CHAPTER NINETEEN
It felt as though her heart was pounding out of her chest as she sprinted beside Carlos through the streets and up the steep incline of steps to the building that housed their team. They banged on doors like the house was on fire as they pa.s.sed each room, instantly calling a meeting by express method-hollering.
"Yo, yo, yo, heads up!" Carlos yelled, slamming doors with his fist.
Damali put her shoulder to the door of their small room and barreled through it, her gaze sweeping for anything that shouldn"t be there. Within moments, the entire team had piled into the room behind her and slammed the door.
"Talk to me, people," Shabazz said.
"Lilith took her body for a second," Carlos said, waving his hands as he spoke.
"He was trailing the beginnings of apex scent," Damali said, walking in a circle, b.u.mping into Carlos, "and he slapped the s.h.i.t out of me."
"It was Lilith," Carlos said, his voice rising defensively. "I would never slap Damali. Something was wrong with the kiss, the vibe wasn"t right. That"s why I told her to back off while I was apexing. My gut told me to ignore the body-I had to get my head together. I slapped her and her eyes changed!"
"Well, that"ll happen if you slap a Neteru, dude," Rider said, but his tone wasn"t amused. "Her eyes will change, and then the daggers come out. So you"d better hope like h.e.l.l you slapped Lilith, and not Damali."
"I know what I saw," Carlos argued, jumping up on a bed and staring out the window.
"Let"s everybody try to stay calm," Marlene said. "With the contagions, tempers are apt to flare-"
"I know what I saw, Mar," Carlos repeated, his voice rising. "This wasn"t the d.a.m.ned infection. Even as a vampire, I never slapped Damali-under any conditions, hitting a woman ain"t my style. But Lilith, yeah. I"ll blow her head off."
"Down in the square," Damali said, her breaths labored as adrenaline rippled through her. "The Chairman came to me, I think."
Everybody stopped moving, and Carlos spun around. "What?"
"He kissed me, and it definitely wasn"t you. Metallic taste in my mouth when I bit him."
"What!" Carlos was off the bed and in her face. "You knew it wasn"t me and bit that mother-"
"It looked exactly like you, was talking the exact same s.h.i.t you talk when you want some, and-"
"Okay, okay," Marlene said, coming between the combatants. "They shape-shifted on both of you. We got that part." She looked at Carlos. "You"re bait." She motioned toward Damali. "You"re the steel trap."
Shabazz nodded. "If he"s near true apex, he"s a solid lure for Lilith. Damali ain"t in phase, so she"s gotta take the Chairman"s head once he surfaces to go after Lilith or come for Carlos. Male Neteru apex in his zones is gonna draw his old a.s.s out of hiding."
Damali and Carlos parted and went to opposite sides of the room, elbowing past the others. He leaned on one wall and wiped his hands down his face; she leaned on a rickety dresser and did the same.
"All right, I"m bait," Carlos muttered.
"I"ve got the Chairman"s head, no problem. We move out first light," Damali said, regaining her composure. "Just tell me how I"m supposed to lop off Lilith"s head when she"s inside my body? How am I supposed to do that-and trust me, I want her a.s.s as bad as I want the Chairman"s."
"Mar, not trying to add a wrinkle to this loosely constructed plan, but how in the h.e.l.l did an ent.i.ty enter a fully matured Neteru like Damali? That"s why it was taking me a minute to get with Rivera"s defense." Rider raked his fingers through his hair and quickly glanced at both Neterus in the room before his gaze held Marlene"s. "I can get with a shape-shift. That"s pure vamp illusion s.h.i.t. But if what Carlos said is true, then Lilith temporarily slid into Damali"s body. From all I"ve heard, that ain"t ever supposed to happen."
Damali"s hands went to the top of her head as she searched Marlene"s eyes for answers. "That"s way strong mojo, Mar. Rider"s right. d.a.m.n, I ain"t playing that s.h.i.t!"
"Lilith is from Level Seven, and she"s got strengths beyond the vamp capacity," Marlene said, her eyes scouring the group. "But she needed a host, a carrier, that"s already, uh, literally, been inside of Damali"s body before. We"re all infected by the demon contagion, and Damali"s defenses could have been temporarily down, especially with the distraction of her partner going into a full apex." Marlene stared at Carlos. "Talk to me, brother. How you been feeling lately?"
"I"m fine," Carlos said, crossing his arms. "Normal, regular, nothing out of the ordinary."
"Oh, bulls.h.i.t!" Damali said, pushing off the dresser. "You have not been fine. You cannot remember things! Your personality runs hot and cold. One minute you don"t have enough energy to lift your head off a pillow, the next you"re battling insomnia and have all the energy in the world." She shook her head. "Nah. You ain"t all right."
"I went out once drinking with Yonnie, and felt bad, but-"
"Noooo..." Damali said in a low voice. "That night I doused your clothes-"
"Nothing happened!" Carlos gestured wildly with his hands. "What happened out of the ordinary, D? The clothes didn"t even smolder, I was-"
"Like the Devil himself." Damali jerked her attention toward Marlene. "I remember now. He came at me with some s.h.i.t I ain"t never seen before, and the Carlos I know would have never come at me like that-had me scared in my own f.u.c.king house, crying and s.h.i.t, then everything got fuzzy."
" What are you talking about, Damali?" Carlos stood in the center of the room as the team"s gaze bounced from him to Damali and back again.
Damali covered her face, breathed into her hands, and summoned calm. When she lowered her arms, she kept her voice even and controlled. "Outside, just now, you started running and said the angels told you to get the book. When did the angels come?
Think back. What book?"
The team parted as Carlos began to pace slowly, his hands balling to fists at his sides. "Yeah. Right. I did. I remember. I was p.i.s.sed off. Left the house. But..."
Juanita walked over to him and placed a hand on his arm. Eyes widened on every face. Damali bristled.
"We talked in the front yard. Remember? You were on your way to L.A."
Damali folded her arms over her chest. "Yeah. What did you and Juanita talk about, Carlos?" Damali"s eyes narrowed. "For all we know, her a.s.s could be a carrier-she was out of team sight for a long time before-"
"C"mon, D," Jose said, cutting her off. "I wanna hear what she"s gotta say, too. So, let "Nita tell us what went down in the front yard that ain"t n.o.body know about. I also have a few questions about the vibe I caught when I took Krissy to your house.
Cool?"Damali pounded Jose"s fist.
"Aw, s.h.i.t," Big Mike said, smoothing a palm over his bald head. "C"mon, y"all. We family."
Juanita scowled at Damali and averted her eyes from Jose. "Carlos, you were on your way to L.A. Said..."
Her voice trailed off and he nodded. A silent understanding pa.s.sed between them. Part of the conversation need not be said.
"Then I was driving and-"
"Hoi" up!" Damali said, both hands raised. "Skip to, and then I was driving? Rivera, I ain"t-"
"I told one member of the house where I was going!" Carlos shouted, pointing at Juanita, "because you were giving me the blues.
Yeah, I explained that I was out so the whole house didn"t mount up a search party, or try to go after my boy to stake him.
Yonnie wasn"t in this bulls.h.i.t. Then a deer, which I thought was Tara, came out of nowhere. Smashed my window. I spun out.
Started walking. Blue light came down and covered me! Tara"s hunt was on the hood of my car. She couldn"t see me because of the light!"
Carlos was breathing hard as he walked around in a hot circle. "Next thing I know, voices, thundering voices told me to get the book and take the Chairman"s head. So I went down to h.e.l.l like they told me to do and walked into Chambers! All right? You clear? And it was all f.u.c.ked up down there. Everything was trashed. Thrones decimated. The pentagram table leaning. Torches pulled out of the walls. f.u.c.king bats scared to move. But no book!"
"You went to h.e.l.l?" Damali yelled.
"To get The Book of the d.a.m.ned," Carlos shouted back. "Heaven needs it before the big war kicks off to free lost souls! We all know that. What about this ain"t clear?"
Marlene nearly collapsed against Shabazz"s side. Marjorie sat down slowly on the bed. Rider"s back hit the wall with a thud.
One by one, Guardians attempted to open their mouths to comment, but no sound came out.
"You went back down there, alone, and opened a seal on sacred Indian ground to retrieve something like that?" Damali closed her eyes. "Oh, my G.o.d."
"They told me to!" Carlos argued. "You don"t negotiate with angels, you do what the f.u.c.k they say when they say and don"t ask questions. It wasn"t there, anyway. The Chairman has it! You know that; you had the self-same book in your hand yourself when you went down there half-c.o.c.ked on a solo mission, right? And he was the last one that had it. s.n.a.t.c.hed it back from you on a trade."
"How do you know it was them, real angels, the real McCoy?"
Rider said in a quiet voice. "I"m serious, dude? Not like them to send you down there like that without a squad."
For a moment, Carlos didn"t answer. Terror seized his words and made him swallow them. "No, man, no. It had to be them.
The blue lights. The sky thing they did. Burned out Tara"s corneas-that"s what you said she told you."
"All right," Damali hedged. "a.s.suming that it was them that sent you, how do you know whether or not something tagged along when you came back up? Like Marlene said, you could have become an accidental carrier of something worse than the contagion, which makes your bouts of sickness make all the sense in the world to me right now." She put her hands behind her and began pacing where Carlos once had. "You"d just relapsed with Yonnie. Your spirit might have had a fissure."
Marlene nodded and stood away from Shabazz. "Sensitive question in mixed company," she said, looking at Damali and ignoring the others. "You know one way inhabitation can occur, right?"
"Not since we got to Arizona," Damali said.Carlos sent his hot gaze out the window. The other team members found the floor and places on the wall to inspect. Marlene c.o.c.ked her head to the side.
"You know what," Marlene said quietly, "you felt this coming, D. That"s why y"all haven"t been able to... Uh, just scratch my other theories."
Damali nodded. "I thought it was me."
"Can we have this conversation with a senior squad only?" Carlos said, his back to the group.
"These are delicate matters," Monk Lin said, his gaze nervously darting around the room. "The Naksong will know what to do."
"Nothing else to discuss," Marlene said gently. "It may have come up through you, but if it"s male, like the Chairman, your Neteru toxin will kill it-so it fled. If it"s female, like Lilith, it had to go to a vessel that wouldn"t struggle with you, wouldn"t make you immediately attack it... but it can"t stay away from you while you"re in this near-apex condition. So, people, we have a window."
She looked at Damali. "You sleep with me tonight, and I"ll salt you down real good, sis. If she tries to come back while you"re with me, I"ve got something for her." Marlene gave Juanita a sidelong glance. "You"d better come with me, too, just in case she comes at him that way."
"That ain"t necessary," Jose said when both Juanita and Damali bristled. "Me and Rider got Carlos." He folded his arms and looked at Carlos hard. "Don"t take me there on this one, hombre."
Rider closed his eyes. "Yeah. Just like old times."
Dawn hadn"t even crested the sky in full color yet, but the team was on the move. The silence in the minivan was unbearable as it lumbered along the isolated roads, steadily moving higher into the hills on a steep, laborious incline. The frigid early-morning air was so thin that puffs of steam exited everyone"s mouth and frosted the windows. They sat hunched down in their seats, burrowed deep in their thick yak-hair-lined coats, thick woolen pants, and layers of handmade sheep wool sweaters, gloves, and hats as Monk Lin drove.
Every b.u.mp they hit, every rut in the road, made them cringe and say a silent prayer that the weapons and explosives loaded into the trunk and roped to the top of the vehicle didn"t take a tumble. Theirs was a very fragile line between calm and calamity, and everyone had sense enough to honor that subtle truth.
Rider was the first person to attempt to break the permafrost in the van as he looked out at slowly grazing animals and horseback riders doing stunts in the early-morning sun. "Kinda looks like those guys are trying out for the rodeo circuit, huh, Jose?"
Jose grunted. Monk Lin peered into the rearview window.
"In the summer, when the nomads push their droves of livestock up in the hills to escape rain and to graze, there are all sorts of games," Monk Lin said in a peaceful tone. "Mongolian hors.e.m.e.n, Tibetans, they come from all over to compete. But these people are generally isolated," he added. "I don"t think the contagion has reached them yet, so please be careful not to infect them, if possible."
There was no response in the van from a soul. Rider leaned forward to talk to the monk and to try to restore team unity.
"Uhmmm... looks real similar to the tribes in Arizona," Rider said, blatantly trying to bring harmony within the team. He nodded toward a small circle forming and tapped Big Mike on the arm. "Can you make out the drum chords, dude? Music might be b.u.mpin", might be something for us to blend into our sounds, if we live to see another day. Check out the dudes with the long horns."
"Yeah," Mike said and fell silent again."Rain dancers," Monk Lin said, trying to help salvage Rider"s desperate attempt for peace. "The Bonpo shaman still arranges ceremonies to the elements-much like the old ways on your lands."
"Now, see," Rider said, snapping his fingers. "Common ground. Half a world away and people are the same." He glanced around the van but no one responded. "All right, folks," he said, becoming peevish, "we cannot go see some old master or fight those two very bad elementals we"re looking for if everyone has a bad att.i.tude."
Marlene sighed. "I know, Rider, but save it. Maybe the Naksong got something for this?"
After six straight hours of travel, Monk Lin pulled into a small enclave of yak-hair tents. He stretched and yawned and opened the vehicle door.
"I have to add fuel to the van, but it is of no use. To continue up into the mountains, we must go with herder guides and take small wagons... you may have to ride horses or yak if I can come to agreement with the nomads."
Damali closed her eyes and leaned back against her seat. She wasn"t sure if it was the Juanita issue, the way Jose had reacted, getting slapped-no matter what the reason, or knowing that Lilith may have possibly entered her body; or the bigger problem that Carlos, once again, presented, that was eating away at her nerves. But she wasn"t feeling any of this at the moment. She was sick of the entire mission, and they hadn"t even begun it.
Carlos allowed his head to hang forward as he stretched his back. Humiliation still tore at him. Why would angels set him up like that? It didn"t make sense, and those guys were supposed to play fair. Not to mention, his business was all out in the street, once again, because Damali just had to put it out there like that. He wasn"t sure what bothered him more-knowing that Lilith could have possessed her, or that he"d potentially dragged something up like a virus within him. Or was it that the whole team suspected something was going on again with him and "Nita? Or the fact that Jose had a right this time to want to smoke him?
This was too crazy. Everybody was p.i.s.sy. They couldn"t go into battle with distrust and bull between them.
"All right, everybody," Carlos said in a weary tone. He waited until all eyes were on him... well, practically all eyes. Damali"s gaze was fixed out the window.
"I"m sorry if I messed up. I thought I got a direct order and followed it. I told the Light that I couldn"t find the book. Been thinking about this thing all night. Obviously, I don"t have fangs and do daylight. I don"t have the blood hunger, I"m not sick during the day like I had been, and I"m not going that way anymore. If I flushed both Lilith and the Chairman out of hiding, that"s what I"m supposed to do. Last I heard, I"m a hunter. A Neteru. So we all need to squash this bulls.h.i.t and be a team." He glanced at Damali and then at Jose. "We all know what time it is. I haven"t cast no stones, so neither of y"all should. That"s all I"ve got to say on the matter."
Juanita glared at Jose when he leaned forward to speak. She held up her hand in his face, and he fell silent. "Do not even go there," she warned. "We"ve all got skeletons-but I was cool with yours. So turnabout ain"t fair play?"
Carlos slapped her five. "I used to say fair exchange ain"t no robbery, but I"m reformed."
"Yeah, whatever," Damali muttered.
"You do not want me to out your s.h.i.t on this bus, girl," Carlos said, jumping out of the van. "I let it go, you let it go. Hear?" He walked away to find Monk Lin.
"Oops," Marlene said, chuckling. "Well. Now that the air is clear, I suggest we all stretch our legs and take a pee break." She got out of the van with Shabazz, who was now smiling.
Soon everyone had exited the van and Damali was forced to as well. Carlos had gotten on her nerves so badly she wanted to scream loud enough to create an avalanche. Instead of that ill-fated option, she trudged behind the team in a foul mood. She tried her best to remain surly, but the curious children that ran close and skittered away behind parents made her smile. They pointed at her with stubby little fingers and shy smiles, and their big luminous eyes were wide with wonder. Monk Lin had a small gathering of herders around him, offering food and tea, and bowing repeatedly. But they didn"t touch him because of his monk status, and kept a respectful distance from the people he"d brought with him, unsure.
"They don"t see many foreigners here," Monk Lin told the group as a pretty woman who seemed to be in her forties smiled and giggled behind her hand. "The people here are generous, and believe a monk pa.s.sing by is a good omen. But it will take much to get her to disclose where the oracle is." He bowed politely and the woman followed suit, peering around him to curiously gaze at the team.
Her smile widened as Monk Lin made the rounds and gave each team member"s name, and her expression seemed puzzled as she stared at Rider. She spoke in a soft melodic tone in a language only Monk Lin understood. He chuckled softly and went to each team member one by one, holding their arms, stating their name, and trying to make the woman understand the familial relationships.
Again, she shook her head no, and asked her questions in an excited, amused flurry.