She had begun her last number. The lights were back to burning brightly overhead. He could feel the heat, but somehow it didn't have the same effect. Damali had heavy reverb going, the stage was thumping, and he could hear the crowd on their feet stamping to her throbbing beat. Three minutes, and she would fall into his arms, and it didn't even faze him. He just had to finish this. End the madness.
But reality spread through him like a fast-moving cancer; it would never end. Killing Nuit would just stop one line out of many. Just like her prayers and songs of light were only one torch competing for brightness with so much darkness all around it. She could hold up the lantern with her words till it looked like only a small match in the distance. Maybe her prayers closed a few portals tonight, but others would always open.
Sure as he was standing under the stage, evil would reconstitute itself elsewhere, in another form. Even with Nuit eliminated, the Vampire Council would send hunters to track him down, just like the world of light would. Topside, bottom side, Heaven or Hell, what did it truly matter? Her guardians were right, he was in a f**ked-up position. However, the different sides closing in on him needed to recognize one thing - a man, or a vampire, with nothing to lose, was a dangerous variable.
She was yelling, "Bring it, people! Bring the light! Pass the flame!"
Carlo shook his head as sound started to evaporate around him. The clock was ticking. Only four of her guardians could go with them. He looked up, sensing her footsteps, her position, as the crowd roared around her. Another smoke bomb went off, and he felt the air whip at his trousers, scattering the ashes at his feet.
Then she dropped.
It happened so fast that she couldn't breathe. Air felt like it had been vacuum-sucked out of her lungs. She gripped the Isis sword and baby Isis dagger, and held onto the smoldering body that had caught her. When she looked up, her team was sprawled on a cavern floor, trying to scramble to their feet. Carlos had instantly let go of his hold on her and backed away, snarling.
"Choose four, fast, and let's move," Carlos commanded. Intense agony riddled his body. The damn suit. He looked over the scorch marks on his hands and his clothing, which still emitted a light white haze of smoke. But there wasn't time to deal with the pain.
Damali and the Templar immediately assessed his condition, and she issued a quick order. "Rider, Shabazz, Big Mike, Marlene - "
Before she could finish speaking, demons entered the black space as J.L.,Jose, and Dan quickly lit concert lights in the small area. Misshapen, grotesque forms lashed at them in the confining area. They needed to fan out, so the weapons would have swing range. Carlos had blocked one side of the cavern, giving her team room and a chance to run down the dark corridor.
"Protect the Neteru at all costs!" the Templar yelled over his shoulder.
"Bring her in this tunnel behind us!" Rider hollered.
"No, hot demon and vamp territory!" Carlos roared. "She takes high-speed transport. It's the only way."
Damali's blade swung as the hair on her neck bristled. Something was happening to her; she was more aware of things down here than she'd ever been. The environment was pumping her up; the urge to fight was stronger than when she'd tracked Raven. She was inside her body, but also not, as she beheaded a foul creature, spun around, kicked its burning head away from her foot, and let out a throaty battle yell. It was f**king on! Her guardians were in her way, as were the Covenant warriors. They were trying to circle her to protect her, but they were interfering with her kill.
"Fan out!" she ordered, slashing at something she couldn't even see until her blade connected with it. The thing materialized and dropped, turning to a mass of putrid, bubbling tar.
Her eyes didn't even have to strain in the dark. Each creature she brought down, the sharper her senses became. It was exhilarating, a rush, and created a hunger to push forward. She was out of the team's circle, had left the ground with a hurling kick to stun a beast before she put her foot on its chest, then planted her sword in the center of its ugly flat skull.
Back-to-back in tandem, Shabazz and Big Mike took out three slithering entities. Their grotesque claws grappled at the wounds that tore into their greenish nude human bodies, which ended in a black serpent coil for legs. Their eyes glowed yellow, and their massive viper fangs dripped acidic-smelling ooze as they screeched a death shriek.
Awful wails from dying demons battered their senses. Mike had unsnapped the sides of his wide-legged leather pants in one deft motion, and pulled out two double-barrel snub-nose cannons, blowing away two of the demons. Shabazz ducked as creature gore splattered from Mike's assault, and while stooping, he released a black magnum into each hand from his sleeves to explode the third predator that was about to rush them.
Marlene used her stick to stake one screeching creature through its temple and then its gizzard, which left green gook and entrails at her feet. Dan got the one behind her with a holy-water grenade-slingshot hit dead-aim into the eye of the thing he battled, making half of its head ignite and then explode. J.L. and Jose were working out on instrument-converted minicrossbows. Their weapons adapted to fire like automatics and released multiple rounds of silver-tipped wooden arrows, creating a plume of sulfuric smoke around the team as they took out screeching targets.
They gave Rider cover in their center by flanking him while he locked four sections of a machine gun together and released a hail of hallowed earth within the pit. "Back the f**k up!" Rider hollered, his arms shaking as he sprayed into the black network of endless tunnels.
Members of the Covenant swung battle-axes and machetes, sending geysers of green blood and gore from spindly, gruesome necks that began smoking. Damali beheaded another creature with the Isis, as she glanced at the Covenant team to be sure she didn't lose any of her men. The Templar sliced the chest of a pale, withered beast that squealed a high-pitched call as it slumped. The Ninjas had a vampire between them: one going for the beast's head with a kick, the other using discs to incinerate it from behind. Blocked from the high-speed zone by four demons spinning wildly, the team fought to open a hole toward safety along the other routes to enter the slower tunnel - while Carlos went after the creatures that blocked his passage to the high-speed zone.
Damali glanced at Carlos, and his form took her aback. He was huge. The fangs he now bore were six inches long and at least three-quarters of an inch wide. His eyes glowed red. The muscles in his forearms and shoulders and thighs had burst seams in his tattered suit. His silk shirt was hanging open, the size of his chest looked like two cinder blocks had been affixed to it, and his stomach rippled with eight, well-defined muscular bricks. Heaving from exertion, sweat rolled down his temples and the center of his chest. His adrenaline was palpable, the scent of it nearly intoxicating. He'd abandoned using a stake as a weapon; now he used his bare hands.
The low rumble that came from his throat sent a shiver through her. For a second their eyes met. The force of his projected thought momentarily stunned her like she'd been punched. For the first time in her life she witnessed a master vampire in full battle mode. It was both horrifying and awesome.
"Damali!" Marlene yelled, breaking her trance.
Stabbing at a new wave of creatures with the Isis blade, Damali opened access closer to the portal Carlos was fighting to clear. "I won't leave my team down here!" she yelled toward him.
When she spun around, however, the Templars and her guardian team were blocked in the slow cavern by multiple beasts that gave chase. She could hear her squad running and yelling, each telling her to go fast with Carlos and they'd meet her on the other side.
"Trust me," he said, grabbing her arm even though his hand began to sizzle. "If you resist, we'll fall back into a slow cavern - just the two of us. They at least have a fighting chance," he told her.
Beasts seemed to be pouring into the pit from all sides, and oddly she couldn't see now that J.L.'s lights were being carried farther away. Before J.L. had even fired up the torches, she could see in the dark, hear everything coming before it rushed them, feel the creatures' presence - sense it, taste it - but in an instant her internal battery was low. It was like her own power had dipped the moment she'd been slammed with Carlos's thoughts.
She squinted, regaining her night vision, yet she had to work at it, concentrate. Holes she hadn't even noticed came alive. Rock was transforming into entities, gravel under her feet clutched at her as hands came up from the ground. Things overhead grasped at her head, pulled her hair. Invisible threadlike tentacles and fingers snatched at her arms and legs while she slashed at everything with her dagger in one hand and Madame Isis in the other.
As soon as she stopped pulling away from him, Carlos swept her up while she held her sword and dagger close to her chest. The suit burn made the surfaces she touched slowly ignite, but he tightened his hold.