If she didn't get the first jettison just right, she might have been sending her mother-seer into instant death, but they had to take the risk. Guardians were beginning to pass out, the baby, civilians, and older folks had to get out first.
Guardians began clutching their necks as air became scarce and too hot to suck in. She had to get her pregnant sisters out of there as the floor began to melt shoe rubber and turn soles gooey. Had to get her Guardian brothers out of there to provide cover for the team. Had to not fall down on the hot ground . . . had to keep conscious . . .
Damali! Marlene's voice cut through the broiling oven around her for a moment just as everything went black.
Carlos's head jerked back. Marlene's scream pierced his consciousness and blotted out Cordell's vision. He opened his arms and his wife filled them, her clothes smoldering, her cheek and palms and arms burned where she'd obviously fallen against a scorching surface.
"Damali, Damali, wake up, D!" Carlos shouted, no longer caring if passing forces or spies heard him.
Tobias was at Carlos's side in seconds as Carlos laid her flat on the floor, turned his cheek to her nose, and felt for a pulse. She had one; it was weak, but instantly he began to place his hands a millimeter over her skin to take the third-degree burns from her into him.
"Freshwater, any you've got in the house," Carlos said, wincing as his skin blistered and took the violent injury from Damali's skin into his. "I've gotta hydrate her."
Not even answering, Tobias immediately ran down the hall to honor the request, but within seconds Carlos heard Tobias's weapon report. It wasn't about waiting to see what had happened. Blind, frantic, Carlos jettisoned Tobias to the cave he'd seen in his mind, having no idea what had gone on in the water tunnel. For all he knew, the team could be dead, the water tunnel nuked by conventional weapons.
Standing quickly with Damali half healed in his arms, Carlos was gone in a flash as walkers broke down the front door, came out of the hall, and rushed the living room, snarling.
"I want your permission to send everything we've got into Jerusalem now," Lilith said, staring at her husband as she burst into his private war room.
"And why would I do that, given how wasteful you all have been? After the heavy losses I have just endured, which could take me at least twenty years or more to rebuild Hell to its old capacities, you now want me to go into reserve demons before the Rapture?" He sat back and laughed in a low sarcastic chuckle, staring at the globe and making a tent with his graceful fingers before his mouth. "Are you not aware that if my demon reserves get depleted, our heir will be forced to rule during the Tribulation period at a severe military disadvantage? Therefore," he added, standing slowly, his gaze menacing her even though he continued to smile, "I suggest you not give yourself over to rage and frustration, darling . . . and that you continue to be strategic."
"I have located and injured the pregnant female Neteru, and her team is on the run."
He picked up a goblet of blood and casually took a sip from it, giving her a sidelong glance. "Forgive my skepticism, but I have heard this sort of overconfident bullshit before, Lilith." He set his goblet down very carefully on the war-room table and leaned forward. "Produce a witness."
"Gladly," she said, fighting an openly insubordinate snarl. "Will Iddabaoth do?"
Icy hands grasped his arms and legs, sending shivers of pure terror into his skeleton. The dark cavern felt like a tomb and as he squeezed the trigger on his automatic, the tragic sound of an empty click reverberated off the walls. Yahveh help him, he would be eaten alive.
Tobias quickly pulled a bowie knife from his fatigues and just as suddenly, dim light let him see that he was all alone in the Well of Souls. He quickly put away the knife and dropped the spent automatic weapon as he fell to his knees and began to pray. An inexplicable knowing told him that whatever had been trying to tear at him from the great beyond had to have been spirits protecting this sanctuary.
"I am not a perfect man, I have sinned," he said in a quavering voice. "1 admit that I fear for my wife, for my own life, but I submit to the will of God."
A sound broke Tobias's prayer and made him look up. Footsteps creeping closer in a steady shuffle put Tobias on his feet in search of any small cove he could find to hide in. Every bit of military training he owned took over his mind as he picked up his gun, prepared to use the gun butt to stun a predator before his knife would instantly slit its throat. But instead of a walker or something equally as formidable, a frightened old man stumbled into the enclosure.
Before Cordell could draw his next breath, a strong hand reached out and yanked him against a wall. For a second he couldn't breathe, couldn't fight the gripping strength, but he still tried to free himself in a futile struggle.
"Stop, before you hurt yourself," Tobias said in a low-timbred warning between his teeth. "It's me, Tobias!"
Cordell stopped struggling and Tobias removed his hand from his mouth.
"You weren't supposed to be here!" Cordell whispered, shaken.
"I know," Tobias said more calmly, wiping at the perspiration that wet his brow. "Walkers finally overran the safe house. I don't know how or why, but they did and Carlos jettisoned me here to finish the mission with you."
"Did that boy make it out all right?" Cordell asked, gripping both of Tobias's arms.
"I cannot say," Tobias murmured, and then looked beyond Cordell's shoulder. "I honestly don't know. All I know is that I owe the man my life--he saved me and sacrificed himself back there ... I heard him yelling as I disappeared."
"Then that's gotta be why I couldn't connect--the signal between us just went black and then nothing." Cordell rubbed his palms over his bald head and walked away from Tobias. "It just ain't right. It just ain't right the way the young is dying . . . the ones who could stand and fight against the coming evil is being called home way too young." He turned and looked at Tobias. "So, we gotta finish this."
"Am I not a woman of my word?" Lilith asked, surveying the Old City from their vantage point in the hills beyond it. She brought her black nightmare around to face her council. "I present to you perhaps the greatest battle theater of them all-- Jerusalem."
When Nuit smiled, she offered him an appreciative nod. "My fellow Chairman, this may have been well before your time, but I assure you that, as a man who appreciates antiquity and the finer points of war, feast your eyes on what can only be described as the true art of war."
She waved her arm out toward the sweeping, panoramic view. "The Temple Mount, the Dome of the Rock . . . the Church of the Holy Sepulcher . . . the Tower of David--and we will siege this city like the days of old, when Babylon was at its zenith and the Roman Empire was an unconquerable force. My machinations led those armies into battle to grind Jerusalem under their heels. . . and we will do so again!"
A thunderous demon cheer went up. Vlad rode down the rows of his Berserkers, looking into the glowing eyes of his frontline captains.