"Then since you helped to kill my wife--fair exchange is no robbery," the voice belonging to the hand thundered, dragging her into a fissure.
Angels splintered the sky, Neteru Kings and Queens charged into the pit behind her, blowing open the empty caverns as Carlos got to his feet. Massive darkness was closing in on Yonnie, who'd tried to throw everything he had within him at it before a wide black charge began to crush the life from him, cracking his ribs as he yelled.
Humans that still ran through the streets exploded into red stains against the ground and buildings. Carlos threw his head back, released a primal yell, and drew the spear into his grip. Insanity replaced all doubt. A foul stench of absolute demon stung his nose, but pure crazy spiked inside his bones. They'd taken Damali and his kid as a hostage? Was killing his boy--not today!
"laldabaoth, die you bastard! I rebuke you in the name of the Most High!"
Hurtling toward the beast as it swung away from Yonnie, Carlos met a black charge with the power of a nuclear blast that billowed out from the entity's core. In a split second, he jettisoned Yonnie to the church. But Carlos was coming at the beast headfirst, a silver-white bullet of determined fury covered by Heru's shield. The moment the spear pierced the entity, it exploded into a mushroom cloud of black ash and soot, throwing Carlos to land a half mile away.
Grace broke his fall. He could feel things touching him, gentle hands probing him, lifting him, as though putting him back together to make him whole. But as reality returned, he sat up, fully sighted on the steps of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and spun around, crazed. "Darnali!" The Unnamed One had taken his wife.
Carlos stomped the ground as buildings fell and burned all around him. He called his blade of Ausar into his hand, trying to open up a fissure in the earth with white-light pulses, creating such a commotion that Guardians opened the church doors. Yonnie barreled out of the doors first, holding his right arm against his rib cage.
"He took her! Oh, shit, he got her, man," Carlos said, blasting the ground like a madman.
"Carlos, Carlos, what's wrong?" Damali said, running out of the church. "I've been looking all over for you!"
Carlos stood still for a moment, disoriented, and then dropped his blade. He turned and ran, grabbing her up and pressing her to him, not caring if the team saw him lose his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut, and grabbed a fistful of her hair, and buried his face in the crook of her neck. "I thought he took you," he said, his voice raw. "I swore that he finally got you."
"It had to be illusion," she said, holding him close. "The rest of the team wasn't bleeding."
Carlos pulled his gaze up and looked into Damali's eyes as her hand touched the edges of his at her cheek. "They fixed your eyes. . . ."
"Maybe so you could see this, C," Yonnie said, pointing out to the horizon.
Heaven split with a bolt of white light. Legions of Angels filled the sky, lightening skewered the blackened earth, until the team had to look away. The sound of thunderous wings beat the air as a war horn sounded, making every human present cover their ears. A joint vision convulsed the human Neterus while the Neteru Councils began to cheer. Movement so swift in their minds made Damali and Carlos fall, the vertigo impossible to fight. Archangels with white light blades pierced the ground causing it to-belch up its remaining demons. Then they heard the voice--Lucifer's bellows.
Carlos covered his wife's head protectively, pulling her to his chest.
"Michael--damn you!" the savage voice raged from beneath them, creating an earthquake.
"You don't own that power!" a forceful male voice shouted. "Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael, all of my brethren, in the Name of ALL that IS, seal away this treasonist!"
As suddenly as the earth had split a roiling energy of glistening golden light sealed the earth. Pure silence followed. A quiet knowing entered both Damali and Carlos as they slowly looked up and stared at each other.
"They sealed away the Devil?" she asked in awe.
Carlos nodded. "But they've still gotta find his son."
"That's supposed to be a battle for somebody way bigger than us then," she said quietly. "The real ONE" Damali hugged him and laid her head on his chest.
Thousands and thousands of cylindrical lights began to glow, breaking through the darkness as they shot heavenward like a reverse meteor shower. Guardians hugged one another, turning to see that the church, behind them, which was once filled with civilians, had emptied out. All was silent at the Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock, too. The mass ascension was something they could feel in their souls like a quiet sigh from Heaven released around the world.
They all stood gazing at the majestic beauty, while Inez kissed her baby girl. "Momma's gonna see you soon," she whispered into the toddler's ear. "I love you so much, Yaya."
"I love you, too, Mommy," Ayana said, and then squeezed Inez's neck.
But as the landscape slowly dimmed, confused Guardians looked around. People staggered out of buildings crying, some yelling, as they took to the streets.
"What happened?" one man shouted. "Was it a nuclear blast? Did we get nuked? What about the radiation and fallout--we're all gonna get cancer and die."
The team on the church steps looked at one another, every Guardian staggering to a place where they could sit.
"I knew I wasn't going. No big surprise there," Yonnie said quietly, rubbing Valkyrie's hair. "But I don't understand why they wouldn't take you . . . unless you forfeited a ticket on account of me?"
"They didn't take my baby?" Inez said, weeping, her gaze wild. "I know I done sinned up a storm, but Ayana?"
Delores held her face in her hands and wept bitter tears as a stunned Monty just rubbed her back. Marlene sat with a thud beside her and Monty and simply took up Delores's hand, as the Weinsteins hugged each other, rocking with sobs.