"Yes . . . you are a very big girl," he said in a nice voice. "I am very proud of you. Just lift the edge of the window and say, 'Come in,' and I will."
That was hard, too, lifting the heavy window.
"My room is pretty!" She waved her hand around so he'd see all the Powder Puff dolls and her pink and white bed.
"You have to say, 'Come in, please'; I can't see it so well from out here."
"Oh!" She giggled. "Come in, please."
But something wasn't right. His face was getting scary. His eyes made her want to cry. She should go get Nana! But her legs wouldn't work. His smile was ugly now. He had big teeth. The tickles now felt like buggies were crawling over her.Nana, Nana, it's the bogey man! Angels, make the bogey man go away!
A high-pitched scream at a decibel that could shatter glass exited the child's mouth. Fallon held his ears for a moment, stunned, as a knifing pain shot through his temples. Surrounding the brat in a black box, he blotted his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket, glad to have momentarily silenced her voice. Where the hell had the child learned so young to call the angels with a piercing voice like that?
"Oh, Jesus!Father God, help me! Get thee behind me, Satan!" a strange woman shrieked.
"Silence!"Nuit bellowed and blew her through the door. He heard her collide with something, but had to struggle for composure for a moment after hearing the names of blasphemy hurled at him.
He couldn't believe the woman's foolish nature. She wanted to die, that was clear. She was running at him with a piece of banister post. Nuit outstretched his arm to call her heart into his hand.
A loud bang of wood hitting plaster jerked his attention away from the fallen woman and the black-boxed child. The front door had been kicked in. The translucent shield around the toddlerdropped, her screams boring into his ears like a dentist's drill. He cast her aside roughly, the goal to cause her small head to split open against the wall like an overripe melon-anything to stop the incessant screaming. But she hit the mattress instead and scrambled into a corner, still screeching at the top of her tiny lungs.
Behind him, the window crashed. Shards of glass flew toward him like mini razors. Multiple gunshots sounded; hallowed earth shells told him the Guardians had been called. The sickening scent of prayer dirt revolted him. The huge male Guardian barreled through the door . . . he'd wanted to kill that one for so many years, he could taste it. One snatch and the giant Guardian's throatwas in his hands. His attention was again jerked to the floor. The old woman had thrown the Guardian the wooden banister piece. Seconds later, it sliced into his side.
Howling with fury, he overturned every piece of furniture in the room, yanking the wood out of his side and sending it whizzing into the palm of the oversized Guardian that had assaulted him, pinning him to the wall. Turning wildly, he looked for his prize-the female Guardian's child. He looked up in time to see the child behind her weapons-bearing mother.
Her two hands holding a single Glock 9mm, eyes lethal, firing off rounds almost faster than he could dodge, the female Guardian was definitely prepared to die. It was in her eyes and in her sweat. Nuit licked his lips.Admirable. He'd feed well on her. The big male had torn his hand away from the wall, leaving flesh, and had broken off a section of bedpost as the furniture flew by him. Cock-strong and insane . . . he wasn't sure which Guardian he wanted to feed on more. But that old bitch had to stop screaming prayers! It was weakening him. Deafening him!
Nuit turned and stopped short, just in time to hear theIsisblade chime , missing his head by millimeters as he fell back and became mist.
"Mommy's got you,Mommy's got you," Inez soothed, clutching her child to her chest with her right arm extended, still wielding the Glock.
"Mercy of mercies, Fatherhear my prayer," Mrs. Delores sobbed, continually crossing herself as she struggled to get to her daughter and granddaughter. "The Devil almost got that baby-aw, Lord, what is going on? Look at Michael, oh, my God! He'll bleed to death-what's this terrible worldcoming to . . . this must be the end of days, Jesus! If I hadn't come up those steps, if y'all hadn't come when you did . . ."
"It'sgonna be all right, Momma. We knew to come. I had a bad feeling for the last coupla days. I got you, Momma . . . it's all right. Ain't nobody gonna hurt you. Me, Mike, and Damali won't let 'em hurt you or our baby, I promise." Inez sunk to the floor with her child on her lap and began crying hard. "I told you, D! I told you! A mother knows!What, then, if I had listened to Carlos, huh?"
Damali looked around at the devastation and knelt down beside Inez and her mother. Inez was rocking her sobbing toddler and hurriedly trying to feel across her mother's body at the same time, searching for demon nicks and injuries. She watched sadness fill Mike's eyes as he tore off a section of bed linen and wrapped it around his destroyed hand.
No time like the present. She had to get them out of there, but also had to assure the older woman that she nor her daughter and granddaughter would die. Damali touched Mrs. Filgueiras's arm.
"Mom Delores . . .tell me if you're hurt," Damali said calmly.
"Heal my momma up, D!" Inez said, growing hysterical. "Did he bite you, Momma? Did he scratch you?"
"He, he . . . he . . . pushed me real hard, but I don't even remember him touching me. All of a sudden my back hit the banister and I almost fell over it. I hit it so hard that a few posts came out and I almost went over the rail. But the baby was still in there with him." Her voice dissolved into a new round of sobs as she clutched Damali's hand. "I heard something snap inside me, but I had to keep going . . . I used whatever I could, and it was the banister post . . . and I kept coming for him. He would have to just kill me dead,that's all. Not that beautiful child was all I could think. My own daughter had been abused, you had almost been abused-Ijus' couldn't take no mo'. Not Ayana! And then it felt like my heart was about to explode out of my chest. I must have blacked out, because I fell again . . . and then y'all started shooting."
"You lie still," Damali said, soothing her. "It's probably a rib, because you were mobile. It's not your back or your legs."
"I can't be up inno hospital with a predator trying to come for my grandchild! I can't live in this house no more, you hear me!"
"You won't have to, Mom," Damali said quietly, and then looked up at Mike. He towered over them like a massive oak tree, casting a shadow of support, blood running down his arm staining the rose-pink rug, his eyes set as hard as his jaw.
"How you holding up?"Damali asked, gazing up at him.
"I'm cool. Is there a nick on the baby? That sonofabitch flung her.Coulda killed her with the impact against the wall, if the bed hadn't broken her fall."
Damali shook her head. "She's not nicked. Breathe, brother. Breathe."
Inez crossed herself and squeezed her eyes shut, kissing her daughter's soft,cinnamon brown cheek.