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"damn," yonnie said, smiling. "your woman is still gangsta, man. i love it!"
"that's why i love her," carlos said with a half smile. he looked at damali, his smile fading as he tried to comprehend her strategy. "so, we get the underground guardian teams to start blowing up the internet and guerilla radio waves and all that with what . . . like stories of victories?"
"yeah," she said flatly. "i'm not saying we ask people to put their heads in the sand or to try to convince them that bad things aren't happening out there, or that the economy doesn't suck. but we want to remind them that there's stillmore good than bad overall. and we get our rebels to start playing cuts from every positive artist we can, even if it's old music.get the covenant in the loop, too, in order to get word out to the houses of worship to stop talking about everything that's going wrong, but start claiming victory about all the good that is happening, despite the seeming odds. that ought to begin to create a reversal of some of those possessions."
"i'm down with that," shabazz said. "makes sense from a manifesting energy standpoint . . . what you think is what you attract-but get to the part where we hunt their asses down."
"follow the money," carlos said, stepping closer to the counter.
damali backed up and watched, loving how his former confidence clicked into place like a loaded glock the moment he knew his boy yonnie had his back. it was amazing to witness and they hadn't violated any rules . . . yonnie knew because yonnie was yonnie. she watched carlos begin to talk with his hands over the surface of the countertop, the heat beginning to cast hologramlike, shimmering images just above it.
"the west coast is, for all intents and purposes, gone," carlos said.
j.l.'s presence in the doorway made everyone look up. his eyes were bloodshot with dark shadows beneath.
"i got something here," he said, entering the room with a bucket filled with oddly cut copper piping."was up all night. blood music got gobbled up by a canadian firm because the dollar is stronger abroad now . . . council group entertainment. you have two guesses what the reference to council group means, and one doesn't count. they have a building in l.a., but their main headquarters is in toronto."
"that's still north american territory, bro," yonnie said, glancing at carlos.
"no doubt," carlos said, rubbing his chin as he and yonnie exchanged a knowing look. "nuit called your bluff, so i guess that sob made the come up. would explain the power rush you've felt coming off him, since you were linked more directly to him than i was."
"same board of directors as blood music had, but now he's a multimedia conglomerate bigger than time warner," j.l. said, glancing between yonnie and carlos. "the link that led me to them was that every one of their artists' hits was on the myspace pages of the teens who'd committed the most recent sicko violent crimes. ten dollars on red says cge is fallon's new playground."
"you'sa bad man, j.l.," shabazz said, going over to pound his fist. "what's up with the bucket, though?"
j.l. looked at the small assembly of guardians around him. "krissy was bad off. her mind and spirit took a hit from all the negativity. when we went off shift, she couldn't stop crying and she had balled up into a fetal position in the bed."
"you should have come to get me," marlene said quietly. "before you put in the filters, that girl downloaded everything off the net and listened to it all day long-"
"i know, mar, but i had to do this myself," j.l. said with a frown. "she'd only stop crying when i'd remind her of all the good that was in the world . . . she was looking at the fires, panicking, going into a cold sweat.so i built something, because i figured if it was affecting her like this, what about a regular average person . . . that's why i didn't come to you, mar. i knew it was something i had to figure out on my own."
"you read the article i'd put under your door last week?" marlene said, scowling at shabazz.
"yeah, of course, mar," j.l. said. "i always read the cool stuff you give me. that's how i learned to build this . . . the psi around krissy was all jacked up."
"you owe me money," marlene muttered to shabazz. he didn't say a word, just went in his wallet and handed her a twenty.
"what's in the bucket, man?" carlos said, surveying j.l. from an uneasy distance.
"prayer-infused, catalyzed resin with copper, silver, and aluminum shavings for conductivity. then to stand the copper pipes up in the solution till it hardened i used a form board, just a piece of plywood with holes cut into it so the pipes wouldn't fall over. then i took seven copper pipes, inserted rutilated crystals in them and capped them off. what you then have is a homemade energy transponder.a white-light superconductor. i'm a tactical, right?"
j.l. looked at the group who only returned blank stares. "okay, so i set my intention on positive white light and read positive info out loud while touching the copper piping, sending a tactical charge into it . . . and then took my hand off it, put krissy's hands on it, and i watched dark static get sucked out of her body and get trapped in the resin. she chilled right out after that." j.l. smiled when everyone's eyes widened. "don't touch the bucket, though. that black slop in the bottom caught in the sticky resin is what was making my wife sick-she got it from the airwaves. i figured i can set it in the yard and just let it burn since we're gonna be out soon.right?"
"right," marlene said slowly. "any other reason why you might not have wanted me to do a standard purge, j.l.-even though your invention is awesome and something we might need in the future? i'm just saying?"
marlene gave him a sideways glance. everyone watched j.l. shift nervously from foot to foot.
"i had to be sure i got everything out of her my way, marlene," he said after a moment. he went to the sliding-glass doors, opened them, and then bounded down the steps.
"she's pregnant," marlene said flatly. "i'm taking full paycheck bets."
"lotta that going around," shabazz muttered. "and hell no, i ain't betting no senior seer."
they all looked at yonnie.
"not a word," carlos warned. "not one word, man."
"peace," yonnie said with a shrug and waited until j.l. rejoined them at the counter.
damali and carlos shared a private glance, but said nothing.
"what's the plan?" j.l. asked, seeming so nervous he looked like he was about to leap out of his skin.
carlos clapped his hands together and rubbed them hard, drawing friction-produced sparks before spreading them out on the table. "old-school," he said, placing his hands flat on the tiled surface and causing the map of the world to begin to appear in a shimmering glaze on top of it. "they don't give a rat's ass about a building in downtown l.a. if it burns. they probably dangled that cge building in front of us as the first lure, hoping we'd charge in there and bust the place up-but we didn't."
he moved his finger down the shimmering replica of the coastline and then wiped it away. "fires, primarily focused here in san diego where they sensed us, but they couldn't get an accurate bead on us because we haven't come out for weeks. but when i took that drive to get damali some grub, they were all over my trail like flies on shit. that's why the worst of the wildfires are down here in san diego. just like in athens, these were started by arson, aka the darkside."
as carlos went through each geographical barrier, he made a section of the country disappear. "the gulf-flooded out before the san diego fires, 'cause they were still looking for us, not sure where we were. droughts, twisters . . . but what hasn't been hit?" carlos looked up with a hard smile."motown, motor city.otherwise known as detroit. why?
"strategic location to quickly fall back to canada from the united states, if you've got a music label in the states, plus that area's got the whole music legacy thing going on . . . besides, what was the most positive music influence talking about love?" carlos looked at damali and smiled.
"rhythm and blues," damali said."the last castle. you take r&b, jazz, neo-soul, and turn those positive genres negative, hey . . . you affect a lot of people. we already saw what the effects of negative hip-hop did-the positive artists are fighting to hold their own. but detroit has a lot of history, a lot of psi in the plus column that would be hard to overwrite."
"the underground railroad history alone would be hard to track over," marlene said, glancing around the group. "blacks, whites, and native americans came together up there-they'd have to blot out the energies of sojourner truth and frederick douglass . . . naw.wouldn't happen that fast up there. plus all the love songs that came out of the motownempire , it would take them some time to wear that down."
"but the economic crash hit detroit hard," yonnie argued."had a lot of depressed mugs up there.murder rate through the roof. be real. detroit has issues, all love train music aside."
"right," carlos said, adding continents to the shimmering mosaic on the countertop. "but it's bigger than that . . . if you follow the money." yonnie pounded his fist. "negative music lyrics, movies, and news broadcasts coming out of cge are just the conduit to create depression, lowered resistance to negative vibes, loss of hope, and to let the shadows in-but they started with music because music is so pervasive and is the universal language. but this bigger picture is all about the benjamins and world domination."
satisfied when the team nodded with understanding, carlos pressed on. "first of all, a weak dollar internationally means that foreign countries can easily gobble up real estate in the united states, especially places compromised by natural disaster. so, canada, britain, ireland, france, japan . . . dubai, anywhere their currency is stronger than ours at the moment, can start to make a serious down payment on america. and what will that do?"
carlos looked around the group and then answered his own question. "start a national panic. americans, already feeling stressed by wars, natural disasters, hate crimes, breaches in justice and national conscience, conspiracy theories, unchecked government wrongdoing, whatever, will fall back into some serious hateration of other nations. look at what happened when oil prices shot up more than three dollars a gallon; americans lost their minds. when people panic, they don't think. we've seen that happen time and time again-that's how the patriot act got passed and now everybody's civil liberties are in jeopardy. fear is just another dark entity that breeds mob thought, coaxes out insanity. this whole game is being levered by oil and drugs-the wine, yo."
"youain't never lied, man," shabazz said, looking at carlos.
carlos nodded. "this bullshit is about to be a house of cards, economically-and yet, our allies can't really afford to have us as a superpower fall. we're the army for half of the so-called civilized world. but sooner or later manipulating interest rates won't fix what's broke. meanwhile, those on the darkside with an agenda are already invested in war.oil, drugs, and everything that goes with that-and getting paid, lovely. c'mon, blackwater is just one example-they ain't even being coy with the names anymore!"
"just in your face,blat-ow ," yonnie said, opening his arms. "like letting dirty motherfuckers off the hook in broad daylight that woulda got you and me triple life, slim."
"then they'll be a call for unified currencies and a collective world leader," shabazz said, rubbing his chin, "just like prophesied."
"so this takeover of people's minds is more than about just getting us out of hiding," j.l. said, his eyes roving over the faces around the island counter.
"it serves multiple purposes, like i keep saying," damali said flatly.
"yeah, and since coke is doing better than the dow jones, like oil is king, and we know who runs that," yonnie said, pointing at the shimmering map, "then whoever controls those product lines is who buys up most of the shit and leverages the hell out of this war game, causing market crashes and panics at will-herding people worldwide like sheep to get 'em to do whatever."
"correct," marlene said, leaning in. "so, south america just has people-madness happen, but is spared most of the natural disasters in its coca-producing and oil-generating regions. africa is already plugged into the oil game from nigeria, but is riddled continentwide with the blood-diamond wars, aids, drought, starvation, and every kind of disease known to humankind-"
"but like asia," damali said emphatically, "it has enough bodies to feed off of. look at the water crisis in india-the ganges is a cesspool and human disease is about to ravage that region if it doesn't get the situation under control. things are so crazy there that the macaque monkeys in new delhi are going mad, getting aggressive enough that they killed a high-level government official-made the man fall off a freaking balcony at his home! monks are getting clubbed to death in burma . . . and look what happened in pakistan-they assassinated the former prime minister over there and innocent people are dying. that region is being hit hard, like africa, to keep it from being a dissenting voice with any real strength behind its massive populations."
"feeding grounds, sis.that's all it is," yonnie said in a weary tone. "none of those nations and continents you listed, including south america,are contenders to run the world because of their chaos. unfortunately, they're the breadbaskets for the world, but are also ripe feeding grounds for the apocalypse troops."
"so, think about it," carlos said, using his finger against the shimmering surfaces. "if south america, africa, pakistan, and india and developing nations are political noncontenders for world domination, but can fuel it like a resource bank for blood, oil, and drug cash crops, and bodies . . . with the caribbean only a tidal wave away from being gone if they dissent, and australia not being militarily strong enough to get in the mix, then that leaves the united states to polarize with western europe and canada against asia, eastern europe, and russia-with the catalyst to kick all this off being the good ole middle east."
"book of daniel, chapter seven," marlene said, shaking her head. "remember his vision. . . . the lion-bodied eagle-which we know can only be the newly aggressive u.s. and europe alignment, versus the four-headed leopard dragon-which i'm sure are the four main nations in asia-north korea, south korea, japan, and china, versus the bear-which is nothing but russia and the old eastern bloc. then comes the fourth one with iron teeth-guess who that belongs to? the new world order leader, which crushes them all . . . and we don't need to sayhis name in this house."
j.l. nodded and looked up from the counter at carlos. "dude, i stay on the news watch, right. how about the united states and europe just came together over iran as a rallying point in a meeting in tokyo . . . but russia disputed their findings and doesn't want them to put u.s. missile defenses in poland or radar base stations in the old czech republic areas."
"my point exactly.it's already under way. i know chessboard moves, bro," carlos said, nodding. "it's all coming down to the big three zones, with the united states, canada, and europe banding together as a singular superpower against the others-watch. then you-know-who defeats each of the three weakened, bickering blocs of nations and creates the fourth one . . . which isthe new world order ruled by the darkside."
damali traced her finger down the eastern seaboard of carlos's shimmering map. "all right, so that's the big picture. but for now, we've gotta focus on whatever little bit we can do to stem the tide. so look at this move . . . detroit to toronto, then come down to rochester, then buffalo, to new york city, past philly, to washington d.c., chicago and ohio are in there, too, but the way i traced is a more direct route."
she stared up at the team. "with all the disasters, look at what hasn't totally burned yet or completely flooded out . . . human madness is what has those areas in their grip all the way down the east coast to florida. but notice how they aren't jacking it up? the darkside is shifting the psi in the heavily populated, but strategic, areas of the strongest contender for the new world order-here."
"proverbs eight," marlene said, nodding, and then high-fived damali. "wisdom is personified as a woman in the good book . . . that was based on ma'at, check it out, fellas. our girl is on."
"no lie. d is on and poppin'. the pentagon is on that route, so is cape fucking canaveral, yo," yonnie said, folding his arms. "if you're gonna take over the world and be a potential host nation for the antichrist, you ain't messing with your key locations."
"and the kennedy space center-where missiles could be launched-is on that route, too," j.l. added, glancing at carlos.
"this detroit to canada thing makes sense," marlene said after a moment of contemplation. "it's still nuit's north american province if he moves into canada . . . much more wilderness with direct access for all the new vamps he's made to retreat back to a hemisphere that literally goes into darkness for six months a year."
"great place for the antichrist to deliver the daylight bite to the minions of new supervamps they're making, too," shabazz said in a disgusted mutter.
"yeah, we need to keep our eye on canada. you ain't gotta worry about mexico on the southern border," yonnie said. "they ain't a contender. but they, like south america and central america, are where nuit's drug cash comes in. as head topside mofo, nuit is going to be an acting general we have to get past first . . . then when we kick his ass, no doubt lilith and her ole man will be the serious battle-but they ain't gonna risk bringing their heir out in the open yet. that's my two-cent bet on the thing. and, if they decide mexico is becoming politically problematic, or if they need a diversion, we already know they can blow that big ass volcano that's sitting near mexico city, and central america can get swept away in a tsunami like the caribbean and polynesia could."
"so, how about if we show up in nuit's backyard for the detroit international jazz festival and scout his minions, send him a little message that we ain't slow by getting real close to his new headquarters? let's be bold, take it to him rather than being on the run," damali said with a smile. "let's throw the bastard a curveball-and since i was locked in the house all of august and couldn't go out and party for my birthday, why not? they hold it every labor day weekend, which is only a coupla days away. i personally wanna show the brother some love."
carlos just looked at her and she smiled wider.
"we know the route they don't want blown up-namely the eastern seaboard . . . but i'll bet they don't think we're crazy enough to take the party over the border into canada now that we know the anti-" damali shrugged. "chances are they're banking on us trying to run to where we have a strong guardian presence."
shabazz cut marlene a look. "detroit . . . i haven't been back there since i was a kid and did time for a crime i didn't commit." he dragged his fingers through his locks and stared at damali for a moment. "you sure, baby girl? i mean, detroit used to be the murder capital before philly, and some of the places we might have to roll . . ."
damali hugged shabazz and a silent understanding passed between them. she knew what he was saying without words. concern for the baby was making him edgy, just like carlos. "it'll be fine. we've already played hell-so motor city ain't half that bad."
shabazz hugged her tighter and forced a smile. "since it was the last stop to canada, mar is right.there's a lot of underground railroad routes that go right through the city. we can use them and i know we've got a decent guardian presence up there, no doubt."
"i'll do a divination," marlene said, her gaze holding carlos's. "don't worry. where you put us down will be on hallowed ground." she closed her eyes and reached out to hold carlos's and damali's hands. "there's a catholic church in detroit that's standing out like a white-light beacon in my mind . . . that has symbols of the akan cut into the archways . . . our lady . . . something of . . ." she opened her eyes abruptly, clearly frustrated. "i can't get more than that-the new church's name is blotting it out for me. fountain of life church of god in christ-it's now baptist or a.m.e. or maybeseventh-day adventist. the old energy dissipated on me because the new energy there is very strong, very good. there's old living quarters in the back behind the rectory and the church."
marlene shook her head as though trying to clear a haze from her mind. "how can they have akan symbols in the stone masonry, though? the structure is hundreds of years old, goes back to slavery days. why would priests in that era commission-"
"where, exact location?" carlos said quickly, glancing out the window at the approaching flames. "i've still gotta rally the team, sweep us all into a transport with gear."
"it's in the nine-hundred block of st. mary's street between west chicago and greenfield on the west side of detroit about a mile away from i-96."
"if it is that old, and acatholic church, withafrican symbols in the stonework . . . then, mar . . . it has to be a secret templar hideout." damali's gaze tore between marlene's and carlos's faces. "only the templars would have been looking for a neteru with akan markings here in north america, and would have been invested in making sure that the guardian birth line to the neterus would have been brought out of slavery into free canada-we have to talk to father pat. that hasgot to be an old templar safe house, if not a citadel . . . and who knows what kind of tunnel system, secret passageways, or whatever, are in that building?"
yonnie glanced out the kitchen's glass deck doors and then back to the group. "not to rush y'all or break up this impromptu war meeting . . . but, uh, we need to make a decision about that location in detroit we can fall back to with quickness. if you haven't noticed, the bottom of the deck's on fire."