Any Port in a Storm Read Free Page A

turning toward me.
    Here it comes . I brace myself.
    The jeeling runs in the other direction.  
    Well, sort of runs.
    Its bum leg drags, but it still manages a steady clip of speed, high-tailing it away from me.
    For a moment, I freeze, wondering if somehow my reputation has started inspiring fear in demonkind. Am I the thing the demon parental units warn their little spawn about? The thought is ridiculous, and a breeze from the direction the jeeling fled in knocks the thought right out of me. It also brings the smell of eau de dead cat to my nostrils.  
    I take off running after the jeeling. Its pink glow can't be difficult to follow at night, but even with its injury, it's fast, and after a couple hundred yards I feel like I'm chasing fog.
    After a couple hundred more, I realize I lost the damn thing.
    I retrace my steps, wondering if it went back for the cat, but it's not there.  
    More importantly, at the site of the hellkin's gruesome dinner, crickets start to chirp.
    What in the hells is happening?

CHAPTER THREE

    Belle Meade is eerily quiet after my non-encounter with the jeeling, so I go to Mira's. It's not even midnight when I arrive, and the early hour feels strange. Mira's house is a compact ranch, and she's already decorated the porch with orange and red lights for Samhain. I didn't know she celebrated that. I usually leave it to the witches, except for the annual Mediator Samhain gala, which is pretty much just an excuse for all of us to get drunk and go kill shit.
    Wane meets me at the door in scrubs with sushi rolls on them, confirming my earlier suspicion. She sticks out her hand as I shut the front door of Mira's house. I grasp Wane's hand and shake. Her grip is oddly light for the firm strength in her hands.
    "Wane Trujillo," she says.
    "Ayala Storme."
    "I know."
    I nod at her scrubs. "Night shift?"
    She returns my nod. "I'm an OB." She hesitates for a minute, then, "I delivered a Mediator baby yesterday."
    The announcement catches me by surprise, and my heart gives a ribbit in my chest. "Oh?"
    The syllable comes out with admirable nonchalance, but I hate the reminder of how we happen.
    Mediators are born to happy, expectant parents. Open their eyes. If they're that dark, grayish baby blue? You're good to go. Violet? Congrats. You just spent nine months incubating and caring for and trying to name a baby you'll never see again. Mazel Tov.
    Maybe that's the real reason norms don't like us. We remind them of a hundred thousand hijacked maybe-babies. We remind them that without hellkin, we could come into the world like the bouncing baby bundles everyone hopes for. We remind them that the night isn't safe.
    Wane seems to sense she hit a nerve, and she coughs, picking up a leather messenger bag and a meticulously folded white jacket. "Tell Mira I should be off by noon. I'll bring by lunch."
    "Are they in her room?"
    "Guest room. Second door on the right."
    Wane leaves, and I take off my shoes, placing them on a mat next to Mira's combat boots, wondering how an OB-GYN ended up in the middle of Forest Hills with a Mediator, saving a shade's life. I unbuckle my scabbard belts and lay them on the coffee table. Mira's home is all hardwoods and ocher walls. Small shelves make little stair-steps against the ocher paint, holding thick-based candles that give off a smell of vanilla and spice.
    I make my way down the hall, my feet making the floorboards creak. Lining the corridor are framed pictures of Tenochtitlan. Some are pictures of the pyramid, the Aztec ruins, nestled by lush green hills. Others depict the city as it might once have been when it was a city on a lake, thriving and organized, ringed in the deep blue of Texcoco's waters. An entire civilization there in a frame.  
    We Mediators all have our places we'll never visit.
    I find the guest room and knock.
    "Come in," Mira's voice says.
    Saturn's sleeping, it seems. They got the blood cleaned off him, and he's covered to the ribcage with a white sheet.