by L. A. Banks
Marlene had flung herself around the room like a madwoman as she snatched up her mud cloth satchel. “I have to look this up in the Neteru Temt Tchaas,” she said with a wink. She pulled out her huge, mystical black book, the one that nobody in the compound dared touch or ask her about.
Damali got very, very still. “Mar? When did the first Neteru show up in this neck of the woods?”
Marlene shushed her with a wave of her hand, going through the symbol-covered leather bound book and then sat down very slowly. Then she stared at Damali. “There was no Neteru in this area. Just guardians . . . the one before you came from the Nubian empire in Africa.” Then Marlene fell silent, and her body tensed.
“Look it up,” Damali said firmly, and then sat by Marlene. She could tell Marlene was holding something back as she peered down at the pages with Marlene, trying to read the symbols and gleaning some phrases that her mentor had taught her.
“Okay,” Marlene said on a weary sigh, “I’ll look up the guardian history here again. I’ve been over this section of the book a hundred times, if once, Damali.”
“Humor me,” Damali said quietly. “Read it to me out loud as you go.”
“The Pedra Pintada . . . based in the caves, and painted the insides of them at Monte Alegre, who used triangular arrowheads like your Madame Isis blade tip—same folks who’d been there over 12,500 years before the conquistadors discovered it.” She looked up and closed her book. “President Roosevelt’s daughter, Anna Roosevelt, studied them, too, and took a Brazilian team with her. These peoples that they found the remains of were skilled navigators, and artists, Damali. A woman was the one to find it. Female energy is all in this situation.”
“Open the book,” Damali said, her eyes glued to it, “and read, Marlene.”
“I know what it says,” Marlene protested. But she gave in and looked down and read. “All right, in the footnotes it says that when Anna Roosevelt went in, she found mummified bodies that suggested a stratified society of rulers and leaders.” She looked at Damali. “These people had it going on, before they were wiped out, and there was a thousand years of calm where they created art and music. They still don’t know how to make sense of these people’s agricultural techniques that were so advanced. The last of them were massacred during the fifteen hundreds, during the conquistador invasions.”
“Talk to me, Mar . . . Follow the thousand years of peace, and read it directly from the text.”
Marlene conceded on a tired sigh. “There was major movement upstream of the peoples from the Amazon Basin during 2000 to 3000 BC, from a stretch of river between Santarem and Manaus in modern Brazil.” She glanced up at Damali.
“Didn’t the newspapers say that there’d been killings centralized near that area, and near those caves? The other similar ones had stopped, but these over here hadn’t.”
“Yeah, and a thousand years comes up—a Neteru is born every thousand years to create a reign of peace. If a Neteru was born in that span of 2000 to 3000 BC to peoples untouched by outside cultures, then ancestors of that tribe had heavy concentrations of Neteru in them. Maybe enough of the recessive gene to create another actual birth of a Neteru—at least a serious female guardian—that would come to those same peoples, one would think, during the end of their era to help them. But that couldn’t happen, because the timing would be off. She’d be born five hundred years too early for what happened with the conquistadors. Plus, she isn’t in the book.”
Damali froze and kept her gaze locked within Marlene’s. “What if for some reason she was born, though? Like in the conquistador era?”
Marlene rubbed her chin. “But she’s not in the book, even though those conquistador guys invaded paradise. They were running rampant, just running amuck with these old civilizations that had been cool for thousands of years, until they bumped into these two huge jaguar totems at the mouth of the Rio Negro, the black river, which is how it got its name. The newbies to this region renamed everything in their language.” Marlene’s expression was incredulous as she pointed out the information to Damali with her finger. No matter how many times she read the history of old cultures, the arrogance of men never ceased to amaze her. “Further downstream from that they ran into a tribe of women warriors, otherwise know as—”
“Amazons.”
Marlene smiled in triumph. “Guardians. Carvajal, the Spaniard expeditions’ chronicler, wrote of ten to twelve women warriors near Monte Alegre, close to Caverna da Pedra Pintada, where there were these gorgeous villages—you know women ran that, right . . . Okay, I digress for editorial comment, but he wrote that the female warriors were out in front of the men, leading the native troops. The Amazons were said to have fought so courageously that the Indian men didn’t dare turn back—the sisters killed anyone who turned back, dig? He described them as tall, with braided hair, wearing white, and could each fight like ten men.” She looked at Damali.
“Sounds like a female Neteru team to me. Or, at the very least, an all-female guardian team.”
“What are you wearing . . . or I should say, what possessed you to put on that outfit?”
Damali looked down at her all-white outfit and then back up at Marlene. “I just wanted to wear this color today for traveling here. You think a Neteru was with them, the Amazons? Sounds suspiciously like the stuff of legends—and they have actual historical accounts of these women, too?”
“No lie, girl. But it’s not in the book! All of that last battle Father Pat told me about went down in June 1542 through September 1546, or thereabouts . . . the massacres continued, but the Amazons held their own against the expedition crew that was trying to plunder their villages, after being cool for over twelve thousand years—you following me?”
“The Raise the Dead concert happened between those months, just like the subsequent mountain-climber deaths, and within the new millennium same years—right in the middle, 2003.” Damali rubbed her hands over her face. “Back then, women were leading the charge, the men followed, it’s all in the same area. Shit, Mar . . . but what’s come back from the dead—the good guys, or the bad guys? And, how the hell do we tell?”
“After we do this gig, we gotta go north to the spiritual city—Bahia, also known as Salvador . . . to get a bead on this thing before we go in deeper. September here is their spring, and although it’s now October, I wanna ask the folks in Bahia if they noticed anything deep when they went through their normal spring fertility rites ceremonies—for us, the third week of September is when fall equinox happens—”
“Mar . . . Carlos and I, uh . . . that third week. Uhmmm. It was a month after my birthday, plus ten nights when we hooked up.”
“Harvest . . . The fall harvest rites.” Marlene covered her mouth. “Something over here is waxing, as you were waning . . . you were coming out of your ripening, as something here was going into its ripening—right before the rainy season of rebirth here. This is female energy, girlfriend. This ain’t male—that’s why our mostly male team is jacked up. Probably what’s messing with Carlos’s head, too.”
“Now, I’m really scared, Mar.” Again her arms went around her waist and Marlene came to her, placing an arm of support about her shoulders.
“All right. Let’s not freak ourselves out here. From Bahia, we can fly into Belem, the capital of Para state in Brazil to get close to the first maul citing. From there, we’re gonna have to trek down the Amazon the old-fashioned way—by small planes and boat to hit the interior where this stuff has been going on in Santarem and farther west beyond Manaus, near where the Amazon and the Rio Negro meet—female Amazon warrior country. Ya oughta be at home, kiddo, with the same DNA and peoples all running through your veins. You’ll be our lead tracker. Always will be since the last major battle.”
Massaging her temples, Damali sat slowly on an overstuffed chair, abandoning Marlene’s arm. “You remember the Raise the Dead concert?”
“How could I forget it?” Marlene scoffed and went to put her book away carefully
/> “The energy was to open portals, but also the ritual in the music was to make a Neteru, me at that time, able to merge with male vampire energy—”
“For a mating ritual.”
Damali nodded. “A highly sexually charged event. One that happened on the onset of their spring rites of fertility here, too. Now, we know there are energy zones in the world that have—”
“A lot of history,” Marlene said, finishing her sentence. “Could it be that the people didn’t even know—maybe nobody ever intended . . . but the dates, the times, the cultural norms of what was going on, the stellar constellation, and crazy Fallon Nuit messing with the cosmic order of things . . .”
“Ya think?”
Marlene stood and began pacing. “What if something backfired? It happened before, that’s how Fallon Nuit got out of vampire incarceration before to form an alliance.”
“Yeah, but I drove a sword through his evil heart myself,” Damali protested, still rubbing her temples.
“But what if this doesn’t have anything to do with him?” Marlene’s question hung in the air. She sat down and looked out the window as she spoke. “Say if the vampires went and closed the seals—and we did too, with our Warriors of Light positive energies . . . but say if the prayers couldn’t seal a certain area, because the church had blood on its hands? What if the spring rites held open a seal to something the native peoples didn’t even know was opened?”
Damali stopped rubbing her temples. “And what if the old vamps could seal those concert areas, the portals where no additional energy was added this strong by concurrent spring rites that were going on in the hillsides, plus given the history, thus energy charge this ground already holds—”
“The incantations of the evil concert, plus the positive spring fertility rituals, might have crossed, fused, and called up something the vamps and demons couldn’t vanquish . . . like an entity peculiar to this region formed by the chaos of this region? A dark one, a female one, twisted by Nuit’s ceremony and strengthened by the rites, and jettisoned from a place down deep? Something like that could have easily been made here in an act of desperation by oppressed people, where justice was never served to the native peoples.” Marlene closed her eyes. “If that’s what came up, if that has been dredged up from the caverns, what are we going to do?”
“Oh, shit!” Walking in a circle, Damali felt her breath getting short. “Mar, Mar, the amount of rage . . . the amount of righteous indignation, the amount of unfinished business . . . or karma. Oh, Lord! No wonder Father Pat didn’t want to come over here wearing robes, carrying a conquistador’s sword with a bleeding, high-ranking Vatican cross on his chest! Shit! I wouldn’t!” She looked at Marlene hard. “There were also two master vampires in Nuit’s lair during that concert.”
Marlene opened her mouth and then closed it.
“One died, one didn’t . . . and one lost his vampire cool on me out in the woods—went near ballistic primal, and—”
“He didn’t shape-shift on you, did he?”
Marlene’s question felt like a slap, it hit her so hard. The tone of her voice was so panic laden that it made Damali shiver. She swore she’d never tell a soul something so deeply personal. Damali looked away and wrapped her arms around herself again.
“Normally,” she said, trying to make herself sound calm, “he is, uh . . . smooth. In control. Yeah, passionate, but uh, brother never just lost it.”
“What did he turn into, Damali?” Marlene’s voice was firm, like a doctor who was trying to diagnose an ailment.
Damali shut her eyes tight. “He didn’t actually change, on me, but, he uh . . .”
“He flipped out and went were, right?” Marlene stood and walked across the room. “What creature, kiddo? It’s just me and you; just us girls. So let’s be real. I need to know.”
It took a moment to answer Marlene, but she found her voice and finally did. “He kept looking up at the moon and went panther.”
“Oh, shit . . .” Marlene shut her eyes. “Don’t you understand the were-realms? Didn’t I explain to you how they roll?”
Damali just nodded.
“Tell me he didn’t go all the way, did he?”
“I’m not exactly sure what you mean.” Damali glanced up at Marlene and then looked away. “He went far enough, though.”
“Did he actually transform and hold the form while with you?”
Marlene’s eyes glittered with something she couldn’t put her finger on. But the question was so damned personal. She couldn’t speak.
“Did the man bring you fresh kill afterward, and drop it at your feet?” Marlene’s voice was escalating with renewed panic. “Did he—”
“No!” Damali said, unable to have this conversation with her mother, of all people. “I just felt the animal presence, he didn’t actually, I mean . . . oh, shit, Mar. Close, but—”
“Girl.” Marlene began pacing, and had stopped speaking for a moment, appearing completely frazzled. “Master vampires detest the were-demons. They only shape-shift to amuse themselves, or to leverage their advantage during a fight, or to use it as a means of escape when cornered and they want to drop a body in a gruesome way as a warning. They’ll mist on you in a heartbeat, will vaporize for you in a flash, but they generally prefer the superiority of holding the human form—that’s their signature, chile. They do not drape that on a woman when seducing her—ever.” She stared at Damali until she looked up. “Honey, I told you I was feeling a serious primal undercurrent coming from him. And I told you that something was pushing that man’s buttons.”
“I know, I know,” Damali said quickly. “But I didn’t do anything out of the norm . . .” She stopped, and tucked the whole thong incident far in the back of her mind.
“I’m not blaming you. I’m not saying it’s your fault. I just felt it coming, but you were so caught up in love . . . plus you know my rule. I don’t get into people’s heads or envision that aspect of their personal business—so I refused to vibe on it.” Marlene stopped and walked over to Damali and put her hand on her arm. “Were sexual energy is very different than male vampire energy. You hearing me?”
She waited until Damali looked up at her again. “It’s raw, unshakable, violent. It is touched off by the phases of the moon—something vampires are impervious to. If that’s what Carlos is tracking in his territory, then his normal male vampire reflex would be to hunt it down and kill it. He wouldn’t allow it to be near his females, or poach his zones, no matter what its gender. If a female vamp called him into the night, the way he feels about you—plus the fact that your Neteru call would block her call—would not have been enough to make him leave you.” Marlene’s gaze narrowed, not in anger, but in an attempt to gain critical information. “I’m not trying to get into your business, but when he left you, how was he?”
“Still on the hunt, and not for fuel,” Damali said quietly. “He never totally chilled out.” She couldn’t even look at Marlene as her self-confidence fractured.
“Has that ever happened before?” Marlene asked as gently as she could.
“No,” Damali admitted, her voice becoming softer.
“All right, baby, listen. This isn’t normal—not that anything about any of this is normal, per se, but you know what I mean. A master vampire is smooth enough to leave your side and go find a female vamp without your even knowing it. He wouldn’t be blatant about it. So if you saw that he was still . . . well, that lack of suave just ain’t done by masters. Period.” The older woman sighed and scratched her head. “That mating ritual put some spin on it, maybe . . .”
“That’s what’s messing me up, Mar. Right in my face! He had the nerve to be trying to tell me some raggedy shit about why he needed to go out. To my face, Mar.” Damali let her breath out in a slow, unsteady exhale.
“Uh, uh,” Marlene said, shaking her head. “Not done. Out of character. Shit, even alive, Carlos Rivera had more cool than that. Something got his nose open, and it ain’t the average vamp female.”
/>
“This thing has a lock on him, Mar. Even I can’t break it.”
Both women held each other’s gaze for a moment.
“Damali, male vampires are not attracted to were-demon females. Conversely, were-demons will try to use strength in numbers to rush male vamps to get them out of their limited feeding grounds—since that entity’s available time to feed is bound by both the phase of the moon and the location it was turned in. They wouldn’t draw a master, of all things, right into its feeding zones. But we do know that a male vampire will accommodate and respond to the female he’s trying to seduce by becoming what she wants him to be. They are masters of illusion.”
Marlene rubbed her chin deep in thought as Damali kept her gaze fastened on her. “That’s in their nature, too. So, if Carlos is suddenly taking on these new proclivities, then he’s drawing something to him—or being drawn by something that is primal like a were, has form like human female, and a scent that beats Neteru. It’s also bound to this region, one that has very funky karma, because that’s where the bodies have been dropping. Whatever it is, it eats human flesh. That much we do know.” Marlene blew out a long whistle.
“We’ve never seen an entity like this before, one from the demon realms that has enough power to attract a strong male master vamp. Carlos probably hasn’t either.” Marlene’s gaze softened as she touched Damali’s cheek. “You need to fight for him, and not let this thing get ahold of him. D, this ain’t a normal male-female vamp pull. Whatever this thing is can jeopardize more than your relationship, it can compromise his soul in Purgatory—if he hasn’t already dropped a body to feed her. And, trust me, I would never tell you something like this as a mother figure, or just as a woman, because I normally don’t believe in it. But in this case, baby, screw it. Pull out all the stops. Fight for your man.”
Marlene let her go and folded her arms over her chest. But suddenly both women’s focus went toward the abandoned book on the bed.
“Mar, I smell paper burning.”
They both rushed to the bed, and Marlene took the book up slowly. They watched in awe as the pages scorched and realigned, ancient markings entering new information beside it as they gaped.