Damali looked at him with a questioning gaze.
Rider nodded. "I don't need second sight to know that soon you're going to have to ride solo a while yourself. You can have the blade and the Far East contraptions. It would make me feel better if you had an equalizer, though, dig?"
She smiled.
"Like I told you, I do the all-American thing, a Harley and a gun. This white boy ain't trying to go out with a crossbow or guitar planted in his chest. Period. That's the one thing me and Shabazz agree on - like the fact that J.L. needs to tighten up the vamp detection rigs at the compound. I told Far East he was all that and two bags of chips, but J.L. has gotta recognize that things are heating up - all over. Can't be casual these days, ya know? Things are changing."
She nodded, but sensed that Rider was trying to work his way around to another deeper conversation. It was all in the way he was going on and on in what seemed like circles. "We've got a HI' somethin' for 'em. Don't worry. I hear you."
"Some shit is just natural law," he pressed on, "and Marlene is gonna have to deal with that." He turned around in his seat to face her. "Do you know what I'm saying to you?"
She glanced out the window and nodded. Her smile faded. She had to remember that Rider was a sharpshooter, and sometimes he was patient to hit his target dead-aim. But there was no escaping what he really meant. On the surface, the conversation could go one way, while they avoided speaking on the layer right under it. Very cool. It allowed both parties room to decide to go deeper, or not, and also save face.
"It's wearing you out, kiddo."
"I know," she whispered, half embarrassed, and half relieved, and yet totally unprepared to be having this conversation with Rider, of all people. Life was weird. Go figure.
"If you need to ... uh ... well... I say, get the Carlos thing out of your system. Or, if it's somebody else, hell, you're young. Just use a condom. There. I've said it. I've weighed in on it." Rider glanced at her and shot his gaze out the front windshield as he turned back around in his seat. The color had drained from his face as though saying those four words had been more embarrassing for him than for her.
"I'm not sure why Shabazz and Marlene are so dead set against you doing what's normal with anybody," he rattled on, talking a mile a minute to obviously cover his discomfort with the subject. "They keep looking up at the stars and pacing around like nervous parents." Rider paused and rubbed his hand over his jawline. "I don't claim to understand what they're so uptight about - but maybe you oughta just ask them outright, ya know? Stop beating around the bush and dropping coy hints. Shit, you ain't shy about anything else."
Rider had hit her right between the eyes with his own direct brand of truth, and for a moment, no words formed in her stunned brain. Then, out of nowhere, she laughed hard. "Why are you all up in my business tonight, Rider?"
For a while he just stared out the window and then closed his eyes. The shift in his mood worried her.
"Because I love you, sweetheart. You're the closest thing I have to a sister. You remind me so much of Tara, too."
"Tara?"
"Yeah," he whispered. "She was the one who used to ride on the back of my Harley."
She studied the way the muscle pulsed in Rider's jaw. Curiosity drew the question from her. "What happened to her?"
"I had to put a stake in her heart in Arizona." Rider looked at her with a sideways glance.
Damali opened her mouth and then closed it. What could she say? That was the last thing she'd expected him to tell her. Damn ...
"I know. There are no words. And thanks for respecting my privacy ... for not just bum-rushing my psyche to find out."
"I don't like it done to me, so I don't do that to any members of our team."
He nodded. "You need to tell Marlene that, too. She's too nosy."
"I will," Damali promised with a sad smile.
"Well, don't get all down in the mouth. The Tara thing is history. That's how I met Jose, and probably why I, more than anybody, know where he's at. Long story." Rider wiped his hands over his face. "I don't want to talk about it." He gripped the steering wheel and focused his attention on the morgue. "The last thing I'm gonna say about it is: life is short, unpredictable, and at times, f**ked up. So have a blast while you can, kiddo. Taste it all before your number is up. Sermon is done, pass the plate, discussion over."
"Thanks, Rider." She touched his arm and then removed her hand. The pain that she registered in his system brought tears to her eyes, but she blinked them back to preserve both their dignities. She only hoped that she'd transmitted healing empathy when her palm had grazed him.
He nodded and looked away to the building again while she focused her attention on the precious gemstones in the blade's handle. She didn't know what else to say to Rider, and companionable silence seemed to be the safest haven now.
She peered at the seven stones that Marlene had said each represented a color of the chakra alignment described in Eastern philosophy - the invisible energy fields that governed a part of the body and spirit, denoted by a specific hue running up the human spine, and so placed on the sword, made grip-ridges that were perfect for her hand. Three blades each etched with Ad-rinka symbols down the lengths formed a unified trinity that came to a fierce point. The stuff of legends, and now it was hers.
By design, its triangular shape had the ability to open a hole in a body that couldn't be closed. Made of Vatican and North American silver, and South American alloy cast with Dogon steel from the motherland, it had been fired in Samurai furnaces, parts of it passed around the world from female Neteru to Neteru until it was completely constructed. That's what she'd been told. Fascination claimed her as she studied the object that had been created era by era, religion by religion, each culture represented within it, so they said. An early birthday present, according to Marlene, ever since the planets aligned. What did that mean? But she was glad that Rider had swiped it and thought to bring it along. Madame Isis was something she knew could get the job done.
However, the fact that it had been "borrowed" from Marlene worried her. She tried to make herself feel better by using the word "liberated" to describe what Rider had done, and to define what she had accepted as a coconspirator. Damali laughed softly to herself. Marlene was gonna have a cow. In fact, where the heck did Marlene get a blade like this? There were so many questions, and so few answers... and who were the freakin' Knights of Templar?
"Maybe you shouldn't have taken this, even though I was complaining about wanting to try it out." She'd kept her gaze on the windshield when she'd spoken. Too many thoughts were battling for dominance in her head at once. "Marlene said it wasn't time yet."