"We have express orders to remove the daywalker and destroy it. Please, good woman, do not interfere with the business at hand."
The gun was pressed against Marlene's temple so hard that she dared not turn.
"Put the gun away," Damali whispered. "If turbulence hits, it could accidentally go off, killing her for no reason. She won't resist. We know we have to do this."
CHAPTER FOUR
The head doctor eased the gun away from Marlene's head, and put the safety back on. He placed it on the side counter and sighed. "I'm sorry that I had to do that. But you have to understand that we cannot allow sentiment to overshadow reason." The doctor's eyes briefly searched Marlene's for forgiveness, and then he looked down at Damali. "Maybe this would be easier for all of us if she were to wait outside?"
Damali shook her head no, tears slipping from the corners of her eyes, down the sides of her face, and into her hair as she continued to stare at the bright light in the ceiling. "If you make her leave, I won't be able to go through this... and if I start screaming, I have no idea what the father will do."
Damali looked to Marlene for reassurance and to let her know it would be all right, but Marlene's gaze was fixated on the equipment, not on her or the gun, where it should have logically been. She could feel Marlene silently dry heave as panic glittered in the older woman's eyes. The fatigue, her condition, everything must have interfered with her second sight. Damali's grip on Marlene's hand tightened as a threat slowly registered within her.
Without letting go of Damali's hand, Marlene's eyes narrowed on the doctors. "It's so clear now. You don't intend to just clean her out, you intend to render her sterile so she can never-"
A sharp slap cut off Marlene's words, making her fall backward. Damali tried to rise off the table, but the harnesses held her tight.
"Tranquilize the mother-seer now," the head doctor shouted, "before the demon comes in here and stops what must be!"
"No!" Damali yelled, but became instantly quiet when Marlene held up her hands.
"I call the goddesses of Kemet! The justice of Ma'at. The ancient ones enshrined in the purple light of protection! I call the ancestral warriors, the ones who guard the Neteru. Take your child and shelter her now from these beasts posing as men!" Before the doctors could reach her or the gun, Marlene clapped three times, and an arc of purple electricity covered Damali at the same time the plane was slammed by heavy turbulence.
The two doctors were knocked off their feet, but Marlene remained steadfast, leaning against the wall as her hands crackled and arced with blue-white current, her fingertips singeing the ceiling with the purple bolts of divine energies she summoned. As the fallen men struggled to stand, Marlene lowered one flat palm, sending a purple charge that rendered them immobile as she spoke. She closed her eyes, outstretched her other hand in Damali's direction, her concentration so focused that the invisible third eye in the center of her forehead glowed violet.
"I have never called you to open the door. This one urgent request as taught in theTemt Tchass I have guarded; please heed. From the pyramids of Menkaure, Khafre, and Khufu at Giza, to the banks of the Nile in Nubia open the portal, pave the path to the table of Eve, to the place of Light where Khepre, Re, and Amen cycle, oh great Queen Aset, mother of Kemet, take your daughter through the door!"
"Stop the witch!" the head doctor yelled, as Damali's straps broke and another thunderous crash hit the plane.
As quickly as possible Damali sat up, electricity covering her, molding to her body and making the entire surface of her skin shimmer in a wash of blue-violet light. The purple and white light in the ceiling became blinding and pulled at her, forcing her arms to open and then yield upward.
"Flee, child, to the place beyond the drinking gourd!" Marlene yelled, and clapped three times, and shouted, "Ashe!"
In an arc of light that wobbled and then opened to a wide, steady beam at the top of her head, Damali was gone.
The conference-room discussion ground to a halt as an eerie violet charge crept over the edges of the polished table, covered both Isis blades, broadened to a wide arc of light around the sword and dagger, and folded the weapons away into nothingness. Carlos yelled Damali's name.
"YOU PICK up a signal yet, baby?" Yonnie murmured, daring to stroke Tara's arm as he lay beside her.
"No," she said quietly, her eyes wide open in the darkness of the lair.
"Thanks for the feed and the save."
"Don't mention it," she said, her tone far off. "You can't pick up anything, either?"
"No. That's what worries me." He stood and stretched, even though he knew it was still daylight beyond the cement walls that surrounded them. The heat was oppressive and the hallowed-earth encasement around the basement vault made it difficult to breathe. "How much stock do we have?"
"Enough to last about a week. Then we'll have to hunt."
He walked over to the small refrigerator. "I don't think I can do a week trapped down here drinking cold deer blood."
For a moment neither of them spoke.
"I could ingest it and offer a vein transfer," Tara said quietly.
"From the jugular?"
"Be serious. From my wrist."