Part 3 (2/2)
”Baby, run your tongue over your teeth,” she said quietly, backing away.
He let out his breath hard and did as she asked, then stopped and stared at her.
”Yeah,” she said. ”That.”
”It ain't nothin',” he said, trying to be cool. ”It's only a minor flux... a quarter inch ain't s.h.i.+t to be-”
”Carlos, listen to yourself. Tonight, it's a quarter inch. Tomorrow night-”
”Aw, girl, I've still got a reflection. Chill.” He resumed walking, but with less confidence in his stride. ”It happened to you, a while back, and you came out of it. This Neteru s.h.i.+t is-”
”I had never been fully turned, never died, brother,” she said, not following him into the darkness.
He stopped, but didn't turn around. ”You think that could make a difference?”
”Maybe,” she said quietly. It was hard to find her voice, but she finally moved toward him. ”We should tell Marlene.”
”No... I mean, not yet.” He turned to face her in the moonlight. ”If it's just a flux thing, or because I was out drinking and my system wasn't used to that for a while, you know, it was probably just jacking with my body chemistry-like when I temporarily apexed in Philly but it didn't hold, and...” His voice trailed off as he ruffled his fingers through his hair, annoyed. ”D, you know what I'm dealing with over at the house. There's no room to quarantine a brother, the kids in there will freak, Marjorie and Berkfield will have Glocks to my temple until daybreak, then they'll be all in my face about some s.h.i.+t that's just pa.s.sing through my system. You've been there. So, just let me go sit on my own front steps, sleep off the buzz, and in the morning things will be fine.”
She stepped closer to him, one hand on her hip while the other held the gun down at her side. Yeah, she'd been there, all right.
The team didn't play that. But if he was on hallowed ground, only showing a few pa.s.sing signs, and a vamp had brought him home to pull himself together... She immediately opened her mental radar to scan him. ”Don't be going through my pockets without asking me! What about trust, Damali? Huh!”
”You're standing here drunk as a d.a.m.ned skunk, and you're asking me to trust you with fangs in your mouth? What did you do, ask Yonnie to nick you and-”
”Are you crazy?” he shouted. ”That would be a step down. He's a master; I'd be a second, if I didn't go straight to ash. I was a f.u.c.king councilman, D! I was never a lieutenant! Ever! Was never second in command, you got that?” Carlos walked in a haphazard circle, stopping intermittently to point at Damali. ”I had a throne, woman. Do you know what that means, how much power that was? Let my own elevated master nick me? I was made by the Chairman himself? I'm so f.u.c.king offended I don't know what to say to you! Just because I ain't number one on this f.u.c.ked-up, so-called, Neteru team, don't mean I don't have no pride and would go for sloppy seconds in my old yard. I used to run that s.h.i.+t-so be clear!”
”I'm going to ask you some questions, and if you give it to me straight, then I won't have any doubts in my mind,” she said carefully, pulling back her mental scan to bring the argument down a notch. ”I don't like the sentimental references to your old life. Period. Be clear about that, because that's why I'm worried. Not to get in your business, but, like you said, I have been there.”
Carlos closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and jammed his hands in his pants pockets. ”Fine. Go 'head.”
Damali circled him slowly, talking as she inspected him, her questions sounding detached and medical.
”When did you first notice this change?”
”Me and my boy was sipping Remy, talking, and suddenly they were in my mouth.”
”Be honest,” she shot back. ”When you felt the change in your mouth, what was running through your mind?”
”Aw, D, I don't-”
”What,” she said emphatically, ”was on your mind?”
He sighed hard. ”A lot of things, D.”
”Like?”
”Like how messed up my boy's situation really is, for one.” He was not about to divulge Yonnie's deepest secrets. Some things were between men, and only men.
”Okay,” she said, standing in front of him. ”That's good. Compa.s.sion is a feature of the Light. What else?”
Carlos opened his eyes and stared at her. ”I was angry.”
Damali c.o.c.ked her head to the side. ”Somebody in the club p.i.s.s you off? You pick up a trail that set you off? Bloodl.u.s.t will make a new Neteru system haywire like that,” she said, snapping her fingers.
He slowly removed his hands from his pockets and folded his arms in front of him. ”No. n.o.body in the club p.i.s.sed me off. I was mad at you.”
She swallowed a smile. ”Oh.”
”Yeah. Oh.” He shook his head. This was getting nowhere.
”Okay, so you were p.i.s.sed off at me because we weren't spending the weekend together, but that-” ”Is precisely what you don't get,” he shouted, and began walking. ”How f.u.c.king off-the-hook mad I am about having to endure your endless rules and regulations and family and the way it always has to be your way!” He stopped, opened his arms, and glanced around at the tumbleweeds and spa.r.s.e cactus foliage. ”I am not a desert dweller! I hate this place. This is not me, Damali. I ain't trying to live here under any circ.u.mstances-but I was ready to come out here to be with you, then your a.s.s doesn't wanna be with me! All of a sudden, you need your s.p.a.ce. That's enough to make a man drop fang!”
”But you never said how much you didn't-”
”I didn't say all that because what was the point? We had people bleeding, banged up, had barely made it out of that Philly s.h.i.+t alive. I've never been this Neteru thing I am, my a.s.s just got out, you were driving this thing so fast I wasn't sure what was going on, and every time I protested, people were telling me about some three phases of seven that I had to deal with, security precautions of hallowed ground-aw, kiss my a.s.s!” He stomped his foot and let out a primal yell. ”I'm tired! I've been cooped up, and me and my boy was just going out for a minute.”
He was breathing hard. She smiled and allowed her gaze to slide down his abdomen.
”My bad,” she said quietly. ”Yeah, I remember that first real flux. Another month and-”
”Don't f.u.c.k with me, D. I can't take it.”
”You're gonna be all right,” she said, and turned and walked back toward her house.
”How you know?” he said, not moving but very concerned.
” 'Cause along with fangs, you have an erection that won't quit.” She released a sly laugh and looked over her shoulder at him.
”Something like that can make a brother crazy if left unattended too long,” she said with a wink.
He still didn't move.
She turned around and faced him, a wide smile gracing her lush mouth. ”I asked you what had been on your mind... the real underlying emotion, and you started talking all this rhetoric about everything but what was really on your mind.”
”This past coupla days... girl, it's been real bad all of a sudden... like before-almost as bad as the old blood hunger.” That's as much as he was willing to tell her at the moment. He could feel her attempt to lock with his mind, but blocked it, not wanting the invasion into his personal thoughts.
”I remember those days,” Damali said, smiling. ”Okay, stay mad.”
”You wanted your s.p.a.ce, sis-you got it.” He would not be moved.
She inhaled sharply. ”You smell real good, too. Remy, bar smoke, and all. I'll be up for a while, if you change your mind.” She gave him a sly grin. ”I never said I never wanted to see you again... I just didn't want to live together, right through here.”
He closed his eyes as another hard shudder of desire pa.s.sed through him. He ran his tongue against his teeth, but the fangs were gone. The only evidence left of the aberrant spike was the throb in his groin. He wasn't sure which p.i.s.sed him off more-the loss of fangs, the throb, or her. ”Listen,” he finally said. ”That still don't change the fact that I hate Arizona.”
”Never said it did,” she said in a husky voice. ”I ain't too partial to the location, but it is what it is-can't be too far from the team, and they're sitting ducks out in the cities off hallowed ground, especially Yonnie and Tara, who can't cross-”
<script>