Damali winced.
They are friends to you and your team, but multiple thrones sit vacant. The temptation for a master vampire to claim one is too great. He could even seat his mate. Then, where would that leave us? Now do you understand why you and Carlos weren't informed?
Damali nodded. I understand, but they already know about the Damned.
We don't care if they know about the Damned. If they are inclined to assist by eliminating any roaming undead all the better. But Yonnie doesn't need the temptation of an empty council-level throne. Father Patrick's mental voice had become a strained whisper. Tell Carlos to call me the moment he's lucid. If he is going to petition Adam... well, let's just say that they have very different personalities and backgrounds. I'm concerned.
Yonnie and Tara have a bounty on their heads if they go subterranean because they helped me and Carlos, so I don't think they'd risk trying to go underground on us, Damali said firmly, hoping the old priest would relax.
Every person living has some demon that they fight. Ego, fury, hurt, insecurity, lust - pick one, dear Neteru. Even if they have conquered it, this dark energy could make choices they have to make very difficult. Weaknesses become magnified during this turmoil. Close the portals and that will cease. Destroying Lilith is the first step. Finding the antidote for all those infected hut not yet lost is the second step. If we get the book to release all those from the dawn of time, that would be the pinnacle of a successful mission.
Damali remained very still. The elderly priest had mentioned the book earlier and then evaded her question for more information about it when she'd pried. Now it had been mentioned again. She seized upon the opportunity during the seconds he rested and gathered his thoughts. The Book of the Damned. What is it? Who has it? What does it do?
We have yet to be sent a sign about how to acquire this - we know who has it, but where it is hidden is unknown. Just like the antidote, this remains a mystery... We were hoping to have more before we contacted you, he said, still skillfully evading her direct questions. In the past, there was never a cure. Before, a total biblical-level wipeout had been the Almighty's answer... and we hope that will not come to pass again. Our information is only twenty-four hours old. You have not been kept in the dark long. Don't lose faith in us at this juncture.
Again, Damali hesitated, letting the information Father Patrick had just disclosed sink in. She wondered if this explained Carlos's behavior. Everybody on her team, herself included, had been off kilter. Damali closed the door on that part of her thoughts.
How is your team faring, Damali? Father Patrick asked, probing further.
Damali sighed and gave in. Issues are bubbling up and personal fires have been flaring up faster than I can put 'em out. She let her breath out hard. This book, we have to find it. Period. The antidote could even be in there, who knows?
Like I just said, we know who has it... and we know what it contains, we just aren't sure where it is. Father Patrick hesitated and let out an audible breath into the speakerphone.
Talk to me, please, Father. How can we beat this problem if we can't even know what our weapons are?
The Chairman has it, he finally said in a quiet mental voice. Any of those fallen into the realms through trickery or deceit must be called by name from the angels' voices to release them from bondage below. It will not release the Lilith or any fully turned entity until they are exterminated. But these walking dead, the food of the realms, will be called into the Light and given a second opportunity to make amends. If we had that, we could save any and all who died from this recent outbreak... maybe even some of those from before it. But the clock is ticking. If the planet becomes overrun, Hell will commence the Armageddon, not the other way around, as it should be - and our side may not have enough souls left in our coffers to battle what is to come. The Creator might have to scrap the most magnificent experiment - humankind... the whole planet. By fire this time.
"Whoa!" Damali said, breaking eye contact with Marlene and raking her locks. The entire team watched her stalk back and forth. What Father Patrick said was enough to spike her sensory capacity to overload. She didn't need prompting to ask the elderly cleric her follow-up question. Pure frustration riddled her system - she'd held that freakin' book in her own hands when she'd gone into Council Chambers to beat the Chairman's ass down... and she'd let him have it back? Damali groaned and briefly shut her eyes. No wonder the old bastard was so ready to cut a deal! Yeah, she'd wrested the embryo from Lilith, but she still felt like she'd failed.
Steadying her nerves, Damali addressed Father Patrick in a subdued mental tone. Assuming it will be next to impossible to get this book from the Chairman, let's go back to the antidote as plan B. What is it? How do we get it out, worldwide, before any infected person drops? That's what we have to find out.
I wish we knew, Father Patrick mentally replied, his mind so weary that Damali could barely hear him. His sentence came across as a rasp. Until we know if it's a prayer, something dispersed in solid or liquid form, and what dements are involved, we can't fathom a delivery system. This is also how the governments got involved. A few of our elite members, who shall remain nameless for the sake of propriety, had top-level conversations with world leaders. This is serious, Damali. I'm not authorized to say more, fust know that extreme human measures are being considered to quell the contagion that none of us are happy with.
Humans always tend to mess things up, and governments can't be considered rational. Far from it. Damali sighed and rubbed her temples.
"Thanks for the heads-up. I'll explain what I know to the team and investigate. Why don't you try to get some rest? You sound bone tired, Father Pat."
"I am, sweetheart. Truly, I am."
CHAPTER FOUR
She'd watched dawn come in as she lay on her sofa, glad that she'd been able to get the family to give in to her need to be alone despite the attack. There was no reason for them to worry about her falling asleep. Fat chance of that after everything had jumped off. Add a serious case of bad nerves to the fact that she had been up almost all night with them, deep in strategy at the dining room table, her not being alert should have been the least of their worries. She needed space to think.
By the time she'd dragged her weary, ragged body home, fending off complete protest from the team, she was simply ready to drop. She'd thought she'd never get out of there, though, when Yonnie allowed his voice to descend to a purposeful octave and calmly asked if she wanted an escort home. Not.
The .only reason she didn't make a big production out of telling him to back off was that Tara would have been embarrassed, and this was just some Yonnie, master vampire, bullshit to get under her girlfriend's skin in front of Rider, who apparently had an attitude about Tara's glimpse at both Rider and Carlos. But the team bugging hard about it had frayed her last nerve.
The point everyone seemed to miss was as long as Carlos was handling his business, Yonnie would never step to her, out of respect and because he and Carlos were fam... But if Carlos ever stopped handling his business, well... It was the way of the vamp world. That was what had bristled Tara, and the message Yonnie was trying to send - that he had options. Both of them were crazy.
Oh, yeah, there had to be some seriously dark energy afloat. Damali rubbed her eyes and tried to wake up fully. But personal issues, lusts, struggles, whatever, paled in comparison to what they were up against. She had to remain clear about that.
After the conversation with Father Patrick, she didn't have enough energy to try to wrangle with the Neteru Queens. But once she recharged her mental battery, she'd try to make contact with Nzinga to learn more.
Bottom line was, she had to figure out how to locate Lilith and the Chairman. Up till now, she really hadn't been hunting them; she'd just been trying to heal herself and her team. She now wondered how much of that was because of the dark energy that had been released, and it made her question whether or not she'd been wrongly focused on her own immediate concerns, versus her overall mission as a Neteru. Had her plan been logical - retreat and get strong, then get back into the fight?
That's what unnerved her, not knowing if her logic was sound, her strategy tight. She was now also beginning to question her intense desire to live away from the team. Was that just a normal evolution of her growth as a woman and a Neteru, or something motivated by deep, hidden, selfish reasons?
She let her breath out hard and closed her eyes. What she'd seen and had come to learn now made sense. She kept reminding herself not to be judgmental. Father Patrick had said this open portal mess with bad vibes floating around affected everyone differently.