Each chopper lifted off and sent a cloud of grit and red sand that covered the landscape into the air. She couldn't see her hand in front of her face, but sheathed her Isis on her hip, and picked up the crossbow, holding onto the rack rail with a tight grip. Her eyes were trained on the blue-black sky lit by the moon and stars, waiting for the flare as the engine of her Range Rover roared. It was not about losing. It was about going to her core and being the best in the demon hunt. Always. But she couldn't see because of the dust plumes!
Then Damali closed her eyes, remembering everything she'd been taught as a Neteru. She was one with the universe, created by it, she was wind, she was water, she was fire, and ice, she was stone, earth, there was no particle of natural matter that she was not connected to. She didn't need normal sight to find the demons to hunt them down.
White light was a source shaped like the tip of her Isis blade to be drawn down through her crown chakra at the top of her head, through each chakra level, her spine one with it, grounding her, turning her entire body into steel - a weapon unparalleled. Her breaths were slow, her focus steady. She was the huntress; a warrior; the millennium had no other. Demons were the enemy. Humanity had to be saved. Anything coming up from Hell had to be eliminated. The were-demons were on the move, beneath the surface, attracted to the blood dripping, bodies falling from the choppers, freed to feed by the full moon. The goal was singular: bring them all down.
Sensing a direction, she signaled her driver to move out before the flare even torched the sly. She knew demon hunting like she knew her name, and she left the masters in the dust, getting an early start.
She could hear vehicles careening behind her.
"Mistress, we don't know where - "
"Just drive. Swing left," she commanded, using second sight the way Marlene had taught her... her nose like Rider had showed her... listening the way Big Mike would... feeling for the charge in the air so closely that Shabazz would have been proud. "Gun it to eighty miles per hour - flat out," she said, so sure she didn't have to think about it twice.
"Ma'am - "
"Do it, man, and stop questioning me, or I'll kick your ass out and drive myself!"
The flare streaked the sky, making the thick dust in the atmosphere glow orange. The wind was in her hair, the dust in her face, the speed exhilarating, adrenaline pumping, her weapon cocked and ready, and that's when she saw it.
Two huge, green glowing eyes parted the dense plumes created by the Range Rover and something leaned over to pick up a body on the ground. Yellow fangs dripping acid caught in the moonlight as the beast screeched in protest, and then the creature stood up, towering fifteen feet next to Damali's 4x4. Short front arms brandishing lethal hooked claws scrabbled at the air, and powerful back legs with blade-sharp spikes stretched, the monster pivoted, and a hard slam from its reptilian scaled tail sideswiped the vehicle.
The Range Rover wobbled and almost overturned on the first hit, but righted itself. She held on, looping her arm under the rail and taking aim over it as the creature began to run. She fired, missed, and reloaded, shouting to the driver to step on the gas.
This was her kill. She glanced back and the vehicle gunned to ninety-five miles an hour as the other masters gained on her. But when her vehicle suddenly swerved away from an opportunity shot, and the creature doubled back to go off in another direction, she lost it.
"What is the matter with you? Just a few more feet and we would have had him!"
"I've run this course before, ma'am - I'm their best driver because I basically know where the prayer lines are, even though I'm human. Didn't you see the lines?"
For a moment, Damali didn't respond. Then she looked around. Panic nearly stopped her heart. She couldn't see any blue or white lines. The other masters had dropped back long before she did. Oh, shit... she was no longer in the charged house, was out in prayer-rimmed natural lands, and had called down the white light in a Neteru meditation. Ooops. Unnerved, she forced false confidence into her voice.
"Just drive, and get me to that thing."
"Whatever the lady wants," the driver said, sounding unsure.
"The demon can't cross the lines either, so follow its path - if it disappears, loop in an arc and head in the opposite direction - it has to stay within the boundaries, too," she yelled above the 4x4 engine roar. "When it goes the other direction, we're gonna harpoon that sucker."
She wrapped the steel tow hook at the front of the open pickup over the grip rail, and traded her crossbow for the huge mounted harpoon gun, dropping the crossbow on the metal floor. She then hooked the towline to the harpoon gun. "If the harpoon gun breaks away from this rail, I still want a line on him. I'm not losing the bastard."
"He'll panic, drag the Rover, and could - "
But before the driver could finish his warning, the were-roo had surfaced, Damali had taken dead aim, fired, and it was a direct hit. The beast was punctured deep in its shoulder - but it wasn't an incineration heart hit. The wound smoldered. The beast reared up on its haunches, screeching, and began a flat-out dash across the plains.
Harpoon line running out at a high speed sounded like a razor cutting the air, then the strain on the weapon began making the grip rail groan. Damali crouched low to keep her balance and held onto the side of the Rover, staying away from the leaning, bending, rail.
"Cut the line, lady!" the driver yelled, panicking. "She'll drag, then flip us!"
Before Damali could respond, the harpoon and rail gave way, flying over the driver's cage, still attached to the beast. The tow-line whizzed out in a matter of seconds, stopped hard, lurching the Range Rover, then the demon on the move began to bounce, dragging the 4x4 past the other masters, who had to swerve to avoid it.
"She got a hit!" Carlos hollered. But as soon as he saw that there was no way for Damali to regain control of her vehicle, he made his driver turn and take his 4x4 to a speed to flank her. "Baby, cut the line!"
"No!" she screamed. "And don't you screw us by using your power to help me!" Then just as quickly as she'd spoken, her vehicle lurched when the demon changed direction in a wide arch that almost tipped it were it not for a championship driver at the wheel, and the space between her 4x4 and Carlos's widened.
A sudden side bang knocked Carlos's 4x4 as Master Amin rammed his side panel, took aim over Carlos's shoulder, making Carlos duck, and he nailed a second were-roo that dropped and incinerated fifty yards away. Amin pulled his vehicle off Carlos's flank with a glance of total victory and pursued Damali's runaway Rover.
"Drive!" Carlos hollered, making his driver change course to follow Amin. But then a slash of a tail nearly missed his head as one of the huge monsters suddenly appeared from an unseen under-ground tunnel, and made a fang swipe at Carlos. He dropped to his knees, aimed, and fired, sending the stake into the center of the creature's forehead, summarily exploding green gook to splatter the cab. His focus immediately returned to Damali. She was now more than a hundred yards away and heading right for a blue band.
"Slow your speed and tire this sucker out. Make him drag us," she hollered, holding onto the driver's cage with one hand and trying to aim at the beast with her crossbow in the other. This bastard was going down.