"We cannot leave an innocent man to get fed on by the dark side."
"Rivera isn't just an innocent like Dan. He's a drug dealer, darlin'." Rider began pacing. "Or, did you forget what he does for a living? Vamps ain't the only thing we gotta worry about - try a drug hit, drive-by to settle a score, the police, being brought in as accomplices to his shit, whatever. There are a whole lot of ways to die, sister."
"He's still human, and obviously not a vamp helper, and the sanctuary is only temporary until we wipe out the vamp line chasing all of us - then he can go back to whatever he chooses to do... He saved Dan's life, and that counts for something," she argued. A rush of defensive anger throttled her ability to remain calm. "Plus, if Dan hadn't made it out of the parking lot, and if they hadn't chased Dan to where we found him, then we wouldn't have been able to take out a second generation female, Rider! Everything happens for a reason - everyone has intrinsic value in this war, or did you forget?"
In their outburst they had momentarily forgotten Marlene's pain, and both Damali and Rider hung their heads when Marlene covered her mouth and stood, and then paced to a window.
"Mar, I'm sorry," Damali whispered.
"Oh, Marlene... listen. I'm sorry," Rider murmured.
Marlene kept her back to them and only shook her head.
"Go do what you have to do," Shabazz told them in a sad, quiet voice. "I'll stay with her and Jose."
"Pssst," a voice called to Carlos in the tunnel. "I have three minutes to give you this information before it will become too dangerous for you to travel. Dawn approaches."
Hesitant, Carlos waited, monitoring the heat of the environment around him. The pull of the dawn made everything around him feel like an oven. It sapped his strength, made his senses sluggish, and he could only hope that he'd have enough energy to travel to the Dominican's lair.
"Say whatchu gotta say, fast," Carlos replied, his chest heaving as though he were having an asthma attack. "I don't have much time."
The blue-clad knight stepped out of the shadows. "I took a risk. I'm not supposed to be here - but the warrior angels gave us word that you helped the Neteru defeat a second generation... and we saw you fight your vampire nature when you had our huntress in your arms - you even told her to pray! You could have violated her, but you didn't. There is a major conference about the whole situation now at the levels of mercy. Your love for her gives us hope."
"State your business," Carlos said, wheezing. "I'm running out of time." Pain began riddling his body; the air was becoming thick and polluted by slivers of light.
"We want the maps."
"I don't have them, yet. What else? One minute, and I'm out."
"Bring us the head of the master vampire who hunts her. When he falls, it will be easy for us to wipe out his line. That will also free the Neteru's parent's trapped soul. We'll be able to destroy many of the vampires, as well as the demons they live with."
"Easy, was already on my agenda. Talk fast, hombre."
"We'll give you ten minutes of amnesty to deliver the maps to her once you have them in your possession. I am a seer, that's why I guide my battalion, and chanced this meeting close to dawn. We'll clear a way to allow you to get the maps to her, but under guarded conditions."
Too weakened to argue, Carlos siphoned the remainder of his reserves to change shape, and drifted toward his new refuge in the Dominican's lair. The density on the planet was crushing. With his last burst of energy, he hurled himself back to safe darkness.
Rider slapped a newspaper across Damali's thighs as they sat and waited to board their flight to New Orleans in LAX.
"Have you seen this?" he said as Mike also gathered close. "Read it and weep. This is who you gave sanctuary to last night."
Damali stared at the headline. Carlos Rivera's car had been found in the North Hills, still running, with a silver briefcase filled with a hundred thousand dollars, a leather briefcase filled with a million dollars, enough artillery to stop a small army, and his handgun weapon fired into the ground. And, there was a high-ranking Dominican drug czar missing.
For a moment the threesome just looked at each other.
"You know what line of work Carlos is in, right?" Big Mike put his hand on Damali's shoulder. "Even if he's not a vamp, or one of their human traitors..."
"If he went out there at night," Rider said, agitated, "the sonofabitch got nicked, trust me. Rivera isn't the type to leave one-point-one mil lying in the dirt. Something's wrong."
"No, he didn't get nicked," Damali insisted, tossing the newspaper on an empty seat. "It takes three days to turn a vamp - and... He just didn't get nicked, I know that."
Tense silence drew and quartered the conversation to a halt. Damali could feel her pulse race with worry. Heaven help Carlos... what had he done? He was in so deep that they must have tried to ice him. Rider was right about one thing: vamps or the mob, both were dangerous predators that could have a man's life hanging in the balance - how many times had she tried to tell Carlos this! If a war was on, then the team's concern had merit - she couldn't let him in the compound... but she also couldn't let him get eaten alive. Choices. But at least, for the moment, Carlos wasn't a vampire. If he were, she'd be frying right now.
"He didn't get nicked," she murmured again, more to reassure herself than to convince Rider.
"What makes you so sure?" Rider finally asked in a sarcastic tone as he studied her.
Both Big Mike and Rider stared at her as Rider's question stabbed at her. She found her gaze slipping away to watch the planes through the glass.