The Hunted

by L. A. Banks

  “Yo, dude. None of us saw that coming,” Rider said defensively.

  Kamal was blowing hot snorts of pure rage out of his nose, and even his squad looked startled to see him lose his cool. “Dat’s because your ass is fucking blind, mon! You had da gift—you would have known!”

  “Motherfucker—”

  Shabazz lunged. Big Mike lifted Shabazz off his feet and pulled him out of reach.

  Kamal straightened his locks and turned to Marlene. “For dis, Marlene, you gwan need some serious help. No amateur.”

  Damali could see Marlene steadying herself, trying to maintain a calm voice as she carefully chose her words. “Kamal, what are we dealing with?”

  Although Shabazz still bristled, the circle widened as the veteran seer went back to his circle and sat down. Bodies relaxed within the group. Marlene sat down again, but cast a warning glare to the team as the men one by one sat—Shabazz conceding last.

  “Dis ting dat come up from de pit, lures him with ripe Neteru. Dis ting dat hunts the vampire is were-jaguar. Female hunter by day, transforms at night. She took down an entire guardian squad with her, all weres. He’s torn, but isn’t—you follow?”

  Marlene nodded and took Kamal’s hands again.

  “Her seer is old, seasoned, like you, baby. I need to make you sometin’ special. My mother, you know dat, was Tucanoan. I have their crystals. I’ll make my baby an amulet, sometin’ to keep—”

  “Oh, fuck all dat,” Shabazz said low in his throat. “All we need is some ammo, and—”

  “You ain’t take care of me woman enough to keep a witch from burning a hole in her chest!”

  “First off, goddamn, she ain’t your woman,” Shabazz shot back, standing again, sending the group to their feet. “Second of all, for fifteen years, I protected her while your ass was hiding in the woods, okay? So don’t tell me about—”

  “Hidin’ in de woods? What? I sent—”

  “No!” Marlene yelled. “Everybody just amp down. We did not come here for this!”

  Both Kamal and Shabazz backed away from each other. Damali looked from one group to the next and stepped up.

  “Okay, look. Let’s calm down. If Kamal has an amulet or a charm that will keep Marlene safe, then let’s be rational.”

  “Thank you, gracious Neteru,” Kamal said, still indignant. “It’s a hexagon breastplate, white crystal, to keep her from getting her heart fried.”

  “All right, cool,” Damali said quickly, glancing between both men. “Then what about the main one, the queen-demon I need to off?”

  “You gwan hafta kill ’er wit love,” Kamal said slowly. “Gwan hafta rip her heart out and then take her head off her shoulders so she can’t tink about it. Kill da head, and de odders will die, too. But dis ting is like a hydra . . . many heads, many faces, only one though, makes the difference.” He looked at Damali hard. “This demon wants the vampire in unnatural ways—will cause a breach if he succumbs to the scent.”

  Kamal began pacing and his team moved in closer, their faces strained. “If they become one, the vampire will have access to daylight.”

  Damali’s hand slowly went to her mouth. “With the scent of ripe Neteru as the lure, and the promise of daylight, he’d made a choice too seductive to ignore. We have to get to her, first, then him.”

  Kamal’s gaze became tender as he stared across the fire at Marlene. His words were spoken so quietly, with so much pain laced through them, that his own team looked away, watching their master surrender.

  “It’ll keep coming back, gurl, if you don’ finish it. And when you get near it, you will feel everyting it feels, know everyting it knows . . . and desire everyting it desires but cannot have. It’s a female locked to a male, both trapped in their own realities—just hoping for a way to break free of them. It suffers, so be gentle wit it, though. When you kill it, kill it wit honor.”

  Marlene swallowed hard and looked away, then walked toward the river’s edge. Shabazz headed for the guest house, and Kamal walked into the brush.

  “You guys stay with her,” Damali said to Rider, who only nodded. “I’m gonna go get ’Bazz,” she added in Big Mike’s direction.

  Every man standing on the shore eventually one by one just ran their hands through their hair.

  “ ’Bazz, wait up,” Damali called behind him, running to match his long strides. “Hold up,” she urged, trying to keep up with his furious pace. “There’s a message in this we gotta listen to.”

  Unexpectedly Shabazz stopped and whirled on her. “I heard the message, loud and clear. Didn’t you?” He began walking again, yanking and kicking brush out of the way in the darkness.

  For a while, she just walked by him in silence. Yeah, she heard both messages in Kamal’s divination loud and clear. Saw it in Kamal’s eyes, too. Saw it in the way it quietly broke Marlene’s heart. This was really messed up. Her brother, mentor, friend was bleeding with a walking mortal wound. Her seer, mother-mentor was bleeding to death like a vein had been opened at the riverbank. And another master was somewhere in the bush eating his own heart out. This was screwed.

  Shabazz punched the van as he passed it, kicked the post of the steps by the guest house, and paced back and forth like a caged bear. Moonlight and a dim floodlight washed over Shabazz’s face, illuminating the silent anguish in it. His locks swung hard, slapping against his shoulders as he walked, having broken free of the band when Mike hurled him. Humiliation didn’t even begin to describe the pain in his expression. It was far more complex, containing so much more than one thing.

  “It was total disrespect, Damali. Total fucking disrespect!”

  She didn’t say a word. A match hadn’t been lit; it was a torch—an old one. This forest fire it created in the bush had to burn. Yeah, it was disrespect, but a love jones will do that to ya, too. Yet as she watched the pain work its way out of Shabazz’s system, enlightenment came with it. Damn, she’d just been there.

  “ ’Bazz,” she said quietly, as his pacing slowed and he dropped to a step beside her. “She loves you, brother. Only you. I’m a seer, too. Remember?”

  “I know what I felt, been feeling all day . . . and while I ain’t no seer, I’m also not blind.” Shabazz cast his gaze out toward the now-black bush, watching the campfire that was far away. “Fifteen years, D.”

  “Fifteen good ones, and plenty more.”

  Shabazz shook his head.

  “Yeah, more good ones,” Damali repeated, kicking a stone with her foot.

  Shabazz released a hollow chuckle. “Met her in a freakin’ alley.” He continued to shake his head. “Can you believe it? Then lost her in a jungle. Go figure. Shit happens.”

  “Where did you meet her?” she asked in a soft voice, hoping to draw him out.

  “I had just got out.” Shabazz shrugged. “Shot my own boy by accident, so had to do some time.” Shabazz looked away, his focus up at the now blue-black night and the stars.

  “We was kids, you know. Out in the street, hustling. Waiting on a drop-off. My boy was behind me in the alley. Kept telling him to back up. He said he was. Every time I looked over my shoulder, he was ten paces back. But when I turned around to keep watch, I could feel him breathing down my neck. Then, he licked my throat.”

  Shabazz swallowed hard. “I was like, what the fuck . . . and when I turned around, somethin’ I ain’t never seen before was standing between me and my boy. I freaked. Unloaded a whole clip, and it went right through her into him. Then, it was gone, and my delivery came.”

  Shabazz stood, snapped his fingers. “Just like that. A life was gone, my life hung in the balance, and everything had changed. Damali, shit happens, but they never tell you that the shit happens fast . . . just like it did tonight.”

  She was sipping air quietly, as the pain of her eldest guardian brother’s confession crushed the oxygen from her lungs. “Where did you meet Mar?” It was all she could think of to keep Shabazz talking, keep him purging his history so he could get his head right.

&
nbsp; “While I was in, I kept feeling shit, sensing things. This cool brother helped me clean up—he watched my back so they ain’t make me no bitch in there. First, I thought he was on me, you dig? But he was a seer. Said I had better things to do. So, he gave me an address in New Orleans—said there was this sister he once knew there who was a bad seer, who would know my path.”

  He stopped, looked at Damali, and sighed. “I ain’t have nuthin to lose, then, li’l sis. Nothin’. My whole posse was threatening me for shooting my boy, said I was claiming bullshit and trying to get off with an insanity rap, talking about vampires in an alley. Public defender got me a plea bargain. Had to finally admit to something I ain’t do the way they said. My momma practically disowned me when I bargained—she didn’t understand I wanted to see daylight before I died, then she up and died before I got out. Quick. Happens quick.”

  Damali nodded and kept her gaze level with Shabazz’s.

  “Went down there to the only address I had, but homegirl had moved. Went to a bar to figure out my next move. Got a drink. Left. Saw this sister in the alley out the corner of my eye, wielding a walking stick against three guys. Was deep. I stopped, was trying to stay out of bullshit—had just got out, didn’t need no problems. But then the streetlight caught a fang, and I knew. Once you see it, you always know it, even at a distance. And I went in there with her—don’t ask me why. Maybe I just wanted to connect with another living soul who had witnessed some shit like this. Had to help her, too, ’cause they were on her. Knew better than to pull my Glock.” He laughed. “Yeah, I know, parole violation, but fuck it. I was goin’ to New Orleans back in the day.”

  Damali smiled, watching Shabazz relive the past, watching his expression mellow, listening to his voice go gentle.

  “She was beautiful, D. Poetry in motion. She kicked their asses. Knew my Aikido moves that I had learned under Haneef Shabazz. We didn’t even have to look at each other, D. We were back-to-back, and stomped them vamps. Together. I kept them off her, she staked ’em. We made a good team. Been with her ever since . . . shit . . . I didn’t even go back to my motel room that night.”

  He laughed quietly, looked at the horizon. “Had done ten years, and hadn’t been with nobody since I was eighteen. That first night out in the world, back in daylight, though . . . Spent it with Mar. Didn’t even know her name—didn’t care. Just wanted her.” He nodded, and pushed away from the post. “Been that way ever since . . . but like I said, shit happens fast, and nothing lasts forever. Fuck it.”

  “You got your name from your mentor?” Damali avoided the obvious hurt, and backtracked the conversation to help keep Shabazz focused on that which was good.

  “Yeah. Gave up my street name, and my family name . . . ain’t had no family no more, so, whatever. Needed a new name and a new identity to keep myself from gettin’ snuffed on the inside, and from my old posse when I got out. My boy’s family didn’t take it well that I was the one who’d put a bullet in him. Plus, Haneef had my back inside, literally. Was like a father to me. Gave the word, and it was so—I was off limits. His name was like a shield, and the man who’d had it had honor.”

  Shabazz let his breath out again on a quaky exhale, then recovered in moments. “I was hard, and all that . . . but I’ma tell you—five, ten, twenty to one and no weapon? Sheeeit. Never been so scared in my damned life. Rather have a vamp snatch my heart out than live through some of what I saw inside. That’s why some of this don’t faze a brother, feel me? My mentor told me that until I could take ten to one, I’d always have fear in my eyes, which would draw ’em, the predators in the joint . . . and one day he might not be around. So, I listened, studied, and listened good. Feel me? Gotta be strategic. When you’re weaker, gotta use your head to stay alive. Keep from getting jacked. Just like with the vamps.”

  She nodded and placed a hand on Shabazz’s arm. “There’s a lot worse things than dying.”

  “Right.” He looked away.

  “I listened to my mentors, and listened good . . . didn’t I?”

  Shabazz chuckled. “Sometimes.”

  She laughed with him. “But I was pretty good with healing Mar’s heart, right?”

  Shabazz nodded but kept his gaze on the stars. “You did good, baby girl—real good. Thank you.” He looked at her and nodded. “Seriously.” Then he swallowed hard and glanced away.

  “I learned how to hear, see, feel, track, taste situations, right?”

  Shabazz nodded. She made him look at her by brushing a lock over his shoulder.

  “She ain’t goin’ nowhere. Yeah, there’s history, but we all got a long story, ’Bazz . . . You just told me one. Kamal was just her mentor—she told me that, woman to woman. I felt her torn, trying to get info, trying to show you respect, and trying to be gentle with somebody who didn’t do her no harm . . . who was trying to help our squad. Sis was between a rock and a hard place—like you were the other night in the club, before y’all left.”

  Shabazz laughed but let his gaze slip away. “You getting pretty good at this stuff we been teaching you to pick up on. Need to mind your business, though.”

  She chuckled and kissed his cheek. “She ain’t goin nowhere, big brother. But she might need a protective escort down by the river all alone. Do what you want with it, but that’s gospel.” Damali walked up the steps and left Shabazz studying the moon. She wrapped her arms around herself and smiled as she heard him stroll back toward the bush.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  JUST ONE night, she pleaded in prayer as she flopped down on a musty mattress. No more drama, just sleep. A camp of thirty-three warriors with the spiritual juice of a small army, who had enough amulets and circles and holy water lines drawn across sills and door jambs should allow a moment of peace—please, Father. Just another day. No screams in the night. No battle stations, no standoffs, nobody flare up, nobody get puffed up. Nobody break anybody else’s heart or piss anybody else off. Please.

  Damali threw her arm over her eyes, willing her body to relax. But her mind would not stop racing. Tomorrow might be the final show-down. Might be it. They’d have to hunt these things in the day while the Amazons were in human form, well before they transformed and got stronger. That much they’d figured out. These demons took human form by day, but at night, who knew the full extent of what they could become? Okay. Fine. But even as human female warriors, she had to admit, these bitches was bad.

  “Cool,” she said out loud to the empty room. Like Kamal said, warrior to warrior, and with honor. Hopefully he had a strong amulet, a little sometin’, as he put it, for Mar. But damn, he was dancing on the edge of disrespect with ’Bazz. Love will make you stupid, step out of order, no matter how old.

  Part of her really hurt for Kamal, though. It was crazy, but it had nothing to do with her rock-solid love for Shabazz, either. It was an oddly separate thing . . . compassion. That’s what it was. She could feel that brother’s deep-down soul wound. Knew what he was going through to want somebody so badly, but because of the realities of the situation, and the passage of time, had to let it go. But just to have to stand there and let it go and take it like a man. That was some deep and hard shit to do. For real discipline. Shabazz had that kind of control, too. She’d felt Kamal’s desire for Marlene run all through her—not from second sight, but plain ole twenty-twenty vision. And she had felt Marlene’s response. It was visceral. When Kamal locked into her, Marlene looked faint. Been there. Damali shook her head.

  “Oh, Mar, sis, I been there,” she murmured, repeating the thought. All out in public, in front of the team, wanting to crawl under a rock and die from the embarrassment. But can’t do a thing to hide it because that lure is right in front of you and you’re so hot you can’t even play it off.

  “Damn.” At fifty-plus years old? Whew, shit. Memories would mess you up. There were no words. Now Marlene had to do the hardest thing in the world, kill part of her mind with honor. Had to act like she knows.

  And what was that? Act like you know? When
your brain was on fire? Lit by an old flame? Not to mention the other body parts that clear memory ignited. Shoooot.

  Damali let her breath out hard, trying to fathom how any of this applied to the next day. This female were-jag demon wasn’t going to run off in the bush from no love jones, or stalk away so there could be a confession followed by a meeting of the minds. This Amazon creature was coming for her, and was probably going to wield a battle-ax to try to lop off her fucking head! The situation did not apply, and they’d come all this way for only an amulet and some good food. Cool. Whateva.

  If it gave Marlene a shield, then fine. But beyond that, it had probably been a waste of time—unless the guys could pull it together and work out some weapons strategies without arguing with Kamal’s squad. This was Kamal and his boyz’ house, their yard, just as much as the Amazon’s. Maybe they’d just come here for discipline?

  Her breaths started to come in slow, deep, drags of drifting sleep. Marlene and Kamal were supposed to know some people that knew some people who could get a boat with a full payload of automatics, silver dust and colloidal silver-filled shells, hallowed earth-packed bazookas—

  “That’ll help, but it won’t work alone, baby,” a familiar male voice whispered, inches from her face. “She moves too fast.”

  “Oh, shit! Don’t do that!”

  She sat up quickly, and jumped out of the bed. A collision of feelings swept through her. Anger, fear, invasion, remorse, relief, joy, desire . . . too many to catalog in her mind, or to prioritize.

  “You learned a lot, tonight,” the figure in the shadows murmured, low and seductive. “It was painful, but it was all good. You needed to see that. Sometimes shit ain’t black and white.”

  “Carlos,” she whispered furiously. “How the hell did you get in here?”

  He chuckled, but the tone in his voice was sad. “I can get in, my squad and any other vamp can’t. Guess a little bit of a soul, and a few prayers from the Covenant, work like a passport, baby.”