Every so often a pike would break out a bus window, sending glass flying like shrapnel. Navajo was right behind it in a souped-up Olds convertible, white lighted, driving insane with Candace standing and firing silver automatic rounds, blasting demon guts and sending embers into the air. But a flaming pike hit the hood of the Olds, impaled the engine, and flipped the vehicle end over end. While Carlos covered Damali, Shabazz's quick tactical snatch pulled both younger Guardians to safety before the hurling car could crush them and explode in the gas station twenty yards away.
Lissa's sure shot got a pike-wielding demon before it launched a flaming brimstone missile at Shabazz. Splattered with burning slime, they both scrambled to a new alleyway for protection, while the teams covered them. Owa, Sylvia, and Mary kept the pressure on from the south end of the boulevard, while Neteru team Guardians repositioned. But Damali and Carlos were wide open, heading down the street trying to stop the bus.
One mind-J.L., Dan, and Bobby reached out simultaneously and pulled Barbara, Earl, and Alicia to them just as the bus bomb slammed into the front line of Vlad's cavalry and detonated like a deadly roadside explosive. Demon body parts littered the ground and fell like flaming fuselage. Earl, Barbara, and Alicia hit the ground with a thud, rolling to safety behind parked cars and avoiding pikes, but within seconds were back up firing.
Craig and Gus had given up their sniper posts to run into the street daredevil-style, cranking the engines on twin detailed red and canary-yellow Mustangs, hollering to Damali and Carlos as they doubled back to avoid Vlad's heat-seeking pikes.
"Get in!" Craig shouted as the red Mustang passed Carlos. The moment it did, Craig bailed, leaving the vehicle unmanned, to drop down on the street, then turned to hit three demons in hot pursuit of him with pump shotgun shells, blowing off their heads.
Carlos was over the side of the convertible Mustang's door in a one-handed leap, falling into the seat, and then he spun out to go back for Damali.
Gus was already in motion, heading directly toward her with the yellow car eating up pavement, one hand firing a Glock, the other steering as he crossed Damali's body plane. But what happened next was a slow-motion horror. Vlad's pike whizzed by Damali's head by millimeters, caught Gus in the center of his forehead, splattering her face and shirt with Gus's brains and blood. Gus never made it out of the car. The split second of hesitation that Damali took in not simply shoving Gus's dead body aside cost her precious moments.
The yellow Mustang listed with the driver's body weight, spinning the wheel at a perilous angle. The car instantly banged her hard, slamming into her pelvis, knocking her back, sending her flying toward raised demon pikes. Every tactical on the squad sent a charge in to get her out of the road and to keep the car from running her over, as Carlos stood, driving while standing, reaching out to also move her.
It all happened so fast. Flying shells from well-meaning team members were already discharged and airborne in the demonic army's direction . . . the same direction Damali's semiconscious body was hurtling.
Bullets spiraled past her in slow motion as Carlos's hands emitted a blinding white-light carpet to burn away anything that could harm her. Shells incinerated with the flash. A third of the army melted with a screech. Vlad raised his forearm to cover his face. Bobby and Krissy sent a razor-wire of electric current like a bullwhip from utility poles and downed lines to back off a secondary wave of demon onslaught, while their parents and the rest of the Guardian team prepared for hand-to-hand combat.
Fully fanged, Yonnie and Tara had jumped out front with J.L., who had grabbed two demon pikes as he flipped into a martial arts stance. Covered by the team's sharpshooter, Rider, along with Juanita, Heather, and Jasmine, Shabazz shifted into instant jaguar, cutting a line between Vlad's army and Damali's free-falling body with a menacing roar. Candace brandished two bowie knives at Inez's flank as she unsheathed switchblades in each hand. Marlene was already running forward, magic walking stick glowing white-hot like a pike. Val was down on one knee, sending whirring silver arrows to pick off demons one by one, her targets frying on impact as Heather and Jasmine dropped to the concrete with the other Neteru seers and supercharged the ground around the squads Stonehenge-style.
For Carlos, five seconds might as well have been five minutes, it all seemed so fast, so short, so insane, so slow as his wife's body fell while he forced his car beyond the limits of its capacity by sheer will-his arms out, trying to catch Damali before another intelligent missile sought her. The moment her body thudded against his, allbreath left his lungs with a hard, guttural sound. Encased in a golden shield of Heru, he secured her in the seat with the vehicle still careening forward on a collision course with a huge, spiraling pike sent from Vlad.
The entity sneered. Insanity fractured Carlos's skull. A Neteru war cry left his lungs and the next thing he knew he was on the hood of the car, traveling a hundred and twenty miles per hour, Damali unconscious . . . they had hurt his wife! A moment of hesitation filled Vlad's pitch-black eyes and just as quickly burned away. Battle bulked and too crazy to think, fangs fully extended, Carlos's arms opened wide and he slapped the center of his chest to invite the pike-which suddenly melted to black amalgam beneath his silver glare.
A black steel blade filled Vlad's hand as he roared and his horse reared. Every demon sentry behind him followed with a war cry, and began charging. A golden shield covered the car, the teams kept the pressure on, decimating Vlad's army-but the demons kept replenishing themselves from the crevices in the broken asphalt. Then all of a sudden, Vlad turned his attention away from Carlos and looked at the battling Guardian squads. Shadows suddenly filled the air and dove down into human bodies in an aerial attack. Guardians screamed out in agony.
Carlos could feel it all, see it all inside his head. He turned in slow motion to look to his flanks, between buildings, at the cars he passed in a blur, then he glimpsed behind him at Guardians writhing on the ground. Seconds ticked away. Tactical Guardians had been hit with the sensation of Hellfire burning them-using their gift in an evil twist against them. Seers were going blind from horrific Hell scenes so powerful that they actually caused physical pain. Audio sensors were suddenly deafened by screeches at earsplitting decibels that made them puke up their guts on the street, incapacitating them and rendering them vulnerable. Anyone with a human body simply shrieked at the knifelike agony that riddled their skins.
The first image that came to Carlos's mind was the giant, white highway edifice Alicia had spoken of. There was no democracy. He jettisoned the local team there within seconds, praying that the hallowed ground would reverse their pain . . . Marlene glanced up-the agony in her mind so severe that he could barely see her face. Something in the shadows had her by the leg. Shabazz tried to get to her, roaring, naked, feral, in a twisted mid-shape-shift to save her.
"Raven's father!"Shabazz hollered through his distended jaw, as Yonnie struggled with his own pain to lend assistance.
"Follow Uriel," Damali's pearl shrieked from her necklace. "God is my light to the east!Seven miles away!"
"It's 33 East Forest," Shabazz cried out, writhing and then collapsing. "Only church with Uriel and headed east from here!"
Searing heat filled Carlos as the car slowed and he felt the life pulses of the entire Neteru team enter his palms at once. The image lit his mind like it had been stabbed with a poker. His mind became united with his destination: A one-hundred-and-twenty-foot, freestanding bell tower flash-blinded his brain for a second, then another image of an eight-foot, two-hundred-pound copper statue of the Archangel Uriel pierced his third eye. The door to the Cathedral of Pisa in Italy fused with the campanile of this church. Europe's Venice wonders became one with his fold-away destination. Rose windows swirled into carved wood, huge domes, and ceiling portraits. Organ music made his head pound. The great halls of England stared back at him as he tumbled forward with the team, Damali in his arms, to land in the sanctuary of First Congregational Church of Detroit.
Marlene was the first to recover, sputtering out her words as she held her locks in her fists, tears streaming down her face. "How could that have been Jerome? I killed him myself when he turned and went after our daughter to give her to Nuit!"
"Baby . . . he went dark," Shabazz said. "You have to accept-"
"No! I prayed over him. His soul was supposed to go into the Light. He was a Guardian!" A sob caught in Marlene's throat and broke free.
Shabazz pulled her near as Guardians slowly recovered. "Then, maybe it was just an illusion-"
"Wasn't illusion," Yonnie snapped, walking over to Carlos and peering at Damali. "He was a Guardian in name, but hated the fact that Marlene was more gifted . . . that she would have been the team's leader, the mother-seer until it was time. He wanted the role of head honcho, couldn't deal with the way things were playing out, even though it wasn't Mar's fault or intent. Jealousy got him. Pride, too. He was done before she iced him."
"How do you know?" Juanita snapped. "Mardon't need ta hear a buncha speculation right now."
"Iknow because it registers real big at dark throne level when Guardians go dark-that's why they wanted my man here, Carlos, so bad." Yonnie folded his arms. "You need to chill, sis, and check the attitude. We're all on the same squad, remember? But Marlene's man wasn't as gifted as she was, so he couldn't deal with hers, that's how he got jacked . . . didn't like being a father so soon, wasn't down with the service-to-mankind deal he got-wanted some cash, some flash . . . and one night while his dumb ass was crying in his beer, he got that. So don't tell me I don't know what happened-ain't that right, Marlene?"
Marlene nodded and wiped her face. "Don't curse in the House of God after all we've been through," she added, looking at Yonnie. "Especially all you've been through."
"It's cool, baby . . . just chill," Jose said quietly to Juanita as she snatched away from him.
"It'snot cool, and don't tell me to chill!" Juanita shouted. "I know how he felt, then. Who wants to go through what we just went through, trying to raise a family . . . what's gonna happen months from now, Jose-tell me that?" Tears leaked from Juanita's eyes as glances of new awareness passed around the team.