Minion (20 page)

She smiled. An acid drool ran down a fang, burning his chest where the drop splattered it. Her pupils began to glow red, the shape of her eyes changing to slits . . . and a low growl emanated from deep within her chest.

“It's worth it,” the thing on him hissed, slowly lowering its face to his. “Bring me your brother. I have my own debt to settle with Fallon Nuit, and you're perfect for the job. I need Carlos. I plan to ride him like this, too.”

The last sound he heard was his own cry for mercy as his Adam's apple left his throat.

 

 

 

 

 

I
N THE
distance she heard the phone ringing. The sound of it carved a hole into her skull, and she flopped over on her belly and jammed a pillow on top of her head, trying to keep the sound out along with the sunlight.

Judging from the sun's position, it had to be past noon. Ravenous hunger drew her out of bed, as well as the fast footsteps coming down the hall. She could tell by the weight of their fall and the stride that it had to be Marlene. Damali's stomach growled. She needed something salty. High carbs. Chips. Health food was out this morning.

She got up, holding her head with her hands as she found her secret stash of contraband. The sound of the bag ripping open sent another shard of pain through her temples. This had to be the absolute worst hangover she'd ever experienced in her life. Not even after a forty of Old E, when she was a teenager and had tried her hand at drinking, did she wake up like this! Damn.

The door opened and Damali cringed as she shoved a handful of chips into her mouth. Her own crunching made pinpoints of light form behind her tightly shut lids. Marlene's inhale to speak became another blade through her brain. Damali held up her hand, tears beginning to form from the agony.

“In the equipment room. Now. Carlos is on the business line.”

For a moment her stomach did a flip-flop and she could feel her pulse quicken. All she could do was open her eyes and stare at Marlene for a second, and then follow her.

With her hand deep in the open bag of chips, Damali paced behind Marlene, munching and squinting, and ignored the assembled team's stare. She gulped down the salty flavor, which was staving off the nausea, wiped her greasy hand on her yellow robe, leaving an orange trail, and accepted the telephone while her crew continued to stare at her.

“They did Alejandro,” the deep male voice on the line murmured. “I just wanted to tell you—before it hit the papers. But then, it probably already has.”

“Oh, my God,” Damali whispered, not caring that members of her team were still staring at her and listening to every word she said. She set down the bag of chips slowly and walked in a circle, clutching the receiver. “How?”

“In his own home.” Carlos's voice quavered and then became steady upon a deep inhale. “My mother has taken to her bed. . . . We have to close the casket. My grandmother . . . there are no words.”

She heard him breathe in deeply, and she covered her mouth with her hand.

“I can't even explain what they did to my brother. Blood was everywhere. His throat gone. He'd been disemboweled. His forearms, shoulders, chest ripped to shreds like he tried to fight them off him. Even his . . . they used acid to burn away what made my brother a man—left a bloody, black hole.
Madre de Dios
. . . .”

“Whaaaat?!” Damali closed her eyes, images flashing through her head so fast that she weaved where she stood, Shabazz catching
her under her elbow. She shrugged off his hold, her grip tightening on the telephone. She'd seen it last night. The one that got away on the beach. “Where are you?”

“Just left the morgue.”

“I'll be there.”

“No, Damali,” Marlene warned quietly. “No.”

“Tell me where you're at, Carlos. I'll be there,” Damali restated, ignoring Marlene.

“I gotta go,” Carlos murmured. “It's on, and where I'm going ain't no place for you to be. I just wanted to tell you good-bye—and to ask you to make sure my mother and grandmother get everything I own . . . my lawyer has been advised to break you off something, too, baby . . . but you never know how these things work out. Can't trust a soul—but maybe only just you.”

“Carlos, wait!” The phone went dead in her ear. Damali glanced around at her crew's expressions.

She started to run toward her room to change, but four pairs of hands grabbed at her, and she could feel Big Mike's arms anchor her waist.

“Slow your roll, li'l sis,” Big Mike drawled, his tone soothing. “This could be a setup, and we all need to keep a cool head to protect brotherman.”

It was his mention of protection for one outside of the group that made her cease struggling. Each of them slowly removed their hold on her, and Shabazz pushed her down to sit on a stool.

“Make her some green tea, Mar,” Shabazz said, keeping his gaze on Damali.

“I am not going to sit here wasting precious daylight drinking tea!” Frustration beyond her comprehension gripped her as her gaze tore around the room.

“You woke up feeling like you had the worst hangover of your life, didn't you?” Shabazz kept his gaze steady on her and his voice mellow.

“Yeah,” Damali finally admitted, bringing her hands to her temples as Shabazz backed away. “Feel like I just got hit by a Mack truck.”

“Aftermath. You're coming down. Your metabolism is shifting back to normal levels after a sudden hunt surge. All the neurotoxins in your body are flushing, and your system is regulating. Sugar, salt, fatty carbs are just quick fuel—and will make you hit bottom harder later. Your body needs a slow burn to replace what just got stripped from it last night. Won't always hit you like this.”

“Okay, okay, whatever.” Damali wiped her hand against her robe again, glanced at the chips, but heeded Shabazz's warning. If this was anything like the next-morning jitters, then she
knew
she'd never do drugs.

“This is the crash and burn part, baby,” Rider said too loudly.

Damali squinted at the sound of his voice and reached for the chips despite herself.

“Ahhh . . . trying to bite the snake that bit 'cha. Always works for me.”

“Shut. Up. Rider.” Damali let her breath out hard and tried to focus on Shabazz, then threw the bag across the room when he shook his head. “What is going on?”

“First hunt,” Shabazz replied as Marlene slid a cup of green tea beside her on the weapons bench.

“Bullshit. I mean . . . aw, y'all know what I mean. Sorry, Mar. I've been on how many
hunts
, though, as you call it? We've been kicking vampire butt for five years, and I've never felt like this in the morning . . . even the body blows hurt worse than before.”

The group stared at her.

“Better have that birds-and-bees talk with girlfriend, Mar.” J.L. stood. “I'm going to see how Jose is feeling.”

“Jose's back?” Damali tried to stand but thought better of it, and reached for her tea instead. She sipped it slowly and grudgingly. It then dawned upon her that Big Mike was in the room. “He's okay, right?” Her voice caught and held the rest of her question.

“That's the only reason I'm here,” Big Mike said in a mercifully quiet voice. “They said to monitor him, keep plenty of fluids in him, and if his condition dips again, bring him back. He's on oral antibiotics, so he could come home.”

Damali nodded and relaxed, bringing the tea to her lips.

“What did Carlos say?”

Damali tried to focus her attention on the original subject. It was like her synapses weren't firing on all cylinders. It was hard to stay focused on any topic at one time, plus there were too many issues that required her brain to assimilate. Vibes and tension were zinging around the group, but she couldn't put her finger on why.

“They did his brother—horribly,” she finally whispered. “Carlos said good-bye, like he was going on a suicide mission. We've gotta go get him before he either kicks off a war by blowing away the wrong people, or goes out alone and gets himself vamped. I just can't figure it out. Why is vampire activity beginning to concentrate around our people, our biggest competitor, Blood Music, and Carlos's operations? It doesn't make sense. I didn't really start to notice it until they went after his people, too. I thought they were just going after artists. What's the link? None of us even speak.”

“Big Mike, go see if you can help J.L. bring Jose in here. We all need to talk,” Marlene said.

Mike nodded and left the room. Marlene cleared a space on the long table, and rolled out a map in the center of it. When Jose walked in slowly, Damali stood and went over to him to hug him, holding his hand to bring him back to where she'd been sitting, giving him the stool. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against her waist as she smoothed his hair back from his forehead.

“I'm sorry,” he murmured.

“Don't talk crazy,” Damali said softly, kissing the top of his head. “Woulda went to Hell and back to get you back.”

“Might have to one day,” he chuckled sadly, squeezing her hand.

The group passed nervous glances between each other, studying Jose's frail condition. He looked like he'd dropped twenty pounds in twenty-four hours and his eyes were beginning to sink into the dark circles around their sockets. Damali just stroked his hair.

“We all have a story . . .,” Marlene said in a faraway voice. “When this first started for me, it began in New Orleans. I was just a young woman. Then it spread to South Carolina, Gullah country. Then it was cool for almost twenty years after.”

“That was just before I was born,” Damali said in a quiet voice. She glanced around as everyone else nodded.

“Last night,” Rider said, his voice now quiet, “you went after a female vampire.”

The group went still again and each of them glanced at the others in the room, their line of vision terminating on Damali.

“Mar, I'm sorry about how I treated you,” Damali whispered. She looked at Rider. “Sorry that I might have put you in harm's way, too.”

Marlene shook her head and sent her gaze beyond the group toward the window. “Wasn't your fault. Only a first- or second-generation
vampire can bring on blood lust like that in a Neteru. Instinctively, you'll go after the head of the hydra.”

“Mar,” Damali murmured, glancing around the group to try to better understand, “I've never done anything like that before.” She looked at Marlene who held her with a concerned gaze, her expression unusually tender. “In all our battles, I've never flipped like that.”

“You'll stabilize soon.”

“Stabilize?”

Rider began to pace. “Isn't there anything you can do, or give her?”

“What's wrong with me, guys?”

Marlene glanced up at Rider, and then returned her focus to Damali. “What did . . .” Her voice trailed off, and Marlene sucked in a deep breath. “What did the female vampire say that made you follow it like you did?”

Damali closed her eyes and took her time, her breaths steadying her. Marlene hadn't answered her original question, though. “It said, ‘You can't have him.' Then something inside me snapped. It said, ‘You can never take my place.' Whatever that means.”

“A queen second,” Mike murmured. “Just as Marlene suspected.”

“Oh, boy. Here we go,” J.L. said on a hard exhale.

“Jesus H. Christ.” Rider sat down heavily on a stool, shaking his head. “Already?”

“Yeah,” Marlene agreed quietly. “We've got one in our territory and the vampire huntress picked up the scent . . . and it's defending her own territory. Damali won't stop until she gets it, or the contrary. The female vampire's aggression is a sure sign that we've got a master male vamp in this quadrant. It just confirmed my suspicions. Until last night, I was just playing a hunch.”

“I don't understand.” Damali slowly pulled away from Jose and wrapped her arms around herself, intently watching her team.

Shabazz looked at the map and traced it with his finger. “The energy a guardian team casts will draw weaker members of a vampire line—because the perpetual hunger is not only blood, but power. The blood of a guardian is like a drug hit, too. So, from time to time, we get sniffed out, is the only explanation. But as Neteru energy matures, it throws a scent to a pack that's stronger than anything a guardian team can throw off.”

Shabazz looked at Damali, his gaze softening as he glanced away. “When we found you, you were still a little bird . . . you didn't leave that much of a trail, or a marker.”

“Wasn't long before a couple of 'em came for you, then we turned the tables on the situation, and went on the offensive—per Marlene's wisdom,” Big Mike murmured. “The idea was to flush out the nest and wipe out that line before you came of age and had to deal with all of this.” He looked away, and his voice dropped so low that Damali had to strain to hear it. “Marlene will tell you about why we had to clear this nest, or at least back it up, before your time.” His eyes met Marlene's. “Right, Mar? You'll tell her today.”