send a signal. Phones are tapped; didn't wanna risk calling Gabby that way. I came as soon as I could. The team's house has been ransacked. There's a tear in a new realm we just saw--"
"We don't need Gabby for that shit, brother. Me and you can go down there and handle that shit. We'll take out--"
"They have perpetual daylight over there, man." Carlos began to pace. "Two suns, twenty-four/seven."
"Oh, shit, man... You start the big one, or what?" Now Yonnie had begun to pace. "I ain't no punk or nothin', but if you're talking warrior angels, man, I don't know."
"Naw, man. That's not where they're from."
Carlos and Yonnie stared at each other for a moment as Tara drew near to Yonnie and protectively held him.
"The only reason I'm here and asking you to get anywhere near this situation is 'cause we family," Carlos said. "I ain't trying to get you and Tara directly involved or possibly smoked, but could use a master's sensory lock to work with mine, if that's possible. I'm getting conflicting sensory data. Like, I just felt a serious panic surge on the team. I know they're in a human lockup somewhere, but that's the crazy thing. I know they ain't dead, but it's like they're in some kinda black box. I just came back from somewhere that none of our people had gotten sucked into, but now I'm feeling both Damali and another female team member over there."
"Man," Yonnie said, rubbing his chin as Tara melted closer against him for support. "If it's a divine realm with perpetual light, me and my lady can't--"
"I know, I know," Carlos said, beginning to pace again, "but that's why we need to talk to Gabby. I didn't just bust into her joint and ask her directly, because I didn't know what kinda clientele she was servicing tonight, and I ain't got time for a side battle over dumb shit. This ain't Heaven, and it ain't Hell. So I'm figuring maybe she can whip out her crystal ball and do an oracle-type thing."
Yonnie nodded. "Yeah, man, c'mon in. We family. Stay strong," he added, pounding Carlos's fist.
It took everything in Damali to keep up with Cain. Her density differential and the stress of what had just gone down was seriously slowing her up. Cain got to the ravine first, blade drawn, and backed up several hissing predators from the sky. She went to cover the ones with white feathered wings that were on the ground, body-shielding a wounded human beneath them.
"She breached our realm; we did not drag her through the barrier!" two aerial attackers said. "The human encroached. That gives us eminent domain over the carcass."
"Be gone!" Cain thundered, the gleam of his sword pushing them back.
Damali's attention ping-ponged between the half-human's hovering and diving with massive, black bat wings, and the ones on the ground covering a cowering woman. She'd seen a lot of weird combinations, but when things from the Dark Realms transformed, it was an all-body shape-shift, not this half-human, half-whatever type of creature.
Black arcs met blue arcs as the entities on the ground fended off a kinetic body snatch with deflective rays. She watched the muscle in Cain's jaw jump, his silver-gold eyes narrow, then suddenly a loud battle cry erupted from within him as he leapt, holding his blade with both hands, making a blue-white arc exit from the tip of it that blew one entity back to slam against the mountain wall, and then took off two heads with one swing.
"Do not test me!" he shouted, hitting the side of the ravine with one foot and pushing off of it to go airborne again.
Damali looked at her Isis, and kept a battle stance to protect the human she couldn't see. But, dayum, her Isis didn't work like that.
Two smoldering heads dropped at her feet and rolled around in a screaming, slow smoking circle, eyes still seeing, blinking, tongues moving. She could barely take her gaze off of the wailing heads. Even the death process was so eerily different here. And just as soon as the battle had begun, it ended. A long echoing wail followed the leathery retreat with a promise for vengeance ringing through the bright, three-moon night. The seraphim-faced entities by her feet wept as they gently eased back and removed their wings to reveal the injured human they'd valiantly protected. A charred, smoking figure of a woman shuddered as third-degree burns covered her body. Her eyes were sealed shut