Another horrible shudder ran through her. Marlene and Father Patrick had said it was posttraumatic stress syndrome - something all warriors dealt with - and it would pass. Big Mike and Berkfield, who had been to 'Nam, confirmed the diagnosis, and the others admitted having similar after-battle nightmares, too. She could only tell Carlos about the first half of the dream; the last part felt so frighteningly real that she couldn't speak of it to him while looking into those same questioning eyes. He'd told her that he still had sleep terrors from time to time, taking him back to his old vampire existence or his torture, but it would soon pass... just like her nightmare of the Chairman would.
He no longer woke up screaming, wiping nonexistent blood from his mouth or cringing at whatever sunlight had filtered into the room. So, why was she still so freaked out? Why was the dream the same, over and over and over again, as if her mind was a CD with a nick on it? And why did it take her so long to warm up in her man's arms? Why did this horror she experienced while sleeping always feel so real?
She had to get the team to the Native American lands Jose owned. Sanctuary, hallowed earth. It was also the only safe place left for them. However, it wouldn't help with the dreams. The dreams still attacked her, whether in a cathedral or hotel bed. As long as Carlos slept beside her, she was tortured to near hysteria day or night. When she slept alone, peace swaddled her mind.
What did this mean? Dear God, what did this all mean?
Just as day broke, Carlos watched Damali finally drift off into a fitful slumber; then he silently crept into the bathroom. He shut the door with care and latched it behind him. Why did Father Patrick have to choose now to go back to Rome? He needed someone to confide in, a man of the cloth, the one who took him to his heart like a son.
A stability factor was needed. Father Pat was definitely that. But every man had his limits; maybe Father Pat found his after Lopez bought it. And who could blame him? The shit they'd all gone through was more than anybody should have had to deal with at any age. It was ridiculous.
But he couldn't escape the fact that every man who had been a force in his life had walked when he'd needed him most. Besides the aged cleric, who'd been a ground wire for a while, who had ever really been around to guide him? He wasn't complaining about it, wasn't crying. That was just a fact. All his life lessons came from the school of hard knocks. The way of the world, alive or dead.
He ran his palms down his face and breathed in deeply, then let the air out of his lungs in a resigned rush.
Weary of the thoughts that besieged his mind, Carlos sat down on the closed toilet seat, hung his head, and shut his eyes to the blue-gray dawn.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," he whispered to the elderly priest in absentia. "It's been who knows how long since my last confession."
Carlos kept his voice to a low murmur, battling for composure and using slow, deep inhalations and exhalations to steady his voice as his thoughts raged. "I can't get Padre Lopez's death out of my mind. I'm so sorry about that, I don't know what to say. They were seeking my essence, my vamp line... and Lopez had it in him, as well as that... image of Juanita I'd poisoned him with, before I knew better." Carlos swallowed hard.
"If I hadn't, then maybe... he was just a kid, really. They didn't come after Jose like that, so there had to be a reason, a cause, a link with more juice than Jose had in him, so you can't tell me it wasn't my fault. I got serious debt behind that. I know it. And they honed in on that foul shit, thought he might have been me because of the heart chakra connection he and I shared, and they" - Carlos choked and he made the sign of the cross over his chest - "they took his heart, man. How am I gonna live with that?"
A silence interrupted only by a slow drip from the sink faucet was his answer. Two huge tears rolled down Carlos's cheeks, and he let them fall, splashing his thighs as he leaned forward with his face in his hands. "Father Pat, I know you said it was fate, he had fulfilled his purpose without breaking his vows to the Covenant, which was eminent, but how come that don't make me feel it's okay?"
Again, silence. It pounded in his ears and added to the ever-present throbbing headache he was constantly nursing these days. Drawing a shaky breath, he pressed on with his complaint in the eerie quiet, hoping Father Patrick would hear him in his mind and send a sign, something, anything, maybe a little salvation for him to cling to.
"Everything is falling apart, Father. The team is in disarray. My claw of Heru ain't working no more than Damali's stones can give up a charge so she can do a shift; none of our powers are stable, and our reaction time is slow. Bad position for everybody to be in."
He breathed out hard and pulled his fingers through his hair as his voice faltered. "Father Pat, this is too much shit going on at the same time with all the newbies to train when I ain't even ready for whatever myself."
Carlos drew in another shuddering, ragged breath and let out a rushed exhalation of frustration. He took his time, framing his next statement. There was something he had to get off his chest that he could never tell another living soul, could never tell another man... but Father Patrick was somehow different, in a different category than a Guardian brother, or a friend. But even sitting alone in the privacy of the bathroom, which had been turned into his tiled confessional, just forming the words in his mind gave him a chill. Saying it out loud would give it energy and reality, and then he wouldn't be able to tuck it neatly away and ignore it. It had gnawed away at his brain so long that it nearly bled. He had to get it out.
"Father Pat," he whispered, his voice barely audible to his own ears. "I'm scared, man. I can't lead this team. What if I fail? What if I really f**k it up this time and get somebody else killed? My powers ain't fully back, been dwindling since the battle in Philly."
The words had come out in a panicked rush of emotion. A repressed sob held back more of the truth for a moment as Carlos began rocking and speaking to the cold bathroom floor. "I know this ain't your department, but, even with my woman... you know what I'm saying... things ain't right." He clutched his hands together as his forearms rested on his thighs, studying the blurring mortar between the tiles.
I can't sync up with her, he murmured within his mind, unable to verbalize this deeply personal pain. "I hope you can hear this part, man," Carlos whispered, talking as much to the absent Father Patrick as to himself. "I can't even say it." He glanced toward the window, as the walls in the bathroom felt like they were closing in on him. Just thinking about it, much less mentally stating it, made him want to get up and go take a long walk. He needed fresh air. "I'm a Scorpio, what do you want from me, hombre?" he muttered with a sad smile, trying to joke it off. It didn't work; it just made him feel worse and made the truth barrel into the forefront of his mind.
"All right." Carlos sighed. "No games." He focused on the small clerical cot and wooden chair that used to be the only furniture in the old safe house room where he and Father Pat had some of their deepest discussions. Then he jarred the lid to his very personal thoughts, the real dark and scary portions that he shared with no one, and mentally told the truth.
At first, when I got marked by Ausar... I thought I'd been, you know, messed up - permanent. Then I found out I wasn't. And I'm not, but it's complicated. My silver ain't firing on all cylinders. Comprende?
Carlos let his shoulders drop and intensely studied a single tile on the floor.
When I go to touch her, she pulls back, almost like she's afraid of me or doesn't want... There's no heat, you know what I'm saying? Half the time I don't even feel like it, when we... There was a time when I'd give my eyeteeth just to get with her, and could get a mind lock going to make her hit high notes in three-part harmony. Now... I can't explain it. We don't even lock anymore. It's like we're just roommates.
Carlos stopped breathing for a moment, and then pulled in another hard breath through his nose and let it out quickly through his mouth. He closed his eyes and allowed his head to hang back. "What's wrong with me, man? I've never dealt with nothing like this in my life." Me, I could always count on, if I couldn't count on nothing else... now...
He looked at the door, wishing his vision could bore through it to see Damali like before. Good memory was a bitch, and he knew he was nursing the past like an old drunk nursed a drink in a rundown bar... thinking back on the good old days or nights and mentally editing out the twisted parts about it. Yeah, he knew that's what he was doing, but that still didn't make it any better. His past was a complicated blend of the horrible and awesome. Bitter irony.
Perhaps karma, as Shabazz would say. But he'd never breathe any of this to his seasoned Guardian brother. The shit sounded weak, pitiful. Soft.
He wasn't about to divulge to another man beyond a priest that all he had left was his hard outer shell, and some of his pride梚llusion caster that he'd once been. It was the law of the jungle; you never showed anyone or anything your soft underbelly, lest you get it ripped open... and that wasn't an option in the joint, in the 'hood, or in Hell. Never. And no woman wanted a soft man. Forget that. Natural law. Yeah, he'd suck it up and figure this out alone. Father Patrick didn't have advice for something like this.
"I'm not feelin' this shit at all, man," Carlos whispered. Out of reflex, Carlos ran his tongue over his teeth - something he still did when thinking hard or pissed or both. "Old habits die hard," he said with a crisp tsk of his tongue against a normal canine, and then stared at his hands. "Fuck it."
He didn't miss the blood, the torture, or the foul darkness, but there were some things he secretly had to admit his soul ached for. He tried to tuck all that away and into his mental black box before he left the bathroom to go back to bed; he couldn't even tell Father Patrick about that part, or about missing his old power, even if it did come from the dark side. He was a priest and definitely wouldn't understand.