"If they're tortured demon remains and still have enough negative energy to have them in feeding zones," Marlene said as she lifted the sweat-damped hair off her neck, "then they're probably coming back to where they were killed or had a grudge." She looked at Damali and a silent understanding passed between them. "We know demons, like ghosts, are location-locked. Raven had vampire in her, so she could trail you and me wherever. But your foster father wasn't a vamp, so if he moved past the location where he was killed as one of the undead to find you here, then it stands to reason that he had to be following negative grudge energy."
"Good enough theory to work with for now, Mar. That bastard was definitely a demon while alive," Damali said, her line of vision going toward J.L. and Krissy. "Let's go with that hunch and see if we can get something to confirm it. Fire up a computer, get on the Net, and see if you can pick up any weird news services, crazy sighting reports, anything that sounds like what I just saw. I wanna know when the sightings began, regions, anything. Check the spook nets and paranormal watchdog sites in cyberspace."
Krissy and J.L. almost bumped into each other as they both snagged laptops and sat next to each other, their eyes intermittently glancing at their screens and Damali.
"I know you're the bomb, but how'd you pick all that up? The thing about the grudge," Dan asked, his gaze flitting to Marlene for confirmation, but paying way too much attention to J.L. and Krissy.
"Because, like I said, it was her foster father and he didn't die on this land," Marlene muttered.
"Yeah," Damali agreed, her voice tight. "The one who tried to molest me when I was living with Inez. He got smoked by some people who knew some people, and he probably came back from the realms where I suppose his bestial ass should have gone. Amanthra revenge level and were-demon realms - Levels Four and Five. The signature scents were all over him."
For a moment, no one spoke. She'd never openly admitted the private violation to anyone but Inez. Now, like all the other humiliations in her life, this, too, was out on the table for family inspection. Jose's eyes met hers and held such empathy that she had to glance away. When Marjorie covered her mouth, Damali began to pace. "All right. So, that means demon food, the Damned, is getting spit back up topside."
"Lilith's open portals," Marlene said quietly, seeming deep in thought. "When you injured her, maybe she didn't have enough energy to seal them behind her?"
"Or maybe none of the entities on any level had enough balls, or juice, to go behind a Level-Seven sister?" Shabazz folded his arms over his chest. "The thing that's f**king me up is, nobody on the team felt it - even though we'd run the portals checks by the numbers after the Philly job... which means we're slipping."
"The bigger question is," Rider said, clearing his sinuses, "why-arc we slipping? How'd the hell we miss that?"
"Yeah, unfortunately, the person I could ask for sure about the portals or our senses being off is out cold," Damali said flatly. "Lilith was on the run, like the Chairman. I doubt either one of them went home to face Poppa on Level Seven and tell him they'd been bad children. If that's who opened the portals, then that would be the only entity that had enough juice to close them off... but I'm with Rider. How come we didn't feel it? Even Tara and Yonnie didn't pick that up."
Damali walked back and forth between the table and the wall, as though trapped. "We need to know what this fleeing food can do, besides kill innocent people. Do they turn people? If so, what do they become, where do they come up from, what's the gestation if a human gets injured by one, but lives? I want to know everything about this madness. Get Father Pat on the phone, and ask him to do whatever he can to secure the convo from the Vatican, if that's where he is. Something tells me we need a double layer of protection on this discussion."
They waited as J.L. left his laptop and tried to raise the aging cleric by a landline.
"Hold it," Krissy said, standing with her system and rushing over to Damali. "Look. Woman eats boyfriend's heart in hotel. Police still looking for the weapon that opened his rib cage. Entrails everywhere. A month earlier, assailant had tried to file a report and obtain a restraining order, claiming her ex-husband had come back from the dead and beat her. Assailant was subdued and taken into police custody. Defense attorney's seeking insanity plea. Assailant awaits trial in Mississippi facility for the criminally insane." Krissy shoved the laptop into Damali's hands, seeming both proud of her work and scared.
"Dear God," Marjorie whispered.
"What's the date on that?" Damali muttered, visually scanning the article and then shoving the laptop back toward Krissy to grab.
"Not quite a month ago," Krissy said, and then looked at J.L.
For a moment Damali didn't speak. Krissy and J.L. were supposed to be constantly monitoring all the crazy news sources, and had been off the job. What was up with that? What had those two been doing all this time! Scratch the question; her ears were ringing with fury. She let out a slow but impatient breath and tried to keep her focus on the immediate need for information. Later, she'd address the critical lapse.
"You done good, Kris," J.L. said, nodding, his gaze holding hers.
"J.L., you mind getting that landline to Father Pat?" Damali said, growing more peevish. They didn't have time for this. When Carlos got back up, she'd knock his ass out cold for leaving her in the middle of this mayhem.
Finally, after fifteen tense minutes, J.L. got through to the senior cleric and everybody almost shouted at once.
"I cannot speak this over the airwaves, but it is why we were all called back to our respective headquarters," Father Patrick said once the commotion died down. "Damali, with Marlene, to boost the mental transmission, I have to send this to you directly. All right?"
"Do it," Damali said, closing her eyes and waiting for Marlene's hand to fill hers. She could feel how weak the elderly man's signal had become, but had to shunt aside that concern about his oddly fatigued condition. Marlene's quiet prayers enveloped them as Father Patrick's message came through in fits and starts.
Look at the news reports online. The tabloids. Mainstream media is not broadcasting this; the world governments are keeping a lid on public panic. Infection is rampant. It passes by touch, not bite. One touch. Then that person touches another, and another.
Father Pat, Damali said, alarmed, why didn't you alert us immediately?
Since the appearance of Lilith and the Chairman's abandoned throne, we have been in cloistered conference to keep all information within our clerical units until we knew more. Initially, the sightings seemed like normal demon activity, which all Guardian teams are well versed in and can handle. But our research took us to The Book of the Damned.
Something didn't sit right within Damali's gut. If the clerics knew something was up, they should have immediately alerted the Neterus and the Guardian squad. There was more to this, and she could feel the tension in Father Patrick's silence. She took her time responding to his statement.
What is The Book of the Damned? Damali could feel the older cleric's lock weakening, his age, the distance, and level of his fatigue wearing him down.
"Okay, nix the question," she said aloud into the speakerphone, trying to preserve his psychic energy so she could learn more. Clearly, even in the extremely private mental exchange, he wasn't ready to divulge everything. That really troubled her, and she knew it had to be bad if the old man was even shielding portions of a Neteru-to-Covenant telepathic transmission. Fine. Then she'd pose a more generic question for the sake of the team; her squad needed to know what they were up against without any additional bullshit getting in the way. "Just tell me what we're looking for."
We have been in meetings debating the cause, he said in mental fits and sputters, as though his brain needed to rest, and ignoring her attempt to give the team more data to go on. All that we know is these creatures make normal humans begin to manifest demonic behaviors. Regular people who have been infected begin acting like those entities from the realms of the undead carrier that touched them. Normal people are becoming cannibals, bearing super strength. Whatever level the infected entity came from, and whenever it touches but doesn't kill a living human, that person takes on the demon characteristics from that level.