The Damned

by L. A. Banks

  “Things should be black or white, shouldn’t they?”

  He held her back to stare into her eyes.

  She almost felt sorry for Dante as she watched him struggle with the way the world had changed since his time in it. It was so tempting to ask who this new heir was, and how to locate him, so that the young Neteru could slaughter him. But she didn’t dare press for more information than she’d already gleaned through just the merest suggestion of an affair. Any more, and she would have to offer Dante a night—an unacceptable trade. So she gave him empathy instead.

  “Things were indeed once black and white,” she finally murmured, her tone wistful. “But your father’s bargain created a gray zone …”

  He came to her and leaned his head against her forehead. “My absolutely insane father …”

  “Dante … listen to me,” she said softly.

  He kissed the top of her head, stopping her words. “I love the way you say my name, even under these circumstances…. Say it again, on a deeper breath, and allow it to run all through me.” He couldn’t even bring himself to smile as her eyes searched his face. “I can’t talk about this sordid shit in the realms anymore…. Send me a pain block through your voice … my name lingering in your mouth as I capture it.” He closed his eyes and attempted a mental siphon without her permission.

  She chuckled. “The answer is no before you even ask. Do not go further into my mind for an immediate beachfront seduction.”

  He pretended to shudder just to keep her melodic laughter mingling with the pound of the surf. “Just another little mind lock, Eve, after all these years? They surely aren’t still guarding you as though you were a teenager…. You’re a grown woman now, love…. They’ll never know.”

  She laughed and pushed him away, seizing his mercurial transition into a good mood as an opportunity. “Who is the new threat? I’d rather have you on your old throne, where order was maintained, than this new problem.” She folded her arms over her breasts. “At least you and I understood each other. You were never rash and impetuous.” She smiled and gave him a sexy wink. “Well, maybe just once.”

  “Ah … you do remember.” He clucked his tongue and chuckled low in his throat as his hot gaze raked her. “Flattery will get you everywhere. But to extract that level of information, only a barter in Dananu would be acceptable.”

  “Propose your requirement,” she whispered to him in Dananu.

  Just allowing him to see that she remembered all he’d taught her at the base of the Tree of Knowledge compromised him fully, so a flat-out seduction attempt was more than fair, he reasoned. He filled his hands with her hair and took her mouth slowly.

  “All night, once again … in a garden. Then we can discuss it.”

  He watched her study his face, then glance up at the stars as though seriously considering his offer. The seconds of hesitation that she drew out made him tremble. But suddenly every light that had been in the sky, save the moon, went out. She giggled and shook her head.

  “No can do,” she whispered seductively. “They’ll do the Armageddon, first, before they cosign that.”

  He chuckled low in his throat and ran a sharp fang down her jugular. “I ought to bite you just for teasing me—just take the plunge out of spite.”

  “And torch on impact,” she whispered. Running her hands over his broad shoulders. “I have very old silver in my veins that stirs hot when unwilling … Shall we be serious?”

  “You’re sure you’re unwilling?” He nuzzled her hair. “Not even for old time’s sake?”

  “No,” she cooed.

  “Why are you so uncooperative, love?”

  “It’s my job,” she said laughing low and sexy.

  “Then I guess the new kid on the block is going to have to work this out on her own,” he said, kissing Eve’s temple as he fought off a shudder when she stroked his neck. “This one is formidable. Might be her Achilles’ heel,” he added, teasing her to keep her smile radiant.

  “I guess we’ll just have to see,” she whispered, closing the small space between their bodies and allowing her hands to trail down his back. “Since you insist on being so stubborn.”

  “This is unfair, Eve.” His eyes held a combination of amusement and anguish. “Your side is as ruthless as mine.”

  “How so?” She cocked her head to the side, waiting.

  His arms enfolded her again as he openly inhaled her scent. “You come to me trailing Neteru from the Garden, and tell me your husband doesn’t know you’re with me,” he said, his breathing beginning to labor. “Fill my arms, allow me to sample your skin, your mouth, your voice … and your touch.” He shook his head with his eyes closed. “Ruthless negotiation ploy and damned near effective,” he whispered, brushing her mouth. “They wait until a man is completely compromised to strike. Pit father against son, wait until that son is dethroned, and then put the woman of his dreams for millennia in his arms and ask him a question.” He nicked her earlobe and let the drop of blood fall to her shoulder just to inhale it. “Then deny that poor bastard as he writhes while insisting that he give up information they want. Evil.”

  He chuckled as she smiled wider and touched the drop of blood to her lips to taunt him. “Eve, you are dangerously close to the edge of battle on this beach. I’ve been through a lot, lately, and am not quite as rational as you may believe.” His voice dipped an octave. “Especially with you … I might attempt a violation to go out in a blaze.”

  “All right,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll stop, but I had to try.”

  “So did I,” he said quietly in a defeated tone. “I thought everything in the universe was negotiable, love of my existence. Don’t leave. I’ve no one to really talk to or rule … and have been alone for months.”

  She came to him and ran her fingers through his hair as she hugged him. “Sometimes there’s room for negotiation.”

  This time when he shuddered, it was no act.

  “Stop toying with me, Eve,” he whispered. “There is no such thing as resistance around you. I have to go, if you’re not willing. Merely talking to you when I’m like this is worse than a battle in Dananu.”

  She sighed and allowed her hand to fall to his shoulder. “Then at least close the portals and help us hunt down Lilith.”

  “I cannot close off what her Level-Seven energy opened as long as she’s alive. But hunting her down to adequately repay her larceny is on my agenda.”

  “Thank you,” Eve whispered and took his mouth in a long, sensuous kiss. “You’ll help us dethrone the new threat we’re blind to, as well?”

  “Oh, to be sure,” he said, taking her mouth again. “I will bring you his head.” He deepened the kiss until a groan fought inside his chest. “You can’t see him? Interesting.”

  “No,” she said on a breathy exhalation, practically swooning in his arms from the long kiss. “For some reason he’s shielded to hunter councils. That is why we are so concerned.” She closed her eyes. “Damn … you get me every time, Dante.”

  “You didn’t do too bad extracting from me, either,” he said, reveling in the skin covering her spine. “You have gotten older and so much stronger.” He took her mouth hard, punishing it, then attended to her throat, but didn’t break the skin, just made her gasp. “You said you were concerned—how concerned—tell me now?” he asked in a hissing rush of air, pulling her against him hard.

  His hands had begun to slowly dissolve her gown.

  She opened her eyes and gave him a glare through a soft laugh. “Not that concerned.”

  “Let’s get back to the part about everything being negotiable.”

  Again the stars disappeared and angry gray clouds passed over the moon.

  The Chairman sighed and let Eve go. “They play hardball with no sense of humor,” he muttered. He studied Eve for a moment; the complete darkness temporarily fracturing anything rational left within him. “Only Neteru who has my heart, let me propose a tender offer.” He waited as she stared at him, more ravishing
in the complete darkness. “If I deliver Lilith’s head and dethrone this pretender prince to my throne by summarily exterminating his young, arrogant ass … would you be inclined to wager another visit on a moonless night and remove the will barrier to me … just for one night?” He waited, knowing that he should allow her to answer before speaking again, but couldn’t help himself. “That’s my final offer.”

  “Let me take the request up with authorities,” she said, smiling at him in the completely blackened night.

  “That you would even propose it to your council inspires me.”

  She chuckled deeply and began walking toward the water. “Oh, Dante, don’t be silly. This has to be discussed way higher than in council.”

  Stunned, he held her with a magnetic bolt of dark energy to keep her from leaving. “You would do that for me?” he whispered in awe. “Take such a request that high up?” He closed his eyes.

  “I have to go,” she said, looking at the dark energy current.

  “Wait,” he said in a rush, wanting to keep her talking and interacting with him for the rest of the night. “I hear the young female Neteru no longer has her blade.”

  Eve smiled. “That was a very sloppy attempt to make me jealous, Dante. Really. That was beneath you.” She shook her head as his gaze slid away with embarrassment. “If she gets into trouble, you know we’ll make sure it’s restored when necessary.” Eve remained serene. “But if you’d rather take your chances with her …”

  He laughed, contrite. “She tried to strangle me, Eve. Have you ever? In my own chambers!”

  Eve laughed with him and covered her mouth with her hand. “Dante, you are from the Old World with a different set of sensibilities. However, if you insist on running after a younger woman …”

  “You know you’re irreplaceable. She was just a fantasy, a diversion because I missed you so.” His smile faded as his face became serious. “With you, I could withstand the night for several more millennia.” He stepped closer. “With you, no daywalker would be necessary for me to find contentment.”

  “Ah,” Eve breathed. “Then I stand corrected.”

  “I am dead serious, no longer negotiating.”

  Her smile faded and her voice became gentler. “Then I really must go.”

  “Did I tell you that you’re beautiful?” He looked up at the now pitch-black sky. “They can eclipse every star and every moon in the galaxy, but I would still be able to see your radiance in the dark. Stay with me tonight.”

  She shook her head no, and for the first time since he’d spotted her on the beach, fear reflected in her eyes.

  “We have a son together, we made life—you and I. We have history and laughter … we made history, and—”

  “Dante, don’t,” she said, honest tears shimmering. “This conversation is over.”

  “Why?” he argued, coming closer as a long blade materialized in her hand. “Because you don’t trust me or yourself?”

  “Both.”

  He nodded, satisfied in part. He looked at the Isis blade in her hand and then sought her eyes. “It always looked better on you, anyway.”

  She lowered the blade, closed her eyes, and raised her chin as though consulting Heaven. It did something to him to see her that way, so near to the breaking point that the joints in her knees were about to bend. He replayed the incident in the Garden for her in vivid color, texture, and tone, and she redoubled her grip on the sword. But the fact that she was strong enough now at her age to resist every psychic bombardment he was leveling at her impaled him where he stood.

  “Have that conversation, please, and see what they’ll allow if I deliver,” he whispered in Dananu.

  She didn’t commit, just began moving forward toward the violet pyramid opening at the crest of the next wave, leaving him to remember everything all alone.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Hours of searching and the result was still the same: no Carlos. The mission had been in vain, and part of her knew that before she’d even jumped into her Hummer. Daylight might shed light on his whereabouts, but he’d obviously vanished into the night. The team had pulled together, everyone’s senses keen and sweeping for injury, demons—nothing. Therefore, his disappearance had to be willful. The one thing she was sure of was, if Carlos didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t be.

  There was no SOS beacon prying its way into her senses. There was no blood trail for her and her trackers to pick up. Memory of the Chairman, and that demon’s AWOL status made one dread with every breath. If Lilith resurfaced, God only knew what Carlos had been up against alone. Still, there should have been a trail.

  She reentered the living room of the family house and went up to Marlene. Rider and the others could fill in everybody else. She and Mar needed to have a closed-door, one-on-one. She didn’t care how it looked, how people might take it; she was so upset right now that all of that was secondary.

  Marlene looked up the moment Damali came through the door and stood. No words needed to be exchanged. Marlene nodded and went toward her bedroom. Damali followed, not even greeting the worried housebound team members. Her man was missing, injured, and had possibly relapsed.

  “I know,” Marlene said in a quiet voice as she shut the door.

  Damali walked in a circle, tugging at her locks. “Mar, there’s a huge problem out there beyond the one we already know about. I can feel it, but can’t put my finger on it. Call me double paranoid, but my gut ain’t been right about Carlos since we left Philly.”

  Marlene stared at her. “This relapse may be a Net-flux, kiddo. Let’s not become overly alarmed. We know he had an attitude when he left, and may have just gone somewhere to chill out till daybreak. None of us with second sight are picking up that he’s out there injured, or abducted. In fact, who are we to talk? We’re all shaky.”

  “That’s just the thing, Mar,” Damali said. “Shaky or not, I can’t pick up anything on him. No vibration whatsoever. It’s like a total absence of light, nothing to track, and even when he was a vamp, I could home in on the brother. Something even deeper than the infection is wrong with him—I know it.”

  “It may be us,” Marlene said slowly, again raking her hair in frustration. “We’re all infected. Like the fact that Shabazz and I didn’t want to come home, and didn’t right away, when there was a serious emergency going on … and Marjorie and Richard said they were tired of being parents and stayed away from the house as long as Shabazz and I did. Can you imagine?” Marlene shook her head and glanced out the window. “It took everything in us to fight the urge just to leave the family.” She closed her eyes. “The pull just to worrying about ourselves for a change, being together without responsibilities … our judgment is impaired, baby. Maybe yours is, too.”

  She didn’t want to hurt Marlene’s feelings by telling her straight up that she was no longer banking solely on her mother-seer’s second sight, but the fact remained that Marlene’s judgment had been shattered and stretched thin since Kamal had hit North American soil and the portals had been opened. Damali chose her words carefully, avoiding the too-hot topic that was currently not her main focus, then stopped pacing and leaned against the dresser to look at Marlene squarely.

  Marlene opened her eyes and folded her arms over her chest, allowing her gaze to slip away from Damali’s toward the window again. “His energy has been different. Angry. Unsettled. Kicking up a lot of dust in the house, creating an undercurrent. But Shabazz and I have talked about that at length. We’d been through the same drama with you, so we weren’t particularly concerned. Plus, with the strained living conditions, the loss of his mother and grandmother, all you two kids have been through, and him being a rogue male that had to come in out of the streets to this new Joe-citizen life …” Marlene let her breath out hard. “Showing a little teeth every now and then didn’t really worry me, even with what we know now … until tonight.”

  “I hear you,” Damali said, pushing away from the furniture. “But, Mar, he came by my house this afternoon in a
cold-blooded vamp purge. Shivering, daylight sensitive, and when I doused his clothes and vomit in the yard, the ground swallowed it all whole.”

  “What?” Marlene whispered. “He’s supposed to be immune.”

  The tone of Marlene’s voice and the look in her eyes made Damali hesitate. She could feel her blood pressure spiking within her as she again chose her words with care.

  “Mar, listen,” Damali said slowly. “He upchucked green bile, which, given how much he’d probably thrown up already, and what he drank last night, made sense. But the smell …” Damali wrinkled her nose and shook her head, almost tasting the putrid stench on the back of her tongue as she remembered it. “I took everything, even the bathroom sponge, out into the yard, and doused it. Holy water, oil, salt, you name it. If it was in my cabinets, I beat it back with what you’d given me to protect the house. The shit smoked, the ground opened up, and sucked it down, and then the earth closed over like nothing had ever been there.”

  “Have you been with him since all this happened?” Marlene began to pace. “Not that I’m in your business, girlfriend, but—”

  “No,” Damali said quickly. “I hear you, and no.”

  “Good. Maybe you’d better hold up on that until I can divine something more on the situation.”

  Both women stared at each other for a moment.

  “That’s not gonna be a problem,” Damali said, her tone distant and sad.

  “We’ll find him,” Marlene reassured her.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” Damali said, her eyes seeking Marlene’s for understanding.

  “Oh,” Marlene said in a quiet voice. “Since when have things cooled?”

  “Since we got back from Philly. A couple of times, yeah … but, it wasn’t the same.”

  Marlene held Damali’s gaze, but kept her voice tender. “Why, baby?”

  “I don’t know,” Damali said with a sad smile. “I was hoping you could tell me?”