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"You are not still thinking of doing the concert, li'l sis?" Big Mike ran his palm over his bald scalp and let out his breath hard.
"Yeah," Damali said evenly, feeling pure rage fill her. "After what just happened to Jose, and now Mar, not to mention the others we lost… we have to go to New Orleans today to scope out the lair in the daylight… and if we don't find what we're looking for, we'll need to do the concert to get on the inside of their operation. It's the only way to bring Jose fully back to us, and to bring back Marlene's sight. Maybe even put the other souls lost from our team to rest."
Rider pushed himself up, and nodded. "Better have me, you, and Big Mike go into the compound and sweep it for J.L. and Dan, then get on a flight."
"Yeah. That's where I was going," Damali said in a quiet voice. "Once the compound is safe, if Jose gets released again, Mar and Shabazz can bring him back and seal it before nightfall. While we're gone, we're also going to need some slamming material—three songs, Dan said, right?"
Dan nodded. "Yeah, and you have to be back in enough time to do some of the promo I've got lined up—by three P.M. at the latest so they can tape you."
"All right, we've got a full day ahead of us, and a lot of work to do. The three of us can scope out the last known lair, and get back in way before it gets dark."
"Sounds like a plan," Big Mike muttered. "Never went in without a seer to guide us, though. I mean no disrespect, li'l sis, but sometimes your sight is on, and sometimes it's not."
"I hear you." Damali gazed at him, her self-confidence eroding moment by moment. "You'll have to trust me, then. I'll be able to see."
Dan, like J.L., had been quiet except for one comment, and his line of vision swept the group, and then dropped to his hands that were folded between his legs. "I still feel awful, though. If they got the guy who saved me…"
"Carlos is fine," Damali said. "I just saw him."
The group stared at her and a mild electric current passed between them to settle upon her.
"When?" Marlene asked cautiously.
"A few minutes ago, just before you walked up. He was in shock, looking for hospital records of his family, trying to make logical sense of what isn't logical. Said he needed to come back when the admin offices opened this morning."
The group visibly relaxed.
"I gave him sanctuary to stay with us… like we gave Dan—if he gets hunted."
Again they stared at her, but didn't speak.
"We cannot leave an innocent man to get fed on by the dark side."
"Rivera isn't just an innocent like Dan. He's a drug dealer, darlin'." Rider began pacing. "Or, did you forget what he does for a living? Vamps ain't the only thing we gotta worry about—try a drug hit, drive-by to settle a score, the police, being brought in as accomplices to his shit, whatever. There are a whole lot of ways to die, sister."
"He's still human, and obviously not a vamp helper, and the sanctuary is only temporary until we wipe out the vamp line chasing all of us—then he can go back to whatever he chooses to do… He saved Dan's life, and that counts for something," she argued. A rush of defensive anger throttled her ability to remain calm. "Plus, if Dan hadn't made it out of the parking lot, and if they hadn't chased Dan to where we found him, then we wouldn't have been able to take out a second generation female, Rider! Everything happens for a reason—everyone has intrinsic value in this war, or did you forget?"
In their outburst they had momentarily forgotten Marlene's pain, and both Damali and Rider hung their heads when Marlene covered her mouth and stood, and then paced to a window.
"Mar, I'm sorry," Damali whispered.
"Oh, Marlene… listen. I'm sorry," Rider murmured.
Marlene kept her back to them and only shook her head.
"Go do what you have to do," Shabazz told them in a sad, quiet voice. "I'll stay with her and Jose."
"Pssst," a voice called to Carlos in the tunnel. "I have three minutes to give you this information before it will become too dangerous for you to travel. Dawn approaches."
Hesitant, Carlos waited, monitoring the heat of the environment around him. The pull of the dawn made everything around him feel like an oven. It sapped his strength, made his senses sluggish, and he could only hope that he'd have enough energy to travel to the Dominican's lair.
"Say whatchu gotta say, fast," Carlos replied, his chest heaving as though he were having an asthma attack. "I don't have much time."
The blue-clad knight stepped out of the shadows. "I took a risk. I'm not supposed to be here—but the warrior angels gave us word that you helped the Neteru defeat a second generation… and we saw you fight your vampire nature when you had our huntress in your arms—you even told her to pray! You could have violated her, but you didn't. There is a major conference about the whole situation now at the levels of mercy. Your love for her gives us hope."
"State your business," Carlos said, wheezing. "I'm running out of time." Pain began riddling his body; the air was becoming thick and polluted by slivers of light.
"We want the maps."
"I don't have them, yet. What else? One minute, and I'm out."
"Bring us the head of the master vampire who hunts her. When he falls, it will be easy for us to wipe out his line. That will also free the Neteru's parent's trapped soul. We'll be able to destroy many of the vampires, as well as the demons they live with."
"Easy, was already on my agenda. Talk fast, hombre."
"We'll give you ten minutes of amnesty to deliver the maps to her once you have them in your possession. I am a seer, that's why I guide my battalion, and chanced this meeting close to dawn. We'll clear a way to allow you to get the maps to her, but under guarded conditions."
Too weakened to argue, Carlos siphoned the remainder of his reserves to change shape, and drifted toward his new refuge in the Dominican's lair. The density on the planet was crushing. With his last burst of energy, he hurled himself back to safe darkness.
Rider slapped a newspaper across Damali's thighs as they sat and waited to board their flight to New Orleans in LAX.
"Have you seen this?" he said as Mike also gathered close. "Read it and weep. This is who you gave sanctuary to last night."
Damali stared at the headline. Carlos Rivera's car had been found in the North Hills, still running, with a silver briefcase filled with a hundred thousand dollars, a leather briefcase filled with a million dollars, enough artillery to stop a small army, and his handgun weapon fired into the ground. And, there was a high-ranking Dominican drug czar missing.
For a moment the threesome just looked at each other.
"You know what line of work Carlos is in, right?" Big Mike put his hand on Damali's shoulder. "Even if he's not a vamp, or one of their human traitors…"
"If he went out there at night," Rider said, agitated, "the sonofabitch got nicked, trust me. Rivera isn't the type to leave one-point-one mil lying in the dirt. Something's wrong."
"No, he didn't get nicked," Damali insisted, tossing the newspaper on an empty seat. "It takes three days to turn a vamp—and… He just didn't get nicked, I know that."
Tense silence drew and quartered the conversation to a halt. Damali could feel her pulse race with worry. Heaven help Carlos… what had he done? He was in so deep that they must have tried to ice him. Rider was right about one thing: vamps or the mob, both were dangerous predators that could have a man's life hanging in the balance—how many times had she tried to tell Carlos this! If a war was on, then the team's concern had merit—she couldn't let him in the compound… but she also couldn't let him get eaten alive. Choices. But at least, for the moment, Carlos wasn't a vampire. If he were, she'd be frying right now.
"He didn't get nicked," she murmured again, more to reassure herself than to convince Rider.
"What makes you so sure?" Rider finally asked in a sarcastic tone as he studied her.
Both Big Mike and Rider stared at her as Rider's question stabbed at her. She found her gaze slipping away to watch the pl
anes through the glass.
"Because I hugged him—and I'm still sitting here in the sunlight."
"Oh, that's just fucking great!" Rider shook his head and pushed himself back in his chair. "We fight six vamps and their ringleader, have the compound invaded, a man on a stretcher—and a guy with a possible nick in his system gets up close and personal with our vampire huntress—like in jugular range? Why am I following this woman to New Orleans—to a lair, in the middle of known vampire country, huh? Just answer me that!"
"You should have seen the look on his face," Damali said. "He was like Dan. Freaked out. Confused. Maybe he did see something in the woods, and got the hell out of there—which is why the money was left behind. Or maybe it was a drug deal gone bad and he made it out before he ran into Dan. He might have shot one of them and took their car. Or maybe he was delivering a bounty for his family—knowing Carlos, that's what he was doing, because he still can't wrap his mind around this madness. Can you blame him? Did you, when you saw your first set of fangs?"
Rider continued to sit back in his chair with his arms folded, appearing grudgingly mollified.
Big Mike sighed. "We aren't going to get anywhere arguing amongst ourselves. That's always evil's strategy—divide and conquer. They did it with the religions, cultures, nations, and it's happening now with us. Unify. Respect each others' points of view… and have compassion for each others' weaknesses… and squash this bullshit—now!"
Both Rider and Damali nodded, but looked off in different directions with their arms still folded over their chests.
* * *
CHAPTER FIVE
"Tell me again why we just took a flight from L.A. to New Orleans at seven-oh-five in the morning, with no sleep, no real weapons—because we have no real luggage, other than a duffle bag with some lights and disguised stakes and shit—which has put us in New Orleans, by way of Dallas, in the middle of mosquito country, at two nineteen in the afternoon… and, we only have an hour to spare, traffic notwithstanding, to go back home? Huh? I'm just curious why we headed east to lose two hours of precious sun, when the light is two hours to our favor in the west—on a wild goose chase, I might add—please, somebody tell me?"
Damali kept her eyes focused on the expressway, monitoring the signs on I-10 as she pushed her foot down on the gas. "First of all, it's still just a little past noon back in L.A., Rider, which means we'll fly into the light and out of the dark. And, Dan is handling the interviews—gives him a chance to get some media hype… he gave them my photo and a statement for the interviews I'll miss. So just relax."
Rider glared at her and then took up his argument with Big Mike, who only shook his head.
"We are in a Budget rental car, not a fortified Hum-V—and we are heading northwest to the Lakefront area—which just so happens to dead end, literally, at a cemetery."
Rider folded his arms over his chest, imploring Mike with a glance to take up his cause. "So, I ask myself—self, what is wrong with this picture? Why would a reasonable man—who has been on starvation monk rations—pass the renowned French Quarter and all its daytime beauties, give up the best poker and gambling in the country, not hit a liquor store in the city that never closes its bars, to go, practically unarmed, into a master vampire's lair on a hummer?"
When Damali continued to ignore Rider, and Big Mike would only chuckle, Rider's pleas became more fervent.
"I also ask myself—self, why… for the love of God, would I go to a place that got its start in very shaky historical circumstances of double-crossings, royal crown incest, and war… where six thousand people just coincidentally died of cholera, twelve thousand more of yellow fever… where it was so bad that the dead wagons would roll down the streets and the local authorities would shout, 'Bring out your dead!' Huh? We are going to a place where fires burned the city down however many times—and they have cities of the dead within the city—where there're swamps and alligators and snakes and hurricanes and floods and because the water table is so high, tombs are aboveground, not buried, like in most urban environs, in these mass-tomb cities… is anybody feelin' me? It's the vampire Big Apple, okay?"
Big Mike laughed and pounded Rider's fist. "I feel you—the vamps got a point. The women are fine, the food is good—crawfish and po-boys and jambalaya, red beans and rice, jazz…"
"Yes," Rider snapped, not amused. "In the daytime, Mike. In the damned daytime! I do not want to have bouillabaisse or a well-seasoned roux sucked out of my neck by one of the thousands of topside grave dwellers who might still have a penchant for fine dining! Do you hear me? I'm trying to live the quiet life—I'm reformed—we already did a Mardi Gras together, you and I, remember?"
"Yeah…" Big Mike drawled. "I remember."
"Remember? That's putting it mildly—how about a mental tattoo, for chrissake? A hundred thousand women in the streets, most of them inebriated to perfection and willing to part with their bras and panties for mere plastic beads—and what did we wind up with?"
"Two of the finest, biggest assed, worth-your-jugular-rock-da-house female vamps in the world, Rider… aw man," Big Mike sighed and closed his eyes. "It was awesome—I love New Orleans! Damn… I remember like it was yesterday. Sorry for the vivid recollection, baby sis, but Rider just took me back."
"You have to get him out of the compound more, Damali. I can't take it!"
Rider opened his arms when Damali began laughing and he pretended to stake himself in the chest. "Do you see what I have to contend with? Big Mike ain't been right since he got blasted by gris-gris voodoo!"
Big Mike peered up at Damali and winked.
"But she was fine, man," Big Mike chuckled and shut his eyes again, still laughing. "Part Choctaw, part Creole, part Caribbean-African queen… and she could cook. Have mercy, brother. You don't know what you missed."
"Missed? Big Mike, let us not forget," Rider said, not believing his ears, his voice rising with every word, "she had one little character flaw, dude—fangs!"
"Yeah, but she was all that. Still get the shivers thinkin' about her."
"Mike, listen to yourself, brother!" Rider moved his arms wildly now as Damali and Big Mike laughed.
"Do you hear him, D? Do you hear the man? He's delirious, delusional…he's getting a nervous tic from being locked up in the compound too long. I can't take it. I just can't take it. Pull over and let me out—I'm going to a bar, then heading back to L.A. on the next thing smoking."
By now Damali was waving her hand for them to cut it out. She couldn't breathe from laughing so hard.
"By law, they close the tombs for a year and a day—did you know that? Why? Because pestilence was once so rampant—and Mike keeps telling me the woman was fine!"
"She could make a gumbo to die for, and—"
"You almost did, you crazy sonofabitch. Marlene had to take your ass to some Doctor Buzzard shaman to get the spell off of you!"
"But, damn, man, you have no idea—"
"The only reason you're alive is because you're packing fourteen inches, and she didn't want to take that rare natural resource off the planet!"
The two guardians stopped the debate midstream and looked at each other, one swallowing a smile, the other so embarrassed that he couldn't fuss anymore and had been temporarily rendered mute. Damali glanced at Big Mike and Rider. She couldn't help it, and it took everything in her to keep her jaw from dropping. Fourteen inches? Get out of here! Go Mike . . . She shook her head.
"Fellas, that was way more information than I needed to know." She tried not to laugh, or let her expression change as she'd made the statement, but her mind was still trying to cope. Nah. Bullshit. Rider always exaggerated and talked smack. Fourteen… ? Dayum, compound, bro.
Big Mike looked out the window and swallowed another chuckle. Rider scowled, shook his head, and sighed.
Try as she might, she couldn't stop giggling from time to time as they made their way to the Lakefront area. But as they neared the cemetery, they all became more focused and the mirth dissi
pated.
"All right—first we go check on the vault that he once occupied, then we cruise by his mansion on Lake Pontchartrain. We get a floor plan so we can come back with the full team later, if we can get inside, and then we go back home. Very simple."
"Well, at least his joint is lakeside and not on the Mississippi—closer to the swamplands," Big Mike said in a very cheerful voice that made both him and Damali smile while Rider grumbled.
"The only part about this I like, is the part about getting back on the plane—it's so damned humid out here you can cut the air with a knife… and let's not even begin to discuss the mosquitoes—New Orleans in the summer, in a graveyard and an abandoned vamp's mansion, ain't my idea of the quiet life."
Big Mike and Damali ignored Rider as they got out of the car and began walking toward the vault in the area that Marlene had identified. They passed rows and rows of the ten-foot-long white structures, their footsteps making quiet shuffling noises against the soft, grass-covered earth. Wet was the only way to describe the environment—in New Orleans nothing ever seemed to totally dry, Damali noted, remembering her own brief experience there as a child.
"They covered the bricks with white plaster because the damp air crumbled the bricks. Mar said Nuit's tomb wouldn't be white, though, but some type of marble… and he's in the black Catholic Creole section in the back. He was black blueblood. Said that's how her posse had found him twenty years ago."
"Whatever, Damali," Rider sighed. "All I know is, I'm worried about what might be still kicking inside the waiting wall—that section over there where the bodies go and have to wait until a real tomb can be opened."
He shook his head and spit. "Nasty, I tell you. We are in a place where, if the tomb was already locked for the one-year ordinance they'd dump a body in that very unsecured-looking waiting wall safety-deposit-box area—so the remains could be cremated by sunlight and heat… then just push whatever maggoty mess was left off the vault slab into a three-foot cavern behind it—within the vault, ladies and gentlemen, to make room to slide the next casket in. That is what we are about to walk into—in this insufferable heat!"