because my third eye obviously knew it was blocked even when I didn't. And even though I know weswore to each other that we'd never block each other from picking up environmental information . . . under the circumstances I'll let thisone time pass because I know you did it from a loving standpoint." She paused and allowed her silence to challenge him. "But don't do that to me again without my permission. I wouldn't do it to you."
Carlos let out a hard breath. "Okay, all right. I'll admit it. I put you in a bubble.My bad."
"I'm not Ayana."
He turned to look at her, his eyes pained. "But you're carrying precious cargo."
"How bad is it?" she said quietly, setting down her tea.
He let his head hang back and closed his eyes for a moment. "Bad. You want a banana with the oatmeal?"
"Drop the barrier, Carlos."
"Eat, first." He walked over to the stove and pulled out a small pot.
"Talk to me," she said in a calm tone, studying the stress in his back.
"It's the perfect storm," he said, adding water and a pinch of sea salt to the pot before hunting for the canister of oatmeal. "Last night about twoA.M. , Yonnie shot me a jolt. The West Coast is on fire from Santa Barbara to San Diego. Even Malibu is in flames. Multimillion-dollar homes going up just like shacks. Fires sprung up outta nowhere-the National Weather Service is claiming La Nina and the Santa Ana winds blowing from east to west out of the mountains and valleys with no humidity . . . down to like a 4 percent factor, saying that after the drought in the region, the dry condition is what's caused the tinderbox. Now, this morning, they're saying arson may have started it-but we already coulda told 'em the darkside was behind this bull."
Damali looked out the window and covered her heart with her hand. It wasn't fireplaces . . . damn. "Drop the shield," she whispered. "Please."
"I'm begging you, D. Let me tell you what I know, and after you've had breakfast, I'll drop it. You trust me?"
Begrudgingly, she nodded, but she hated being treated as though she were so fragile she might break.
"Thank you," hesaid, his voice quiet and tense. "They've already evacuated two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand residents as of six o'clock this morning. I-15 is shut down, and by now more than half a million people have been evaced. Four hundred thousand acres have burned and it's still blazing out there. Meanwhile, New Orleans is getting hit with flash floods again-the Gulf is about to be targeted, it seems, for major flooding, while the central part of the country is getting beat to death by tornadoes and while the Southeast is getting hammered by a drought so bad that Atlanta . . .Atlanta , D, is rationing water. Their pipes might go dry within the next ninety days."
Her gaze remained fixed to the horizon beyond the sliding-glass doors. "The fires make sense. They know we're located somewhere in the region . . . somewhere close to our old stomping grounds."
"Yeah," Carlos said with disgust, shaking too much cereal into the heating water. "They know L.A. was my old favorite zone. Know we had a Beverly Hills joint at one time, might have even felt our vibrations down in San Diego-but because we're cloaked by prayer, and they can't find us, the Beast took a torch to the entire region. Firefighters are calling this the worst siege they've ever seen and as soon as they put out one fire, another one explodes.Just like in Athens."
"They thought we were gonna fall back to Athens after that last battle, our team thinking we were victorious . . . oh, shit," she murmured. "So he burned down the capital."
"That motherfucker knows no bounds, D," Carlos said, pointing at her with a wooden spoon, causing her to stare at him. "He's burned down an entire U.S. coastline! They've had to stop Hollywood productions, got almost a half a million acres of primo real estate up in flames, burning down the entire West Coast to get to one house of rats-us."
"They want us out of hiding, Carlos. We can't stay here. Our prayer barriers hold against evil, but not natural events like fire and floods.Brilliant move on their part. The house is gonna get consumed, sooner or later. All those people . . ."
"I know. I know." Carlos angrily stirred the bubbling slurry of cereal as though it had offended him. "But he's