Chapter Twenty-Four
The climb to get into the demon's lair would be steep and treacherous. The footlocker of artillery was going to be a problem. The squads were breathing hard, bent over from the steady uphill trajectory. Even Kamal's guys looked winded, sweating, and several men were bent over, hands on knees, sucking in air. Marlene was holding onto a tree, her age beginning to tell on her. Just like there was no easy way to climb mountains with gear out in the wilderness, some things required endurance.
As they stood at the foot of the steep crag of pure rock incline, everyone on the squad shook their heads one by one. Her teams had their eyes on the ground-level mouth of the cave. However, vultures circled high above it. Damali watched the birds.
"There's an opening up there drawing the birds to the carcasses. If we go in from the bottom, there are traps for those coming in on foot. It's too far of a drop by rope, given the height of the trees. Girlfriend isn't stupid. She's very smart." Damali pointed up with her sword. "But, there's a hole up there. Bet she sleeps all day in the shade after eating, like all the big cats do."
"Don't they have to stay out of the light, though, to regenerate?" Rider had pulled off his hat to get more air.
"They have to rest in the day, they're weaker - but you just saw that thing that was spying on us, Rider. That was what they're like when they're weaker. But sunlight doesn't harm them like vamps."
"Duly noted," he conceded to Damali. "Now what? I'm not trying to leave the ammo behind."
"Normally, we've only seen the demons remain in human form by day," Kamal said, his voice tight. "If it held a were-shape in broad daylight, they're very strong."
"Yeah, I hear you," Damali muttered, her mind working. "This ain't the kind of place you go into with just a blade in your teeth."
"For real." Shabazz eyed the cave entrance. "Too easy."
"I agree," Kamal replied, glancing around.
They were stalled. The entire team was waiting for the order to move, but where did one go? Damali walked back from where they had come from for about ten feet and looked up the cliff. The desire to take off the Amazon-demon's head with Madame Isis was so strong it made her hands tremble. But they were losing sun.
"If we go up the side, we'd have to leave the heavy ammo, and with the way the cliffs are situated, and no mountain-climbing gear on us, a jag could take us easy. We'd die from the fall alone, and I've seen these things pull on their shape-shifting capacity to become huge snakes and crocks." She walked back to where the others stood and motioned toward the cave entrance. "We already know this is booby-trapped, but if we get into a jam, we can possibly force some of her own through it - in the heat of battle, in a flat-out retreat, disorientation is easy. Troops step on their own land mines all the time, if it gets hectic enough."
Kamal nodded. "De other entrances put us about a mile from her lair up top if we have to go through a more obscure opening. Then we have to hope dat we get up dere, zigzagging at an angle, before de sun drops and dey get even stronger." He glanced at Damali, and then at Shabazz and Marlene. "Unless..."
Tilting her head, Damali came near Kamal. "Brother, no disrespect, but time is of the essence."
"I know. But you gotta be strong. You gwan hafta speak out loud some tings to dis team to guide 'em... dat's gwan be hard."
"Oh, shit," Rider sighed.
"She don't have to go there, man," Big Mike argued. "We can do this like old times, you dig?"
"No. I'm cool," Damali said firmly. "Talk to me, Kamal."
He walked a pace away from her and stood with Marlene and Shabazz. "D, how does your man think?" Kamal asked gently.
"Oh, Lord, Kamal... don't make her go there," Marlene murmured.
"The Neteru got to tell it, Mar," Shabazz said, his voice unwavering. "You and I both know that. We got thirty-three lives on the line."
"Can't be no bullshit out here," Kamal added. "D, how he think?"
"I... I don't know what you mean, for real." Thoughts slammed and scattered within Damali's head. Two older male guardians were looking at her, searching her face, but she didn't know what part of the answer they were looking for. Carlos was shrewd. Intelligent. What did they want from her? "You need to be the ones that stop bullshitting out here," she snapped, feeling the pressure from their stares. "Say it plain. I'm no child!"
Shabazz and Kamal hesitated, obviously not expecting the indignant response. All team members straightened slowly and waited, watching.
"We're trying to hit were-demon mating dens, but if she's trying to snag a master vampire, you think he would go to her, or she would come to him?" Shabazz looked at Damali, an apology in his eyes. "From what we know of male vamps, during a seduction, they have to be the ones in control. Am I wrong?"
"If he gwan take her to mate her, where would he go?" The expression on Kamal's face looked so pained, like it was the last thing he'd wanted to ask - but through her lack of quick clarity, she'd forced him and Shabazz to go there.
Damali sucked in a deep breath, and tried not to allow her gaze to leave their faces. This shit hurt so bad that she almost couldn't talk.
"He's old-school," she said, her voice flat, confident, and devoid of emotion. She used her sword as a pointer. The edge of the blade disconnecting her emotions from her body, cutting them, hacking them away like useless vines that had barred her path. Yeah, the forest floor bled when she mentally cut away the part of herself that clung, but the vines would eventually grow back. They were in the way right now.
Damali massaged her temple with two fingertips. None of her men could look at her as she spoke. She studied the cave layout. "He wouldn't take her to the top if she's throwing scent like she's ripening... I should have known. She's up there now. But by sundown, she's coming in low, will come down to meet him, to bring him deeper into her lair."
"Why, when she has da strategic advantage of mobility out in the jungle, versus inside a cave?" Kamal asked, looking at the ground. "Or why wouldn't she stay at da top and wait for him? We just have to be sure the cave isn't a death trap for us. Dat's the only reason I'm picking at this fresh scab, baby."
"Carlos, in that state..." Damali steadied herself, leaning on the Isis. "In that state, the sun would come up on him. He wouldn't risk the rays, and he knows himself well enough to protect himself. Once he gets started, time stops for him."
"Damn..."
Rider's voice haunted her. She began walking, needing the motion of pacing to keep her mind from exploding.
"If he's being turned out, and she's giving off ripe Neteru, he'd take her to somewhere he knew no sunlight could harm him. Roll up on him while he's working, though, and you'll die."
The glances that the team exchanged made her want to impale herself on her own sword. But they needed to know what they were dealing with - how volatile a situation this was. "Once ripened Neteru hits his system, he'll be more dangerous to any of us than her eleven were-jags could ever be."
She looked up and made each member of the squads look at her, using sudden silence. "If you catch him with solid red in his eyes, do him without hesitation. He will even snap my neck in that state - if I get between him and her. I'm not ripe, and I'm the Neteru - a threat to his mate. He won't be rational. He won't be Carlos Rivera, he'll be Master Vampire Rivera, two extremely different entities."
Damali glanced up at the sky as the faces of the team blurred. "I've seen it... and once you see it, you never forget it. He was strong as shit and ripped a competitive male master's jaw off with one swipe, because there was a ripening slayer nearby." She swallowed and pointed to the top of the cliff. "She's no fool. By sundown, her crew won't even have to fight us, Rivera will. Why take the bullet when the male will? Law of the jungle, just like the streets.
"Let's move." Damali began walking again; her chest was getting tight as she spoke and they followed just listening. "Plus, she'll definitely need her strength to take the body blows and the siphon, especially if he doesn't love her. I was lucky that way, then. If we kill her early, and I happen to survive... he'll come for the next available female with the nearest scent that's driving him crazy - me. But he'll be very, very disappointed and angry, because I'm not ripening... so when he's done, what's left of me when he wakes up and needs to feed - "
Marlene's gasp behind her carved Damali's insides out. The fact that Big Mike had stopped walking for a minute hurt her through and through. Her biggest brother was shaking his head and repeating a mantra, "Oh, damn," low and quiet as he walked much slower. Kamal had so much pain in his stricken expression as he mouthed "I'm sorry," that Shabazz put a hand on his shoulder. Rider simply stopped, found a large bolder, and sat on it hard, crushing small stones with his foot. Dan had also stopped and was leaning against a tree like someone had punched him in the stomach, and Jose just looked off into the distance with JL, watching the vultures circle, not moving. But they had to know. More important, they had to keep walking. It was about survival.
"Gentlemen, let's move out," she ordered, and brought the team together in a forward progression once more, looking for potential lair entry points as she tried not to think too hard. But that battle was lost the closer they got to the base of the mountain. Her mind wouldn't let go of the thing that hurt her the most and it cut her deeply.
Kamal's team might act swiftly, having no prior knowledge of Carlos as anything but a vamp. They'd see him and do him. Point blank without blinking or stuttering. But her guys were in danger. Her guys would hesitate. Her guys would hold out for hope. Her guys would think of her heart. Her guys didn't understand what went through her hands the night before and terrorized her mind. And, before, she'd been the only Neteru in Carlos's nose. Her scent was dominant. Her cycle changes had been the only ones he followed like the natural phases of the moon.
When her guys saw him flip out, Carlos didn't have two competing priorities confusing him, enraging the beast within him. The Neteru guardians had been on Carlos's side before, the side that was protecting his interests - a ripening slayer. Now they'd be on opposing sides, as their squad attempted to get between a jacked up-male vamp and his cycle-ready female. Not good.
Their horror notwithstanding, her guys had to suck it up, and deal
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