They both looked at each other and laughed.
"You think I'm lying, girl?" Marlene sucked her teeth. "These young men out here have no respect, no decorum, don't know how to run a household - wouldn't give a hoot about just stop, drop, and rollin' you. Pullease. I have issues, daughter. I have serious issues with the world today, and have no problem posse-ing up, as a mom, to protect my investment - you - from anything, or anyone, that might steal your joy, that might take the sparkle from your eyes, that might break your spirit and your heart. Brotherman doesn't have to be a vampire to do that - just an emotional predator. Oh, it's on, now, daughter of mine. I will kick his natural ass if he hurts you. That's why I'm doing heavy anointing tonight."
"Okay, okay." Damali laughed as Marlene began to chuckle in a peevish tone. "Go get the stuff for the white bath."
"Humph! The guys in the weapons room have no idea about the worries of a mother. Shabazz and Big Mike and them ain't got nothin' on a mother's mad," Marlene fussed as she walked toward the door. "Yeah, I got something for Rivera. I'm make you shave, too. And I'm bringing henna."
"Shave?" Damali was laughing so hard now that she had to wipe her eyes as she peered under her arms - which were whistle clean. "That's out, Marlene! No way! You are not putting a whoo-doo henna chastity belt on my stuff. You've gone too far!"
"Don't play with me, girl. You know what I'm talking about.
mBy the time I finish anointing and putting on symbols of protection, any man, dead or alive, is gonna need a battering ram to get through Marlene's work." She gave Damali a wink. "All right, if you feel that strongly about it, no henna. But all of us could use a renewed seal of prayer protection from a white bath. Just go with me on this one. Run a hot tub, and stop looking at me like that - and stop laughing."
* * *
He lifted his head from Raven's throat and pushed away from her with sudden disdain, spitting out the last swallow of the blood.
"What's wrong, lover?" she murmured, sounding anxious. "There's more. I'll just feed again, and you can have more - or we can go hunting together to bring down fresh kill, baby."
"Shut up!" Carlos stalked away from her, closing the front of his ripped pants, his hands roving over the tears in them and sealing their ragged condition with sheer thought. As he did so, a heavy six-pointed gold ring materialized on his finger. Amazing. After he'd fed, it appeared.
He walked a distance, leaving Raven behind, and tried to remove the ring that was stuck on the fourth digit of his left hand. Unable to get it off, he brought his hands to his head and then he covered his ears with the heel of his palms. African chants, bells, and drums pierced his inner ears. Thick smoke choked him - frankincense, myrrh, roses, garlic, sage - polluted his nose. His breathing became erratic, and he slapped Raven's hand away when it touched his shoulder, and then he moved deeper into the forest, angered that she'd followed him.
Carlos shut his eyes, and tilted his head to the side, trying to focus and hear beyond the drums and flutes. "Leave me," he ordered and turned on her abruptly. "They said they would house and feed you. That was the deal. Now leave me alone!"
"When you want me to come back," she whispered, snarling with disappointment, "all you have to do is call in the night." Her feet became thick, black smoke, and then she disappeared, leaving a sulfur haze where she had stood.
Carlos walked deeper into the woods. In the back of his mind, he could still hear his Lexus's engine running. The smells, the sounds, the sulfur, made him want to retch. He closed his eyes, a new fear coming over him as the awareness took root. He was damned. Heaven help him.
As the last thought echoed in his mind, the nausea suddenly abated. He kept his eyes closed and leaned against the trunk of a nearby tree, his balance unsteady. What was he going to do? What had he committed himself to? They'd tricked him - partly - and there was no turning back.
Damali... How would he protect her from himself? He could see her behind his lids. Naked, peaceful, but well guarded by the white light. Carlos dug his claws into the thick redwood bark as an old hunger overtook him with the vision. He breathed in deeply, and the scent now made him nearly insane. Her skin was damp, warm, golden bronzed by the light of the candles. Her face was serene, music and words were in her head and heart. Saliva built in his mouth, and he swallowed it away, the taste of her now on his lips. He could hear her breathing, watched her br**sts rise and fall. The sound of her human heartbeat echoed in his skull, and the tiny brown pebbles at the ends of her small, perfect mounds were hardened by wafts of air ... were that he was the air, brushing them. A shudder consumed him at the thought.
The sensation forced him to tilt his head, and he again inhaled deeply of the scent that was driving his torture. His breaths now frigid pants, he leaned his head back against the tree again, letting go of it to hold her in a phantom embrace - but immediately dropped his arms as the mental touch of her burned him. Fury ripped through him, and he took out a chunk of the tree with one swipe. They'd surrounded her, and not even his thoughts could get through!
"Hey, playa. Frustrating, isn't it?" a voice said from the distance.
Carlos spun and glared at the tall, black-hooded entity. Only gleaming red slits could be seen from a cavern inside the robe - even with his new powers, he couldn't make out a face. This thing had no face, just glowing orbs that hovered beneath its hood. Its crooked, skeletal finger pointed at him in a beckoning motion. It waited patiently for Carlos to respond, like a tall, thin harbinger of death. Were it not so tragic, Carlos would have laughed. This thing was too late. He was already dead.
On guard, Carlos circled the threat and snarled, bearing fangs. "What are you? If you came to collect the living, you're too late. I'm a dead man walking."
The entity laughed. "You have much to learn... . Soon you'll even be able to speak the old language."
"Where are you from? Who are you?!"
"From the same place you've been, recently. Hell."
The urge to kill whatever it was before him made Carlos's muscles twitch. "If you stay here, I'll gladly send you back - in pieces."
"Why don't we go together, my new brother?" it hissed. "The Vampire Council of old would like to have a word with you. I'm just a messenger. Let's take your complaint to them."
Wfwhat feltlike an unbreakable magnetic force held Carlos •i in place as the thing with no face came closer.
"When the council calls, you have no choice ... for obviously your choice has already been made. Come. Stay near me as I guide you through the darkness - we must go past the demon realms of levels one through five, down to level six - and we cannot afford to lose you along the way." The thing let out a vicious serpentine hiss, and brought a sickle out from under its robe, wedging it in the earth and pulling a tear in the grass and mud before hiding the huge blade again.
The earth began to vibrate and quake, and a deep fissure opened, uprooting trees, releasing dense plumes of yellow and black smoke until where Carlos stood became a cavern. Instantly he fell as the ground beneath his feet gave way, the dim moonlight above moving farther and farther away - then the overhead fissure sealed itself with he and the entity within it.
Carlos couldn't even yell; the force of the drop was so swift, so brutal. Slimy things grabbed at him, but the bony hand of the entity dug into his arm. He could see the scythe hack at limbs as body parts fell in a blur and screeches and screams echoed behind them.