by L. A. Banks
“Marlene?” the huge drummer said, dropping his instrument and glancing at Kamal. “The Marlene?” The drummer immediately looked at Jose, then back to Kamal as though waiting for an explanation. “With the Neteru and him?”
Confused glances shot around the guardian team, but no one said anything. Kamal’s people obviously had a problem with Jose, just like their man was having a silent problem with them. Shabazz hung back, his eyes a mystery behind dark glasses, not speaking, only issuing a nod when addressed. Later, Damali reminded herself. She’d do a sensory roll call with her group when they were alone. Now was not the time.
Kamal nodded, as though reading her mind and approving of her plan. He swallowed a smile, and sent his line of vision toward the bush. “Yes, brother. This is Marlene.”
Marlene chuckled and studied the ground. The younger men in Kamal’s group stood back, and then a flurry of indecipherable language exploded. One young brother just shook his head and slapped Kamal on the back. The drummer beamed at Marlene like she was the dinner he planned to feast on. A couple of the guys gave her bows of deference, and then glanced at Kamal with a too-wide grin.
“Enough,” Kamal said after a moment. “Permit Damali to introduce the rest of her team.”
“But, Marlene . . .” the drummer repeated, then let his breath out slowly.
“Uhmm . . . this is Shabazz, our esteemed Aikido master,” Damali said very distinctly, issuing a long look to each bemused capoeira participant. “Big Mike, Rider, JL, Jose, and Dan,” she said more quickly. “Each has a specialty and a gift,” she added. “Shabazz is our tactile sensory, Marlene is our seer—they are our group’s elders.”
She had taken her time to be sure that she mentioned Marlene and Shabazz twice as a unit—an inseparable one. Kamal was obviously a gentleman and deferred with grace, another bow in Shabazz’s direction, his expression one of understanding, respect. But Kamal’s team was not so ready to relent. Their own master being a source of adoration, one of the younger guys pressed on.
“Our Kamal is gifted with a trinity . . . the feeling, the nose, and sight—and is a worthy adversary in battle.”
Seeming satisfied when Shabazz bristled, the young man stepped back into his group, his statement an open challenge. Damali cast a warning glance at Shabazz, who had visibly stiffened when told that Kamal had second sight. She understood that her martial arts master was too irate for words, but now was not the time to start no mess. Yeah, chill. Shabazz would get his ass kicked out here and really be embarrassed—which would mean her boys would have to jump in, and get theirs kicked, too. Then what? Shabazz was gonna have to get over the fact that this brother could do a mind lock with Mar and probably take her places in his head that Shabazz had only dreamed of. She felt his pain, but couldn’t acknowledge it. She understood that, too . . . not being able to serve one’s lover all that he desired.
The brief silence pulled everyone’s nerves tight as both teams watched both masters. To diffuse the situation, Damali stepped forward with a smile. “I’m sure if Marlene brought us here, Kamal is all that. You gentlemen are top-notch as well. Thank you for your help.”
With her words, Kamal’s team seemed to acknowledge her peace-keeping gesture, and they took her compliment, one coming from the Neteru, with open satisfaction. They all relaxed their stances, and gave her slight bows of appreciation and backed up. Finally, she thought, peace.
“Your Aikido master is legendary,” Kamal said in a respectful tone after a moment. “Marlene has communicated his honor in battle. We are pleased to have your entire guardian team as our guests. We eat by de riva, we divine what you need to know in an hour. Refresh yourselves.”
Kamal’s team nodded, but seemed totally disappointed that their master was going to stand down on the man-woman thing. Damali’s squad almost let out an audible sigh of relief. Shabazz begrudgingly nodded, his chin still set hard like his shoulders, but at least his dignity was intact. Then again, she wondered if it was because the other master had allowed Shabazz to have his pride. It was a classy move, but it still denoted who had the option to back down, who didn’t, whose yard this was, and who was in control.
Damali sized up the new spiritual master again, allowing her senses to inform her. Yeah, Shabazz was in trouble. This guy was not only stronger, but had the distinct advantage of three gifts—not just one, like Shabazz had. It was clear that her team had sensed this as well, or were at the very least unsure of the outcome should some bullshit kick off. Marlene was trying her best to act like nothing unusual had occurred, as though all the undercurrent was everyone’s imagination. But a few things that were not her imagination: this guy had a scent that she couldn’t describe. It was awesome, drew you, was earthy and rich. His skin was like sable, made you just want to reach out and touch it. And his voice, once relaxed, was almost like a purr. Okay, now she was trippin’.
Damali mulled these new dynamics over like worry beads as her team quietly trekked back up the hill.
Everything was changing. Or, was it that she was now seeing more clearly? She wasn’t a kid anymore. She was stronger and getting an insider’s view of the more private struggles of her elders, was granted a real seat at the invisible adult table. Stuff wasn’t flying over her head, going unnoticed, just because she was preoccupied with her own adolescent needs and wants. She’d had some pain to wake her out of her stupor . . . she was seeing it all go down in quick glimpses, swallowed smiles, tensed jaws, a misplaced breath, the signals of body language that the uninitiated didn’t catch. Things that got missed when you didn’t know . . . or made the mistake of assuming that people older than you had never been down this road before.
Climbing the stairs, she watched all her warriors. They all had lives, a path. They all had been here, more than likely. Before this near-fiasco, she never thought about it much. She made a mental note to rely on some of those lessons. Instinct told her that she was fighting an older warrior on two fronts; the demon out there, as well as this thing about to blow up between Shabazz, Marlene, and this new guy’s interest in Marlene. Maybe her old warriors might have some discreet knowledge to drop about how to diffuse something as volatile as this. She’d never dealt with any yang like this before, and wished she didn’t have to, especially this far from home.
Damali found Marlene on the porch, gazing out at the trees. Wrapped up in their own desire to rest, the guys had each claimed a cot and dropped on it, even Shabazz.
“Hey,” Damali murmured, keeping her voice low. “Can I ask you a question?”
“No,” Marlene chuckled. “Not that one.”
They both laughed quietly.
“Girlfriend, what’d you do up here?”
“Nuffin,” Marlene said with a wink, teasing her. “Not a ting.”
“Shabazz is having a coronary,” Damali whispered.
“We have an open relationship . . . like he always wanted.”
Damali went to the rail that appeared like it could barely hold the weight of a bird, and peered over the three-story drop. “He was really concerned when he thought we lost you, Mar. You need to ease up on the brother. And how you gonna bring him to this place? Dang, Mar, you’re rough.”
“I know he was concerned,” Marlene said in a low, calm tone. “He and I are best friends. No problem with that. Much respect, much love. And the location couldn’t be helped, given where we have to go. I wasn’t trying to rub his nose in it.” Then she giggled. “But there is this weird thing in the universe called karma. It just snaps back and kicks your ass when you least expect it.” She covered her mouth and shook her head. “Damn. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d be back here with any of y’all.”
Damali was covering her mouth, laughing harder, trying to remain quiet. The last thing she wanted was for Shabazz to overhear their giggling. They weren’t laughing at him, but the girl-talk was too crazy not to laugh. She held Marlene’s arm, stepped in close, and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “What did you do to
that man that has his whole squad tripping about the Marlene?”
“Oh, chile,” Marlene murmured, closing her eyes, giggling intermittently, and wrapping her arms around herself. “That was a looong time ago, and I was young, okay? The man is a tactile . . .” Marlene breathed in and cleared her throat, opened her eyes, and almost fell over the banister as she leaned on it. “D, he’s an olfactory like you just cannot understand—don’t be too hard on Carlos for that attribute, okay honey? When a man has a nose, it’s hard for him to shake a seductive scent. Ask me how I know.” She leaned into Damali’s right ear. “All I’ma say is, girl, the brother has the third-eye thing going on.” Marlene shook her head and walked down the porch, found a step, and plopped down. “Whew.”
Dumbstruck by Marlene’s admission, the intensity of it, and the way the older woman’s expression seemed to take her back in time, made Damali claim a seat next to her on the step. For a moment, neither of them spoke, and Damali wondered if this was what older women did with delicious memories—stored them away in a repository that they could pull out and savor, like a favorite old dress stored in an attic footlocker.
“Why’d you leave?”
Damali’s question was a quest to understand how one pulled away from something that obviously had Marlene in a vise grip of passion at one time. Neither woman was giggling now, as their own thoughts eclipsed their mirth. This was some serious shit Marlene had walked away from. She needed to know how the sister did it. Needed the in-sight from Marlene about how one garnered the strength to break away from the man who had her so messed up. If Marlene would tell her, she’d use everything her mentor said to help break the grip Carlos had on her. Even out here, and after all she’d seen, she was still thinking about him.
“Maybe that’s why I’m here now,” Marlene said with a sad smile. “To tell you how I did.” Marlene looked up at the sky and shook her head. “Y’all ask an awful lot of people sometimes.”
She could tell by the way Marlene was taking her time to choose the words that opening this attic footlocker was going to bring out more than a sexy dress. But the question had been posed before the realization. Damali waited. There was nothing else to do as Marlene tried to fix her mouth to explain how one walked away from an apparent soul mate.
“Loved him,” Marlene said so quietly that for a moment the cicadas went still. “Had to leave before I messed up.”
“Messed up?” Wide-eyed, Damali just stared at her.
Marlene nodded with a knowing smile. “I came over here while I was still in training. We’d seen the premonition about Raven. I wasn’t supposed to have children, remember?” Marlene sucked in a deep in-hale. “Out here . . . shoot, girl . . . with him, I couldn’t keep to no rhythm method.”
Marlene closed her eyes. “Also couldn’t keep myself from wanting to bear what he’d plant, and in this, the master had no control. Slipped up once, dodged a silver bullet by praying to the ancestors and fasting all month.” She laughed so sadly that tears came to her eyes. “And then he drove me to town. I begged him to . . . before we really messed up, and his entire warrior team got massacred by the vamps looking for me, because they were looking for you—the only infant I was supposed to have in my arms. The vamps had been watching me for years, and tracking me. We all knew that it would only be a matter of time before they figured out a way to break Kamal’s spiritual barriers to this compound. The demons were watching, too . . . looking for the Neteru to use your scent to battle the vamps. It wasn’t worth risking what he’d built here, or what he was trying to do here. Wasn’t worth a vamp or demon war against Kamal’s people.” Marlene sighed. “Then didn’t I mess up and get pregnant by some other guy I didn’t love anyway?”
When Damali just gaped at her, Marlene gave Damali a serious look. “Don’t you tell Shabazz that mess, ever. He’ll freak. It’s already messing him up that he and Kamal share a lot of the same attributes. Would be okay if Shabazz was the original, and Kamal was the print, but girl . . . lemme just say, I done lived me some life out here, and it was all good.” Marlene hesitated and allowed her gaze to slide away. “Kamal was the one. Then came Shabazz. It’s complicated. I care for them both, love them both, and both of them are different and mean different things to me for different reasons. Shabazz is the one, now. But there was one before him. That’s the part he won’t be able to deal with—the fact that . . . Shit, I’m not even making sense to myself. There’s a lot about this place that I couldn’t tell him, or anybody in the group.”
She looked at Damali, her eyes searching for acceptance. “Just trust me, no matter what kicks off that, you needed to come here to fight what we’re facing, and that’s paramount. The rest is history.” She looked away and her voice became very distant. “If I didn’t have to come back here, believe me, I wouldn’t have. Too hard.”
She didn’t know what to say to Marlene as she watched the older guardian breathe deeply and her tears evaporate without falling. She’d sucked it up, took it like a woman, was gonna keep the peace, and chill. But how in the hell? Marlene’s jaw was set hard, her gaze went to the horizon, and she blinked slowly, like packing away old still photos in a hidden album. But she could feel the current coming off Marlene. The old girl was jacked up. And the way Kamal had looked at her, like a battle-ax was in his chest, but was so fucking cool it didn’t make sense.
“Much respect, Mar, and I’m so sorry you had to bring me here to open up a wound,” she whispered, meaning it with all her heart. “But I don’t think I’m there, yet, for real. To have the discipline.” She held Marlene in her gaze. “Mar, I’ve seen some crazy, crazy, mad-crazy shit, right?”
Marlene nodded.
“The man told me some mess that made me stop breathing for a minute, okay?”
Marlene nodded.
“The entire world order is hanging in the balance, and I should be too done with him,” Damali said in a quiet tone, her eyes searching Marlene’s for answers.
Marlene smiled.
“I’m on my way out to possibly get all our asses kicked, and we might die.”
“Yup.”
“But Mar . . .” Damali whispered now, her hands clutching the hair on the crown of her head. “He’s in my nose, in my mind, a part of my skin!”
“Yup,” Marlene said standing. “Know whatcha mean.”
“But . . .” Damali looked up, confused.
Marlene leaned down to keep the conversation from being overheard. “You will always feel that way about him. It will never go away. For you, it will burn like a never-ending fire, and for him it’ll burn him like quicksilver would. It will always be fossil fuel. But when you get strong enough, you will walk away to avoid a disaster. That doesn’t mean you’ll stop smoldering, it just means that when you’re not in the vicinity of the blaze, you won’t go up in flames. Distance, darlin’. Time and distance. But don’t drop a match near it—ever. No matter how much time has passed. Ask me how I know.” Her smile was warm. “That’s why nobody who was old enough to know better dropped a match near my situation today, or will speak on it. Take note.”
Marlene smoothed the front of her T-shirt and looked up at the sky. “I’m cool. I’m cool y’all,” she said, laughing. “Just one night, I can hang,” she said, speaking to nothing and everything, especially herself. “Damn, the stars are dredging up all kinds of triangles.” She looked at Damali, shook her head, and started walking. “Ain’t that a bitch?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THOUGH DAMALI’S hands were still sticky from the succulent mango juice that ran between her fingers, she was glad that she and Marlene were able to sneak down to the river for a quick bath and could change their clothes. She’d urged the guys to cool off, and was too grateful to Mar for rubbing the odd concoction of leaves on her that kept away the bugs. But the guys looked miserable.
Sweat had caked dirt lines at their necks; they were grubby as all get out. Streaks of smeared dust and perspiration marked their faces, and their fingernails were caked with
two days’ worth of travel and battle. Just looking at them made her feel yucky. And they were all supposed to bunk in the same room? Even the noses in the group didn’t mind. Men. Damali sighed.
None of the team had shown any shame when a dripping array of fresh fruit was put before them along with the spicy dende-oil-seared kale blended with lime juice, garlic, and tomatoes, or the deep-fried bean cake with onion and pepper sauce, sans dried shrimp. Both Kamal and Marlene argued that the guardians needed their strength; meats sapped the energy field of the body, they said. It was all vegetarian fare tonight, and most of that consisted of uncooked foods. Fresh, cold coconut milk, papaya juice, mango juice, and flatbreads were inhaled without protest.
Time here was measured by the angle of the sun, the brightness of the stars, music, and activity. Kamal dropped back on his elbows on the gravelly riverbank, his billowing white pants reflecting the flickers of red and gold from the blaze of the campfire. Several of Damali’s guardians yawned, sending a ripple of yawns and stretches throughout the group. Everyone relaxed except Marlene and Shabazz, and oddly, Jose. Damali was too full to immediately worry about it. The fire felt good, the breeze was soft and balmy. The sounds of the night were descending upon the river. The water made its own music. Brothers were laughing and talking among themselves, but Kamal’s second in command, Abdul, made her chuckle.
“Marlene teach you about mari ariri kero dohpa?” He glanced at Kamal who only smiled as he came near Damali and sat down, trying to throw heavy rap.
“Our existence dreamlike appears,” Damali said, knowing she was blowing his rap, but needing to set some boundaries. “Yeah, total opposite of western beliefs.” From her peripheral vision she could see a few of the nearby brothers swallow away smiles, but they remain fixated on the verbal dance to see how their brother might recover.
He edged closer to her and gave a deferential nod in Marlene’s direction, which seemed to make Kamal nod in appreciation. “Of course, you have a mother-seer who is renowned. She would have explained how the invisible, spiritual world is within the left brain, where fantastic artists like you draw from.” His voice was low, sensual, and controlled as he ran his palm over his locks to demonstrate each side of the brain. “The right,” he continued, “is the physical—what we call reality. But what is reality? Many things are illusion and yet they are so real.”
