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She'd tried to tell him, a long, long time ago… when they'd sat on the beach, when they'd argue street politics… when he'd smile and say, "Baby, I got it all under control." But he never would listen, thought life was a game, and it could be played to the bone, but some shit you just didn't fuck with, the dark realm was one of those things, to name a few. Machismo, male drama, he'd rolled out every day dangling by a thread between life and death or worse—half-life. Oblivious, until something deep moved on him, and then it was all over. And she'd seen so many fine brothers, just like him—leaving people to wail and pray after their souls… now even that within Carlos was gone.
Although she knew life wasn't fair, was a grown woman, a vampire huntress that they proclaimed had some invincible, powerful, unstoppable vibe within her—and could bring it, in this very private moment of personal defeat—she wished so desperately that it could be fair—just once. What if? Basic reality and life was kicking her ass. Watching a person come so close to making the right choice, and then watching them become too entrenched and afraid to step off from the old and into the new, and then watching them drift back to their old ways like it was a comfortable sweater, and watching, helpless, unable to do a thing about it all when time just decided to run out on them, felt like unparalleled defeat.
And an old sister of her soul, the warrior queen, proud with head high, sat beside her, just rubbing her back and rocking with her, probably crying inside her own heart for those same losses like that to the world. Marlene knew. Now so did she.
Even being a baaad-sister didn't stop this type of shit from hurting. Mar had tried to warn her. Said it wasn't a flesh wound, wasn't nuthin' to play with, couldn't be sewn up with stitches… couldn't be set in a splint—but eventually she would have to set it straight to survive, not being able to breathe from the pain. It was a rite of passage—stepping off, leaving the dead in body, mind, and spirit, and moving on. But Heaven hear her cry, this one really hurt.
Bitter sobs wracked Damali, and Marlene petted them up through her bent spine to help her system flush itself of pain. All women knew this magic, the ancient art of healing through touch—the shamans didn't own province over it, this was female power at its best… compassion, letting hurt just run its course, till disappointment magnified to screaming wails, but it was the thing that brought back sanity after the storm.
Every loss she'd sustained purged with the tears, and now she knew why Jose was dying from the inside out. There were things worse than death, watching a loved one fall and slip away was one of them, and she cried for every mother, every father, every child, every brother, every sister, every lover, every grandmom, every spouse, every anybody who had to sit and weep and watch and witness their prayers go to hell in a handbasket.
Crazy part was, her spirit hurt so bad that, after a while, she just stepped it out of her body, and watched her whole drama of rocking and crying from a remote place in her mind. That type of decision had to be the brain's safety valve, a thing that happened to people when their sobs got too intense, she imagined. She sat beside herself, helping Marlene, wondering when her well of tears would run dry. Because she didn't go there—had never truly allowed herself to just lose it. So what the fellas had gathered around the door, and for whatever reason, that only made the tears fall harder. Perhaps the worst part of it all was that she didn't even trust herself anymore.
She had quietly loved this man who'd been her knight in shining armor, had loved this street warrior gone rogue who'd rescued her from foster care—she had loved him … so much for so long… didn't he know that even turned, they still had a bond? She'd known he'd crossed over, way before the kiss—but had lied to herself, hoping. Didn't want to believe her instincts. Wasn't sure which line got crossed in his dark path, general life or something harder. There was just no denying it; she still wanted him, turned and all—regardless of what she might do. Didn't matter if she walked away, like she knew she would. There'd still be the marker for him where the brand landed a long time ago. Some truth was so deep that she couldn't even say it to herself. Seeing him in the shower now made so much sense, his eyes, then eyes she didn't know—both were his, the light and the dark side of the same man—it had been a premonition.
So she cried until she just had to lie down and sleep it off, which was better that way—at least she didn't have to keep telling herself the awful, hard truth.
Marlene shut Damali's bedroom door, walked down the long hall, entered the weapons room where the team gathered, and glanced at Big Mike.
Mike tilted his head to the side and nodded. "She's not stirring, Mar. If you're not picking anything up either, we can talk."
"When are you going to tell her, Mar?" Shabazz asked in a tense voice. "She'll be shark bait on her birthday, and we might not be able to stop it. You just saw what happened."
Jose nodded. "I've been trying to design something for her… something that can keep her from even being scratched. When I was knocked out at the hospital, I saw it in my head. Got the idea from the light wands."
Without Jose having to tell him, Big Mike brought over Jose's sketch pad, and he flipped it to the page that held a new pencil drawing.
"Looks like a shark-resistant wetsuit," Rider chuckled.
"It is. Reinforced silver-threaded fabric sealed to a thin layer of Kevlar with fiberoptic threads running through it. Covers her from head to toe, but looks like it's concert worthy… shows the curves, fits like a glove, but won't let her sustain a bite or a scratch—except in the face… but she won't let them nick her face. Madame Isis covers her front, and will back the vamps up. Doesn't keep her from broken bones or internally hemorrhaging, though, should one of them really land a hard blow. If she gets bitten in the shark suit, the jaws of a vamp deliver the force of a great white. So she can still get hurt, but at least their virus won't get into her bloodstream."
"By the time her birthday rolls around," Marlene said quietly, "the likelihood that she'll be killed from a bite will diminish. That's not their objective, to kill her."
"Precisely," Shabazz murmured. "But, the suit is extra insurance, and is da bomb, Jose."
Jose smiled and dropped his open book on the table, even that small effort appearing to have drained him.
"How long does the suit battery last?" J.L. murmured, glancing at the fatigue in Jose and getting up to look at the design closer. "This is awesome, brother."
"Thanks," Jose breathed in a rasp. "Wanted to still do my part. The battery lasts about four to five minutes, but if she gets surrounded, or they take her into a dark lair, she'll leave 'em smoking."
"That makes me feel a little better, after what we just saw." Rider sighed.
Big Mike smiled. His fingers drummed the edge of the table serving a funky beat, trying to lift spirits, and working hard to calm his own frayed nerves. "Jose, man, we're connected. You did your thing. This is the first time in weeks I started feeling my rhythm again. Words are pouring into my head."
"Let spirit speak," Jose said with a weak chuckle. "We all need a positive word after what y'all told me."
Big Mike grinned. "We gonna have Damali's back, and blow that concert wide open."
Mike waited for the others to nod in agreement. The group needed a confidence boost. They couldn't just go down like that, and Damali needed something to give her new energy, too. Her sobs had broken him up. He'd never heard her sound so sad. As an audio sensor, he knew her crying would stay with him for weeks, maybe longer. The only thing he could do was to replace it with something else. Perhaps that's why he loved his music so much. It cleared his head, blocked things he didn't want to hear. He glanced at his team. They smiled. They understood. They were his family. He started a beat on the table again. Words came to his mind, chased away Damali's tears, and rushed past his lips.
"She leaves 'em smokin'—on fire… baby got da high beams for any desire. She's hot, burning with emotion—passion so deep, she ain't jokin'… she ain't playin'—will beatcha down. Betta step off, or hit d
a ground… She's running wit da big dogs, stay on the porch—this ain't no game, baby's got da torch, 'cause—"
"She leaves 'em smoking—so watch your back! Nighttime's coming when creatures attack. She'll drop a body, dead or alive. She works da rhythms like a nine to five." Rider laughed, making J.L. join in.
"Go, Jose, get your energy on, my brother," Big Mike teased.
"Ain't scared of nothin'," Jose said with a smile, picking up from J.L., "ain't worried 'bout a thing. Baby's locked and loaded when she steps in the ring. The wise will tell you, ya betta step off, 'cause—"
"She leaves 'em smokin'," Rider repeated. "All day and all night. Li'l sis ain't bluffin', check her stance. Fights fire wit fire, the only chance. Baby owns the high road, ain't kickin' it low—"
"Will hunt cha down, so act like you know." Big Mike picked up the tempo and winked at Shabazz. "I ain't lying, just ask her friends. Hunts like a panther to the very end…"
Satisfied that his medicine was working, Mike laughed hard. Even Dan was tapping out an offbeat rhythm, though his spastic ass couldn't rap. Everyone on the team laughed except Marlene and Shabazz as the others kept the beat, and each freestyled a verse, adding to it, releasing tension.
"Smoking." Rider jumped in again. "Watch your back. Baby got da high beams, don't lose track."
"Smokin'—hear what I'm sayin'? Smokin', I ain't lying, smoking, leaves 'em cryin' and dyin', smokin' like a house on fire, smoking, and your only chance, betta—"
"Enough!" Marlene yelled, bringing an end to beat-box revelry. "You guys think this is a joke?"
"Naw, Mar, it's a great concert entrance song to go with her new weapon outfit. Screw it," Rider said with a nonchalant chuckle. "If we gotta do this, then let's do this. You wanted new music, we're all fucked up, everybody's head is twisted, and we have to get a show right before tomorrow. But, no, we don't think this is a joke. Trust me."
Jose shrugged. "Look, we're in the business, we're all artists—need new material to come out smokin'."
J.L., Big Mike, and Rider looked at him and laughed, and started beating on the edge of the weapons table in percussion harmony again.
"You're awful quiet, brother Shabazz," Rider said with a sheepish grin as Marlene stormed from the room.
"Do you know what the significance is of the seventh trait that you guard? The last thing that will happen to our girl on her birthday?"
The team fell silent and gave Shabazz their attention, casting nervous glances between them. Finally Big Mike shrugged. "She'll get stronger, the hunts more dangerous, she'll have to ward off a master who might be sniffing around her, like Carlos, getting hopeful—we're just having a little fun while there's still something to laugh about. You and Mar need to chill."
"On her birthday she becomes a vessel for both sides. Every seven years a female Neteru can either produce another vampire huntress, if made with a guardian—or her womb can sustain a vamp. Her antibodies against vampirism don't kick in until her birthday, didn't you all hear Marlene before?"
Shabazz finally nodded when satisfied that their expressions were suitably terror-stricken enough to produce reverence for the issue.
"Shit," Rider whispered. "Like, man, I thought we were guarding her coming into some Zen-master-slayer state or some shit like that, I mean for real for real, so I wasn't really all that concerned, given our girl was getting stronger and shit, you understand the shit I'm saying, right? Holy shit!"
"You're babbling, Rider. And watch your mouth, like Marlene has been telling us for years."
"Fucking A, I'm babbling, Shabazz. Damn."
"You think Marlene would be all freaked out just because Damali is getting stronger, and might get a rush from killing a vamp? Stronger, able to draw them out of a lair—that would be a good thing, right? Think about it. It's the vulnerability that Marlene is rightfully trippin' about."
"This is too deep." Jose slumped over the table, leaning on his elbows, and shook his head.
"Profound is a better word," J.L. murmured. "Like the bullshit of legends."
"I'm still not following," Big Mike said, ignoring the group's dismissive glances of impatience.
"What the hell is not to understand, Mike?" Rider was walking around swinging his arms wildly. "One of them does her, and it's all over."
"No," Mike said, shaking his head. "Why now? At twenty-one? Talk to me, Shabazz. She's like my baby sister."
"It has to be a guardian that sires, or—"
"Aw, shit, we do not need that level of complexity in the group, dude." Rider began circling again. "Aw, man, aw, man, aw, man…"
"Relax. She has one hundred and forty-four thousand guardians on the planet to choose from. Remember? Nobody in here needs to worry or get their hopes up—the chemistry would have already been identified by now, and he would have been led to her… and he hasn't been. Correction, he was, but that's history. His choice. Shit happens."
"That's cool," Rider said woefully. "Okay. I can live with that. But, just for the record, anybody know who Prince Charming was?"
J.L. slapped the back of Rider's head. "Listen and learn so we can do our job, man. It was supposed to be Rivera, but he chose the dark path."
"Ow, fine. But don't try to act like nobody else never thought about it."
Big Mike grabbed Rider by the shoulders and sat him down hard on a stool. "Shut. Up. Rider. And listen."
"Vampires can't breed… their seed is dead, and in the females, the wombs are dead, right? Nothing ages on or in them beyond the age of the host's death." J.L. rubbed his faced with both palms and then began walking. "They make more of them through the bite. Period. I don't understand how a Neteru—"
"You're right, except if a Neteru willingly gives vampire seed a host—that's the choice. Not whether or not we sent a hunting party to New Orleans, or to do the concert. Please!"
Now Shabazz was pacing. "On her birthday, our Neteru's sensory patterns will lock in and her body is going to change again to add the seventh sense—which uses all senses, and she's going to have to fight a craving that's as bad as the vampire thirst. She'll be in here like a damned junkie. On the positive side, if a guardian gets to her, or the initial fertility season passes, then we have no issue, and we're cool for another seven years. But, if the vamps get to her, then we've got a serious problem. There's a one-month window when her system, for lack of a better term, reboots—old antibodies flush, she's susceptible to the vampire viral infection, and it takes a month for her to be restored."
"They'll try to turn her, right? So we just have to be on red alert during this first one-month vulnerability window?"
"No, Jose. Were it just that simple. If she gets bitten and impregnated before her full tolerance is set, which is synergistic to the vampires' romantic proclivities—biting is an integral part of their passion process, all lusts are involved when they… You get my drift. She'll only have enough antibodies in her system to keep her from turning, but not anything else in her body. It takes a month from her birthday, till her next cycle—her first full cycle after her birthday, for her to be in the clear. Are you hearing me?"
"Talk to us, Shabazz," Rider murmured. "If there aren't enough antibodies flooding her system when it's virally infected and she conceives, the cells will first ensure the host, the Neteru, is not endangered? The antibodies won't help the fetus if there aren't enough in Damali's body to assist both, is what you're saying? Everything about the way she was created is meant to keep her fighting?"
Shabazz let his breath out hard. "Yeah, Rider. Plus, if she gets into a telepathy lock with a master, she'll want him to bite her, like a dare almost, to draw him to her. It's her hunting instinct. But the possible backfire is, within the lock, she'll also be feeling his urges as strongly as if they were her own. She can transmit, and she can receive and feel him—has to in order to locate him. The right guardian will be lead to her the same way one day. That's the double-edged sword of the telepathy gift, though. A master vamp will be trembling to bite her. She
'll feel that primal desire, too. But she won't have a natural fear of it, because instinctively she knows it can't hurt her—and that's her vulnerability—the fearlessness. It'll kick in all of her hunting instincts, which are a real turn-on for the male vamps. Gentlemen, consider the reality of a huntress that was genuinely afraid of a vampire bite; do you think that human entity could repeatedly go into harm's way where she could be bitten?"
"No," Big Mike murmured, his expression one of stricken awe.
"Right," Shabazz said evenly. "And trust me, fellas, if she has that master vamp in a mind lock to be able to track him, her instinctive goal to always get to his lair to terminate him, but she will transmit her first flash of competing desires back to him—and he'll oblige. It's a dance. She lures him, he steps to her, she pulls him harder until he can't stand it and stops hiding from her. Then, it's on. Whoever is stronger, wins. Think back on those roiling emotions of your first time, huh?"
Big Mike walked in an agitated circle and began wringing his hands. "Oh, brother, brother, brother. That's some powerful feelin's. You ain't scared of your momma, your daddy… will walk through fire to—"
"Mike, why do you think me and Mar have been a nervous wreck? She's grown in human terms, but in Neteru physiology… Damn. Look, problem is, poor baby girl does not understand that she could host a daywalker. Her protective instincts would never allow us to drive a stake into an infant vamp when it comes into the world bearing fangs… then they'll have her. She would flee to be with them, if for no other reason than to protect it. She'd hide in their lairs, they would provide her hybrid child food, amnesty, teach it their ways, and it would be daywalker royalty. And our Neteru would willingly agree, once humans attempted to eliminate it, because what mother doesn't want her child to belong to a society that accepts and protects it and gives it opportunity to thrive?"
