Vampire Huntress - The Damned Part 40

"That's a very dangerous place," Carlos said quietly. "You might stand a better chance underground."

Damali stared at him until he lifted his gaze. "I know that place brings back white knuckles for you, but I've gotchure back out there."

He stared at her. The team pa.s.sed nervous glances. "You don't want to face him out there."

"We did the chamber and have been to every dark Level, except Seven," she said calmly, holding the line. "We can do the woods topside."

Carlos shook his head. "This ain't like before."

"Why not?" Damali asked, her voice calm but firm as she covered Carlos's hand with her own. "We'll smoke the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, trust me. Just tell me what he looks like?"

Carlos's eyes darkened until tiny slivers of silver could be seen within them. "That's just the problem. He looks like me."

The military cargo plane had to touch down in LAX because of size, but the team didn't care if it landed on an accident-blocked highway, just as long as it wasn't in the air. Several hours from Lhasa, after a brief refueling stop in Manila, twenty-some hours in flight, and almost forty-eight hours with no sleep, the team was nearly ill from inhaling fumes. Pure adrenaline kept them from pa.s.sing out as they flew from day into night, thirteen hours behind where they'd been, as though flying back in time.

But the moment the aircraft circled the area and started its descent under a sky lit by a full moon, they all pressed their noses to the windows. Billowing black smoke raged from tall buildings. Unmoving fire trucks flashed red lights, and sat abandoned. Cars were smashed and twisted around poles or crunched upon each other. Bodies lay strewn in piles, littering the streets like tiny specs of paper. Damali covered her mouth, unable to fathom mobs of people moving in ma.s.ses like frightened herds of sheep, a large glob of humanity running one way and then shifting in another direction as something unseen chased them.

"The airport, like the city, is under martial law," General McHenry said over the intercom. "The moment we touch down, we'll cover your team and you head for the Black Hawks."

"Roger," Rider whispered as they got closer to the ground.

The team stared in shock as large were-demons materialized, and they saw what the crowds were running from. Huge beasts stood atop piles of bodies, feasting, lifting their ugly heads occasionally to snarl at each other as they fed. Black shadows darted in and out of bodies, turning frightened civilians on each other in sudden, random acts of violence.

Carlos closed his eyes and lowered his head as he saw a woman fleeing with her baby suddenly drop the flailing infant and stomp it.

"Oh, Jesus," Marlene said, cringing and jerking her sight away from the window. She began rocking. "Now, if ever before, this is a good time for the Twenty-third."

"The Covenant should be here," Big Mike said quietly, wiping his eyes.

"They're where they should be," Damali whispered. "Holding the line in vigil... just like Monk Lin had to stay in Lhasa."

"You think Mei's family made it out, if people in the town turned, or anything else came up over there?" Rider said quietly, his line of vision glued to the window as the plane touched down, bounced over bodies, and sucked several fleeing victims into the engines.

"Yeah," Damali said, breathing hard. She stood as the plane screeched to a stop. "We pray. We get out. We do this. Gotta stop the madness."

Carlos stood slowly. He looked at the marines around them. "You all are just babies, no more than eighteen. Probably never jaywalked in your lives, let alone dropped a body or disobeyed a direct order." Carlos took the safety off his weapon and his eyes met confused, disoriented stares. "When your generals and the pilots come out, if their eyes are black-shoot 'em."

The marines were on their feet in seconds, their guns leveled at Carlos. But when the doors to the c.o.c.kpit blew open and black, glowing eyes stared at them, the Guardian team's sharpshooters did the honors. Rider and Shabazz opened fire in neat, calm, coordinated trigger pulls. Green gook splattered. Two young marines upchucked; all were frozen for two seconds past too late where they stood.

"Mar had you covered in here," Damali said. "She set a prayer barrier for all present. Those guys up front, nonbelievers. You saw for yourselves, the weapons help, but ain't your first line of defense." She nodded at Dan, Shabazz, and Berkfield. "Pull 'em out."They extracted their dog tags, showing a Star of David, a crescent, and a cross.

"J.L., you got a Buddha on you?"

J.L. nodded and whipped out his dog tags.

Damali's eyes raked each enlisted man. "It doesn't matter which faith, as long as the foundation is about the Most High, the divine. If you believe and haven't already been contaminated, you won't be possessed. If you're not possessed, you've got a fighting chance and can use the conventional weapons to fend off whatever might try to eat you. But don't hold up any of these if you've been bulls.h.i.tting about having faith. Fangs will take your throat." She spun and looked at Marlene. "Before those helicopter pilots take us up, make sure those boys are straight, Mar. That's all we need is for a chopper to go down. Blowing Harpies out the air will be bad enough."

Damali's lungs felt like they were on fire as she dashed across the runway to the waiting choppers. She took the lead, clearing the way, mowing down anything that lunged or slithered in their path. Carlos had the rear; Mike, Shabazz, and Rider kept flanks clear, while J.L., Jose, Berkfield, and Dan made body shields to protect the team's newbies.

Marlene prayed faster than Damali ever saw her pray, splashing young frightened foreheads with water and oil, and scattering sea salts and herbs on chopper floors, where they were crushed under steel-toed army boots.

The first chopper lifted, tilted, and swayed as something unseen adhered to its side.

"Mike, underneath!" Damali shouted, leaning out the door as the helicopter in front of them dangerously tipped.

Rider hooked his harness to a side rail, leaned out, took dead aim, and splattered a Harpie so the chopper could right itself.

Shabazz got two more headed for the blades, splattering vile demon innards on the roof and window. Mike saluted and leaned back. The second chopper went airborne as an approaching jumbo jet took a nosedive, burst into flames, and sent fuselage down the runway they'd just vacated.

The team members glanced at one another; the pilots glimpsed out the window and then never looked back.

Carlos sat immobilized. What they'd witnessed from the plane was brought to them in full sense-around-sound so close to the action in a chopper. L.A. International was lit with military machine-gun fire, sending red-and-blue streaks through the complex.

Smoke was pouring out of every building orifice, windows were smashed, gla.s.s was everywhere. If this was the airport, East L.A. was gonna bring him to tears.

His mind kept going over the same thought like a broken record: the people-and the babies, children, dear G.o.d.

Storefronts had been looted and torched. Houses reduced to rubble. Streets were impa.s.sable. They saw it all from the air.

Churches and mosques and temples were on fire-hallowed ground kept out demons, but there was more than one way to get to food... smoke it out. Carlos closed his eyes and slowly leaned back against the seat, his ears soaking in the shrill screams and mayhem as the chopper blades kept a steady beat in the smoke-darkened sky.

Every sense in him told him Damali was right. The Chairman came here to pick a fight. Right in his own backyard. Just like he'd brought the pain to the Chairman. Fair exchange was no robbery. He'd desecrated the Chairman's black hole on Level Six, now the Chairman was back to return the favor.

The most horrifying part of it all was he'd actually helped the b.a.s.t.a.r.d do it. When he'd been taken over, before the black separation within himself, he'd turned h.e.l.l out. Now it needed somewhere to live. L.A. was a perfect place. There was no such thing as homeland security. If there was bulls.h.i.t going down, anywhere on the planet, you could run, but you couldn't hide...

taking out one cell at a. time, one level at a time, was futile.

Carlos opened his eyes as he felt the sting on his neck turn into a throb, then an ache, and then a wet stabbing pain. He looked at his bloodied hand, glanced at the trees below, and signaled to the pilots to touch down in the small clearing that began it all.

"Your neck is bleeding," Damali shouted over the choppers.

"Douse it!" Rider hollered, his eyes frantically going from Carlos's gaping wound to Marlene.

"It's an old scar," Carlos said. "Just chickens coming home to roost." He waved Marlene off and winced, and then jumped down as the Neteru tattoo heated, sizzled, and sealed the old vampire bite.

Damali jumped down behind him, motioning for the team to disembark. "Push those choppers back, but stay near," she yelled over the thudding whirl. "If we have to use explosives, you're sitting ducks." She glanced back at the team. "Goggles, on, all equipment readied."

The pilots nodded and lifted off, seeming too happy to oblige the request. Soon their airborne blades became distant, but the team briefly shut their eyes when a double explosion sounded overhead.

"One of 'em was just a kid," Damali said, not looking back. She glanced at Marjorie's tear-filled eyes and sent her gaze into the darkness. "Rest their souls in peace."

"Ashe," Marlene murmured and began trudging behind Damali saying the Twenty-third Psalm.

"I wish Mar had her stick," Shabazz said in a quiet tone moving forward. "It's been with her since forever. Now it's up in the Tibetan mountains under fifty feet of packed ice."

"Monk Lin will get it," Marlene said absently. "It'll rise and come home, as always."

Rider fingered his dog tag and then dropped it, remembering that his amulet had been given away. "If wishes were fishes, we'd all be free." He said quietly, no sarcasm in his tone. "Just like we all wish D had her long blade out here."

Carlos abruptly halted, and the group stopped forward motion behind him. All eyes except Carlos's and Damali's strained in the dark behind goggles. Ears listened intently. Jumpy nerves made muscles twitch as the slightest movement from the wind and small woodland creatures cut into their senses.

Carlos c.o.c.ked his head to the side, sniffed and relaxed. "Que pasa, man!" He stepped forward toward Yonnie who walked into the clearing. "d.a.m.n, am I glad to see you."

Damali's hand landed gently on Carlos's arm as she stared at the expression on Yonnie's face. "You're in apex, baby. Stay downwind from your boy."

Carlos backed up. "Yo, man. It's me. You cool?"

The group leveled artillery as Yonnie's eyes narrowed, glowed solid red, and his fangs glistened. Yonnie was already battle bulked, but Carlos had given the order to stand down.

"Yo, yo, easy. Everybody chill. The brother has been out in this bulls.h.i.t by himself, my scent is throwing him off, no doubt-"

A black arc knocked Carlos off his feet. When he landed beside Big Mike, his fatigues were smoldering in the center of his chest where the bolt struck. Were it not for Damali's brand, his chest cavity would have been split wide open and his heart would have been lying on the gra.s.s. Instantly Carlos raised a small shield in front of him, and then got up slowly with some help from Big Mike.

"Want me to smoke this motherf.u.c.ker?" Mike asked, his shoulders knitting as he kept steady aim with a cannon.

"No, that's all me, bro," Rider said, keeping a blue light on Yonnie's chest."This is between me and Carlos," Yonnie said through his teeth. "No beef with the rest of the family."

Damali shook her head. "Can't let you go there, Yonnie. In a month, all this will be over. He's-"

"I know what he is!" Yonnie shouted. "Go back to your team, Damali, and stay out of it!"

Tara instantly materialized by Yonnie's side and hissed at Carlos. Members of the squad looked at each other, confused.

Rider kept a beam on Yonnie and walked forward several paces. "Tara, he's not himself, you ain't yourself. Stand downwind from him and both of you will be all right."

"Shut up, Rider!" Tara snapped, her claws growing as she spoke. "After what he did to us, there won't be anything left to stand downwind from."

Before anybody could react, Tara and Yonnie had gone airborne. Carlos's shield blocked the first punch lobbed by Yonnie, but Tara got a good rake at his back. With Carlos in the center of the vicious attack, there was no way to shoot at the fast-moving creatures without risking a mortal injury to Carlos. Damali rushed forward to enter the fray, but a black bolt from Yonnie sent her hurling backward.

She was stunned, but just sucker-punched. The pulse was a weak one, a nice shove out of the way. When Damali flipped herself up, she was more angry than injured. But it was obvious that the beef had to do with more than Carlos's apex scent. The female, Tara, should have had the opposite reaction. Damali could also see Carlos blocking shots, but not landing any. When the vampires retreated for a moment to make another lunge, she was able to get by Carlos's side and unsheathe her baby Isis dagger.

"Hold up! What did he do?"

"Tell her!" Yonnie said, breathing hard and snarling.

"I don't know what you're talking about, man! I didn't do anything!"

"Liar!" Tara shouted, pointing at Carlos. "He won't reveal himself in front of you. He'd never want his beloved family to see the beast he's become." Hot tears of rage filled Tara's gleaming red eyes.

"She's telling the truth," Rider said. "This ain't no scent-induced hysteria. I know my woman."

Yonnie nodded. "Then you won't have a problem with me and Carlos finishing this to ash."

Yonnie was airborne again, but to everyone's surprise, Carlos met him there, no shield in hand as they collided, snapped at each other, and landed, separated by twenty yards.

"Before you try to rip out my heart, you need to at least tell me what I did to you?" Carlos glanced at Tara breathing hard. "I know I never did anything to you, girl, but have your back-the whole time when I was a master, and on Council, I never-"

"You tried to rape me!" Tara shrieked, vanishing and coming to Yonnie's side. "He was your friend, you made him watch and left him for dead after you whipped him till there was no flesh left on his back!"

Damali slowly lowered her blade as she stared at Carlos. Rider took the laser off Yonnie's chest and put it in the center of Carlos's head.

"Tell them!" Tara screeched.

The agonized, shrill pitch of her voice forced Big Mike to cover his ears, and the goggle-wearing team members had to lift the audio sensors away from their heads as the technology failed. Carlos stood quietly, dazed, shaking his head no."I bled out Gabrielle's house to bring him back-that's right, black-blood exchanges with every demon in the house, Mr.

Chairman," Tara yelled, sobs breaking up her complaint into raging sputters. "The only one I spared was Gabby, because she's like family. You remember family, Carlos? Family! She helped us, gave us a place to hide because of you, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

"Not because of what you did to me, but because of what you did to her... I vowed," Yonnie said, his hand stroking Tara's hair as he pa.s.sed her, the force of his rage ripping up tree trunks and crashing down branches, "that if I ever regenerated, Chairman or not, I would personally rip out your heart or die trying." His voice dipped to a vicious whisper. "Because we were family."

"I'll help you," Damali said quickly, thinking fast on her feet. "If you've got the right one."

She watched Yonnie pause. Carlos seemed so pained by the charges leveled against him, she could tell by the look on his face that he might not have been able to defend himself to the death. "He's not the Chairman," Damali yelled across the distance.

"There's two of them."

"He has you under an illusion," Yonnie bellowed, swirling up black storm clouds as his energy gathered for a final beat down.

"He's a liar," Tara shrieked, taking a battle stance.

"I didn't do you like that, man. Would never..." Carlos's words trailed off as Yonnie shot the images into his mind.

Damali caught them, too, and she turned her head for a moment. But a flicker of movement caught her peripheral vision.

"Yonnie, get down!"

Yonnie ducked and yanked Tara low with him. A black bolt split a tall redwood, and the team opened fire toward the blackness. The Chairman materialized, his tail slicing bramble out of his way.

"You fools," he snarled, and sent an arc at Yonnie and Tara.

From some reservoir of memory, Carlos flipped, vanished, and his shield caught the bolt, placing him between Yonnie, Tara, and the Chairman, but his back was dangerously exposed to two predators that wanted his head.

"Do you think I would allow him to waltz into h.e.l.l and simply take my throne by sitting his unworthy carca.s.s in it?" The Chairman seethed, his voice so low it echoed like distant thunder and quaked the ground. "There is only one name that has ever been etched into my seat of power since the dawn of time-since the Garden, just like there's only one book! Mine. But the hand of a Neteru must release it from the current abductor, because a Neteru stole it. Kill him, and then this Carlos later, after he returns what is mine." The Chairman paced and then turned his gaze on Damali and her team.

Snap instinct kicked in; she knew the Chairman was going for a hostage. If the team opened fire, Carlos was again on the wrong side of the heat. She reached out her hand without thinking about it. The Isis long blade filled it, replacing the baby Isis that hit the ground. She grasped Madame Isis, feeling its power coil up her arm and connect with everything Neteru within her. The gleaming silver edge deflected the Chairman's black magnetic bolt. Her team scrambled and took cover.

Slow clapping in the darkness ceased all action. Human and demon eyes alike turned toward the dark figure walking out of the brush. Damali's jaw went slack as she looked at a very dark version of Carlos with gleaming black eyes. Hearing about it and seeing it were definitely two different things.

The body double seemed amused as he straightened his custom-tailored suit. Yonnie and Tara backed away, their gazes jettisoning between the Carlos with the shield that protected them and the one that they now understood had tortured them without mercy. The Chairman bulked another head taller. The Carlos in a black Armani suit studied his manicure, unfazed.

"All this drama for nothing. A waste of precious energy, just like all that chaos in L.A. is a waste. I'll have to clean that up later."

The dark Carlos smiled at Damali. "Sorry about what happened back at your place, baby, but if you would have relaxed, you would have enjoyed it more."The Carlos she knew narrowed his eyes. Damali was sure something crazy was running through his head when he lowered his shield and it disappeared. Her man was two seconds from old-school, hand-to-hand combat at a very inopportune time. The team couldn't move; black paralysis suddenly held them where they stood. Shabazz's weapon melted in his grip; his yell echoed through the glen and connected with the screams of pain from the team. Dropped weapons became molten steel and useless, causing Shabazz and the others to forcibly disarm or lose a limb.

Yonnie and Tara were covered with a red, sizzling light that made them yell out in pain, but kept them caged. Giant iron shackles simultaneously lurched up out of the ground and clasped the Chairman's thickened ankles. It all happened in milliseconds. The Chairman hissed and twisted in outrage, darkening the already pitch-black sky. His fury turned the moon bloodred as he strained his wings against the air, only to lift a few feet and land again hard. The struggle the Chairman put up as he yelled and bellowed shook the trees and opened a wide cavern around his feet, splitting the earth and sending Harpies over the edges of it to claw at his huge legs.

"He is also my father!" the Chairman shouted. "I will not be disinherited in the final days! I was first!"

"And the first shall be last and the last shall be first," the dark Carlos said with a smug smile. "You should read all the books." He shot an appreciative gaze toward Carlos. "Knowledge is power, right, hombre? Thanks for keeping a brother in the know. You had a lot in your head worth taking, especially her."