right to call to Damali's hand the black mare, thus opening the third seal." She stared at Damali without blinking. "Take your time to call her, for a balance of weights and measures comes with her. She will raze their food, making the staff of life scarce, hurting not the oil and the wine."
"Why would I ever want to do that?" Damali said, dropping Carlos's hand and covering her mouth.
"To starve out their armies!" Nzinga shouted. "Then Ausar can release the pale horse of hunger and death upon their weakened demon legions, death by starvation - then opening the fifth seal to raise armies of the fallen, those who were slain for the word of the Almighty, those martyrs murdered by evil. They will rise again, after a season, but the sixth seal must then be fulfilled."
"Yes!" Joan shouted. "Every army and every soldier in the fight of a just cause, and every person burned at the stake in their vicious inquisitions of injustice - the enslaved, the tortured, shall rise in victory!"
"The moon will go crimson, winds shall lash the land to sweep the vile assets of Hell from the planet... earthquakes shall move mountains and islands out of their lodging to shake them from every hiding place beneath the ground; the sun will go black to entice them out to fight against a battle they shall never win," Adam said, breathing hard with battle lust and leaning forward. 'The battle is on!"
"After that, the twelve scattered tribes shall gather, a hundred and forty-four thousand Guardians in all, to be redeemed and - "
"Wait!" Damali and Carlos shouted in unison, holding up their hands. They both began pacing, panic sweat making their clothes stick to their bodies.
"That's too much responsibility," Damali said, her voice shrill.
"Man, put that red monster back in its stable, brother - I ain't calling that shit to earth. We got people down there, families, and babies, and ... aw, man, this is over the top." Carlos raked his dampening hair.
"Right," Damali said, almost hollering. "If the food gets scarce for demons, that's biblical plagues ... a quarter of Africa has already been decimated, we've got bird flu in Asia and Europe reaching pandemic proportions, and old, already conquered diseases making virulent comebacks - we can't bring that on people!"
She spun and looked at Carlos.
"Naw, like, we just came up here for a simple divination, since the first seal was open and a funky spell was gonna go down. We ain't come up here for all of this, yo!" Ausar and Aset sat back in their thrones garnering calm as the great hall quieted. Two Guardians led the snorting steed away, and Hannibal sighed.
"Our apologies," Ausar said evenly. "We have been waiting for this for a long time, and perhaps we got ahead of our selves."
"Please don't break another seal," Damali said, her voice a dry rasp.
"For real," Carlos said, still too hyped to stop pacing. "Adam, man, I didn't even want the first one broken, if I knew it was gonna be all of that."
"Well this is why we've given you access to the Covenant!" Adam shouted, losing patience. "They are your earthly guides!"
"True," Eve said with a half-smile. "But Carlos did not directly ask you to break that first seal. You tapped into his energy and felt him headed toward Lilith's lair - and if you are honest with yourself, you - "
"Jumped the gun!" Carlos yelled. "I didn't ask for no seal breaks - just some assistance. Uh-uh, you ain't laying that at my feet in the end of days, brother - we cool and all, but uh-uh."
Adam stood, indignant, looking around at his fellow Kings. "All right! I admit it! My breakage was premature - but given the stress Eve and I have endured - "
"No one is blaming you, man," Solomon said in a conciliatory tone. "Sit. We are all here for the same purpose."
Begrudgingly Adam sat.
"I feel where you're at," Carlos said, drawing Damali under his arm. "But if we can contain the madness ... I mean, we'll scrap to the bone, will battle whatever comes our way, but our main goal is to keep down the number of human civilian casualties."
"We would have said the same thing, during our incarnation," Aset said in a soothing voice, staring at Ausar.
"You would have, but I would not - I would have taken a hundred thousand men into battle and razed anything of the enemy in our wake."
"You see how