Valkyrie in a semicircle and went down on one knee, facing both Neterus in a similar pose of respect. "Until our end of time."
"Until our end of time," a lame angel hybrid said, staring at the group and limping toward Carlos and Damali. Her gentle eyes looked longingly at the warriors before her and she wrapped her torn clothes in tattered, amber wings. "I wanted to fight, too. But I have missed the battle." Huge tears welled in her eyes as Valkyrie and her forces stood.
"No, dear one. You were never to be a warrior with your gentle spirit. You should help us bring peace and order and healing now that it is all done," Valkyrie said, hugging her as she came to the group.
"Thank you for healing me," the amber-winged beauty said to Damali, and then went to hug her as Valkyrie stepped back.
A sudden, shattering blast rocked the ravine making Damali lose her footing with the angel hybrid in her embrace. Something chilling attacked her mind, threw off her sense of orientation, and seized her heart as she clung to the wounded angel hybrid - trying to save her from reentry burnup as the pair slammed a frayed edge of the shielded veil rip. In the distance she could hear Carlos shouting, heard him call her name and tell Valkyrie to stay back - the area was unstable.
Pain seemed to knife her from the inside out as she came to a burning, skidding halt on the palace floor. Her team gathered around. She was semiconscious but not so dazed that she didn't know faces. Voices sounded like mud. The sky looked like it was smeared with blood from her meteoric entry. Something warm and shivering and possibly dying was in her arms. An amber-winged angel sobbed against her chest.
"Incoming," Damali said flatly. "Hold your fire, I think it's Carlos." He hit the ground so hard he bounced twice, skidded across the floor, and came to a crashing halt against the far wall. Dazed, he lay there for a moment, not exactly sure where he was. Guardians were all around him, asking him to count fingers. He thought he saw Damali in his peripheral vision holding an angel hybrid, half-sitting up. Okay, that was a good thing. He looked up into Big Mike's face and blinked twice. But there were white things seeping from the walls, up from the floor, oozing down from the crevices. The voices of the team sounded so far away that he told them to shut up. White protoplasm was seeping from the fucking walls!
He rolled over, pushed up, wobbly, staggering, disori ented, trying to call a blade in his hand, only getting sparks of energy for a moment, the words "watch your backs," stuck in his throat. Then he was on his knees, unable to breathe, feeling like he was gonna pass out. Hell no, Berkfield was wrong, he didn't have a concussion, even though he'd hit the wall like a bullet. Naw ... it was the stuff coming out of the walls. He needed to vomit but nothing would come up. Pain was making tears run, but it wasn't pain from the ground hit, it came from the inside out and leaked through his pores, making him holler. It was pain so intense that it threatened to explode his heart. Guardians were trying to make him lie down, but the floor was running blood.
"Get me off the fucking floor! It's everywhere! The walls are bleeding! Get off me!" He was up, a blade in hand, eyes wild. "Where's my wife? Where is my damned wife! Get her out of here, now!"
"I'm right here," Damali shouted, making him whirl. He watched her hand off an injured hybrid to Marlene and come to him. "Look. Don't you
see it?"
A cold sweat had replaced silver battle sweat. He was panting, frantic. Adrenaline was spiking flight-not-fight mes sages to every cell in him. Damali placed both of her hands to his temples, stared at him for a second, and then dropped them away screaming. She bent over holding her arms around her waist. Clerics and Guardians rushed to their Neterus and then all of a sudden, one by one, each cleric began to sob. Rabbi Zeitloff went down on his knees first, pulling at his clothing and beating his chest, wailing. Father Patrick leaned over and retched, as Imam Asula dropped, shell-shocked, and closed his eyes, tears running down his dark, weathered cheeks. Monk Lin stood staring at