"You need to chill," Phat G said quietly into a nervous soldier's ear, pressing cold steel against his neck. "Things ain't always what they seem."
"Ain't nobody contagious. This ain't got nothing to do with you," Big Mike said into a captain's ear, making him feel the gun muzzle at his back. "Tell your men to stand down—you and I don't want nothin' unfortunate to kick off up in here, right?"
"We'll take care of our own," Shabazz said calmly as he dug the muzzle of Black Beauty into one of the lead soldiers' temple.
"Americano, comprende?" Jose said between his teeth, making sure the soldier in front of him could feel the barrel of his 9mm at the base of his skull.
"Just say the word, Captain," Rider called out, while pressing his weapon into a young soldier's cheek. "This is family business and we've got a cure for the man. You don't want an all-out war inside this of all churches, so my suggestion is you call your squad back. We are not the enemy. The enemy is out there, trust me!"
"You don't want a full-scale shooting match in here with all these civilians, right?" Big Mike warned the captain.
The captain shook his head as civilians and clerics huddled against the walls and altar. "Stand down," he said quickly. "This is not of our concern—they are Americans."
Cordell and Tobias got down on their knees. Cordell held his hands over a small fissure in the stone floor. They listened, straining, until Tobias glanced up.
"You can hear water," Tobias whispered, awestruck. "But the crack is so small. . . maybe the child's hand could have reached down within it. Our limbs are too big." Cordell nodded. "If it's water, then it had to be blessed . . . and it's gotta be holy water that could cover anything hidden within this cave that's covered by holy rock. But if something goes wrong out here, would you or I want to have that little girl's life on our heads? She ain't nuthin' but a baby. If I die, so what? If she ran the wrong way or something snatched her along the way, could you live with yourself?
Maybe that's what the angels were testing to see, who knows?" For a moment, neither man spoke, their silence answering the lingering question.
"But how can we get the dagger if it is down there?" Tobias leaned in, peering into the nothingness. "It is an abyss. We have no ropes or climbing gear. I do not think I am supposed to send a tactical charge into the center of the world to take out something so revered . . . that could be considered sacrilege."
"If we're supposed to have it, it will come to us," Cordell said sitting back on his haunches. "My old grandma wasn't a black Hebrew, but she had wisdom that comes down through the ages. She said if two or more are gathered in His name, then that's where He is also." Cordell's gaze trapped Tobias's for a moment. "Me and you make two, so let's do that."
"Are you all right?" Carlos asked in a rush, bringing bottled water to Damali's lips. She nodded, taking the water from him, and then pushed herself up to balance on her own. "Yeah," she said after a long drink.-"They burned us out—or better stated, boiled us out. They turned it into a steam oven. Had to get the team onto serious hallowed ground, and with the heat, and the multiple sends over that distance, next thing I knew I was passed out."
Carlos rubbed his palm over his jaw and dropped his voice. "Next time you get in a box, if there is a next time, you get out first and then pull everybody to where you are. None of this captain going down with the ship—"
"Don't even say it," she warned, her gaze unflinching and her tone nonnegotiable.
"Leave them in an oven and—"
"I didn't say leave them in an oven, I said, like they tell you on a commercial flight, put the damned mask over your face first, Damali. If you go down, you can't save anybody else!" He could feel his heart slamming against his breastbone as his voice went from a private whisper to a sonic boom. He stood and walked away from her. Shabazz landed a hand on his shoulder and walked with him.
"It's cool, man, you gonna be okay, she's gonna be okay. Everything is peace. Hetep," Shabazz said.
"Yeah, yeah," Carlos said, thoroughly shook as Shabazz walked him behind a huge stone pillar. "She don't get it, man. I'd take a bullet, the burn, whatever they've got—but I cannot take losing her or the baby."
"We all know that, so pull in a coupla breaths while Mar gives Damali the once-over and Medic does a double-check, all right?"
Carlos closed his eyes and leaned his head back, trying to get his breathing to normalize. He felt Shabazz pound his fist and heard him walk away, but his bones felt like jelly. His body was still shaking from the adrenaline rush that had swept through him when he'd seen his wife half dead in his arms. "God, just give me the strength," he murmured, and let out a long, weary sigh.
The only noise in the cave that could be heard was the sound of two men breathing and the distant gurgle of water. Now that they'd finished their joint prayer spoken aloud they were at a loss for what to do next.
"Can you feel the presence of what Carlos is seeking?" Tobias finally asked, breaking the silence.
"I know it's here," Cordell said. "I can't exactly see it, but I know ... if you understand what I mean."
Tobias nodded. "I am a tactical, I feel things. All of my senses are on alert, but I cannot pinpoint why or where right now." "Yep," Cordell said, craning his neck.
"You hear that?" Tobias leaned his face closer to the small fissure in the ground and turned his head to the side to listen, then jumped back. "Water is rising. That is the sound of water rising!"
Both men got to their feet, Tobias helping Cordell up. Within seconds, crystal-clear water gushed out of the crack, making them back away quickly. An object wrapped in soaked red velvet thudded onto the floor as the water rapidly receded. It took them a moment to move. Cordell edged forward first and stared down. "It has a Templar seal on it. The crest in the embroidery."
"Then you open it," Tobias said. "You are knighted, I am not. I will not offend the order."
Cordell nodded and stooped down with a grunt. "All religions are represented at this site ... I don't think you, as a man with a good spirit, could offend," he said, carefully untying the leather straps and unfurling the waterlogged fabric. "Don't you think it's odd that this has probably been down here for hundreds of years, if not a couple thousand . . . and the velvet is still good, ain't rotted away or nothing?"
"I think it's Divine," Tobias whispered, watching intently as Cordell's hands worked with reverent caution to then begin unwrapping old, brown linen from around an oblong, hard object.
Cordell pressed his fist to his mouth as he stared down. An eight-inch, broken piece of jagged wood terminated into a sharp, flat, iron spearhead. At the neck of it was a Roman seal and rank etching. The edges and face of the ten-i'nch blade were corroded with a dark, crimson, tarlike substance that also ran down onto the wood. Cordell's hands shook as he carefully swaddled the weapon in the cloth again, treating it with the care of a newborn infant.
"Hey, I'm sorry. Maybe you were right," Damali said, rounding the pillar and handing Carlos a bottle of water.
He accepted it from her but didn't immediately look into her eyes. "I never meant you were supposed to leave our team to fry ... or to let Ayana die in an oven."
"I know," she said, touching his face. "Everybody knows what you meant. . . tensions are just running high."
Carlos didn't look at her as he opened his water. "How's Ayana?"
"Fine. Everybody is all right. How are you?"
"I'm all right," he said, guzzling his water. "Gotta get a lock on Cordell and Tobias." He finally looked up at her. "I lost my focus, left my men. Haven't been able to reconnect with them, which tells me there's interference in the airwaves real close by. That ain't a good sign, D. Couldn't even look in Habiba's eyes. If I can't get a lock on two men with extrasensory skills who are less than a mile away, then that means at least one of them isn't still on hallowed ground. I sent Tobias to the only safe place I knew—"
A heavy blast rocked the sanctuary. People began screaming and running with clerics. Mortar fire made huge c
handeliers and candelabras crash to the floor amid fleeing civilians. Another shell hit and Damali and Carlos were up at the now-shattered stained-glass windows.
Carlos flung a shield of Heru up to cover the facade of the building as Damali sent four white-light pulses from the tip of her Neteru blade to blast the incoming shells out of the air.
"Tactical nets up!" Carlos shouted, causing every tactical squad member to scramble blue-white charges to dome the building.
Folding away, he joined Damali in her window. His blade touched hers, sending a nova of white light toward the Tower of David to chase the direction of the original mortar fire.
"I gotta get over to the Dome of the Rock," Carlos said. "If they shelled here, they shelled there, trying to figure out which location we're holed up in."
"Go," she said, and then turned back to the window. "We'll hold it down here so you can bring those men back alive."
"We'll settle the score later on what I owe you, Fallen," Lilith said with a wicked chuckle. "You are indeed the best at three-card monte—of the three sites, it appears that you've guessed the right one to shell first." He returned a half-smile as he looked down at the charred remains of demons that still clung to human conventional weapons. "But it does seem that our female Neteru is quite recovered. Perhaps it's time for Vlad to send in his troops?" Carlos came out of a fold-away just outside the hallowed ground, not wanting to violate the sanctity of the site. He swept the area with his senses, frantically calling out to Tobias and Cordell in his mind as the ground began to rumble. He watched in horror as a missile headed right for the coppery gold, gleaming dome where thousands of innocent civilians sought shelter. Several quick energy pulses from the tip of his blade exploded them in midair.
"Everything' you send to me, I send back to you tenfold!" Carlos shouted. Prepared to stave off the next volley, he watched in awe as tracers careened toward the dome and then curved, and went screaming back in the direction they'd come. A massive blast threw him off his feet. In the back of his mind he heard people screaming. Thunder seemed to be coming from the earth beneath him, and dazed, he took a few seconds to realize it was nightmare hooves quaking the ground. He flipped up, and ducked as an iron-barbed mace swung past his head. Berserkers were on the move! Civilians fearing the collapse of the Dome had fled hallowed ground. Those who had tried to make an escape on foot were trampled under cloven horse hooves, heads severed from their shoulders by huge iron balls with spikes or cleaved clean off their shoulders by massive black blades. Bodies banged his as he swam in the opposite direction of the zigzagging humanity. Thousands of civilians were moving in panicked herds, rushing first one way and then another as demon horsemen gave horrific chase. Human military ranks were decimated. Tanks and conventional artillery was useless against what came at them. It all happened so fast, he was one blade against an entire demon army—and yet he had to find Cordell and Tobias within a sea of flaming, screaming death.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Cordell rushed behind Tobias as quickly as he could. Tobias body blocked for him like an NFL linebacker, pushing panicked citizens out of their path and grabbing Cordell by his arm to occasionally help him along.
Walkers careened into the street, snatching at human flesh and adding to the chaos, while rabid dogs fled buildings followed by demon rats that poured into the streets from the sewers. Chunks of brick and falling debris rained down to add to human fatalities. As Cordell and Tobias rounded a corner, a huge Berserker skidded into their path, wielding a fiery spiked ball that wiped out half a building. The crowd changed direction on a dime like a terrorized school of fish, trampling one another, darting into crevices and bombed-out buildings, individuals getting picked off by demon slaughter. Tobias had Cordell by the back of his shirt, yanking him toward safety against a wall as he reached out using a blue-static tactical energy line and bound the legs of the charging Berserker's nightmare. As the demon went down it slid the length of the city block, taking out screaming people in its wake to leave a bloody smear.
But a white-light pulse coming from across the street spurred Tobias and Cordell on. The second they rounded the corner, they saw Carlos—he spotted them, cutting through a horde of walkers. Cordell raised the wrapped weapon to let Carlos know their mission was accomplished. Pure darkness entered the tiny street, melting walkers as Carlos reached out to his men for a fold-away. Cordell looked back; Tobias screamed no; every building that had been around them exploded. Carlos sprawled onto the stone floor of the Church of the Sepulcher with a hard thud. He looked up and saw that Tobias had crashed into a section of pews, clutching a portion of Cordell's shirt as the sacred weapon he'd been holding clattered to the floor. Carlos was on his feet in milliseconds as he saw Cordell's body face down on the stones, twitching.
Guardians rushed in with Damali. An agonized yell suddenly escaped Carlos as he held his face and blood began to leak from his eyes. Torn, Guardians split ranks, going among Carlos, Cordell, and Tobias.
Damali tried to pry Carlos's hands away from his face, and when she did he collapsed as her shriek shattered church glass. His eyes were missing. Huge holes with skull bone and exposed flesh remained where his silver gaze had just been. Carlos began to convulse as Marlene hastened to Cordell's body, flipped him over, and then jumped back, making the sign of the crucifix over her chest. Carlos stopped breathing.
"His eyes are gone," Marlene said, aghast.
"He's not breathing," Damali yelled, beginning to urgently perform CPR on Carlos. Berkfield was on his hands and knees beside Carlos but got up and ran to Cordell, and then ran back again. "What should I do, Mar? What should I do!"
"It-it-it-," Tobias stuttered as Habiba rocked him in her arms, "it was the most evil darkness I have ever felt. I didn't look back, but Cordell, Carlos, they stared right at it." Tobias broke down and covered his face, weeping. "There was nothing we could do against it!"
"What do we do!" Berkfield shouted again as Damali's hands covered Carlos's wounds and she frantically gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
"You work on the living!" Shabazz hollered. "We got a Neteru down—Cordell is gone!"
Carlos coughed before Berkfield could even move, and then he sat up quickly, yelling, and shoved Damali away from him. As Cordell's last gasp exited his body, Carlos covered his eyes and released a long, bloodcurdling wail.
"Don't touch him, D, anymore," Marlene said firmly. "He tried to heal that man in a fold-away with a demon charge tracking him."
"I don't give a damn!" Damali said, trying to get back to Carlos's side. "I'm riot leaving him like that!"
But Carlos waved her off, keeping his eyes covered against the dim lights with his forearm. "Oh, God . . ." He arched and clawed the stones with one hand, panting as though giving birth, and then finally slumped over. "The light is too bright," he gasped, sliding down to lie on his side. "The light is too bright." Damali knelt by him, her wings out and covering his shuddering form, blocking whatever oil lamplight and candlelight still existed. "I'm here, I'm right here," she said, ignoring the shelling outside the walls.
"I tried to save that old man," Carlos said in halting jags. "I knew he was a seer, so they'd take out his eyes, try to use them to see the last thing he saw. I thought if they pulled in a little silver, I could blind them . . . woulda saved Cordell his sight. But the second I could see from CordelPs eyes, saw the streets, I knew they'd—" Carlos stopped speaking and heaved in a deep breath to steady his voice. "It wasn't a swap, it was a merger—they got both for a minute. It all happened too fast to make a clean separation."
"Oh, baby," she whispered, wrapping her arms around him as she pressed her face against the crown of his head.
"Tell me he made it, D," Carlos murmured thickly. "Even if he might be blind." She shook her head. He balled his hands into fists. "Do you know what they are doing to people in the streets?" Carlos said in a low, lethal whisper. "Damali, we've gotta take it to the streets. We can't stay in here."
"I know," she said, br
ushing back his hair. "But right now your eyes need to heal." She gently peeled his arm away from them, looking at the reddened, fragile lids and deep, bruised blood circles all around the sockets. He looked like he'd been in a prizefight, but at least the organs were slowly coming back.
"All I need right now is that blade Cordell brought me, and some sunglasses." The darkness screamed; the shelling temporarily stopped. It clutched at its eyes with massive claws, reared back, and ripped them out as silver residue blinded it. Silver drizzled down its invisible black pit of a face, sizzling and popping as the beast ripped at its own flesh. Its feral wail in the distance spiked a tornado. Lilith and her generals stopped slaughtering the masses and for a moment all fighting ceased. A huge claw reached up from the broken earth, and from within the pit, the Dark Lord climbed out to challenge her.
Huge bat wings cast a shadow over Lilith as she stared up into glowing eyes filled with pure rage. Cloven hooves advanced in the unnatural quiet, clattering against stone. Her generals withdrew, fearing for their lives, as a muscular, spaded tail with a weapon tip the size of a boat anchor bullwhipped toward her, crashing into buildings and smashing bricks. Vicious, saliva-dripping yellow fangs opened to release a deadly snarl. Fire chased the smell of sulfur from the gaping maw that demanded recompense.
"My Thirteenth was blinded by a Neteru's silver gaze! How could you allow this travesty to happen, Lilith?"
"Listen," Damali said quickly, helping Carlos to his feet as the other Guardians covered Cordell's body and reverently placed his lifeless form on a pew. "It's too quiet and it's too dark."
"I've felt that before, bro," Yonnie said. "No offense, but so have you. We both know who's topside now, for real."
L A Banks - [Vampire Huntres Legend 12] Page 23
