by L. A. Banks
Damali jumped down behind him, motioning for the team to disembark. “Push those choppers back, but stay near,” she yelled over the thudding whirl. “If we have to use explosives, you’re sitting ducks.” She glanced back at the team. “Goggles, on, all equipment readied.”
The pilots nodded and lifted off, seeming too happy to oblige the request. Soon their airborne blades became distant, but the team briefly shut their eyes when a double explosion sounded overhead.
“One of ’em was just a kid,” Damali said, not looking back. She glanced at Marjorie’s tear-filled eyes and sent her gaze into the darkness. “Rest their souls in peace.”
“Ashé,” Marlene murmured and began trudging behind Damali saying the Twenty-third Psalm.
“I wish Mar had her stick,” Shabazz said in a quiet tone moving forward. “It’s been with her since forever. Now it’s up in the Tibetan mountains under fifty feet of packed ice.”
“Monk Lin will get it,” Marlene said absently. “It’ll rise and come home, as always.”
Rider fingered his dog tag and then dropped it, remembering that his amulet had been given away. “If wishes were fishes, we’d all be free.” He said quietly, no sarcasm in his tone. “Just like we all wish D had her long blade out here.”
Carlos abruptly halted, and the group stopped forward motion behind him. All eyes except Carlos’s and Damali’s strained in the dark behind goggles. Ears listened intently. Jumpy nerves made muscles twitch as the slightest movement from the wind and small woodland creatures cut into their senses.
Carlos cocked his head to the side, sniffed and relaxed. “Que pasa, man!” He stepped forward toward Yonnie who walked into the clearing. “Damn, am I glad to see you.”
Damali’s hand landed gently on Carlos’s arm as she stared at the expression on Yonnie’s face. “You’re in apex, baby. Stay downwind from your boy.”
Carlos backed up. “Yo, man. It’s me. You cool?”
The group leveled artillery as Yonnie’s eyes narrowed, glowed solid red, and his fangs glistened. Yonnie was already battle bulked, but Carlos had given the order to stand down.
“Yo, yo, easy. Everybody chill. The brother has been out in this bullshit by himself, my scent is throwing him off, no doubt—”
A black arc knocked Carlos off his feet. When he landed beside Big Mike, his fatigues were smoldering in the center of his chest where the bolt struck. Were it not for Damali’s brand, his chest cavity would have been split wide open and his heart would have been lying on the grass. Instantly Carlos raised a small shield in front of him, and then got up slowly with some help from Big Mike.
“Want me to smoke this motherfucker?” Mike asked, his shoulders knitting as he kept steady aim with a cannon.
“No, that’s all me, bro,” Rider said, keeping a blue light on Yonnie’s chest.
“This is between me and Carlos,” Yonnie said through his teeth. “No beef with the rest of the family.”
Damali shook her head. “Can’t let you go there, Yonnie. In a month, all this will be over. He’s—”
“I know what he is!” Yonnie shouted. “Go back to your team, Damali, and stay out of it!”
Tara instantly materialized by Yonnie’s side and hissed at Carlos. Members of the squad looked at each other, confused.
Rider kept a beam on Yonnie and walked forward several paces. “Tara, he’s not himself, you ain’t yourself. Stand downwind from him and both of you will be all right.”
“Shut up, Rider!” Tara snapped, her claws growing as she spoke. “After what he did to us, there won’t be anything left to stand downwind from.”
Before anybody could react, Tara and Yonnie had gone airborne. Carlos’s shield blocked the first punch lobbed by Yonnie, but Tara got a good rake at his back. With Carlos in the center of the vicious attack, there was no way to shoot at the fast-moving creatures without risking a mortal injury to Carlos. Damali rushed forward to enter the fray, but a black bolt from Yonnie sent her hurling backward.
She was stunned, but just sucker-punched. The pulse was a weak one, a nice shove out of the way. When Damali flipped herself up, she was more angry than injured. But it was obvious that the beef had to do with more than Carlos’s apex scent. The female, Tara, should have had the opposite reaction. Damali could also see Carlos blocking shots, but not landing any. When the vampires retreated for a moment to make another lunge, she was able to get by Carlos’s side and unsheathe her baby Isis dagger.
“Hold up! What did he do?”
“Tell her!” Yonnie said, breathing hard and snarling.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man! I didn’t do anything!”
“Liar!” Tara shouted, pointing at Carlos. “He won’t reveal himself in front of you. He’d never want his beloved family to see the beast he’s become.” Hot tears of rage filled Tara’s gleaming red eyes.
“She’s telling the truth,” Rider said. “This ain’t no scent-induced hysteria. I know my woman.”
Yonnie nodded. “Then you won’t have a problem with me and Carlos finishing this to ash.”
Yonnie was airborne again, but to everyone’s surprise, Carlos met him there, no shield in hand as they collided, snapped at each other, and landed, separated by twenty yards.
“Before you try to rip out my heart, you need to at least tell me what I did to you?” Carlos glanced at Tara breathing hard. “I know I never did anything to you, girl, but have your back—the whole time when I was a master, and on Council, I never—”
“You tried to rape me!” Tara shrieked, vanishing and coming to Yonnie’s side. “He was your friend, you made him watch and left him for dead after you whipped him till there was no flesh left on his back!”
Damali slowly lowered her blade as she stared at Carlos. Rider took the laser off Yonnie’s chest and put it in the center of Carlos’s head.
“Tell them!” Tara screeched.
The agonized, shrill pitch of her voice forced Big Mike to cover his ears, and the goggle-wearing team members had to lift the audio sensors away from their heads as the technology failed. Carlos stood quietly, dazed, shaking his head no.
“I bled out Gabrielle’s house to bring him back—that’s right, black-blood exchanges with every demon in the house, Mr. Chairman,” Tara yelled, sobs breaking up her complaint into raging sputters. “The only one I spared was Gabby, because she’s like family. You remember family, Carlos? Family! She helped us, gave us a place to hide because of you, you bastard!”
“Not because of what you did to me, but because of what you did to her…. I vowed,” Yonnie said, his hand stroking Tara’s hair as he passed her, the force of his rage ripping up tree trunks and crashing down branches, “that if I ever regenerated, Chairman or not, I would personally rip out your heart or die trying.” His voice dipped to a vicious whisper. “Because we were family.”
“I’ll help you,” Damali said quickly, thinking fast on her feet. “If you’ve got the right one.”
She watched Yonnie pause. Carlos seemed so pained by the charges leveled against him, she could tell by the look on his face that he might not have been able to defend himself to the death. “He’s not the Chairman,” Damali yelled across the distance. “There’s two of them.”
“He has you under an illusion,” Yonnie bellowed, swirling up black storm clouds as his energy gathered for a final beat down.
“He’s a liar,” Tara shrieked, taking a battle stance.
“I didn’t do you like that, man. Would never …” Carlos’s words trailed off as Yonnie shot the images into his mind.
Damali caught them, too, and she turned her head for a moment. But a flicker of movement caught her peripheral vision. “Yonnie, get down!”
Yonnie ducked and yanked Tara low with him. A black bolt split a tall redwood, and the team opened fire toward the blackness. The Chairman materialized, his tail slicing bramble out of his way.
“You fools,” he snarled, and sent an arc at Yonnie and Tara.
F
rom some reservoir of memory, Carlos flipped, vanished, and his shield caught the bolt, placing him between Yonnie, Tara, and the Chairman, but his back was dangerously exposed to two predators that wanted his head.
“Do you think I would allow him to waltz into Hell and simply take my throne by sitting his unworthy carcass in it?” The Chairman seethed, his voice so low it echoed like distant thunder and quaked the ground. “There is only one name that has ever been etched into my seat of power since the dawn of time—since the Garden, just like there’s only one book! Mine. But the hand of a Neteru must release it from the current abductor, because a Neteru stole it. Kill him, and then this Carlos later, after he returns what is mine.” The Chairman paced and then turned his gaze on Damali and her team.
Snap instinct kicked in; she knew the Chairman was going for a hostage. If the team opened fire, Carlos was again on the wrong side of the heat. She reached out her hand without thinking about it. The Isis long blade filled it, replacing the baby Isis that hit the ground. She grasped Madame Isis, feeling its power coil up her arm and connect with everything Neteru within her. The gleaming silver edge deflected the Chairman’s black magnetic bolt. Her team scrambled and took cover.
Slow clapping in the darkness ceased all action. Human and demon eyes alike turned toward the dark figure walking out of the brush. Damali’s jaw went slack as she looked at a very dark version of Carlos with gleaming black eyes. Hearing about it and seeing it were definitely two different things.
The body double seemed amused as he straightened his custom-tailored suit. Yonnie and Tara backed away, their gazes jettisoning between the Carlos with the shield that protected them and the one that they now understood had tortured them without mercy. The Chairman bulked another head taller. The Carlos in a black Armani suit studied his manicure, unfazed.
“All this drama for nothing. A waste of precious energy, just like all that chaos in L.A. is a waste. I’ll have to clean that up later.” The dark Carlos smiled at Damali. “Sorry about what happened back at your place, baby, but if you would have relaxed, you would have enjoyed it more.”
The Carlos she knew narrowed his eyes. Damali was sure something crazy was running through his head when he lowered his shield and it disappeared. Her man was two seconds from old-school, hand-to-hand combat at a very inopportune time. The team couldn’t move; black paralysis suddenly held them where they stood. Shabazz’s weapon melted in his grip; his yell echoed through the glen and connected with the screams of pain from the team. Dropped weapons became molten steel and useless, causing Shabazz and the others to forcibly disarm or lose a limb.
Yonnie and Tara were covered with a red, sizzling light that made them yell out in pain, but kept them caged. Giant iron shackles simultaneously lurched up out of the ground and clasped the Chairman’s thickened ankles. It all happened in milliseconds. The Chairman hissed and twisted in outrage, darkening the already pitch-black sky. His fury turned the moon bloodred as he strained his wings against the air, only to lift a few feet and land again hard. The struggle the Chairman put up as he yelled and bellowed shook the trees and opened a wide cavern around his feet, splitting the earth and sending Harpies over the edges of it to claw at his huge legs.
“He is also my father!” the Chairman shouted. “I will not be disinherited in the final days! I was first!”
“And the first shall be last and the last shall be first,” the dark Carlos said with a smug smile. “You should read all the books.” He shot an appreciative gaze toward Carlos. “Knowledge is power, right, hombre? Thanks for keeping a brother in the know. You had a lot in your head worth taking, especially her.”
The dark Carlos chuckled and pointed at the Chairman as he surveyed the team. “Look at him, crying and whining about his father, when he should be ashamed that his mother was a real bitch. What was she, man? Hellhound, Harpie, some stray female demon shit around at the beginning before Pop had serious options? At least I can say Lilith was fine.” The entity looked at Carlos. “Your mother was pitifully human. That’s the difference between me and you—no backbone. It’s all genetics; Darwinian Law. The survival of the fittest.”
Carlos stared at the evil version of himself, controlled fury unlike he’d ever known roiled within him. But this abomination of all that he was had let on to a profound truth. It was about what was locked within genetic code. The Naksong had been right; integrate oneself. Embrace it; use it, transform it into power. Be the weapon. He was darkness and light, vampire and Neteru, a hybrid fusion that had never been before. Just like the dark half even knew about the Good Book he’d read, that also meant the converse. He knew everything this dark side of him knew. But just like he never knew a vamp-Neteru fusion was possible before he sat on the Chairman’s throne, this sonofabitch didn’t know that fact now.
Therefore, ergo, Carlos reasoned ever so quietly within the black box of his mind, the differential in the match was only about one thing: which of the two had the stomach to go the distance. His palms burned as he felt magnetic force traveling up his arms and connecting to his spinal column. He had no fear of the darkness; he’d already taken a walk through the Valley and had been the baddest mutha in it—and would drain that bastard pretending to be him of power. All he had to do was think about what his body double had done to Damali within her house. The violation spiked stroke-level rage through every cell. The image of his other self, naked and heaving, dick dripping, on top of his woman, trying to get her to give him permission to enter … aw, shit … It was on!
“Damali, give me your blade,” Carlos said low in his throat. “Now.” He kept his eyes on his body double, silver from his glare lighting a hot path toward his darker self, burning grass in its wake.
“D, mamacita, I was hoping you’d finally get yourself together and find your Isis. Lop off this sonofabitch’s head, for me, won’t you, baby?” the dark Carlos murmured in a sensual tone, and then nodded toward the Chairman. He spat fire and cleared his throat. “This apex thing that other punk bastard is going through is fucking with my sinuses, though.” The entity glared at Carlos and blew a kiss toward Damali. “It’s making him cocky and stupid, and he’s pissing me off. After I do him, maybe me and you can go get a bite to eat? Or, we can stay right here and gorge.” He glowered at Carlos, taunting him, baiting him into a no-win physical struggle, using Damali as a lure.
All the locks in her mental tumblers turned within the split second it took her to lunge. She glimpsed the bad Carlos, her memory snapping back as she hurdled forward. The visions returned with it. She’d seen this in her backyard. She also saw how the Carlos she knew had been attacked in Council Chambers. The throne. The porch. The confusion. The clothes that didn’t burn. Juanita. In her house! The hotel-room incident. Nightmares. Her man’s skull being split open and his memory dredged out.
The good Carlos lunged at the same time she did, as though they were welded to the same nervous system. But it wasn’t about ever letting go of the Isis again in the heat of battle. A tiny voice inside her head became a Neteru Council’s battle cry. Never release the Isis. Something was wrong with both Carlos images, and she wasn’t sure what it was; the blade stayed with her.
This entity before them was fast, agile, like air. They both landed on their feet, side-by-side but frustrated.
“I am the prince of the airwaves,” he said laughing, reading the thought Damali and Carlos shared with a glance, and dodging them again.
Damali stopped moving. Carlos stood away from her breathing hard. For her, blind rage was not an option. Be strategic. She could still move, so could Carlos. There was a reason why—there was something in their makeup that the bad one couldn’t jack with. The Neteru-infused elements. Be air.
This time when she came at the dark Carlos, she caught him with a solid kick to the midsection. She flipped away from his snatch, just as her Carlos landed a jaw blow that sent him sprawling. The dark one was back on his feet in seconds, eyeing them both, deciding which one to attack first. Good, they’d pi
ssed him off and made him show fang. But what was happening to her Carlos slowed her roll. He’d bulked slightly, the dark Carlos glimpsed it, then bulked into full battle mode.
They both went at each other like released tigers. Hands around throats, the dark entity’s claws drawing blood, a spin roll near the Chairman’s feet, landing both of them in danger range of an infuriated, chained beast. The dark Carlos was immediately stabbed in the thigh with a slashing tail in an odd turn of events. Her Carlos backed up, the slightly injured one now furious, leaking black blood and hissing.
One pair of eyes gleamed black, another pair was solid silver. Fire and dark lightning ejected from one hand to match hot silver laser from the other. A parting, another lunge, two bodies airborne and no way to get between them. Black ice keeping Carlos’s silver gaze from severing limbs, a gold shield turned breastplate making a heart snatch impossible.
Black blood mixed with red-silver blood; both semiwinded, they separated. Eyes narrowed and they came at each other again, fusing strategic martial arts with primal fury blows. Tree branches were down, the earth was ripped up, Harpies went scrambling for cover, but the huge beast pinned to the ground by shackles was the only thing that didn’t give way.
Red cages of heat around Tara and Yonnie sputtered and weakened, releasing two vampires into the fray. The dark Carlos was clearly getting tired, and he was pulling back evil energy that had been used to contain the others in order to both fight Carlos and chain the furious Chairman, while also defending against two strong, airborne vamps with a grudge. Holding the line alone was siphoning him dry. Yonnie and Tara circled for an opening. The dark arc around her team began to dissolve, but she watched her man in horror as the earth opened beneath them and both Carlos bodies rolled over the edge into the chasm.
Before anyone could get to the edge, something massive flew up out of the new ground that moved so fast it swept her Carlos up with it from the sheer updraft. The force of the earth’s ejection toppled Tara and knocked Yonnie back. Fire pushed her team out of position as it scorched the grass around them. Rounds on the ground discharged from half-melted weapons, sending the human team for full cover. Smoke from the holy water and hallowed earth mix made Yonnie and Tara back off farther. The Chairman was on his knees, fighting against the gases hazardous to his kind.
