chapter nine

by the time they rejoined the combined teams at the table, val had found a spot between krissy and heather, and was sitting directly across from marlene. phat g's squad was taking rotational visits, popping into a few open chairs, grabbing some appetizers, andchatting it up before they went back on duty. inez's mother was in a deep, private conversation with marjorie berk-field, while ayana had finally warmed enough to allowherself to be passed from lap to lap.

female guardians fawned over her, and carlos touched damali's elbow, leaning in to speak into her ear.

"we knew this was inevitable," he said. "and i'm all for it during times like these. but, damali, my gut just ain't sitting right with it."

she nodded. "i know. but i don't know what else to do."

"me, either," he admitted. then, motioning quickly with his chin, he indicated his guardian brothers. "cascade effect is about to happen. krissy got her on her lap making origami out of her place mat, while j.l. is over there having a mild stroke-envisioning the future."

"oh, shit . . ."

"uh-huh. and look at your boy, bobby.eyes wide as saucers. that's the look of a man having heart failure. then i want you to get with dan. heather's all snuggled in, the man is sweating bullets, and if we get back home in one piece i put twenty dollars on it he'll make one of his own tonight. jose is just done-because out of 'em all, 'nita's bio clock is ticking loudest."

damali squeezed his arm.

"yeah . . . and you wonder what keeps me up at night? ever think about what we'll do if every guardian female in the house is pregnant at the same time? only balance beam is marj and marlene . . .tara is still fifty-fifty, who knows. but fact is, since we all live in a group and every woman's cycle has synced up . . . that means the window of fertility is the same, which means all them can-"

"carlos, stop," damali whispered. "i can take gruesome images from vamp council and sleep better at night than worrying about the horror you just described."

"me, too.that's why i'm saying, this is so dangerous on so many levels, d. and i haven't left myself out. every time you hold ayana in your arms i gotta take a walk . . . can't deal. because it's one thing to have an image in the back of your mind, but a clear visual makes everythingcrystal ."

"let's go eat. go get a purge. go do that general stuff that we do . . . aw, lawdy miss claudy."

she strode ahead of him, unable to handle any more. bright smiles greeted them both and ayana gave her a big grin, holding up the paper fan and bird krissy had made.

"look, a birdie an' a fan!"

"that's beautiful, baby," damali said, forcing a smile and picking at her very cold food.

val glimpsed the plates and leaned in to connect with inez. she glanced at big mike's stack of bones. "is your mate half-demon-carnivore, too?"

mrs. filgueiras gasped in so hard that three guardians had to dislodge corn bread from her windpipe.

"no no, no," inez said quickly, slapping her mother's back. she gave damali a brief look that contained a plea for help. "mike eats big. that's all."

openly curious, val cocked her head to the side. "he's not hybrid, is all human . . . but built like a cross between-"

"girl, mike's just from the south," damali said, cutting off val's query with diplomacy.

"i will have to learn these regional differences." she looked at bobby and j.l.'s thinner, wirier frames. "you are not from the south then?"

"uh, no," j.l. said, stuffing food in his mouth to keep from laughing."west coast."

val nodded. "i will have to study a map." then she turned with a big smile and looked at carlos. "where is yolando from?"

"the south," carlos said warily.

damali gave the other guardians the eye and they swallowed smiles. that's all they needed was for mrs. filgueiras to have a screaming jag in the middle of phat g's joint.

marlene was so tore up with repressed laughter that every few moments she'd wipe her eyes at the corners and swat shabazz's teasing hand away from her sides.

"ah," val said. "then the south is good."

jose sprayedlynchburg lemonade in his plate and started coughing.

"who's yolando?" inez's mother asked, still wheezing and fanning her face.

"a very nice hybrid," val said."honorable-best friend of the male neteru."

"is this girl on drugs?" inez's mother whispered.

val beamed at her. "no, i do not need medications to visit from nod, the passage is clear. your daughter's husband eats like yolando-but he prefers blueberry pancakes to animal bones."

jose laid his head on juanita's shoulder and she elbowed him off her, turning her head away while trying hard to breathe without laughing. when rider leaned forward with his elbows on the table, shabazz shook his head.

"man, don't start. i'm begging you," shabazz said.

"now, youknow , of all people,i have to ask," rider said, looking at val. "yolando and blueberry pancakes?"

"jack rider, i forbid you to scandalize this table with inez's mother here and a clearly innocent guest of yonnie's."tara cut rider a glare that could have cut metal. "i mean it.stop."

"it is all right, tara," val said, sippingalynchburg lemonade. she made a deep slurping sound as her straw hit the bottom and then she began picking the sugar off the side of the glass to taste. "he really does like blueberry pancakes, plus steaks and eggs and that long, oily meat . . . ah, bacon. oh, and coffee. i have not seen him eat animal bones yet. i don't think i would like that very much. but i suppose as long as it was cooked and not raw the way demons normally take their carcasses, i could adapt."

shabazz rubbed his palms down his face and turned away.

"why doesshe keep saying demon, lord have mercy jesus? tell me-"

"while we were gone, how many drinks did you let her try?" damali tried to stem mrs. filgueiras's hysteria, cutting her off before her low whisper escalated.

"she had three," marlene said flatly."while she was grazing on the different appetizers."

damali and carlos both closed their eyes.

trying to offer a distraction to sensitive conversation, krissy handed ayana over to val.

"wanna meet a new lady that's gonna be living with us, too?"

ayana giggled."anova angel lady."

"another angel lady," inez translated. "she's intrigued by angels, now.long story for another time."

"she can see my wings?" val laughed and hugged the child. "how did you know that? they're supposed to be invisible. yonnie made them disappear!"

ayana clapped and stroked a place near val that seemed to be four inches from her body. "they're soft. yours are brown. auntie damali's are white. yours are pretty, too."

"c'mon, boo," inez said quickly. "let's go pee pee before we have to give nana some smelling salts."

marlene and marjorie had each grasped one of mom delores's hands and were holding her up.

carlos leaned into damali and the group got quiet. "the kid can see, boo."

damali nodded and stared at inez. "i know."

"come to mommy," inez said more firmly, her eyes panicked. "you haven't been to the potty in a long time."

ayana hid her face against val's neck. "i don' wanna go to the scary pictures."

inez's mother gaped at her granddaughter and then at inez. the table was silent and the noise of the crowd beyond it seemed so far away.

"she never went in that bathroom, 'nez. how did she know?" mrs. filgueiras opened her arms for the child. "come to nana," she said sweetly and then her eyes filled with tears. "you used to be able to do the same thing as a little girl, but i never listened to you. maybe we make our mistakes with our own, and if we're blessed, we get to make up for all of that with the grands."

marjorie hugged delores. "i didn't listen, either, with my two."

"did the same thing, living in denial," marlene said. "lost my girl, you're blessed. you got them both." she swallowed hard and picked up her drink.

just that fast the mood at the table had shifted. shabazz let an ice cube fall from his mouth into his glass.

"it's the way of the world. one tiny pebble in a still pond can cause ripples throughout the entire lake. things are changing again, people. brace yourselves."

"c'mon, suga.nana won't let those scary pictures get her baby girl, okay?"

the child refused to budge. "they move, nana. i don't wanna go!"

rider took his 9mm out of the holster and checked his magazine. "i'm from coal mining country. i think this little cutie is our canary."

jose took a deep breath and pulled a berretta out from the back of his jeans that had been stashed under his shirt. carlos and damali were on their feet, as was val, holding the child to her breast.

"yo, g," carlos hollered, motioning him over.

phat g hustled to the table, his locks crackling with static. "what up, man?"

"deep concern," carlos said. "how's your menon the roof?"

phat g hit his two-way."you good?"

"yeah, we cool up here. got a problem?" anthony replied.

"brother net is feeling some type-a way. that ain't good."

"we on it."

a high-pitched whine made carlos, mike, damali, and inez turn at the same time. carlos pushed val to the floor with the baby and drove across the table to body-shield mom delores, flinging a disc of heru that cut through brick.

"incoming!"

the blast rocked the top of the building, sending patrons in a screaming frenzy. phat g's squad came over the bar, out of the kitchen, and from hidden alcoves.

"get these civilians out of here!" he ordered."protocol drill alpha!"

damali swam against a sea of panicked bodies. it had to be an aerial assault, because the roof was being bombarded. carlos had shattered a window and had a shield up blocking the first floor where there were hundreds of innocent lives at risk. chaos thrummed in her ears as he folded-away to the roof to assist guardians there, and tacticals on level one had commandeered the rack of firewood, sending stake missiles whirring through the door like mlrs shells.

tables turned over, guardians hunkered down. flaming demon arrows whizzed through the front door and windows with black bolt charges, falling at carlos's shield. it was surreal. pandemonium would leak into her mind in sharp, quick-stop frames and then erupt in real time.

valkyrie had her niece clamped between her athletic thighs behind a table while she loaded silver-tipped arrows in her bow. the archer then went up on one knee, firing out the unblocked side windows, while ayana scrambled behind her. val's movements were physical poetry, like a choreographed dance, as she popped up quickly, set a target, released instant death to splatter a demon, and then dropped down again to protect the child.

rider, shabazz, jose, and mike had commandeered the four corners of the establishment, teaming with phat g's squad to shoot out of side windows as the crowd cleared out. bobby and dan covered civilians, helping to usher them out the back exit with berkfield and several fast-moving brothers on phat g's team. fire extinguishers manned by team members were sending white plumes of dense fog everywhere, countering the inferno from flaming arrows designed to smoke the teams out.

phat had rolled out the heavy artillery with the kitchen crew. from under the cabinets they broke out rocket-propelled grenade launchers, tossing them to inez and juanita, while the rest of thenew york squad handed off handheld uzis and assault rifles. marlene got the assembly line going until every guardian was strapped. crowd screams got farther and farther away. mom delores stayed with ayana and valkyrie as damali unsheathed her blade. she looked at inez's mother and val.

"val, you got 'em?"

"on my life, queen."

phat g dropped down beside them with two uzis and a shoulder launcher. "i got her back. y'all go make it do what itdo . they ain't comin' in our house like this." he pointed to the train tracks with the barrel of a machine gun. "the third rail's got a lotta juice. get my roof squad to tell your tacticals when the trains roll-soon as they go by, stand with our squad and bend the beam to fry those fuckers, feel me?'scuze my french, ma'am."

"good look, g. good look," damali said, ducking through the arrow assault and heading to an opening in the side windows as the building shook again.

she met carlos on the roof, shielding three men.

"these guys were lucky," carlos yelled. "brother ant is hit, but if you work on him, he'll be able to use that leg again."

"they're sending up what feels like mortar rounds from catapults," rene shouted over another rocking blast.

carlos looked at damali."catapults? what the-"

another blast rocked the roof, but carlos's shield took the heavy impact.

"they've got a position up on the train platforms," rod said, bracing through another blast.

damali took over for carlos, trying to piece together shattered bone and torn ligaments while keeping the fellow guardian conscious.

lisa and adrienne hustled through the metal door with heather and jasmine, all four women toting heavy firepower. rushing to the edge of the roof between blasts, lisa set the launcher down quickly, adrienne stuffed it, and the launcher was up on her shoulder in a matter of seconds. heather and jasmine covered them, sending a spray of uzi shells toward the offending command post. the blast got deflected by a black charge and, rather than taking out the more densely packed enemy, it took out a section of train trestle with ten demons. but now there was the issue of innocents.

"damn!" lisa shouted and reloaded.

"hold up," carlos said, looking at rene and rod. "what time's the next train through?"

"four minutes, man." rod crossed himself and checked his clip. "we can bend the beam, fry 'em,maybe interrupt the power so the train stalls-but at this point, it might be moving too fast. might still keep coming even if the power shuts down, then the one behind it will ram it. you talking chain reaction, bro, with a lotta people dying."

"okay, y'all-i need phat g, 'bazz, j.l., dan, any tacticals y'all got to bend the beam," carlos said. "while damali is working on that downed soldier, i want three seers on mind-jolt to hit the people that originate the schedule, so they'll check and double-check and delay. it's gotta be so that the train behind this one doesn't ram the one already heading our way."

"get our stonehengers setting up blue-white charge on this building, too," damali shouted from where she sat. "anything that slithers up the wall, i want it to fry on contact."

"chantay and 'nyya can work with 'em, and we got seers that monitor the trains all the time for demon flybys," adrienne said. "carmen's got the damned thing memorized."

"cool. put her on the lead and our squad will reinforce," damali said, covering anthony's wound. "both squads have enough sharpshooters to pick them off one at a time, if they stay behind carlos's shields."

"yeah, but i've gotta go catch a train."

carlos was off the roof before anyone could draw a breath. he stood on the tracks, assessing the damage, deflecting catapulted black-energy orbs. there was a gaping hole that revealed fragile trestle on the left side of the track. the platforms down at 125th and up at 137th were crawling with skeleton-faced demon warrior archers in black armor and spaded tails. they were the source of the rain of fire. carlos looked down at the ground through the massive hole in the tracks. below him, a demon cavalry, riding fire-snorting black stallions, was advancing on the building. across the street on two building roofs were the catapults. he stared at the crest hard, his old throne knowledge bubbling to the surface of his mind . . . vlad the impaler's hungarian forces?

then to command them, the necromancer had to be near-as did their mistress, the countess.

oncoming train lights returned carlos to the moment. he added in his pull to the third rails, watching the blue-white power slowly bend. it groaned loudly, the distortion of atmosphere created a haunting sound.one mind . . . he was about to broadcast out via telepathy and then froze, quickly retracting the thought. he was viral, could black-shock every tactical on two teams!

the lights went out on the train, but it was already committed to momentum. he could hear the people inside the cars screaming in the dark. he had to get behind it.

folding-away, he came up behind it, drew a white-light orb into his hand, and threw it as hard as he could. the cord caught and held, but the weight of the train dragged him forward with a violent pop-it was heavier than the dragon cain had tried to stop in that same manner. he hit the tracks on his stomach, twisting, dragging, almost gutted by the track ties before he was able to untangle himself. there was no way to anchor the rocketing cars. plan b. laughter echoed from near the catapults. good. the generals had given away their positions.

bloodied and losing energy, he temporarily lifted the shield from the roof team, flung it to the track hole just in time for the train to sail across it. a catapult blast answered the vulnerability, but phat g's squad, with his, had finally bent the third rail energy and then scorched the offending rooftop attackers.

"this man is whole;get him down below, away from the catapults," damali said.

"how's the next train looking?" carlos hollered to phat g.

"off schedule.word is getting back that there's a stalled train on the 131 bisect up inharlem ."

"tell those seers, good looking, g."

"you're busted up," damali said, putting a hand to his chest."real bad, carlos."

"i know," he said, heaving in air and spitting out blood. "but we gotta go smoke sebastian and the countess-motherfuckers raised vlad's army."

"what?"

"that's why they've got catapults."

"take five. you go down, our shields go down, and that can't happen with a baby and an away team in the house."

carlos nodded, weaved for a moment, and then sat down with a thud beside anthony.

"lisa, get medic up here.berkfield from our squad. we've got a man down, and i can't heal him 'cause of time."

lisa nodded and waited for an opening in the rounds.

"tell medic it's my husband and to work hard, all right?"

with a crisp nod, lisa was a flash, dodging between heavyfire while adrienne took up her post.

damali's eyes scanned the horizon. so they were fighting old-school, huh?catapults, archers, infantrymen, and cavalry . . . fourteenth-century battle tactics. if lilith had been with them, then it would have been another story. even nuit had updated, because he'd been in a council chair long enough. but these were new councilmen-sebastian only having slightly longer tenure than the brand-new countess.

if carlos opened theark here it would leave a smoking black hole and too much civilian damage. police sirens were too far off. okay, the darkside had co-opted the authorities, too. had black-boxed this area. okay, then it was time to find the edge of that sucker and light it up.

damali came back to carlos's side and felt his pulse, placing her hands on his chest as berkfield ran across the roof and dropped down.

"baby . . ." she said quietly. "i don't know how you even walked over here. it's worse than i thought." she looked at berk-field and then wiped carlos's hair from his brow as his head lolled from side to side. "he's got multiple internal injuries, spleen, liver, cracked ribs. he's hemorrhaging."

"i'm good, just need to rest for a minute. holding the shields is draining me."

"we've gotta get a transfusion going, d-or you're gonna have to do the full monty. i can patch him till you get back, but he don't look so good. not like i've ever seen him."

just as berkfield was speaking, shields dropped.

"holy christ, d-he's passed out."

"stay with him," damali said, firing light pulses from the tip of herisis ."everybody off the roof.now!"

she looked over the edge of the building at the increasing black wave of demon cavalry heading toward the now-unshielded restaurant, as berkfield and rene pulled carlos up to hitch their shoulders under his armpits. phat g and rod helped anthony, while female guardians kept the pressure on with a blanket of shells.

"jose!" damali shouted, pointing to the thick line of motorcycles out front with her blade."you, dan, bobby, and any brothers who can ride-on horses!"

"ride or die, d!"jose shouted, and then ducked back into the building.

moments later, a squad of running, shooting guardians burst out the front doors and windows, hopped on bikes, hard-riding with handheld uzis, heading directly for the demon cavalry line on the wide boulevard. horses reared as the bikes drove right at them, and the team flew by steel-girding, spinning out to make a run at them again. they broke the line, avoiding sword slashes, mowing down demons drive-by style, and then led the undead cavalry away from the building toward the expressway. in her peripheral vision she saw a female guardian lean out the window of an adjacent building, providing machine-gun cover as her men on the ground rode hard. it had to be lashonda, because as quickly as she'd popped into the window, the woman was down on the ground covering running pedestrians and pushing them to safety.

damali could see it all in her mind-black bat-winged horses ridden by skeletal troops being taken out by semis and weekend swift-moving traffic while the bikes maneuvered between cars, zigzagging through the lanes. something unknown was also affecting the people in the neighborhood. non-guardians, regular citizens, were shooting out of windows, knocking demons off their mounts with baseball bats, crowbars, and steel pipes. it was as though all ofharlem took to the streets, people who should have been terrified stood with guardians-eyes blazing with a silent, furious message:not here. not in our neighborhood . unsure of what to make of it all, damali pressed on. the divine had moved people, she was clear, but she hoped they wouldn't be killed. but she had to stop that reign of terror coming from the far platform. the archers had to go down.

the inbound train had safe room to pass, even as precarious as the track was. the moment it neared, she folded-away and hitched a ride, unseen-holding on to the far side until the very last moment. popping up, she hit the archer's outpost with a white-light pulse from the tip of theisis . demons screamed, incinerating on contact. she flipped off the train and dropped down on their ashes, sending them up in a plume.

fury in her eyes, she focused on the remaining catapult. that was where the generals had to be holed up. with their cavalry decimated, archers fried, and one catapult down, if she could light up the black box, then she could stop the infantrymen that were about to storm the building. there was no elegant way to do that other than to get over to that rooftop and come out of a fold-away swinging.

but to her horror, the infantrymen rushed the joint. her focus split as she realized that someone must have called in the kamikaze order. it was no longer about strategy, just straight hand-to-hand combat.

snarling, hissing, growling entities scaled the walls, propelled themselves from fire escapes, and dropped from the train trestle infrastructure. she could hear mom delores scream, hear ayana scream. demon bodies splatted green gook and sulfur everywhere. in a flash, mom delores popped up, squeezed off a round, and got down. in two-handed swings, valkyrie was loping heads, while juanita had her back in 40mm shell single shots.

inez was out front like a hellcat, hunched down low, firing with everything she got her hands on with mike, rider, and shabazz. pure hatred shone in her team's eyes. j.l. and phat g's crew were working knives, up on tables out in front of the building, fly-kicking,then spinning with butcher-knife precision. phat g and his tactical squad kept stakes whirring to cover them from being overrun. mo and his kitchen crew sent so much stainless steel through the door to sever heads that streetlamps caught the silver gleam like passing tracer patterns. sprinkler systems were going off, spraying holy water everywhere. good.

damali breathed a sigh of relief. demons couldn't get in through the prayer barriers. they could send in artillery that could maim or kill, but the building interior was secure.

"fall back. hold your fire," she shouted, knowing it would confuse the inexperienced generals.

demons surrounded the building and waited. it was a standoff as they contemplated what to assault the open windows and blown-off doorways with next. another catapult blast hit the roof and shook the building.

if she was watching the progress, so were the darkside's generals. in a quiet fold-away damali came up behind the small retinue manning the catapult. she hit it with a white lightning blast-stunning sebastian, and swinging at the countess with herisis . the blast she'd sent bounced off the night.

elizabethshrieked and caught herself against a hard, invisible force-the same way sebastian hit it hard. of course they would be shielded, as commanders. punk bitches.

damali was gone, only to step out of a fold-away on the other side of their roof. hatred-filled eyes met. damali'sisis chimed in the air. white lightning crackled from its tip as a blue-white charge overtook her arm. she released a neteru war cry that stilled demons and made them turn to look up. sebastian yanked the countess into a vapor escape. damali hit the rooftop with a traveling white-light nova that sent a blinding prism across the roof, knocked out the catapult, and then made every demon within the black box in front of the restaurant explode.

just as suddenly as the assault began, it was over. traffic and sirens could now be heard clearly.

"casualties?"damali called out.

"roll call," phat g hollered.

damali counted heads as her team slowly emerged from their makeshift bunkers. inez had her child in her arms, and her mother had obviously prioritized survival over shock and horror. mrs. filgueiras lowered her weapon. val was collecting her silver arrows from demon carcasses and ash. rider stood, hocked, and spit.tara slammed an empty magazine down, while big mike gently set down the grenades he'd been slinging.

"we'll get this place rebuilt with the quickness, g," damali said, looking around at the devastation. "we got some safe houses up inbrooklyn while all that goes down, but in the meanwhile, we gotta cover you with the authorities."

phat g smiled. "tacticals-shell casing and bullet removal protocol! weapons stash in false walls!" he looked at damali. "a train transformer blew up, and i'm suing the city for business interruption and unsafe conditions, if they harass a brother. we got insurance, feel me?"

damali hugged him and again counted heads, missing two-berkfield and carlos. anthony hobbled out with the help of rene.

"casualties?" she hollered again, beginning to run through the restaurant to the storage room in the back.

seeing berkfield come out of a door shaking his head made her come to a skidding halt.

"we got one, d," berkfield said, holding her shoulder. "his pulse is barely there and he didn't come around . . . and i tried my best to take as much of it as i could. he didn't come around. you've gotta get him to his kings, maybe."

but as she was about to pull away from berkfield, she looked at his complexion. his pallor was waxy and cold. he opened his mouth to speak and then simply dropped.

"richard!" marjorie's shriek could have shattered glass.