"I liked my powers," he said quietly. "All of them."
She didn't say a word, just stared at him.
"Girl, you know how I rolled. Even when I was alive, I always went top-shelf, was never no scrambler. I handled my business with authority. My territory was tight." He walked away from her, and raked his fingers through his hair down to the scalp. "There were things I wanted to give you, to show you, now my resources are all jacked up."
"You are going to have to explain that resource issue to me," she said, her voice firm, but also gentle. "And you know I never cared about - "
"That's the thing - you didn't; I did," he murmured. He turned and leaned against the wall, speaking to the floor. "You know, they tell young brothers to do the right thing... and yet, the options and results are really f**ked up. Dead or alive, the people who say to do the right thing have the system rigged so that it's almost impossible to get your head above water by following their convoluted rules... rules that they never followed until after they'd gotten what they'd wanted." He glanced up and held her gaze while speaking in a far-off tone.
"I didn't have to become a vampire to see. A blind man could see it. I may not have been to college, but trust me, I've been schooled well. The powerful still plunder countries, neighborhoods, territories, for what they want to seize - by force. Robber barons, imperialists, mobsters turned presidents... then, they go legit. They've only cracked open the door to let a few not like them in, and under very controlled circumstances. Yeah, I messed up while alive, because I wanted the same power they had. I wanted the same respect. For me, then, like now, living or existing without that wasn't, and isn't, in my DNA."
For a moment, she had no answer for him. The world was indeed unfair; there was no argument about it. She knew what he was talking about, that's probably why she'd been created to tip the scales to bring forth the truth about a lot of things. Spoken word. However, getting sucked into the twisted game still wasn't the answer. What she knew she had to get across to him. Carlos had to understand that the real issue was in finding a way to flip the script without going dark oneself. Spiritual Jujitsu. Leverage the dark against itself so that something positive would come out of any negative situation that occurred.
"I hear you," she said after a while. "But there are a lot of ways to get and keep respect without doing the terrible things the oppressors of people have done. We saw how that messed up the were-demon in Brazil. You've gotta be creative, faster than them, smarter than them. You have been dead long enough to see where that leads, so why - "
"Because as a woman, you will never understand this thing that men need called respect." He looked up at her, his eyes hard but his tone calm and logical. "I liked being able to provide for me and mine," he said flatly. "I liked having motherfuckers step out of my path, afraid. Yeah." He pushed himself off the wall and stood proud. "I liked being able to take my woman wherever knowing that I could afford to get her anything she wanted; even if she didn't want a thing, it was, and always has been, about power. Dead or alive. I do not like going anywhere with a question in my mind about what if. I must have total control of my shit."
"All right," she said, losing patience. "Then who's to say you don't have more power now?" She swept her arm out, motioning toward the room. "What has changed, except your level of confidence?"
"Ain't nothing wrong with my confidence," he snarled, folding his arms over his chest.
"You haven't even expended the energy to fix the house after you went off. Got the damned dogs locked in your lair - "
"They need a hundred and eighty pounds of raw flesh a night to keep fed, and my resources could be - "
"Why? What's messed with your resources? Not me."
He grumbled and walked away from her. "If I want to go somewhere, I want to be able to roll with authority. I can't have some lower-level try me because they sense a power fluctuation or dip. Right now, because I have been messing with you, and not handling my business, my borders are raggedy, I don't have a strong inner circle to depend on if some madness jumps off, and - "
"Stop this male bullshit now!" she shouted, walking up to him, then stomping away. She was so angry with him for being so shortsighted that she almost couldn't speak. Words collided inside her head, nearly making her stutter, they wouldn't come out fast enough.
"They took my Isis from me, Carlos. You don't think that rocked my confidence and hurt my pride? I have to earn back my team's trust, rightfully so. I lost in this transaction; you gained. The Light always adds, the darkness always subtracts - basic cosmic law, metaphysics, or don't you remember?"
"How," he said, slapping his chest, "did I gain anything but aggravation and grief from all this drama, D? Tell me!"
"You have just been made the baddest mutha in the valley, and you are telling me I jacked your power? Brother, pulleeease!"
She stormed away from him again. "If you can't, then I'll feed your f**king dogs. What? They each need a vamp body a night? Done. No problem, and on my agenda anyway." She grabbed her Isis blade off the bed, huffing as she spoke. "What I gave you allows you to cross prayer barriers, walk on hallowed ground, and dulls the blood hunger! No other vampire on the planet can do that - oh, my bad! And so what if you like the way I smell, and it turns you on - my bad. But when you get like that, your ass still gets as strong as shit. Ask me how I know."
She leveled her blade at him, speaking from across the room, both because she needed space to think, and because she had to resist the urge to gore him. "Silver probably won't even burn you! And you're mad at me because I gave you that extra immunity? Oh, and you've got an attitude because you've been around ripening Neteru so much that you've built up a semi-tolerance - it doesn't get you cold blitzed, like it will any other master vamp? My bad!"
The look of surprise in his eyes grated her. Torches went on in the room, and his eyes flickered gold, then went normal deep brown.
"That's deep," he said slowly. "I, uh - "
"You and I are supposed to go to Australia to clean out that major nest, together to bring the stolen key back to the church - "
"Are you nuts?" he said quickly. "You still wanna go, with me, after all this?"
"Yes, to both questions. I am crazy and I want to go."
Neither of them spoke, but just stared at each other in a standoff.
"First of all, I'd need an international pass. You don't just roll up as a head of state on another territory unannounced. This ain't Brazil," Carlos finally replied, his tone irritable. "The empire is currently in a fragile peacetime truce. We have borders, and there's just basic protocol. Respect, master to master. And how am I going to keep you - "
"We work as a team," she said, lowering her blade. Her breathing was becoming steadier as she realized she'd broken down a bit of his resistance. "Look, I don't have to obey you just because you temporarily made me. I'm not that kinda girl," she said, swallowing away a sly smile that was about to cross her mouth. "I'm going to Australia, with or without you. But I'd prefer to go with you."
"Why are you so stubborn? Just determined to keep baiting disaster until you get yourself smoked."