The Thirteenth

Chapter TEN



Lilith craned her fingers in, black energy swirling in the centers of her palms, and then in a fit of fury, she hurled the orbs at the hovering globe so hard that it nearly tipped off its axis.



"Waters arise--empty your depths! Bring them to rne! Sweep the shores of all life. Swallow everything in your wake!"



Raging dark energy plunged into the blue oceans of her globe, sending tidal waves inland toward North America to crash into fragile crusts of land. She shrieked with mad glee as Manhattan submerged and New England disappeared. The length of the eastern seaboard, except Washington, D.C., disappeared under a blue eclipse. Florida broke off and sank, along with Cuba and all of the West Indies. The Gulf of Mexico spread inland like a deep blue stain, a wall of water that made Lilith screech and clap, and then form another orb to explode in the Pacific. Immediately, from Portland to La Paz, encompassing all of California inland to the Sierra Nevada, disappeared beneath a roiling blue carpet of death. Central America was gone.



"You're in North America, I know it! Why won't you just die?"



Nuit stood in the desert, wearing black fatigues, with a look of cool satisfaction on his face. He stared at the human mercenary soldiers before him, admiring their Bradleys and military arsenal.



"One clean sweep," he said calmly. "Twelve dead old men, Aborigine insurgents, terrorists . . . and you bring me the artifact that they stole from my corporation long ago--and you will be handsomely rewarded."



"The contract still the same, mate?" the commanding officer said, flashing a dazzling white smile against ruddy skin.



"Yes. . . one hundred million of recently recovered monies for each of you . . . and eternal life." Nuit rubbed his jaw and chuckled, looking at the six men who were mounted on unstoppable weapons of destruction. "And you do this of your own free will?"



"No worries, mate. For that deal, who gives a shit about a bunch of crazy geezers?"



The Unnamed One looked up from his large black marble war board, standing slowly as a commotion drew his attention to his outer chamber. His hooded demon sentries shielded their eyes from a white glowing object held by the charred human remains. The blackened bodies of six men stuck to the surface like gooey tar, which was the only part of the large disc his demons could hold by skewering the bodies with their scythes.



"My darkness," the lead demon murmured, nervously genuflecting. "Councilman Nuit sends his regards and has brought you an unusual offering. He requests an immediate audience, after having the audacity to send you something with the dreaded Light embedded in it. We have detained him to prevent what could only be an assassination attempt, this close to the--"



"Send him in!" the Unnamed One thundered, quickly walking around the war board to further inspect Nuit's unimaginable offering. Pure ecstasy coated his dark heart and then he closed his eyes. This was what he'd been waiting for. Now he could release his full torment on the world, and the moment the Light retaliated by breaking the fifth seal, he would trump them with the sixth!



As Nuit was thrown forward and hit the sizzling cavern floor, Lucifer bent and offered Nuit a helping hand up. "Come, my new Chairman . . . talk to me. . . ."



Carlos quietly stepped back from the group. From a very remote place in his mind he saw Damali commune with her sister Guardians and Marlene. The brothers were listening to the women's experiences with complete focus. But he watched the water.



Something very deep within him was still coiled tight like a serpent ready to strike, needing to strike. It was something that went well beyond gut hunch. It was a knowing.



The night was darkening, the stars seeming to go out one by one like someone was blowing out birthday candles. He had at one time been the very night itself. He understood the slow, seductive creep of darkness. Yonnie gave him a sidelong glance and left the central gathering on the deck to join him at the stern.



"Yeah, I know," Yonnie said, confirming Carlos's suspicions while chewing hard on a toothpick.



Carlos nodded, motioning toward the water and then the horizon. Distant lightning flashed, making the group stop talking. Within those few seconds of illumination he saw that it wasn't stars going out above, but the water rising to eclipse the horizon.



"Oh, shit!" Yonnie yelled, jumping back as the two men at the stern stared into a demon-infested wave.



"Battle stations!" Shabazz shouted, jumping up and heading toward the pilothouse with Big Mike.



Carlos held up his hand and didn't move. One could fight demons, but couldn't fight the sea. Viking war ships numbering in the thousands painted the rising surf black. Carlos pulled Mike and Shabazz in with the others and then covered the team with a shield of Heru, ignoring Damali's shouts to let her fight with them. Carlos stared at Yonnie.



"How many of these motherfuckers you think we can take before it's all over, man?" Carlos asked calmly, watching the tsunami-size wave continue to build.



Yonnie shrugged and spat out his toothpick. "Couple hundred, if your shield holds . . . maybe you should jettison the team to anywhere you can dream of now before we capsize." Yonnie let his breath out hard. "I mean, what the fuck? They definitely gonna die here."



Carlos nodded, the absolute impossibility of what faced them making him become eerily calm. The problem was, no image would come to his mind of where safe could be. His fingertips didn't tingle, no energy surge pulsed through him enough to lift and jettison the entire team safely in a fold-away. He knew he'd drop them in shark- or demon-infested waters--something was siphoning his power, sucking him dry. He was still too close to the Devil's Triangle and it was as though it had become another entity to laugh at him.



"So, whassup, man?" Yonnie finally said, beginning to pace.



"Triangle's got me shot-blocked," Carlos said as calmly as possible.



Yonnie nodded. "Then we do this old-school. Go out swinging." He pounded Carlos's fist as Carlos's line of vision remained on the building wave.



From his old Vampire Council life, he remembered what the Vikings were capable of... rape, pillage, plunder. The bloody death--cracking open a living being's rib cage and pulling out their lungs. Torture refined to a spectator sport. Quick raids and hits on unsuspecting villages by sea, from North America to Africa, raining down hell on every continent in between . . . always by sea. Decimating Europe and the Middle East, even as far as India and Asia.



And now these raised barbarians stood on living dragon ships bearing glistening fangs, propelled by demon surges. Eyes glowing in hollowed sockets, weapons raised. Bloodlust crackling over the black ghost ship hulls . . . and nowhere to send his wife and child, his brothers and sisters and their children, panicked to the point of numbness, he wondered what the innocents had felt when their villages were attacked. Many probably took their own lives rather than succumb to what the Berserkers had in store for them. And he was now the member of what amounted to a floating village.



Seconds had clicked by, but it felt like many long minutes. Carlos snapped out of the daze, Damali's call a refrain in his ears. He turned to see a rainbow of lights dancing under his shield and then something in her eyes made him open his mind, open a channel to her telepathy, and agree without words to lift his paltry protection.



She was right, his fellow Guardians were right, if they were gonna die, they had the right to go out swinging. The shield he'd erected to keep them breathing in an air pocket when the wave hit, and to keep the demons off their backs, would only hold until his energy waned in the battle--which wouldn't take long given the circumstances. Carlos reluctantly dropped his shield of Heru. The very instant he did that, the vessel became encased in shimmering light.



Guardians held on to anything they could as the huge wave finally crashed into the ship, swallowing it. But they gradually stared up as though moving in slow motion to see the dragon hulls pass over them. Bright light from their vessel illuminated the crystal-blue water that surrounded them, but they didn't feel wet and could oddly breathe.



Weightlessness soon lifted them off the deck and they found themselves moving their arms and legs to hold the relative position they'd been in. Guardians touched their bodies, their billowing clothes, one another while watching their hair lift and sway in an underwater dance. Silence blotted out panic as they all took in the deeply surreal scene.



Damali stared at Carlos and simply touched her pearl at her throat. He nodded, understanding but yet still confused. The demons couldn't see them. Yonnie stared up at the passing legions in awe. Slowly Guardians stared up to watch the majesty of being passed over as ship after demon ship lurched forward above their heads while schools of sharks swam right past them, chasing the bloody vessels for a sure after-carnage meal. Then suddenly as the wave passed, their vessel broke the water's surface and everyone took a huge air breath. Sound came back. The yacht bounced a bit and then steadied, leaving Guardians sprawled on the deck floor.



Carlos reached out and clasped Damali's hand and kept his voice quiet and reverent. "Whoa . . . what a ride. One day you've gotta tell me all about Atlantis."



A few Guardians rose from the deck and Carlos looked around the yacht and then to Monty.



"Where are we?" Carlos asked. "Your navigation equipment is going nuts, Monty. What did getting hit with that energy wave from the lights and that crazy water do?"



Frantic, every Guardian with sensory capacity tried to hone in on a landmass, to no avail.



"J.L.,you get that communication connection up yet?" Shabazz paced back and forth on the deck. "How's Damali's pearl?"



"Spent," Damali said quietly, "like the rest of us."



"It's cool, it's cool," Carlos said. "We'll figure this out. I just want J.L. to get some kinda communication going, because the last thing we need right now is a run-in with a protective battleship or a coast guard patrol, ya know."



J.L. looked up. "Dude . . ." he said in a far-off tone. "This can't be right. . . ."



"What can't be right?" Yonnie said, going to the pilothouse.



"Manhattan is gone . . . Philly is gone, ain't no Miami ... no Cali, no Boston . . . it's gone."



"J.L., what the fuck are you talking about?" Dan shouted, jumping up from Heather's side to bang on the glass outside the pilothouse. "Motherfucker, my parents are in Manhattan! Stop freaking us all out by tuning into those bullshit, Apocalyptic, fraudulent sites! Find us some real news!"



"Man, I'm sorry," J.L. said gently. "My bad. Lemme try some other sources. But they said meteors hit in the Atlantic and Pacific sending in--"



"See, right there!" Dan yelled, pointing over the deck rail. "That's how you know it's bullshit! We are in the Atlantic last I checked, man. If a meteor hit here, large enough to create a giant tsunami to wipe out the eastern seaboard, we'd be floating toothpicks right now!"



Quiet seized the team as Carlos slowly went to his wife and gently took off her necklace. She caught his hand for a moment and then kissed him before letting him walk away with her oracle. He rubbed his thumb over her pearl and found an opened water jug. All eyes were on him as he tipped it to pour freshwater over the pearl's dehydrated surface. A soft, sad coo drifted up into the wind.



"We need to know," Carlos said.



"The rising wall of Atlantis energy saved you by pushing you through the Strait of Gibraltar right into the Mediterranean Sea. You must go to Megiddo."



Carlos just stared at the pearl as Dan's back slowly hit the pilothouse wall and he slid down to the deck floor. Heather was at his side in seconds as he covered his face with his forearm.



"Oh, Dan . . ." Marjorie and Berkfield rushed forward toward Dan and Heather with Bobby.



Krissy ran to the couple, and then seemed at a loss for whose tears to attend to first.



"I should have gotten to them," Dan said thickly. "My mother and father . . . how could I leave them?"



Heather's arms gathered as much of him as she could, but Inez's slow, agonized wail tore the team members in two. Mike tried to hold her but she fought like a woman possessed.



"My baby girl and my momma! No, no, no, God, no, not my baby girl! Oh, my God, my baby was just three years old, Jesus!"



Female Guardians tried to run in to assist Mike, who took every blow she hurled at him as though he'd drowned the child himself.



"You promised me!" Inez screamed, fighting the arms of female warriors as Mike finally walked away to break down against the rails.



Pandemonium erupted. The brothers broke off into small squads of support, half going to Dan, and the other half going to Mike, who wailed like a huge, wounded bear.



"She was just a baby," Mike sobbed. "A little precious baby!"



Carlos and Yonnie both had to box Mike in to keep him away from the artillery stash, each talking to him quickly in staccato pants. Rider tried to get a leg and almost got knocked out from Mike's flailing.



"Wasn't your fault, man--we couldn't get to 'em . . . woulda lost 'em in the pull through the Triangle," Yonnie said, working with Carlos to wrestle Mike to the deck.



"Look at my woman!" Mike hollered. " 'Nez, baby, I swear to God, I'm sorry!"



Carlos felt his body lifting as Mike broke free, his insane strength now a liability as Yonnie lost his grip on one of Mike's massive appendages. The only thing he could do was take the full body charge by getting in front of Mike, and then roping him down with an energy lasso.



"Let go of me!" Mike shouted, still struggling as a dazed Carlos tried to sit up.



"No, 'cause we love you, man," Carlos said, panting.



Damali had Inez in her arms, rocking her with Juanita as piteous wails sliced through everyone's skeleton. Guardian sisters ran between the fallen, trying in any way they could to touch, heal, and cry with those who'd experienced such visceral loss.



Dan sat in a curled ball of humanity, his arms gripped tightly around his knees, his head tucked in, rocking, while Shabazz and Berkfield tried their best to rationalize the incomprehensible. Finally Marlene parted the gathering of men, dropped to her knees, hugged a young man who'd just lost his parents, and let him wail. Shimmering tears rolled down her cheeks as she held him shaking her head, unable to bear going to Inez--the loss of her own daughter palpable to each Guardian with Marlene's every ragged inhalation.



The storm of hurt and pain that hit the ship was so violent that no one spoke for what felt like hours. Mike lay on the deck face down, panting from the fatigue of struggling against his binds, energy-tied down for his own safety. Inez lay on a sofa, covered by Damali's healing wings, having cried herself sick. Dan had finally accepted Heather's hugs, and his head was in her lap, his face to her belly, as they both rested on the deck floor numb.



Carlos stood at the stern, looking out at the water all around them. There was no naval presence guarding U.S. ports now. Pearl and Father Pat said to go to this strange land with the walking wounded, spiritually destroyed Guardians, and he didn't even know where that was. Four days, and the Neteru Councils hadn't surfaced . . . nor had any warrior angels . . . and a little baby girl had died--for what?



He hung his head, wishing he'd tried to pull them through the Triangle. Seeing the pain, hearing it, crawled all over his skin. And this was just his tiny family. What kind of human suffering was the world experiencing at large? All of this because of a deal forged eons before he was even a spark of conception. His Neteru Kings held back from going down to Hell and blowing the doors off it, all because the Devil was granted a period of time to corrupt the human soul. All because some of the Kings on the Neteru Council had to wait until the end of days, and had to let human nature, human karma run its full course . . . Carlos squeezed his eyes shut tightly. It was all so wasteful, so blindly wasteful, and if he was lucky, this was what his kid would inherit.



Hearing Inez's wails reminded him of just how powerless he was in this entire dance of life. Hearing Mike's wails made him want to put a gun to his own head. The only reason Dan's pain didn't carve at him as deeply was because, in some way, he could rationalize the loss of an older couple, people who'd lived, loved, raised a family, and had died together quickly. If he were honest about it, even the loss of Mom Delores didn't tear his spirit from its housing within. She'd gotten a chance to see her child grow up, marry a good person, and have a child of her own, knowing her kid and grandkid would be with good people that loved them. But the loss of that baby girl, little Ayana . . . that was what had rocked the entire team. That was what had stabbed him in the heart.



"Where is Megiddo from here?" Carlos whispered into the wind. He looked out at the glass-still surface of deep blue water. "Father told me, but I can't picture it in my mind," he said in a weary tone. "Can't picture none of it at all. My team is bleeding to death . . . Heaven help them. I don't know what to do."



"Bring them in first," a deep, unfamiliar voice said. "There is no more Triangle barrier here. I will help you so that you do not deplete yourself."



Carlos slowly straightened, drawing the blade of Ausar into his grip as he turned around to meet the threat.



"My father's sword suits you, Neteru brother."



A dirty-faced warrior stepped out of the folds of nothingness, a younger Ausar look-alike the size of Big Mike. He grabbed Carlos's left forearm before Carlos could react, bumping their chests hard enough to knock the wind out of Carlos as he gave him a hearty warrior's embrace and then let him go.



"Heru?"



The Neteru prince nodded with a wide smile. "We have laid siege to the Berserkers, and then have been trying to move civilizations from the floodplains," Heru said, using a Neteru blade to paint a vivid war report on the deck floor as mesmerized Guardians looked up from their private pain to watch.



"Heru . . ." Carlos drove his sword into the deck and gaped, for the first time in his life actually starstuck. "I carry your shield, man. You are the one!"



"No, my brother--this time, you are the one." Heru laughed deeply and gave Carlos another warrior's embrace of friendship, crushing the air from his lungs again before he released him.



"How . . . where . . . what happened to the Kings--I've got a million questions," Carlos said, awe making him tongue-tied. "Warrior angels have chased the infidels to the borders of darkness, and have put pressure on the Antichrist's healing dens. Twice we almost had the bastard," Heru said, frowning as his charismatic voice enthralled the team.



"But you didn't save my baby girl!" Inez screamed, up on her feet and rushing forward before Damali or Carlos could grab her. She barreled into Heru's midsection, drew a blade from the back pocket of her jeans, and held it to his throat. "I just want to know why?"



Heru smiled and glanced at Carlos with approval. "Good warrior; excellent reflexes. You will need that on the battlefield against the darkness."



" 'Nez," Damali said softly. "Don't." "He's on our side, 'Nez," Carlos said carefully. "Let her," Heru said calmly. "But there isn't just reason to ... your daughter lives. I will bring her here. There isn't much time. What is left of the North American teams must join the Middle Eastern teams before the fifth seal is broken."



The blade fell away from Inez's hand to clatter on the wooden floor. Carlos caught her before she dropped.



"Medic!" Carlos hollered. "Need some water, man!" He slapped Inez's face until her eyes rolled toward the back of her head and her eyelids finally began to flutter.



Berkfield was trapped mid-deck on the way to get water when Dan slowly pushed himself up to stand and began backing away from the pilothouse. Damali covered her mouth and then stifled a scream. Monty's frantic shout made Carlos loosen Big Mike's energy binds as Dan staggered forward.



Frank and Stella Weinstein clutched each other trembling. Delores held on to the door frame, as Ayana broke free and ran straight for her dazed mother's arms. Inez's screams and the toddler's shriek, "Mommy," put Mike on his feet and sent him hurtling toward Inez and her daughter. Monty staggered out of the pilothouse, clutching his chest.



"They came out of thin air. They--"



"Berkfield, take the helm," Carlos shouted. "Somebody tend that man before we have a cardiac case!"



Heru crossed his chest with his forearm and stared deeply into Carlos's eyes. "We would never forsake you at this hour, brother. The Kings have heard your petitions."



"What do you mean, Co-Chairman?" Lilith said in such a quiet, deadly hiss that even the Devil slowed his exit, not sure that he should actually turn his back on his wife.



"Your efforts have not produced the Neterus. But I got something equally as strategic. Therefore, Nuit earned it," the Unnamed One said with a sly half-smile. "I now have the sixth seal." He gave her a wink, backing out of her chambers, laughing. "Carry on."



* * *



"The rest of your teams are at Megiddo," Heru said, using the tip of his sword to draw on the deck floor. "Here is where you are needed. It is also the safest place. The released armies of darkness, the raised Berserkers and all else that joins them, will spew catapults of brimstone to look like balls of fire in the sky." "Meteor showers," Damali said, her voice capturing Heru's attention.



He bowed deeply from where he sat. "Yes, Queen." Then he checked himself, cleared his throat, and landed a solid hand on Carlos's shoulder, shaking his head. "My brother, you are gifted and highly favored."



Carlos couldn't fight the smile that tugged at his cheek. He didn't care what he had to fight at the moment; sanity had been restored as quickly as it had been taken. Time was speeding up, the roller coaster moving so fast that no one had a chance to recover from one mental breakdown before the next one hit.



Inez sat with her child clutched to her chest, Big Mike holding both of them. Monty and Delores sat huddled together with Marlene and Shabazz offering them reassuring hugs. Dan sat between his parents, wiping his eyes, with them bookended by Heather and the Berkfields.



"Here's my question, though, man," Carlos said, bringing his focus back to the young Neteru prince. "We've got civilians this time out."



"It is the only way. You must go to the tunnels. The Middle Eastern team is made up of Guardians from the entire region. Every country is represented, yours blended with it reunites the scattered Twelve Tribes. They will be able to show you the ancient escape tunnels used to elude the Romans when Jerusalem was ransacked two thousand years ago. There is an escape in the south end that terminates at the Temple Mount, which is known to Muslims as Al Aqsa Mosque--a disputed holy shrine--it also leads to the Kidron River, which empties into the Dead Sea."



Carlos stood and walked back and forth, dragging his fingers through his hair. "But we've got civilians, man. Babies, older peo-I pie who have just come through God only knows what. The water cistern at Megiddo is a hundred-and-five-foot vertical drop into ancient tunnels, and then you're talking about a full-team jettison into the hot zone, downtown Jerusalem, man . . . c'mon."



"Megiddo," Heru said, standing, his gaze beginning to glow silver as he lost patience with Carlos, "will require an excavation. There, the Neteru Kings of old hid something written that came out of Ethiopia."



Damali tilted her head as she craned her neck upward. "Coptic text. Part of the prophecy."



Heru nodded. "She is--"



"Married," Yonnie muttered under his breath, gaining a glare from Heru.



"You, the Neterus, must go beneath this hallowed ground in Megiddo to get the text and, from it, the implement that can stop Satan's Thirteenth--his most cherished demon that will lead his armies of dark angels out of their Euphrates containment."



Carlos and Damali stared at each other.



"Okay, I've heard enough," Rider said, standing and walking across the deck. "That name is a showstopper with seniors and a baby on board--and my wife pregnant."



"How do you rule an army of warriors under democratic processes?" Heru yelled, losing patience as he stared at Carlos and Damali. "The insubordination you accept would not have been tolerated in the ancient empires!" He spun on Carlos. "There is a dagger that was hidden in the juncture at the disputed holy site beneath Jerusalem. That is one-half of what you need--the dagger used by the Roman Guard to pierce the side of the Christ. But you also need to be armed with the actual name of the demon, which was hidden in the Valley of the Kings' text, the Gospel of Judas. But the darkside stole the manuscript . . . however, we buried a copy in the spring tunnel at Megiddo."



Carlos wiped his palms down his face. "Okay. And we're supposed to take everybody with us?"



"Yes," Heru said flatly. "Time is quickly running out. Everyone here has a role." He spun on Inez and pointed to Ayana. "Only she is small enough to get into the crevice that houses the sacred dagger." He leveled a blade at Dan's parents. "Rabbi will come to them to lead them through the streets of Jerusalem. They will remember the way from their pilgrimages and fluently speak the language that you stumble over. They will get entry to places you cannot easily pass. But you, Carlos, must focus on Kupigana NgumiAha."



"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Carlos said, now walking in an agitated circle. "Hand-to-hand Kemetian martial arts with hombre's worst demon, using a dagger? Not a long blade to put a little body distance between me and--"



"It must be dead aim in the heart, and to do that, you must use the form of grappling and boxing used by Kemetian priests for felling the unholy." Heru turned to look at Damali. "Ma'at Akhw Ba Ankh is your weapon, Queen."



"Meditation and breathing? While my husband does hand-to-hand combat with the Thirteenth, I'm supposed to just chill and deep breathe--with a baby in the tunnels and a civilian couple trying to run through the streets that will send all of Hell after them?" Damali raked her locks. "I have much respect, don't get me wrong . . . but let's just say this strategy has the ring of real crazy to it."



* * *



Confused, the team looked around at the barren hill that was no more than a vast, crusty ruin site. Completely razed, the rock-studded terrain belied the fact that twenty-seven metropolises and � the center of significant trade and commerce had passed through the gates here at one time in history. Just seeing a past cultural epicenter that was thought to be the center of the then-modern world reduced to dust gave every person on the trek pause.



"I know your Neteru homeboy was busy and all, and did us a favor by letting you save your energy, C . . ., but couldn't he have just dropped us off in the tunnel?" Yonnie shook his head as they searched for the southwest section of the mound that was supposed to house the tunnel entrance.



"In case you hadn't noticed," Rider fussed, kicking stones out of his path as he hiked up his M-16 shoulder strap. "Easy, straightforward, any of those adjectives, just erase them from your vocabulary when dealing with the Light. They like to err on the side of the mysterious."



"Do me a favor, Jack Rider," Marlene said, giving him a hard glare. "Blaspheme on your own time when alone, huh? I'm not trying to get anybody smoked by a lightning bolt because you're having a bad hair day. We got some real important folks back. I'm grateful."



"Okay, okay, Mar, I'm sorry," Rider said, jogging to catch up with her. "You don't think they'd really send a lightning bolt for an offhanded comment, do you, Mar, seriously?" He glanced around and tugged on her arm. "For real, because I was just joking."



As Marlene turned to answer Rider with a smile, a huge fireball tore across the sky.



"Get down!" Carlos shouted, and then created an energy dome over the group using his shield of Heru.



The impact of the blast sent up clouds of dust and rocks flying like razor-sharp pieces of shrapnel that pelted the shield. The ground beneath them violently quaked, and the moment it stopped, machine-gun report echoed in the distance.



Mike turned his head to the side, listening like a giant hunting dog while he body-shielded Inez and Ayana. "You hear that?" He lifted his head to stare first at Yonnie on his flank and then Carlos, who was a couple of feet away.



"Gotta be an American team," Yonnie said. "Talking about, 'it's on to the brink of dawn.' "



Carlos lowered the shield, glanced around quickly, and held his fist up. "Let me--"



"Yo!" a female voice shouted in the distance. "Get out of the open, people. The Berserkers are on the move!"



"Dat's Miss Quick," Ayana said, talking around her thumb. "She took us to the mountains."



"Go, go, go!" Damali shouted, scrambling civilians and pushing the team from behind.



Carlos had the front, she had the back, sandwiching the team between them for maximum safety as they ran the treacherous two hundred yards.



But every instinct within her told her something else had happened. Heru's appearance was so out of the blue, so very, very strange--the Kings and Queens were gone, otherwise engaged? They'd raised a crown prince? They'd brought the east and west together and had left Guardians stationed in other parts of the world for later?



Familiar Guardian faces came into focus as she ran, pushing the group to be sure they got everyone into the tunnels alive. New York, Detroit, Chicago, D.C., Atlanta, L.A., she almost wept to see who'd made it, just as much as it broke her heart to see who hadn't.



Then she saw them. Father Patrick. Father Lopez. Rabbi Zeitloff. Monk Lin. Imam Asula. The Covenant.



Carlos had stopped and turned, pushing past people to double back to stand by her side. They looked across the barren land in awe, and for what seemed like miles, all they could see was an army of saints. Hannibal rode in from the left flank, Adam and Ausar from the right. Steeds pawed the rock-hewn earth as Nzinga's and Eve's mounts joined the front line with Aset and her Amazon warrior sister. Seth pulled up next to Abel, as Heru rode in close to his father.



The ancient empires had risen, royal warriors in every hue, their regal carriage and wise, exotic eyes deep-set with intense knowledge. Larger-than-life, they loomed massive like their monuments, as though they'd stepped right out of the Egyptian hieroglyphics on their tombs and into the world.



Heru lifted his sword, touching it to Ausar's and Adam's, creating a silver trinity as he stared at Carlos. "Lead! The fifth seal has been broken! Today, once and for all, we dethrone the unholy!"



A Neteru war cry went up as every sword pointed to the ground and opened a fissure in the earth.



"Take me to Lilith's lair!" Eve shouted to Damali. "Together we shall stand victorious!"



"Get those civilians down in the tunnels, and seal it off with a prayer!" Damali shouted over her shoulder to the Guardians that stood transfixed.



"Now!" Carlos yelled, as a fire-snorting, winged steed came to him, ready for war. He mounted it when Nzinga caught Damali by her arm and swung her up high to take flight.



As she rose from the momentum of Nzinga's hard pull, the air around her became still. The sun felt close and bright, warming her face as all sound muted and her head dropped back.



Arms at her sides, she careened up, up, rocketing in a blur, and then somersaulted to face the earth, blade pointing toward it, wings pressed in tight to her body. Then Hell vomited.



Out from the cavern, millions of demon scorpions poured onto the landscape, causing steeds to rear, but united Neteru blades sent a scorching carpet of white light to incinerate them. Her target remained the yawning pit of darkness that was growing as her hurtling body got closer to it. She saw Carlos look up at her, timing his descent with hers to avoid a collision-- and then their energy locked. Both over the edge as one, an army flooded in behind them, slashing, burning, cutting at demon bodies, and severing screaming heads.



United blades delivered white-light mortar fire, blowing open levels, and sending the unholy into the sun. Phantoms, poltergeists, succubae, and incubi dissolved, slaughtered by the millions. Demon limbs littered the caverns, and innards-splattered rock walls dripped with demon gore. Neteru Kings went back-to-back with their Queens, gutting the entrance levels of the pit, and then razing the third and fourth levels by white-light infernos. Were-creatures in mangled transition were caught by dreaded sunlight. Hulking werewolves howled at the piercing beams that blinded and dismembered them, huge heads thudding to the burning floor in a sulfuric wash before combusting into putrid ash. The martyred fallen chased any fleeing demons into deep caverns, routing them out, knowing they could never be held captive again.



But the deeper Damali and Carlos dove, the quieter it got, until soon it became apparent that Hell had emptied onto the earth, en masse.



Damali and Carlos dropped into an empty Vampire Council Chamber. Thrones were gone. The pentagram-shaped table was gone. The doors had been left wide open with no fanged crests or hooded messengers. Harpies were nonexistent. Transporter bats were careening up and out of the vaulted ceilings. The Neterus looked at each other--Carlos grabbed Damali's forearm and gave her a heave to ride with him on the back of his mount as the huge white steed reared and opened its massive wingspan, spooked.



"Punk bitches moved." Carlos glanced around at Hannibal, Adam, and Ausar, who'd caught up to them with Eve and Aset. Eve released a war cry of frustration and pointed her blade toward the floor, sending multiple pulses of white-light rage into it. "Then open the Devil's lair--I've always wanted to meet that sonofabitch!"



A dispatch of warriors circled back with Nzinga. "The warrior angels said to retreat. Something is wrong," Nzinga said breathlessly. She pointed to the vaulted ceiling, breathing hard as the light began to diminish above them. "You two must leave now"



"Where's the sunlight?" Damali said quietly. Carlos kicked the sides of his steed. "We're out!" Rock and thick, grasping roots with tendrils of dark webbing began to pull the earth back together. Combined Neteru blade pulses were the only thing that opened the quickly closing passageway out above them before the earth snapped shut.



Damali and Carlos hit the ground hard as their mount's leg got caught in the fissure as it sealed. Warriors surrounded the shrieking white horse, trying to keep the panicked animal from beating its wings and cracking bones while it pawed the earth. Furious Neterus shot the ground with blue-white novas attempting to free it. Then, suddenly, something pulled hard from the underside of the earth, sending blood splatter from the animal's mouth and nose as its hide peeled up its back. Hannibal leapt forward and beheaded the creature under the fast-moving eclipse to put it out of its misery, and then spat on the ground in frustration.



"The sun is going as black as sackcloth," Aset murmured, gazing directly into the eclipse as the ground began to rumble. "And the moon is bloodred in the sky, now seen with the sun."



Damali watched the meteor shower for a moment and then offered another verse as gale force winds began to swirl. "The stars of heaven fell to earth . . . and the fig tree cast her untimely fruit."



"And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together," Carlos muttered in disgust. "When did these motherfuckers get the seal, that's what I want to know?"



Adam and Ausar stared at him.



"Does it matter, young brother?" Ausar said, touching his blade to Carlos's. "We fight until the last man stands."