Sebastian swallowed hard. "You would do that for me--with me?"
"If you do one little thing for me," she said with a wicked smile, and wide, innocent eyes. Sebastian nodded. "Name it."
"Far be it from me to ask the question, but does it seem a little too quiet on this ship--or is it me?"
Yonnie looked at Rider. "It ain't you, Holmes. The hair is standing up on the back of my neck."
Carlos nodded and then made a fist, causing the men behind him to stop walking. His gaze scanned the deck and then he tilted his head like a hunting dog, listening. The sound of something wet, squishing, sent a shudder through his body. Using his forefinger and middle finger, he motioned to his eyes, and suggested a path for Yonnie and Rider to take in stealth mode. Calling the blade of Ausar into his hand, he waited until the warm, familiar metal filled his grip, and then he was a blur of motion.
In a shadowy corner behind toppled deck tables, four diseased humans were huddled over a dead crewman's body, eating. The sound of their gore made Carlos want to dry-heave as he watched them fight over entrails like scavengers.
They looked up with vacant black eyes and sallow skin, and hissed, but Carlos's blade took two heads before they could leap up and scrabble toward a new blood source. Hooked, yellow teeth and twisted, scaly talons reached out as knotted spines and double-jointed legs awkwardly propelled them forward across the smooth deck surface like fast-moving, diseased crabs.
Instantly, Rider got one in the center of the skull, blowing the back of his head off, and Yonnie made quick work of the aluminum frame of a deck chair--snapping it off and using it like a metal stake to hurl through the center of a young woman's head.
"Oh, f**k me . . ." Rider said, wiping his forehead with his T-shirt sleeve. "You know how many people a cruise ship usually holds? We go below decks where it's gotta be teeming with those things, and it's all over."
Carlos nodded. "Save your ammo, man. I ain't getting no life pulses off this vessel. Ain't no survivors. We're too late. I don't feel anything down below moving tWt death."
"Me neither, man--and you know vamps can feel the humanity thing going on ... thatVhow we used to eat. But not like that. . . damn. Everythings in this joint is as dead as a doornail, bro." Yonnie glanced around nervously. "I say we be out." "Great minds think jwke," Rider said, looking over his shoulder.
"Aw'ight, look," Qart>s said, listening and keeping his gaze sweeping. "We fold-away down to the kitchen, jettison supplies back to Monty's yacht and the excess to the cathedral for survivors. The white-li^ht blast I'll send it through should clean all the cans and bottles! of all contagion, plus Mar knows how to make it do what it do. We go to the pilothouses on each ship-- they've gotta have fla,re guns, weapons, and shit in the captain's quarters . . . and then we blow this joint so none of these creepy crawlers get back to the island and go hunting down innocent survivors. Same deal on the other four boats--on, sense, off, blow the sucker."
"Yeah, aw'ight, we got your six, C," Yonnie said, glancing around, "but hurry the f**k up."
Monk Lin took in a deep, cleansing breath. He sat perfectly still, an open vessel to the communication he sought. With his eyes closed and his legs crossed yogi-style, he sat on the floor of the safe house, waiting.
Soon, his eyelids began to flutter and images poured into his mind. He heard Cordell's voice, saw him open the maps. In each Templar location, there was a storehouse . . . grain, water, canned goods, weapons, cash, technology. Tears streamed down Monk Lin's face. The moment Cordell's image faded, he focused on the face of each seer in the twelve scattered tribes that he'd memorized by heart. And then he saw little Ayana's face.
"Tell your people that in these times, money means nothing. Goods are what will be treasured."
He opened his eyes. The Neteru team was still outside of his reach. He didn't understand it, but didn't question the Divine. The others now knew. Guardians would have a way to survive the difficult times, the darkness. They knew to go to higher ground. His job was done. The safe house was no longer safe. He bowed, and came onto his hands and knees and then pressed his forehead to the floor in front of his altar.
Tibetan incense swirled and danced, the scent of it mingling with death. The door burst open, and death ran toward him. He was up on his feet in a flash and had unsheathed two samurai swords that had been mounted on his altar. The whoosh and thud of heads being separated from bodies thrummed in his ears as he kicked out the window and somersaulted onto the fire escape.
The things that sought him crawled like fast spiders, but he slashed and cut, every fiber of his being remembering all of his ancient teachings. Winded, there were some on the roof above him, some scrambling over the hacked bodies he left below him. A military truck rolled down the street and he lifted a sword to hail it for help . . . but the soldiers only saw the carnage around him.
Inside the Bradley the terrified men made a snap decision.
"There's more of 'em on the fire escape, Joe. Hot those motherfuckers!"
Nirvana was close at hand. As he saw the flamethrower rise, Monk Lin let his swords fall away to clatter on the cement below, and simply turned into the orange-red sun. Bliss.
Chapter SEVEN
As the team boarded the yacht, Damali kept her senses sweeping. Isis blade at the ready, despite Carlos's concerns, she walked point, giving the sweep team the all clear cabin by cabin, closet by closet, shadowy corner by shadowy corner. Nothing crazy could debark with them--not on her watch.
She murmured the Twenty-third Psalm as she walked the lower deck, clearing out negative energy, blessing the vessel, and ready to kick anything's ass that was not from the Light. Time was of the essence and it was about efficiency.
But Montrose Sinclair's dream boat had the bright, clean feel of the uninhabited. The shame of it all was, it almost seemed as though the man had never even gotten the opportunity to ever take her from her berth. Damali stopped in the first bedroom she spied, checking under the queen-sized bed and along the sleek walnut finishes. Nothing. Just a bright and cheery room.
She met Jose on the steps on the way up. He gave her the all clear nod, and she could see Big Mike's huge shadow pass.
"We cool on the main," Big Mike said, walking with an Uzi cocked up toward the ceiling. "Nice digs, though."
Damali smiled and pounded Jose's fist as she passed him. "As soon as the away team gets back, tell Juanita that shower she wanted is hers."
"Thanks, D," Jose said, giving her a look that stopped her in her tracks.