Damali nodded hard, but Marlene's line of conversation disturbed her. The woman was in denial. Wasn't thinking clearly. Why was she worried about trivial things when in thirty days, there might not be a world? Damali tempered her response.
"Yeah, because Marlene, for real - you can run but you can't hide, and sooner or later, the newbies have to be able to live like regular people, blend in." That was as much as she could offer without bodily shaking sense into Marlene.
"Couldn't agree more," Marlene said, coming to Damali to give her a hug. "Might stem some of that resentment thing, too."
"Ya think?" Damali held Marlene tightly. Oh, God... everyone, even her mother-seer, had lost their minds. "I didn't realize how much of that poison was running through my system." She let Marlene take the statement any way she wanted to, but she'd been referring to the contagion, not some stupid man-woman resentment issue.
"A very famous lady, an old star, Jill St. John, said this when she lost her son: resentment is like taking poison, and hoping the other person dies." Marlene held Damali back from her. "That was so profound, it stayed with me. Here this woman had lost her heart, her fourteen-year-old child to a tragedy, and that was her take on the matter. I learned something from those words, so I pass them on for you to consider."
Damali touched Marlene's cheek, her hand cupping it with tender love. She had to stop the infection. She missed the old Marlene so much she could almost wail. "Marlene, you are so deep sometimes. I've been feeling like I was possessed or like something was trying to get inside me and take over my spirit. Resentment is poison."
Marlene nodded and released her hold on Damali. She watched her grown daughter walk away from her, but didn't immediately follow behind her. There was something in what Damali had said; also something had slithered within her daughter's touch. The word possessed hung in her mind like a dark cloud. Her lips moved reciting a silent prayer as she watched Damali rejoin the despondent group in the living room. Something was wrong; her internal warning bells were going off.
For the first time in a long time, Marlene was very unsure.
All heads jerked up as footsteps came up the path. Before they could land on the front steps, the entire team was on the porch. Carlos glanced up sheepishly, his ragged, bloodstained jeans, torn T-shirt, and dirt-smeared face made them stare.
"Damn, y'all, what a night!" Carlos exclaimed, shaking his head as he mounted the stairs. "I'm driving to L.A. to get the hell out of here for a short break until we could all figure out what to do, and a freakin' deer jumps into the middle of the road, wrecks my Jeep, messes up a brother's transpo, are you feeling me? I am done!"
He smoothed his palm over his hair as the team stared at him without blinking, their expressions blank. "Then," he said quickly, adding to his story, "I'm trying to find my way back home in the dark, and white light holds me, checking to see if I even smelled the deer - like I'm an addict, or something? What'd y'all do, call the spiritual feds on a brother, or something?"
Shoulders relaxed, smiles eased into expressions, Damali slowly came down the steps. "The angels scanned you, huh?" she said with a slow grin. "Did you pass inspection?"
"Would I be standing here, if I didn't?" Carlos folded his arms over his chest. "Now what kinda question is that?" He shook his head and brushed past her. "No, 'hi, baby, glad you're all right?' Damn, girl, you cold. What is up with you, D? What's the 'get back you don't know me like that' about?"
Rider put his semiautomatic lengthwise, barring Carlos farther entry up the steps. Carlos stopped, looked at the gun, and then up at Rider. All right, sensors were on. Everybody that had someone dear to protect might be able to feel the change. Love cut through all dark-side illusions. He needed to find weak links in the chain. "What's up with that, Rider?"
Rider's gaze into Carlos's eyes never wavered. "Where'd the so-called angels drop you, then? We had a search party covering the ground from the land and the air."
"Tara came?" Carlos said, acting surprised. He'd seen them both, but hadn't allowed them to see him.
"And Yonnie," Rider said evenly. "Neither one of them, working together, could find you - just like we couldn't."
Again the group went still. Carlos looked down at his bloodstained clothes.
"I hope somebody had the presence of mind to check out the deer that was stuck in my windshield? Take a sniff, man. This was all over my seats."
"The deer checked out, Rider," Damali said, trying to mediate the tension.
Rider refused to yield. "That's not what I asked him. I can smell deer blood from here."
Carlos sighed. "What do you want from me, man? They dropped me far enough away that I could barely see the house lights in the distance, then gave me some long speech about duty to the greater good. But you know how they work. They didn't bother to give a brother a lift home."
Big Mike nodded. "Rider, man, it would make sense that they'd shield him from his old friends if they feared a relapse, given Yonnie and Tara are still... you know, vamps, and all."
Carlos fought not to smile. "My point, Rider."
"Why don't you get washed up," Marjorie said cautiously, "while there's hot water, and if you give me those clothes - "
Rider shook his head no, and glanced at Shabazz, who had been strangely silent.
"Not back in this house with newbies. No," Rider said flatly. "If the angels thought you might relapse, then - "
"Well where the hell am I gonna go, Rider!" Carlos shouted, and then looked at Shabazz for support.
Rider hocked and spit. "Metal is all in my throat." He glanced at Jose. "Talk to me little brother. You picking that up, too?"
Carlos's gaze narrowed on Jose. He homed in on the vamp tracer in Jose's DNA and unlocked the code that was embedded within it: You can never out your own to humans. Ask Yonnie and Tara, who are several generations up. Your Chairman commands it so, with a little extra topspin that would make old Dante piss in his pants.