"I am not going to sit here wasting precious daylight drinking tea!" Frustration beyond her comprehension gripped her as her gaze tore around the room.
"You woke up feeling like you had the worst hangover of your life, didn't you?" Shabazz kept his gaze steady on her and his voice mellow.
"Yeah," Damali finally admitted, bringing her hands to her temples as Shabazz backed away. "Feel like I just got hit by a Mack truck."
"Aftermath. You're coming down. Your metabolism is shifting back to normal levels after a sudden hunt surge. All the neurotoxins in your body are flushing, and your system is regulating. Sugar, salt, fatty carbs are just quick fuel - and will make you hit bottom harder later. Your body needs a slow burn to replace what just got stripped from it last night. Won't always hit you like this."
"Okay, okay, whatever." Damali wiped her hand against her robe again, glanced at the chips, but heeded Shabazz's warning. If this was anything like the next-morning jitters, then she knew she'd never do drugs.
"This is the crash and burn part, baby," Rider said too loudly.
Damali squinted at the sound of his voice and reached for the chips despite herself.
"Ahhh ... trying to bite the snake that bit 'cha. Always works for me."
"Shut. Up. Rider." Damali let her breath out hard and tried to focus on Shabazz, then threw the bag across the room when he shook his head. "What is going on?"
"First hunt," Shabazz replied as Marlene slid a cup of green tea beside her on the weapons bench.
"Bullshit. I mean ... aw, y'all know what I mean. Sorry, Mar. I've been on how many hunts, though, as you call it? We've been kicking vampire butt for five years, and I've never felt like this in the morning ... even the body blows hurt worse than before."
The group stared at her.
"Better have that birds-and-bees talk with girlfriend, Mar." J.L. stood. "I'm going to see how Jose is feeling."
"Jose's back?" Damali tried to stand but thought better of it, and reached for her tea instead. She sipped it slowly and grudgingly. It then dawned upon her that Big Mike was in the room. "He's okay, right?" Her voice caught and held the rest of her question.
"That's the only reason I'm here," Big Mike said in a mercifully quiet voice. "They said to monitor him, keep plenty of fluids in him, and if his condition dips again, bring him back. He's on oral antibiotics, so he could come home."
Damali nodded and relaxed, bringing the tea to her lips.
"What did Carlos say?"
Damali tried to focus her attention on the original subject. It was like her synapses weren't firing on all cylinders. It was hard to stay focused on any topic at one time, plus there were too many issues that required her brain to assimilate. Vibes and tension were zinging around the group, but she couldn't put her finger on why.
"They did his brother - horribly," she finally whispered. "Carlos said good-bye, like he was going on a suicide mission. We've gotta go get him before he either kicks off a war by blowing away the wrong people, or goes out alone and gets himself vamped. I just can't figure it out. Why is vampire activity beginning to concentrate around our people, our biggest competitor, Blood Music, and Carlos's operations? It doesn't make sense. I didn't really start to notice it until they went after his people, too. I thought they were just going after artists. What's the link? None of us even speak."
"Big Mike, go see if you can help J.L. bring Jose in here. We all need to talk," Marlene said.
Mike nodded and left the room. Marlene cleared a space on the long table, and rolled out a map in the center of it. When Jose walked in slowly, Damali stood and went over to him to hug him, holding his hand to bring him back to where she'd been sitting, giving him the stool. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against her waist as she smoothed his hair back from his forehead.
"I'm sorry," he murmured.
"Don't talk crazy," Damali said softly, kissing the top of his head. "Woulda went to Hell and back to get you back."
"Might have to one day," he chuckled sadly, squeezing her hand.
The group passed nervous glances between each other, studying Jose's frail condition. He looked like he'd dropped twenty pounds in twenty-four hours and his eyes were beginning to sink into the dark circles around their sockets. Damali just stroked his hair.
"We all have a story ... ," Marlene said in a faraway voice. "When this first started for me, it began in New Orleans. I was just a young woman. Then it spread to South Carolina, Gullah country. Then it was cool for almost twenty years after."
"That was just before I was born," Damali said in a quiet voice. She glanced around as everyone else nodded.
"Last night," Rider said, his voice now quiet, "you went after a female vampire."
The group went still again and each of them glanced at the others in the room, their line of vision terminating on Damali.
"Mar, I'm sorry about how I treated you," Damali whispered. She looked at Rider. "Sorry that I might have put you in harm's way, too."