But the argument sounded so far away to Carlos as he stared at his battered wife. Fury mixed with fear mixed with adrenaline mixed with outrage to create a crazy cocktail in his system as he slowly laid Damali on a pew.
"I don't care about whatever," Carlos muttered quietly, staring at Damali. "Just wake up is all I'm asking."
She was breathing; he could feel her breaths rise andfall, could see it. She wasn't bleeding, he would have known immediately, if she was. Her eyelids fluttered as he wiped off her gook-splattered face, trying to remove some of the carnage. He could also feel the ground beyond the sanctuary trembling. The dark shadows couldn't breach the fortress, but they could blow a subterranean gas main and essentially nuke the joint.
Carlos looked up with the team, watching brass chandeliers sway in the arched ceiling and altarpieces begin to slightly vibrate. Berkfield and Marlene moved in with Marjorie, prepared to begin the healing, regardless.
"Everybody pull themselves together and somebody call the Queens for my wife. Heal her." Carlos looked around, seething. "I'll be back."
SHOWDOWN
CHAPTER TWELVE
"Vlad, you muthafucker!"Carlos shouted, the moment he cleared the church steps.
"Likewise!"Vlad hollered from his position across the street. "You attack my wife and expect no redress? Arrogant, young fool!"
"And there's no fool like an old fool, but I'ma teach you some new era shit tonight!" Carlos shouted, bringing the Mustang around the corner using the sheer rage that was blistering his mind.
He ducked a flaming pike as it whirred by his temple, grazing it before it disintegrated the moment it crossed the threshold of hallowed ground. Carlos punched the dashboard as he leapt over to the side of the vehicle, too furious to even sit behind the wheel. Instead he stood wide-legged, one foot on each bucket seat, a blade in one hand, shield in the other, revving the engine with his mind, and then allowed the tires to spin until they smoked against the blacktop. "You are gonna so wish you had stayed your ass up in the Carpathians-"
In a snap, both combatants charged each other, moving forward in headlong, breakneck velocities-Carlos rocketing forward in a car, Vlad on his nightmare. The blade of Ausar was clenched in Carlos's right grip as a huge burning pike filled Vlad's. At the moment of sure impact, both combatants left their mounts-the car slamming into the steed, sending the warriors airborne, twisting, as they slashed their weapons at each other, missed, and then hit the ground in a hard roll, only to jump up more enraged.
Lilith brought her head up with an angry jerk as she spied Sebastian skulking around Council Chambers. Her gaze narrowed on him, leaving the black vision mist of the pentagram-shaped table to concentrate on him for a moment. Absently she stroked the golden-fanged crest so that it wouldpause its replay of the action occurring topside while she studied Sebastian. A slow, annoyed growl filled her throat.
"What is it?"
"I have something for you, Madame Chairwoman."
She stared at him. He'd engaged her inDananu , the bargaining language. But what, at this juncture, would Sebastian have to bargain with? Curiosity tugged at her, despite the fact that she had little time for games.
"Be swift," she commanded. "A pivotal battle rages topside."
"Indeed it does," Sebastiansaid, his voice oily with triumph. "I have raised the ultimate information."
"Oh, please!" Lilith said, waving him away and returning her focus to the table. "Your ex-wife raised Vlad. Every scheme you've launched has been a debacle."
"Raising Elizabeth and Lucrezia was not a debacle."
Lilith looked up and glared at him. "Speak to me, you toad, or become one!"
"I have located the Neteru prophecy child . . . the one that can avert the loss of one-third of the earth's population during the Armageddon, as told in their holy Kemetian scrolls of Sebek and in the lost books of their Bible."
When Lilith became stone-still and stopped breathing, Sebastian nodded and smiled.
"You lie," Lilith whispered.
"No . . . not this time," Sebastian said with triumph. "It was so easy and I must thank Vlad and Elizabeth for creating the perfect diversion."
"How?"Lilith said,her excitement barely concealed as she swept toward Sebastian, rounding the black bargaining table.
"The female mother-seer had an Achilles' heel. The father of her only child was a Guardian but became one of ours . . . and on that day she slew him with her walking stick to his chest in a domestic dispute. But his head was never severed by a Neteru blade." Sebastian circled Lilith, rubbing his hands as he spoke in rapid bursts of excitement. "I knew something was amiss when the entire team went into hiding. The stench of human pregnancies filled the air as Vlad battled and it was hard to tell which one . . . so many of the female Guardians gave off the aroma." He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, inhaling deeply."Decoys. Instinct said if that many were surrounding the female, and the males had gone into complete suicide attack mode . . . then they were protecting something extremely precious."
He swept away from her and rushed to the table, causing her to nearly run behind him to keep up as he pointed to the black mist. "Look at him, Lilith. There's your evidence! The male Neteru left his wife inside a white-hot cathedral that is impenetrable with an entire team to take on Vlad and his entire army alone!"
"Unbelievable . . . Mr. Rivera, where did you find the time?" Lilith murmured, her hand over her dead heart as she stared at Sebastian and then into the mist. "But we must know for sure, before I report mission-critical news like this to our Dark Lord."
"My raised essence of soul-stolen Guardian, in demon form, touched the mother-seer . . . felt her panic over the loss of her potential grandchild," Sebastian said, making small quotes in the air as he said the wordgrandchild . "My demon siphoned it all from the Guardian, Marlene Stone-every single panicked thought that she telegraphed. The moment Damali hit the ground and didn't immediately get back up, the older woman sent out SOS radiating prayers of white heat. Go back in the mist's record," he ordered, causing the captured scenes to reverse to the point where Damali's body collided with the runaway vehicle.