Phat G smiled. "Tacticals-shell casing and bullet removal protocol! Weapons stash in false walls!" He looked at Damali. "A train transformer blew up, and I'm suing the city for business interruption and unsafe conditions, if they harass a brother. We got insurance, feel me?"
Damali hugged him and again counted heads, missing two-Berkfield and Carlos. Anthony hobbled out with the help of Rene.
"Casualties?" she hollered again, beginning to run through the restaurant to the storage room in the back.
Seeing Berkfield come out of a door shaking his head made her come to a skidding halt.
"We got one, D," Berkfield said, holding her shoulder. "His pulse is barely there and he didn't come around . . . and I tried my best to take as much of it as I could. He didn't come around. You've gotta get him to his Kings, maybe."
But as she was about to pull away from Berkfield, she looked at his complexion. His pallor was waxy and cold. He opened his mouth to speak and then simply dropped.
"Richard!" Marjorie's shriek could have shattered glass.
CHAPTER TEN
The moment they touched down in the family room of the Neteru Guardian compound, Damali had the Caduceus in her right hand. Everyone scattered in a mad dash, as though someone had set up a rack of billiards and broken them with the cue ball.
J.L. and Krissy were hot-wiring defenses, getting emergency word to the local Covenant so that windows could be repaired and the house sealed up. Shattered glass still remained from when Carlos had sent a fury pulse out to the darkside, and with a baby in the house, Dan started damage repair and shard clean-up. Jose and Rider swept the house for intruders. The rest of the squad was on prayer barrier and visuals. The team's strongman, Big Mike, and Shabazz helped lower Carlos and Berkfield to sofas, while Marlene and Marjorie stood at the ready for healing and prayer.
Damali only allowed herself two seconds to be torn. Berk-field was straight human-she had to go to him first, or he could die. Holding the long golden staff that had been sent by the Neteru Queens, she closed her eyes and waited until the conductive energy of the metal heated her palms. Blue static energy slowly crept up the rod, igniting the dual serpents that were entwined in the Hippocratic symbol. They fled the staff in opposite directions, entering Berkfield's crown and base chakras with an angry hiss.
"I've never seen them do that before," Damali said, still holding the staff above Berkfield as she glimpsed Marjorie and Marlene.
Marlene shook her head."Me, either. This doesn't feel right at all."
Marjorie looked like she'd aged ten years as she clasped her hands together. "Tell us what to do, Damali. I can't lose my Richard after all these years." Her voice was a quiet, urgent plea.
"Keep praying," Damali said. "Then, when the healing serpents come out of him, the three of us will join hands, join our energy around him, and hope whatever happened gets reversed. That's all I know to do."
"What do you think happened, though?" Marlene said. She rounded the sofa so that she could stand at Berkfield's head, while Marjorie stood opposite Damali at the back of the furniture. "They were throwing flaming arrows, black-charge mortar rounds, and using blades. He's not nicked, didn't take a mortar . . . I can't figure this out."
Marjorie looked from the team's lead healer to Damali. "He was with Carlos when Carlos got hurt. He never got shot."
Tension wound so tightly around Damali's spine that it felt like it would snap."If I know your husband," Damali said softly, guilt lacerating her for ever calling for Medic's assistance, "he tried to go in alone and heal Carlos."
"Oh, God . . ." Marlene whispered.
"What were Carlos's injuries?" Marjorie said, taking up her husband's hand and kissing his knuckles fiercely.
Damali's gaze locked with Marjorie's. "Carlos tried to stop a train by himself." She watched Marjorie slowly cover her mouth. "He energy-lassoed it, got behind it, and dug in his heels. But the weight and momentum was too much." She hesitated as Marjorie dropped to her knees, still holding her husband's limp hand. "It jerked him forward and he got tangled up in his own energy tether . . . on his stomach. His spleen, his liver, his breastbone, and his ribs were all lacerated and cracked. If I know Carlos, though, he probably energy-shielded down the front of himself first, which is the only reason why he's probably still alive . . . and if he wakes up, will still have the most important organ to him still intact."
"Marje . . . we cannot afford to panic," Marlene said firmly. "You've gotta get up and focus. Carlos was shielding the roof, the first floor, civilians moving out, and had probably just enough bandwidth left for a thin layer on his body-like Damali said. But that might be all we need.Enough that the injuries aren't mortal."
"I told him not to go in without me . . ." Damali said softly, staring at Marj with an apology in her eyes. "It was so much heat coming at us on the roof that I had to leave them for a minute, get them down in a hole where they wouldn't get their heads blown off. I couldn't stop again, even for my own husband, or the entire joint would have been overrun. The moment Carlos passed out and shields went down . . ."
"Richard is a soldier, Damali," Marjorie said thickly with tears in her eyes. She drew a shaky breath, stood slowly, and bent over her husband's prone body and kissed his forehead tenderly. "He was a man who believed in helping people-that's why he'd joined the force, years ago. And my husband would never sit by and let a man die without trying, especially not one the way he loved Carlos. So, it didn't matter what you told him."
"Marjorie, stop it!" Marlene screamed. "You are using the word 'was' in past tense, over a patient's body!" She went to Marjorie and shook her hard and then slapped her. "He's not dead! He's not going to die unless you put that in the ether!"
Berkfield convulsed. Damali squared herself and held the rod parallel to his body, her wings ripping through her shirt. "I'm losing him, Marlene! His energy is dipping. None of his organs are knitting together."
"Richard!" Marjorie screamed. "Don't you daredie! "
"Lock hands, Mar!" Damali ordered. "Get a Twenty-third going, something's wrong with the Caduceus. Better yet, do Psalm Ninety-one!"
Heat seared Damali's palms and she was forced to drop the golden staff to a thud. Where it landed it burned, singeing the carpet, and leaving an awful acrylic stench. She rushed forward and grabbed Marjorie's and Marlene's hands, and their voices blended in a loud chant of the psalm they knew by heart.
Halfway through the verses, Berkfield convulsed again. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and opened, showing only the whites. Marjorie tried to pull her hands away to hold him, but Marlene and Damali held her hands firmly in their grip.