Vampire Huntress - The Damned Part 27

Damali slowed her gait to a quick walking pace, trying to rethread her thoughts. The only image that came back to her with clarity was Carlos in their room, looking up at her, mortified, and her shock at what she'd seen. The rest of the impressions were fuzzy and only left a bad aftertaste in her mouth, then even that dissipated. She'd figure it out later, and set her sights on her approaching teammates.

Her goal was simply to get past them. She didn't want to talk to another living soul at the moment. However, the pull to Jose came from deep within her core. She needed to talk to him, connect with him. It was an inexplicable feeling, like ancestral knowledge. It just was.

The closer he got to her, the more she felt sure that they needed to have a conversation alone, although she didn't exactly know what she would say. But as his clean energy wafted toward her, it drew her like a magnet. She could instantly feel healing within it. Tears of relief wet her lashes again and began to sting her eyes, no matter how she fought against them.

Jose caught her arm and Rider took off his shades and stared at her.

"You all right, D?" Jose said, searching her face.

"Hon, you look like something's chasing you," Rider said quietly. "Wanna take a walk with us?" He rubbed his jacket to let her know he was packing.

She shook her head no. Words escaped her. Jose and Rider shared a look. It was that look that was beginning to shatter her composure. Damali wrapped her arms around herself and drew a ragged breath to argue, but no sound came out.

"I got dis'," Jose said firmly, his line of vision holding Rider's hard.

"You sure, hombre?" Rider said with concern.

Damali pulled out of Jose's touch and jogged away from them.

He left Rider standing in the lobby and followed Damali down to the marina. It took several minutes to catch up to her and match her stride, but when he did, he just silently walked by her side.

After a while, renewed calm slowed her pace, allowed her to begin to hear the sounds around her, and feel the comfort Jose provided. Bless him. Always there. But what was there to say to Jose that could be shared without a privacy violation?"I just needed to get my head together," she finally stammered as they strolled along the marina and then found the edge of the beach.

He nodded. "Been that kinda day. I hear you."

"Yeah."

"Been that kinda year, truth be told," he said, and picked up a stone and chucked it in the water.

"Hey! Don't do that," she warned half serious and half joking. "That might have been my fifth insight stone."

He laughed. "My bad. I forgot." Then he made a playful dash at the water but swerved to avoid it. "Want me to go get it? Pick it out from the, what, several million pieces of rock in the sea? I will, girl, you know I'm crazy like that."

She laughed and stopped walking. "Thank you."

He stopped and looked at her. "Don't know what I did, but you're welcome, D. But I ain't scuba diving in jeans for a rock-not even for you, baby." He laughed but his mirth died away when hers slowly became a sad smile.

She looked down and let out a weary sigh. "I'm so tired. Thanks for always making me laugh. Just being my friend."

"That ain't gonna change. Told you that when I came for coffee the other day."

She nodded, but still didn't look at him. "Yep, you did. I don't want that to ever change. It's the only constant in my life."

She looked up when he didn't respond, and saw something in his eyes that she dared not name.

"Mine, too," he said quietly. "So, I'm blessed."

She told her legs to start walking. This was a good time to do that.

"What happened back there, D?"

She shook her head no. "I'll be all right."

He stepped closer than advisable. "If you ever aren't, you know where to come."

She just looked at him for a moment. "I know. And I will."

They stared at each other for a long time.

"What happened this morning when you left to go get Krissy straight?"

Jose looked at her, shook his head, and sent his gaze toward the water, the muscles beginning to work in his jaw. "I'm cool."

Damali nodded and placed her hand on his arm. "If you ever aren't..."

He slowly brought his eyes up to meet hers. "Damali, this thing is way too volatile to just put it out there like that, and you know it. Friend to friend, we need to be clear about that."

"I'm sorry," she murmured, and wrapped her arms around her waist.

"Me, too. Because before you tell me that again, I have to be clear."She nodded and swallowed hard as his hand cupped her cheek.

"I have to know," he whispered, "because if you ever tell me that again, and if I ever see that hurt look in your eyes because of something foul he did, I'll come to you, throwing caution, house rules, lines of demarcation, everything out the f.u.c.king window.

You understand? Don't tell me to do the right thing, if I see you looking like that." He glanced at the water. "Because what I'ma do will be the right thing, and we both know it."

He sealed the gap between them in the very quiet, private place where they stood. Both hands held the side of her face as his mouth lowered to hers. The kiss he delivered was gentle, asking permission to enter, gaining that in slow, dissolving increments as her lips parted, found his tongue and allowed her arms finally to hold him. For that brief moment that the earth stood still, she didn't care who saw or knew. Didn't care if she was making a mistake. She just needed someone who had never hurt her or frightened her or totally freaked her out to hold her. A man with no history, but who had all the history that was necessary when he'd pulled her into his arms, made her body begin to respond in normal, human levels of want with no magic at all, except what was inside his heart. And she was so dangerously close to the edge of doing something irreversible, if she hadn't already, that tears streamed down her face and added more salt to their kiss.

He knew it, she could tell, by the patient shudder that ran through him. The depth of his knowing came through in the heat in his hands, the deepening kiss that asked the silent question- When? They sought an answer with every stroke down her arms, every hitch in his breath, and tried to tell her a long story of hunger denied as though reading Braille against her back. His pulse strummed in her ears, and when his heartbeat synced up to hers she almost cried out and broke the kiss.

She leaned her head on his shoulder and he hugged her hard.

"I know," he said, seeming as though he couldn't take enough air into his lungs. "You don't have to decide right this minute, but...

baby..."

"I know, but this is gonna change everything, be really messed up... but I can't go back to my room."

"Come to my room, then."

She looked up at him. "I should have a long time ago in the compound, Jose. What have I done?"

"Same thing I did." He found her mouth again, but this time the kiss was less patient, held agony within it. "I'll get another room, in a different hotel."

She didn't nod, but didn't shake her head no. The heat seal between them was too thick for her to move, and his hardness against her thigh said it all. His desire had entered her pores, along with years of hurt, unnecessary anguish... It made her close her eyes. "I need to step back for a second."

But he didn't let her go.

"Why do you think I gave you my blanket?"

She nodded. "I knew the minute you handed it to me and Shabazz looked away."

"Then why did you accept it?" he whispered, understanding and confusion competing in his eyes.

"Because I wanted..."

"To feel every minute I wanted you in my bed, under it with me, in my arms..."

She nodded. "But I knew that was the only way I could really ever experience... and I knew-" An impatient kiss claimed her mouth, scored her neck till tears came to her eyes. Impatient hands flattened against the Sankofa and made it burn till her hands found his shoulders again. A truthful moan collided with hers within the soft tissue of a kiss and drowned it in a hard swallow. A gasp that bordered on a blade cut made a decision necessary.

"I can't."

He nodded. "Knew that going into the first kiss." He closed his eyes and placed his hot forehead against hers and stabilized his breathing by degrees. "You keep the blanket. You let me know. Even if it lies in a cedar chest for ten years, you let me know."

She touched his face and kept her eyes shut tightly. "I wasn't playing with you, Jose. I'm sorry that I just can't, not while..."

He captured her hand, kissed the center of it hard. "You don't think I know that? No apologies. I ain't gonna lie, I'm pretty messed up right now, but I'll live." He let his breath out hard and stroked her hair. "But to be able just to know that you were feelin' it, too. That I wasn't all by myself, trippin'." He made her look at him, the quiet pa.s.sion beneath the surface of him welding her to him. "And if you ever need to open your third eye to come visit me," he whispered. "Do it. I don't care who I'm with.

Permission to enter and blow my mind like this any time." He smiled. "If I could return the favor, know that I would."

She smoothed his hair back from his forehead and knew she didn't have to nod for him to know that his suggestion wasn't out of the question. "We'd better get back and get our heads right, if we're gonna deal with reality as friends."

He nodded and then dragged his nose across her shoulder, up the side of her neck, and into her hair. It was the way he did it, slow, agonized, his lids sliding shut as she saw him imprint her scent into his memory bank until the day he died. Her knees threatened to give way. The sensation of the olfactory imprinting process connecting to every erogenous zone in him sent a hard shudder through her that she couldn't hide. She felt that create a shiver that linked their spines and made them have to part and literally shake it off, if they were going to be friends. He tilted his head and glanced at the pounding surf.

"Yeah, like that," he murmured and licked his lips with an after tremor. "Salt water. Beach. A gorgeous afternoon. You. Your hair. Your skin. Almond oil and shea b.u.t.ter... and you." He closed his eyes for a moment, then began walking away from her. "I won't ever forget."

Carlos landed on his feet, naked, wet, and shivering. Messengers bowed and parted. The cavern went still. He walked forward on a mission, and clothed himself in jeans with one snap. The ground wasn't even hot beneath his feet.

The doors to the great Chamber swung open before he'd even reached them. Carlos crossed the marble floor and glimpsed the newly refurbished inner sanctum, no longer in ruin. His throne shuddered and gurgled with new blood. He ignored it and headed straight for the pentagram-shaped table. He was on a mission. To get the book.

He touched the crest with a flat palm, and then removed his hand. It opened without hesitation, its emptiness glinting torch lights off the bottom.

"Reveal," Carlos said quietly.

The vault obliged and produced the book. He reached down and picked it up, his gaze fastened upon it.

Carlos looked up to the ceiling, watching the newly energized swirl of black smoke that had red eyes. "Topside, same location,"

he commanded the transport bats, but they suddenly scattered and took cover behind the crags.

Something gurgled within his stomach, sending a pain through his intestines, searing his flesh, making him nearly drop his hold on the precious artifact. His howl elongated with the rip that began in his abdomen. Blood spewed from his body, covering the table, the book, and forced him to stagger backward until the dreaded Chairman's throne broke his fall.

His lungs tore inside his chest and filled with blood, suffocating him. He could hear his ribs snapping and groaning as the unknown pushed against his burn scar over his heart, retreated, and then clawed a huge gash in his stomach.Blood filled his nose, dribbled out of his mouth, burned his eyes as something black, and winged, and ma.s.sive, climbed out of the gaping hole, snapping his entrails and ripping his liver, pulling his spleen away from tissue anchors as it birthed from his open wound. Bits of him lay on the floor quivering in a jellied ma.s.s as the thing that had exited him spread its blood-wet wings, turned to stare at him with glowing black slits, flicked out a serpent's tongue, and laughed.

It walked' around him in a circle, sending the clatter of cloven hoofs to bounce off the walls. An amused expression was on its hideous face, and it politely extracted the book from Carlos's grasp, breaking his fingers backward.

"Thank you," it murmured. "I believe this belongs to me." It sighed, petted the book, and returned a lethal gaze to Carlos. "You don't have the guts to use it properly. Such a waste, when the two of us could have been a united force to be reckoned with."

Paralyzed, Carlos watched, dying, as the thing came for him, grasped him by a broken, protruding rib bone, and flung him out of the throne. Then it sat down, put the book in its lap, crossed its thick, muscular, granite legs, and gripped the hand rests.

Shivering on the floor, Carlos stared at it, semiconscious, and watched the demon throw its head back, groan and shudder, and then open its eyes, sated. Humanlike skin crept over its charred body. The wings retracted, as did its fangs and talons. Its feet normalized, and it sheathed itself in a black designer suit as the transformation process rippled up its hulking frame. But it saved its face for last.

It leaned forward, studying Carlos like he was a bug under a microscope, and laughed a deep, thunderous chuckle of victory as he took on Carlos's face. It summarily sent a bolt of black lightning across the room to scorch him. But rather than exterminate him, Carlos felt his body reconstruct and become amazingly whole again.

"Get off the floor, punk," it said, shaking its head.

Carlos slowly rose, touching his face as he gaped at the image of himself in the dark throne.

"This is what you could have been," it said in a disgusted tone. It blew out a long breath. "Woulda, coulda, shoulda, I suppose."

Carlos couldn't answer. Stupefied by what he was seeing, he stood in the middle of the floor and only stared.

"Check it out, hombre. You know; we're one and the same. I'm the other side of who you are... the side even you don't want to f.u.c.k with." It laughed and stood and strode over to Carlos, taunting him with the book raised above his head. "But you had to keep talking to angels. Had to keep praying. Had to keep making me f.u.c.king sick inside you." It shook its head. "Wouldn't even get me laid with the baddest sister on the planet-now you know I don't take no bulls.h.i.t, right?" It b.i.t.c.h-slapped Carlos when he didn't answer and walked away from him laughing, then whirled on Carlos and pointed at him. "You brought this s.h.i.t on yourself, man. We could have coexisted, if you'da acted right. But your dumb a.s.s was about to really mess things up for both of us."

"f.u.c.k you," Carlos finally yelled.

"Thanks, already did. Was so good, you even nutted on yourself, too, which really tripped her out. I thought you'd already turned her into a freak, but-"

Carlos lunged at the ent.i.ty, instant fury replacing common sense and fear. The ent.i.ty grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off his feet.

"See, that's what I so love about, you, man. You got heart. You're almost as crazy as I am."

It body-slammed Carlos to the marble floor and folded its arms over its chest as the book hovered inches within his grasp. "We would have made an excellent team, but you kept f.u.c.king with the Light. Now you'll have to go your way, and I'll have to go mine."

Carlos glared at the ent.i.ty, the pain that wracked his body and mind only stoking his hatred for it. As soon as a silver laser cut across the room, the ent.i.ty jumped back and laughed.

"Whoa, hombre! Not down here. You gonna make me smoke a motherf.u.c.ker."

Carlos scrabbled to his feet. "I'm not leaving without the book!"

A sucker punch traveled at the speed of thought, connected with Carlos's jaw, shattering it, and leaving him fifty feet away, sprawled on the floor. What felt like razor-sharp claws held both sides of Carlos's head, even though the ent.i.ty was far across the room. He could feel the bones in his skull separating as the black-glowing eyes in his body double flickered.

"To kill you would not be strategic," the ent.i.ty said. "You have work to do. I need a Neteru to take off the Chairman's head.

That b.i.t.c.h you live with is more seasoned than you, and can deliver. Your punk a.s.s, however, can lead her to him." It flicked out its long, black tongue and blew a kiss at Carlos across the room.

The kiss turned to dark vapor and wafted toward Carlos's opened mind, burning as it touched exposed gray matter and making him yell.

"Forget," the ent.i.ty whispered. "Shame we couldn't have come to a meeting in the middle." Then it snapped its fingers.

Carlos stood in the shower with his hands splayed against the tiles. His head hung beneath the pummel of water, and it felt as though the water was slamming into his skull, each drop a sledgehammer.

Oddly, he felt lighter, cleaner, more at peace as he stepped out of the harsh spray and grabbed a towel. He was so thirsty, too, and he opened and downed the liter bottle of water that sat on the sink in one endless guzzle. He was hungry. A burger was calling his name.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his forearm, he went into the bedroom and began to hunt for clothes. When did Damali go?

He was seriously hungry, ready to bust a grub, and girlfriend was AWOL. Plus, it was almost sunset and she needed to let him know where she was.

Carlos glanced at the windows and the position of the lowering sun as he pulled on a pair of clean jeans and a T-shirt. Didn't she know he worried about her? Then he smiled and relaxed. What was he worried about? Everything was gonna be all right.