that kind of guilt trip on his shoulders. Carlos being overly cautious is just as dangerous as his being overly reckless. You have to get him to understand that it was because his instincts were razor sharp that he picked up on an opportunity to hit Lilith's installation while it was vulnerable ... while, I guess for lack of a better way to put it, while she was being coronated as queen vamp."
"It's the retaliation he's worried about. They hit her resources hard, and as long as it was a Chairman from the vamp legions, or whatever, he was mentally ready. But when he found out Lucifer had personally throned Lilith... I watched my husband walk away from the cleansing bath in a daze. He just kept saying, 'Oh, shit, D... That's whose head I pulled up while he was getting busy? Oh, shit.' Okay, Mar. That's where he's at. Now he is bracing for a retaliation that will make Cain's battles seem like a schoolyard brawl."
"They'd be coming for us like that anyway, though, in the final days," Marlene argued.
"The Neteru Councils have been preparing for this for eons, and it was destined to happen at some point on our watch in all likelihood. Plus, Carlos had to know that if he hit Lilith's lair and even got her, that there'd be Hell to pay. It's just the fact that he actually interrupted the Devil and his wife that has Carlos so freaked out."
"Ya think?" Damali said, not meaning to be sarcastic, but having nowhere else to vent her frustration. "Plus," she added, mellowing her tone toward Marlene, "Carlos now knows
that the strength of the newly installed Chairwoman is unparalleled to anyone else who ever occupied that seat - Dante included. That also means that the making of the Antichrist is not far behind. That's why Carlos is bugging. He feels responsible for the tuning, for stirring the hornet's nest at a time when we, as a team, weren't iron-clad ready for what would fly outta that sucker."
"Look, he didn't know what schemes the Ultimate Darkness had," Marlene said, throwing up her hands. "Who knows such things? The man took a calculated risk, temporarily won, and made it out alive with all his men - weakening forces at a time when they seriously needed to get hit." Marlene began walking again, scratching her head, deep in thought. "Besides, if that's who had to install that bitch on a throne, wouldn't that seem like we'd done our job by seriously depleting their power options all the way down to the core?" Marlene stopped and turned to stare at Damali head-on. "That's our job. Tell the general, he did his job like a master... like a councilman, in fact. Totally unexpected, but right on time."
"I tried to tell him," Damali whispered from where she stood, speaking more for her own benefit than Marlene's. "I tried to tell him that his fangs were given to him and left within him on purpose, just like my wings were ... that his learning about the Dark Realms is our strategic advantage at a level never known before by the Light. I tried to tell my man that all his business savvy from the streets, his fury, his charisma, his double-dealing, sexy ways were part of the grand plan."
Damali drew in a shuddering breath and hugged herself tighter as new tears rose in her eyes. "And I tried to tell him that above all things, I respected him to the last cell in his body, no matter how much I might fuss from time to time... Mar... that's my man... my baby, and he's bleeding to death inside. But I can't stop the hemorrhage because this time he won't let me."
* * *
lilith stood in the topside clearing in central Europe calling the covens of old. "From London to Romania to Transylvania, worldwide, those who still remain in dark spirit and able to hear my cry, I beseech you ..."
Her dark energy swirled from her outstretched talons, icy winds viciously whipping her death-black gown about her legs and arms, her hair eerily floating out from her body in a chilling black charge. With her head thrown back and all the passion of fury within her, she called them to her like wayward children. It was time.
"Mine, those of the most powerful among you left who took the dark oath of the covens, arise!" Lilith shrieked into the starless night. "Make good on your evil