His palm went to the wound site on his back, and came away with thick, silvery-red warmth. But the beacon had stopped.
Carlos smiled and stared up at the massive building. He was standing in front of CGE's Toronto headquarters . . . a gorgeous modern glass structure that he was so tempted to implode, were it not for the very real loss of human life that would occur. Instead, with his last ounce of energy and before Nuit's forces rallied to attack, he simply white lighted it from the roof down to the gas mains beneath the street, chuckling as demons fried while bailing out of windows . . . then dropped from sheer exhaustion.
Damali opened her eyes and sat up with a gasp, toppling Marlene and Berkfield. "I have to go get him!"
"He said-"
"He's in an enemy hot-zone, Marlene! I don't care what he said!"
"You were just out for twenty frickin' minutes, D," Berkfield argued. "And in your condition-"
Damali pointed at Berkfield to say no more, but didn't speak. Her eyes said everything. She took a breath and composed herself. "I'm going to get him."
"No need," Carlos said, staggering into the sanctuary, "Seth and Abel gave me a lift."
"You look terrible!" Damali said quickly, going to him. "What happened?"
"I'm all right," Carlos replied, weaving a bit and catchinghimself against a pew. "Better questionis, what happened to you?" He looked at her hard, studying her eyes and then let his voice drop to a tone of gentle concern. "Tell me you're all right, boo?"
"She is," Marlene said, jerking Carlos's focus to her. "Open a channel to me while Berkfield works on you-you look like Hell."
Carlos nodded and half fell, half sat on a pew. Berkfield simply shook his head as he studied the wounds for a moment. But when Damali came close, Carlos yelled at her with a wince.
"Back up-you know better than that! I don't even want the Caduceus near me if you're touching it."
"But you've got a serious kidney wound, Carlos," Damali shot back. "You broke team protocol, left out on a suicide mission-what if you'd been gored out there or are bleeding to death! What if the ancient Neterus were battling darkside forces and couldn't get to you in time? Obviously, they and the angels were elsewhere while we were scraping over on Livernois Avenue."
The need to feed was almost as excruciating as the wounds. He couldn't answer her immediately, had to breathe through the agony, suddenly realizing that by allowing his dark side to surface for added strength, that bonus dividend came with a severe price in the recovery process.
"Just back up," Carlos muttered, not wanting her to know about the black charges his hands had unloaded on Vlad. "No Caduceus or Neteru angel wing healings. I'm cool. It ain't that bad. I got two kidneys andthey only got one . . . wasn't like it was my heart-which it would have been if something had happened to you. So, we do this old-school healing method, 'cause I've just been in a demon free-for-all. What's the matter with you?"
Carlos closed his eyes as Marlene laid a palm on his forehead.
"You ready to open a channel?" Marlene asked as the rest of the team glanced between both Neterus with curiosity.
"Yeah," Carlos breathed out in pain as Damali began to walk in a circle, biting her lip as her fingers laced on top of her head.
I immediately called Aset for a healing and to send me the Caduceus to help her. Berkfield was scanning, but he couldn't find anything wrong. There were no internal injuries, no hemorrhages. Aset finally answered and said Damali didn't need the healing staff of Imhotep-the fetus shut her down. Right now she's got a newly formed silver-and-platinum layer shielding her entire pelvic region.
"What!" Carlos struggled to sit up, but Berkfield flat-palmed him.
"Easy, buddy. You gotta get better . . . so lemme work while Mar informs, deal?"
Marlene looked around the team, making up a flimsy excuse for such a rude and blatant telepathic exchange. "We're in a cathedral, brother needs to tell me stuff to flash to the other seers, but we don't need to take chances by saying any forbidden names."
Begrudgingly, Carlos leaned back down, his gaze riveted to Marlene's. She'd told the team the truth, but with some serious omissions along with it. But it worked. Bodies around him began to slowly relax, even though no one took their eyes off Marlene's stoic expression.
When the black charge sent the car into her . . . oh, yeah, it slammed her hard, all right. Marlene never blinked as her mind sent off a rapid-fire flurry of information that made Carlos's eyelids flutter.But the jolt, along with the adrenaline, made the baby spike something within its system that flooded hers. That effectively shut her down . . . made her stop battling this early in her first trimester -which both Aset and Ausar said would make you go nuts. You are the one at this early stage, they said, who needs to draw the heat. Later, she'll be back in business . . . but for now, you've got some kinda crazy thing time-releasing in your body that's ridiculous.
"Tell me about it," Carlos said, too weary to respond tele-pathically. He glanced around the rapt team and then tried to focus on Marlene, while ignoring the pain shooting through him from Berkfield's ministrations. But his attention kept drifting to Damali.
"I'm all right," she said softly. "Just a little scared, but I'm cool."
Again, teammates shared confused glances that Marlene tried to body-block from Carlos's view as she redirected his focus.
We've got three definite pregnancies on this team, in addition to your wife's. Marlene closed her eyes for a moment and let out a hard breath.Eve said these aren't decoys . . . so before you go there in your mind like I did . . .given what happened to my own daughter, know that it's a sacred number .This situation we're in now is different than what happened years and years ago . Marlene paused.Your child will have three Guardian protectors from birth . . . with a fourth mother-seer . . . little Ayana .
"Seriously . . ." Pure awe filled Carlos's voice as it trailed off and his jaw went slack.