fell to all fours. She was his beloved's mother-seer. His words were slurring in his mouth and in his head. The carnivores in white would not befoul the mother-seer's body. He struggled to brace himself over her. He would use this last breath to pass the message telepathically. "Take the team to safety, my brother! Do not let the mother-seer die."
Two deft whirs collected the team that had been trapped behind the glass wall, the steel room around them was like a bank vault and so was the lab. Against every instinct within him, Carlos pulled Cain into the void with the others, as well as Marlene's lifeless body.
Arizona was the first thought that came to his mind, a place far enough away to make the feds have to scuffle to find them fast, but close enough for his energy to hold. He knew the terrain; it was hallowed ground. But Yonnie and Tara could cross it. If Cain was on the wrong side--his ass would fry. They had a serious core of shaman friends in the Navajo Nation, all financial bickering about the old compound, regardless. It was about quick decisions with no margin for bullshit or errors.
The landing was hard and sloppy with so much dead weight, but Yonnie and Tara couldn't help him while inside the military containment center that had been made white-hot for vamps.
"Put a stake in his chest now, while he's down," Yonnie said, looking at Carlos and then down at Cain. "Motherfucker gotta be Level Seven, sucking her guts out through a hole in her throat after torching her. Fucking flesh-eatin' bastard!" Yonnie spit.
Rider nodded, going to get a thick tree branch as Tara disintegrated everyone's nylon handcuffs and Jose snapped a low-hanging tree limb.
"We've got two big men down," Berkfield said, glancing at Shabazz's and Big Mike's limp bodies. "Tara, baby, you vamps got any way to pull the tranquilizer out without a nick, while I see what I can do for Mar? Might need 'em if those boys don't hurry up with a stake," he added, glancing over toward Cain.
"No," Tara murmured, kneeling beside Marlene. She stared at Marlene with pity glittering in her red-glowing eyes while Marlene's chest heaved and shuddered, struggling for air. "There's only one way I can extract the tranquilizer." Tara's sorrowful gaze held Berkfield's. "It will leave both men permanently damaged." She returned her attention to Marlene and gently touched the side of her throat, feeling a weak pulse. "Before her life essence goes, however, I may be able to give her life... but it will not be what any of you had intended."
Marj immediately dropped beside Tara on her hands and knees. "Oh, Jesus," she whispered, tears streaming down her face and causing Tara to wince and stand. "Richard, she's almost not breathing, almost doesn't have a pulse. She's so badly burned." Her gaze went to Carlos. "Don't let them turn her! Can't you heal her?"
Younger Guardians looked away. Inez's sob broke through the night and roused Big Mike to a drowsy rollover.
"Don't wake Shabazz up, yet," Rider said quietly, standing over Cain with a stake gripped between both hands. He looked at Jose. "This one and Mar. Together. She's nearly dead, already. He bit her. It's the only way."
Rider raised his stake high above his head, coordinating his timing with Jose's. Bobby wiped at his face and turned as Dan stalked away with Yonnie to avoid watching. Krissy's head went to J.L.'s chest. Juanita drew Marjorie away from the pending gore and held her. Inez dropped to her knees and hid her face in the crook of Big Mike's neck. Tara turned her back and set her sight on the moon and then shut her eyes.
Carlos nodded and found the distant tree line. Dark entities blackened the sky. Seraphim tried to rally around her, but were outnumbered and had to pull back. A golden rod and her Isis blade stabbed and cut at slashing tails and wretched claws. She was female. She was flesh. She was meat. She knew the imperative encoded in demon DNA, Carlos had also taught her that--fuck it, feed from it, kill it. Not today!
The golden staff became a goring rod, spilling hybrid demon guts and blood as it plunged in and out and left entrails; her Isis a master decapi-tator, blazing, singing, filling the air with thuds of demon death. Her golden stick doubled as a nemesis blocker, wielded with everything Marlene and Shabazz had taught. Deft Capoeira ducks,