by L. A. Banks
Marlene chuckled softly. “I can tell you a lot of things, and see a lot, too, but that I can’t divine for you. Your heart knows the answer, so talk to me.”
Damali let her breath out in a rush of frustration, blowing a stray lock up from her forehead. “Marlene…. I don’t know. I’ve been stressed, with all this stuff that’s going on, worrying about how to keep the uninitiated members of the team safe, the moves, everything. I’m battle-weary.”
Marlene shook her head to signal she wasn’t buying the explanation. “No, girlfriend. I hear you about the stress thing, but—”
“I know, I know,” Damali said, holding up both hands. “All right, here’s the deal as honestly as I can tell you.” She looked away, finding a benign spot on the wall. “I go to hug him, and I tense up. He goes to kiss my neck, and I freeze. There’s this deep-down revulsion that I have to get past; then I have to hide that away in my head, black box it, and then talk to myself while he’s holding me to remember, this is my friend, my man, we’ve been through thick and thin, he loves me, I love him. I’ve got so much chatter going on in my head that by the time everything is over, I just feel relieved, then want him up off of me and out of me as soon as possible. It’s all I can do not to dash for the shower. Now, I know I’m wrong, crazy, it makes no kinda sense … and Lord knows, I’m—”
“Stop beating yourself up, right this minute,” Marlene said in a firm but gentle tone. She walked away from Damali and went to the closet, found her big satchel, and extracted her huge, black book. “When are you gonna learn that you can come to me with anything, chile? I’m female. I’ve been there. And every time I have been, my gut instinct was never wrong.”
Again, there was a long pause as their gazes and minds connected.
“I just figured …” Damali’s voice trailed off as Marlene shook her head. “Maybe I’m reacting to the contagion, or it’s affected me in some weird way?”
“I know how you feel about Jose,” Marlene said bluntly. “Know how he feels about you, too. No matter. But he’s a carrier, and you respond to him. Your body is functioning normally. It’s your head or your heart, maybe your spirit link with Carlos. I don’t know.”
Shame made Damali’s face feel warm. “I don’t wanna talk about … let’s just focus on Car—”
“Girl, please,” Marlene said in an exasperated tone, dropping her satchel and the Temt Tchaas book on the bed. “The man is fine. Jose is crazy about you, always has been. Y’all are tight, thick as thieves. You guys practically grew up in the compound together and share so much in common. You have a pulse, so, chile, an attraction is normal. Been there, too. Recently.” Marlene looked away for a moment, but returned her gaze to Damali’s. “But, the thing is, you have a line, he has one, too, and you’ve both elected to honor it. Cool. My lips on that are sealed; ain’t my bizness. So, Jose hooked up with Juanita, even though she’s a piece of work … but has a good heart down deep; and you’ve hooked up with Carlos, who also has a good heart—down deep.”
Marlene stared at Damali intently. “Now, pound for pound, round for round, given the real special connection you and Carlos have, I’m not understanding what’s ringing your alarm bells. The man ain’t been nowhere, ain’t been with nobody but you.”
“I know,” Damali said quietly.
“He hasn’t flagrantly relapsed, yet. Hasn’t said or done anything any more or less annoying than the average male, has he?”
Damali shook her head.
“So, I can get with fatigue, general purpose not feeling romantic due to lack of privacy and chaos—oh, yeah, been there. But revulsion—your word not mine, seems a little extreme. And all of us who have been infected have heightened libido to the point of the ridiculous, not lowered. I could understand if you two couldn’t get out of bed to make decisions or address this new threat. That would make sense, given how this mess is manifesting in the household. But you’re telling me you’re revolted by the love of your life? Uh-uh. Something ain’t right.”
“I know,” Damali whispered, tears beginning to form in her eyes. “What’s wrong with me, Marlene?”
Marlene flipped open the book and began furiously turning pages. After a while, she sat down and sighed. “There’s a lot in the book, honey. You’re a huntress, with vampires as your primary target. You’ve mastered dealing with that entity. Know werewolves and incubi pretty good, too. I’m looking at your living history, and it stops dead here,” she said, placing a finger on the page and turning the book for Damali to inspect.
“The Himalayas? C’mon, Mar, what’s that got to do with what we’re talking about?” Damali leaned in and sniffed. “New information burns.”
Marlene peered more closely. “Just came in tonight.” She gingerly touched the still-warm print and jerked her attention up to stare at Damali. “Has Eve’s signature vibration in it.”
Damali flattened her hand on the page and closed her eyes. A mountain came into her mental view and she recognized it from an earlier vision, but this time landmarks surrounded it to add additional guidance. “The Chairman’s lair … oh, my God … she actually met with him on my behalf. My destiny begins there.”
Marlene’s brow furrowed as she ran her palm over the ancient text, the slight brush of her hand making the secret alphabet sway and ripple as though riding on an invisible wave. “Part of it ends there, too.” Marlene looked up. “Have you had any visions?”
Damali sat down slowly on the edge of the bed next to Marlene. “Yeah.” Slowly and carefully she related how the cactus in her yard had transformed.
“I wonder …” Marlene said after Damali had finished, causing the young Neteru to hang on her every word. “Two things. You could be really angry at having lost the Isis long blade in large part because of Carlos, and that could be driving a wedge between you. I’m no psychologist, baby, but being with him did significantly alter your career path. You wouldn’t be the first woman to harbor deep-seated resentment, even while loving a man, for something like that.”
“I don’t know,” Damali said, studying her clasped hands. “Maybe. I’ve thought about it. But if I had to do it all over again for the same outcome, him being alive, I would.”
“That’s just the thing,” Marlene said, her voice warm, and her palms covered Damali’s. “It had to be done, you made the ultimate sacrifice on his behalf—gambled everything, gave up something that defined you, and he got to be redeemed, stepped into your space, your family, your team, and has the gall and audacity to have an attitude about things not going exactly his way.”
Damali nodded fervently. “Ungrateful bastard.”
“Ahh … now we’re getting somewhere.”
Damali smiled for the first time since she’d entered Marlene’s room. “Okay, I got beef about a lot of things.”
“You’re glad he’s alive, thank God that he is, but …”
“Yeah,” Damali said, looking at Marlene without blinking. “But.”
“Then, because he ain’t feelin’ no luv, and doesn’t like the step down from the fabulous, he has the nerve to go out with his boy, Yonnie, and possibly get himself back into trouble again while the world is literally falling apart. All you can think of is all the changes you went through to save his sorry ass in the first place, and all he can think of is how much he hates that a woman had to be the one to pull his butt out of the flames. Which leads me to the second thing I was gonna say. Your energies got disconnected and you’re no longer in sync, once the big crisis was over and it was back to everyday life. So neither of you was ready and in lockstep when this new serious challenge came down.”
“That is it, Marlene!” Damali shouted. “That’s it. In a nutshell.”
“Whew,” Marlene said, blowing out a hard breath. “If every world crisis could be so easily solved.”
“But what about the clothes in the yard and this Himalayas stuff?”
“Were you angry when you doused his clothes?”
“Mad as Hell.”
Marlene la
ughed. “Then, that’s where you sent them, girl.”
Damali’s eyes opened wide. “For real?”
“You’re full-blown Neteru, kiddo. You sent something back into the pit, put a fury topspin on it, and it’s gone.”
“Dang.”
“Yep.” Marlene grunted as she stood. “The Himalayas … hey. We go to the Chairman’s lair and dust him, once and for all. Carlos doesn’t have time to go through another month of training before he spikes, even though Tibet is where some real serious martial and spiritual arts masters reside. If he has to learn Zen principles and integrate his longings for his old life with this new one in the Light, what better place for him to learn in a hurry; he dang sure ain’t absorbing what he should out here in Arizona. I knew that the moment we set foot on this land and stared at the house. Brotherman’s jaw locked so hard I thought he’d chip teeth.”
Damali laughed softly in relief, remembering the day well.
“Your long blade is missing and you saw it there,” Marlene said, packing away her book and satchel. “Maybe that’s where you guys will sync up, get back to the crazy normal y’all call normal. Who knows? Meanwhile, can you work on saving the world?”
“Road trip.” Damali hopped up from the bed with a wide grin.
“When we receive a sign,” Marlene said, her grin matching Damali’s. “Let’s not rush things.”
“No, Marlene. Eve going into combat mode, risking a full seduction info siphon from the Chairman is a sign. Don’t get it twisted. Girlfriend put a lot on the line, had to open old wounds to come away with that. I owe her. We all do.”
Damali’s expression went stone serious as she stared at Marlene. “We don’t have time to waste; we pull out tomorrow—first light, hit L.A. to get a flight over to China. You and Dan make the arrangements; get J.L. to do it online, if you have to. But do it. Call Father Pat, too. Make sure we can get shots and all that, pronto, so we can pass foreign inspection, not that we’ll need ’em if we don’t succeed in this mission. Tell him to hook us up with a doctor from the Covenant that’s already infected, so we don’t hurt any innocents. And since we just got booted off Jose’s property, if we survive, when we get back, we can figure out a more metropolitan place to live. Sound like a plan?”
“Sounds like a plan. A new location is definitely in order, if we get through this. It might be a good idea to compromise, too. Perhaps find a spot in L.A. that we can all live with, where the Berkfield kids can go to school during the day, even though Marj is doing her best to homeschool them. They’re bouncing off the walls, poor babies, as is everyone else. Vamp incidents are at an all-time low, we haven’t seen any crazy were-demon activity, and the Chairman is on the run. We can do a good job of throwing down a prayer line, retrofit a mansion, and get the Covenant brothers to add a little somethin’ somethin’ to the mix.”
Damali nodded hard, but Marlene’s line of conversation disturbed her. The woman was in denial. Wasn’t thinking clearly. Why was she worried about trivial things when in thirty days, there might not be a world? Damali tempered her response.
“Yeah, because Marlene, for real—you can run but you can’t hide, and sooner or later, the newbies have to be able to live like regular people, blend in.” That was as much as she could offer without bodily shaking sense into Marlene.
“Couldn’t agree more,” Marlene said, coming to Damali to give her a hug. “Might stem some of that resentment thing, too.”
“Ya think?” Damali held Marlene tightly. Oh, God … everyone, even her mother-seer, had lost their minds. “I didn’t realize how much of that poison was running through my system.” She let Marlene take the statement any way she wanted to, but she’d been referring to the contagion, not some stupid man-woman resentment issue.
“A very famous lady, an old star, Jill St. John, said this when she lost her son: resentment is like taking poison, and hoping the other person dies.” Marlene held Damali back from her. “That was so profound, it stayed with me. Here this woman had lost her heart, her fourteen-year-old child to a tragedy, and that was her take on the matter. I learned something from those words, so I pass them on for you to consider.”
Damali touched Marlene’s cheek, her hand cupping it with tender love. She had to stop the infection. She missed the old Marlene so much she could almost wail. “Marlene, you are so deep sometimes. I’ve been feeling like I was possessed or like something was trying to get inside me and take over my spirit. Resentment is poison.”
Marlene nodded and released her hold on Damali. She watched her grown daughter walk away from her, but didn’t immediately follow behind her. There was something in what Damali had said; also something had slithered within her daughter’s touch. The word possessed hung in her mind like a dark cloud. Her lips moved reciting a silent prayer as she watched Damali rejoin the despondent group in the living room. Something was wrong; her internal warning bells were going off.
For the first time in a long time, Marlene was very unsure.
All heads jerked up as footsteps came up the path. Before they could land on the front steps, the entire team was on the porch. Carlos glanced up sheepishly, his ragged, bloodstained jeans, torn T-shirt, and dirt-smeared face made them stare.
“Damn, y’all, what a night!” Carlos exclaimed, shaking his head as he mounted the stairs. “I’m driving to L.A. to get the hell out of here for a short break until we could all figure out what to do, and a freakin’ deer jumps into the middle of the road, wrecks my Jeep, messes up a brother’s transpo, are you feeling me? I am done!”
He smoothed his palm over his hair as the team stared at him without blinking, their expressions blank. “Then,” he said quickly, adding to his story, “I’m trying to find my way back home in the dark, and white light holds me, checking to see if I even smelled the deer—like I’m an addict, or something? What’d y’all do, call the spiritual feds on a brother, or something?”
Shoulders relaxed, smiles eased into expressions, Damali slowly came down the steps. “The angels scanned you, huh?” she said with a slow grin. “Did you pass inspection?”
“Would I be standing here, if I didn’t?” Carlos folded his arms over his chest. “Now what kinda question is that?” He shook his head and brushed past her. “No, ‘hi, baby, glad you’re all right?’ Damn, girl, you cold. What is up with you, D? What’s the ‘get back you don’t know me like that’ about?”
Rider put his semiautomatic lengthwise, barring Carlos farther entry up the steps. Carlos stopped, looked at the gun, and then up at Rider. All right, sensors were on. Everybody that had someone dear to protect might be able to feel the change. Love cut through all dark-side illusions. He needed to find weak links in the chain. “What’s up with that, Rider?”
Rider’s gaze into Carlos’s eyes never wavered. “Where’d the so-called angels drop you, then? We had a search party covering the ground from the land and the air.”
“Tara came?” Carlos said, acting surprised. He’d seen them both, but hadn’t allowed them to see him.
“And Yonnie,” Rider said evenly. “Neither one of them, working together, could find you—just like we couldn’t.”
Again the group went still. Carlos looked down at his bloodstained clothes.
“I hope somebody had the presence of mind to check out the deer that was stuck in my windshield? Take a sniff, man. This was all over my seats.”
“The deer checked out, Rider,” Damali said, trying to mediate the tension.
Rider refused to yield. “That’s not what I asked him. I can smell deer blood from here.”
Carlos sighed. “What do you want from me, man? They dropped me far enough away that I could barely see the house lights in the distance, then gave me some long speech about duty to the greater good. But you know how they work. They didn’t bother to give a brother a lift home.”
Big Mike nodded. “Rider, man, it would make sense that they’d shield him from his old friends if they feared a relapse, given Yonnie and Tara are still … you kn
ow, vamps, and all.”
Carlos fought not to smile. “My point, Rider.”
“Why don’t you get washed up,” Marjorie said cautiously, “while there’s hot water, and if you give me those clothes—”
Rider shook his head no, and glanced at Shabazz, who had been strangely silent.
“Not back in this house with newbies. No,” Rider said flatly. “If the angels thought you might relapse, then—”
“Well where the hell am I gonna go, Rider!” Carlos shouted, and then looked at Shabazz for support.
Rider hocked and spit. “Metal is all in my throat.” He glanced at Jose. “Talk to me little brother. You picking that up, too?”
Carlos’s gaze narrowed on Jose. He homed in on the vamp tracer in Jose’s DNA and unlocked the code that was embedded within it: You can never out your own to humans. Ask Yonnie and Tara, who are several generations up. Your Chairman commands it so, with a little extra topspin that would make old Dante piss in his pants.
When Jose opened his mouth to speak, he fell eerily quiet and shrugged. Seeming satisfied, Carlos returned his attention to Rider. “Jack Daniel’s and cigarettes got your senses off, hombre. You need to chill.”
“Jack Daniel’s ain’t got nothin’ to do with it. I know what I know. Something ain’t right.”
“Maybe we’re all just a little taxed,” Marjorie offered. “Carlos has been—”
“Acting strange,” Shabazz muttered. “Say what you want to, and my job is to groom a male Neteru, but I ain’t having a potential vamp flux in here with newbies. Call it misplaced paternal instinct, but something is making the hair stand up on my arms. Dig?”
“So, now I have to sleep in the equipment shed like a dog?” Indignant, Carlos stormed down the steps. “Then at least give me a vehicle so I can drive to a motel.”
His gaze went to Marlene’s and then Damali’s. Both women were impassive, and it totally floored him that Damali had remained silent throughout the exchange.
“Rider and Shabazz are right,” Damali finally said.
“What!” Carlos was so angry that he could feel his own breath singe the hairs within his nose on each breath.