"Don't tell me," Rider sighed. "Carlos was definitely her destined-pair guardian? For real?" Rider shook his head. "Now I'm done. Just stick a fork in me."
Shabazz's voice became very, very quiet and he put his head down on the table as he finished his thought. "Until we all just sat here and talked it out, I just didn't want to deal with it. That's the link. Raven just got in the way for the second time. But there's a sure-fire vulnerability that our Neteru has, beyond all these other transitional issues, and they found it."
The team glanced around and only Jose was brave enough to say what they all had known for a long time.
"Carlos."
Shabazz nodded. "He took the fallout, and the poor bastard didn't even know it. Just like in our camp, they turned vamps all around him to keep an eye on him - so close to Damali's time. The vamps wouldn't even trust human helpers to stay with him and on the Neteru's trail. It was too important. That's why they've come for our folks, too. They knew he was the one - because Carlos spotted her years ago, and had the instinct to protect her... even he didn't comprehend why she was so important to him. If she'd gone with Rivera and entered the drug life, she would have been so susceptible to the forces of darkness, and they thought they had her - then we got her away from him, and therefore away from them... but the link, oh, fellow guardian brothers... damn it all... the link between them was never severed." Shabazz swallowed hard with his eyes closed, and he breathed through his nose with his head still down.
"Carlos still has the Neteru scent from when Damali first mildly cycled seven years ago - he didn't even know it. He never touched her, because she said no." Shabazz sat up, glanced at the door, and flexed his fists. "I would have felt it if he did. But he had the scent - tracker, par excellent. Makes sense. He came from good people, was surrounded by prayers, women of faith, made a good warrior from the streets, but he walked from the light into the dark for power, money, material gain, and got marked. The dark simply picked up on her scent from him - 'cause she's in Rivera's head, man, like a life raft - and she instinctively knows she is, and won't let him drown - they're linked in spirit, even though she wouldn't go along with his program then, and I pray she won't now. But they've been in a spiritual tug-of-war to pull each other to their respective sides, paths, for years. What else can I say?"
"Deep," Rider murmured. "You can feel shit like that, brother?"
Shabazz dismissed him with a hard glance and spoke to the rest of the team, straightening himself up and giving Rider his back.
"Free choice, their paths were being separated by choice, then. She went light, he went dark... and with every negative transaction, Rivera came closer to the lower-realm provinces. She was still a kid, and didn't have the trinity number on her - twenty-one - so her trail wasn't as strong. That original scent held by someone sliding deeper into the negative side of the choice gray zone brought them to him," Shabazz whispered, "and Rivera is the only one that can deliver her to them. She trusts him. We saw that tonight. He could get her to relent... they need his head to get inside of her head. You dig? Now drop it. This upsets me too much, and I can't talk about it anymore, like Mar can't."
"We gotta talk about this, Shabazz," Big Mike said patiently. "The fellas need to know the deal." He looked at the team. "Why do you think Marlene is always on us to guard our words? Words are formed by thoughts; when spoken, they vibrate and cause tone, tone sends vibrations to the realms. I'm an audio guy, I know. Words are a manifestation of thoughts - you must think it, before you can do it or speak it, hence Damali's gift. The spoken word. Thought is energy. Energy, like electricity, travels, astral travels, is airborne - and J.L., you ain't got enough security to lock that down."
"That's why Rivera being in her head is so dangerous. He's a thought." Shabazz pushed himself up from the table and yet spoke quietly toward it, looking at no one. "The Prince of Darkness is prince of the airwaves, and all his legions down below can mess with thought. That's why one's mind is the beginning or end of all things, must be guarded - can't let any and everything assail the psyche. Everything is corrupted at the thought level first. That's what the dark side enters first to break a spirit - it's the mind, then that directs the body, and the spirit is history. Get it. Dig it. Never forget it. They are coming for our Neteru's head to get to her body and spirit. Okay."
"Oh, shit... if they've picked up some of my thoughts over the past few months - might as well hook up a black box to my skull and call it adult cable." Rider wiped his palms over his face. "I liked it when I was drunk, and foolish, and an irresponsibly free man. This is for the birds. This is living on the edge - not what I was doing before."
Jose chuckled. "You can always go back and do it alone, fighting lower-realm demons solo, dude. Remember Arizona?"
"Jose - "
Mike stood, walked to the door, and listened hard, which stilled the argument brewing between Jose and Rider. "Wrap it up, fellas."
"But wait, Mike," Dan protested, his eyes still wide since the time he'd been stalked by Raven. "Carlos guarded me! You guys said he was supposed to be guardian material, but made a choice. If he was bad, then - "
"Damali's link, before he turned vampire, was to what good was still left inside him. All of us have a light side and a dark side, that's the yin and yang principle, the ancient ones knew. So, even though she stepped away from Rivera and his drug life, a part of her always wondered, what if the light can prevail. That's not just the way of a Neteru - that's the way of a woman. Period. That's what gives women strength to raise children, the divine aspect of forgiveness."
When no one spoke, Shabazz gave Dan a piercing look. It was not one of contempt, but one that was sent to convey the seriousness of what he was telling Dan.
" 'Cause I did time," Shabazz murmured. "I watched a lot of sisters keep coming to the glass for brothers who were put away for a long sentence, or for terrible things... and I could feel them all hoping for the same outcome - 'what if he changed.' It was the saddest thing in the world to witness... even sadder was, if those men dug deep, they actually could have changed. Dark claimed them first, though. That's the margin of error - you just never know what free human will is gonna do. Even the angels don't know. Made me philosophical."
"Can't we just keep her here until this situation passes?"
"No! Then it's not a choice, it's just circumstance, logistics - her soul has to decide. She has to let the choice wash over her, feel the intensity of a dark pull and know that she is in full control of her impulses, or she'll forever second-guess herself. That moment of hesitation in battle, or when faced with a vampire seduction or second-guessing when in a demon zone, could cost Damali her life. I'm done with this subject!"
"Wrap it up, gentlemen. Mar is on the move and about to come into the hall."
Shabazz held up his hand to Rider, Jose, J.L., and Dan who still had more questions as Big Mike motioned for them to quickly drop the subject, backing up Shabazz's earlier request.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Blood from the faucet couldn't run fast enough, and when the tank had drained, he'd ripped the plumbing out and sent it crashing against the wall. The rack of bottled elixir of life was soon also gone, and he stood before the marble butcher-block island in the middle of the lair, holding himself up on outstretched arms, heaving in air from the exertion of the sudden gorge. The worst of it all was that he was still hungry. There wasn't enough adrenaline in the tap or in the bottles, wasn't enough fight or flight hormone left in the concentration. It had aged, wasn't fresh, wasn't potent. The substitute was okay for an old don who didn't still have the hunt in him, but not for a twenty-three-year-old master! His nails dug into the marble. Tonight, after what he'd just been through, he had to eat. Now.
The noise behind him didn't make Carlos start, just growl. Bring it on. He needed a good fight... a bloodletting. He wasn't afraid of anything at the moment, especially not Nuit.
Carlos turned slowly; if Nuit touched him he'd die.
"Whew..." Nuit said quietly, his expression awed as he rounded the butcher block, and Carlos squared off on him.
But Nuit's tone wasn't threatening; it was oddly reverent... if the word could even apply. Carlos watched him, his snarl becoming a deeper growl coming from inside his chest.
"If I didn't know better," Nuit said, thoroughly appraising Carlos, "I would swear you were a master. There is not even a flicker of deference or fear in your eyes. The Neteru drug has that effect?"