Their eyes met and suddenly he hugged her. "I really mean it, D. Thanks for everything." "You aren't getting all sentimental on me, are you?" Damali said, trying to laugh off the deep emotions that had begun to surface.
"Yeah, I am," Jose said quietly. "I'm scared to f**king death that I might not be able to protect this kid or her, ya know . . . and when the money got blocked and all hell was breaking loose, I was like--shit. But then you and your crazy divining-rod senses found this real cool old dude who is about what we're about. . . and, like, I don't know what to say, D." He swallowed hard and looked away. "Our house burned down, we almost bought it in D.C. battling . . . my woman is pregnant."
He looked back at Damali, shaking his head. "You're pregnant. C is flippin' out like the rest of us, and we've gotta do war with the Nameless. Every man on this ship is feeling the same way, like, what the f**k, you know? How're we supposed to do this? How're we gonna raise kids in all this bullshit? This is much worse than when it was just us fighting monsters, D. I ain't never been this scared in my life--because it's not just my life, am I making any sense? I'm not the only one feeling like this; the team is buggin'."
Damali just nodded and let him get it out. She held Jose's hand tightly, trying to send as much love and peace into his system as she could through the vehicle of touch.
Suddenly Jose laughed nervously and looked up to the ceiling, blinking back tears. "Then you find us a luxury yacht to give us all a little hope, a tiny break in the action so we can get our heads right. . . where my wife can take a shower and lie down for a few hours--one with a gourmet kitchen. That's just like you, D."
There was nothing she could immediately say, and she didn't trust her voice to hold. She just pulled Jose into another hug and stroked his back. "Wasn't me," she finally said, listening to his moist breaths pelting her hair as he battled for composure. "Something way bigger than me found this for all of us."
"Clear," Rider shouted, running to the far side of the huge cruise ship galley, and opening the stockroom door, leveling his gun barrel at it.
Yonnie waited a beat, and went in quickly, and began flinging unopened boxes into the center of the floor for Carlos to jettison to the yacht galley. "Yo, C, send those huge watercooler bottles first. If we get jacked in here, the main thing is water."
"I'm. on it, bro," Carlos said, keeping his blade at the ready, trying to keep a steady relay going without depleting himself too much on the first run.
But a quick swishing noise stopped all motion. Rider, Yonnie, and Carlos looked up at the same time. A pot fell from a partially opened cabinet and Rider shot it. Immediately a tide of rats poured out onto the counters, spilling onto the floor, and screeching in demonic outrage.
"Fall back!" Carlos yelled, kicking open the door behind him, giving Rider and Yonnie a narrow escape.
His eyes went silver, fury sending heat into his deadly gaze, cutting a burning swath in the wriggling, squealing flesh and fur that charged him. Then lowering his sword, he sent a white-light pulse from the tip of it to ripple pure energy across the floor. Everything from the darkside in its wake disintegrated as the blue-white nova nuked the area. But the sound of Rider's gunfire report and Yonnie's growls made Carlos spin to see the threat quickly moving down the narrow hallway.
"I shoot 'em and these bastards keep coming!" Rider yelled. "I'm running low, man!"
"Drop!" Carlos yelled.
"You crazy?" Yonnie shouted.
"Drop, man, or take a charge!" Carlos yelled again, rushing forward, and both Rider and Yonnie flattened themselves to the floor.
Tossing down a transparent shield of Heru on top of his men, Carlos lit the area with a white-light nova. Popping, crackling flesh splattered the walls with ash and grease from body fat, and yet Carlos could still see more diseased coming from behind the wave he'd just fried.
"We gotta go!" Carlos shouted, lifting his shield.
Within seconds the threesome dropped out of his fold-away onto the next ship.
Rider gave Carlos a sidelong glance. "Yo, dude, when you said we've gotta get out of here, I was thinking more like, we have enough supplies and we'd get on the nice yacht in the distance . . . not another zombie cruise!"
As Damali walked the main deck, a deep sense of melancholy wafted over her and then settled within her. Instinct told her the ship was clear, but habit and security protocols kept her moving. Instead of looking for nasty little beasties and the walking dead, she was looking at rooms--safe havens--for her teammates to fall back to for just a few hours on shifts. It was just as important as fighting, the business of watering one's horses. Jose had been honest. That was a cry for help that couldn't go unanswered. He was just the most forthcoming in the group, but she knew what he said echoed through all the male members of the squad.
She peered into the master suite, her eyes roving over the exquisite woods before she turned to go down the hall to the galley that had been sectioned off" to create a smaller but comfortable guest bedroom with a queen-sized bed.
"Girl, look at all this stuff the brothers sent us from the ship," Inez said, laughing, holding up a huge box of pancake mix. "I don't know where I'm gonna put it all? Marlene said water jugs, like those big ones from office coolers, are up on the top deck. And I don't know what the heck I'm gonna do with all the frozen veggies."
Damali glanced around at the small breakfast table, six walnut bar stools that pulled up to the eat-in bar, stainless-steel appliances, and the Corian counters that were laden with dry goods, bottled juices, and flash-frozen freezer bags of green vegetables and fruit. She smiled when she saw items that would make Marlene pull her hair out--whipped cream in a can, frozen ice cream sandwiches, ice cream, and Jack Daniel's. "I hope Monty's got another freezer."
"Yeah, can you get Carlos to work on that while he's out?" Inez called behind her.
"Uh-huh," Damali said absently, as she continued her second pass patrols.
Worry nagged her gut in an insistent way that gave her pause. What was it? The distortion near the Triangle was the only logical explanation she could come up with. Maybe she was tapped into the general horror energy of the population here? Yet, it didn't feel like piercing danger, rather more like shattering sadness that gripped her. Then, again, was that unusual, given the circumstances?
Unable to put her finger on it, she kept walking, sorting things out in her mind as she went along the short, wide corridors that welcomed sunlight. Two large salons with comfortable, mint-green sectional seating, a bar, game tables, big-screen televisions, and thickly cushioned lounge chairs each shared a common wall that had been removed, per Monty, to make space for two additional bedrooms with queen-sized beds.
Large ferns added a sense of cool tranquility to the space. Small hutch window seats stored the overflow of towels and sheets and toiletries that wouldn't fit in the linen closet. Monty had created a floating hotel, a showcase home on the water. That had to be where the melancholy came from. Seeing all this that had been built with such hope, and to have those hopes destroyed, was in and of itself tragic enough to make her cry. Add pregnancy hormones and the end of days to the equation and it was a wonder that she didn't just stop, break down, and bawl.
Half jogging, half walking to get away from her thoughts, Damali scaled the steps to the top deck, where she found Mar-lene and the rest of the team managing water bottles and newly imported military weapons, gazing out from the rails, and lounging on the comfortable, white wicker sofa that sported fat, lemon-yellow cushions. A refrain pelted her mind. Thank You, thank You, thank You, God.