His twisted goal while possessed had been to break her back, spiritually. Paralyze her ego, stomp what he perceived as her arrogance, and snuff out her inner light. Making a baby with Juanita would have done that until the end of time. The more she really thought about it, that he would go there, even under the influence, rubbed a raw spot in her heart until it bled.
Damali drew a shuddering breath as she applied more cream onto her body with harder strokes. That was worse than the physical act of Juanita giving him head on her back deck, oddly enough. She could rationalize that as the actual demon, not Carlos. But what she couldn't forgive at the moment was that he'd had so much quiet rage toward her within him that he couldn't control the demon--hellfire notwithstanding... because she could. Had done it for a long time, had sucked up all his mad-crazy drama, but never had Succumbed to doing anything, for any reason, that would have carved his heart out of his chest... even when she could have, even while she'd been fully infected with demonic contagion and standing on a beach in Jose's arms. She'd backed off and made a choice, and said no.
An eerie sense of betrayal had filled her. Over the last three days, nagging bouts of insecurity had coated her inner being with a new, virulent level of anger and jealousy like she'd never known. She'd found herself becoming clingy at times--something so not her that it frightened her more than any demon she'd encountered. Her? The Neteru? Clingy? What was up with that?
If she'd brought this to Marlene, and she never would, she knew Mar-lene would tell her to focus, get still, and meditate on the sensation not the incident, to see if there was some new threat that she and the team should be aware of. Marlene would also tell her that forgiveness was divine, and to pray on it. She'd done that.
Her sensory awareness didn't register any immediate pending doom. The Divine wasn't lifting the burden from her heart, either. It sat there like a dull, heavy stone, making her occasionally sigh for no reason, out of the blue. Her inner vision had become a mental torture chamber, providing no answers, just a rehashing of what had happened. What she saw instead of a demonic threat was nothing that she could kill or justifiably beat down without violating every law of Ma'at. That's when the arguments had started in earnest.
A light tap on the door made Damali jerk her focus up to stare at it. Damn straight, Carlos had better not just waltz in or blow into the bathroom on her without permission to enter.
"Yeah," she said, becoming surly at the invasion. Damali went back to applying the cream to her calves. The man needed to stay out of her face this morning, if he knew what was good for him.
Carlos peeked in and then slowly came into the large, brightly sunlit room with her. She watched him lean on the sink and send his line of vision toward nothing in particular. He had on black silk boxers. Whatever. His ass needed to get dressed. She wasn't interested.
For a moment, Carlos hesitated by the sink. He stared at Damali, seeing the light around her body as a dull, gray covering that was growing darker by the second. Pure alarm filled him. Something was wrong with his woman. Then he watched as a dark orb exited the base of her skull and dissipated. He started at the sight of it. She was looking down and furiously slathering cream on her legs. Maybe it was the final contagion purging out of her system... or maybe it was the final dark blockage he'd placed there leaving. It could be a good thing that it was finally gone, or a bad one--the problem was he wasn't sure. But her darkening aura couldn't be a good sign.
"You still leaving today?" he asked quietly, trying to feel her out before launching into his observation. "I can take you home so you don't have to drive."
"The road will do me good," she said, not looking at him as she put shea butter on her elbows. "Fresh air will clear my head."
He didn't say anything, and then let his breath out hard. The room seemed to be growing darker around them; hopefully it was just his imagination. He glanced out the window, quickly studying the clouds to see if that was all it was. The last thing he wanted to do was to set her off again about what had happened in Arizona, but as his mind tried to take a different path and his mouth tried to form a different sentence, the subject he vowed he'd never bring up came out instead.
"Listen, D, that thing that happened between me and Juanita in Arizona--"
"Oh, you mean that foul shit that went down in my house?" Her tone was salty as she stared at him hard for a moment and then went back to her original task, serving him pure attitude. "I know. You were under the influence. You told me, I got it, we discussed it to death. There's nothing more to say about it."
"That wasn't me--"
"Right. I keep forgetting that it was your evil twin," she said, sucking her teeth.
He rubbed his palms down his face and sighed, frustration adding tightness to his voice. What was wrong with her? What was wrong with them?
"You know what happened when I made that attempt to get the book. I got possessed for a few, but if that hadn't gone down, I wouldn't have... baby, what I'm saying is, the shit wouldn't have gotten crazy... and I know you're still feeling some type of way about it and--"
"Oh, yeah," she said with a brittle chuckle. "I am definitely still feeling some type of way."
"So am I," he said quickly, feeling his pulse race and not sure why. He glanced around the bathroom and then focused on her aura. It was now almost blackened with flecks of eerie, static-charged filaments running through it. "Baby, your coloring is off, so is the light around you. This isn't us, not how we roll. I need to get you diagnosed by Marlene, or something... just like you told me back then, when I had my run-in with Level Seven."
She didn't move or speak; he didn't move or speak. All he wanted to know was where this conversation was going and what the darkness was that entombed her. Okay, she didn't have a blade on her. Good.
However, he could see her losing control of all reason second by millisecond. Fury radiated in her aura the longer he stood in the same space with her. It was as though black lightning was coursing through her normally silvery glow, making it take an unnerving dark turn. Her tense expression and jerky movements while applying cream to her body said everything. What had happened?
As he tried to think of what he could say to her, he knew the change within her had occurred in painful waves over a course of days. It was as though the sudden awareness hit him all at once.
At first she'd been stunned numb when the full memory came back again, and had then cried bitter tears when it all washed over her as sensations. They both did when he confessed, only after she knew for sure and wouldn't let it rest. She'd soaked in his explanation too hurt to even speak. Having to tell her something like that, and to see the look of horrified disbelief on her face, was the thing that had brought him to tears. Sobs, to be exact. She'd taken his vampiric turn better than that.
Then she became somber, as though someone had died--maybe they had. Then she asked fifty million questions, trying to understand and wrap her mind around the phenomena... made him relive it in excruciating detail, impression by impression until he was almost ready to walk. But he couldn't; she had the right to know. Then she had become calm and psychiatric and seemingly resigned over breakfast. He'd thought the storm had passed. Thought the poison was out of her system and the stone between them had rolled away. Thought it was over. She'd even made love to him once after that... he was sure, then, that she was cool... even though she was a little more subdued than he would have liked--which made him wary and a little nervous. But it was all too clear now, her ass was still mad as hell.
"I knew it would have to come out, surface, sooner or later," he finally said.
"You know what they say," she replied casually and still not looking at him. "A lie will always out, Carlos. The Light has a provision to ensure that happens sooner or later." "It wasn't a lie; I just didn't speak on it because I didn't want to--" "An omission of truth. Oh, that makes a difference." She looked up at him for a moment before glancing back down at the shea butter.
"I knew you'd have to let it run its course to get out of your system and all, and once it did we'd be back to normal. You know I wasn't trying to hurt you, baby." His voice was near pleading as he mentally fought with the harshness in her eyes. Yeah, there was something else going on than a regular argument. Had to be. Damali had never looked at him like that, and he'd never found himself feeling so totally unable to explain his position.
"I'd never intentionally do that, and you know it," he said after a pause to find the right words, his tone logical but containing hurt. "It wasn't supposed to go down like that. Of all the battles we've been in together, I know that more than a blade, something like this would cut your heart out and drive a wedge between us--so you know I wouldn't do that to us, boo. Right? You know that. So, this was their side just going for our foundation, our Achilles' heel, D. Don't let 'em mess with your head like that, all right?" He slapped the center of his chest to make his point. "It's me and you, baby. Always has been, right? Always will be, right?"
When she didn't answer the last and most critical questions he'd asked, he really began to sweat. "Damali, baby, listen, you can't stay mad about this forever. It was a demon transgression. You and I have a lot of road ahead of us... we can't be allowing nonsense to get between us like that. I didn't actually sleep with her--I mean, it was sex, but it wasn't sex, you feel me? It was more like foreplay, not real sex--"