Ayana closed her eyes tighter, remembering what Aunt Damali and her mommy said to do. Pray hard in her mind. Don't move her mouth. Ask the angels for help. See inside her eyelids.
She ducked her head down lower, laying her cheek against broken concrete, and curled up into a little ball. Something cold crawled over her and she kept her hand clamped tightly on her mouth, shivering . . . saying the prayer to be invisible to monsters. Then she saw it.
Huge red eyes looked through the dark. Big, dripping, yellow teeth. Big, sharp claws. Stinky, stinky body that was skinny like a big spider's. It was looking for her, she knew it. She could tell. But if it found Nana first, it would eat her!
Ayana's eyes rolled back and forth behind her tightly shut lids. Then she saw a shoe. Her nana's shoe! Ayana's head jerked in the direction of it at the same time the demon's gleaming eyes spotted it. The creature pounced on the fallen column that had De-lores wedged beneath it and began to savage her limp body, becoming frustrated as it tried to extricate her from the debris.
Seconds put Ayana on her feet. She knew the monster would tear off one of her grandma's arms or legs, and would make her bleed. If it did that, Nana would stop breathing and die. A high-pitched scream exited Ayana's body and rent the air. "No, no! Leave my nana alone!"
The creature whirled and held its head for a moment with several of its hooked- claw appendages, and then lunged at the three-year-old child. Ayana's scream brought heavy footfalls. Men and women were frantically calling out her name. Something huge was hurtling toward her. The pitch of her scream intensified. Gun barrels lowered. An explosion wet her face with green slime.
"Over here!" a Guardian yelled.
Coughing, sputtering, Ayana went to the first adult that opened her arms to her.
"Nana, Nana--it was gonna get Nana!" Someone wiped her face. She heard somebody hock and spit. "Yo, Quick . . . the kid went up against an arachnid demon . . . Level Four--you see that?"
A tall lady that she couldn't see too well held her. The gunk on her face stung her eyes, and all she wanted to do was keep her face pressed against the soldier lady's neck, in case some more monsters came out.
"I'm Shaun, baby. We got you. It's gone. We're gonna get your grandmom out, okay?"
Ayana just nodded. Her stomach felt jumpy. "I want my mommy," she whimpered. "I want my nana. I didn't wanna come here. I don't wanna stay here. We have to go where it's high, high up in the mountains."
"I know, I know," Shaun soothed. "But we had to bring you all here . . . because there's some bad germs where you were. The sickness hasn't spread here yet, you understand, pumpkin? Your mommy and Uncle Mike don't want you and Nana to get sick."
"Dragon Rider, you see that?" Craig's voice made everyone look as he stood over demon remains. "She's a reverse audio . . . whoa. Kid uses her voice like a weapon, you see that?"
"Yeah," Quick said, stepping over rubble, her gun barrel at the ready to blow away anything demonic that might slither out. "That's why we listen to the kid and head toward the Appalachian Mountains as planned to rendezvous with the Philly team. They took all the Guardian kids from the safe house school and headed west out of the madness toward Pittsburgh, to higher ground in the mountains."
Ayana peeked up from Shaun's neck. A big man picked up a hairy monster leg and threw it away from the pile of rocks, trying to get stuff off her grandmom.
"If she's got that kinda skill to see demons coming and to explode 'em from a scream at three or four years old," Dragon Rider said, checking her weapon magazine, "imagine what she'll do at twenty-three."
"Yeah, well, we've gotta make sure we get her to twenty-three," Michelle said, glancing at her teammate and stashing a 9 mm in the back of her fatigue pants waistband. She tossed a couple of grenades to Dragon Rider to hang on to as she bent and grasped the edge of the cement slab that trapped the unconscious woman. "C'mon, Rayne . . . this is your detail. Healing. Remy, you and I lift with Craig, then Rayne, you pull the grandmother out with Leone while Quick and Dragon Rider cover us. Might be more of these suckers down here crawling around in the dark looking for a Neteru team hostage--so look alive, folks."
Craig spat and pounded Quick's fist, hoisting his Uzi up out of the way as he tightened his grip on the edge of the concrete slab. "Atlanta ever had a tornado before?"
Quick gave him a look. "Hell, no. New York City ain't had one, either, till this past year."
He nodded. "Just what I thought."
He could feel himself being followed as he left the safe house and headed toward the Masjid. He didn't care; he had been ready to die all his life in the service of Allah. When the unmarked car skidded to a halt and bounced onto the sidewalk, followed by another screeching to a halt, Imam Asula stood very, very still.
Men in dark suits and white shirts drew weapons on him without identifying themselves. Within moments he was forced to the ground by what felt like twenty men. He could have resisted, but that would have given them license to shoot him in broad daylight. People leaned out of windows with camera phones, screaming, yelling, trying to make the police hear that he was a man of faith, a cleric. But they had pictures of him with the most wanted. His obvious religion and garb also didn't work in his favor.
With hands shackled and his dignity in shreds, he was roughly forced into a black van. A dark hood got yanked over his head. The burlap dug into the fresh cuts and bruises on his cheek. Angry words pelted him, as kicks and jabs from boots and elbows thrashed his body. Then suddenly all motion stopped and he was yanked forward, falling, banging his shins and knees, and then yanked upright. He heard a door open, could smell the cool dankness of a basement.
He could have fought them, could have used his years of martial arts training. Could have concealed a weapon under his robes. But his mission was to divert them from Rabbi Zeitloff and Monk Lin . . . who had to make it to Dan's parents, had to get word to the Neterus, had to complete what they had all given their lives to the Almighty One for. Allah was with him. Suddenly pushed back, he hit the ground with a thud. Dazed, he could barely catch his breath. Then came the water. Drowning--he was drowning! He fought, shackled, struggling to breathe. The sack over his head sucked up into his nose and mouth as he gagged trying to get air, but he accidentally sucked in water that scorched his lungs. Blood rushed to his head as they inverted him even more, causing him to gag, causing him to vomit and choke on his own refuse.
"What the f**k did they put in the dirty bomb?" Voices thundered around him in muddy waves. "People are dying! What's making people go insane and begin eating each other, ass**le? What is it, an airborne drug?"
"Or is it some kind of airborne toxin that eats into the brain stem? What is it, motherfucker!"
"Did you and your terrorist cronies release the bubonic plague with the Ebola virus, too? You poison the water--shoot up a bunch of animals with rabies and let them go in cities all over the world?"
"Who do you work for?"
"Where are the Weinsteins? What are their real names? Did all you Middle Eastern bastards brew up some nasty shit in a lab together, or what? They're not Israelis, are they?"