Taken By Storm (8 page)

"We need to find him," I say. "And the other one, even though that one won't pop for another two months. We need to find them and stop them."

I don't like the lump that rises in my throat at that thought. The new host could still look like a person, will still talk like a person.
I don't kill norms
has been a litany I repeat at least weekly my whole life. Now I'm going to have to purposely do just that.
 

Gregor's a norm, but that's different.

At least that's what I'm telling myself.

At least with Gregor, I know he'd do me first if he got the chance.

If I can't put my sword through his throat, I'm at least going to make sure the people of Hopkinsville don't end up resembling the hunk-a-hellkin slice and dice here at the football field.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I always speak too soon.

The next morning, I wake up to Evis and Jax crowded around my phone, poking at the screen.
 

"What is it?" My hair is stringy, my mouth tastes like a foot, and I just got up but already want to go back to bed.

"Murders," Jax says. Concise.
 

"Plural?" Any thought I had of breakfast evaporates. "Where's Carrick?"

"Checking the wards." Jax hands me my phone. "Five people are dead. Another ten missing."

"Ten?" I almost drop my phone, and Evis walks to me and leans his head on my shoulder.

I swallow the disbelief I wish I could trust. Fifteen people. I'm not going to place any bets on the missing being still on this side of dead.
 

"We need a map of all the places they documented a murder." I find one of my hair ties on the counter and pull my hair up into a top knot.
 

There are three texts from Ripper and Mira on my phone. Ripper's healing well, Mira came up to check on him, and Devon's gone into hiding near Chattanooga.
 

This cabin just had to be where they couldn't go, didn't it? Even if I've got the gift horse's mouth pried wide to poke at its teeth with dental tools, I don't care. Even two of my friends together might not be a match for an angry mob. If I end up finding Ben Wheedle before I find Gregor, I'm going to have a long chat with him. That chat might involve me dislocating his shoulder and breaking four or so of his ribs.

I resist the urge to throw something.
 

Instead, I send an email to the address Alamea gave me, letting her know what's going on here and that I'm on it.

When Carrick comes in a few minutes later, he goes straight to the bedroom without a word and comes out wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. He jerks his head at the hall, and Jax and Evis go get suited up as well. My shoulder cools where Evis was leaning.
 

"So you heard." Carrick perches on the back of the couch.

"Next time, wake me up." I'm sleeping a little less now that I have this tattoo, but the shades need to realize that just because I still need more than they do, it doesn't mean I'm some blown glass butterfly who will shatter without my beauty rest.
 

Carrick nods.

Together, we map out the murder scenes. I feel a headache coming on from all the frowning.
 

"If anything, this guy should be easy to track," I say. "He doesn't seem to be taking any pains to clean up."

"Except the people he just snatched."

"Probably they just haven't found the splats yet."
 

It takes forty-five minutes to get to the first scene, and the cops are still there. I can't just waltz up to them with three shades and expect any welcome but a hail of bullets, so we park two blocks away and I stuff my hair up under a hat, rummaging in the glove box to find one for Evis, too.

He puts it on, and it gives me a small pang. Gregor made him wear a hat in Nashville, just so I wouldn't suspect anything if I saw him.
 

Fucking Gregor.

All four of us keep our eyes down as we walk, skirting the crime scene from across the street. Blood. Bowels. The stench of fear from the cops at the scene. The shades all walk with tight shoulders, and I do the same. We can all smell it, that cocktail of odors that just signals death.

And then I catch it, a warmer scent that feels alive and isn't human or norm or morph.
 

It doesn't smell quite like shade, either.
 

"That's him," says Evis. He points north, toward the next spot on our map. "He went that way."

I don't look at the crime scene as we pass.

It's broad daylight, and the people of Hopkinsville don't seem to realize that the sun doesn't matter with shades. Either they haven't put it together that this is a hells-related killing spree or the Summit is grossly incompetent at telling people to keep their heads down. When we cross one of the main drags of the town, everyone's bustling around and getting ready for the Day of Thanks.
 

We make our way across Hopkinsville like a macabre game of live-action connect the dots. Carrick checks my phone periodically as we walk, and an hour in tells me that there's another crime scene. We backtrack after we hit the last one, walking another mile before we get to it. It's the most recent one the cops have found, but it's not the most recent in general. Evis has been keeping track of which order the people died in.
 

Whoever this shade is, he's not murdering in a straight line.

We walk for most of the day, but the shade eludes us. Mid afternoon, we return to the freshest scene and start tracking him from there, but we all lose his scent after a couple miles.
 

"He knows how to evade already," Carrick says. His voice is grim, and I don't like that tone.

Seems like Carrick dislikes being unsure as much as I do.

New shade. Big ass killing spree. Knows how to hide his scent from other shades. Murdering norm and hellkin with aplomb.

Math was never my best subject, but even I know this all adds up to a whole hell of a lot of bad.

Going home feels like admitting defeat, and I think we all feel it.

Carrick grabs his big magic book as soon as we walk through the door, and while I'm making dinner, Jax and Evis go out hunting.
 

"What are you looking for?" My hamburger insta-dinner smells delicious even though it came from a box.

"Anything that might be able to explain the territory puzzle," Carrick says.
 

If you can't find Gregor, try to find a murderous fiend of a baby shade. If you can't find the murderous fiend, try to figure out why Gregor can leave and we're stuck with geographically-triggered IBS.
 

I respect the fuck out of Carrick's thought process. "Any luck?"

"Not particularly. There are a few spells that have a locational component, but nothing that could possibly affect larger populations, and nothing that would explain why your territories have changed." He looks determined, where I just feel defeated.
 

I poke my hamburger noodles.

"What are we going to do?" I ask. The pan's sizzling, with a happy glop-glop-glop of the sauce thickening, and as hungry as I am I can't help but wonder if I'll ever feel useful again.
 

Life used to be so simple.

Carrick closes the book with a sigh. "I don't know. I think I should go look for Gregor with Saturn."

"I hate that idea."

"I know you'd miss me horribly, but it makes the most sense. I can leave here. You can't."

I smile at the touch of the old Carrick in his words. "You're such a brat."

"And you love me."

"I do." I wave my wooden spoon at him. I don't know what else we can do right now. After a pause, I turn the gas off and move the pan to a cold burner. "At least wait until we find this shade?"

Carrick nods. "I know you could handle it alone, but four against one is a lot better odds."

Neither of us mention that if the Mediators gang up on us, it'll be four against a hundred instead.

My phone rings. Mira.

"Hey," I say. "How's Ripper?"

"About as happy as a cat thrown in a kiddie pool, but he'll live another day." Mira sounds about that happy herself. "We need to figure something out, fast. Devon said his wards went off on a tracking spell. He's lucky he's got a witch friend, because otherwise he'd be tagged."

"Tell him to stay safe."

"You think I'm going to tell him to get dead?" Mira usually doesn't turn her irritation on me, so she must be really stressed.
 

"How's Nana doing?"

Mira lets out a burst of a laugh that's almost a guffaw. "I love that fucking little fluffer. Had one of the other Mediators over a couple days ago, Hardy, that ass who always used to act like Trainer Sal didn't know what she was talking about?"

"Until Sal licked him in front of every Mitten at the compound, yeah. What the fuck was that pit-loving slime doing at your house?"

"He's an ass, but he's connected. The ultimate chaotic neutral. He has no desire but to stay alive, and he likes me for whatever reason. Must be my winning personality. Nana bit him, though."

"Nana bit somebody?" I picture my little red fluffy bunny twitching her little velvety nose and sinking her incisors into Hardy's flesh and want to give her a standing ovation.

"He tried to pick her up. He won't try again." Mira sounds as pleased as I am. "Bled like a stuck and squealing hog, but I gotta hand it to Hardy — he took it like a champ. He's like a wild dog, that one. Stand up to him and he'll respect you. I heard he has tea with Sal twice a week now."

"Will wonders never cease," I mutter. I want my bunny back.

"Hardy doesn't care for Alamea much, but he hates bullies even though he kind of is one. He's got it out for Ben, and he's the type to spoke somebody's wheel with them none the wiser."

"I'm liking him more and more already."
 

"He said he'd let me know if he found out Ben was going to make another move on Ripper, or if that grimy-faced Gryfflet tries to pull anything." Mira snorts into the phone, but under it is the tightness of frustration that I can almost feel through the phone line. "Gryfflet seems to have all the Summit witches lapping at his belly button. That guy's got a hard on for power, and he's finding it."

"Any good news besides my bunny's asshole detection powers?"

"Nope."

"Cool." I tell her about the shade in Hopkinsville, and she goes quiet.

"Yeah, I heard about that. You were right, the Mediators around here are whispering about it being your fault. And that you've become a shade. You seem to be all they talk about lately. You'd think we were in a high school rom com for all the gossiping they're doing. It's like they've completely forgotten about the hellslime about to bubble up over our boots."
 

She's not wrong, and I hang up the phone a minute later feeling helpless, as usual.
 

Carrick has reopened the book during my conversation, and my dinner is now congealing in the pan. I slop it onto a plate and sit down at the table.
 

"Anything interesting?"

"Plenty, but nothing helpful, I think. Just something about locational gardening, imbuing your food with the energy of your geography. Bloody nonsense."

"It's magic."

"Doesn't stop it from being nonsense. It sounds like something the hipster witches of East Nashville would say about their organic back garden tomatoes." Maybe Carrick was paying more attention in Nashville than I gave him credit for. I picture a bunch of tomatoes ripening on the vine, complete with ironic mustaches.
 

A gong rings through the cabin.

My mouth is full of stroganoff, and I drop my fork to my plate. "Wards?"

Carrick nods, already on his feet.
 

"Jax and Evis are out there." They couldn't trigger the wards themselves, and panic tightens my chest. If anything happens to Evis…

Carrick doesn't tell me they'll be okay.
 

I grab my swords without bothering to strap on my scabbard, and we're out the door.
 

"It was just the first line ward," he says as we run, me letting him direct us because he knows where the ward was crossed. "Hopefully it turned whoever it was back."