"You tell that bitch that Rivera was here!" Carlos shouted. "And the next time she f**ks with my family, or brings that punk bastard, Fallon Nuit, with her to my door, it's her head and his nuts!"
The serpent swayed its huge, Hyundai-sized head and snapped, its eyes narrowed on Carlos from its position above him. Then from beneath the bed, several more heads emerged, until the thick body came out to reveal that it was a hydra, not a serpent. The tricky question for Carlos now was which head was the main one? Plus the damned thing moved like greased lightning. He could still hear gunfire report behind him, which meant his team was holding its own. From his peripheral vision, he saw Shabazz and J.L. racing in to assist.
Not even waiting for the command, Shabazz was liquid motion and had stunned the beast with a tactical charge from his locks and right hand. The blue arc rippled right down Black Beauty's barrel and discharged the shell with it to blow away one head. J.L. flipped out of the way of a strike to dig one of Dan's spent AK-47s into the monster's eye, only landing to blow out the other, firing from 9mms with both hands.
Sword raised, Carlos took a running leap forward into the air with a Neteru battle cry, his
coat billowing out from him, propelled by fury. His silver glare burned the creature like lasers had been trained on it, making it flop and screech to be out of his line of vision, and then he released the blade swing. A huge head crashed to the cavern floor as Carlos dropped onto Lilith's bed. Serpents hidden beneath her red silk sheets wriggled and scampered away at his intrusion, and he pulled a handheld Uzi out of his shoulder holster and began shooting the bed, making it bleed black and green blood. The hydra went down slowly, the other heads whining and hissing as the mortally wounded creature nuzzled the gushing site of the main beheading. Fury still had a choke hold on Carlos, and he rammed his sword into the center of the bed, wishing Lilith had been there versus her sumptuous mattress, and then unceremoniously lopped off the golden heads of the four posts.
But he jumped back amazed as they bled red blood and the little gargoyle figures at the tops of each post grappled at their cut throats.
Down beside his teammates in seconds, Carlos nodded as they picked up the pace to rejoin the battle on the main floor. Gunshots had ceased, only occasional bursts. Each man's heart slammed into his chest as he ran, hoping for the best, trying to prepare for the worst - only to see the entire team standing in the middle of sulfur plumes rising in hot, yellow smoke from the floor.
A sea of decapitated and mutilated demon bodies stretched out before them on the ground, piles of ash and cinders cov ered the bars, littering the crevices and crags where they'd dropped. Golden furniture and gaming tables were shot to smithereens. Glass was everywhere from exploded bottles. Guardian eyes briefly studied the carnage knowing that if anything twitched, it could still get up and bite.
"Raze the place," Shabazz muttered.
Carlos lifted his blade, ready to send a blast of white light from it, when a cavern opened behind the far wall, sucking the whole bar and half the shelving behind it down into it. Instantly, Carlos spun. J.L. was up on the golden surface of another bar in two flips, flykicking Harpies back, and then balanced on the edge of a sliver of remaining shelving to flip off and send two Harpies right into Carlos's blade. Shabazz threw his head back, released a warrior's yell, and suddenly upper and lower canines ripped through his gums. His clothes had been left in a pool of fabric where he'd been standing. Liquid feline motion, Shabazz's body elongated into a huge, sleek jaguar, his claws ridding Harpies of ap pendages and entrails as he went to J.L.'s aid. The team froze for a moment, stupefied. Berkfield flung a hallowed-earth grenade down into the cavern that had opened, and the team jumped back from the explosion that sealed the hole.
Bobby was blowing away miscellaneous Harpies that had escaped out of the air with Dan standing at his flank and Jose on the other side. A swarm of Harpies came at Big Mike, and the gunners couldn't get a shot off without hitting Mike. He reared back, hauled off, and threw a cinder-block punch into the eye of the small whirl, causing Harpies to fall out of formation and bounce to the ground, stunned. Bobby, Dan, and Jose picked them off like they were shooting pigeons. The moment the team fell back into formation, all in a line near Carlos, he lowered the blade of Ausar, raised the disc of Heru as a shield, and released a cannon jolt of white light from the tip of the blade to flash-burn everything demonic in their wake.
"Move out," Carlos said, slowly lowering the shield and watching Lilith's main lair burn
with great satisfaction.
Shabazz swept up his clothes, and team members shared incredulous glances but remained mute as he hurriedly robed.
Suddenly a deafening clap of thunder knocked them to the ground and scattered them like bowling pins. The sonic boom made boulders begin to fall in on the cavern, pelting the team with dangerous projectiles. He had to get his team out of there - had to get them all into a centralized group so he could burn through the universe's fabric without leaving any of his men behind. Carlos gathered his Guardian brothers with ef fort, straining to shield them with a stretched Heru discus and helping them up quickly with his energy so they could run toward him.
Dangerous energy fatigue was setting in as he tried to fo cus. In the midst of the chaos, a massive, blinding, white-winged stallion snorting blue-white flames, eyes glowing silver, its silver hooves razor-deadly, dropped down. The rid ing warrior owned a familiar face. His dark arm was out stretched to the team, the other held a huge crossbow with a silver stake that glinted off his gold, Kemetian crown.
"I told you we had your back, brother," Adam said, as several more Neteru kings dropped down to collect Guardian soldiers. "We'll seal your home in black-box safety - go to your queens. Rest. This battle is won. Tomorrow, however, is another day."
* * *
"okay, we have already established that they're crazy," Damali said, losing patience with the group's insistent questions, mainly because she couldn't answer them. "I want a prayerline grappling hook on each man in there. White light, pure everything you've got, to bring
'em home. You ladies got that?"
"Yeah," Juanita said, "but what's going on, maybe it's from the darkside - like how do we know about them being able to do things they hadn't before - "
"It's got to be the marriage merger," Marlene said, her voice quiet and reverent and her gaze distant. "Of one flesh... seven joining seven, strengthened by the bond that joins mind, body, and spirit as one under the auspices of white light." She brought her gaze to the team. "They got us in them, and they're in us. I'm calling Father Pat. It's time to get the Covenant back involved anyway, if they went after Lilith buck-wild and crazy."
"Whoa," Krissy said, and stumbled backward 'til her back hit the wall. "The marriage merger can do that?" she asked, totally ignoring the second part of what Marlene had said. Heather and Jasmine just stared at each other as Marjorie slowly brought her hand to her mouth. Inez began walking in a tight circle, fanning her face.
"This is too crazy," Inez said. "If we're getting juiced up like this, it's gotta be for something scary-big, anybody feeling me? I'm with Marlene; we need all them guys from the clergy up in here, too. Like what if I find out I'm cock-diesel like Mike, and he's fast with a switchblade, like me? Oh, shit, y'all. You hear what I'm saying?"
"Yeah ... completely," Tara murmured, her gaze distant. "This isn't like times before. They're acting like it's a last stand, and I don't even think they know why." Damali walked in a circle raking her locks, total frustration claiming her as the puzzle numbed her brain. As much as she hated to admit it, fear for the safety of one half of the team had a headlock on her as well.
"Do you know where the capital city is for ancient Babylon?" Damali finally blurted out,
unable to control the volume of her voice as her nerves frayed and snapped. "It's on the Euphrates River, south of Baghdad in modem Iraq!"
Unable to contain herself, Damali paced faster as the group's eyes widened before her.
"Pray and pray hard, sisters - they're walking right into part of this whole Middle East madness. There's ground troops from however many nations over there, civilians ... tanks, tracers, land mines, God only knows what, and our squad could accidentally come out of a whirl right in the middle of a firelight - who knows! And I haven't even begun to think about what demons are over there right now screwing with everybody, keeping the conflict going, holding humanity in a death struggle against itself... hell... Level Seven might be topside, for all we know!"
"I'll see if I can get maps, something to give us a geographic visual as we pray white light around where they are. It helps." Krissy jumped up and dashed down the hall, returning quickly with her laptop.