"Manhattan is gone . . . Philly is gone, ain't no Miami ... no Cali, no Boston . . . it's gone."
"J.L., what the fuck are you talking about?" Dan shouted, jumping up from Heather's side to bang on the glass outside the pilothouse. "Motherfucker, my parents are in Manhattan! Stop freaking us all out by tuning into those bullshit, Apocalyptic, fraudulent sites! Find us some real news!"
"Man, I'm sorry," J.L. said gently. "My bad. Lemme try some other sources. But they said meteors hit in the Atlantic and Pacific sending in—"
"See, right there!" Dan yelled, pointing over the deck rail. "That's how you know it's bullshit! We are in the Atlantic last I checked, man. If a meteor hit here, large enough to create a giant tsunami to wipe out the eastern seaboard, we'd be floating toothpicks right now!"
Quiet seized the team as Carlos slowly went to his wife and gently took off her necklace. She caught his hand for a moment and then kissed him before letting him walk away with her oracle. He rubbed his thumb over her pearl and found an opened water jug. All eyes were on him as he tipped it to pour freshwater over the pearl's dehydrated surface. A soft, sad coo drifted up into the wind.
"We need to know," Carlos said.
"The rising wall of Atlantis energy saved you by pushing you through the Strait of Gibraltar right into the Mediterranean Sea. You must go to Megiddo." Carlos just stared at the pearl as Dan's back slowly hit the pilothouse wall and he slid down to the deck floor. Heather was at his side in seconds as he covered his face with his forearm.
"Oh, Dan . . ." Marjorie and Berkfield rushed forward toward Dan and Heather with Bobby.
Krissy ran to the couple, and then seemed at a loss for whose tears to attend to first.
"I should have gotten to them," Dan said thickly. "My mother and father . . . how could I leave them?"
Heather's arms gathered as much of him as she could, but Inez's slow, agonized wail tore the team members in two. Mike tried to hold her but she fought like a woman possessed.
"My baby girl and my momma! No, no, no, God, no, not my baby girl! Oh, my God, my baby was just three years old, Jesus!"
Female Guardians tried to run in to assist Mike, who took every blow she hurled at him as though he'd drowned the child himself.
"You promised me!" Inez screamed, fighting the arms of female warriors as Mike finally walked away to break down against the rails.
Pandemonium erupted. The brothers broke off into small squads of support, half going to Dan, and the other half going to Mike, who wailed like a huge, wounded bear.
"She was just a baby," Mike sobbed. "A little precious baby!" Carlos and Yonnie both had to box Mike in to keep him away from the artillery stash, each talking to him quickly in staccato pants. Rider tried to get a leg and almost got knocked out from Mike's flailing.
"Wasn't your fault, man—we couldn't get to 'em . . . woulda lost 'em in the pull through the Triangle," Yonnie said, working with Carlos to wrestle Mike to the deck.
"Look at my woman!" Mike hollered. " 'Nez, baby, I swear to God, I'm sorry!" Carlos felt his body lifting as Mike broke free, his insane strength now a liability as Yonnie lost his grip on one of Mike's massive appendages. The only thing he could do was take the full body charge by getting in front of Mike, and then roping him down with an energy lasso.
"Let go of me!" Mike shouted, still struggling as a dazed Carlos tried to sit up.
"No, 'cause we love you, man," Carlos said, panting. Damali had Inez in her arms, rocking her with Juanita as piteous wails sliced through everyone's skeleton. Guardian sisters ran between the fallen, trying in any way they could to touch, heal, and cry with those who'd experienced such visceral loss.
Dan sat in a curled ball of humanity, his arms gripped tightly around his knees, his head tucked in, rocking, while Shabazz and Berkfield tried their best to rationalize the incomprehensible. Finally Marlene parted the gathering of men, dropped to her knees, hugged a young man who'd just lost his parents, and let him wail. Shimmering tears rolled down her cheeks as she held him shaking her head, unable to bear going to Inez—the loss of her own daughter palpable to each Guardian with Marlene's every ragged inhalation.
The storm of hurt and pain that hit the ship was so violent that no one spoke for what felt like hours. Mike lay on the deck face down, panting from the fatigue of struggling against his binds, energy-tied down for his own safety. Inez lay on a sofa, covered by Damali's healing wings, having cried herself sick. Dan had finally accepted Heather's hugs, and his head was in her lap, his face to her belly, as they both rested on the deck floor numb.
Carlos stood at the stern, looking out at the water all around them. There was no naval presence guarding U.S. ports now. Pearl and Father Pat said to go to this strange land with the walking wounded, spiritually destroyed Guardians, and he didn't even know where that was. Four days, and the Neteru Councils hadn't surfaced . . . nor had any warrior angels . . . and a little baby girl had died—for what?
He hung his head, wishing he'd tried to pull them through the Triangle. Seeing the pain, hearing it, crawled all over his skin. And this was just his tiny family. What kind of human suffering was the world experiencing at large? All of this because of a deal forged eons before he was even a spark of conception. His Neteru Kings held back from going down to Hell and blowing the doors off it, all because the Devil was granted a period of time to corrupt the human soul. All because some of the Kings on the Neteru Council had to wait until the end of days, and had to let human nature, human karma run its full course . . . Carlos squeezed his eyes shut tightly. It was all so wasteful, so blindly wasteful, and if he was lucky, this was what his kid would inherit.
Hearing Inez's wails reminded him of just how powerless he was in this entire dance of life. Hearing Mike's wails made him want to put a gun to his own head. The only reason Dan's pain didn't carve at him as deeply was because, in some way, he could rationalize the loss of an older couple, people who'd lived, loved, raised a family, and had died together quickly. If he were honest about it, even the loss of Mom Delores didn't tear his spirit from its housing within. She'd gotten a chance to see her child grow up, marry a good person, and have a child of her own, knowing her kid and grandkid would be with good people that loved them. But the loss of that baby girl, little Ayana . . . that was what had rocked the entire team. That was what had stabbed him in the heart.
"Where is Megiddo from here?" Carlos whispered into the wind. He looked out at the glass-still surface of deep blue water. "Father told me, but I can't picture it in my mind," he said in a weary tone. "Can't picture none of it at all. My team is bleeding to death . . . Heaven help them. I don't know what to do."
"Bring them in first," a deep, unfamiliar voice said. "There is no more Triangle barrier here. I will help you so that you do not deplete yourself." Carlos slowly straightened, drawing the blade of Ausar into his grip as he turned around to meet the threat.
"My father's sword suits you, Neteru brother."
A dirty-faced warrior stepped out of the folds of nothingness, a younger Ausar look-alike the size of Big Mike. He grabbed Carlos's left forearm before Carlos could react, bumping their chests hard enough to knock the wind out of Carlos as he gave him a hearty warrior's embrace and then let him go.
"Heru?"
The Neteru prince nodded with a wide smile. "We have laid siege to the Berserkers, and then have been trying to move civilizations from the floodplains," Heru said, using a Neteru blade to paint a vivid war report on the deck floor as mesmerized Guardians looked up from their private pain to watch.
"Heru . . ." Carlos drove his sword into the deck and gaped, for the first time in his life actually starstuck. "I carry your shield, man. You are the one!"
"No, my brother—this time, you are the one." Heru laughed deeply and gave Carlos another warrior's embrace of friendship, crushing the air from his lungs again before he released him.
"How . . . where . . . what happened to the Kings—I've got a million questions," Carlos said, awe maki
ng him tongue-tied. "Warrior angels have chased the infidels to the borders of darkness, and have put pressure on the Antichrist's healing dens. Twice we almost had the bastard," Heru said, frowning as his charismatic voice enthralled the team.
"But you didn't save my baby girl!" Inez screamed, up on her feet and rushing forward before Damali or Carlos could grab her. She barreled into Heru's midsection, drew a blade from the back pocket of her jeans, and held it to his throat. "I just want to know why?"
Heru smiled and glanced at Carlos with approval. "Good warrior; excellent reflexes. You will need that on the battlefield against the darkness."
" 'Nez," Damali said softly. "Don't." "He's on our side, 'Nez," Carlos said carefully.
"Let her," Heru said calmly. "But there isn't just reason to ... your daughter lives. I will bring her here. There isn't much time. What is left of the North American teams must join the Middle Eastern teams before the fifth seal is broken." The blade fell away from Inez's hand to clatter on the wooden floor. Carlos caught her before she dropped.
"Medic!" Carlos hollered. "Need some water, man!" He slapped Inez's face until her eyes rolled toward the back of her head and her eyelids finally began to flutter. Berkfield was trapped mid-deck on the way to get water when Dan slowly pushed himself up to stand and began backing away from the pilothouse. Damali covered her mouth and then stifled a scream. Monty's frantic shout made Carlos loosen Big Mike's energy binds as Dan staggered forward.
Frank and Stella Weinstein clutched each other trembling. Delores held on to the door frame, as Ayana broke free and ran straight for her dazed mother's arms. Inez's screams and the toddler's shriek, "Mommy," put Mike on his feet and sent him hurtling toward Inez and her daughter. Monty staggered out of the pilothouse, clutching his chest.
"They came out of thin air. They—"
"Berkfield, take the helm," Carlos shouted. "Somebody tend that man before we have a cardiac case!"
Heru crossed his chest with his forearm and stared deeply into Carlos's eyes. "We would never forsake you at this hour, brother. The Kings have heard your petitions."
"What do you mean, Co-Chairman?" Lilith said in such a quiet, deadly hiss that even the Devil slowed his exit, not sure that he should actually turn his back on his wife.
"Your efforts have not produced the Neterus. But I got something equally as strategic. Therefore, Nuit earned it," the Unnamed One said with a sly half-smile.
"I now have the sixth seal." He gave her a wink, backing out of her chambers, laughing. "Carry on."
* * *
"The rest of your teams are at Megiddo," Heru said, using the tip of his sword to draw on the deck floor. "Here is where you are needed. It is also the safest place. The released armies of darkness, the raised Berserkers and all else that joins them, will spew catapults of brimstone to look like balls of fire in the sky." "Meteor showers," Damali said, her voice capturing Heru's attention. He bowed deeply from where he sat. "Yes, Queen." Then he checked himself, cleared his throat, and landed a solid hand on Carlos's shoulder, shaking his head.
"My brother, you are gifted and highly favored."
Carlos couldn't fight the smile that tugged at his cheek. He didn't care what he had to fight at the moment; sanity had been restored as quickly as it had been taken. Time was speeding up, the roller coaster moving so fast that no one had a chance to recover from one mental breakdown before the next one hit.
Inez sat with her child clutched to her chest, Big Mike holding both of them. Monty and Delores sat huddled together with Marlene and Shabazz offering them reassuring hugs. Dan sat between his parents, wiping his eyes, with them bookended by Heather and the Berkfields.
"Here's my question, though, man," Carlos said, bringing his focus back to the young Neteru prince. "We've got civilians this time out."
"It is the only way. You must go to the tunnels. The Middle Eastern team is made up of Guardians from the entire region. Every country is represented, yours blended with it reunites the scattered Twelve Tribes. They will be able to show you the ancient escape tunnels used to elude the Romans when Jerusalem was ransacked two thousand years ago. There is an escape in the south end that terminates at the Temple Mount, which is known to Muslims as Al Aqsa Mosque—a disputed holy shrine—it also leads to the Kidron River, which empties into the Dead Sea."
Carlos stood and walked back and forth, dragging his fingers through his hair. "But we've got civilians, man. Babies, older peo-I pie who have just come through God only knows what. The water cistern at Megiddo is a hundred-and-five-foot vertical drop into ancient tunnels, and then you're talking about a full-team jettison into the hot zone, downtown Jerusalem, man . . . c'mon."
"Megiddo," Heru said, standing, his gaze beginning to glow silver as he lost patience with Carlos, "will require an excavation. There, the Neteru Kings of old hid something written that came out of Ethiopia."
Damali tilted her head as she craned her neck upward. "Coptic text. Part of the prophecy."
Heru nodded. "She is—"
"Married," Yonnie muttered under his breath, gaining a glare from Heru.
"You, the Neterus, must go beneath this hallowed ground in Megiddo to get the text and, from it, the implement that can stop Satan's Thirteenth—his most cherished demon that will lead his armies of dark angels out of their Euphrates containment."
Carlos and Damali stared at each other.
"Okay, I've heard enough," Rider said, standing and walking across the deck. "That name is a showstopper with seniors and a baby on board—and my wife pregnant."
"How do you rule an army of warriors under democratic processes?" Heru yelled, losing patience as he stared at Carlos and Damali. "The insubordination you accept would not have been tolerated in the ancient empires!" He spun on Carlos. "There is a dagger that was hidden in the juncture at the disputed holy site beneath Jerusalem. That is one-half of what you need—the dagger used by the Roman Guard to pierce the side of the Christ. But you also need to be armed with the actual name of the demon, which was hidden in the Valley of the Kings' text, the Gospel of Judas. But the darkside stole the manuscript . . . however, we buried a copy in the spring tunnel at Megiddo."
Carlos wiped his palms down his face. "Okay. And we're supposed to take everybody with us?"
"Yes," Heru said flatly. "Time is quickly running out. Everyone here has a role." He spun on Inez and pointed to Ayana. "Only she is small enough to get into the crevice that houses the sacred dagger." He leveled a blade at Dan's parents. "Rabbi will come to them to lead them through the streets of Jerusalem. They will remember the way from their pilgrimages and fluently speak the language that you stumble over. They will get entry to places you cannot easily pass. But you, Carlos, must focus on Kupigana NgumiAha."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Carlos said, now walking in an agitated circle.
"Hand-to-hand Kemetian martial arts with hombre's worst demon, using a dagger? Not a long blade to put a little body distance between me and—"
"It must be dead aim in the heart, and to do that, you must use the form of grappling and boxing used by Kemetian priests for felling the unholy." Heru turned to look at Damali. "Ma'at Akhw Ba Ankh is your weapon, Queen."
"Meditation and breathing? While my husband does hand-to-hand combat with the Thirteenth, I'm supposed to just chill and deep breathe—with a baby in the tunnels and a civilian couple trying to run through the streets that will send all of Hell after them?" Damali raked her locks. "I have much respect, don't get me wrong . . . but let's just say this strategy has the ring of real crazy to it."
* * *
Confused, the team looked around at the barren hill that was no more than a vast, crusty ruin site. Completely razed, the rock-studded terrain belied the fact that twenty-seven metropolises and • the center of significant trade and commerce had passed through the gates here at one time in history. Just seeing a past cultural epicenter that was thought to be the center of the then-modern world reduced to dust gave every person on the trek pause.
"I know your Neteru homeboy was busy and all, and did us a favor by letting you save your energy, C . . ., but couldn't he have just dropped us off in the tunnel?" Yonnie shook his head as they searched for the southwest section of the mound that was supposed to house the tunnel entrance.
"In case you hadn't noticed," Rider fussed, kicking stones out of his path as he hiked up his M-16 shoulder strap. "Easy, straightforward, any of those adjectives, just erase them from your vocabulary when dealing with the Light. They like to err on the side of the mysterious."
"Do me a favor, Jack Rider," Marlene said, giving him a hard glare. "Blaspheme on your own time when alone, huh? I'm not trying to get anybody smoked by a lightning bolt because you're having a bad hair day. We got some real important folks back. I'm grateful."
"Okay, okay, Mar, I'm sorry," Rider said, jogging to catch up with her. "You don't think they'd really send a lightning bolt for an offhanded comment, do you, Mar, seriously?" He glanced around and tugged on her arm. "For real, because I was just joking."
As Marlene turned to answer Rider with a smile, a huge fireball tore across the sky.
"Get down!" Carlos shouted, and then created an energy dome over the group using his shield of Heru.
The impact of the blast sent up clouds of dust and rocks flying like razor-sharp pieces of shrapnel that pelted the shield. The ground beneath them violently quaked, and the moment it stopped, machine-gun report echoed in the distance. Mike turned his head to the side, listening like a giant hunting dog while he body-shielded Inez and Ayana. "You hear that?" He lifted his head to stare first at Yonnie on his flank and then Carlos, who was a couple of feet away.
"Gotta be an American team," Yonnie said. "Talking about, 'it's on to the brink of dawn.' "
Carlos lowered the shield, glanced around quickly, and held his fist up. "Let me—"
"Yo!" a female voice shouted in the distance. "Get out of the open, people. The Berserkers are on the move!"
"Dat's Miss Quick," Ayana said, talking around her thumb. "She took us to the mountains."
L A Banks - [Vampire Huntres Legend 12] Page 16