"Me and you, black-box - can't put a prayer around you, Mr. Councilman, you'll fry."
"Just do it."
Carlos put the translucent seal around them, adding a double layer of thickness to the flooring.
"When'd you learn how to do that, man?" Yonnie said, testing the walls gently with his fingertips.
"Came with the Neteru gig ... nice suit. When'd you elevate, man?" Carlos lifted his chin, trying to keep the concern out of his voice.
"When you briefly became chairman," Yonnie said, staring at him. "That night you elevated me, you said when you moved up, I'd move up ... you never rescinded the command. I just never sat in a throne, so I didn't have the knowledge to go with the power."
Carlos just stared at his friend for a moment. "What?"
"You saved my ass, man," Yonnie said quietly. "I owe you that... always had my six, even when you went into the Light." He walked away and swallowed hard. "That's why they couldn't break me, because I had a chairman's mark - those don't get taken away, ever, unless the Ultimate Darkness does it." He chuckled sadly. "And here I came to knock fire from your ass tonight."
Carlos raked his hair. "I am sooo sorry about what happened with Tara."
"Yeah, well..."
"Naw, hear me out, man," Carlos said, waiting until Yon-nie turned to look at him. "If I ain't never lied to you as a vamp, why would I start now, supposedly as an honest motherfucker in the Light? Does that make sense? Study it, hombre. Think." Yonnie nodded. "Then what happened?"
"You might not wanna hear this, but just like you told me before, as your friend - it ain't my job to make you feel good, it's my job to watch your back and make sure you survive. Telling you the truth is part of that."
Yonnie looked out at the ocean.
"I know this is kicking your ass ... but I didn't have any control over bringing Tara back. Neither did Damali. We don't have that kind of power. Something happened when Nuit double-crossed you and layered in a kill bite over your love bite. Tara flatlined and I saw the spirit of Padre Lopez literally come into your lair as a ball of white light and take her." Carlos was so impassioned with the truth that he began talking with his hands as Yonnie stared at him. "I didn't even wanna fold her body away in a Neteru transport, for fear that the Light would speed up the decomposition process ... she'd been gone forty some years, man. Rider had lost it so bad that Shabazz had to knock his ass out to get him to drop the body."
Yonnie swallowed hard and stood very, very still, staring at Carlos.
"We black-sheeted her, man," Carlos said quietly. "Brought her to the beach in La Paz. Wouldn't let Rider look at her - he didn't need to see that vamp aging thing happen to her."
Yonnie closed his eyes, tears glistening in his lashes. "No man should see that happen to his woman ... especially not to one that beautiful."
"Right," Carlos said, dragging his fingers through his hair. "Some hybrids got out of Nod with Cain's crazy ass. We had a nymph ... a healer. Sara . . . Rest her soul in peace."
"What ha ppened to her?" Yonnie whispered, breathing in steady, controlled sips.
"Sara attended Tara's body, so it would hold against decay until we buried it. We were under siege, couldn't do it right away. Lilith or Cain, who knows, had opened up old team wounds, we had Guardians flipping. But the hybrid stayed with Tara's body and preserved it."
Yonnie opened his eyes, sniffed hard, and turned away. "You buried her beautiful?"
"We never put her in the ground," Carlos said, his voice so quiet that Yonnie turned to stare at him.
"We took her with us, because we were under siege and didn't want her to be desecrated. She was your wife, your lover, our Guardian sister . . . Rider's common-law wife and lover
. . . shit . . . nobody could believe she was gone."
Yonnie nodded, unshed tears threatening to fall. "Nobody could believe that, man. You did what was right, tried to keep the Harpies off her. Fucking vermin."
"My Light foldaway, at the distance we had to go, would have undone what Sara did to hold her intact. So, we let the hybrids carry her at their slower speed, and told them to put her down safe on hallowed ground