"Why would I ever want to do that?" Damali said, dropping Carlos's hand and covering her mouth.
"To starve out their armies!" Nzinga shouted. "Then Ausar can release the pale horse of hunger and death upon their weakened demon legions, death by starvation - then opening the fifth seal to raise armies of the fallen, those who were slain for the word of the Almighty, those martyrs murdered by evil. They will rise again, after a season, but the sixth seal must then be fulfilled."
"Yes!" Joan shouted. "Every army and every soldier in the fight of a just cause, and every person burned at the stake in their vicious inquisitions of injustice - the enslaved, the tortured, shall rise in victory!"
"The moon will go crimson, winds shall lash the land to sweep the vile assets of Hell from the planet... earthquakes shall move mountains and islands out of their lodging to shake them from every hiding place beneath the ground; the sun will go black to entice them out to fight against a battle they shall never win," Adam said, breathing hard with battle lust and leaning forward. 'The battle is on!"
"After that, the twelve scattered tribes shall gather, a hundred and forty-four thousand Guardians in all, to be redeemed and - "
"Wait!" Damali and Carlos shouted in unison, holding up their hands. They both began pacing, panic sweat making their clothes stick to their bodies.
"That's too much responsibility," Damali said, her voice shrill.
"Man, put that red monster back in its stable, brother - I ain't calling that shit to earth. We got people down there, families, and babies, and ... aw, man, this is over the top." Carlos raked his dampening hair.
"Right," Damali said, almost hollering. "If the food gets scarce for demons, that's biblical plagues ... a quarter of Africa has already been decimated, we've got bird flu in Asia and Europe reaching pandemic proportions, and old, already conquered diseases making virulent comebacks - we can't bring that on people!"
She spun and looked at Carlos.
"Naw, like, we just came up here for a simple divination, since the first seal was open and a funky spell was gonna go down. We ain't come up here for all of this, yo!" Ausar and Aset sat back in their thrones garnering calm as the great hall quieted. Two Guardians led the snorting steed away, and Hannibal sighed.
"Our apologies," Ausar said evenly. "We have been waiting for this for a long time, and perhaps we got ahead of our selves."
"Please don't break another seal," Damali said, her voice a dry rasp.
"For real," Carlos said, still too hyped to stop pacing. "Adam, man, I didn't even want the first one broken, if I knew it was gonna be all of that."
"Well this is why we've given you access to the Covenant!" Adam shouted, losing patience. "They are your earthly guides!"
"True," Eve said with a half-smile. "But Carlos did not directly ask you to break that first seal. You tapped into his energy and felt him headed toward Lilith's lair - and if you are honest with yourself, you - "
"Jumped the gun!" Carlos yelled. "I didn't ask for no seal breaks - just some assistance. Uh-uh, you ain't laying that at my feet in the end of days, brother - we cool and all, but uh-uh."
Adam stood, indignant, looking around at his fellow Kings. "All right! I admit it! My breakage was premature - but given the stress Eve and I have endured - "
"No one is blaming you, man," Solomon said in a conciliatory tone. "Sit. We are all here for the same purpose."
Begrudgingly Adam sat.
"I feel where you're at," Carlos said, drawing Damali under his arm. "But if we can contain the madness ... I mean, we'll scrap to the bone, will battle whatever comes our way, but our main goal is to keep down the number of human civilian casualties."
"We would have said the same thing, during our incarnation," Aset said in a soothing voice, staring at Ausar.
"You would have, but I would not - I would have taken a hundred thousand men into battle and razed anything of the enemy in our wake."
"You see how these large, epic, Old World battles went down," Carlos murmured to Damali, "and why I don't come up here off the chain?"
"I know," Damali said, letting out her breath hard. She looked at Aset. "We can't roll like that and sleep at night. New plan."
"We can try to decipher the origin of the toxin that affected the pearl," Lady Fu Hao said quietly, smoothing back her long, black hair that was wound up in an elaborate bun. She spoke in a calm tone that was almost hypnotic. "Once we understand what they were trying to accomplish, we can advise you on evasive moves and battle patterns to keep you one step ahead of their plans, and this will minimize casualties."
"Cool. Now that's a plan I can live with," Carlos said, glimpsing Damali from the corner of his eye. "And just for the record, the Covenant hasn't been available to us for a while because of the ongoing human debate over Cain and what that means." Adam held up a hand as though to say, Peace, drop it. Carlos nodded. The Native American Queen leaned forward, her attention split between the Amazon and Lady Fu Hao.
"They have one of my lands on their team now, Tara, who might be able to help break the spell code - she has shaman in her, like the guardian Jose ... and both had the capacity at one point to bear fangs." Estsantlehi sat back. "We will work with a blend of energies and see what we can determine."
The Aztec Queen stood and began to walk back and forth in front of her throne, her green jeweled robe glittering. "Could they not call their fellow Guardians, one hundred and forty-four thousand strong to them, making them know who they are?" Chalchihuitlcue waited, her large, luminous eyes seeming to absorb the thoughts of the
group before she spoke again. "This would allow worldwide, scattered teams that have been under siege - too much to be able to seek their own kind - to sense each other's energy tracers ... Guardian signatures worldwide, for the first time could mesh. This would also be only the second time a Neteru team would make itself known to non-Neteru Guardians as a beacon, so that only those with the eyes of Light could find shelter amongst their own kind. They must gather unto each other for safety and to fight a collective battle, if their goal to minimize casualties during the end of days is to be achieved."