by L. A. Banks
“I don’t understand. Demons have always been topside, to some degree, causing chaos,” Carlos said quietly, standing. “There was always murder and mayhem, D. In the old days, they might inspire a person to rob somebody. That’s wrong, but when the victim handed over the money, the thief rolled. Basic. Or if it got hectic and the victim pulled a weapon, okay, they might get shot—not that I’m saying it’s right, but that makes sense, if you’re living that kinda crazy, off da hook life. The human side still had some … I don’t know what you call it. Honor among thieves. Serial killers, rapists, the numbers, man, are staggering, D. How we gonna get this under control fast enough?”
“I don’t know,” Damali whispered. “We get on the plane, find the Chairman, get him to guide us to Lilith, and close the portals, first, I guess.” She twirled a lock around her finger, deep in thought, and glanced out the window, remembering what her mother had said. “The critical question is, even if we find and kill her, how do we get all this stuff to slither back from whence it came? The Damned will either ascend or go to ash if we can deliver the book. But people seem like they’re being affected by original demons…. We have to somehow get them to go back under, too, once we close the portals.”
“You’re right,” Carlos said quietly. “You can tell that’s what’s up by the slant on these crimes.” He motioned toward the television. “Bank robbery. Should been an in-and-out deal. But to unnecessarily take hostages, mutilate them, cut off their heads and hands, torture … baby,” he whispered. “That’s the Damned. But the outright feedings, those are ODs. This shit has got to go back underground. We can’t let the human condition go that far. We’ve gotta fix this thing, me and you, girl.”
She stared at Carlos, her stomach clenching. She wanted to trust this man with all her heart, but even her mother had told her to wait and see. She watched true horror glitter in his eyes, as though everything he’d witnessed on television was brand spanking new. And the tone of his voice was so mystified by it all, almost naïve. Fighting evil was their purpose, their mission. This was the end of days, and hell yeah, things were getting worse; they’d been warned. The person who was glued to the news seemed like a person she didn’t know. Even his soul felt lighter as she discreetly scanned him; his aura seemed different than it had been since Philadelphia, like a giant weight had been lifted from him. With all that was going on, any change in any of the team members, even within herself, made her nervous.
Yet, to see his righteous indignation gave her hope, even while the thing that had gone down with Jose made normal seem abnormal in their relationship. Especially in the tight confines of a hotel bedroom. There was so much to think about that her mind almost couldn’t hold it all.
Just like the horrors on the television, the secret in her mental black box had grown, had a scent, a touch, a taste, a moan and a lingering question … what would have happened if she’d made a different choice today?
For the first time in months, she felt the Sankofa tattoo on her back move. She kept her secret to herself as she felt it literally shift position on her skin and face forward, so that the bird was no longer glancing over its shoulder.
“What if we can’t find that book in time, D?” Carlos said, his gaze still on the television set.
“I don’t know what to say,” she murmured, her hand discretely rubbing the stinging sensation on her skin. They had to be tight, operate in total sync, to go after the threat and beat it, but how?
She kept watching him, wondering how he could just act like she hadn’t walked in on anything deep a few hours earlier. Denial was one thing, shame another, but this man didn’t seem like he even had recollection. He was completely relaxed around her, but she was a wreck around him. What she’d witnessed created a wall, made syncing up as one next to impossible.
Although she wanted to probe him deeper than a discreet surface scan, to do it meant she’d have to let him into her psyche. That immediately changed her mind about entertaining a mental synthesis lock with him. If there was something eating away at his brain, she needed to know how to guard hers before casually dipping into his.
She definitely wasn’t ready for him to go poking around within her consciousness.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sleep was fitful, and the hours leading up to, and during, the long flight to China were uneventful.
From her perspective, she and Carlos seemed to be cloaked in a surreal, platonic dishonesty that shrouded their relationship. Carlos either knew what she had been alluding to every time she vaguely attempted to find out what was going on with him, or he didn’t. She didn’t bother to clarify. There seemed to be no point in that. His responses to her were civil, absurdly warm and brotherly in affection, but there wasn’t the spark that had once ignited them as a couple. She didn’t bother to attempt to stoke those dead embers. He didn’t ask any questions; she didn’t ask any questions. He’d stayed on his side of the bed; she’d stayed on her side of the bed. She and Jose kept careful distance, just like Krissy and Dan seemed to. Marlene had prepared her for a lot of things, but not this.
Damali kept her gaze dispassionately fixed on the clouds. They’d literally be flying into the future, or the next day, as the case may be, since Tibet was, oddly, thirteen hours ahead of U.S. time. That number stuck in her mind, whittling at it, as she made her peace with another one of Marlene’s wild travel routes.
They’d had choices and all of them seemed unacceptable, now, as she sat on the interminable flight. They could have flown into Indore, India, a thirty-four-hour travesty of time, with stops in Frankfurt, Germany, changing planes in Bombay. Then they would have had to endure a ninety-four-mile bumpy drive to Nepal, where it would take days to cross by minivan into what was now called the Tibetan Autonomous Region by the Chinese government—a place that was hardly autonomous, under martial law, and where the culture of the native inhabitants had been suppressed with sheer butchery and terror.
Or, they could do it the so-called easier way, by taking the sixteen-and-a-half-hour-flight to Beijing, and from there take another five and a half hours to get to Tibet’s capital city, Lhasa. She just wondered why she and her team always had to do things the hard way. Obviously, there was no such phenomenon called easy. But easy was relative, as was hard. Flying into Beijing was nothing compared to what they had to do once they got to the Himalayas.
To her mind, it all seemed crazy, no matter what Monk Lin had said about the spiritual prowess of the region. If demon madness had come to the surface, there, they were screwed. At least she knew her way around an urban firefight. But in some mountain—nah. Not her environment, and a sister wasn’t down with snow.
The only saving grace was that in the one-day wait to get a flight and health checks, the team’s elders had found, of all things, an old Beverly Hills mansion to convert. Marlene had slapped a ridiculous deposit down on faith, and walked. It had to be divine intervention, because that helped to keep everyone talking about safe subjects, like retrofitting the new location into what they’d need to survive in the future … which oddly kept everyone half believing there might be one.
All she hoped was that when they returned from this odyssey, things would be as close to normal as their lives would ever be. Damali stifled a sigh. She could deal with rickety, diesel-leaking buses that smoked, flatbed lorries to carry her team as far as there were passable roads into the mountains, and even going by yak mounts or horseback up into the Himalayas to find Nirvana, if need be, to stop this insanity from spreading.
She counted every blessing presented that could make the mission easier. First, she knew she should be thankful that it wasn’t winter over there, when temperatures plummeted to minus ten degrees, or the rainy monsoon season of summer when the permafrost ground couldn’t absorb the torrents, and whole villages were known to be swept away in floods and mudslides.
But they would still have to deal with exploration at severe altitudes of eleven thousand feet or more above sea level, which would offer nasty res
ults on the human body, everything from shortness of breath, lightheadedness, and chest pains, to nausea. She didn’t even want to think about feeling ill while trying to divine the mysteries of the universe to find the antidote and kicking ass. But she couldn’t worry about it, because failure was not an acceptable outcome. Puhlease!
Carlos just kept his gaze fixed on the sky. He hadn’t bothered to question the intimate details of Marlene’s route decisions for this journey. Everything that he could remember from his experiences with Damali’s family told him that the reason would be revealed in due time. So, he’d made his peace with this crazy adventure. Actually, he’d embraced it, because something way down in his gut rang out as truth as he sleepily stared out the window. The bottom line was, they had to close the portals.
He’d never been to China in his life; had never imagined that he’d go there under these conditions. One thing was for sure, a change of venue, even if it was to go to war, couldn’t hurt. The hotel room felt like a prison cell, especially with Damali barely speaking to him, and when she did it was always a curt snap. Carlos glimpsed her from the corner of his eye as she slept beside him. It was as though everything he said, everything he did, got on her nerves, but he wasn’t sure why.
Were it not for the guys on the team, he would have lost it and said something to her that couldn’t be taken back, and where would that leave them? Maybe once the team returned Stateside and settled into a new compound, things would be right again. Probably once he had his own spot and she had hers, they’d chill, the vibe would even out, and everything would be cool again. But he felt strangely unsettled, beyond prebattle jitters … like there were things that had gone down that he just couldn’t remember.
Bored with the long flight and ready to just get the mission started and over with, Carlos stood and went to sit near Rider, who was always good for a card game. He had to keep moving, do something to pass the time, other than sleep—which, oddly, offered no peace. Fleeting nightmares made peace in slumber next to impossible. Weird images always accosted his mind and dragged it down to places he didn’t want to remember. But they’d all told him that would pass with time. Whatever.
Carlos plopped down next to Rider and smiled, brandishing a well-worn deck of cards. He was glad the flight wasn’t packed so people could stretch out. It was funny how he’d come to appreciate the smallest of good fortune.
“Hey,” Carlos said, beginning to fan the deck as he sat. “You up for a little mental diversion?”
Rider stretched and yawned. “Yeah, dude. After the last series of flights, I’m not particularly sleeping too good in the air.”
They both smiled.
“I feel you,” Carlos said, keeping his voice low enough so he wouldn’t wake the others. “Guess old habits die hard.”
“Yeah,” Rider said, accepting cards from Carlos as he dealt them onto the seat tray, “this whole extravaganza gives a new meaning to cold turkey.” Rider arranged his cards. “It’s gonna be cold as shit when we go up into the mountains, and if you ask me, we’re turkeys for seeking some lair when we don’t even know exactly what we’re looking for.”
“Word,” Carlos muttered, turning over the first card to start their game. “I got a few issues with this plan, brother. Like, before, we knew what we’re dealing with, or at least what we were looking for. I ain’t got a clue of what our target’s lair looks like topside. I know it’s gotta be rigged with every possible booby trap known—and our team will be way out of our element on the mountainside. Feel me?”
Rider nodded and threw out a card on the tray. “Something about all this just isn’t sitting right with me, either.” He looked up at Carlos. “Like … I’m worried about Tara.”
Carlos didn’t throw out another card, but held off his move, studying Rider’s expression. It wasn’t like Rider even to mention Tara’s name, much less admit that he was concerned about her. In fact, to his recollection, it was the first time he’d really said anything at all about her since Philly.
“She’s probably all right,” Carlos said after a moment, and then selected a different card and put it down on the tray easy.
Rider folded his fan of cards and sent his gaze out the window. “It’s not like her to not send a sign that she’s around,” Rider said quietly. “Yeah, we broke up. All right. I’ve come to terms with that. But even still, while in Arizona, she’d send me little messages to let me know she was okay. A hint of lavender on an evening breeze, or she might pop into my head in a dream and be gone. I’d just feel better if I knew that she knew we’ll be over here.”
Carlos folded his fan of cards and then perused them one by one. “From what I remember of the rules from my old life, she can’t do international travel without an underground pass … and she can’t get one of those. Plus, like Mar and Shabazz said, you tell her too much, and if we start seriously kicking ass, she could be captured and tortured for info. It’s better this way, man. When we get back then just, you know, let her know you’re cool.”
“I know,” Rider said quietly, returning to his cards. “I wasn’t expecting that kind of visit from her. She’s got a new life, a new situation, and I don’t expect your boy would let her come to me, if she wanted to. All I wanted to know is, if she’s all right.”
Carlos nodded, but didn’t look up at Rider. The request was implicit. “I’ll see if I can make contact with her when we get back. Aw’right?”
“Appreciated,” Rider said quietly. “Not trying to kick up any dust or start no shit … or put you in a position with your boy. Just wanna know that she’s still alive, not being abused, or something crazy.” Rider suddenly looked up at Carlos. “The last time I saw her, it wasn’t on good terms.” His voice became distant as pain entered his eyes. “It shouldn’t be that way after all we’ve been through together. No matter what, we’re still friends. She’s a good woman, and I was sorta …”
Rider let his breath out hard as Carlos lowered his eyes to his cards. “My reaction was kinda fucked up when I saw her last. Life ain’t promised; shouldn’t let the last time you see somebody you care about go like that. You never know if you’re gonna get an opportunity to rectify things. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah,” Carlos said, resuming the game that they had both clearly lost interest in playing. He knew exactly what Rider meant, and he glanced at Damali and then back at his hand.
As the cards fell onto the tray, each man selecting what he’d hold on to and release, chaotic feelings ate at Carlos’s insides. He’d tried to contact Yonnie, but had received no response. That was not like his boy. All he’d wanted to do was to tell Yonnie the same thing Rider apparently wanted to tell Tara, namely that they’d be away for a while and for them not to worry.
He hadn’t called Yonnie to go hang out. Hadn’t been trying to reach him to break out of the family prison situation, like before—especially not the night leading up to a significant mission. If Yonnie had responded, he wasn’t gonna divulge where they were headed. But he could only figure that his boy didn’t trust him after the near relapse. However, the lack of faith annoyed him no end. It was just a friendly courtesy call. A Yo, man, here’s the deal. The family will be out for a few, type of transmission.
All right, so the last time he and his boy had been out had almost been disastrous. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he’d gotten wasted. Yonnie had been pissed off about it all, and had finally brought him home—so Damali could be pissed off. That was a real friend, somebody who cared enough about you to just say no and not be a party to your downfall.
He’d paid his debt by suffering like a dawg the next day and having Rider get in his face. He’d even had a damned deer total his Jeep and land in his windshield after a stupid argument. Why was everybody was so hype around him, and Damali still so jawed-up? It was crazy. Like Rider said, if they were possibly going into the biggest battle of their lives, why was everybody, especially Damali, focused on dumb shit?
Moreover, why was she walking around looking like she didn’t tru
st him? He didn’t get it.
Carlos took comfort in the logic he’d woven around the dangling loose ends in his mind. Tara was probably lying low, too, not wanting to be a weak link in the chain, not wanting to run into Rider and have old feelings surface—especially when those feelings could kill Rider, one way or another. A bite from her would turn or kill him, and if she slept with Rider without biting him, Yonnie might rip out his heart. Tara was more of a friend to Rider than he may ever know.
Carlos held on to that card in his mind and selected one in his hand to throw onto the growing pile on the tray.
The team exited the plane and entered the frenetic, ultramodern mayhem of Beijing Airport. A current of alertness bound them as one unit as they made their way through the arduous customs process and produced identification papers to allow them to change flights and board their destination carrier to Lhasa. But the whole team shared stricken glances as they stared at the crush of humanity in just the airport alone. If infection broke out here in China, the problem would be measured in billions.
“Ms. Richards,” a customs agent said in a quiet, civil tone. “Would you please have your group follow me?”
Nervous glances passed around the team, but they complied without argument. This was China, not the United States, and it wasn’t about slowing down the mission by offending any authorities that may have routine security queries about Americans traveling abroad. They were well used to that by now.
Damali and Carlos shared a glance that quietly communicated the same thing the whole team was thinking: It just would have been nice if they could have flown in under Covenant resources, then again, nobody on the team was ready to go through that again. A low-key commercial flight was fine.
They filed down a long winding corridor and used their music celeb status to help them ignore curious glances from airport travelers and security staff. Looking straight ahead, the team proceeded behind the efficient little man and found themselves being escorted into a small, well-lit room with a row of uncomfortable-looking metal folding chairs. Their bags had all been put in the room, and the team’s gaze inspected the luggage as though their eyes were lasers. The same question was on everyone’s mind: Okay, who packed a weapon? Who got nervous and stashed some mess that could cause the Chinese police to rip through bags, delay departure, and create a problem?