The Damned Read online

  How different was what he proposed from watching a fellow soldier blown half to bits, still alive, guts lying everywhere … no chance of recovery, and begging for a bullet in the temple to stop the pain? Done quietly on the battlefield every day with honor.

  Carlos shrugged and glanced up. No answer. His solutions spiraled darker as he continued to think about it all and mop off the porch.

  To keep the peace, since they were family now, and a strong family was a necessity in any realm, he would have given Yonnie enough playmates to take the sting out of the loss … he’d get over Tara with the replacements he could have made for his main man. Then, by rights, he woulda backed Kamal up to an appropriate distance so Kamal could get his head straight and go home, and Marlene could relax enough that Shabazz could stand down without losing face. Respect for the family’s Aikido master and their philosopher extraordinaire coulda stayed chill. That was power.

  There was a way to do everything, and a way not to. That’s how he saw it. Regardless of the Light, all of this was sloppy. “I ain’t trying to offend,” he said quietly, talking to the porch floor. “I just don’t understand.”

  ’Cause he mighta been able to share a little suave with Dan, so the young buck could go pull a superfine babe older than Krissy, get laid on the regular by a double-D-cup blonde, and stop wigging every time Berkfield’s underage daughter was near J.L. See, that was the thing to do to deescalate a potential nuclear situation. It didn’t have to be like this.

  He would have just taken Bobby out into the night, too, while his momma wasn’t looking, and gotten him sho’ ’nuff straight. Marj was worried about homeschooling her boy…. Sheeit, he woulda schooled the boy right, and all would have been very copacetic. She could tell Krissy whatever, and let her daughter eventually grow into her own.

  Carlos smiled. J.L. just would have had to deal until then, like he did. He loved the brother, but J.L. wouldn’t die from having his nose wide open, would just feel like he was gonna, but hey. He’d waited for Damali, and had lived … well, kinda sorta. Survived was more accurate. Still. Her daddy was in da house, and Berkfield was a good man that he owed, so even in his old life, he wasn’t gonna fuck with certain protocols. Peace.

  That’s right. Besides, he mighta been able to have a little convo with Juanita to make her go on and be with Jose, no past haunting thoughts allowed. He’d wipe the slate clean. Jose deserved that level of man-woman lock without her side glances toward an old flame, and in that very brief platonic discussion he coulda made Juanita think hombre walked on water. Sheeit, and for his brother, ’Nita would have been the alpha and the omega. Problem solved. No more drama.

  Yeah. If he was back on his old block, back on a throne, he woulda given Jose a double dose of some mad-crazy shit, ’cause he owed his line brother his life for watching his back … woulda given him all he wished he could have given Lopez to make up for the fallen. That woulda been a fair exchange, even in his old world.

  Coulda then put them all in an off-da-meter lair with every convenience, but built like Fort Knox. Wouldn’t have turned nobody but Rider, all Guardian souls would have been intact, minimal losses. Everybody happy. There were a lot of things he used to be able to do without breaking a vein. The Light would have lost the only weary soul in the transactions, Rider’s, one that’s quickly slipping from their grasp any ol’ way, if they didn’t give the man a break and some immediate relief.

  “He’s only human,” Carlos said, his voice tight from anger, going down the steps to retrieve a garden hose. Who knows, since it would have been done for love, maybe the Light coulda worked a deal for Rider, too? Shoulda. Maybe they wouldn’t have been too salty with him for doing it, since it woulda been a mercy nick? Moot point. He no longer owned the equipment to do anything like that.

  Regardless, in his old nighttime splendor and under his protective seal, within his heavily fortified lairs, they would have all lived like the royalty they were, and not been fugitives livin’ on the run. Carlos sprayed off the mop and then shot water across the porch, lost in darkening thoughts.

  What good was money when you couldn’t spend it to the max? Screw the police inquiries about where he might have gotten phatpaid, and fuck the feds, whoever, his shit would have been all vamp. Untraceable. Situation smooth.

  That would have chilled out Marj, therefore Berkfield—cool people who deserved some respite from worry, like everybody else. Fam. He woulda taken care of his peeps, all of them. That’s what he’d tried to do before he’d been turned. It was still in his DNA. Serve and protect, but he preferred to do the shit with style.

  Carlos laughed quietly. “Yeah, but don’t worry, I would have also given a healthy tithe on the down low to you, Father Pat—wild as that sounds. I would have been discreet for both of us to stay politically correct.”

  He had to get out of his own head before he lost his mind like Rider. Because, if he’d had it his way, after all that, then he woulda stepped to the Chairman mano-a-mano in Hell, like it should have been done … handled his business for both himself and Damali—snatched a bone out of that old bastard’s ass, then come home to his woman, righteous, and laid down V-point so hard she woulda walked away with twins. Carlos smiled. One day. Maybe one night.

  Then all would be right in the world, and nothin’ would have dared to slither up into his domain topside to make any of the teams ever have to go to war again. Shit, after that, he mighta even been so bold to have taken the Chairman’s throne, fair exchange, almost, given the blues the sonofabitch had levied on him … but there would never be enough to repay what he’d done to Damali.

  However, the shit woulda been cool, until he said it wasn’t. That was power. Being able to protect his family with unquestioned authority and to make their world sweet. Paradise. No static. Plush environs. To know what they wanted before they even had to ask. Ultimate provider. Stone-cold soldier that nobody fucked with, thus no one dared fuck with his people. That was how a man was supposed to handle his bizness.

  He, as the man, was supposed to have that burden solely on his shoulders; his family was supposed to live, laugh, relax, be taken care of, all needs met. Bam. Consider it done. Every man’s secret dream was to be able to do that.

  Carlos dropped the hose and stared at his palms. “Is that so wrong?” he whispered.

  His woman wasn’t supposed to have to do shit, unless she wanted to … and he was supposed to hook her up so lovely that she didn’t wanna necessarily do jack but chill. His baby could just sing and leave her blade at home. Talk about a dream come true …

  She wasn’t supposed to have to go to Hell and back and be worried about being attacked all the time … too scared even to think about carrying their next child, too stressed to sleep at night, too nervous to make love to make another one. Wasn’t supposed to be buggin’ about being his wife or tying the knot legal … talking crazy shit about living by herself to have space to think. Think about what, after all they’d been through? If he was on the job, there’d be no decision. Be no arguments. The word no about everything lately would be banished.

  The shine had gone out of her gorgeous eyes under the strain. No wonder her silver never lit; the girl was exhausted. Beyond fatigued. He’d allow that to happen to her on his watch, was off the job, so she had to pick up the damned slack. Isn’t that how his mother grew old fast, dealing with his father’s pitiful bullshit? God, don’t let that happen to him.

  Carlos took his time walking up the steps. Coffee was calling his name.

  Naw, this was not supposed to be the way it was. Damali deserved the world, and at one point, he’d been able to give her that. His state of affairs had become a travesty, and yet his woman tried her best to make it all seem like it was okay. It wasn’t. He knew it; she knew it. That’s what she had to think about, most likely. But that she’d made the attempt only made him love her more … and made him equally more determined than ever to fix this bull fast.

  “This ain’t me by a long shot.” Carlos sighed
heavily and looked at his hands, then snapped hard once. “Power used to jump off with a pop, just like that,” he whispered, enraged as he stared at the flimsy screen door. “So, if I’m the male Neteru, where’s the serious juice that comes with the new title? I got a woman and a family to take care of. Y’all listening? How am I gonna take care of my kids when we have ’em?”

  By any man’s standards, especially his, if the truth be told, his old throne was something hellacious to be reckoned with by comparison to what he was dealing with now. It was about resources and the broad definition thereof. Always had been, he’d told Father Pat that from night one. Rider said talk to the old priest—about what? It might not be what the Covenant wanted to hear, but he was being honest in the silent morning hour.

  Facts mentally dissected in the cold light of day weren’t always pretty. He had his reasons for doubt, issues that had not been addressed, a legitimate argument, and nobody was giving up answers that made sense, to his mind. All of it tumbled in on him like a ton of loose pyramid bricks.

  To him, his soul was tethered by steel cable to his understanding of manhood. Period. It felt like C4 had been rigged to that definition, then exploded, and his soul had caught the shrapnel, took the impact as the blast whipped up the tie line; it had snapped and was strangling him.

  He knew he’d been tripping since Philly, but couldn’t help it or stop himself as his tortured soul began working on his embattled mind, unraveling it as what was left of his soul clawed to survive, until his body had gotten involved and simply malfunctioned. All aspects of the dilemma were unacceptable to him. The Light needed to get with that.

  This new life had disintegrated everything he believed a man should be. At this juncture, he wasn’t sure if he cared if the Light took his thoughts the wrong way. So what that they had issues, he did, too. Yeah, he’d work for them from either side, as he did before—if it ever came down to that, again. He knew the deal in spades by now, aces wild. His woman and her family needed the table slanted to the good just to grant them peace. No problem. But not being able to do that for them the way he felt it efficiently needed to be done was torture. Was it wrong for a man to dream? Was ambition with good intent a sin? Not hardly. Not where he was from.

  Carlos opened the door the old-fashioned way, walked into the house, and let the screen door slam shut behind him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The moment it dawned on her that she was a sitting duck for a family-inspired home invasion, Damali dashed away from the front screen, hit the bathroom, and was in and out of the shower in less than five minutes. Jose’s fall-by was just a precursor. She could feel it, and needed a few hours to sort out the tangle of thoughts in her brain.

  “Oooohhhh, nooooo,” she said loudly while ripping through her bureau drawers to find her underwear, red camisole T, and her earrings. She was out.

  Damali flung open the long walk-in bedroom closet, snatched her black leather pants down and yanked on a pair of boots. Her baby Isis blade went on her hip, and her black sunglasses got hooked to the cleavage section of her T-shirt. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no,” she repeated as she hurriedly stuffed money and I.D. into her pants pockets.

  They must think she was born yesterday. She knew how family could be, and how this was all gonna go. Now that there’d been a demon sighting and all this other madness in the equation, freedom was gone. She hadn’t even really had her own place for twenty-four hours!

  Before they’d all been alerted that anything in the universe had gone awry, it was bad enough. She knew the family’s initial strategy; the first weekend, everybody was being cool to allow Carlos operating room. Then, once they figured brotherman was tightened up, they’d start falling by one by one with rental requests. Not that she could blame them, but that was not the point. They knew, just like she did, that there was no way in the world she could be so cold as to deny a family member sanctuary, a hot shower, chill time on her deck, access to her music room, whatever. How could she tell the people she loved, people who had taken bullets for her and had almost died many times in battles too crazy to mention, No, you can’t use my place to get your head right? Yeah, right, like she wouldn’t share hot water with them after all they’d been through together. But that still was not the point!

  She could hear it in her mind, playing out like a horror movie. “Yo, D, uh, you gonna be home all afternoon?” Or, better yet, “Yo, baby girl, uh, the shower situation is kinda tight over at the house, and I was wondering …” Now it was gonna be, “Hey, D, we were thinking, two-by-two detail is in order over here. So, uh, me and my lady are just gonna crash here with you to be sure you can get forty-winks, then when you wake up, we’ll go to bed—cool?” She knew her brothers.

  “No! Hell no!” Damali said, stomping in the dust as she made her way to her Hummer. Her brothers would be in there trying to use her house as a bachelor pad, regardless of demon sightings. Probably even more so because now that meant there was imminent danger, and that did something crazy to all their libidos, like Jose admitted. Crazy-azz gladiator yang.

  It was plain as day. A setup. Marlene and Marjorie would be over there next, suggesting that maybe the females in the group should move in with her temporarily until the compound was built, that way the fellas could spread out and chill out, and it would be one big slumber party until they moved out to the next location to find their targets.

  She could hear them now: “D, baby, the women in the group are all new, have to finish being trained in sharp-shooting, Aikido, blah, blah, blah, and Krissy is sooo young to be over there in all that mayhem. Tara could even come by some nights to teach the girls the ways of vampires so they’d have a jump on them in a real-life situation. Plus, the female psyche needs a level of calm for true intuition to kick in.” Damali yanked open the car door. “No!”

  A Jeep engine sent a panic attack through her. She jumped into her Hummer and started the engine, looking in the rearview mirror. Too late. Inez was back, had spotted her, and was waving at her. “Shit!” She slapped the steering wheel, but then smiled brightly and waved at Inez. They had pulled out the big guns—old-school guilt. Now how was she gonna tell her best girl no?

  Inez’s Jeep pulled up next to Damali’s Hummer. Music was blasting from the stereo and Inez leaned across her seat to yell out her window to Damali.

  “Hey, girl!” Inez said laughing. “Where you going?”

  “I, uh, was just gonna pop into town, see if I could pick up a bottle of wine, or something.” Damali lifted her ponytail off her neck to allow the air to cool her skin. “Did anybody at the house fill you in on what’s been going on?”

  “No, girl. Carlos was in some meditative trance, Rider was out there with Mike, blowing shit up in the yard, everybody else told me to go ask you, since the old heads were on an errand. So, here I am!” Inez turned off her engine and jumped down out of her Jeep. “I’ll ride shotgun,” she said without waiting for Damali to respond. “But, I’ma tell you now, Carlos don’t need no more alcohol in his system. Brother was tore up!”

  “The wine is for me,” Damali said flatly.

  “Then, girl, why ain’t you say so?” Inez said, oblivious to her mood. “Let’s go.”

  She knew Inez well enough not to immediately launch into a discussion of pure terror right off the bat. Her girlfriend would freak, go hysterical, so she had to deliver the news calmly. Besides, she remembered what it was like coming off the natural high of a fantastic getaway with the man she loved. Damali sighed; a wave of sad memory washed through her.

  Damali gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles were beginning to lose color. Inez immediately reached for her radio, turned it on, and then clicked it over to accept a CD.

  “Chile, you can’t get nothing out here but country western. I swear!” Inez fished in her oversize Louis Vuitton purse, found her CD case, and began flipping through selections. “Girl, we need some riding music.” Inez laughed and pushed a CD into Damali’s dashboard. Her head began bopping
the moment the equipment ate the disc. “Awwww, yeah, get back, get back, you don’t know me like that!”

  Damali floored the gas petal, but didn’t say a word. Her jaws were locked so tight she thought she’d chip a tooth. Inez’s effervescent mood was turning hers darker. She said a mental prayer, Please, God, don’t let this chile start telling me nothing I don’t need to hear.

  “Girl, I’m so glad I caught you before you rolled,” Inez said, slapping Damali’s arm and giggling. “I have the scoop for you.”

  Damali glanced up at the ceiling. Oh, so God had a sense of humor this morning. Fine. “Girl, what’s been going on? How was your trip to Houston?” Damali let her breath out slowly and put a lilt in her voice. It wasn’t Inez’s fault, but she wasn’t feeling the drama right now.

  “Listen,” Inez said, looking around as though there could possibly be anyone else in the car. “I understand why you couldn’t ever let me know how you was livin’, or introduce me to none of your brothers … but girl.”

  “TMI,” Damali said laughing. “Too much information before you even get started, okay. Don’t tell me nothing about—”

  “Oh, Damali, I have to tell somebody or I’m gonna bust. He is soooo nice,” Inez said and swooned in her seat.

  “Yeah, Mike is cool people, girl. A gem, for real.”

  Inez nodded emphatically. “He’s real deep, ya know. Real old school, laid-back, and a gentleman.”

  Damali couldn’t disagree and that much she could talk to Inez about, so she relaxed. “Yeah … a big old teddy bear with a soft heart. Once he takes to you, that’s it. You’re his family.” Damali’s words came out gently as the wind whipped through the vehicle. The beauty of the colors around them sent her mind a million miles away. Why was she running from these people? “But, don’t let that big teddy-bear vibe fool you,” Damali added with a laugh to jettison the despair. “Mike is the last person you want on your ass if you cross him.”