The Damned

by L. A. Banks

  “Someone in authority will be with you shortly. Please have a seat, and we do apologize for the temporary inconvenience,” the man in uniform said, and then bowed slightly, walked out of the inspection room, and closed the door behind him.

  Discreet shrugs rippled through the group as they each silently answered the pervasive question. No one was owning up to having stashed something lethal, and Damali could only hope that it wasn’t an accidental oversight—like a fifteen-inch Bowie knife, a grenade, or leftover rounds of hallowed earth–packed hollow points.

  No one sat, even though seating had been offered. The customs agent seemed mild mannered enough, calm, courteous, but that was also the way of the Chinese, and didn’t mean they were out of possible trouble.

  Soon a delegation of military uniformed officers entered the room, along with Monk Lin and two men in civilian clothes. The team bristled and their gazes locked on the officers. Were it not for Monk Lin, they would have immediately asked to be taken to the U.S. Embassy.

  “I am General Quai Lou,” a man who looked to be in his mid-sixties said, formally addressing the group. “Welcome to China.”

  Damali returned his slight bow, but kept her gaze on him for a moment before lowering her eyes. Her internal beacon snapped on as she stood up straight, her gaze holding the man with slight gray at his temples and whose form was becoming thick in the middle from age. She turned to Monk Lin and offered him a bow. Instantly she heard his message in her mind. Do not make these men lose face.

  “General,” Damali said in her most courteous voice, “we appreciate the opportunity to travel in your beautiful country.”

  He nodded, appearing satisfied, but also still seemed somewhat wary. Damali’s team didn’t breathe. Carlos had not moved a muscle, except to bow slightly. The military guards had not bothered to crease their army green, red-trimmed uniforms by risking motion. They remained erect, eyes forward.

  “Your papers are in order,” the general said, but kept glancing nervously at Monk Lin. “We hope that your journey will be fruitful.”

  There was something in his eyes that reminded Damali of fear, but that didn’t make sense, unless they had begun to experience the contagion at alarming levels here, too. A simple trip to Tibet by an eclectic group of artists shouldn’t have kicked off any particular worry. The Chinese government had hands-down control on the populace, and over the years, Tibetan monks had been slaughtered to the point of near extinction.

  Damali glimpsed Marlene. The muscle in Shabazz’s jaw was pulsing. Yeah, what was the deal? Over a million people mowed down in the streets of Tibet, hundreds of thousands jailed and sent to labor camps for merely being Buddhist monks. Now a Chinese general was standing in front of her and her team with a Tibetan monk by his side, and he had worry in his eyes? Oh, yeah, these boys had seen something over here and her team immediately sensed it as well. All right. Show time. Right from the door.

  Monk Lin glanced at the general, and finally received a nod to step forward. “General Quai Lou is from a special division,” he said in a quiet, controlled tone, his gaze raking the group. “It seems that his division of the military has growing concerns over past decisions, and would like to solicit your assistance.”

  The monk’s gaze was placid as it continued to focus on the Guardians, but then in an unexpected, mercurial turn, became filled with unspoken rage. The general’s eyes blazed with concealed hatred, but his voice remained calm. The juxtaposition was somewhat disorienting. But all members of the U.S. team stood silent and patient, waiting for a sign and not wanting to add more tension to the quiet power struggle that was obviously taking place.

  “You are going to Tibet?” the general asked.

  “Yes,” Damali said slowly, but the question was crazy, because that’s what their papers said! They knew, so what was up with that? You didn’t just roll into a lockdown country unescorted and without having your itinerary mapped out.

  Although her attention was on the general, she kept her peripheral vision on Monk Lin, allowing his eyes to inform her of how to do this dance. Common sense and experience in heavy life and/or death negotiations also informed her moves—nothing was direct. Every move to stall and to draw out the goal, or to take one’s time to properly position words, was also cultural and had a reason.

  “We are on a pilgrimage,” she finally said, not willing to expose her motives until she knew what his were, if then. “We just want to get some cultural flavor, and take in the sights and sounds from different regions to help progress our music, to make it more world inclusive.”

  General Quai Lou bowed again and offered the team a pleasant, unreadable smile. “Then you should find some of the old mythology of Tibet quiet flavorful,” he said with a smug undertone to his voice as he glanced at Monk Lin. “Although we do not ascribe to such rhetoric, and we have adopted science as our truth in China, I’m sure that as Monk Lin guides your journey, he’ll relate this legend to you: The ogress, Sinmo, and the monkey, Avalokiteshvara, were the only creatures living in the high mountains of Tibet at the dawn of time. In her loneliness,” he added with an amused smirk, “she sired heirs from this union.”

  “The general is very aware of this fact,” Monk Lin said in a brittle tone that was normally not his style. “However, one point of clarification—the monkey was a high deity, not some base creature of the earth, and the deity was seduced by the du, a demoness of the rocks, whereupon it fell from its state of grace. Let us be vigilant to tell the traditions with care and accuracy. The monkey, then trapped in its earthly form, made a gift to his offspring—the regional grains, in hopes, we are sure, that they would take to these food choices, and not succumb to the blood thirst of their mother.”

  Damali stared at the monk for a moment, and then returned a too-pleasant smile to the general. Okay, they had Lilim over here, knew it, and at least a branch of the Chinese army was on to why she and the team were here. But the information he relayed was useful; they needed to know what kind of mess they could confront up in the mountains.

  The general smiled, but it was strained as he continued. He spoke in a patronizing tone and glanced at Monk Lin. “This she-devil is said to have sired six offspring from this liaison, and was implacable, causing havoc, until the first king of Tibet’s wise second wife, Queen Wengcheng, of China,” he added with emphasis, “found the geomantic center of the region and built a palace on top of this purported female beast. Thus, Jokhang was constructed. Twelve outlying temples built to hold down the supposedly supine ogress’s thighs, knees, etcetera, in three successive rings of four temples. You will find the architecture of the region quite interesting during your stay, we are sure.”

  Damali held the general’s gaze without blinking. Her mind was rapid-fire processing what her mother had said. The tears were in a temple. Find the most impressive one, the greatest one of all. To her thinking, Jokhang was as good a place to start as any—it had been mentioned, was built to hold back any drama coming up from a vortex, demon containment. Yeah … all right. She heard the man.

  Monk Lin nodded discreetly. “This was done in cooperation with the king’s first wife, who financed this effort,” he added with care. “She was from Nepal,” he said with a tight smile, verbally sparring with the general, “where our esteemed Dalai Lama of modern times fled, when things became tense during the Cultural Revolution in the region. We have many Sanskrit scrolls that were later translated into the native language of Tibet about such matters before those trying times.”

  Monk Lin’s serene stare cut Quai Lou and then mellowed as he glanced from the general back to Damali. “In Princess Bhrikuti’s honor, the main gate is facing west, toward Nepal, but west is west,” he said with quiet urgency in his tone. He looked at the team hard as he paused, transmitting the silent message that the western hemisphere was a key. “The four cardinal points are guarded by Four Guardian Kings, and the Wheel of Rebirth is also there.” He held Carlos’s gaze for a moment longer than the others. “You must experi
ence rebirth while here.”

  “As legend has it,” the general said in a tight voice, breaking the monk’s hold on Carlos’s gaze and losing some of his calm demeanor as he snapped the response.

  “What is legend to some is true faith of others,” Monk Lin said in a casual tone. “To offend the holy scrolls by calling their contents legend would be like challenging your biblical texts,” he added, but kept his gaze on Damali, as though addressing her, and not the general.

  The teams’ eyes went from Monk Lin to the general.

  “We will be sure to be appropriately reverent while in the Tibetan Autonomous Region,” Marlene said to break the tension.

  “Yes, that would be most wise and most appreciated by those that still respect local traditions,” Monk Lin said in a flat tone, keeping his eyes on Marlene. “For some believe that when the sacred palace of Jokhang was shelled in recent years and it was literally turned into a pigsty, housing livestock; and when its inner sanctum was filled with blood and animal innards, it could no longer hold the ogress as she’d been imprisoned since the seventh century.”

  An epiphany stabbed into Damali’s temple so quickly that she almost visibly winced. That was also why the Chairman was here; he was hunting Lilith down as much as they were. Lilith had to be the ogress Monk Lin mentioned, possibly given a different name in this different culture. She wouldn’t be so foolish as to go back to the caves near the Red Sea, her original haunt. No, girlfriend would most likely go to a very out-of-the-way location, where she had family—had sired before and wasn’t slaughtered. Now, with the new atheist government in full effect, she wouldn’t have to worry about humans figuring out how to contain her like they did before.

  Damali nodded as she continued to silently watch Monk Lin’s tense body language. Up in the mountains, it would be treacherous going and hard for a human hunter team to track her down … And knowing Lilith, no doubt girlfriend was also seeking the missing antidote element. Plus, she undoubtedly had more to fear from her husband than the Devil’s son, since the attempted coup began with her machinations, and keeping demons topside was her thing—they were her kids; Dante had nothing to gain, really, by keeping her Lilim alive. He was a pure vamp and hated any other breed of dark entity. This was her old turf, so she had to know or sense that the antidote resided here.

  “Interesting history,” Damali finally said in a noncommittal tone.

  With that, Monk Lin bowed again but remained quiet. Damali glanced at the general, who’d retreated behind an iron wall of non-emotion. Okay, the exchange was too deep. They’d all been briefed about the tense political situation over here, and Monk Lin had even been bold enough to allude to the way the Dalai Lama had been forced into exile in India by the Chinese government and how an army had desecrated the holiest of temples, when merely talking politics could land a local Tibetan in prison for twenty years. Now what? How clued in was the general, or was this just Monk Lin’s attempt to say what he had to say in concealed terms? If the general didn’t know, this was risky; if he did know, it was still risky. Monk Lin gave her a look that didn’t invite a scan, and there was no way she’d violate a holy man if he said no. His eyes also seemed to warn for her not to go into the general’s head like that, either. Why?

  To cloak the discussion in sightseeing and architecture, with a military general present, plus two guys in suits who had not been introduced gave her the chills—and Lin was quietly telling her to stand down from a scan? Maybe they were infected and it wasn’t safe for her mind. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, the monk’s eyes told her all: Don’t go into any human brain without knowing if it holds the contagion. The chance of contamination is great, child. Your own mind would then be temporarily compromised, even though you’re immune and would purge, but you would lose precious days on the mission. Damali almost sighed aloud. One of her best tools would have to be shelved over here. Not good. The monk imperceptibly nodded. Damn.

  Yet the message about she-devils and sacred numbers and geomantic positions had not been lost on a soul in the room; neither had the general’s obvious concerns. He’d allowed the monk’s flagrant response, had not stopped the monk from speaking, and didn’t so much as bristle when the shelling of the palace had been mentioned. The fact that the Chinese authorities were even allowing a monk in full crimson Tibetan robes to be their guide was out of the ordinary. Very, very weird. The general had to know something; she could feel his test brewing through her skin.

  The mission began to take shape within Damali’s mind between all the seemingly calm surface pleasantries. Monk Lin’s quiet statements had filtered through her heightened audio-sensing capacity, registering the tension in his voice through the layers of her extrasensory awareness, confirming her epiphany: Lilith had spawned here once, just like she had over in the caves near the Red Sea. Modern-day empire builders had released her into the world again. Temples had been desecrated in a land closed off from outside intervention. The ranks of monks, those who would keep prayer vigil, had been thinned, and innocent human blood, along with animal sacrifices, had soaked the land, as well as the holiest of temples, to offer an open portal to whatever had once been beneath it. If Lilith would come here to breed once, she might return here to heal … and the Chairman would surely hunt for her essence here in his quest for revenge against the one who’d betrayed him most. Oh, yeah, now it all made sense.

  Carlos watched the transaction go down from a remote place in his mind. Power demanded to be used, and instinct told him that the only reason Monk Lin hadn’t been carted away to a Chinese jail was because he held some type of power; he had something the general and the two suits with him wanted or needed. It was time for him to step up and get into the stalemated negotiations taking place. This was a male-dominated region, and the general was not about to give up authority or any information until he had a male in charge to address. Carlos glanced at Damali. Yeah, baby, you know this is what I do best.

  Go for it. I’ve seen you work, brother.

  Her compliment, and the fact that she was cool about the co-partnership necessary to achieve the aim of getting more knowledge, made him smile. “We are all looking forward to the opportunity to learn about the rich and varied history of this region,” Carlos finally said with caution, but kept his voice eloquent and his countenance humble as he inserted himself into the conversation. “We have often been called the ugly Americans, by right, as we are often too focused on our own culture, and have not learned about others they way we should. Knowledge of others can only broaden our perspective.”

  The general’s more relaxed smile returned. “We appreciate that you have come to China with an opened mind. Our history is long, with many dichotomies. Let us not focus upon our differences, but rather that which unifies us.”

  Carlos bowed, the team followed suit. The general and his men bowed, as did Monk Lin and the two unidentified men near him. No one spoke. They all seemed to be waiting for some unknown sign to proceed.

  Damali glanced at Carlos and suppressed a smile. This was the old master of the game she knew, and he wore it well. Her man was kicking more bullshit than the day was long, and she loved watching every minute of the transaction. She was also pretty sure that being a female didn’t help in such a male-dominated culture, so she kicked a smooth move of her own, and made it appear that this was actually Carlos’s group rather than hers—maybe to some degree it was becoming that. In an odd way, she was all right with the change at the moment. Her own reaction gave her brief pause; she was sharing her command without struggle, something she hadn’t done before. Not willingly, anyway.

  She shrugged off the new personal epiphany; there wasn’t time to explore it now. Later she would consider it. For now she’d focus on whatever worked, just as long as they could get out of this holding cell that was being passed off as an inquiry room.

  “General Quai Lou,” Damali said as demurely as possible. “Mr. Rivera has wisely chosen this fine country for us to explore, and we are honored
that you have allowed his group to tour and learn about the infinite wonders within it. Thank you.”

  She could not glimpse Marlene, whose eyes had widened, or look at any other member of the team. Their stunned expressions might make her crack a smile, ruin her facade, and ultimately make the general possibly lose face—which would mean they could lose more than just some time and luggage. Losing their freedom and being detained, or possibly worse, kept anything beyond serene, humble submission at bay. It was about playing the politics like poker.

  Seeming much improved in temperament, the general motioned for the military men to take the team’s luggage. “You will be escorted to Lhasa, and Monk Lin will be your guide from there,” he said addressing Carlos. “Do stay with him during your travels, as it is best for foreigners to be properly escorted in areas that have experienced moments of unease.”

  Carlos bowed again. “We accept your wise advice with full cooperation.”

  The general bowed, but lingered, dismissing his retinue with quick movements of his hand and did not speak again until the door was completely closed behind them.

  New concerns rippled through the group as they waited for the general to make his next move. It was obvious to everyone that potential VIP status of a touring band notwithstanding, most musicians probably never received a military welcome or escort. The question was, what made the Warriors of Light so special?

  “Please also allow me to introduce you to professors Dim Huang and Nam Lee,” the general said, his smile strained. “In the newness of our exchange, it was a vast oversight. Forgive me.”