Minion (5 page)

“I don't know,” Marlene finally whispered.

“Your old friend, Raven?” Mike asked, his question sounding like an apology when he asked it.

Marlene shook her head. “No. She hasn't come to me like that in a while. When she does, the vision leaves emotional pain, grief. But it's not this level of intensity. The problem is . . . I can't see anything tonight.”

The revelation made the group go still.
Marlene couldn't see?

“Mar, that's too freakin' deep,” Damali whispered after a moment. She had to process what Marlene had said. Earlier, Marlene was reading her like a book. Now Marlene was blind? Just as they were about to go out the door? Oh shit . . .

“Yo, Mar, I'm blind, too, okay? Like, I can sense things aren't right, but can't put my finger on it. You knew that earlier, so what's up now?”

Her guys passed concerned glances between them. The admission was uncomfortable, and Damali had cast her gaze toward the back door as she'd spoken. Saying it out loud was like giving the flaw energy, and that produced a feeling of impotence like she'd never experienced. The cat was out of the bag, and it unnerved her.

“I don't know why I can't see right now, Damali.” Marlene walked away from Shabazz and faced the wall.

“But how can you be blind when you were inside my head just a few minutes ago?” At this point, Damali was pacing and using her hands as she talked.

“I was all right until we were about to leave. It's like I've suddenly got no internal radar. Normally I can call stuff on a
dime, like you can, Damali.” Marlene turned around and her gaze swept the group. “Even Big Mike says he
thinks
there's multiple predators out there, but can't be sure. Big Mike is always sure.”

“That's how I've been all day,” Damali said, agitated. “You feel me? Plus, the whole crew is jumpy, like their specialty is off or something. I don't like this bullshit at all. I'm not having it.”

“Damali, relax,” Shabazz ordered. He went to Marlene's side, his hand briefly touching and leaving Marlene's cheek. “You, too, Mar. Be still. Relax. Concentrate. If both seers are blind, then what's outside is too big to jack with. This is out of Marlene's league. It's on you, Damali. We get a word, first, then we move out. Breathe, baby. Then speak on it.”

Damali let her breath out slowly and closed her eyes, taking in a very deep inhale. She focused on her diaphragm, forcing it to regulate to a relaxed rhythm, and then she tried to imagine the blood flowing through her veins one cell at a time. The base of her spine became warm and fleeting images flashed in colors across her inner lids. Her fingertips tingled, as did the little Sankofa tattoo over her base chakra. She felt each vertebra in her back connect and fuse by the cord threaded through it, and then she opened her eyes, nauseated.

“Strong. Higher numbers than we've seen before,” Damali said, dry heaving. “I think we're going to see some people we know. That's what's going to mess with our heads. That's probably what's making me sick.”

Damali worked the knots out of her neck as she began to pace again. She shrugged her locks off her shoulders in annoyance, and then leaned against the wall. “I can't explain it. But, it's not clear. Everything is messin' with me—nothing smells right, nothing feels right, and my tongue tastes like it was dipped
in metal and even spring water tastes like crap. All during the performance the sound seemed off-key, sharp, in my head, like nails down a blackboard, and my skin . . . everything I touch feels like it's clinging to me. I want to just get out of here. Now.”

“Oh, fuck
me
!” Jake Rider raked his fingers through his hair, wiped his hand over his face, and then pulled his Glock from his waistband, checking the magazine one more time for good measure. “First it was Di'Giovani—and Gio was
so close
to making it to full guardian status. Then Kid Cruz—we lost his ass almost as soon as we started working with the punk, God rest his talented soul . . . when we can finally drive a stake through his heart. Then, fuckin' Dee Dee Henson—that bullshit was criminal. The poor girl was only nineteen. The way they died didn't make any sense.”

The mention of Dee Dee made everyone in the group freeze then glance at each other. They all looked at Jose, and then down at the floor. Yeah, it was criminal. Rider was right. A damned sin what happened to their band sister and their newbie brothers. A damned shame.

Rider suddenly kicked the chair, toppling it with a loud clatter of metal that reverberated off the walls and through Damali's skeleton, and walked back and forth as he appeared to get fired up again just thinking about it all.

“Imhotep's island ass is probably down in Jamaica somefreakin'-where turning his whole family into a tribe of motherfucking vampires. Then, Hans Koehler, last week, just before that kid was about to blow up on the music scene as a part of our band? And not a body in the morgue—feds and local authorities all over our ass, and we've probably gotta psycho blast up an alley on Third and Market Street in Philly's historic district tonight? Kiss my natural ass, I tell you! Just kiss my ass! I'm ready
to go back to L.A., folks—and all of us are working double duty on everything—there were supposed to be twelve of us, not seven. Shit!”

“Chill,” Shabazz ordered.

“Chill? I'm forty-five and getting too old for this bullshit, y'all. This is no way to live. We need to find the main lair, soon, before we all go fuckin' nuts. Let's do this.”

“Chill,” Shabazz ordered again, his tone lethal. His expression was no-nonsense, and he didn't blink as he looked at Rider. “That's just the kind of hysteria that will get you iced. I don't want to have to roll up on you one day, just because you panicked and got nicked. I'd hate to have to do any of you, but . . .”

“For real, for real.” J.L. laughed nervously. “I'd rather take on the Asian mob, or the freakin' Russian dealers. I can handle a drive-by,” he added, tucking in his khaki T-shirt, hoisting up his fatigues, rolling his neck, and then checking the laces of his army boots before he straightened himself again. “Been there, seen it, done that growing up in Laos. I mean, we don't even know what we're dealing with out there tonight.” He shook his head. “I've got a bad vibe. I've never seen Damali or Marlene look like this after a gig. Your run-of-the-mill demon, one or two vamps, are one thing, but this vibe is freaky. Don't wanna have to do nobody I know, you know what I mean?” He looked at Wizard, and then looked away.

“True dat,” Jose added with a melancholy tone. “They call me Wizard because I can design some def shit, but I ain't no magician. Dis ain't da barrios either, man. Ain't the Columbians or da Dominicans tonight, boss. I jus' . . . I jus' hope Dee Dee's not out there.”

Damali and Marlene glanced at each other. Everybody knew the Dee Dee situation was going to be the hardest one to cope with. When Rider had mentioned her name, everybody had
paused. How did one put a stake in a teammate's lover and then have things go back to normal? Wasn't possible. Jose would be messed up for a long time if his dead girlfriend was out there. Before she'd gotten nicked, Dee Dee had been like family to all of them. Poor Jose didn't even have a chance to ID her body at the morgue, because like the rest of their dead crew, the bodies had vanished from the slabs before they could get there.

Damali's glance ricocheted around the group. Yeah, they all knew it.

“I gotcha back on that one, Wizard,” Big Mike reassured him after a moment, pounding Jose's fist in the process. “Cool?”

“Yeah. I'm cool, man.” Jose checked the settings on his crossbow as he answered, but did not look up. “You do her, though, if she's out there. Okay?”

Mike nodded, his massive walnut-colored hand splaying across Jose's lean, sinewy shoulder. “The sooner we do this, the sooner we do this, little bro.”

“And the sooner we can get on a plane, and can sleep for five hours before we land in the morning at LAX,” Shabazz reminded the group. “Focus. We need a full day and the time the sunlight provides to check the compound out, and make sure we still have a secure base. They've got regular people like us siding with the vamps for power and money who can get past the vampire traps. Remember that. We don't even rehash or strategize on the flight, because you never know who's listening. So let's just do this and be out.”

“Might be nothing,” Jose offered. “We've been strapped up before, all ready to rock ‘n' roll, and only one or two of 'em was out there—or none, and we just had the heebie-jeebies.”

“That's the best way to get yourself nicked, or worse,” Damali warned. She carefully chose her words and spoke with full authority, trying to be sure that her team was clear about
the danger this time out. One by one, she looked each crew member in the eyes. “Don't let your guard down—not at night. Not tonight.”

“I got Raven,” Shabazz said quietly, watching Marlene, “if she's out there. Nobody should have to do a person they've loved. You don't have to carry that burden, baby. I'll carry that load, if it comes to it.”

Marlene nodded, but the emotional wear from his reassurance almost made her face appear to age as the group waited for her response. “Thanks.”

Damali let a tender gaze rest with Marlene's. It was clear that for all of Marlene's hard edge, the woman was breaking inside. Made sense, now, why Mar had been riding her so hard all day. She must have telepathically picked up Raven nearby, and it had to hurt Marlene so badly that their auxiliary seer was slowly going blind. Marlene's voice had been just above a whisper when she'd spoken to Shabazz. Damn.

“You good?” Marlene asked Damali after a moment, shifting gears and obviously submerging her own pain.

“Yeah, I'm good,” Damali responded on a long exhale, while pushing herself away from the place on the wall where she'd been temporarily leaning. “I'm always good.” She had to say something to get the group's confidence back. But the question remained, if Marlene was blanking because of Raven's possible presence, then who was out there that was making
her
blank? Seeing Dee Dee would definitely hurt, but wouldn't rock her to the core like that. It had to be more than that.

“Then, let's pray,” Marlene began, joining hands with Damali and Shabazz until each member of the team was linked in a circle. “May the power of the Most High, the Giver of True Light protect us, and send a battalion of warrior angels to flank
us and cover us . . . let no weapon formed against us prosper. Let our circle remain unbroken.
Ashé.
”

A dull chorus of “Amens” followed, and one by one hands slipped away from hands, and palms gripped gear and weapons in the place of human flesh. Damali looked into the eyes of each of her mentors, guides, trainers, crew, who had become her beloved family—like older brothers, people that she'd never had connections to by blood but who were now linked to her soul in spirit . . . just like Marlene had become the mother she never had.

Whatever was waiting for them, whatever hunted them, had a darkness more vast than she'd ever sensed before, and if any of the team of seven fell on this full-moon eve, she wondered whether that would be the final stake driven through her own heart. Damali glanced around at each member of her team and gave them the nod. There was only one way to find out what was in the streets.

“Let's do this.”

 

 

 

 

 

D
AMALI
LISTENED
beyond the steady drone of the air-conditioner compressors that wafted down the vacant alley. The low hum resonated through her as she tried to get her bearings. Humidity hung about the guardian-huntress team like a thick cloak. It was hard to breathe in air so dense. The summer heat combined with the dampness felt like a shroud. She glanced at her squad and the way everyone's shirts had begun to stick to them just that fast. Nervous perspiration was also a probable cause. Extra adrenaline was a good thing. Her ears strained to detect anything abnormal while her team's footsteps echoed against the gray, rounded cobblestone as they walked in formation.

This was an alley probably filled with ghosts, she told herself, her gaze sweeping the terrain. Original architecture, old buildings, hidden openings. She hated shit like this. New buildings were clean, better, easier to spot a sudden movement against. The bricks probably hadn't been replaced since the sixteen hundreds, and the Society Hill alley was still as narrow as it had been during Ben Franklin's era. Joint even emptied out to the old slave-auction square. No wonder everybody had the creeps. Stupid developers had cranes up a few blocks away digging in slave
burial grounds, too. Who knew what else they'd dug up? All she knew was they'd better chill, before they unearthed some real deep shit. Maybe that was all she and the team had sensed. A massive, disturbed gravesite.