Heru nodded. "She is--"
"Married," Yonnie muttered under his breath, gaining a glare from Heru.
"You, the Neterus, must go beneath this hallowed ground in Megiddo to get the text and, from it, the implement that can stop Satan's Thirteenth--his most cherished demon that will lead his armies of dark angels out of their Euphrates containment."
Carlos and Damali stared at each other.
"Okay, I've heard enough," Rider said, standing and walking across the deck. "That name is a showstopper with seniors and a baby on board--and my wife pregnant."
"How do you rule an army of warriors under democratic processes?" Heru yelled, losing patience as he stared at Carlos and Damali. "The insubordination you accept would not have been tolerated in the ancient empires!" He spun on Carlos. "There is a dagger that was hidden in the juncture at the disputed holy site beneath Jerusalem. That is one-half of what you need--the dagger used by the Roman Guard to pierce the side of the Christ. But you also need to be armed with the actual name of the demon, which was hidden in the Valley of the Kings' text, the Gospel of Judas. But the darkside stole the manuscript . . . however, we buried a copy in the spring tunnel at Megiddo."
Carlos wiped his palms down his face. "Okay. And we're supposed to take everybody with us?"
"Yes," Heru said flatly. "Time is quickly running out. Everyone here has a role." He spun on Inez and pointed to Ayana. "Only she is small enough to get into the crevice that houses the sacred dagger." He leveled a blade at Dan's parents. "Rabbi will come to them to lead them through the streets of Jerusalem. They will remember the way from their pilgrimages and fluently speak the language that you stumble over. They will get entry to places you cannot easily pass. But you, Carlos, must focus on Kupigana NgumiAha."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Carlos said, now walking in an agitated circle. "Hand-to-hand Kemetian martial arts with hombre's worst demon, using a dagger? Not a long blade to put a little body distance between me and--"
"It must be dead aim in the heart, and to do that, you must use the form of grappling and boxing used by Kemetian priests for felling the unholy." Heru turned to look at Damali. "Ma'at Akhw Ba Ankh is your weapon, Queen."
"Meditation and breathing? While my husband does hand-to-hand combat with the Thirteenth, I'm supposed to just chill and deep breathe--with a baby in the tunnels and a civilian couple trying to run through the streets that will send all of Hell after them?" Damali raked her locks. "I have much respect, don't get me wrong . . . but let's just say this strategy has the ring of real crazy to it."
* * *
Confused, the team looked around at the barren hill that was no more than a vast, crusty ruin site. Completely razed, the rock-studded terrain belied the fact that twenty-seven metropolises and � the center of significant trade and commerce had passed through the gates here at one time in history. Just seeing a past cultural epicenter that was thought to be the center of the then-modern world reduced to dust gave every person on the trek pause.
"I know your Neteru homeboy was busy and all, and did us a favor by letting you save your energy, C . . ., but couldn't he have just dropped us off in the tunnel?" Yonnie shook his head as they searched for the southwest section of the mound that was supposed to house the tunnel entrance.
"In case you hadn't noticed," Rider fussed, kicking stones out of his path as he hiked up his M-16 shoulder strap. "Easy, straightforward, any of those adjectives, just erase them from your vocabulary when dealing with the Light. They like to err on the side of the mysterious."
"Do me a favor, Jack Rider," Marlene said, giving him a hard glare. "Blaspheme on your own time when alone, huh? I'm not trying to get anybody smoked by a lightning bolt because you're having a bad hair day. We got some real important folks back. I'm grateful."
"Okay, okay, Mar, I'm sorry," Rider said, jogging to catch up with her. "You don't think they'd really send a lightning bolt for an offhanded comment, do you, Mar, seriously?" He glanced around and tugged on her arm. "For real, because I was just joking."
As Marlene turned to answer Rider with a smile, a huge fireball tore across the sky.
"Get down!" Carlos shouted, and then created an energy dome over the group using his shield of Heru.
The impact of the blast sent up clouds of dust and rocks flying like razor-sharp pieces of shrapnel that pelted the shield. The ground beneath them violently quaked, and the moment it stopped, machine-gun report echoed in the distance.
Mike turned his head to the side, listening like a giant hunting dog while he body-shielded Inez and Ayana. "You hear that?" He lifted his head to stare first at Yonnie on his flank and then Carlos, who was a couple of feet away.
"Gotta be an American team," Yonnie said. "Talking about, 'it's on to the brink of dawn.' "
Carlos lowered the shield, glanced around quickly, and held his fist up. "Let me--"
"Yo!" a female voice shouted in the distance. "Get out of the open, people. The Berserkers are on the move!"
"Dat's Miss Quick," Ayana said, talking around her thumb. "She took us to the mountains."
"Go, go, go!" Damali shouted, scrambling civilians and pushing the team from behind.
Carlos had the front, she had the back, sandwiching the team between them for maximum safety as they ran the treacherous two hundred yards.
But every instinct within her told her something else had happened. Heru's appearance was so out of the blue, so very, very strange--the Kings and Queens were gone, otherwise engaged? They'd raised a crown prince? They'd brought the east and west together and had left Guardians stationed in other parts of the world for later?
Familiar Guardian faces came into focus as she ran, pushing the group to be sure they got everyone into the tunnels alive. New York, Detroit, Chicago, D.C., Atlanta, L.A., she almost wept to see who'd made it, just as much as it broke her heart to see who hadn't.
Then she saw them. Father Patrick. Father Lopez. Rabbi Zeitloff. Monk Lin. Imam Asula. The Covenant.