he's fast with a switchblade, like me? Oh, shit, y'all. You hear what I'm saying?"
"Yeah ... completely," Tara murmured, her gaze distant. "This isn't like times before. They're acting like it's a last stand, and I don't even think they know why." Damali walked in a circle raking her locks, total frustration claiming her as the puzzle numbed her brain. As much as she hated to admit it, fear for the safety of one half of the team had a headlock on her as well.
"Do you know where the capital city is for ancient Babylon?" Damali finally blurted out,
unable to control the volume of her voice as her nerves frayed and snapped. "It's on the Euphrates River, south of Baghdad in modem Iraq!"
Unable to contain herself, Damali paced faster as the group's eyes widened before her.
"Pray and pray hard, sisters - they're walking right into part of this whole Middle East madness. There's ground troops from however many nations over there, civilians ... tanks, tracers, land mines, God only knows what, and our squad could accidentally come out of a whirl right in the middle of a firelight - who knows! And I haven't even begun to think about what demons are over there right now screwing with everybody, keeping the conflict going, holding humanity in a death struggle against itself... hell... Level Seven might be topside, for all we know!"
"I'll see if I can get maps, something to give us a geographic visual as we pray white light around where they are. It helps." Krissy jumped up and dashed down the hall, returning quickly with her laptop.
Jasmine, Heather, and Marjorie linked hands, making blue-white static zing between them with Tara in the middle to draw her vamp-locator knowledge to the fore.
"The old stones are screaming," Heather said quickly, looking up at Damali. "The region is not just white-hot topside, but underground. The holy cities ... with the conflict going on near Beirut, Jordan, and north - Christian and Muslim and Jewish strongholds are hi flames."
"But they went to Lilith's bedchamber," Tara said with a shiver. "To her main lair that has never been breached in history - even warrior angels couldn't find it... it is an insane move, a fool's quest." She covered her face with her hands and breathed into them deeply as though trying to keep from hyperventilating.
"Yeah, but Carlos is the only fool I know that ever sat in the Chairman's throne and lived to tell about it as a living human being," Marlene countered. "Even warrior angels didn't do that... and if he had an old link to Cain that didn't all the way die out, then if anybody could find Lilith," she added, glancing at Damali, "it's him." Damali briefly closed her eyes, trying to find the silver lining in the mayhem surrounding her. "There's always a reason, there's always a reason ... there's always something good that comes out of every bad for the greater good," she murmured like a mantra, trying to remind herself of that and calm her nerves for the sake of the team as another wave of panic threatened to sweep through her.
"Ohmigod," Krissy said, beginning to rock. "From where we are in the South Pacific, they're already into the next day, fourteen to sixteen hours ahead of us, just before midnight there by an hour, perhaps. What if... oh, shit, they're outta their minds!"
"I know, I know," Damali said, pacing. "They're nuts."
"Just like the prophecies," Juanita murmured, holding her hands up in front of Inez as both women's eyes rolled back into their skulls, showing only the whites the moment each seer went under.
"And I saw the Lamb open one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, come and see... and I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him; and he went forth conquering, and to conquer." Inez's head snapped up with a gasp. Her voice had been a gravelly, chilling tone that was not her own.
"Revelations one and two!" Marlene screamed, running into the bedroom and searching
Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer for Damali's stones. "Where're your stones, child? Your divination tool! This is the big one! The first seal is opened! Call Father Pat - this is not a drill!"
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER TWO
If she could just rest... if he would just relent so she could regenerate...