"If I do that without Carlos's permission, have you any idea the humiliation that could cause, and then the fallout from that shit, Marlene?" Damali paced away to stand by the windows, hugging herself.
"You're right, you're right," Marlene said, her hands up before her chest. "I stand corrected. It's just that my placebo was designed to bring back joy, a reason to live, a reason to focus on the here and now between each pair, with hope burning brightly for the future - no matter the circumstances or how dark it looks right now." She slowly brought her hands down and used the gentleness in her voice to make Damali look at her. "Love was there, strong, but hope was dimming. I used love to take us to hope. Hope is pure silver, Damali, you know that," Marlene said quietly. "Add it with love and it brings back weakened faith, white light even at the darkest hour. Once I truly understood what we were up against I knew in my soul that those guys needed a prime directive, a mission to remain cohesive so that fear and blame wouldn't splinter the team. After we wigged and brought down their battle high, because we were so scared, I needed a surefire way to get all the nagging doubts to stop. They needed a shot... er... in the arm, so to speak - and the women needed to feel that confidence so they'd rally with them. One mind, one body, one spirit - unbroken. Last night, everybody but the main one who needed it, got that. Listen to them out there. Carlos's booming laughter should be leading the trash-talking fest."
Damali nodded and fought a sob. "He has no joy in him right now, Mar. Fear has eclipsed hope - not for fear of what will happen to him, but to me or the team. His faith that he's being guided by the right side is shaky at best. The only thing grounding him is love. Guilt from things past is eating him alive ... he even told me not to open my wings around him, in case something that will remain nameless from that throne accidentally attached to him. He won't let me lay healing hands on him, and barely let me hug him to drift off to sleep." Marlene let her breath out hard and closed her eyes. "Baby, the man cannot carry that kind of guilt trip on his shoulders. Carlos being overly cautious is just as dangerous as his being overly reckless. You have to get him to understand that it was because his instincts were razor sharp that he picked up on an opportunity to hit Lilith's installation while it was vulnerable ... while, I guess for lack of a better way to put it, while she was being coronated as queen vamp."
"It's the retaliation he's worried about. They hit her resources hard, and as long as it was a Chairman from the vamp legions, or whatever, he was mentally ready. But when he found out Lucifer had personally throned Lilith... I watched my husband walk away from the cleansing bath in a daze. He just kept saying, 'Oh, shit, D... That's whose head I pulled up while he was getting busy? Oh, shit.' Okay, Mar. That's where he's at. Now he is bracing for a retaliation that will make Cain's battles seem like a schoolyard brawl."
"They'd be coming for us like that anyway, though, in the final days," Marlene argued.
"The Neteru Councils have been preparing for this for eons, and it was destined to happen at some point on our watch in all likelihood. Plus, Carlos had to know that if he hit Lilith's lair and even got her, that there'd be Hell to pay. It's just the fact that he actually interrupted the Devil and his wife that has Carlos so freaked out."
"Ya think?" Damali said, not meaning to be sarcastic, but having nowhere else to vent her frustration. "Plus," she added, mellowing her tone toward Marlene, "Carlos now knows
that the strength of the newly installed Chairwoman is unparalleled to anyone else who ever occupied that seat - Dante included. That also means that the making of the Antichrist is not far behind. That's why Carlos is bugging. He feels responsible for the tuning, for stirring the hornet's nest at a time when we, as a team, weren't iron-clad ready for what would fly outta that sucker."
"Look, he didn't know what schemes the Ultimate Darkness had," Marlene said, throwing up her hands. "Who knows such things? The man took a calculated risk, temporarily won, and made it out alive with all his men - weakening forces at a time when they seriously needed to get hit." Marlene began walking again, scratching her head, deep in thought. "Besides, if that's who had to install that bitch on a throne, wouldn't that seem like we'd done our job by seriously depleting their power options all the way down to the core?" Marlene stopped and turned to stare at Damali head-on. "That's our job. Tell the general, he did his job like a master... like a councilman, in fact. Totally unexpected, but right on time."
"I tried to tell him," Damali whispered from where she stood, speaking more for her own benefit than Marlene's. "I tried to tell him that his fangs were given to him and left within him on purpose, just like my wings were ... that his learning about the Dark Realms is our strategic advantage at a level never known before by the Light. I tried to tell my man that all his business savvy from the streets, his fury, his charisma, his double-dealing, sexy ways were part of the grand plan."
Damali drew in a shuddering breath and hugged herself tighter as new tears rose in her eyes. "And I tried to tell him that above all things, I respected him to the last cell in his body, no matter how much I might fuss from time to time... Mar... that's my man... my baby, and he's bleeding to death inside. But I can't stop the hemorrhage because this time he won't let me."
* * *
lilith stood in the topside clearing in central Europe calling the covens of old. "From London to Romania to Transylvania, worldwide, those who still remain in dark spirit and able to hear my cry, I beseech you ..."
Her dark energy swirled from her outstretched talons, icy winds viciously whipping her death-black gown about her legs and arms, her hair eerily floating out from her body in a chilling black charge. With her head thrown back and all the passion of fury within her, she called them to her like wayward children. It was time.
"Mine, those of the most powerful among you left who took the dark oath of the covens, arise!" Lilith shrieked into the starless night. "Make good on your evil oath to serve the Dark Lord. Come to me, those of my blood pact, dark warlocks and witches, do my bidding!"
A night-cutting energy bolt left Lilith's talons to sear the darkness with black flames, opening what looked like a seam in the pitch-black horizon. The sound of missiles whirring filled her ears and made her laugh and screech in ecstasy as dark, torpedolike shapes hurled ever closer as though they were black comets.
"Yes! Yes! Come my children, we have much work to do," she screeched, whirling around in an excited frenzy.
The first projectile landed with an explosion that forced her to step back. Brilliant orange,
red, and midnight-blue flames shot up vertically ten feet, and then a tall, gaunt warlock stepped out of the curtain of fire, swathed in a black cape covering his royal attire.
"Sebastian, you came ..." Lilith cooed, and swept over to the warlock. He took her hand and passionately kissed the back of it. "I pledged that I would be the first to always answer your call, milady."
"What has it been?" Lilith whispered. "How many centuries?"
"Too many to count," he replied, embracing her. "Tell me your bidding while I am still rational."
Five additional blasts rocked the area, causing Sebastian to release Lilith and shield himself from the flames.
The first warlock to step out of his fireball did so with chilling grace, and then fluffed his long black tresses and brushed off his formal black-and-white theater ensemble.
"Machiavelli," Lilith gasped, her eyes going to slits.
"At your behest," he said, glaring at the first warlock, and sweeping over to Lilith. He took up her hand and then caressed her cheek and looked around curiously. "I had heard rumor that Fallon Nuit was returned?" He closed his eyes as a shudder of anticipation swept through him. "Tell me this is so."
"He may be available, he may not," she murmured seductively, teasing him. "I could be jealous, unless you both share."
Machiavelli chuckled softly. "Fallon taught me Dananu, you know ... even though he never gave me the full pleasure of bearing fangs. Callous brute - tell me, is he about?"
"Bargain with me in my language," Lilith said with a sinister grin, "then I might tell you."
"Do you remember where you marked me so many, many years ago?" he murmured in her language, making her briefly shudder.