"Baby, how do you know?" he murmured, cupping her cheek with his hand. "I can't make life; I can only take life like I am now."
"Uriel told me," Val said in a quavering voice, her eyes filling with tears as she wrapped her arms around herself and lifted her chin. "The Neteru born must have seven Guardians for protection--ours plus Ayana, the new mother-seer, makes seven, Yolando. It's part of the prophecy."
Marlene rushed forward and gently grabbed Val by the arms as the team suddenly looked at Damali. "What's the full prophecy the angel told you, honey? Talk to us."
Val nodded. "What Damali is carrying has the power, when fully matured, to stop the one-third destruction of humankind foretold in Revelation. If this progeny is born and can reach maturity, then the one-third population wipeout can possibly be averted. This will help tip the scales toward the balance of the Light. Every one of these children must be a part of the new team."
A tiny squeal rang out in the room as the pearl in Damali's grasp fought to speak without water.
"Dip the oracle under tap water or something," Marlene commanded, eyes frantic.
J.L. rushed forward with the ice bucket, sloshing melted ice water, and offering it to Damali, who just stared at him. Carlos reached back, feeling for the wall to lean against with a thud.
"Dunk the pearl," Carlos said in a raspy voice. "I thought we weren't supposed to tell anybody yet . . .just dunk the pearl."
A high-pitched squeal wafted up from the bucket as soon as the necklace hit the water. "I was just bursting to tell. The Queens said I couldn't--not until Uriel made other announcements! So, now it's official. Congratulations, everybody!"
Damali yanked the necklace out of the water and simply stared at the rivulets cascading down her forearm.
"Oh . . . shit. . . ." Jose bent over, hands on knees, and began to hyperventilate.
"Like, what does this mean?" Berkfield asked quickly, his gaze furtive and haunted. "Like what are we gonna do, all this at risk and down a Neteru? Anybody hearing me?"
"It has to be all right," Marjorie said, wringing her hands as she spoke. "There must be a plan."
"Don't freak, people," Shabazz warned, taking temporary command of the team. His dark, intense gaze swept the room, his regal African features set hard in his dark ebony face as a blue static charge ran down his dreadlocks and then connected to the charge running down Marlene's long, silver dreadlocks. "You saw how crazy strong C got in Detroit when Drac came after Damali and the team, right?" He waited until shoulders began to relax. "I don't know what the plan is yet, but I know I've lived through enough bullshit to know there is a plan."
Marlene swept her arm around the group. "We've got, for all intents and purposes, two sets of grandparents here--me and Shabazz, Marjorie and Berkfield. Between the four of us, we've got the skills of two seers, a strong veteran tactical, sharpshooter, aikido master, healer, and stoneworker . . . practically an entire squad, just from us. We represent the four cardinal points now. Plus, every man on this squad that's a father-to-be is still a viable warrior--and is probably more insane now than ever before. Every female who's carrying is still a force to be reckoned with, Ashe. So let's not get our heads all twisted, like Shabazz said-- not yet. We've got months before we have to worry about all that."
"Ashe," Inez said. "But I have to get to my momma and my baby."
"First order of business, as soon as we can get to the States, suga," Big Mike assured her. "But we can't be bringing Mom and boo through no crazy energy distortions."
Inez nodded and leaned against his huge, six-foot-eight, tree-trunk frame, which made her seem even shorter.
"I just wanna know how all this happened at the same time?" Berkfield said, wiping the perspiration away from his bald scalp.
Shabazz smiled. "C'mon, man. It ain't been that long since you got some--you know how the birds and the bees work."
"That's not what I mean!" Berkfield yelled, growing peevish. "I mean the timing."
"Communal living," Marlene said in a cheerful voice, un-fazed by Berkfield's tone. "Fertile women who live in the same home, same tribe, all cycle around the same time ... all the children born within a community like that are normally conceived and born around the same time. Lots of cousins. This is life still happening, even in the darkest moments in history. The human spirit will prevail, no matter what. These children will all need one another." Her tone sobered as she looked around the room. "And in a family like this, if one or both parents don't make it--which is a reality we have to be at the ready to always deal with--that child will not go- parentless. We will raise all of them like the village we are. Ashe."
Murmurs of Ashe filled the room as each Guardian couple fell quiet to contemplate Marlene's and Shabazz's words.
Rider went to the mini-bar, opened the door, and just stared at the selections.
Yonnie followed him, and then materialized a pack of red Marlboros in his hand, pulled out a cigarette for himself, and offered one to Rider without lighting either one. Both men simply stood shoulder to shoulder dragging on their unlit butts, smelling the tobacco while lost in their own thoughts.
"Uriel told me, too," Tara murmured thickly, finally breaking the silence in the room as she drew in deep breaths looking out the glass doors toward the unending blue sea.
She pushed a strand of her dark brown hair behind her ear and turned her face toward a shaft of sunlight that bathed her beautiful Native American features in tones of gold.
"My womb was dead for four decades, but was needed ... I am needed and what grows within me is needed. I'm not dead anymore. I'm alive." Tara looked at Yonnie. "You might be alive, too . . . when's the last time you cut yourself to see if you bled red blood? The Light works quietly, subtly, and when we least expect it."
"I ain't been cut since D.C. . . . everything healed the moment we came through the Light and we got dropped here."
Yonnie stared at Tara for what felt like a long time and then opened his palm. Guardians gathered around him, craning to see the results of his test. With a shaking forefinger he willed forward a razor-sharp vampire fingernail and sliced into his palm. Thick, red blood oozed to the surface, painting his palm crimson. Yonnie clutched his chest like a man having a heart attack and staggered backward until he crashed into the dining-room table. Val caught him under an arm before he fell, and then pressed her fingers against his jugular.