"J.L., what the f**k are you talking about?" Dan shouted, jumping up from Heather's side to bang on the glass outside the pilothouse. "Motherfucker, my parents are in Manhattan! Stop freaking us all out by tuning into those bullshit, Apocalyptic, fraudulent sites! Find us some real news!"
"Man, I'm sorry," J.L. said gently. "My bad. Lemme try some other sources. But they said meteors hit in the Atlantic and Pacific sending in--"
"See, right there!" Dan yelled, pointing over the deck rail. "That's how you know it's bullshit! We are in the Atlantic last I checked, man. If a meteor hit here, large enough to create a giant tsunami to wipe out the eastern seaboard, we'd be floating toothpicks right now!"
Quiet seized the team as Carlos slowly went to his wife and gently took off her necklace. She caught his hand for a moment and then kissed him before letting him walk away with her oracle. He rubbed his thumb over her pearl and found an opened water jug. All eyes were on him as he tipped it to pour freshwater over the pearl's dehydrated surface. A soft, sad coo drifted up into the wind.
"We need to know," Carlos said.
"The rising wall of Atlantis energy saved you by pushing you through the Strait of Gibraltar right into the Mediterranean Sea. You must go to Megiddo."
Carlos just stared at the pearl as Dan's back slowly hit the pilothouse wall and he slid down to the deck floor. Heather was at his side in seconds as he covered his face with his forearm.
"Oh, Dan . . ." Marjorie and Berkfield rushed forward toward Dan and Heather with Bobby.
Krissy ran to the couple, and then seemed at a loss for whose tears to attend to first.
"I should have gotten to them," Dan said thickly. "My mother and father . . . how could I leave them?"
Heather's arms gathered as much of him as she could, but Inez's slow, agonized wail tore the team members in two. Mike tried to hold her but she fought like a woman possessed.
"My baby girl and my momma! No, no, no, God, no, not my baby girl! Oh, my God, my baby was just three years old, Jesus!"
Female Guardians tried to run in to assist Mike, who took every blow she hurled at him as though he'd drowned the child himself.
"You promised me!" Inez screamed, fighting the arms of female warriors as Mike finally walked away to break down against the rails.
Pandemonium erupted. The brothers broke off into small squads of support, half going to Dan, and the other half going to Mike, who wailed like a huge, wounded bear.
"She was just a baby," Mike sobbed. "A little precious baby!"
Carlos and Yonnie both had to box Mike in to keep him away from the artillery stash, each talking to him quickly in staccato pants. Rider tried to get a leg and almost got knocked out from Mike's flailing.
"Wasn't your fault, man--we couldn't get to 'em . . . woulda lost 'em in the pull through the Triangle," Yonnie said, working with Carlos to wrestle Mike to the deck.
"Look at my woman!" Mike hollered. " 'Nez, baby, I swear to God, I'm sorry!"
Carlos felt his body lifting as Mike broke free, his insane strength now a liability as Yonnie lost his grip on one of Mike's massive appendages. The only thing he could do was take the full body charge by getting in front of Mike, and then roping him down with an energy lasso.
"Let go of me!" Mike shouted, still struggling as a dazed Carlos tried to sit up.
"No, 'cause we love you, man," Carlos said, panting.
Damali had Inez in her arms, rocking her with Juanita as piteous wails sliced through everyone's skeleton. Guardian sisters ran between the fallen, trying in any way they could to touch, heal, and cry with those who'd experienced such visceral loss.
Dan sat in a curled ball of humanity, his arms gripped tightly around his knees, his head tucked in, rocking, while Shabazz and Berkfield tried their best to rationalize the incomprehensible. Finally Marlene parted the gathering of men, dropped to her knees, hugged a young man who'd just lost his parents, and let him wail. Shimmering tears rolled down her cheeks as she held him shaking her head, unable to bear going to Inez--the loss of her own daughter palpable to each Guardian with Marlene's every ragged inhalation.
The storm of hurt and pain that hit the ship was so violent that no one spoke for what felt like hours. Mike lay on the deck face down, panting from the fatigue of struggling against his binds, energy-tied down for his own safety. Inez lay on a sofa, covered by Damali's healing wings, having cried herself sick. Dan had finally accepted Heather's hugs, and his head was in her lap, his face to her belly, as they both rested on the deck floor numb.
Carlos stood at the stern, looking out at the water all around them. There was no naval presence guarding U.S. ports now. Pearl and Father Pat said to go to this strange land with the walking wounded, spiritually destroyed Guardians, and he didn't even know where that was. Four days, and the Neteru Councils hadn't surfaced . . . nor had any warrior angels . . . and a little baby girl had died--for what?
He hung his head, wishing he'd tried to pull them through the Triangle. Seeing the pain, hearing it, crawled all over his skin. And this was just his tiny family. What kind of human suffering was the world experiencing at large? All of this because of a deal forged eons before he was even a spark of conception. His Neteru Kings held back from going down to Hell and blowing the doors off it, all because the Devil was granted a period of time to corrupt the human soul. All because some of the Kings on the Neteru Council had to wait until the end of days, and had to let human nature, human karma run its full course . . . Carlos squeezed his eyes shut tightly. It was all so wasteful, so blindly wasteful, and if he was lucky, this was what his kid would inherit.
Hearing Inez's wails reminded him of just how powerless he was in this entire dance of life. Hearing Mike's wails made him want to put a gun to his own head. The only reason Dan's pain didn't carve at him as deeply was because, in some way, he could rationalize the loss of an older couple, people who'd lived, loved, raised a family, and had died together quickly. If he were honest about it, even the loss of Mom Delores didn't tear his spirit from its housing within. She'd gotten a chance to see her child grow up, marry a good person, and have a child of her own, knowing her kid and grandkid would be with good people that loved them. But the loss of that baby girl, little Ayana . . . that was what had rocked the entire team. That was what had stabbed him in the heart.
"Where is Megiddo from here?" Carlos whispered into the wind. He looked out at the glass-still surface of deep blue water. "Father told me, but I can't picture it in my mind," he said in a weary tone. "Can't picture none of it at all. My team is bleeding to death . . . Heaven help them. I don't know what to do."
"Bring them in first," a deep, unfamiliar voice said. "There is no more Triangle barrier here. I will help you so that you do not deplete yourself."