A single tear cascaded down Damali's cheek, but she grabbed Carlos's hand still staring out at the horizon. "As long as they didn't split us up."
He nodded. "I can deal, as long as they didn't split us up ... but I am so sorry I stood in your way. If they ain't taking angels and little kids, just because they hung with us," he said, turning to look at the disheartened team, "then what can you do? It is what it is; we just got re-upped for a tour of duty in Hell."
"After all this time ... all those battles, all of the insanity," Rider said, rocking and then jumping up to shout. "This is bullshit! You mean it's not over? We put our lives on the line and there's no cool retirement plan--we got left behind? I know I drink, and cuss, and yeah, I smoke, but--"
"Don't be mad, Uncle Jack," Ayana said, making the group look at her. "The angel said you can't go, 'cause of the babies." She lifted her little chin with pride and smiled wider. "She said that's why I have to help, too, 'cause I'm a big girl."
She pointed a stubby finger at Tara, her voice bright and cheerful as only a child's could be at a time like this, making it all the more surreal. She had every Guardian's complete attention as they drew near the most innocent member of the team.
"Girl," Ayana said with a big smile, looking at Tara, "Aunt Val, you got a boy. But Aunt Jasmine got a girl... and Aunt Krissy and Aunt Juanita gots boys. But Aunt Heather got a girl." She looked at Damali and opened her arms wide and then clapped. "You got bof... a girl and a boy. Plus there's all the ones coming from the mountains where we was. .. and some more from them," she said, pointing toward the other Guardian teams. "Like Miss Habiba gonna have one soon, don't know yet if it's a girl or boy, but she will. I'm gonna be the big sister little mommy."
"Out of the mouths of babes," Damali whispered, closing her eyes.
"Every time," Marlene whispered as her old, tattered black tome, The Temt Tchaas, filled her hands, smoking. She watched in quiet reverence as the frayed black binding slowly covered over with new silver etched with Neteru symbols.
"Babies' names are in there, Nana Mar," Ayana said. "But you can change 'em if you want--that's what the nice lady said."
Guardians laughed. Guardians cried. Some just looked out into the distance too overwhelmed by all they'd recently been through to process anything more.
"Twin Neterus?" Carlos croaked.
Damali's hand slowly covered her mouth.
The child glanced around as Carlos caught his weight against the church's stone wall and she gave him a little shrug, returning her attention to Rider.
"See, Uncle Jack, that's why the angels said stay. You wasn't bad. You not on punishment. But who's gonna be here to teach all the little kids how to fight that big thing that hurts people?"
EPILOGUE
One year later . . .
They clung to life, to survival and hope, dispersed Guardian teams and civilians alike. Tribes of humans determined to live sought refuge in the Carpathian Mountains, and the shelled remnants of the ranges in Afghanistan and Turkey. They flooded into the center of huge landmasses, seeking the Congo, Mount Kilimanjaro, and the highlands of Tibet.
Humanity clawed its way kicking and screaming, some dying along the way, but enough ultimately surviving against all odds to relocate to the Altay Mountains of Mongolia as well as the Ural range of the Siberian plain. People fought their way up Everest, the Andes, across Australia's Great Divide and the Sierra Madre Occidental and Oriental. Guardians led them to clean food and shelter from Templar stashes.
Healers and angels dispatched to hold back disease upon the survivors -who still believed, while others used all their human knowledge inspired by Divine insight to set up guerrilla communications systems, interloper lookouts, and security systems. The war for survival against evil was on.
And the Neteru Guardian team went home, calling their North American squad to safety in the vast Rockies, Sierra Nevada, Grand Canyon, and Appalachians.
The Unnamed held his head in his hands in abject frustration, alone in his fury except for the company of his gestating heir.
"Neterus and Guardians are worse than cockroaches!" he bellowed, and then flung a weak black charge at the listing globe.
He closed his eyes against the devastation of his realms and sat back on his dark throne, spent. He would have to make another wife . . . but who could rival Lilith? Her loss was incomparable. The amount of vengeance he would unleash to redress this offense would smite the world a thousand times over! He would have to make a new Council of Vampires . . . replenish demons, werewolves, phantoms ... he simply shook his head. And they'd destroyed his Thirteenth.
This time his hand would not be forced into play prematurely. There were still humans left behind, many of whom he could compromise. There were still those who'd bought into the illusion even after all the signs were revealed, and those still inhabiting the burned-out cities, those still looking for salvation from a human leader, would be his sheep, his flock; they would bear the mark of the beast. He narrowed his glowing black gaze on the globe and then finally shut his eyes. Defeat was temporary; he had to believe that.
Twenty years to rebuild--so be it.
Quiet peace filled Damali as she gently lowered her son into his bassinet and then placed a light kiss against his soft, cocoa-brown cheek. Unable to resist, she allowed her fingertips to brush against his profusion of silky black curls and stared in awe of his long, onyx lashes that dusted his cherub cheeks. She was still amazed that something so incredible had pushed its way out of her body. Of the two, this one was so calm that Marlene actually had to give him a little whack to get him to take his first breaths of life. So different from his sister. Damali smiled and looked up as Carlos entered the nursery.
"Finally," Damali whispered. "How long did she have you walking the compound halls being nosy until she gave up and closed her eyes?"
Carlos squinted for her to be quiet and Damali covered her mouth not to laugh.
She wanted to be where the action was while me and the fellas were playing cards, Carlos told her, sounding pleased. Rider had his boo on his lap--Mike had Ay ana, and you know Jose andYonnie had their bruisers on their laps talking smack. She loves that, D. So, our girl here wouldn't go down until every other kid in the place gave in and drifted off. When Ayana finally conked out, this one started rubbing her eyes and I started walking back here.You know motion is the only thing that makes her really go to sleep.
She's got you wrapped around her little finger, Damali said in a teasing, mental barb.