"Naw, man-we ride or die," Navajo said, standing again.
"Detroit was the murder capital before Philly took it, brother," Alicia said, checking her clip. "We go down as one."
"Let me say this again, with clarity," Carlos said, gaining a subtle nod from Damali. "We got folks on this team, me included, that still can't half sleep at night because of what happened in Cuernavaca.Ain't trying to go that way again."
"Morelos wasn'tno joke," Big Mike said, adding to Carlos's argument. He glanced at Marlene and then Shabazz and briefly closed his eyes. "You ain't seen what they do at the lower levels of Hell . . . y'all lost a few to vamp bites, no disrespect and not minimizing those losses, but when they come like they did out there and you ain't got no fallback position . . ."
"The One Who Remains Nameless walked into a sanctuary-a cathedral-and attacked a seasoned priest who is a freakin' Knight of Templar from the Covenant," Rider said very slowly, his gaze roving. "The bastard was able to get to that old warrior simply because the fallback position Father Patrick hadwas shaky. Mind you, the man himself wasn't shaky, but the particular house of worship he was in when the entity came to him was devoid of the Almighty."
Alicia was on her feet. "Right here is safe, so is Second Ebenezer-you can't miss it, huge white edifice right off the highway and is consecrated to the max, you feel me. So, any of our junior members that gotta get saved, no problem . . . but I'm straight in my spirit.Ready to do what I gotta do. Just like New York had your back, Detroit and Chi-town are ready."
Berkfield nodded and laced his fingers together across his bald head, then looked at Damali and Carlos. "They're warriors. It'd be like telling young Marines or Green Berets to fall back just before the big one. Never happen. They've been waiting all their lives for this. They got battle lust, mission, purpose . . . and they want in on this fight." He shrugged and let his breath out hard and closed his eyes. "I'm old 'Nam . . . like my man, Big Mike. Can't tell the new jacks-they have to get in the hole, smell the rounds going off, feel the mortars and claymores blowing up, feel that shell shock compression hit-taste dirt, then get that first splash of a buddy's blood across their faces . . . then they've gotta puke up their guts and live with the bullshit in their minds for eternity. Only then will they know what you tried to save them from." He opened his eyes and simply stared at Carlos. "You warned them, your heart was in the right place, but it's their decision to ride or die."
Again, tense silence had snuck into the room like a thief to steal voices. Verbal protest was absent, but the defiant stares said everything; this team would not be moved.
"Psalm Sixty-five," Alicia said in a philosophical tone, "or Ninety-one, then strap up and the rest is up to God."
"What you gonna do with that?" Marlenesaid, her tone weary as she stood slowly. "Sixty-five it is, then?"
A slight vibration disturbed water glasses and drinks at the table before anyone could draw a breath. Instantly every tactical Guardian on the combined teams turned to the seers, their shout singular: "Incoming!"
Combined effort sent a blue-white charge around the building as chairs toppled and African statues began to fall. Seers locked in to a singular vision and then they began shouting coordinates in rapid-fire succession.
"We've gotta clear the building!" Marlene yelled, dashing toward the stairs.
Owa was right on her heels. "Gas main under it won't hold much longer-but they want us out."
"Then let's give 'em what they want!" Alicia shouted, as Guardians scrambled for weapons.
"Take it to the street!" Barbara yelled with Earl.
"Shields up!"Carlos shouted,throwing a disc in front of the local team that was exiting the building the traditional way, while he and Damali halved the Neteru squad in a simultaneous fold-away transport to the street.
Cars bounced, civilians ran screaming,car alarms sounded, traffic lights and utility poles violently swayed. Moving away from the Shrine to protect it as a fallback position, the teams fanned out, taking cover, their eyes keened on the huge boulevard that suddenly began to buckle.
"Point of entry!"Damali yelled, leveling her Madame Isis blade toward the first crack in the asphalt to release a blue-white nova charge. But the second it hit the blacktop, everything around them went still.
Carlos turned around in circles with the rest of the seers, confused as their second-sight lost track of the huge mental shadow. Damali shot the ground with white light in several more places, testing in the eerie stillness as pedestrians tried to stand and then fled, hollering that an earthquake had hit Detroit. Then, as though a train was coming right at the team from underground, asphalt buckled, slamming slabs one into another in split-second intervals. For a moment, the stunned teams couldn't move as they watched Livernois Avenue turn into what seemed like giant dominoes slamming into each other, eating up time and space between them, and then it belched open, sending flames and sulfuric embers everywhere.
What came out of the hole was instant death. Stumbling Guardians at the ready began firing. Brother Muata lifted his Glock, but was impaled before the shot rang out. The pike that tore through him whirled in a bloody, burning spiral, his youthful face frozen in torment as the pike stabbed into the bricks of a nearby building, carrying his body with it. Massive midnight stallions heaved from the open street mounted by skeletal demon warriors that raised pikes, all following the lead black horse that could have dwarfed a small dragon. Then its black-armored rider appeared from a black mist, sitting high on the creature held firm between his thickly muscled legs.
Snorting hellfire and brimstone with his mount, the cavalry's lead rider brandished a steel pike like a sword, pulling back on the reins as his horse reared wildly and released a war screech. He glanced around with a searing black gaze and snarled before bellowing out to the Guardian squads.
"Neterus!" the black-armored rider shouted. "Meet your fate at the hands of the Impaler!"
"Oh, shit," Yonnie whispered in the alley crouched beside Big Mike. "Liz raised Drac, man! I told you this wasn'tno bullshit." He caught Carlos's attention in the adjacent alley and received a nod as Big Mike took aim with a shoulder launcher.
"Fuck you!" Yonnie shouted, making a mad dash along the side of a building to create a diversion.
Vlad's entire army jerked their attention to the alley just as Mike's shell released. A hail of pikes followed Yonnie and missed as he dove behind an overturned vehicle. But as Mike's shell rocketed toward the demon battalions, Vlad's horse opened its mouth, breathing fire, and detonated the hallowed earth explosive before it made it halfway across the street-sending Mike, Inez, and Rider diving for cover. A black charge to the buildings that shielded them was Vlad's answer as his steed then pawed the broken sidewalk. Patient, Vlad waited, holding up his metal-gloved fist for his army not to advance, watching the building rubble cascade down on the trapped Guardians, and the instant a shield covered them, he reversed his charge-sending Carlos sprawling.
Pandemonium broke out in the streets. Barbara and Earl commandeered an abandoned city bus, and using Earl's tactical charge, they white lighted the skin of it and then put the pedal to the floor. Alicia was riding on top of the sidewalk-careening vehicle, her rifle picking off demons that tried to send pikes through the windows.
"They're going kamikaze!" Damali shouted, entering the street behind the bus that was playing chicken with Vlad's war-horses."Suicide explosion! No! Get those people outta there!"
"You get outta the street, D!" Carlos shouted, jumping up and missing a pike by seconds. "Take cover!"
But the bus kept going. It had reached eighty miles an hour, and sheer momentum, along with tactical charge assistance from Earl, pushed the speedometer higher.