do this thing fast and dirty, in and out, the Covenant could be backup at the concert and on the battlefield like chaplains, but right now, this was guerrilla warfare. Ugly.
Her mind drifted in a lazy pattern of admonishing herself that she really needed sleep, especially after healing broken ribs and fractured egos. But adrenaline was still coursing through her. Carlos's steady, even breaths of slumber helped created a comforting
metronome that was beginning to lull her, but still, her senses kept scanning the beach. Then she saw it and shot bolt upright, grabbing Carlos by the back of his shirt.
"Oh my God," she said, trying not to yell. "We have to go get it, put it out of its misery."
"What, what?" He was sitting up, rubbing his face, shaking Remy and sleep out of his mind.
Damali closed her eyes and put her hand over her heart as she got out of bed. "The little fawn. Yeah, he was a traitor hybrid, but the little guy was just scared, didn't wanna fight... and after what happened out there to Sedgwick, Hubert, and Sara, I can't blame him. Those hybrids were gentle creatures - the ones on the good side, anyway. And to be thrust into the kind of action we saw in Morales, no wonder they headed for the hills." They shoved on their jeans, quickly found T-shirts and sneakers, and headed out the door.
"Baby, he looks like Harpies half-ate him... I don't think he's gonna make it. And you can't bring him inside to compromise the team."
"I know," Damali said sadly as they made it down the hall. "I've gotta heal him on the beach, or..."
"Yeah. Put him out of his misery."
* * *
what she saw when she got to the small body being bat tered by the edge of the surf made her briefly turn away and cover her mouth. The poor little creature's eyes had been gouged out, and his small, childlike chest ripped, flesh shredded, as though huge claws had simply raked him for the fun of it. As his pink skin became a thicket of fawn hair she saw his genitals were mutilated, and the poor creature's right leg was half-eaten away, the left leg only hanging on by a compound fracture and gristle.
Carlos shook his head and quietly drew his blade of Ausar into his hand as the small creature moaned and began to blindly slap the sand, reaching for the presence he felt near him.
"Help me," he gasped. "They're slaughtering our kind, here and in Nod. The angel hybrids and those of us who are good. Please, nice angel lady, help me," he wailed and began to sob. "Don't make me go back to her."
Damali laid her hand on his head, siphoning away the pain until tears streamed down her face. "Oh, you poor little thing. Who did this to you?"
"Lilith. She's mean... evil, and told them to slaughter any hybrid that didn't stand with Cain, here or in Nod. She got the message back in with retreating troops. They've started the massacres." The fawn gasped and then blindly grasped around to hold Damali's hand. She held his hand, tears brimming and falling on his chest He sighed and his body relaxed as her healing began.
"Can you send me to the place that's always sunshine and fields?" the fawn whispered.
"I can try, and I will pray over you - so will Carlos." Carlos stooped down and covered Damali's hand. "No matter what you did, or how afraid you were, you didn't deserve this."
Carlos slowly stood, removing his hand as the fawn followed his voice and Damali petted his head, kissed his forehead, and backed away.
"You should be in fields of clover with your own kind, romping and head-butting and enjoying perpetual spring," Carlos said in a smooth, calm voice. "You should see your
parents again, and feel light, and whole, and warm, and safe, and- " Carlos swung hard when the fawn smiled, removing his head from his shoulders. "You should dance in clover forever. Amen."
* * *
She wasn't sure who was more shaken, she or Carlos, as they wrapped the small body in a sheet brought from the hotel and folded away to the nearest church. They both helped dig the grave for the little creature they didn't know, but didn't have to know. All that was important was it was at peace.
So much had happened under one full moon that there was no need for them to speak on it - not that