Minion (12 page)

A burn like fire ringed the engorged delta that she now opened her thighs to allow full entry to . . . from behind, something invisible but that felt so real . . . pleasure so unthinkable that it literally buckled her knees and made her cry out.

Carlos's face blurred and new intense eyes, intoxicating, drank her in. The tight rim of her valley ached so much that it began to spasm as she moved her body to draw friction from the shower wall, her vertebrae separating as she flipped over and her back hit the tile and the water beat against her face, her collarbone, her breasts, her stomach. Shards of ice-hot need tore away shame, transforming it to liquid anguish that ran down her legs. Her quick gasp reverberated back as an echo, and she could feel it cast prisms of energy through her bloodstream. The burn was all-consuming, and she wasn't even touching herself. Her hands were splayed against the wall, her nails beginning to dig at the tile as her mind grappled with the explosive sensations. If this was what it felt like . . . Oh my God . . .

Years of wonder, frustration that had made sleeping at times torture . . . Had turned her pillow into a lover until she gasped alone in the quiet. Movements often so frantic that she feared
her bed would be heard by the others. Hot tears streamed from the corners of her eyes, mixing with the spray that pelted her. A sudden weight felt like it was crushing her, making her skin ignite as it slid against her, again causing her to turn her head for the sensation at her neck, exposing her jugular, wanting to feel that force against her throat. She didn't care. Profound, erotic heat swept through her. Then it was gone.

Breathing hard, she glanced around the empty room. The shower, now freezing, made her immediately shut it off and wrap her arms about herself and shiver. Then she rocked, her eyes closed, one hand over her mouth. Unable to stop shaking as aftershock tremors slid between her legs, gently petting the molten surfaces as though a good-bye kiss, and evaporating like the stream, she wept.

 

For a long while she sat on the edge of her bed, staring out at nothing. This thing that had happened was so private, so humiliating, but so gloriously paralyzing that she couldn't even tell Marlene. What could she say? How did one explain something like this, especially to someone who was practically your mom? What—so the team could whiteboard it and draw a weapons diagram for the shower? She was only glad that Marlene's second sight had been spotty lately, and she could put up a wall against her when these feelings manifested. But she still strained to sense whether this private invasion had been detected. Damali became very, very still. No. Whew. She let out a sigh of relief.

She couldn't fathom fixing her mouth to describe a sudden onset of severe horniness, that's all it was. She glanced at her pillow with disdain, total inner shame making her face feel hotter. Once in a while had become too regular. That's all it was. The
mood just descended on her followed by a mind-blowing fantasy about an old lover who was now practically an enemy. Oh shit.

She rocked. Because she wanted more of what that had felt like, regardless of what prompted it. The awareness was sobering, even if her body didn't want to comply.

Not Carlos Rivera, ever. She rocked. But her body was still trembling and on fire. She rocked. Because she now had an idea of what it felt like. If he walked in the room right now, it would be over. No. She rocked. The incident in the shower had left her thirsty for more, hadn't released her. It just made it hurt worse. She rocked, trying to breathe steady through a new wave of want that licked a coating of memory between her legs. She groaned, closed her eyes, and stopped rocking . . . knowing that one day, no matter what Marlene said, she wouldn't be able to say no.

Then she became very still. It felt so good that she had offered her throat?

Oh shit
. . .

Damali covered her face with her hands, leaning over until the back of them rested against her thighs. She breathed slowly. The plush terry cloth towel felt too heavy on her wet hair, and she snatched it off and tossed it, not caring where it fell. She had to get out of here, get some air. Go for a drive. Clear her head. See some people from the old neighborhood who still lived normal lives. Buy some chips and soda pop, and chocolate. Go Roller-blading on the pier at the beach. Eat tacos. Laugh to keep from crying, or running screaming into the fucking night!

Spying her black jeans and a peach tank top she'd laid out, she stood. She was outta here.

 

 

It was late afternoon when she returned. Damali glanced around at her ragtag team. Rider was leaning to the side, as was J.L., and both appeared to be trying to hold themselves upright in their chairs. Big Mike was sprawled out on the sofa with his eyes closed, snoring, and his burly hand over his stomach. Shabazz was nodding in the armchair, and Marlene looked pissed off enough to spit nails. Guess everybody had a good time. She sure did. Kicked some butt at pool, had her a taco, chips, and even a brew.

“How is he?” Damali nodded and signaled with her head toward Jose's room within the compound when she fully entered the weapons area.

“Messed up,” Rider muttered sullenly. “How the hell do you think he is?”

“All right. That's enough.” Marlene walked over to the sofa, kicked Mike's foot to rouse him, and glanced at the metal bench that stretched twelve feet long. “Big Mike, go in there with him and make sure Jose keeps the shades open. Give our man plenty of sunlight.”

Mike yawned, stretched, nodded, then got up and left the room. Marlene sat on a stool and looked at Shabazz and Damali for a moment and then cast her gaze around the team before sending it out the large double-reinforced, bulletproof window toward the hills. “Why don't you all get some real rest? The redeye flights are tough, Rider and J.L. are dead drunk, and we don't know what nightfall will bring.”

“I'm going out again for a few hours—alone.”

Damali ignored the glances of concern that ricocheted around the room. She needed space. Period. Five years of this was like Alcatraz.

“We'll discuss that in a moment, but first we need to deal with Jose's situation.”

Damali stretched and moved toward the beige leather sofa by the wall that Big Mike had abandoned and flopped down on it, while Shabazz got up and took a high metal stool facing Marlene. Rider let his breath out in a long, weary exhale as he turned a ladder-back chair around the wrong way and sat with a thud. J.L. just glanced up from his laptop computer and stared.

She needed to know Jose was all right, but she also needed to break camp again. The streets were calling her. A little bit of sunlight just hadn't been enough.

Damali tried to keep her fingers from drumming on the side of the sofa with impatience. What the hell was wrong with her? Jose was her boy! Damali looked at Marlene, willing her with her mind to speak, but hurry up.

“Poor bastard was talking to her in his sleep, just like he was the whole ride on the plane,” Rider said after a moment, shaking his head. “If he didn't get nicked, I can't figure it out.”

“You see the paper?” J.L. folded up the newspaper and tossed it toward Shabazz like a Frisbee.

“Yeah,” Shabazz muttered, catching it with one hand and passing it to Marlene to inspect without looking at it.

“Dee Dee was pregnant,” Damali whispered, swallowing hard, her gaze trailing to Marlene's and then out the window. She didn't even respond to the newspaper that had been tossed around. She wanted to clear her conscience about Dee Dee, first. She hated secrets, and had hoped Jose and Dee Dee would have told their own tale. The team shouldn't have had to learn about their baby this way.

“Our sister asked me not to mention it when she found out.” Damali sighed hard in frustration and sadness. “They were so happy, and didn't want to blow their high if the group had a negative reaction. Wanted something private of their own to keep between them for a little while. That's part of why Jose
couldn't do her last night.” She swallowed again and shut her eyes briefly. “The other part is because he loved her.”

“Aw, shit . . .” Rider stood and began pacing. “Then you know what we're dealing with, right?”

Marlene just nodded as Shabazz wiped his palms over his face and let out a loud breath.

“We gotta find the lair, soon. Jose's energy is dying . . . Dee Dee had a part of him inside her when we toasted her.” Rider stopped and studied the group. “How long does that give us, Mar? Weeks, days, months, before our man just buys it as his energy drains away? Plus, Dee Dee didn't look like a normal vamp—so what are we dealing with, in terms of time, to either send the main demon back where it belongs with a ritual, or kill a master vampire? This is crazy!”

“I don't know.” Marlene tossed the newspaper to Damali without even opening it. “We're down a guardian—and we need to address that, first. You know that.”

“Maybe you haven't been counting, Mar,” Rider shot back, “but we ain't exactly in a position to win friends and influence others to join this crap. Not after what was in the papers.”

“What about Dan?” Shabazz's question made the group go still.

“Dan is an innocent,” Damali whispered. “I don't want to see another one go out like the others did. They died before they even got a quarter through basic training—they hadn't even gotten to the compound, and we thought just keeping them on the edges of the activity would make them safe. No, Shabazz. Bad plan. We need somebody who can hang.”

When the group nodded, Damali relaxed a bit and sat back. All of this was beyond insane. Both activity and the attacks had mounted. Why, even if it was a demon, was it targeting artists?
She wouldn't even allow herself to imagine what had taken place in her shower.

Damali opened the paper and looked at the headline news. She nearly gasped. Her gaze momentarily stopped to assess Carlos's eyes, and then she read on. An immediate chill swept through her and she struggled not to cover her mouth with her hand. The team didn't need to see how much she was still concerned about him. That wasn't their business. But this was horrible. His best friends, and cousin. . . . Damn, she knew all of them. Her gaze went back to his eyes, and she touched his photo and immediately closed the paper. When she looked up, everyone was staring at her.

Marlene's gaze again went around the group and she allowed her line of vision to linger on each face for a moment before she went on. But she held Damali in her sight a little longer than she'd peered at the others, and then eventually sighed. “Because a few of our own have been compromised, J.L. will need to come up with some new gear.”

J.L. nodded. “I'm on it . . . I just hope Jose can assist—”

“That's just it,” Rider argued. “If his mind is locked with the bloodline of suckers that bit him, then he is a walking breach. And, truth be told, we aren't even sure it is a vamp that got Dee Dee . . . we don't know what that demon Marlene was talking about can do!”

“He hasn't been bitten!” Damali corrected. Her voice had escalated unintentionally and her skin was crawling. She needed to get into the sunlight, outside, and get real air.

Again the group fell silent, and slowly one by one they nodded.

“Look,” J.L. added after a moment, “we have made this place as tight as we can. We've got UV floods surrounding the compound
to light it up like a stadium at night. Freaking planes mistake it for LAX, already. Every window is bulletproof glass for the strength.

“We've got infrared motion detectors lacing all entrances, windows, even the vents. Steel grates shut this place down like a tin can at dusk, with reinforced steel doors and frames mounted into a foot-thick of cinder block, with ultraviolet lights in every room that can go on with a panic button—plus with sprinkler system trips in all the halls, in case one gets in here and we have to dose the joint with holy water . . . and we've got motion detectors and computer visuals to not just track human intruders, but we've rigged the capacity to pick up forms that don't show up on infrared—but just give off cold. It picks up a form that's lower than environmental temp and shows a blip. However, as we know, people . . .”

“We can't stay in here twenty-four/seven.” Damali let her breath out and stood. “I'm ready to do this thing, ya know. Like, when's the last time I could just hang out down the way
at night
, and kick it with the kids at the rec center—which is what we're supposed to be trying to do? Helping people. Giving back. I miss—
people
.” She spun on Marlene and looked at her mentor hard.

“Mar, for real. When's the last time Big Mike could go do his thing with the kids in the church basements, or Shabazz could go do his thing helping ex-offenders transition? Hell, when's the last time Rider's been able to go play some poker, or J.L. could go hang out in the spy shops to make some new yang, without anybody worrying about what time they had to get back here? Huh? Now he's gotta come up with some new gear and tracking systems all by himself. We won't even talk about this bullshit that just happened to Jose. All he wanted to do was sit outside and sketch and be with his woman and play his music, and our
poor brother's been so messed up since they turned Dee Dee that he doesn't even draw anymore! Hell, I can't concentrate—can't deal with the spoken word thing right through here—and that's our bread and butter!”