by L. A. Banks
"What!" Shabazz shouted, whirling around on the priests, his line of vision tearing between Father Patrick, Monk Lin, and Marlene. "She can't stay with him—one, and two—she cannot go over there and do a concert as a cover for an international vampire hit, dragging a master vampire with her! I don't care what she's searching for!" He looked at his team for support, and the other men stepped in closer toward him. "She's not stable, one more nick could turn her, and she'll be on their side and doesn't need the Isis in her possession!"
"Set up a concert over there, Dan," Marlene said flatly, ignoring Shabazz.
"Marlene, face it, the girl might not even be able to cast an image. The whole plan to go country-to-country dusting topside master vampires to weaken their empire and bring back our stolen property is an abort until she stabilizes," Rider said in a defeated rush, gaining a nod from Big Mike. "Accidental stroke of luck on their side, notwithstanding—they won. They took out our power center—Damali."
"No, D is still the Neteru," Jose said, his voice fervent, just like his eyes. "Come with us, baby. Please don't stay with him." His voice hitched and he opened his arms. "We'll make it all right… I'm begging you, D. We'll keep the plan, as it always was, all of us. Just come home."
"Even if she stayed with us and we flew out at night," Big Mike said, lowering his weapon as his shoulders slumped, "we'd be flying from night into day because of the layovers and time-zone changes… she's unstable, could torch on impact right in her seat on the plane."
"I'm aware of that risk, so I'm traveling a nontraditional route, if I can get a ride." Damali let her breath out hard, sharing a supportive glance with Marlene. "Which is why I'm going inside to do some damage repair on one critical member of our team. And that's also why you all are going to have to have more faith than you've ever had before." But it broke her heart to watch Jose slowly lower his arms and look away from her.
"See you in Sydney, kiddo," Marlene said calmly. "Travel safe. If we don't see you in a couple of nights…"
"We'll send a rescue and recovery party," Imam Asula said, glancing at the other members of the Covenant. "If you're beyond repair, we will bury you on hallowed ground… or scatter your ashes there—either way."
Rider hawked and spit, and even the clerics' expressions held unconcealed worry.
"Gentlemen, Mar," Damali said, looking at the doubts held in every pair of eyes, "maybe what I did was instinct, who knows? That's what's driving me now. A gut hunch."
"You don't even know if Carlos will go or still guide you to the lairs so you can pick them off one by one to eliminate the threat," Dan said, his gaze fervent. He glanced at the others; J.L. nodded and Jose let out a long, disgusted sigh.
"Oh, he'll take her to a lair, all right. But not to clean one out." Rider sputtered in fury, walking back and forth. "In this condition, he'll be setting up vampire housekeeping!"
"We're supposed to protect the Neteru, but also assist her destiny," Father Patrick said, his slight smile knowing, evolving on his face in slow increments. "If Heaven is willing to gamble, who are we to throw in our hand?"
Marlene kissed Damali's cheek and walked away from her. "Let's go, gentlemen. I think our girl just created something even Hell can't deal with."
The long walk back to the mansion gave her plenty of time to think. What could she tell Carlos that made any kind of sense? He had trusted her completely, and there were so many times she'd mistrusted him. He'd been up-front and had told her about what he could do to her, but she'd never explained all of that to him in equal measure. Truth was, even she didn't know at the time. She was making it up as she'd went along.
Yet, what she was sure of now, just as sure as she'd always been, was that there was pure intent behind the soul-sharing exchange. There was no fraud in it, no trickery or guile. She had gone into his depths to restart his heart, to dredge up every abandoned hope and dream inside him that he'd ever had, and had coated it with every ounce of love she could siphon from herself. That was real, and it wasn't a game.
As she entered the mansion, Carlos was pacing in the foyer.
"What are you doing here?" he muttered.
"I never run."
"Yeah, I forgot." His back was to her and his tone was angry and distant.
An eerie quiet filled the room, time standing still again in the balance between her response and his.
"Carlos, you do understand my concerns now, right?" She leaned on her Isis blade. "There is only one issue—the stolen key."
He looked at her hard.
"I had a need to know not just from them, but also from you," she snapped, her gaze roving over him so hotly that he turned around.
"Since you've been all inside my head, Damali, then I hope you can also feel the fatigue from my sitting up all day, worried fucking sick, praying, and beating my own ass about what I've allowed to happen to you."
She swallowed hard and looked down at her shoes.
"And you should have also picked up how your first awareness panic while they were purging you cut my soul to the bone and emotionally bled me out till I had to come to you. Funny thing is, you're in my system as much as I'm in yours. Now, that's fucked up, when I'm the one supposed to be running shit. So my main concern then was, as it always has been, to make sure you survive. Fuck a key, if it means you'll die—or worse."
When she looked up at him, the tears that glistened in her eyes made him glance away.
"If we don't find and return the key, all of humanity will get turned—or kept for vamp food. I just don't want to live like that," she whispered.
"Neither do I, baby, but I don't know how to fix this. All I've ever known how to do is play the hand I'm dealt to buy time. Now even that's running out."
"I felt the hunger burn," she said, her voice so quiet that he had to strain to hear her. "I've never been so repulsed or terrified in my life."
"It's a bitch," he said plainly, walking to stand by a massive living-room window. "And the absence of daylight, the taste of real food, everything you've always taken for granted, ain't no joke. So now you know."
"If I stay with you as a female vamp, I'll never see my family again. But I want to be with you so bad, it hurts. But you also know I'll do whatever I have to do to get the key."
Carlos sighed. "If you stay in the dark life, you'll never see daylight, your family, your friends, a lot of shit that seems unimportant until it's gone." He turned and looked at her squarely. "Believe me, I miss my mom, and Grams… I miss my brother, and my boyz. And I wanted to protect them all, just like I wanted to protect you, missing you most of all. But, hey, that's my trip, my atonement for all the foul shit I've done." Unable to look at her any longer, he rubbed his hand across his jaw, remembering the last of her touch. "Let me do at least one thing right, and take you home. You stay there, let me do what I have to do, and it'll be cool. I'll find the key and will work a deal. I promise."
"No, it won't be cool. Guarding humanity is my job. This is not something you can cut a deal with. You clear?"
Even though her tone was firm, her eyes held such empathy that he couldn't remain focused on them. "Just promise me one thing," he finally said, as he began walking toward the door.
"Name it."
"Don't ever tell a master vampire something like that," he chuckled, his voice hollow from the soul ache. "Hear me out, then make wise choices, baby."
"Talk to me."
He closed his eyes. He wasn't sure if it was the familiar line, or the timbre of her voice yearning to hear some feasible solution, or the fact that she still cared enough to listen to him despite the circumstances, but the simple statement messed him up.
"If you die on your mission—and I have to say that because I know you're so stubborn there's no stopping you once you've made your mind up," he said slowly, measuring his voice to be sure it didn't falter, "and they make you a warrior angel… look in on my people for me, D. Make sure my moms knows I loved her and died trying—but just took a wrong turn at the Light."
He wo
uld not allow the fact that her fingers had gone to her lips to change his path. He was walking out that door, going to handle his business and settle this issue, alone, once and for all. As for his fate, the Devil may care, but he didn't. All she had to do was cross the threshold, and he'd transport her to the edge of the lights beyond the compound.
"You coming?" he said in a hardened tone without looking back at where she stood. "Since you're siding with the Guardians, we go out side by side. No 'in your arms' bullshit. I ain't got that much integrity, animal-predator that I am."
When she didn't move, he turned around and glared at her. "We've got a time issue, dig?"
He could feel her mind working, trying to absorb all his pain and make it right. "You can't fix this, no more than I can fix it. Let it drop. Sometimes you lose when you gamble. I've gotten used to it. You want the key for your reasons, I want the key for mine. You're ready to die for the cause; I'm not waiting around to watch that happen. Now let's go."
He waited while she walked toward him slowly, and then lifted her chin to stand by his side. Every instinct within him told him to never let her leave, but everything he'd ever known about her also told him that if he held her there, one night she'd grow to hate him just as much as he hated himself now.
"I had a hand in this thing, as much as you did," she murmured. "We're partners. We work this situation together. Me and you and my Guardian team."
He wasn't trying to hear it. Didn't need to think about anything that might make it harder to do what he had to do.
"I bit you, you turned, and you fluxed back. My bad."
"I let you, and wanted you to, and encouraged you to do me."
"Yeah, well, woulda, coulda, shoulda."
"Then I went deep into your head, when you told me not to. Opened Pandora's box."
"Told you curiosity killed the cat."
She smiled a slow, sad smile. "You did."
"You satisfied now?"
She shook her head. "I'm sorry."
"Me, too… more than you'll ever know."
He glanced at her, and then glanced up at the moon. "This is an old conversation, D. You know where it leads."
"I know. Then why aren't you doing your transport thing, if you're hell-bent on sending me away?"
For a moment he didn't answer her, but then the truth came out. "Because I really don't want to. You actually ready to die?" He let his breath out hard. "There's a good chance that four masters against me, even at my level, will win. One, or all four of those bastards, might be in possession of the key. Against you and your team, they'll get slaughtered. I don't want to think about what they'll do to you if you're captured. That I cannot live with."
"No, I don't want any of us to die. Without the key being returned to hallowed ground, is there such a thing as life on this planet? There's a certain way I want to live."
He nodded. He could respect that, always did. But it didn't change his position. "Why didn't you just listen to me when I told you not to take me there in Rio? Why'd you have to go that deep into my mind?"
She smiled sadly and looked out into the night. "We're way off the subject, but if you must know, I was jealous."
"What?"
"I wanted to be the only one you fantasized about. After some of the places you'd been…"
Carlos closed his eyes and shook his head. "Oh, shit, Damali. You didn't need to go there to be the one."
"I wanted to know what a double-plunge was, and to do that with you. I also wanted to experience going to the vanishing point with you, albeit you haven't taken me there yet. But now I have an idea." She sighed and looked down. "I didn't want some female vamp seducing you one night to try something that you couldn't get from me. I figured it was bound to happen sooner or later."
He looked at her, allowing his gaze to rake her, burning her into his memory for what might very well be the last time. "Go deep, right now, and get the question settled in your mind once and for all. Then, answer my question. Are you really ready to end our relationship like this? Because you know, if I find either the seal or the key, I'll turn it over to them to save your life, whether you want to be with me or not."
Her pull was so intense that she shuddered from the answer she siphoned from him. She took two steps toward him, but then stopped herself, although she never broke eye contact with him.
"That's what I thought," he murmured. "But in this condition, you can't have it both ways. If you haven't already totally crossed over by the end of the mission, I'll flat-line you to save you, and you want to live as a human."
"Yeah. I do. That's why I stopped walking."
His fangs dropped and were slow to recede. It took him a moment to answer her. "You sure you wanna leave and try to go after the key yourself?"
"What I want to do, and what I have to do, are two different things. Either we do this together, or I do it alone. But don't try to sweet-talk me into some bullshit compromise, Carlos. I'm not down for a vamp seduction."
He needed night air. Standing in the confines of the foyer with her was too much of a temptation to simply turn her all vamp and be done with the options. "Can't blame a man for trying," he said, smiling, but coming closer to her. "But what if it's too late? What if you really did die in my arms already?"
"What if I didn't?"
She looked away from him and out into the night, through the windows by the door.
He closed his eyes and walked away from her, his hand going to the nape of his neck as he tried to rub away the tension in it. "Going after them as a team is one helluva gamble, D."
"Wait for me," she murmured. "If you don't hear my call tomorrow night, then I'm history."
"What are you talking about—wait for you?" The insanity of her request made him pace from the door to the windows, and back to stand before her. "If you live through the first night in Australia without getting whacked, and if by some slim chance your system normalizes, I'm the last person in the world you want to come for you ever again." He stared at her hard. "If you're still human when this shit goes down, I'll definitely turn you to keep you strong and existing, enough of that death with honor bullshit!" She had to be crazy. If the sixth sea was opened there was only one safe position; master vamp.
"I was talking about not giving up, not leaving the team, if—"
"Do you hear yourself?" He looked at her hard, forcing her gaze to stay within his. "If you make it, and you now have a deep personal understanding of what this thing is that I live with—I cannot wait around for you to die a normal, human death. Period."
"Why not? You are destined to do something greater than—"
"There's only one thing I can be to you—your lover. I may be your friend, your bodyguard, your whatever you want to call me, but the bottom line is, if I'm near you, you're my woman. It's not in my DNA, or in my heart, to watch my woman unnecessarily die. You've got the wrong hombre, if that's what you want."
She only stared at him as he stated the facts as plainly as he knew them.
"I'm not playing, Damali. And with your system all jacked up, you're trailing the beginnings of the scent that fucks me around. Not to mention," he said, his voice escalating, "you bit me, dammit. You may have recovered from that, but I sure as hell haven't!"
The crystal pieces in the large foyer chandelier above him began to rattle. Damali looked up as the intensity built, sending a winding fissure across the ceiling, down the wall, opening a two-inch crack in the marble floor by her feet. She braced herself, waiting, not sure if he was going to rush her, or if the vibrating light fixture above them was gonna blow.
"You still don't get it, do you?" he asked, gesturing with his hands as pendulous crystal sections began to separate from the ornate chandelier, then jettison into the surrounding walls. His voice was low and even, and way too calm. "Maybe your master awareness hasn't kicked in yet, or maybe you haven't all the way turned, but let me make sure we are clear."
"All right," she said quietly, keeping her distance from him as more pieces
of the chandelier separated, cracked, and whizzed past her to lodge in the door. "Talk to me."
"There are many types of bites we can deliver." Carlos paused, drew a deep breath, as though steadying himself.
She waited. Not even blinking.
"No self-respecting council-level master would ever allow some stray vamp tail to plunge his jugular! No one but you has been near my throat since I've turned."
Upon his statement, furious energy rippled up the winding staircase, popping out banister posts, exploding open the doors throughout the second floor.
"I don't care if it's a Roman orgy, and I don't care what type of entity attempts a seduction, a council master never takes it in the throat!" Carlos turned away from her and began walking deeper into the house and then returned, his breathing escalating as he spoke. "We deliver the ultimate bite, not take it, and we give it good, baby. Believe that. If we feed a lower level, or allow a passion nick," he said, speaking now through fangs and extending his arm to demonstrate, "it's at the wrist or the inside of the elbow, never at the throat—our power center."
Damali tilted her head, his rage an ebbing concern, her curiosity fueling her confidence. "Then… why—"
Every window on the first floor blew out, leaving the curtains to flutter wildly in the gathering night wind.
"A throat offering is the highest level of trust and respect. It's a bond, dammit! A siphon there is a mark, a permanent one. You only give that to your eternal mate, your queen. That's the only one you allow into your head, trusting that her lock on your thoughts is only about the survival of both of you. So, hell no, I'm not going to allow you to put yourself in harm's way against four masters!"
He closed his eyes, trembling. She wasn't sure if it was from rage, passion, frustration, or the combination. Instinct told her not to speak, and to ride it out, just listen to him.
"It is the ultimate power you can bestow, because it makes you vulnerable to her. Where I come from, power is not ceded, it's taken. So when it's given willingly, with intent, it is a serious alliance." Carlos leveled his gaze at her; the intense magnetic pull of it was so great that she almost lost her balance where she stood. "You're supposed to always side with me against anyone and anything—even finding this key! That you are standing here, questioning my judgment is so wrong, D, there are no words!"