Taken By Storm by Emmie Mears

She's about forty, well-groomed, intelligent enough to button her fly, which now that McMullet is sprawled out sideways on the floor, I can see he isn't.
    "All things tend toward chaos and entropy. This world is no different."
    "Thank you for that bit of nihilistic hooey."  
    Carrick gives me a questioning glance, and I nod. His fist flicks out twice more, and Tweed Suit and Cautionary Tale join McMullet on the floor.  
    I doubt his punches knocked any sense into any of them, but a concussion is the least they have to worry about.
    The pregnant man in the corner isn't even watching us, but staring joyously at the wall. It's only then I notice a table almost buried by blankets, covered in foil and glass pipes and multicolored dust.
    "Didn't anybody tell these people that drugs and pregnancy don't mix?" I mutter.  
    I'm stalling. I know it. I feel like throwing up.  
    Jax and Evis are still hanging back at the foot of the stairs, and I can smell their pity from here.  
    I know what they see.
    "Carrick," I say. "Will you go upstairs with Jax and Evis?"
    He gives me a strange look, and Evis looks about ready to protest, but Jax pulls him up the stairs.  
    Carrick hesitates part way, but I don't look at him, and after a moment his footsteps begin again.  
    Then it's quiet, and I'm alone with the man I'm about to kill.  
    Murder is a strangely intimate thing.
    All the times I've said I was going to kill Gregor — and meant it — this is somehow worse. Gross stupidity shouldn't be punishable by death, even though this person signed his own warrant.  
    I offer no words of explanation, and the host-mother offers no resistance.  
    Grabbing his hair at the top of his head, I position my blade at his throat.
    My swords are sharp. My fingers, twined in greasy hair against a greasier scalp, hold fourteen pounds of human head. I drop it in the blankets. The man's belly still moves.
    I think of last night, facing off with that new shade in Hopkinsville. Of the scores of people dead here and in Seattle. Of the scores more that will die if I cannot do this.  
    My swords are sharp, but this time it takes me three tries.  
    I don't meet Carrick's eyes when I walk out of the house, cleaning the blade of my sword with a filthy blanket from the basement.  

    McMullet and the others we leave tied up in the living room, gagged with torn out centerfolds from the porno magazine on the couch. I use McMullet's landline to call the Hopkinsville branch of the Summit.
    When a Mittens on duty answers, I get straight to the point. "This is former Mediator Ayala Storme of the Nashville Summit." I rattle off the address of the house I'm at. "Send a team with some experienced Mediators. You'll find three tied-up hells-zealots and a dead shade host. You're welcome."
    I hang up on the squawking Mittens without further explanation. Let the Summit put that in their bubble pipe and smoke it.
    As we hurry out of there, I realize I never asked Carrick the man's name.
    I don't want to know.
    I need a distraction. The shades are quiet as I drive us home, and I call Mira, putting the phone on speaker.  
    "You guys been working on the territory problem?" I ask without preamble when she answers.
    "Yeah, and we've got jack shit. What's got your panties in a French twist?"
    "I'll tell you some other time." I don't want to talk about it. "No progress at all?"
    "Well, you already know everything we've found out." A shrill whistle sounds in the background. "Ripper's coming over in a minute for tea and treason. Wanna bark any more questions at me?"
    Carrick grabs my arm, and I almost go off the road. "Fuck, Carrick! What?"
    "Stop the car."  
    I pull over to the side of the road, and a red Honda speeds by and honks, but I don't care. I hit my hazards.  
    "Mira, can you hear Carrick?"
    "Yep. Are you talking and driving again?"
    "Not anymore," I mutter. "Carrick, why'd you almost run us into a tree?"
    "I know what it is. The territory problem." He slaps my shoulder