Part 41 (1/2)

The dark Carlos chuckled and pointed at the Chairman as he surveyed the team. ”Look at him, crying and whining about his father, when he should be ashamed that his mother was a real b.i.t.c.h. What was she, man? h.e.l.lhound, Harpie, some stray female demon s.h.i.+t around at the beginning before Pop had serious options? At least I can say Lilith was fine.” The ent.i.ty looked at Carlos. ”Your mother was pitifully human. That's the difference between me and you-no backbone. It's all genetics; Darwinian Law. The survival of the fittest.”

Carlos stared at the evil version of himself, controlled fury unlike he'd ever known roiled within him. But this abomination of all that he was had let on to a profound truth. It was about what was locked within genetic code. The Naksong had been right; integrate oneself. Embrace it; use it, transform it into power. Be the weapon. He was darkness and light, vampire and Neteru, a hybrid fusion that had never been before. Just like the dark half even knew about the Good Book he'd read, that also meant the converse. He knew everything this dark side of him knew. But just like he never knew a vamp-Neteru fusion was possible before he sat on the Chairman's throne, this sonofab.i.t.c.h didn't know that fact now.

Therefore, ergo, Carlos reasoned ever so quietly within the black box of his mind, the differential in the match was only about one thing: which of the two had the stomach to go the distance. His palms burned as he felt magnetic force traveling up his arms and connecting to his spinal column. He had no fear of the darkness; he'd already taken a walk through the Valley and had been the baddest m.u.t.h.a in it-and would drain that b.a.s.t.a.r.d pretending to be him of power. All he had to do was think about what his body double had done to Damali within her house. The violation spiked stroke-level rage through every cell. The image of his other self, naked and heaving, d.i.c.k dripping, on top of his woman, trying to get her to give him permission to enter..._ aw, s.h.i.+t...

It was on!

”Damali, give me your blade,” Carlos said low in his throat. ”Now.” He kept his eyes on his body double, silver from his glare lighting a hot path toward his darker self, burning gra.s.s in its wake.

”D, mamacita, I was hoping you'd finally get yourself together and find your Isis. Lop off this sonofab.i.t.c.h's head, for me, won't you, baby?” the dark Carlos murmured in a sensual tone, and then nodded toward the Chairman. He spat fire and cleared his throat. ”This apex thing that other punk b.a.s.t.a.r.d is going through is f.u.c.king with my sinuses, though.” The ent.i.ty glared at Carlos and blew a kiss toward Damali. ”It's making him c.o.c.ky and stupid, and he's p.i.s.sing me off. After I do him, maybe me and you can go get a bite to eat? Or, we can stay right here and gorge.” He glowered at Carlos, taunting him, baiting him into a no-win physical struggle, using Damali as a lure.

All the locks in her mental tumblers turned within the split second it took her to lunge. She glimpsed the bad Carlos, her memory snapping back as she hurdled forward. The visions returned with it. She'd seen this in her backyard. She also saw how the Carlos she knew had been attacked in Council Chambers. The throne. The porch. The confusion. The clothes that didn't burn.

Juanita. In her house! The hotel-room incident. Nightmares. Her man's skull being split open and his memory dredged out. The good Carlos lunged at the same time she did, as though they were welded to the same nervous system. But it wasn't about ever letting go of the Isis again in the heat of battle. A tiny voice inside her head became a Neteru Council's battle cry. Never release the Isis. Something was wrong with both Carlos images, and she wasn't sure what it was; the blade stayed with her.

This ent.i.ty before them was fast, agile, like air. They both landed on their feet, side-by-side but frustrated.

”I am the prince of the airwaves,” he said laughing, reading the thought Damali and Carlos shared with a glance, and dodging them again.

Damali stopped moving. Carlos stood away from her breathing hard. For her, blind rage was not an option. Be strategic. She could still move, so could Carlos. There was a reason why-there was something in their makeup that the bad one couldn't jack with. The Neteru-infused elements. Be air.

This time when she came at the dark Carlos, she caught him with a solid kick to the midsection. She flipped away from his s.n.a.t.c.h, just as her Carlos landed a jaw blow that sent him sprawling. The dark one was back on his feet in seconds, eyeing them both, deciding which one to attack first. Good, they'd p.i.s.sed him off and made him show fang. But what was happening to her Carlos slowed her roll. He'd bulked slightly, the dark Carlos glimpsed it, then bulked into full battle mode.

They both went at each other like released tigers. Hands around throats, the dark ent.i.ty's claws drawing blood, a spin roll near the Chairman's feet, landing both of them in danger range of an infuriated, chained beast. The dark Carlos was immediately stabbed in the thigh with a slas.h.i.+ng tail in an odd turn of events. Her Carlos backed up, the slightly injured one now furious, leaking black blood and hissing.

One pair of eyes gleamed black, another pair was solid silver. Fire and dark lightning ejected from one hand to match hot silver laser from the other. A parting, another lunge, two bodies airborne and no way to get between them. Black ice keeping Carlos's silver gaze from severing limbs, a gold s.h.i.+eld turned breastplate making a heart s.n.a.t.c.h impossible.

Black blood mixed with red-silver blood; both semiwinded, they separated. Eyes narrowed and they came at each other again, fusing strategic martial arts with primal fury blows. Tree branches were down, the earth was ripped up, Harpies went scrambling for cover, but the huge beast pinned to the ground by shackles was the only thing that didn't give way.

Red cages of heat around Tara and Yonnie sputtered and weakened, releasing two vampires into the fray. The dark Carlos was clearly getting tired, and he was pulling back evil energy that had been used to contain the others in order to both fight Carlos and chain the furious Chairman, while also defending against two strong, airborne vamps with a grudge. Holding the line alone was siphoning him dry. Yonnie and Tara circled for an opening. The dark arc around her team began to dissolve, but she watched her man in horror as the earth opened beneath them and both Carlos bodies rolled over the edge into the chasm.

Before anyone could get to the edge, something ma.s.sive flew up out of the new ground that moved so fast it swept her Carlos up with it from the sheer updraft. The force of the earth's ejection toppled Tara and knocked Yonnie back. Fire pushed her team out of position as it scorched the gra.s.s around them. Rounds on the ground discharged from half-melted weapons, sending the human team for full cover. Smoke from the holy water and hallowed earth mix made Yonnie and Tara back off farther. The Chairman was on his knees, fighting against the gases hazardous to his kind.

Damali was partially blinded by the combination of white smoke and sulfuric plumes, but could hear her Carlos gagging. His body hit the ground, she heard bones snap, and this time he didn't move. She swung wildly, saw Carlos open his eyes where he lay, his eyes intermittently flickering red and silver. Then he sat up. She paused for a beat. He should have been dead. Which one was it? s.h.i.+t. Carlos leapt up. The other one could have taken on his clothes to cause confusion. Illusion. Both now stood facing each other, dressed exactly the same.

”Do him,” they both said in unison, breathing hard.

One Carlos looked at the other. ”Your biggest mistake was messing with my woman!”

She saw a dark current exit both bodies. Both Carloses bulked to master-vampire stature with Council-level powers as the link continued to connect them. Both had fangs. Both had red eyes. Both swiped at each other in a mirror image, ripping away black fatigues. Both turned and reached for her blade. One had a hint of silver in the red of his eyes... One had a tattoo lit on the side of his neck... Only one had her brand over his heart.

Damali swung, still half-seeing, aiming for the dark Carlos, the Isis ringing as it connected to the Chairman's neck. The blow sent vibrations of satisfaction up her forearm, into her biceps, into her shoulder as her throat released a warrior's battle cry. A thud sounded, a head rolled at her feet. The Chairman's body exploded, sending ash and cinders into the air. Tears stung her eyes; she'd missed. The blinding smoke... She watched the wrong Carlos expand, get taller, and begin to crush the Adam's apple within her man's throat. A dark book burned inside the cavern of his barrel chest, creating a red outline, pus.h.i.+ng against his scaled skin from the inside out, the crest on it living and moving as his laugh thundered.

The evil, stronger Carlos threw its head back and laughed harder. Life began to slide away from her man. As her blade was about to leave her hand in a desperation toss to the dying Carlos, instinct held it to her. A power grab would take it midair. But the strangling Carlos opened his hand and it was there. Just as the growing ent.i.ty looked up, for a split second their eyes met, her Carlos smiled a half smile, swung, and the dark one's head rolled.

Her Carlos fell to the ground clutching his throat, coughing from being strangled. A duplicate of his head rolled to Damali's feet and stared at her gla.s.sy-eyed. A dead ram's head replaced the Carlos look-alike and turned to ash that blew away.

Cinders made the team hack and cough as Damali rushed to the surviving Carlos's side. A beam of white light opened in the sky, a heavy breeze blew the smoke away, and they watched in awe as the writhing ashes of the dark ent.i.ty exposed a burning book cradled in the middle of its rib cage.

Heaven lit; the book lifted and vanished. Meteors fell in a natural fireworks display. Carlos flung a golden s.h.i.+eld away from his body like a discus and covered Yonnie and Tara beneath it. Holy water rain blessed with angel tears poured down to wash the foul earth. Damali sat on the ground in the mud as her Carlos slowly pushed himself up to sit beside her. The team gathered around within the blue white circle of light that bathed them. Yonnie and Tara's eyes shone from deep within the forest behind a protective globe. A torrent of clean rain became a curtain around them. Harpies squealed, crackled, and burned trying to escape the Light.

The earth sucked in a pair of shackles with charred sections of skeletal remains crumbling and breaking apart as ash while the wounded earth resealed itself. Trees righted, time stopped for a moment, two choppers approached, and everything went back to the way it had been. A pair of friends nodded in the darkness and vanished as Carlos's s.h.i.+eld lifted.

Carlos and Damali looked skyward with the team.

”You weren't supposed to throw me your sword. I was supposed to earn the right to borrow it.”

”I know,” she whispered. ”Baby, I know.”

EPILOGUE

Two weeks later Malibu, California-Cliffside Mansion.

”I still can't believe how they put a totally untrue spin on everything,” Damali said, leaning up to peek at the news. ”That is pure propaganda! How in the world can they say it was civil unrest and rioting over gas prices that blew L.A. up like that? Not to mention, all those eyewitnesses, and-”

Previous TopCarlos leaned up and kissed her, clicking off the plasma screen TV across the room, and stopping her words with his tongue at the same time. He stroked her hair as she returned her head to his chest. He sighed with utter contentment as she curled up near him in their most favorite place in the whole wide world-next to each other in bed.

”But then how do you discount landslides, avalanches, meteor showers, freakin' sand storms in Arizona? Is it me, or am I crazy?” Damali sat up, waving her arms in the middle of the king-size bed as she spoke. ”People are crazy, Carlos. They don't know how close they came to the big one. There's still stuff out there, some of that mess on the streets got away and sunk beneath the earth. How can people go back to business as usual after a major catastrophe? We still have crime, global warming, ecological damage, economic problems, war... Really, this just makes me wanna scream. They aren't tapped into what's going on, what's important.”

His gaze slowly raked her. He loved the way the white silk sheets moved when she moved, caressing her skin as they fell away from her body. Seeing that always did something to him. He was just glad that she didn't have a problem with him having a little bad boy still in him. ”Yeah, baby, I know,” he murmured, thoroughly enjoying the sheen that post-lovemaking perspiration and sun left on her b.u.t.tery soft skin.

”We have to do something. Be involved. Take a stand. Speak out about how the story wasn't told right and the world governments covered it all up-they are altering history, and the real stuff going on behind the scenes should be doc.u.mented and chronicled.”

He just watched her naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s sway as she got herself worked up about things beyond their control. She had beautiful nipples.

”It's probably being written in one of the big books as we speak,” he said stroking her hip. ”Marlene's got it.” The news be d.a.m.ned. It was what it was; the struggle between good and evil wouldn't be over until the last days... which were not today. At least not at the moment, while he was in bed with this gorgeous, s.e.xy woman he loved. Priorities. Everything was a matter of perspective.

”You're not fazed at all, are you?” she said shaking her head and reaching for the remote.

He smiled and held it away. She opened her hand and had it.

”Aw, girl,” he said rolling over on his side to capture her. ”You have to be nice; I'm still going through changes.” He smiled and showed her a hint of fang, knowing what that did to her. ”I can't do stress right through here while I'm still apexing.”

She chuckled and dropped the remote on the floor, then kissed the bridge of his nose, and watched his dark lashes lower, hiding a hint of silver flickering with a little red in his irises. Well, maybe she wouldn't worry about all that at the moment... not while sunlight bathed him, and just like everyone else, only gave him a rich, golden tan. It seemed like he'd beaten the system again, coming out holding aces... seeming more like a daywalker than a Neteru, but who was she to judge?

This s.e.xy, incorrigible hunk wouldn't live forever, either. So why waste precious time? She kissed him again more slowly, appreciating this vast natural resource she held in her arms, who was her best friend, an excellent lover, an in-the-trenches partner, but was also more mortal than anything else, just like she was. Guaranteed, mortal or not, he'd be around working the system for a very long time, just like she had a very long time to collect the rest of the stones she was supposed to have.

What he was, exactly, she just wasn't sure, but she had given up trying to figure it out... just like the powers that he had finally given up trying to understand. Her man defied definition, didn't fit into a nice, neat category. He had pulled a little of his old self back into him to beat the worst of what he was... but not too much, just enough to give him a little edge... and a nice hint of fang when he was in a particularly amorous mood. But she could deal. He worried both sides, the Dark and the Light, though, on account of the fact that he had a little of both all up in his DNA. He made the governments crazy and didn't show up on their radar-did wonderful work for them when absolutely necessary, but always on his own terms. He had shown her how to hide in plain sight... very cool. Still a master of the game who had his good days and bad days, like anyone else, he was the last brother on the planet you wanted to find in a foul mood.She laughed and just gave up as his kisses trailed down her neck. Tell him no? How? It was a stalemate, always, and they both won when the shoutin' was over. Damali sighed.

Like hers, his was a strange truce with the universe, and all sides had taken a pause to figure out what to do with him-or her, for that matter. In the meanwhile, if something went b.u.mp in the night and messed with an innocent, they handled it nice and smooth. At least the blood hunger didn't rule him, except when he was particularly turned on... not that that was such a bad thing... oh, no, not the way he served a siphon. She had what he needed. It was all good, indeed.

”The beach can wait,” he murmured with his eyes closed, reading her body, not her thoughts.

”Ya think?” she said in a hot whisper near his ear, allowing her hand to slide farther down his belly. She chuckled. ”Never mind. I have the answer to my own question.”