Nzinga's battle-ax rent the chamber with a whir and came to a clanking stop in the marble door. The Amazon let out such a thun�derous war cry that thrones shook and Aset's lions roared.
"I'm going to Ausar about this shit," Damali said, leaning onto the table and staring at Eve. "I was in a battle with your son in Hell, and because you wouldn't stand with me to do what has to be done, my powers waned." She pushed away from the table, fully naked, and folded her arms over her bare, bruised br**sts. "But Carlos, being the man he is, said even if I am pregnant and it's Cain's, he would love it and raise it and protect it like his very own."
Eve was on her feet with a strangled gasp. "My son did this to you? Are you certain?"
"Is she on drugs?" Damali said, moving away from Eve to stand by Aset. "Like I wouldn't know who went after me in Hell?"
Eve bowed down and went to one knee. "There is not enough that I can say to you, Damali, but to beg you to forgive me for any danger I may have put you in. I suspect you want a scan, and to end the preg�nancy... after this?"
"No!" Damali shouted, drawing confused stares from the other queens. "I will raise it with my husband, if I am carrying for either man." She waited until Eve slowly stood. "But I would not lie to or deceive my husband about it. Carlos deserves better, and the decision to stay or leave based on my situation is his choice. I told him and had to suck it up-had to bea queen about it and honorably take whatever decision he personally made about this-and I did. I respect him that much."
Eve nodded, wrapping her hands around her waist. "You would keep it?"
Damali held out her bloodied blade arm so that Eve could see the ravaged flesh better. "Even after Cain did this to me," she said in a low, threatening voice. "Even after he pried my legs open and forced him�self between them and made me cry out to Heaven... even after he dropped twelve inches of battle-length fangs and told me I'd be puk�ing my own blood and choking on my own womb when he was done... Yeah, sis, no problem. Me andmy husband will raiseyour son's baby, together-and will even let you act like grandma. The baby didn't have nothing to do with it and I won't play those kinds of games, keeping you from the child to spite you. Why? Just because you loved your son so much you forgot that / was somebody's child? Now how wouldthat seem?"
When Eve cringed and drew away, Damali pranced around the table naked, watching rage implode in each queen's eyes.
"My mother-seer almost went blind when I came home. My hus�band was almost ready to put his blade to his own throat. Shabazz, who is like my dad, hey, we almost had to thump on his chest to restart his heart. My brothers and other Guardians in the house-they still can't breathe." Damali leaned across the table and stared at Eve until Eve looked up at her. "Jam somebody's child, too, Eve. It's not all right for you to cover for your sick-ass, twisted son, just because he's yours and let him tear apart a woman and her family. No matter what!"
Every queen was on her feet and pandemonium broke out in the gallery so badly that daggers and weapons were drawn in millisec�onds. Aset literally had to send a crack of purple lightning into the oval table and speak with thunder to quiet the council.
"Eve," Aset said, pointing at Eve, "this demands redress! I wantall her powers immediately restored, her Isis securely in her grip, her seven-stone necklace returned from wherever it was lost at once! Ausar will be notifiedby me -personally-know that. Carlos has done no less than Adam, in this regard, and what has been visited upon Queen Damali's household and personage is an outrage!"
"You got that right," Damali said, and gave Eve her back. She spoke softly to make the room go still, using every stage performance and voice technique that she owned to heighten the drama.
It didn't matter that her wounds were the result of an attempted rape this time and she'd come away with just a severe beating. What mattered was the violation of her humanity-period. So if the queens wanted to jump to conclusions that a rape also happened while she was in Hell battling, so be it. Cain had already done no less by riding Carlos's energy. He'd violated her once on Carlos's wave, and then again by beating her ass almost to death. Determining when each event occurred was splitting hairs, as far as she was concerned. This was war.
"You especially wanna know why, Eve. You know what else hap�pened down there?" Damali allowed her voice to falter. "I amSome�body's child," she said, pointing upward and slowly, painfully through the bruises, she unfurled her clean, damp wings.
The collective gasp that echoed through the Neteru Queens' Council could have cut stone. Damali turned around to face them with tears in her eyes that were not a part of the theatrics. Just think�ing about it brought it all back full force along with every foul indig�nity.
"They came out while I was down there!" she shouted, pounding on the table and making the opalescent colors within it swirl. She closed her wings around her nakedness in a hug, silver tears streaming down her face as she railed. "I was on adirty cavern floor under his foul body, ghosts and poltergeists laughing and murmuring like phan�tom peeping Toms, while that sweating, grunting beast humped me, sliding his tongue into my ear, and sending the most depraved sexual images into my mind! I'mmarried! How can I sleep with my husband againafter that -with those images in my head? Eve, you tell me! Thiswasn't a seduction. This was-"
Damali tore herself away from the table when the elder queen closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands.
"Oh, God!" Eve wailed. "He didn't!"
"He did!" Damali screamed, feathers flying as she snapped open her wings. "And you know what, you know what! He's threatened my entire family, who I can't protect because my powers are shaky... He'll wipe them out, if I won't go down there and get with him again!"
Eve was up and out of her chair, and she ran to Damali and held both her arms. "Child, my son has lost his mind," Eve said in a horri�fied, urgent rush. "Youcannot go down there and allow him to take you like that while possibly carrying our-"
Damali shrugged away. "I don't want him toever touch me again, Eve. I just want to raise my baby in peace... and to have my full family there in love and support around me so I can put this horror out of my mind."
What she'd declared was no act; if she was pregnant, it was the pure truth. Thinking about Cain touching her gave her hives. Damali looked at Eve hard. "But I can't do any of that as long as Cain is free to roam to and fro. He's stalking me, and either has to go into perma�nent lockup, or be put down like the animal he is."
"I say put the bastard down for good," Nzinga shouted across the chamber. "He's dangerous, and if he's after Damali and her family- what if he attacks her while she's very ripe with child, huh, Eve? The bigger she gets, and the further along the pregnancy goes, she'll be crippled to fight him and ward off an attack! He's a demon and would rape her when she was like that and you know it!"
"I shall beg all of Heaven to allow me to materialize in the flesh again to cut off his member, first," Joan said."Heresy, against a heav�enly body," she whispered, gaining nods all around.
The Aztec, Asian, and Native American queens stood unified with Joan.
"We will raise every noble Aztec warrior from the crusts of their graves!"
"Every dragon's teeth of Shanghais shall be sewn!"
"Every honorable brave shall ride again like a nightmare on the wind!"
"I will summon Anubis, the scarabs of Amen-Ra, and all the an�cient Egyptian entities of old... plus will draw the Orishas of Africa to assist, and I will call the winds of Cyprus and sweep a plague into the bowels of Hell so vast that the Earth will shudder!" Nefertiti hollered, her golden robes billowing after her as she paced behind her throne. "I have six daughters!Six, Eve, count them-and never in my incarnations have I been so enraged. I do not care that we are not supposed to directly get involved in the Armageddon until we are called," she shrieked. "This is beyond my endurance to idly sit by and witness! Your son violatedan angel, and my petitions will be heard Above, if I cross the line!"