CHAPTER THREE

Surreal calm overtook her as she listened to Carlos. Rather than the sensation entering her, it oddly emanated from within her. She'd promised him that she would eat. Damali moved her hands by rote to appease him . . . stalling for time by picking up the paper bag, slowly opening it, taking out the plastic container, opening that with care, and then allowing her meal to sit before her untouched as she listened intently to what her husband was saying. Something about the smell of the food now turned her stomach.

It was only when she saw him blink that she became aware that time had actually slowed down all around her. His lids slid closed as though a heavy curtain of onyx lashes had been dropped to thud one against the other. His voice was now like distant thunder-a rumble of unintelligible words, they were being spoken so slowly.

Background sounds thrust their way to the forefront of her senses. Her breaths and heartbeat, his breaths and heartbeat, were each so slow and so loud they created a collision inside her head. Even though she couldn't quite make out what he was saying, she gathered what she could from his private, urgent tone and then watched how he slowly leaned in close to her to speak.

Carlos's physical warmth suddenly felt as though she'd been wrapped in a blanket and then soon became a searing barrier like one would expect if one stood before an open oven that had been left on broil for hours. She settled back from the uncomfortable body heat radiating off him, and as she did, the sound of her clothes rustling against the chair was jarring.

He swallowed hard, pausing midsentence, and she almost cringed from the change in decibel that had transitioned the low rumble of his voice to the mucous-thick sound of saliva coating his throat. Yet through all of it, she oddly knew what he was saying, not from the words, but the impressions that began to form behind her wide-open eyes.

Never taking her gaze from his, she saw it.The poisonous vapor.The way it slid out of technology orifices and opened dark portals within houses, buildings, and within human minds. The airwaves were polluted. Devious propaganda had living entities entwined within it, and the embedded messages spewed thick black emissions into the human realm. The gray-zone, the earth plane, was becoming denser, darker, more twisted and violent.

Shadow entities spilled over the very edges of Hell and into the psyches and spirits of the unaware, diving into the pools of light that are normally within each human being.

Damali sat transfixed as she watched how the demonic forces entered a living body and then swallowed up all the clean light within it, slowly corroding it until there was simply no living aura left. At the point of total eclipse, the person was no more. Gone was their will, along with every shred of humanity that had once defined them.

"Tell me your names," she whispered, horrified. This was so much worse than the plague of the Damned. It was such a quick transition, no incubation period. No abstinence of touch could keep a person safe. The airwaves were being infected exponentially, and even people in the most remote villages had radios and televisions in small general stores!

Carlos had cocked his head to the side and had asked her a question. She could tell by his worried expression that he was asking something important of her. But the reply that should have been hers was instead a shadow turning to her before it entered the body of a man on the streets. It smiled a sinister smile, baring mangled, yellow teeth in a hollow black pit devoid of a face.

Her husband's voice drifted farther and farther away until she was spinning in a panicked daze within a crowded market, then she was on a crowded street. All around her people were being taken over. All around her chaos was simmering beneath the surface of human potential. An army was being raised right on the streets and right before her eyes. Vertigo claimed her as her vision jettisoned her from New York to Copenhagen, to Kenya to Milan. Remote islands, metropolises, it didn't matter, the invasions were unrelenting.

Arms outstretched, she ran toward a school yard and then skidded to a halt as high school students fell into darkness. She couldn't breathe.Not the children . Her gaze fell upon a middle school and she watched as dark entities swarmed the windows like locusts.

Damali covered her face and turned away.Tell me this plague's name so we can send it back into the pit! Within seconds she was in a hospital, her hands pressed flat against a nursery's glass window and she saw the shadows slide eerily into the nurses' bodies, but none touched the babies. Yet that provided no relief. One nurse simply smiled and turned off an incubator's oxygen.

"No!" Damali's voice escalated with her panic. She had to know what this entity was in order to fight it. Not vampire, not succubus, the team had never seen a manifestation like this. "Tell me its name!"

Suddenly every person on the streets everywhere she looked had a sinister companion and they all smiled at her simultaneously and whispered back, "My name is legions."

"Damali.Damali!"

A tight grasp held her upper arms and she was mildly aware of being shaken. Time snapped back. She caught Carlos by his elbows, panting and covered with sweat.

"You all right?Damali, talk to me!"

"I saw it," she gasped. "It's already starting."

As soon as she'd made the statement, she shrugged out of Carlos's hold and covered her mouth and nose.

"Get that out of the house!" she demanded, jumping down from the stool and backing away from the counter, pointing at her untouched food.

"Oh, shit!" Carlos toppled his stool as he backed up quickly and stared at the larvae teeming over the edge of the container.

The moment his silvery line of vision hit it, the entire platter exploded, sending disgusting, maggoty gore everywhere. Instantly shielded by a golden disc, the couple took refuge as they watched the wriggling mass rain down on the translucent surface and sizzle and disappear with a sulfuric stench. Everything the larvae plopped down on made them fry and evaporate. Marlene's kitchen was well anointed, and Inez had undoubtedly backtracked through it and given it a second blessing.

No less than they'd expected, they immediately heard heavy footfalls and knew the team was headed into the kitchen in a call to arms. Carlos and Damali shared a glance.

"Inez is gonna have a cow," Damali said, dry-heaving from the residual sulfur smell.

"After Marlene has a heart attack," Carlos muttered, checking twice before lowering the shield to be sure it had stopped raining maggots. "This happened in her kitchen." He looked at Damali. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she said, swallowing down the feeling of nausea and then stepping around his shield to assess the damage.

"I don't understand. I prayed over it." He looked at the scorched counter where the platter had been. "Lopez even prayed over it from the other side."

"That's why it never made it to my mouth," Damali said in a tight voice. "But it came from the outside . . . they were laying for you, baby. They've been laying for any of us to leave the compound for weeks, so I guess now it's officially on. Vacation is over."

Carlos nodded and set his jaw hard as fellow Guardians came to a halt at the kitchen's threshold.

"What the f-" Rider stopped mid-expletive as he spied Inez's mom and toddler, and he held out his arm to bar them from fully entering the kitchen. "Sulfur's so thick in here you'd think we'd entered a hellhole."

"Jesus H. Christ," Berkfield muttered as his gaze scanned the black pockmarked kitchen cabinets, floor, counter, and appliances.

"I'll just be damned." Marlene's words seethed between her teeth as she entered the kitchen with Inez, both women placing their hands on their hips. Marlene's gaze narrowed as she surveyed the damage. "Up inmy laboratory . . . where I do my sacred work?"

"Aw, hell to the no," Inez said, unable to curtail her rage as she walked across the smoldering floor and folded her arms over her ample breasts."A breach in here,my kitchen , where I feed my family?"

"What happened?" Shabazz said, putting the safety on his Glock 9mm. His long dreadlocks were static-charged with fury and the muscles in his toned arms, shoulders, and back kneaded like that of a stalking panther's as he walked deeper into the abused room.

Yonnie's and Carlos's eyes met.

"Were they looking for me?" Yonnie asked, making the group turn and stare at him." 'Cause if it's my time, I'll go out there and let them take me rather than bring this bull on the family, yo." He glanced at Valkyrie and lifted his chin. "Bound to happen sooner or later, so if they're-"

"They'll always be looking for you, man," Carlos said in an angry rumble."Just like they'll always be looking for me and everybody else on this team. We ain't sacrificingno family to appease the Beast-got that, man?"

"Cool. Then I'll take that as a no, this wasn't personal then," Yonnie said, sniffing the air and retracting his fangs.

"Oh, it was personal," Carlos assured him. "They personally want me, you, and everybody else on this team dead."

"Yo," Damali said, frowning, and then nodded toward Ayana.

Carlos paced to the window and sent his gaze beyond it."My bad.Team meeting in the Situation Room."

Rider and Jose walked to the sliding-glass doors, opened them, and then hocked and spit out over the deck rails.

"Definitely in another room,holmes ," Jose said, shaking his head. "You know us guys with the noses for sulfur can't deal with this."

"Mom," Inez said, looking at her daughter. "Why don't you and Yaya go put on some cartoons . . . I'll fill you in later."

The child shook her head and rushed to hold on to her mother's leg. "Don't wanna go with Nana. I wanna stay with you, Mommy! I'm scared!"

"C'mon, boo," Big Mike said, lifting the child up and giving her a hug. He held her high off the floor, his six-foot-eight cinder-block frame of solid muscle a promise of sure safety, and he looked at her with a tender smile. "Did Uncle Mike ever tell you a lie, suga?"

The patience of the team's gentle giant who doubled as a killing machine held the group in thrall. Inez's eyes conveyed such a level of intimate gratitude that Mike simply traced her cheek and pushed her long microbraids behind her ear before turning to her daughter again.

"DoUncle Mike lie to his Yaya?" Giving the three-year-old his complete focus, Mike waited until the child yielded and finally shook her head.

"Then I'm not gonna tell you a lie right now. You trust me?"

It took a moment, but Ayana nodded.

"We gonna be right in the next room. In fact, we'll keep the door open while you put on your shows with Grandma. I bet she's sorta worried and needs a big girl like you to sit on her lap to make her feel better."

"I sure would like that, honeybird," Delores said, coming in close to rub her frightened granddaughter's back. She looked up at Big Mike's towering frame."Thank you for such a good idea, son."

"See," Mike said, nodding with confidence, his voice steady and soothing as he spoke to his stepdaughter, "then, when we finish, Mommy will be right there to scoop you up . . . but smell it in here," he added, wrinkling up his nose. "It's all stinky, making Uncle Rider and Uncle Jose sick . . . Aunt Damali ain't looking too good neither . . . so we need to go where it don't smell so bad. Does that make sense? We need to let Uncle Carlos air this room out and fix it nice and pretty again. Is that okay with you, little lady?"

Ayana popped her thumb in her mouth and hugged his thick neck, mumbling over the digit. "Yup, it stinks."

Big Mike forced a laugh to ease the child's very real fears."Eiiieww."

The moment Ayana giggled, the team let out a collective sigh of relief and started walking to the new location. Mike's diplomacy had worked. Inez and Damali mouthed a silent thank-you toward the huge Guardian, while Inez's mother simply hugged herself as she walked-clearly too terror-stricken to do much more.

Within five minutes, the group had settled into the Situation Room with the blare of cartoons coming into the room from the hall. Damali scanned the team, giving each person a knowing look to be cool, lest little ears overhear. They all understood that they needed to give it a few minutes before launching into gory details of death, Hell, and destruction. The kid needed to relax and be otherwise engaged. Nobody wanted her psyche scarred by the insanity of the life the team lived, but it seemed like it was becoming increasingly difficult to avoid that.

Although expressions conceded to Damali's silent terms, each pair of eyes held a different mix of emotions that she knew she and Carlos would have to wade through during the discussion.

Tara and Rider, like Shabazz and Marlene, were old-heads, respectively, and were from the old-school of Guardian thought that said no kids-ever. Guardians weren't allowed said luxury for a reason; it kept them near sane and there'd be no leverage point the darkside could use to totally break them. Having a lover or spouse was bad enough.

Damali looked at the two senior Guardian couples and tried to fight the anxiety brewing within her. Well more than forty and sans kids, those guys were going to start in about the hazards of children in the compound . . . she could feel it. They'd made their position clear early on; they understood that it was what it was, but didn't like it. They also knew the grief of loss, and how it would break the team's back if anything happened to little Ayana or Mom Delores. Marlene and Shabazz had the added worry of knowing that there was another child to be concerned about-hers. At least Tara and Rider hadn't figured that part out yet.

But keeping the scent of her blood changes away from Tara was going to be tricky. Tara had been a vampire once, understood the darkside, just like Yonnie did, and even Rider had had his brush with the vampire realms. Those guys had the vamp olfactory system still resident within them, and Jose as a nose was no slouch, either. Any Guardians that had once been vampires or had been tied to a vamp distant line, like Jose, knew the scents of the pit and had probably seen as many manifestations as she and Carlos had.

As she scanned the group during the tense silence, waiting for the child's happy voice to begin filtering into the room, she took in how the older team members' eyes held no patience for having to dance around the subject of imminent war due to civilians being in their camp. Early on they'd expressed their misgivings, and at the same time, they also understood that sending Ayana and Mom Delores away indefinitely was no longer an option. It was what Carlos had called that rock and a hard place position. At the moment she was standing in the middle of it.

The struggle was subtle. No words, just body language. Tara lifted her chin ever so slightly and folded her arms over her chest as she sat in a leather computer chair, tension making her lean, athletic frame seem taut enough to snap. Her silky, jet-black bob haircut barely swayed, her movements were so minute. A pair of deep-set eyes stared back at Damali unblinkingly, and the blend of African American and Native American cultures warred within Tara's exotic features. Her high cheekbones and hard-set jaw made her expression virtually unreadable. But Damali knew exactly where her Guardian sister was at-conflicted by her desperate fear for the child's safety and Inez's sanity if anything happened to little Ayana, and extreme annoyance for having to also deal with that on top of everything else.

Rider's reaction was much clearer than his wife's. The man was tired of the bullshit, plain and simple. Weary with life in general and drama in particular. She could dig it. The older Guardian just sighed and grabbed a ladder-back chair away from the weapons table, turned it around backward, and sat down hard, then raked his fingers through his dirty blond hair that was now littered with silver-gray strands. A pair of wise, hazel-brown eyes followed the team's every move. Carlos offered Rider a nod and a silent understanding passed between them. Clearly they were both mentally wrung.

However, Marlene moved slowly through the room, finally settling into a seat with care. She was obviously, and without apology, picking up vibes from every person in the room, monitoring the situation silently like a radar scanner. Her silver dreadlocks practically cracked with tension and the emotion of worry for Damali's secret circumstance. Her ebony skin, which was normally vibrant and smooth, had gone ashen. Shabazz glanced at Damali, then Carlos, and then finally at Marlene, his worry just as palpable behind the hard mask of his regal African features.

Carlos and Damali shared a quick glance. This was going to be tough, trying to go over the situation with every team member's special gift on high alert, and not tip their hand. But the Neteru Council had been adamant for them to wait before disclosing Damali's pregnancy, so that was the end of it.

The problem was that all the seers had frowns-even the younger members of the team.

Heather's wide gray eyes raked the couple. Her husband, Dan, absently sat down beside her and stroked her profusion of auburn curls. By nearly thirty, like Juanita and Inez, Heather had come into her own. Of the three midrange Guardian sisters, Heather was the strongest in picking up non-dream-state information. She'd be much harder to evade than Krissy or Jasmine, who had just recently made it to their twenties. Damali kept her eyes on Heather, not wanting to look at Juanita or Inez. Marjorie was another tough customer; she was Marlene's age . . . but the only saving grace was that Marj was somewhat naive and her gift wasn't as developed. Marj didn't go looking for stuff the way the others did.

Damali watched how her Guardian sister, Heather, almost shrugged away from Dan so she could study the source of her confusion better. It was like watching a bird dog hunt; Heather had picked up something but wasn't sure what it was. Carlos noticed it, too, and Damali could feel him sending in a subtle block to wrap around her aura.

Almost as though he'd heard his wife's request to pull back his tactical charge, Dan's hand left Heather's body space and he placed his palms on top of his spiked blond thicket of static-ridden hair, trying to calm it. Dan's crystal-blue gaze nervously assessed his wife for a moment, but he seemed to give up the quest for more data with a weary shrug.

It was no different with Bobby and Jasmine. Damali watched her Guardian sister's almond-shaped eyes rove over her, and then Jasmine leaned against the wall, refusing Bobby's nonverbal offer of a chair. She folded her arms over her petite breasts and her delicate, rosebudlike mouth formed a concerned pout. With an annoyed shrug, Jasmine tossed her long, blue-black hair over her shoulder, and stood there immovable, seeming very much like a fragile, tense, Asian porcelain doll. Unsure what to do, Bobby stood by her and finally dragged his fingers through his dark hair, glancing at his parents, Marj and Berkfield, for a moment, and then toward his sister.

Krissy caught her brother's glance, and gave a slight shrug. Clairvoyance was not the young wizard's strongest suit. Frowning as she spied the tension among the seer females on the team, Krissy fidgeted with the end of her long, blond ponytail, her gaze constantly checking with J.L., who practically had blue-static charge spilling onto the floor in a pool around them.

J.L. gave Carlos a direct look that contained a plea to start the meeting soon. The older couple, Marj and Berkfield, glanced at their daughter, the state of agitation their son-in-law was in, and then at Carlos and Damali.

"For the love of Christ," Berkfield said between his teeth, smoothing a flat palm over his bald head as he whispered. "We've gotta have a better way of doing team communications. My nerves can't take this crap much longer."

"I'll drink to that," Rider said, standing and heading toward the wet bar."Even at seven in the damned morning."

"Yo, yo, yo," Shabazz said to Rider, laughing. "It ain't that dramatic, man. Can't be . . . can it?" He gave Damali and Carlos a curious stare as Rider halted in the middle of the room.

"They violated the five-second rule, dude. Didn't answer fast enough," Rider said. "You guys who don't have the noses have no idea." He poured five shot glasses of Jack Daniel's and handed them out to Tara, Jose, Carlos, and Yonnie, keeping one forhimself . "A little something while we wait for the Cartoon Network to kick in the kid hypnosis. This ain't about alcoholism or morning indulgence. This is about getting brimstone off our palates." He threw back the shot and then shuddered hard. "Works like a charm-ask me how I know."

Four more Guardians tossed down a shot and shuddered.

"Thanks,holmes ," Jose said as Yonnie pounded Rider's fist as he passed him.

"Much obliged," Tara said, giving Rider her shot glass, but never taking her eyes off Damali. "So what the hell's going on?"

Juanita cut Tara a silent thank-you with her eyes and then slid her voluptuous body onto the edge of the weapons table. Her dark eyes pinned Carlos to the wall beside Damali and she set her lush mouth with an unspoken question while gathering up her long brunet tresses into a clip on top of her head.

"Whatever it is, your ass is lying, Carlos Rivera. No offense, Damali, but I know my Guardian brother."

Damali had to laugh and took no offense. Of all people, Juanita would know. Once lovers, some things were just obvious. Even Carlos cracked a half smile, but kept itrespectful, glancing at both Jose and Damali to be sure he hadn't crossed the line.

"You're right," Damali said, allowing her back to hit the wall with a thud. "I'm sure Carlos was about to say it wasn't that bad, and it is, folks . . . that'swhy we were waiting until the little bird got engrossed in her cartoons."

The half-truth made bodies relax all around the room. Carlos gave her a quick glance filled with amazement.

You're getting as good as I used to be.

Damali swallowed a smile and didn't answer his telepathically sent message. Inez walked over toward the door and peeked down the hall briefly, and then quietly pulled it closed behind her short, curvaceous frame.

"Okay, now I'm really worried," Inez said in a low tone. She gnawed on her bottom lip for a moment and then wiped her damp palms down the back pockets of her jeans.

"Any time sulfur and brimstone is blowing up in my kitchen, it cannot be a good thing," Marlene said, folding her arms over her chest.

"Then you would have loved the maggot explosion, followed by a larva rain," Carlos said dryly, pushing his body off the wall to begin pacing.

"A what!"Marlene and Inez gasped in unison.

"Damn, Carlos," Damali muttered. "Why'd you have to go there?"

"Because it was what it was," hesaid, his tone defensive. "Look-I made a run this morning to get D some grub that she had a taste for. I was sick and tired of being cooped up in the compound and I took a drive . . . came back, prayed over it, and began telling her about something J.L. showed me, and boom. The shit blew up nasty."

"That was because everything he's been importing for the last few weeks comes in his silver light sweep.So, if your food or whatever hasn't been right, it wouldn't have gotten here . . . but this was hand-carried in. The prayers made it erupt into what it was once I was out of my vision daze and about to pick up a plastic fork. So, on that note, we don't need to panic. Unless someone physically from our side brought it over the threshold, it couldn't have gotten in."

"Aw'ight, that's cool," Yonnie said, lolling a toothpick around in his mouth. "But, uh, homeboy . . . like the lady said, you accidentally brought it over the threshold, so how you know some residual shit ain't still in here?"

Valkyrie gently touched Yonnie's arm, her large brown eyes slowing his words as her graceful, ebony palm traced his cheek. "I'm a half-angel, and can go after it so that it does not harm the teamnor the child. You don't have to ever go back to Hell."

Rider groaned as Yonnie filled his hands with Val's platinum dreadlocks, and her athletic body melted into his.

"In the midst of the Armageddon . . . brand-new couples with the hots, babies, grandmothers, what next, Lord?" Rider said in a sarcastic tone. He turned to Tara and folded his arms. "Would you be too terribly pissed off if I went out to get a pack of Marlboros and never came back? I swear I need a cigarette!"

"The kitchen is cool," Carlos muttered. "You see the silver scorch damage up in there?"

"Word," Shabazz said, pounding Jose's fist. "Butan extra layer of protection before you go in and white light it back together wouldn't hurt."

"True," Damali said, glad that the team's focus had been derailed from her personal circumstance. "Marlene, Val, 'Nez . . . the power of three . . . cool?"

"Done," Marlene said, but she held Damali's gaze for a moment, opening a mental channel to her and Carlos.And until we sweep it, you stay out of there .

Damali simply nodded as Carlos began to pace. "Cool."

"Then, since I was outside," Carlos said, holding Marlene's gaze with mild terror in his eyes, "I'll need you to hook me up a white bath, and make it do what it do . . . I don't want anything I could have made contact with cominganywhere near D or the team."

"I'll blast you, no problem," Marlene said as the team grew tense again. "But I've got something on the doors that would have made you sick as a dog if you were carrying, trust me."

"Cool. I can take that to the bank?" Carlos stared at Marlene.

"You can take it to the bank and cash that sucker with no ID, brother," Marlene said, her tone unwavering. "I knowexactly what's at stake up in here and I ain't playing with the bullshit, either."

"Aw'ight . . . thenwe're good." Carlos dragged his fingers through his hair again as a very quiet team stared at him. "Next issue," he said, beginning to walk down the row of semiautomatic weapons that were mounted on a far wall. "It was really a backhanded blessing that Damali sent me on an errand and then as a result, this shit bubbled up in the kitchen, or we coulda went out there and gotten blindsided as a team. What kicked everything off in the chain of events was the fact that J.L. found something interesting in the airwaves."

Before Carlos had finished his statement, J.L. had jumped up from the stool he'd been sitting on in one lithe move and had begun walking in front of the seated team, waving his hands as he spoke. He looked like a crazed martial arts instructor, using jabs and karate cuts to the air to emphasize each point. Both Neterus watched the team absorb the implications one by one, and only when J.L. was finished and the questions being fired at him had died down did Damali speak.

"That was the good news," she finally said with a weary sigh. "Now let me fill you in on what's waiting for us outside."