"We had to contain the warlock pollutant," Aset said as she stared at the box. "Our apologies for the decontamination chamber entrance. It is unbefitting of Neteru royalty, but we had no choice."
"We will have to thoroughly purge the dragon pearl oracle before we can return it to you," Ausar said, his voice sad. "We may even have to exterminate it... the creature's spirit is suffering so badly."
"What happened to it?" Damali asked, suddenly jolted into finding her voice.
"Yeah," Carlos said, as Damali's hand slipped into his. "Z was cool until..."
"Yes, I know," Eve said calmly. "Until I beheaded my son, Cain. It's all right, Carlos. I had to do it and I can talk about it in a more detached frame of mind now ... I have to."
"We don't want to bring you pain, dear Queen Eve," Damali said, genuflecting, which made Carlos follow suit. "But there's so much going on right now, and we need a way to do a clean divination."
"One of our seers got a visit from her dead sister in the spirit realms of Light, saying something about dark covens rising," Carlos said, his gaze respectfully going between Ausar, Adam, and their wives. "Here's my concern. We just hit Lilith's joint hard, as Adam knows. But then I later found out that the only reason we got in as far and as deep as we did was because her husband was installing her on the Vam pire Council's throne as the new Chairwoman - "
"I knew it!" Eve shouted, standing. Adam gripped her hand tighter to keep from breaking their bond. "When I took my sisters Nzinga and Penthesileia to her topside essence in the Black Forest, she was just finishing a dark ritual. I had no idea it was her coronation! I would have driven the Isis into her heart and right into the black throne that she sat on, im paling her wretched heart."
Carlos and Damali shared a glance.
Eve took a war party of Neterus to battle Lilith? Whoa... Damali mentally sent to Carlos, unable to contain herself.
Carlos's eyes just widened slightly, and he squeezed her hand tighter.
"My wife and her warrior sisters almost had her, but the kill was interrupted by the Unnamed One," Adam said, coaxing his wife to sit again. This time Carlos and Damali looked at each other straight on.
"They sent legions of scythe-bearers over the cavern, but we incinerated them like the vermin they are," Nzinga said with pride, reaching over to clasp Penthesileia's hand.
"Yes," the Amazon Neteru Queen said proudly. "And we drove back her witches and warlocks that stood guard as witnesses. Only two escaped." Carlos waited a beat before he spoke, gathering his words with care. "First of all, that's a bold and awesome hit on our side, but the coronation took place underground, Level Six in Dante and Cain's old throne. That's how it's always done for a Chair installation, and what had me buggin' so hard was, the installer was none other than Lucifer himself." The great hall went silent for a moment.
"It's true," Damali said, holding Carlos's hand tighter. "My husband still gets residual imaging from that throne ... from, uh, his old life - which we can use to our advantage and probably why it even happened," she added quickly, defending him as she pressed on.
"And what he sensed almost fried his nervous system. I think that could be what's wrong with my pearl, too, because she was linked to Cain, and at his demise, grieved so hard that maybe she tried to follow anywhere his essence had been."
"If girlfriend went there," Carlos said, "as a being of Light, with no dark proclivities whatsoever, she's definitely going blind by now."
"The Caduceus may be the only way," Aset said quietly, as she glanced at Damali, then Ausar.
"Bigger issue is this, though," Damali said. "If you didn't interrupt Lilith's coronation -
which you didn't, and there was a stand of warlocks and witches, topside, around a Vampire Council Chairwoman, then the combo of vampires and witches seems awfully suspicious."
"Like a foul spell going down, now that the first seal got broken," Carlos said, glancing at Damali, both of them nodding. "Plus, we kicked their... tails," he said, monitoring his language before the royal assembly. "The question is, who was at the hocus-pocus fest?
Maybe if we know the players, we can decipher what kind of thing they're gonna use to come at us."
"Truthfully," Nzinga said, "we were slaughtering them so quickly that who they might have been, dims in my mind's eye. My focus was their incineration."
"Focus," Eve commanded gently, turning so she could see Nzinga, whose gaze went to Penthesileia.
"I recognized Genghis," the Amazon said after a mo ment.
"Genghis, as in Genghis Khan?" Carlos rubbed his neck with his free hand. "Okay, we know they were making a war spell for sure, now."
'Truth," Hannibal said from his high post. "But I have something for Genghis - something his spirit shall cringe to witness!"
He stood quickly and put his fingers in his mouth, using his hand to create a loud whistle. Hoof-clatter filled the great hall within seconds, and a huge, prancing, ruby-hued stallion with massive wings entered, pawing at the marble floor, snort ing fire. Its eyes gleamed like large translucent jewels, and its coat and mane shone as though made of the cut stones, the light shimmering in its crystalline facets.
"Behold, the stallion of power," Hannibal said. "If their armies of Darkness arise, I am authorized to break the sec ond seal to take peace from the earth that they in the Dark Realms shall turn on and kill each other." He opened his arms. "The Neteru Council of Kings has already awarded you the great sword - it is your choice to call this steed to your service to escalate the combat. We are with you, my brother!"
"And if it becomes bleak for our side," Eve said in a tense murmur, "I have the right to call to Damali's hand the black mare, thus opening the third seal." She stared at Damali without blinking. "Take your time to call her, for a balance of weights and measures comes with her. She will raze their food, making the staff of life scarce, hurting not the oil and the wine."