"I'm saying, D - sheeit, if there's something major going down at the hotel, we ride as a team. It can go down, you feel me?" Shabazz folded his arms and set his jaw hard.
"He blocked a transmission to Aset," Marlene said, her gaze firm. "What was that about?
The way he pulled us out was like a code - "
"No lie," J.L. said, unintentionally cutting Marlene off. "The hairs are still standing up on my neck from that shit."
"Ya mean?" Jose said, corning in closer. "What was it, D? What'd your boy track?" He looked around the group. "It had to be big - my boy wouldn't have - "
"We've gotta set up base camp, stat," Dan said, beginning to pace.
"Roger that," Berkfield said. "We've got how many hours of daylight left, folks?"
"Okay, okay, wait!" Damali said, outstretching her arms. "Everybody breathe. Chill for just one minute." When Dan looked like he was going to fire another question, she repeated the command. "Breathe." As the disgruntled team complied, she looked at Marlene. "We do this by the num bers. Seal this conversation with a prayer."
"I thought holmes said that's what freaked him out - that something was strong enough that a prayer didn't work," Jose said, outright terror starting to creep into his expres sion.
"All right, stop right there." Damali held up her hands with her gaze landing hard on each pair of eyes before her. "That is the last thing we want to get into our heads and spir its at a time like this." She allowed her gaze to travel around the semicircle again. "In the end of days, all you got is your faith - so you'd better water and feed it real good. We clear?" Nods of agreement came back as her answer.
"Seal this meeting with a prayer, Marlene."
Damali waited until Ashe had been said, and then she folded her arms over her chest. She drew a deep breath to bring additional confidence into her voice. Her brief re minder to the group was as much for their benefit as it was hers - because she'd actually seen the thing get up in her and Carlos's conversation.
"All right, we can stand down. Here's what happened. We were talking and a familiar made a side-out-the-neck comment that was a little too close for comfort and it freaked us out. Our bad."
When stunned expressions met her she pressed on. "All right, don't act like it couldn't happen to you guys. We're a little' jittery, after the thing that went down last night - all right." Damali let her breath out hard.
"But a Neteru duo ... D, be straight with us." Shabazz stepped in closer. "For real."
"I'm being real," she said, watching the team's shoulders relax. Every person had an expression on their face between relief and fatigue, as though the quick scare had taken ten years off their lives. "Look, as I calmed down, and Carlos and I talked and sensed for a tracer back there," she added, motioning toward the shoreline, "he and I realized that there were several variables that we had to consider, not the least of which was the fact that the familiar who'd spooked us could have been trolling the halls of the hotel, as they often did, targeting overly intoxicated guests."
"Yeah... they do that," Shabazz said, finally relaxing and getting a fist pound from Mike as he stepped back.
"Right," Damali said, gaining more confidence as her own logic ran full tilt. It had to be
that, God, please. "Or it could have been slinking around those unfortunate victims who were always out looking for action that they wouldn't realize, until too late, they'd probably never recover from. Hindsight being twenty-twenty, the little resort parasite was most likely just picking up on Carlos's tension while we were walking to go get the drinks, so saying anything related to that once we were deep ..." She rearranged her words to shelter the privacy of his guilt trip and their argument about it, but Marlene still gave her the eye.
"Once we were deep in convo about our next moves," Damali said, picking up where she left off, recovering on the fly. "We were talking under a seal when it slinked by us and said something smart - but because of where our heads were, we got hyped and processed it wrong. So the whole drama amounted to an old-fashioned, 'psyche your mind.'" For a moment, no one said a word. No wonder her husband was pissed off at himself and embarrassed... how many daggone hotels had they been in and seen that basic type of demon? But under the circumstances, she could definitely understand his knee-jerk reaction to err on the side of caution.
Slowly, smiles broke out on faces and team members began shaking then-heads, rubbing the backs of their necks, and running their fingers through their hair.
"Dayum," Jose said. "Aw'ight, I'm good now. But don't take a brother there."
"Whew." Berkfield just rubbed his face with both palms.
"I'm saying," Shabazz muttered, as the rest of the team muttered their relief. The only person who remained a little edgy and distant was Marlene, like she was only half-buying the story. Damali wasn't about to tell her that there hadn't been enough time for her and Carlos to discuss all of that, much less reason it out The team needed to feel like he was just erring on the side of caution, and that was it. Protecting his dignity was paramount right now.
"Okay, guys, here's what's up," Damali finally said, trying to wrest back cohesion and keep everybody cool, despite her own fears. "Just like old times. We find a hotel - base camp. Dan gets on the phone to do his thing, just like we had to do with the Beverly Hills mansion that got trashed; the old house and property gets donated to the Covenant as a tax write-off so we're open to buy a new joint. J.L. and Krissy set up the fax and Internet connection with the Covenant and bless the transmission in white light." Dan nodded. "I'm on it, D. We get settled in, handle oar business, and get the Covenant ready to do the purchase - this time, with us in a blind limited liability partnership - each couple with an equal percentage share and the Covenant with ten percent ownership."
"That's my brother," Damali said, hugging Dan. She knew he was always on point, but now more so than ever before, he had a purpose and would be on top of his game. Damali let him go with a kiss on his cheek and settled her gaze on the women on the team.
"You know the drill, ladies. All seers, you heard Carlos, start envisioning where there's an adequate property, and Dan can do his thing - cash. Wire transfer makes people stop haggling all the time. Carlos can bring in what you mentally shot him this morning, plus scavenge what we need from the old compound. So we dooo this. If I know Carlos, your bags will be at the hotel when we get there. Then we can all go find us a good restaurant to bust a grub."
"They've got a Ferrari dealership down on Prospect Street, I think," Jose said with a broad smile, looking at Dan. "Plus, down on Avenida de la Playa," he added, looking at Bobby,
"They got surfing shops, glider-port joints - it's all you, man." Damali just looked at him and didn't say a word. While she was glad that the team was starting to normalize, still, it was going to take a while getting used to all the newly hybrid team talents. She just shook her head as they trudged up the beach. A tracker... a nose ... that could see? Jose? Who'd gotten it from his wife? Yeah, these were some very strange days and times, indeed.
* * *