Taken By Storm Read Online Free Page A

only a few months old, knowing the knowledge comes from memories that aren't theirs.
    "Phoenix feather!" Evis blurts out as I sit down next to him on the sofa, responding to a question about wizard wand cores. I'm not sure what startles me more — the fervent glee on his face or the seeming fact that our mother was a Harry Potter fan.
    The ding on the television marks the contestant, and Evis, as correct. He beams at me, then focuses on me. "What did Saturn say?"
    He asks the question with careful diction. Saturn still makes him nervous, I think. As one of the older shades, Saturn is something of a leader in their hierarchy, but I don't think that's the reason Evis is afraid of him.
    I tell him what Miles and Saturn shared with us and our plan.  
    "Can I help?"  
    Jax growls at the television after getting an answer wrong, but I tune him out.
    "I'm going to start mapping my territory again," I tell him. "If you want to come, you can. Though you'll probably have to wear clothes. Some of it I need to do in daylight."
    Evis's nose gives a distasteful twitch that reminds me of Nana when faced with the wrong kind of treats. "I can do that."
    "We'll go tomorrow," I say. "I want to start to the south and work our way back up and around."
    I get up from the sofa, restlessness niggling at me. I don't want to wait until tomorrow to do something.  
    "I'm going to go out and see if I can't find something to kill." The statement comes out flatter than I expected.  
    "Want company?" Carrick asks. He's sitting on the kitchen counter with his bare ass, reading a romance novel with a beefy musclecake on the cover and a spine worn from multiple reads.
    My life is so glamorous.
    "I think I'm good." I turn to the hallway, then turn back with a scowl. "You better clean the fuck out of that counter. You guys might not cook there, but I don't want ass crack spice on my food."
    To his credit, Carrick hops down and even has the decency to look abashed.  
    "There's bleach under the kitchen sink," I tell him.
    It feels good to wriggle into my leathers in the bedroom, though they feel a little looser than I'm used to. I wish I knew if that was due to the tattoo changing my body or if I just haven't been eating enough. Tomorrow I'll start working on my forms again.  
    I hop in the car and drive twenty miles, eschewing my normal mix of Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn for Queens of the Stone Age. It feels good to be fully armed and outfitted. I can't remember the last time I went out like this. The thought is yet another unwelcome reminder of how much my life has changed in the past few months.
    Parking the car up a logging track, I get out and stretch. I'm not used to this area, and I have no idea where the normal hellkin hotspots are, but there ought to be something out here I can kill.  
    Demons mostly stay near cities, because it's a little more bang for their buck. Sometimes, though, you'll hear of a rural area getting hit hard. It's why per capita there are usually more Mediators in a rural part of the state than in the cities. You might get three Mediators for a town of a thousand, but only three hundred for a city of a quarter million. I'm so used to being one of the three hundred that I'm not sure where to start.  
    In Mediator training, we get a lot of information and tend to internalize whatever suits our personal choices. We don't get a lot of choices, but career is one of them. That's why I enjoyed my work in public relations so much; that was my choice. Leathers and blades were the given. I got to study sword forms by day and communications by night. Nice always having something to fall back on, too.
    Out in the autumn air, though, the hills of Kentucky spread out around me and a gibbous moon waning and drooping lazily toward the horizon, none of that helps me figure out where to find a hells-beastie to stick my sword in.
    The night is cool with a bite to the breeze that says colder weather will be drifting in, and silvery clouds sneak