by L. A. Banks
Damali glanced at Kamal's struggling team, and pushed herself off the wall. An adrenaline kick of pure frustration and rage jolted her forward through the sulfur, making her cut at nothing as she climbed on a high flat rock. Not another one of her men. Not one!
"You call yourself a warrior," she yelled, coughing and sputtering from the toxic fumes. "Then come out and fight!"
She had to get her now, well before sundown, well before things got crazier. The smoke was lifting, which meant they'd come in for another attack. All she could hope was that Kamal and his men had enough human-side to make them impervious to the demon sulfur that their other spiritual weapons would unleash. "Stand ready, guys!" The smoke was lifting, their barrier was burning off, and every warrior had to come out shooting and swinging.
As soon as Damali gave the order, a huge white jaguar parted the haze of smoke before her, lunging right at her. Damali dodged the lunge, getting a good slice in the shoulder section of the beast. It turned where it landed, let out a furious snarl, but it was positioned upon a jutting ledge in a way that would put Damali in the line of gunfire. Its angry glare swung from Damali to Marlene. From the corner of Damali's eye, she could see the other big cats had taken a position within tunnel openings overhead.
"This is your girl, Marlene," Damali said loudly, over her shoulder.
"I know," Marlene shot back, fast. She looked at the injured cat. "You wanna do this the hard way, or the easy way—seer-to-seer, bitch?"
The demon were-jag was off the ledge in the blink of an eye. Marlene backed up, circling with it, her prayer-reinforced stick in hand as she maneuvered herself and the stalking cat into a clear space. The jaguar hissed and swatted, tilting its head to get a good angle on Marlene's extremities, but Marlene was swift on her feet, her stick lethal.
"Stay with her, Mar," Shabazz called, frantically aiming and following Marlene's motion to cover her.
Kamal was crouching, moving, a semi in his hands and holding the creature in his sights, but he repeatedly called off fire, too, frustrated by the hazards of a deadly ricochet from solid rock. Damali was easing forward, the cats above on the ledges moving nearer to peer over it.
The white were-jaguar backed up, Marlene took a stance to prepare for a lunge, her stick a ready-made stake to spear the soft under-belly of the beast. Her team followed the moving forms, unable to get a clear shot that wouldn't imperil Marlene or Damali or cause a ricochet.
But unexpectedly, the thing circling stopped, transformed, and became human form. Marlene stopped, and remained in an Aikido stance.
"I should have finished you in the first ambush!" the albino warrior yelled, instantly sending a dark-blue electric current from her hand to Marlene's chest.
"No!" Shabazz hollered, but Kamal held him and Damali rushed to his side.
Marlene calmly closed her eyes and lowered her walking stick parallel to the ground as her crystal breastplate absorbed the energy. The current being sent into Marlene became weaker and weaker as the albino warrior screamed her discontent, fury drawing her fists into a ball. Marlene's eyes snapped open as the warrior rushed her. Marlene's knees bent, and the walking stick returned a bluish-white line of pure energy, knocking the albino on her back. Marlene was on her in seconds. It happened so quickly the creatures above couldn't lunge to save their comrade.
"Is that all you got?" Marlene said with disdain, immediately staking the creature before it could even sit up.
Struggling against the stake, a black-blood geyser spurted from the wound. Piercing shrieks of garbled warrior cries mixed with guttural were-demon howls filled the chamber as the thing at Marlene's feet bubbled and turned into green slime. Retrieving her stick, she joined the safety of the team crouched behind the rocks. Kamal slapped her five, Shabazz pounded her fist, and Damali hugged her fast.
"Mar, you took out their nerve center—they're blind, now. There's no top adviser. Plus, we wounded one outside. But we can't forget that the main one is a seer, too, unless she's totally gone into this Neteru wannabe bag." She looked at Kamal, trying to send her condolences through a firm squeeze on his arm. "Who did we lose? Your man, what was his name? I'm so sorry."
Kamal just shook his head. "Dominique… nineteen. No family. We were it. I'll bury whatever I find."
"I'll help you carry your man, if we get out," Shabazz murmured.
Damali moved forward when the eyes above disappeared. "They wouldn't have pulled back unless they're using too much energy to fight us as jags in the daytime. We've got a short window. Like less than an hour. The primary nerve center is gone, we've wounded one, but we could do this all night—we're trading one for one. It's an even match." She sent her gaze around the team. "We're not losing any more of our men, especially with the sun dropping. We'll seal this joint with C-4 and blow this whole damned piece. Let it implode. Fuck it."
"Or, we can save the cave and all the innocent creatures in it," a smooth, female voice said from above, "and do this the old-fashioned way."
The team looked up fast, their gaze darting around the perimeter of the cave ledges above. Eleven stunning women with tall, proud carriages, skin hues that ranged from deep copper to highly polished black marble, stood above them with bows, battle-axes, blow darts and machetes in hand. One was badly wounded, her shoulder ragged and bleeding black blood. Had to be the one the crossbow snipe got. Yet, there was no other way to describe the magnificence of their presence, other than to admit they were awesome.
Each possessed a regal countenance. Their hair, eyes, skin—radiant. They glowered down at the huddled warriors with disdain and lifted their chins ever higher, their athletic carriages rippling with the readiness to strike.
"I don't want to blow the cave and jack with the ecosystem," Damali shouted, coming to the clear area and holding up her hand as her team protested with their eyes. "You took one of our men, rushed him, we had to do one of yours."
The queen stepped forward, her eyes nickering green and gold with controlled rage. "That was my mother-seer!" she yelled, pointing at the ground where only ooze remained.
This very, very was good. The delusion had set in. This horrifyingly beautiful demon actually thought she was the Neteru. Just like Carlos had shown her. Yeah, keep that crazy bitch in the fantasy. Make her fight on the terms of a Neteru, not a were-jag.
With her Isis, Damali motioned to Marlene. "That is my mother-seer. Yours went after her for no reason and began this conflict. You went after my moms, so now it's on!"
The Amazon nodded. Her warriors snarled and backed up. Damali could feel them ready to pounce, but then the injured one dropped. The Amazon ran to her fallen warrior's side, crushed her to her chest, dropped the body, and swallowed hard as it began to bubble.
"You owe me another body," the Amazon said through her teeth.
"All this bullshit over a man? What, are you crazy?" Damali asked, knowing that no female wanted to admit that she'd lost perspective or pride over a man, especially not a five-hundred-year-old warrior.
Damali glanced around at the warriors behind the older female demon who were exchanging gazes of confusion. "It didn't have to be all this," she yelled. "You could have come to me, told me who you were, then we coulda worked something out."
"You lie! You would never negotiate!"
"No, you lie! You're the one who lives in Hell, the zone of the silver-tongued devils. They already tricked you once. I'm a huntress, and a warrior, and do my shit out in the open. Now you're trying to front like you're something you're not—a Neteru!" She narrowed her gaze on the thing that was snarling. "Did you tell your demon girls that you were wearing Neteru, not to attract him so you could hunt and kill the master vamp in this territory blocking your feed zones, but that you'd plan to do him tonight… even left food at his lair door?"
The demon on the ledge screamed and raised a bow and arrow and pulled back hard, training it on Damali who didn't budge.
"Look at this shit. Punk bitch can't even come down here and take the Isis from
me like a woman—'cause you know it's mine, by right!"
An arrow flew; Damali dodged it with a swift fake to the left, and caught it in her right hand. Her team bristled, but nobody opened fire. The group behind the Amazon narrowed their gazes, but Damali could feel an energy shift ever so slightly. Dissension was in the air. A memory of the old way was in the offing. She remembered what Shabazz had said, if you're weaker, be strategic. She remembered what Marlene had said, and watched the Amazon's eyes.
Damali folded her arms over her chest. "Your girls remember what it was like to protect a Neteru, don't they? By rights, you should be protecting me. I'm the real, living Neteru. But you've stolen the ancient Neteru's trademark, and you've tricked your own fellow guardians, too." She sent her glance to the Amazon's team. "She promised you your Neteru would resurrect, didn't she? Your seer-mother did some twisted shit and it didn't work." Then she smiled. "Or, maybe it did. Since I'm here five hundred years before my time—early, and have the Isis as proof I'm a Neteru."
Several demon eyes shared nervous glances up on the ledge, opening an opportunity for Damali to press her point.
"You and I share the same history, are of the same people… different eras. Believed in the same things. Then something happened to you, and you went south on us, literally. If you have nothing to hide, tell your girls to ask Carlos which Neteru authentically ripened first on his watch in this era—a master would know."
She could see them all hesitate, and the leader become concerned by their confusion, so Damali pressed on messing with their heads just like the best of mental seduction had taught her. She dropped her voice to a low, calm tone and looked at the weaker members of the group. "She's getting ready to cross realm boundaries and do a vamp because her potion didn't work. She led you to the pit, and left y'all hanging. Ask her."
The older warrior backed up, her gaze steady, but with her team not quite intact. "That is not true! We have never been from the same tribes. You come with your machines and filth that—"
"Take a look," Damali said, her pupils opening. "Marlene, Kamal, give a couple of her girls a view."
The two guardians stood by Damali, locking in with the ancient rogue guardian and her two top warriors that flanked her. Silent tears of memory streamed down the Amazons' faces. The one on the left turned away and breathed deeply, unable to take the images Marlene sent. The one on the right of the Amazon queen simply nodded and raised her hand to Kamal to request that he stop, and then conferred with the others behind her for a moment. Damali blinked, and took a deep breath, removing the Isis from the shallow plunge where she'd planted it into the rocky cave floor.
Holding up the Isis, Damali tilted her head. "Before you, Nzinga had this over in the Nubian Empire. What if she came back twisted during your Neteru's reign and tried to strip your huntress of her time? You wouldn't have it, would you? None of you who were guardians would have allowed it. It is in your code to protect a living Neteru, one from the light, not a dead one that's slithered up from the dark realms."
Murmurs echoed behind the angry queen. "Enough! I challenge you, then, to hold onto your reign. You have chosen a passive course for your era, instead of—"
"Instead of fucking up the world? Are you mad?" Damali was walking, no longer concerned about an arrow or being rushed by the demon were-jaguars. "You keep doing these unexplained ambushes on humans, they'll send in troops. They will nuke the Amazon looking for aliens and shit. Yes, you'll win, maybe, but they'll leave a smoking black hole for you to rule over! They have new shit up here topside these days. They have more than cannons and rifles."
She pointed her sword at the Amazon. "You shame our kind!" Damali glanced at the others. "Your girls died for you as the lead guardian once your Neteru fell, and followed you into the pit instead of Heaven, where they could have been reborn as warriors of light. They could have been fighting in spirit, swaying the balance, like the old way—which is not a passive move—it's honorable! But you let yourself and your other sister guardians go out like that."
Damali's breathing became ragged the angrier she became just thinking about it, but she reversed her strategy midway in her argument to throw her adversary off guard. Instead of outing the old mother-seer, she spoke to her as though she were the ancient Neteru. "You even put your mother-seer in jeopardy? Then you come back with a twisted plan? Look at them! These are the best of an era gone bad. Let them ascend!"
"There should be a fair challenge match, to end the Neteru feud," the warrior to the right of the queen said. "A true queen Amazon would never—"
It happened so fast both squadrons of fighters were left speechless. The Amazon ripped out the throat of her warrior in one lightning move. The stunned, lower-ranking were-jag fell slowly, looking confused, clutching the gaping black hole, gurgling black blood. The warriors on the ledge stepped back, casting nervous glances among them.
"If ever you challenge my authority—ever!"
"See, y'all. Your girl is over the top. Nobody else has to die, and mountains and shit don't have to blow up, if she'd just step outside and meet me woman-to-woman on a private matter we need to address. Damn…"
The warriors behind the Amazon backed up farther, nodded, transformed into feline form, then disappeared within the cavern.
"Deep," Shabazz murmured.
"See," Damali shouted, "some things ain't changed since the dawn of time!"
"At the top, me and you."
Damali and her team just stared at each other as the old Amazon backed away from the ledge and vanished.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Five
"All right," Damali said, talking fast. "We have like twenty minutes for me to get to the top, and do this thing while dissension is brewing in her ranks. I want these teams out of here, collect your man before something goes after the remains, and—"
"You are not going up there by yourself. Forget about it," Shabazz said, snatching her arm, making the team surround her with Kamal leading the pack.
"You're burning my daylight, big brother. She ain't taking my sword, trust me. So, I want the team on that boat, with Big Mike ready to blow the lair as soon as the sun hits the horizon, if I'm not back by the time you're ready to pull off. It doesn't have to be completely dark for Carlos to come at sundown, but I don't want him to have anywhere to hide out here. We need something to distract him, make him retreat for a few minutes to get himself a secure new base. Plus I meant what I said about not destroying the beauty of this—"
"No," Marlene snapped, walking away from her. "Absolutely not. I won't allow it."
The whole team shook their heads in unison.
Damali sighed with a hard rush of frustration. It was hopeless, and this team standoff was wasting valuable time.
"Then only take what you can carry. While I'm up there with her, nobody fires unless they are personally rushed. I don't care how close you think I am to biting it—you let me do this." She stared at her team hard. "It's more than about a Carlos thing, or even a demon problem."
When Kamal nodded, everybody went still, their eyes going between him and Damali.
Damali grabbed a crystal-tipped stake and thrust it in her pants back pocket. "He knows," she said with a half-smile, glancing at Kamal. "That's why dude is out here, and told me today… in the center of my chest. I saw it when the anger lifted and peace claimed me. That Amazon was wronged, people. She's crazy, but she was wronged. And there's only one way to rectify it now. Compassion enough to put her out of her misery."
Damali shook her head. "Even Carlos, in his messed-up state, felt for her. He sent that to me, too. Don't hate her. Hate what she's become, and what did this to her. That, I am going to deal with… the bastard that made her come back."
"Damali," Rider argued, his voice gentle, his eyes holding a combination of terror and confusion, "I know the code of a Neteru is supposed to have high ideals… but, baby…" He glanced at Big Mike and the rest for support, whose eyes all held the same expression of panic. "Please
, D—"
"She's still an ancestral guardian, and there's a code," Damali said in a firm, quiet tone. "Because they came for her wrong, there's a hiccup in supernatural law—I want her back on our side. There's a tiny fragment of trapped light coming from the ascended Neteru in there that will sway the balance. They ingested the wrong thing… it'll give them a fragment of conscience, make them remember, and a second of hesitation will be my window. Eleven guardians might even ascend, if I take the head of the hydra. Means we get one hundred soul-weight to one, do the math… times eleven is an eleven-hundred soul-shift, with Neteru topspin in the equation. The Neteru that perished will have her old team back—righteous. Plus they're all warriors."
She pointed toward a tunnel that her heart told her led to the top. "You got it?"
Shabazz nodded. "Let's do this."
Army boots crushed bones and rotting animal carcasses as the guardians and Kamal's men passed; the stench of death and the hum of carrion-feeding insects got denser as the teams approached the apex of a narrow interior tunnel. Damali had the front, Big Mike and Drum had the back, with Marlene and all sensors in a closed-rank, single-file formation edging to the cliff top opening.
Vultures took flight; some dove and swooped at the human team to make their displeasure at an interrupted feeding known. Eight pairs of green, glowing eyes met the human squad from hidden shadows and small crags, but nothing moved.
All spectators gathered, a foul breeze blew, and Damali and the team's attention went to the cavernous location adjacent to them. Appearing out of the darkest corner, in full battle gear, the Amazon appeared.
Her polished gold breastplate, armbands, shin shields, and helmet glistened red in the setting sun. The brilliant white cloth of her battle robes seemed to absorb the colors of the sunset within each fold. Her hair was twisted high off her shoulders in an endless spiral of knotted braids, and her strong forearms flexed as her battle-ax lowered and she bent her knees prepared for war. She was indeed a queen.