The Hunted

by L. A. Banks

  Holding up the Isis, Damali tilted her head. “Before you, Nzinga had this over in the Nubian Empire. What if she came back twisted during your Neteru’s reign and tried to strip your huntress of her time? You wouldn’t have it, would you? None of you who were guardians would have allowed it. It is in your code to protect a living Neteru, one from the light, not a dead one that’s slithered up from the dark realms.”

  Murmurs echoed behind the angry queen. “Enough! I challenge you, then, to hold onto your reign. You have chosen a passive course for your era, instead of—”

  “Instead of fucking up the world? Are you mad?” Damali was walking, no longer concerned about an arrow or being rushed by the demon were-jaguars. “You keep doing these unexplained ambushes on humans, they’ll send in troops. They will nuke the Amazon looking for aliens and shit. Yes, you’ll win, maybe, but they’ll leave a smoking black hole for you to rule over! They have new shit up here topside these days. They have more than cannons and rifles.”

  She pointed her sword at the Amazon. “You shame our kind!” Damali glanced at the others. “Your girls died for you as the lead guardian once your Neteru fell, and followed you into the pit instead of Heaven, where they could have been reborn as warriors of light. They could have been fighting in spirit, swaying the balance, like the old way—which is not a passive move—it’s honorable! But you let yourself and your other sister guardians go out like that.”

  Damali’s breathing became ragged the angrier she became just thinking about it, but she reversed her strategy midway in her argument to throw her adversary off guard. Instead of outing the old mother-seer, she spoke to her as though she were the ancient Neteru. “You even put your mother-seer in jeopardy? Then you come back with a twisted plan? Look at them! These are the best of an era gone bad. Let them ascend!”

  “There should be a fair challenge match, to end the Neteru feud,” the warrior to the right of the queen said. “A true queen Amazon would never—”

  It happened so fast both squadrons of fighters were left speechless. The Amazon ripped out the throat of her warrior in one lightning move. The stunned, lower-ranking were-jag fell slowly, looking confused, clutching the gaping black hole, gurgling black blood. The warriors on the ledge stepped back, casting nervous glances among them.

  “If ever you challenge my authority—ever!”

  “See, y’all. Your girl is over the top. Nobody else has to die, and mountains and shit don’t have to blow up, if she’d just step outside and meet me woman-to-woman on a private matter we need to address. Damn . . .”

  The warriors behind the Amazon backed up farther, nodded, transformed into feline form, then disappeared within the cavern.

  “Deep,” Shabazz murmured.

  “See,” Damali shouted, “some things ain’t changed since the dawn of time!”

  “At the top, me and you.”

  Damali and her team just stared at each other as the old Amazon backed away from the ledge and vanished.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “ALL RIGHT,” Damali said, talking fast. “We have like twenty minutes for me to get to the top, and do this thing while dissension is brewing in her ranks. I want these teams out of here, collect your man before something goes after the remains, and—”

  “You are not going up there by yourself. Forget about it,” Shabazz said, snatching her arm, making the team surround her with Kamal leading the pack.

  “You’re burning my daylight, big brother. She ain’t taking my sword, trust me. So, I want the team on that boat, with Big Mike ready to blow the lair as soon as the sun hits the horizon, if I’m not back by the time you’re ready to pull off. It doesn’t have to be completely dark for Carlos to come at sundown, but I don’t want him to have anywhere to hide out here. We need something to distract him, make him retreat for a few minutes to get himself a secure new base. Plus I meant what I said about not destroying the beauty of this—”

  “No,” Marlene snapped, walking away from her. “Absolutely not. I won’t allow it.”

  The whole team shook their heads in unison.

  Damali sighed with a hard rush of frustration. It was hopeless, and this team standoff was wasting valuable time.

  “Then only take what you can carry. While I’m up there with her, nobody fires unless they are personally rushed. I don’t care how close you think I am to biting it—you let me do this.” She stared at her team hard. “It’s more than about a Carlos thing, or even a demon problem.”

  When Kamal nodded, everybody went still, their eyes going between him and Damali.

  Damali grabbed a crystal-tipped stake and thrust it in her pants back pocket. “He knows,” she said with a half-smile, glancing at Kamal. “That’s why dude is out here, and told me today . . . in the center of my chest. I saw it when the anger lifted and peace claimed me. That Amazon was wronged, people. She’s crazy, but she was wronged. And there’s only one way to rectify it now. Compassion enough to put her out of her misery.”

  Damali shook her head. “Even Carlos, in his messed-up state, felt for her. He sent that to me, too. Don’t hate her. Hate what she’s become, and what did this to her. That, I am going to deal with . . . the bastard that made her come back.”

  “Damali,” Rider argued, his voice gentle, his eyes holding a combination of terror and confusion, “I know the code of a Neteru is supposed to have high ideals . . . but, baby . . .” He glanced at Big Mike and the rest for support, whose eyes all held the same expression of panic. “Please, D—”

  “She’s still an ancestral guardian, and there’s a code,” Damali said in a firm, quiet tone. “Because they came for her wrong, there’s a hiccup in supernatural law—I want her back on our side. There’s a tiny fragment of trapped light coming from the ascended Neteru in there that will sway the balance. They ingested the wrong thing . . . it’ll give them a fragment of conscience, make them remember, and a second of hesitation will be my window. Eleven guardians might even ascend, if I take the head of the hydra. Means we get one hundred soul-weight to one, do the math . . . times eleven is an eleven-hundred soul-shift, with Neteru topspin in the equation. The Neteru that perished will have her old team back—righteous. Plus they’re all warriors.”

  She pointed toward a tunnel that her heart told her led to the top. “You got it?”

  Shabazz nodded. “Let’s do this.”

  Army boots crushed bones and rotting animal carcasses as the guardians and Kamal’s men passed; the stench of death and the hum of carrion-feeding insects got denser as the teams approached the apex of a narrow interior tunnel. Damali had the front, Big Mike and Drum had the back, with Marlene and all sensors in a closed-rank, single-file formation edging to the cliff top opening.

  Vultures took flight; some dove and swooped at the human team to make their displeasure at an interrupted feeding known. Eight pairs of green, glowing eyes met the human squad from hidden shadows and small crags, but nothing moved.

  All spectators gathered, a foul breeze blew, and Damali and the team’s attention went to the cavernous location adjacent to them. Appearing out of the darkest corner, in full battle gear, the Amazon appeared.

  Her polished gold breastplate, armbands, shin shields, and helmet glistened red in the setting sun. The brilliant white cloth of her battle robes seemed to absorb the colors of the sunset within each fold. Her hair was twisted high off her shoulders in an endless spiral of knotted braids, and her strong forearms flexed as her battle-ax lowered and she bent her knees prepared for war. She was indeed a queen.

  The stalking dance began slowly without words or fanfare. Damali’s sword was lowered, just like the Amazon’s ax. Their movements were steady, controlled, and neither of them blinked. But time was not on Damali’s side. A fight like this between two evenly matched opponents could take hours. She had less than a quarter hour. Without further hesitation, Damali locked in on her adversary, first sending her the message of respect. The woman was truly magnificent.

  Seeming dazed, n
ot expecting to sense that message, the Amazon widened the circle.

  “They’re going to use you,” Damali said, resigned. “You know that, right?”

  “You have minutes, young huntress. Pity. Because you, too, are magnificent. Your people have shared much with mine. I will give you that.”

  Damali nodded. “Don’t you know that you won’t come out of that vanishing point, the vampire will? You’ll have been fucked over twice by power-hungry men.”

  “You lie because you love him,” the Amazon replied, closing the gap. “You must accept defeat. Give me my sword. What I am after is freedom from all boundaries.”

  With the comment, Damali saw an in. A way to score her opponent’s concentration, start the charge. “Yeah. I know all about that, too. Soon as the sun sets, you’re coming for more than my Isis blade. But you can take the sword, you can take the body—but, girlfriend, you can never take my place.”

  Damali smiled to herself as she felt something prying into her brain for an explanation, the Amazon’s telepathy feeling her out for assurance that the Amazon’s evil plan wouldn’t be derailed by a variable she’d overlooked. The Amazon was curious, suspicious. That was good.

  And that was also when Damali sucker punched her with every bit of memory, sensation, and excruciating detail she could find. The Amazon lowered her weapon for just a fraction of a second, dazed, fury taking two seconds to boil over. Damali used those seconds to land a fly kick dead center in her opponent’s stomach, shaking the Amazon’s balance. But the agile senior warrior instantly flipped up from where she’d landed on the ground, and came back at Damali angrier than she was before the blow.

  Two lightning-fast whooshes went down Damali’s sides. She’d faked left, and the close heat of the missed ax-blade strike actually friction-burned the length of Damali’s left arm. Anticipating the second swing, Damali had dodged right, narrowly avoiding the second pass of the deadly Amazon ax. The passes had been wielded within the span of two snaps of the fingers, but the Amazon was too near her to effectively stab at her with the Isis. She’d only slice her, and would lose momentum on the draw back. The were-demon was in close, enraged at what she saw and felt within Damali’s mind. But the anger was making her sloppy. Damali landed a solid punch to her adversary’s jaw when the ax came down again without precision aim, giving Damali time to back up for Isis range.

  Using both hands, Damali put her full weight into the swing, but the Amazon bent back in a capoeira move, a limbo avoidance duck, and caught the Isis with the side of her ax. The vibration of the hard, clanging connection traveled up the Isis, through Damali’s arm, nearly rattling her skeleton. Maybe Big Mike had been right—this bitch got stronger when she got angrier.

  Momentarily winded from defending against the heavy, sword-connecting blow, Damali had to get out of the older warrior’s swing range. She was strong as an ox, and angry as a bull. She’d lost two close guardian sisters and had killed one of her own; Damali had not. The Amazon was down three bodies on her team; Damali was down one. The Amazon had ingested her own Neteru, was tethered to that essence, was synced to the stolen fertility phases, was getting hyped from the waxing ripening cycle as the sun set; Damali’s system was stabilized—save adrenaline. She’d been incarcerated in Hell for almost five hundred years; Damali had only visited to kick some ass and get out. She’d been in horrific human battles of biblical proportions; Damali definitely had never taken a human life. It was time to be strategic. Pure muscle was not gonna win this one.

  Kamal’s words entered Damali’s head as both silent squads looked on; were-jaguar demons on one side, a combined team of Neteru guardians and were-humans on the other. Two spectator demons cast evil grins in the human seer’s direction to warn Kamal to stay out of it. His words ebbed back as Damali avoided an ax landing in the center of her skull, propelling herself out of harm’s way with a back flip.

  She’d quickly tried to behead the Amazon as the ax weight of swing carried the ancient warrior forward to bend over, but the seasoned queen was too fast and was on her feet as Damali’s sword was just rising.

  The Isis was, for the first time in Damali’s life, becoming a detriment. This older warrior used a skill that Damali hadn’t seen before, and the Amazon was adept with the smaller, closer held, hand-to-hand combat weapons. The Isis dagger was too short-range for a stronger opponent like this one. Even if Damali had access to long-distance death carriers, like arrows or darts, those only worked in an ambush. If she had a Glock, she’d have to aim at something that moved like lightning. Even the sharpshooters hadn’t been able to hit one of them good. Spraying an area with machine gunfire had been futile—these things vanished into thin air before the bullets struck. You had to catch them off guard, up close and personal while they charged.

  A sudden blow to Damali’s jaw from an unseen fist sent her hurling backward. The dropping sun was strengthening this enemy, giving the Amazon greater speed—which the ancient warrior didn’t need to be effective. In slow motion Damali saw her opponent take a running leap, a shrill battle cry passing her lips as she went airborne, and Damali’s boot connected with the center of her chest, flipping the Amazon over her.

  The Amazon landed on her back and scrambled up. Damali jumped to her feet, too. Steel met steel in a sudden rage lunge. Every swing of the battle-ax caught on the sides of the Isis as Damali flipped the blade to match the blow. But the superior strength of the Amazon was literally walking Damali backward toward the edge of the cliff as the older warrior marched aggressively, swinging in strong matched strokes, constantly moving forward.

  Marlene covered her mouth when Damali’s boot met the edge of the high crevice. On the next raise of the ax, Damali head-butted the Amazon, ramming her stomach, knocking the wind out of her, but not before two sharp elbows came down hard on Damali’s spine and a knee caught Damali right under her chin. Damali hit the ground and rolled away from an ax blade that became wedged in the dirt long enough for her to jump up and stand.

  Jaw nearly cracked, lip bleeding, tongue cut from her mouth being slammed, her back bruised, Damali held her blade firm. Confidence was waning, as she also realized for the first time in her life, she was getting her ass kicked. Damn it was too early to be the end of an era. The thought had been isolated and dredged as soon as it slithered through Damali’s mind. The Amazon smiled.

  The two began the torturous process of circling again, but the thought Kamal had sent had already been working and taking root in Damali’s brain. Slamming the older warrior, who was also breathing hard and showing mild signs of fatigue, Damali used the standoff to her advantage, hurling image after image of the Vampire Council and the counselor’s deceit.

  “No matter,” the Amazon wheezed, sucking in huge inhales, trying to catch her breath.

  “No matter?” Damali watched the glowing eyes, the twitching muscles. “Don’t you know that in the midst of the act, they’ll be a separation? You’ll be vapor—Carlos still has soul weight!”

  The Amazon straightened a little and backed up, quickly glancing at her squad that now began to move forward. Damali’s squad raised weapons, but she held up her hand.

  “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Damali nodded toward the sun that was touching the horizon, her chest heaving from the blows.

  Damali’s throat tightened, her mouth dry from exertion and emotion. “The old counselor, from the same tribes that overran your people, will hijack your daylight ability. You are just sunshine breeder-stock to them. You’re mad, so you can’t see it. He won’t allow Carlos to reign with you; don’t you get it? After Vlak bleeds the daylight out of him, Carlos is coming for me to make day walkers. This is about absolute power. Vlak will suck him dry the moment you’re vapor. That’s how they roll down there. Then, in seven years, Vlak will probably double-cross Carlos again and be strong enough to come for me, too.”

  “Carlos would never submit himself to that abomination!” the older warrior shouted. “His people are my people.
He’s a dark warrior of honor! He’s a master vampire and would never—”

  “He still had a soul, that’s why they can torture and compromise him!”

  The Amazon stopped moving. Two sets of female eyes deadlocked. Both combatants were breathing hard, but remained still. Damali’s irises were now totally eclipsed by her pupils, as the Amazon’s green orbs peered into them.

  “He’s in Purgatory,” Damali said through huffs of air. “He can come out before total sundown. He nearly wept for your loss, the atrocities that your people suffered. He told me to my face that you were majestic . . . but twisted, now. And what they didn’t tell you was that you’ve got a slight chance, a fraction of an opportunity to stop this madness. The redemption clause—use it for you and your girls!”

  The Amazon backed away in horror and disbelief as she stared into Damali’s eyes and her own eyes went from solid green to flickering green-gold to deep, mahogany brown.

  “They robbed you of your will to live, killing your child and bringing smallpox as their final weapon to your Neteru . . . knowing you would rather go to Hell than—as a warrior, in the middle of the worst scourge to come to your land—be forced to lay down and die without a fight. You couldn’t do it. You were the mother-seer and thought you had failed. It warped your faith, stole your hope . . . the dark side got to someone your team could trust, someone from inside your camp—you. That’s all you had left to believe in, after your Neteru fell, then the baby was killed.”

  Damali made the sign of the cross over her chest as she mentioned the infant, noting that the warrior’s eyes filled with tears. “They seduced you with a deathbed offer when you got sick, too—your soul for a shot at revenge, right, sis? I can dig it, but it was a bad move, wasn’t strategic on your part.” Damali let her breath out in a rush. “Connect with me, guardian to Neteru, and tell me I’m wrong?”