we might not have been as successful."

Amazing. She didn't choke on the words.

"So you're not on a 'kill shades on sight' policy anymore?"
 

"We can talk about this another time."

"Of the two of us, I'm the one in the fucking hospital bed. Answer me."

"Ayala," Ben breaks in.

"Can it, Ben." I keep my eyes trained on Alamea. "Answer me."

"No. We're not. We have concluded that the situation is not as simple as we previously thought it to be."

I can't help the snort that escapes me. "No shit."

I wait for Alamea to snap at me, but she only sighs. "Regardless, it looks as though there will be no more shades in the immediate future. We're in communication with Mediators in other areas who were reporting spawnings and hunting down the witches responsible for recruiting the hosts and performing the rituals. Even before we reached them, they found that demons were attacking the shades."

"So Mason and Saturn are free to live their lives in peace?"

Alamea gives me a tight nod. "Any deaths believed to be at the hands of their kind will be investigated, and those responsible will be held accountable."

It's not perfect, and I can see plenty of holes in that kind of justice system, but one look at Saturn tells me he will be on the lookout as well. He values his life.

"That's it?" I ask, looking around at the array of faces.

"That's it." Alamea rocks back on her heels, still watching me.

"Yeah, 'cause after what happened you couldn't get the rest of us to kill them for you." Mira's skin looks stretched over her face.

Alamea doesn't answer her. "I wish you a speedy recovery, Ayala. Do come see me once you are well."

"And my hearing?"

"Canceled at the behest of the Nashville Mediators. They seemed to find your actions...understandable...in hindsight." Without another word, Alamea slides out the door.

Ripper gives me a nod, and I return it with a smile. I can't make myself smile at Ben. He was misguided, sure. But he made some shitty choices, including betraying me personally. I think I'll get over the shoulder wound faster than that.
 

Ripper gets it and pulls Ben with him as he leaves.
 

Mira makes Devon's wheelchair pop a wheelie. "I'll come visit you with Devon as soon as his sorry ass gets out of this hell hole. And I'll feed you drinks with skittles until you lose some of your uptightness and let loose."

With them gone, it just leaves Saturn and Gryfflet. And Mason.

I don't want to talk to Gryfflet. Not yet.
 

Of course, if he hadn't gotten me there, it could have been worse in a lot of ways. Not the least of which being that the demons could have descended on my living room if that talisman had started acting up, but I'm not thanking him for could-have-been-worses.
 

I look up at Mason long enough that Gryfflet gets the point and leaves.

There's a long silence while I seek out Mason's hand again and hold it tight.

"Are you going to tell her?" Saturn closes the door quietly.
 

And the fun just keeps on coming. "Tell me what?"

He could be telling me about the weather. Or that he farted in the elevator. Wait, do shades fart? Or he could be telling me that he loves me. Of all those things, the latter is the one that makes me the most uncomfortable.

I'm wrong on all counts. Wrong and trapped again.

"I'm leaving." Mason clasps my hand between both of his.

"You're what?" I hate the tinny note in my voice. It reminds me of someone ringing a triangle just a moment too late at the end of a melancholy country song.

"I'm leaving. Leaving Tennessee. I need to explore the world. See things. The ocean. The pyramids, maybe."

I don't ask how Mason plans to get to Egypt without a passport when he's technically only a few months old. He's leaving.

"Why?" I don't know what else to ask.

"It's not you."

He's watched way too many rom-coms. I wouldn't have thought it was me unless he said it. He's a half-demon hybrid in a world that will hate him by default. That's not my fault.
 

"I know it's not, Mason. But I want to know why anyway."

Saturn has the charming lack of ability to know that this is a private conversation. Surprisingly, I don't care. Saturn plunks himself down in a chair and examines his fingernails.

"I want to do the things my mother wanted to do. I've been getting more of her memories. She loved the ancient Egyptians and Venice and wanted to see those places. She never made it outside Tennessee."

If anything's fair, that is. "I understand."
 

"I got you something. It's at your apartment. And how to take care of it."

I'm not sure if he got me a plant or an animal, but either way, I'm wary. I'll deal with whatever it is later.

I let several seconds elapse before I ask a question I never thought I would. "Should I wait for you?"

Mason's hand runs up my arm and cups my cheek. I know his answer before he speaks.

"No."

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

They release me the next evening.

I tuck myself into the clothes Mason's brought for me. I told him not to say goodbye, and he didn't.

He dropped off the clothes and my keys, thanked me, kissed me, and left.

I call a taxi from the nurse's station and go home.
 

I unlock the latches on my door. It seems to take a lot longer than usual. Maybe they just seem pointless now, after everything.

The apartment is cold, colder even than I keep it. I suppose with Mason's higher temperature, he liked having it this cold when I was gone. It's strange to think of him here without me. Now it's me here without him.

I kick off my shoes and drop my keys on the kitchen counter.
 

There's a cage on my table. The smell of cedar chips reaches my nose. I move closer, peering around a large plastic object.

A little orange bunny sits, ears perked up at me.

A rabbit. Mason got me a bunny.

How did he know? I don't remember if I told him about the bunnies at Miller's Field. I don't recall half the bullshit we chatted about as we held hands in the wee hours of the morning.
 

There's a bunny on my table. I hope the location isn't another one of Mason's jokes.

I pour a large glass of water for myself from the filter pitcher, I don't know what to do. I don't want to patrol. I don't want to do anything. Except maybe stare at my new bunny.

The glass feels good when I press it against my forehead.

"Are you going to stand out there all night?"

I almost drop the glass, imagining Mason's been watching me the whole time.

The mind plays funny tricks when we want things.

It's not Mason. It's Gregor.

And he's not alone. There's a shade with him.

The man is slender, but well-muscled. His mahogany hair is long, past his shoulders and pulled back in a thick ponytail. Indigo eyes stare out at me from an even-featured face. He's sitting on my couch with one leg crossed over the other. Some men look ridiculous doing that. He looks at ease, natural.

Both things I don't feel.

"Gregor. Good to see you're not dead," I say carefully. I think it's good.
 

"I needed to take care of some things. Sorry I couldn't be at the hospital to welcome you back to the world of the living."

Also the world of the not censured, I add to myself. "There were too many people there as it was." I look back at the shade. "Who's your friend?"

"Ayala, this is Carrick Kimpton. I'll leave the two of you to get acquainted." Gregor stands up and heads toward the door. "I still think you need better locks."

I'll keep that in mind. Now just to hope he didn't bring this Carrick Kimpton here to kill me.

"I'm not here to harm you," says Carrick just as Gregor slams the door behind him.

"Just to read my mind?" There's an eerie similarity to Mason's tendency to know my thoughts. Here I thought it was just because we were in some sort of zen tandem in-tune-ness.
 

Consider my mind blown.

"Just to request your help."

Ain't that a pocket of posies. "Maybe you can start by explaining why Gregor sent a shade to my apartment right after I got out of the hospital."

"Shade. That's what you call us?"

I frown. I thought all of Saturn's people knew that part. "Yeah. It's a joke, of sorts. A demon who can walk in the sun, with human skin to shade him."

Carrick doesn't seem to find it funny.

I'm not about to ask him what the preferred term is for half-demon, half-human hybrids. Hell-spawned Americans?

"I'll start by telling you a bit about myself. Does that sound palatable?"

I can't place his accent. At first it mirrored Gregor's Middle Tennessee bluntness. Now it's settled into something else. English, maybe. I nod at him distractedly.

"My name is Carrick Lewis Kimpton. I was born in Yorkshire in 1608. I—"

"Wait. Excuse me?" I can't help it. I gape at him. No one can live that long. Carrick doesn't look a day over thirty-five. "You say you were born."

"Spawned, born, whatever you choose to call it. My mother chose my name for me."

"Your mother." I think of Mason and his choice of name. And Saturn.

"Your Mason and his friends are not the first of our kind."

"Clearly." I take a deep drink from my water, wishing I was allowed to have alcohol. My wine rack calls to me, and I force myself to look back at Carrick. "How are you here?"

"I'm not the first of our kind either. But I'm the last of my generation to survive." Carrick uncrosses his legs and leans forward to look at me. He gestures to the couch. "Please, sit down."

I sit in the spot Gregor vacated. "You're the last? What do you mean?"

"We shades, as you call us, seem to be a doomed sort of experiment. The demons try again every few hundred years, hoping they will find a way around the universe's need for balance, hoping they will get around our ability to choose our own paths." He pauses. "I believe you saw the outcome of that just two nights ago."

"If you mean the post-birth abortion strategy, yes. I haven't forgotten that yet." I feel weak and tired, and my arm hurts. "I don't mean to be rude, but get to the point."

"Gregor wants you to help me build an army of my kind to take on the demons."

Oh. That point. It's very...pointy.

"Will you help?"

"Do I have a choice?"

That earns me my first smile from Carrick. It curves his lips and seems to elicit surprise from him, as if he'd thought he'd forgotten how. "I think you'll find you have less choice than I, in this if not anything else."

"That's what I thought." It's my turn to feel surprise. I want to help the shades. Maybe this is a way to do it.

"Is that a yes?"

"It's a yes. But I'm not building any armies tonight. I'm going to bed." I drain the rest of my water and head to the kitchen, setting my glass in the sink with a clunk. My hand stops on the rim of the sink. Gregor just left Carrick here. I turn back to the living room. "Where exactly are you staying?"

"Here."

I heave a sigh. Of course. Gods damn you, Gregor. You and your plots and dramatic exits. Him walking out the door and leaving me with Carrick is akin to the many times he just hangs up the phone. Doesn't give me room to object.

I'll ream him out tomorrow.

For now, I point to the guest room where Mason never slept. "You can sleep in there."