arm and looked at him deeply. "I know the weight of the world is literally on your shoulders right now in a way that, as a woman, I probably can't imagine. But as your woman, let me have your back by helping you dissect this threat so we can come up with a serious strategy as one. Would you trust me, baby? I'm not demanding . . . I'm asking you, as your wife, to let me in."
He stood and walked over to the sliding-glass doors and stretched out both arms to bracehimself against them. She heard him let out a hard breath and watched the thick muscles in his shoulder blades knot with tension.
"Damn, I loved thishouse, D . . . wasn't trying to move again. Not in this lifetime.Pisses me off!"
Within seconds she saw plumes of smoke and fire lines decimating the landscape. The relentless sound of chopper blades beating the air made it appear like a scene out of an old Vietnam War movie. Everything as far as she could see was being consumed by a fast-moving, glowing red carpet as though Hell had vomited itself topside like napalm. A quick, unimpeded scan sent the deafening roar of new fires exploding, gobbling up land like a moving freight train at her. That sudden, intense sound, followed by a blast-furnace of heat almost knocked her off her stool.
Fire planes crisscrossed the horizon, dropping plumes of ochre-colored flame retardant. Yet as she scanned she could feel the unnatural heat within the flames, could see the metal alloy in car hubcaps turn to molten, liquid amalgam as it leaked down blistered streets. A sickening awareness then hit her; the National Guard ranks were all deployed in Iraq-culled down in numbers so critically low at home that the local human population didn't stand a chance against natural disasters at home now.
It took everything in her not to yell at her husband for keeping this from her while she'd slept or to jump up and run hollering through the house for an emergency team meeting. Instead, she stared out at the surreal scene and took another bite of lumpy oatmeal from her spoon and then quickly shoved several pieces of cut banana into her mouth with it. Five more minutes wasn't going to change what was happening, and she needed to use that time to chill Carlos out.
Yeah . . . to keep him chilled out, she needed to remain chilled out. That was the only way they could pull it together and think. The third biblical seal had been broken on the beach in the Greek isles, breaking the economy with it. The black horse was riding hard, devastating industry, crops, tanking the insurance industry, screwing with jobs, thus the housing market-this fire, not unlike the billions being plowed into the war, would have a long-term economic impact that she couldn't even fathom.
Damali briefly closed her eyes. Revelations 6:6 entered her mind as a black scale flashed through her second-sight."A ration of corn for a day's wages, and three rations of barley for a day's wages." But the oil industry and the pharmaceutical industry, known then asthe wine , would not be hurt.
Panic was unacceptable. Panic was deadly.Futile. But at the moment, there were simply no words.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Do what?"
A hard silver stare met her as Carlos turned away from the glass doors. Incredulous, he rubbed his palms down his face and began to walk away. She could tell he was going for distance before he said something that couldn't be taken back.
"You missed the obvious, that's why I said what I said." Damali knew the riddle would hook him and she smiled inwardly as she heard his footsteps stop. She casually got up from her kitchen stool and went to the sink to rinse out her bowl and then shook her head. Some things were simply reflex. Who cared if the dishes were done, given that the house was probably about a couple of hours from beingash.
"Love?" he said, indignant, and then folded his arms over his stone-carved chest. "Love them to death, D. . ."
"Check it out," she said calmly, pointing toward the horizon. "When I had my vision before, everything was being consumed by these dark entities entering people. No doubt there's been a lot of bodies snatched, but I'm still seeing choppers out there, planes . . . what did you tell me . . . there's like eighty eight hundred firefighters on the line, plus how