the silver. The Chairman would smile. She would try to rush forward, but it felt like she was standing in waist-high water, wearing concrete boots. She moved in slow motion, but she would not be stopped until his head rolled.
Damali looked down at Carlos and stroked his tousled hair. New tears rose to her eyes, and she shut them tightly as she remembered the dream.
She would raise the blade, swinging the heavy metal until it connected with demon flesh, bone, gristle, cartilage, sending a black-blood geyser into the air, on her, spraying the terrain until she almost couldn't see. The Chairman would laugh as the last of the tissue was severed, then he'd wink, and his face would become Carlos's stunned, dead, glassy eyes... flickering silver, then going brown, a haunting question of why left in them.
Another horrible shudder ran through her. Marlene and Father Patrick had said it was posttraumatic stress syndrome - something all warriors dealt with - and it would pass. Big Mike and Berkfield, who had been to 'Nam, confirmed the diagnosis, and the others admitted having similar after-battle nightmares, too. She could only tell Carlos about the first half of the dream; the last part felt so frighteningly real that she couldn't speak of it to him while looking into those same questioning eyes. He'd told her that he still had sleep terrors from time to time, taking him back to his old vampire existence or his torture, but it would soon pass... just like her nightmare of the Chairman would.
He no longer woke up screaming, wiping nonexistent blood from his mouth or cringing at whatever sunlight had filtered into the room. So, why was she still so freaked out? Why was the dream the same, over and over and over again, as if her mind was a CD with a nick on it? And why did it take her so long to warm up in her man's arms? Why did this horror she experienced while sleeping always feel so real?
She had to get the team to the Native American lands Jose owned. Sanctuary, hallowed earth. It was also the only safe place left for them. However, it wouldn't help with the dreams. The dreams still attacked her, whether in a cathedral or hotel bed. As long as Carlos slept beside her, she was tortured to near hysteria day or night. When she slept alone, peace swaddled her mind.
What did this mean? Dear God, what did this all mean?
Just as day broke, Carlos watched Damali finally drift off into a fitful slumber; then he silently crept into the bathroom. He shut the door with care and latched it behind him. Why did Father Patrick have to choose now to go back to Rome? He needed someone to confide in, a man of the cloth, the one who took him to his heart like a son.
A stability factor was needed. Father Pat was definitely that. But every man had his limits; maybe Father Pat found his after Lopez bought it. And who could blame him? The shit they'd all gone through was more than anybody should have had to deal with at any age. It was ridiculous.
But he couldn't escape the fact that every man who had been a force in his life had walked when he'd needed him most. Besides the aged cleric, who'd been a ground wire for a while, who had ever really been around to guide him? He wasn't complaining about it, wasn't crying. That was just a fact. All his life lessons came from the school of hard knocks. The way of the world, alive or dead.
He ran his palms down his face and breathed in deeply, then let the air out of his lungs in a resigned rush.
Weary of the thoughts that besieged his mind, Carlos sat down on the closed toilet seat, hung his head, and shut his eyes to the blue-gray dawn.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," he whispered to the elderly priest in absentia. "It's been who knows how long since my last confession."
Carlos kept his voice to a low murmur, battling for composure and using slow, deep inhalations and exhalations to steady his voice as his thoughts raged. "I can't get Padre Lopez's death out of my mind. I'm so sorry about that, I don't know what to say. They were seeking my essence, my vamp line... and Lopez had it in him, as well as that... image of Juanita I'd poisoned him with, before