Damali's eyes scanned the horizon. So they were fighting old-school, huh?Catapults, archers, infantrymen, and cavalry . . . fourteenth-century battle tactics. If Lilith had been with them, then it would have been another story. Even Nuit had updated, because he'd been in a council chair long enough. But these were new councilmen-Sebastian only having slightly longer tenure than the brand-new Countess.
If Carlos opened theArk here it would leave a smoking black hole and too much civilian damage. Police sirens were too far off. Okay, the darkside had co-opted the authorities, too. Had black-boxed this area. Okay, then it was time to find the edge of that sucker and light it up.
Damali came back to Carlos's side and felt his pulse, placing her hands on his chest as Berkfield ran across the roof and dropped down.
"Baby . . ." she said quietly. "I don't know how you even walked over here. It's worse than I thought." She looked at Berk-field and then wiped Carlos's hair from his brow as his head lolled from side to side. "He's got multiple internal injuries, spleen, liver, cracked ribs. He's hemorrhaging."
"I'm good, just need to rest for a minute. Holding the shields is draining me."
"We've gotta get a transfusion going, D-or you're gonna have to do the full Monty. I can patch him till you get back, but he don't look so good. Not like I've ever seen him."
Just as Berkfield was speaking, shields dropped.
"Holy Christ, D-he's passed out."
"Stay with him," Damali said, firing light pulses from the tip of herIsis ."Everybody off the roof.Now!"
She looked over the edge of the building at the increasing black wave of demon cavalry heading toward the now-unshielded restaurant, as Berkfield and Rene pulled Carlos up to hitch their shoulders under his armpits. Phat G and Rod helped Anthony, while female Guardians kept the pressure on with a blanket of shells.
"Jose!" Damali shouted, pointing to the thick line of motorcycles out front with her blade."You, Dan, Bobby, and any brothers who can ride-on horses!"
"Ride or die, D!"Jose shouted, and then ducked back into the building.
Moments later, a squad of running, shooting Guardians burst out the front doors and windows, hopped on bikes, hard-riding with handheld Uzis, heading directly for the demon cavalry line on the wide boulevard. Horses reared as the bikes drove right at them, and the team flew by steel-girding, spinning out to make a run at them again. They broke the line, avoiding sword slashes, mowing down demons drive-by style, and then led the undead cavalry away from the building toward the expressway. In her peripheral vision she saw a female Guardian lean out the window of an adjacent building, providing machine-gun cover as her men on the ground rode hard. It had to be LaShonda, because as quickly as she'd popped into the window, the woman was down on the ground covering running pedestrians and pushing them to safety.
Damali could see it all in her mind-black bat-winged horses ridden by skeletal troops being taken out by semis and weekend swift-moving traffic while the bikes maneuvered between cars, zigzagging through the lanes. Something unknown was also affecting the people in the neighborhood. Non-Guardians, regular citizens, were shooting out of windows, knocking demons off their mounts with baseball bats, crowbars, and steel pipes. It was as though all ofHarlem took to the streets, people who should have been terrified stood with Guardians-eyes blazing with a silent, furious message:Not here. Not in our neighborhood . Unsure of what to make of it all, Damali pressed on. The Divine had moved people, she was clear, but she hoped they wouldn't be killed. But she had to stop that reign of terror coming from the far platform. The archers had to go down.
The inbound train had safe room to pass, even as precarious as the track was. The moment it neared, she folded-away and hitched a ride, unseen-holding on to the far side until the very last moment. Popping up, she hit the archer's outpost with a white-light pulse from the tip of theIsis . Demons screamed, incinerating on contact. She flipped off the train and dropped down on their ashes, sending them up in a plume.
Fury in her eyes, she focused on the remaining catapult. That was where the generals had to be holed up. With their cavalry decimated, archers fried, and one catapult down, if she could light up the black box, then she could stop the infantrymen that were about to storm the building. There was no elegant way to do that other than to get over to that rooftop and come out of a fold-away swinging.
But to her horror, the infantrymen rushed the joint. Her focus split as she realized that someone must have called in the kamikaze order. It was no longer about strategy, just straight hand-to-hand combat.
Snarling, hissing, growling entities scaled the walls, propelled themselves from fire escapes, and dropped from the train trestle infrastructure. She could hear Mom Delores scream, hear Ayana scream. Demon bodies splatted green gook and sulfur everywhere. In a flash, Mom Delores popped up, squeezed off a round, and got down. In two-handed swings, Valkyrie was loping heads, while Juanita had her back in 40mm shell single shots.
Inez was out front like a hellcat, hunched down low, firing with everything she got her hands on with Mike, Rider, and Shabazz. Pure hatred shone in her team's eyes. J.L. and Phat G's crew were working knives, up on tables out in front of the building, fly-kicking,then spinning with butcher-knife precision. Phat G and his tactical squad kept stakes whirring to cover them from being overrun. Mo and his kitchen crew sent so much stainless steel through the door to sever heads that streetlamps caught the silver gleam like passing tracer patterns. Sprinkler systems were going off, spraying holy water everywhere. Good.
Damali breathed a sigh of relief. Demons couldn't get in through the prayer barriers. They could send in artillery that could maim or kill, but the building interior was secure.
"Fall back. Hold your fire," she shouted, knowing it would confuse the inexperienced generals.
Demons surrounded the building and waited. It was a standoff as they contemplated what to assault the open windows and blown-off doorways with next. Another catapult blast hit the roof and shook the building.
If she was watching the progress, so were the darkside's generals. In a quiet fold-away Damali came up behind the small retinue manning the catapult. She hit it with a white lightning blast-stunning Sebastian, and swinging at the Countess with herIsis . The blast she'd sent bounced off the night.
Elizabethshrieked and caught herself against a hard, invisible force-the same way Sebastian hit it hard. Of course they would be shielded, as commanders. Punk bitches.
Damali was gone, only to step out of a fold-away on the other side of their roof. Hatred-filled eyes met. Damali'sIsis chimed in the air. White lightning crackled from its tip as a blue-white charge overtook her arm. She released a Neteru war cry that stilled demons and made them turn to look up. Sebastian yanked the Countess into a vapor escape. Damali hit the rooftop with a traveling white-light nova that sent a blinding prism across the roof, knocked out the catapult, and then made every demon within the black box in front of the restaurant explode.
Just as suddenly as the assault began, it was over. Traffic and sirens could now be heard clearly.
"Casualties?"Damali called out.
"Roll call," Phat G hollered.
Damali counted heads as her team slowly emerged from their makeshift bunkers. Inez had her child in her arms, and her mother had obviously prioritized survival over shock and horror. Mrs. Filgueiras lowered her weapon. Val was collecting her silver arrows from demon carcasses and ash. Rider stood, hocked, and spit.Tara slammed an empty magazine down, while Big Mike gently set down the grenades he'd been slinging.
"We'll get this place rebuilt with the quickness, G," Damali said, looking around at the devastation. "We got some safe houses up inBrooklyn while all that goes down, but in the meanwhile, we gotta cover you with the authorities."