"Then nobody will die," she said bluntly. "This isn't your decision, or your body. It's mine." She looked at Shabazz. "Carlos stays in the conference room. You and Big Mike cover him. Take shifts. I'm not sacrificing the teams on a maybe. Get my Isis, use it if he drops fang."
She pushed her chair out of her way so hard that the mount in the floor creaked and the chair spun, slamming the back of it against the table. No one intervened. Marlene kept her gaze straight ahead as both women left the room. For a long time no one in the conference room spoke. No one picked up a glass, but each man stared into his drink lost in his own private thoughts.
"It wasn't supposed to go down like this," Jose finally said, his voice quiet as he looked toward the invisible wake Damali had left.
"Tell me about it," Carlos muttered.
NO ONE said a word as Shabazz slowly left the room with Father Patrick. They returned with the two Isis blades and a Bible. Both men slid their weapons toward the center of the large conference table, one shoving blades, one shoving the Word across the gleaming expanse.
"We all stay in the room together," Big Mike said. "We fought together as brothers, we go down together as brothers."
Jose nodded as he looked around the room. "If anybody turns, it'll probably be me and Lopez first." He let his breath out in resignation, his tone calm and yet still not defeated. "I coulda gotten nicked by one of the harpies in the storm while me and D was riding. I already have vamp in my DNA from way back, so hey. Whatcha gonna do?"
Padre Lopez agreed, his eyes blazing with determination. "Do what you have to do, okay? I already know that if Carlos turns, I'll stand with him."
Carlos cocked his head and studied the young priest. "Man, now is not the time to be abandoning your faith or casting idle threats-as much as I appreciate the loyalty. These old boys are seasoned vets, and they will do you if there's any question.Comprendo ?"
"Yeah," Father Lopez shot back. "I do understand. But do you?"
For the first time since he'd met the young priest, he really didn't understand. His facial expression must have shown it because Padre Lopez simply shook his head.
"School me, then," Carlos said, "since we have time."
"You're one of us," Father Patrick said in a tone so quiet and so deadly that every man at the table stood slowly and took a position of safety in the room. "I have already been down this road and I'm not going down it again."
"Steady, Father," Rider said, his voice filled with worry. "That's Irish whiskey talking, and not a good thing right through here." Rider glanced at the teams.
"Irish whiskey doesn't eclipse the truth, and you know what they say, a drunk man tells the truth, says what's really on his mind." Father Patrick stalked away, circling the room, his eyes slowly becoming wild with confusion. "The Covenant is made up of every major religion on the planet, and we have all done our share of harm." He pointed at Imam Asula. "Our so-called holy wars and jihads of the past and present have killed the innocent, am I wrong? If the rabbi were here, or the others from our team that have fallen, they would also have to hide their eyes in shame for what we all, men of faith, have done. Native people slaughtered for what they believed... men, women, and children. Tribe against tribe, nation against nation, monk against monk, army against army, since the beginning. Tell me I'm a liar."
Imam Asula lowered his eyes. "There has been much carnage worldwide in the name of the Almighty."
"Monks in Tibet have been slaughtered, just as others have," Monk Lin said in a quiet, firm voice. "Our brother speaks truth. There is no unblemished soil. The earth has been desecrated by man."
"And that was not to be!" Father Patrick bellowed. "Do you think that pleases Him, or makes Him sick enough to weep?" He snatched the Bible off the table and flipped through it, his finger landing on a passage. "How am I supposed to kill one of our brethren? If we are in the last days, and I know that we are, go to whatever book, but in this one, Revelations, chapter three, verses one through twenty-two, it says that John was instructed by the thing that had the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, it told him to write unto the angel of the church in Sardis, 'I know thy works, thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die.'"Father Patrick looked up at the group. "It says it here! 'He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life.' There were few in Sardis who have not defiled their garments and they shall walk with Him in white." He looked up. "You need to read this and sit with it a while before you pick up a blade or weapon against another living soul."
Father Patrick began walking again, his gaze upon the team members as he spoke. "The Almighty has found egregious works withinall the churches, interpreted asall faiths, except the one of Philadelphia. Read it and weep! We have not been on our jobs. We have all built monuments, temples, created wars, killed, and colonized." He glanced around the immaculate, expensive room. "This plane cost how much? Should it not be cargoing food, supplies, refugees, the common man and woman... and what have we all done to women in the name of the Most High?"
Members of the Covenant fanned out as though bracing themselves to body slam Father Patrick if his passion escalated into a nervous breakdown. Their strategic stances made the tension in the room nearly crackle with airborne static current.
"Father," Padre Lopez said, his voice soothing and psychiatric, "please sit down. You've been under tremendous strain, as we all have. But as our group seer, your nervous system may have been impacted the most." The young cleric held out his hand. "I will pray with you, if you will just sit down and rest."
"Please summon calm and rest," Monk Lin said, his eyes sad as his voice echoed Father Lopez's plea.
"Rest! Rest? There is no rest as long as weapons to kill are before me! I can no more put a blade in the center of that young man's chest, or behead him, than I could my own son," Father Patrick said, his voice fracturing. "I have watched my own wife and son die already. I swore never again."
"You had a son, man?" Shabazz said, slowly nearing the cleric, attempting to help Father Lopez calm Father Patrick. "But you're a priest."
"I was aman , first." Father Patrick spat, going to the table and pouring another drink. He looked at Berkfield hard. "We're all men, flesh and blood,first . We all make mistakes, we all sin. That is what we have to understand and have compassion about. No one down here is God. Kiss a cardinal's ring? Dogma! If he were a man of true faith, he'd be on this plane. But he left us, taking blood that's worth gold in a silver case with him!"
"You said you had a wife and son," Berkfield said, his voice steady as his line of vision went around the group, receiving nods of quiet support as he attempted to intervene. "What happened, Father?"
Father Patrick sighed, the tears that had risen in his eyes now streaming down his cheeks in a disillusioned cascade. "My boy, probably like yours does, listened to loud music to drown out the images and voices in his head. Then he went to marijuana, then pills, then anything he could to drown out the noise until he**in killed him. The young people can see what we are blind to, hear what we refuse to listen to, know what we refuse to acknowledge," he said, pointing a finger at his temple. "Theyknow something is wrong and broken within all these systems. They sense the corruption. But we're losing them daily because we have given no direction... we've lost our own way, but they know enough not to follow us, yet the darkness swallows them whole. How can I kill a young man who lost his way, but found it?"
Father Patrick briefly closed his eyes as he tore at his hair with a clenched fist. "So talk to your son, before the other side does. An overdose of Valium and booze took my grieving wife. End of story."
"Whoa..." Berkfield said slowly. "Voices? You have to explain." He glanced around the room, gaining nods to keep the priest talking, lest the cleric trip over the edge of sanity.
"What is there to say?" Father Patrick said too calmly, tossing back a jigger of whiskey. "I was gifted, and it passed to my son. But I didn't know what it was and was afraid of it myself. So I hid in the military and jobs and ignored it, and I didn't spend the time with my child. Now he's gone. He was like Mike, an audiovoyant. That's why the music calmed him, spoke to him, made sense to him. My boy got the wrong vibrations, heard the wrong messages as he turned up his speakers. Michael here was lucky. He listened to music from an era that had not yet been lost and was led, not consumed."