CHAPTER FOUR

A war party had convened in her living room. Damali sat on the large, overstuffed African-print chair by the window studying the texture of threads in her jeans. The fabric of her light cotton T-shirt felt like sandpaper against her skin. The noise level was deafening as her people argued about what could have possibly invaded her home.

True, she had been the one to accidentally send an SOS, but it still didn't seem to warrant all of this. She was emotionally exhausted and could now only imagine how Carlos must have felt trying to explain the inexplicable to a whole squad of amped warriors, especially about his many highly personal transgressions.

She cringed as the misinformation ricocheted around the room and her people formed flawed theories about an incident too delicate to fully disclose. Her body was still on fire. She needed space, time to mull over what had happened privately. Part of her just wanted to blurt out the truth and send everybody home; the other part of her just wanted to crawl under the rug. Now, with a full- scale investigation underway, their concerns led to queries that bordered on what felt like an inquisition.

Ironically Carlos had been the one to show her how to totally detach and mentally distance herself from probing questions. She'd seen the brother do it a hundred times. He'd just get silent, look off in the distance, and set his jaw hard. When he went there, nobody could break through, not her, not Mar, and not even Father Pat. There was a certain level of compelling wisdom in saving one's personal sanity at a time like this. Dang!

The song that had blistered her mind continued to pop and sizzle within her brain. The voices of her team were becoming very far away.

Stanzas opened up a sanctuary for her to escape through, and put up a wall blocking anyone's invasion. A sassy, irreverent little tune threatened to make her smile as she abandoned the sad one for a more upbeat melody to make herself feel better.

Damali kept her gaze on the threads in her jeans, focused on the varying hues of blue. The entity that visited her had that same color running through his aura. She was almost humming. She could visualize herself strutting across the stage, linger wagging to an up- tempo beat, telling some phantom brother off. She really wanted to laugh.

Just because I can Don't mean that I should. Just because I wanna Don't mean that I would.

I'm not the kinda girl who'll let you play with her mind . . . "Damali!" Carlos was in her face. "You act like you ain't even in the room. Marlene has a valid point."

Damali jerked her focus away from her jeans and stared up at Carlos. Her glance shot between him and Marlene, and she felt like she was back in school, not paying attention to the teacher, and was now called on to answer some question she hadn't even heard.

"Marlene is very wise," she said, covering her lack of involvement. "Mar, take it from the top, slowly, so I can really think about it in another light."

"The girl's in a near-trance," Shabazz said, standing. "It might still be in here."

Marlene simply stared at Damali for a moment, but was gracious enough to oblige her request. Both women knew the deal, she hadn't been listening.

"Did it physically manifest and contact you audibly in any way?" Marlene's penetrating gaze locked with Damali's.

It took Damali a moment to respond. This was the moment of truth. Was she going to give up the tapes, or not? Not.

"Like I told you, I just felt a presence," Damali said as calmy as possible. "A current rippled across the surface of the water and blew the candles out. That's when I wigged, jumped out of the tub, grabbed my blade, and sent a premature SOS. That's all."

Although her story was plausible, the eyes around the room didn't seem like they were buying it. Father Patrick's voice broke through on the speakerphone, adding to the challenge.

"The current, child," the elderly priest said through the technology, his tone strained, "was it a dark one, or blue-white in nature?"

"Blue-white," Damali said quietly. "It was all good."

"Yeah, darlin', but what made a battle-seasoned vet like you wig from blue-white light?" Rider asked, his eyes holding both sadness and worry.

Damali shrugged. "I was tired, not prepared for a guide or any spiritual anything. I just wanted to relax in the tub and chill. So, when whatever it was tried to contact me, I sorta lost it."

Jose nodded. "Been there. Look y'all, maybe this was just a fluke. Seriously. D's been through a lot, like we all have. Everyone of us is gonna have nightmares and day jitters from time to time."

"Post-battle stress syndrome, most likely," Big Mike concluded, and relaxed. But he gave Damali a look as though he'd heard a lie in her voice.

"Well, I for one think this poor girl has been through enough to turn her hair white," Marjorie agreed. "If I see a shadow in my own closet, I'm ready to jump out of my skin."

"You sure you wanna be over here by yourself, kiddo?" Berkfield asked, his tone concerned and parental. "We've got a couple extra suites in the house, and you can always come home for a few, just until the heebie-jeebies wear off."

Damali let her breath out hard. "No, y'all. I'm all right, and I apologize for the alarm. I'll be cool here."

"I don't know, D," Jose hedged. "We know you need your own space, but sometimes a dose of family is good for the soul." He stood and began to pace. "I know it's hard to create in the household chaos, but the studio is soundproof. We all miss you, maybe think of it as a week's vacation and just play it by ear for a short visit?"

"Jose has a point," Carlos said, nodding as he went toward him to pound his fist. "My joint is too far from the group, and even though I don't think anything would be stupid enough to try to roll up on me in it, there could be times when you'd be in there by yourself. Somebody is always home in the house." "Right, D," Inez said, throwing her two cents into the pot. "Girl, listen, I'm still not right with all this mess we're living with. I wouldn't mind being your shadow."

"Me, either," Krissy said, glancing at J.L.

"Think about it, D," J.L. said, leaning forward with his hands open. "If anyone would know, Father Pat would know," Bobby said, raking his hair.

"Father Pat," Dan said, looking at the speakerphone. "What's your take?"

"I agree," Father Patrick replied, his gruff tone more of a command than a simple affirmation. "Better safe than sorry. Something within you sensed a Level-Seven vibration. I'm still a little jittery from it myself."

"Then it's settled," Carlos announced, folding his arms over his chest and looking at Damali hard. "Pack some--"

"It's not settled until I say it is," Damali said very quietly, very firmly, and never blinking as she stared at Carlos. When was this man going to learn that she was grown and not his property? She could feel the old resentment from earlier that day creeping back into her and firing up defiance. If she'd just flowed with her emotions, she would have laid the entity in her bathroom and this conversation wouldn't be taking place!

"Damali is grown," Juanita said, coolly entering the fray. "If she feels comfortable here, so be it."

Damali stared at Juanita. Of all people, Juanita was the last person she'd expect to have her back--albeit for her own selfish reasons. But Juanita didn't need to say a word to her. Fight adrenaline brimmed within Damali as her gaze narrowed by a hair. Yeah, that heifer didn't want her anywhere near the group house. There wasn't enough room in the mansion for the both of them; that was a fact. And Juanita would be sweating her and Jose while they were trying to work. Jose knew it, too.

New tension riddled the group, keeping everyone quiet for a moment. Before she could form a snappy comeback, a slow awareness dawned within Damali.

How many times had Juanita or Carlos broken up the groove on a jam session? How many .times when she and Jose were fusing, rockin', creating the most awesome sounds, did one or the other of those two nonartistic types have an issue, or try to sabotage the connection by creating drama, and pulling them away from what they were doing? And, perhaps more importantly, how often did she and Jose allow it?^Suddenly her muse's complaint began to make a whole lotta sense.

"You might have a point, Jose," Damali said, ignoring Juanita and giving crisp credit to the only person in the room who'd asked her without commanding her. She held Jose's line of vision, totally cutting Carlos out of her gaze as though he wasn't in the room. It grated her the way Carlos came at her, demanding. Fuck all that, she was her own woman. "A week, jamming, having some free mental space to create, get my head back into my music, might not be a half-bad idea."

Jose smiled. "Take it a day at a time, D. No pressure. You get back into the studio, start working again, soon you'll get caught up in that, focused, and your nerves will calm out. That's probably all that's wrong with you... I know I need to do that, too. Been away from my music for too long."

"Yeah," Damali murmured. "Me, too. Thanks, Jose."

Nervous glances passed around the group. Rider pushed off the wall, his gaze sweeping between Carlos, Damali, and Jose. "We'll get a room together for you. It's already set up, actually. All you have to do is bring some clothes, and we can wait here while you throw some stuff in a bag."

Shabazz exchanged a look with Rider and Big Mike. "Carlos, man, you might wanna consider crashing with us, too, for a coupla days. If something untoward went after one Neteru, it might come for the other one--you. Not that anybody is saying you can't handle your business, but like Father Pat said, better safe than sorry."

She watched Carlos bristle at the suggestion. Yeah, she thought, so how do you like feeling boxed in? Ain't fun, is it? "There's three extra suites in there," Damali said, now looking at Carlos. "One in each wing, plus a guest room on the third floor for when the clerics roll through. You can have your space; I can have mine. You take whichever one you want."

For a moment, he just stared at her. She didn't care; she wanted it on record that she wasn't living with him. She wasn't cohabitating in his suite. He wasn't running her under any roof, especially not within the compound. He needed to know that just because she was taking a few clothes home to recharge her batteries, that wasn't a green card to invade her space, get in the way of her creative process, or to otherwise be a pain in her ass.

"I think that is a wise suggestion," Father Patrick said over the speakerphone. "That way, at the very least, we'll all sleep better at night."

"I'll go with you on this one, Father Pat, only because you said so, and your instincts are usually dead on." Carlos glared at Damali. His tone was salty. He shot a glance at Shabazz. "Good lookin' out, man."

The situation had disintegrated to a point beyond her endurance. Damali abruptly stood and walked out of the room. The meeting was over. She needed to throw a few clothes into a duffel bag to deal with the inevitable. Why Carlos was irking her, she wasn't sure. Yeah, they'd had a fight, but he had come when he thought something was seriously wrong. She kept weighing the two extremes, vacillating between being moved and enraged. If she could just forget about his most recent walk on the dark side with Juanita, she knew she would have mentally filtered his response an entirely different way.

All she knew right now was, for some unknown reason, he was working her last nerve. She didn't feel like playing twenty questions. She didn't feel like mind locking to get to the root of some unknown source of visitation. She didn't feel like being smothered by his overprotective presence. She didn't feel like having him all up on her and in her world. Right now, all she wanted to do was pick back up on the strand of music that was splitting her skull. There was a sultry sound within her that had become her pulse, and that demanded a response. She sought sanctuary in her bedroom.

Yanking her dresser open, she dug into it and found some T-shirts and jeans, and then pulled out her underwear drawer so hard it almost fell. Marlene's quiet presence made her look up, and she watched Marlene calmly shut the bedroom door behind her. Marlene slowly walked across the room, stood next to her, and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"I know how you feel," Marlene murmured. "Every time you get out of the house and on your own, some crazy mess happens that sends you back into the family clutches."

Damali stopped rooting in the drawer and closed her eyes. She took in deep breaths, surprised to find herself on the verge of tears. "My art is suffering, Mar," Damali whispered on a mucus-filled swallow. "I need to get back to my music. A year away from it has been too long. I haven't even collected any new stones or anything spiritual lately--not even when we went to Tibet. Tibet!"

"Yes, it has," Marlene said quietly, referring to her music and not commenting on the stones. "There have been a lot of distractions."

Damali nodded, sniffed, and opened her eyes. "Tell me about it."

Both women looked at each other and a silent understanding bonded them.

"Have you ever felt like this, Mar? Like every time you carve out some quality private time just for you, something comes crashing in on it?"

Marlene smiled and then chuckled, pulling Damali into a brief, warm embrace. "Baby... oh, Lawdy. I have stories for you."

The gentle communion and gracious validation made Damali smile and then chuckle, too.

"Damali, girl... just like children, a man can soak up the universe, it seems. He can expand, take up space, and move your planets out of alignment. That's all that's the matter. You are demanding your own orbit, and he's fighting you with all the gravitational pull of a jealous male." Marlene laughed softly, shaking her head. "He thinks he's the sun and everything should revolve around him. They all do. When we get home, me and Marj will teach you a few little tips on how to relegate him to just being the moon." "Why do they do that shit?" Damali said through her teeth. "He goes off, does his thing, runs with his boys--and like what? I'm supposed to be on his schedule, his timetable, ready to stop, drop, and roll when he's ready to hook up? Puhlease."

"I know, chile," Marlene said, her eyes twinkling with mirth and the magic of hard-learned wisdom. "You have to train him to your schedule. Make your music a nonnegotiable thing. You can have both, namely, your craft and him, too. But you have to put boundaries around your art, give it the same level of importance that he gives the things beyond you in his life."

Damali nodded, the validation coating her with a sense of peace and making her lower her defenses. Oddly, that was just what her muse had said--give him his due.

Marlene sighed and released Damali from her hug. "Girl, they act like you have another man when it comes to your career or creative solitude. My momma used to say my daddy acted like that about her church, was as jealous of her time there as if she was out having an affair with another man. He used to--"

Damali snapped her head up and her eyes got wide. The reference to an affair pulled the muscles in her back into a tight chord. "For real? He was jealous of church?"

Marlene gave her a curious look and measured her words. "Yes . . ." Marlene's smile faded to a tight line and she dropped her voice. "Let's go into the bathroom. Just me and you."

Damali shook her head no. "Mar, listen... uh . . ."

"No," Marlene said in a tense whisper. "You listen. Been there, too. I don't even have to remind you of that drama that went down in Brazil and Arizona when my skeletons jumped out of the closet."

Both women giggled as Damali closed her eyes and Marlene pressed on in a private whisper.

"Now, honey, I'ma say this once. All that glitters ain't gold. Carlos is all male, typically so, and at times, a natural pain in the butt-- however, he loves you and you love him. Work it out. One night on the wild side isn't worth losing everything you've built. And none of them are perfect, so, just because he did some mess, doesn't mean you have to retaliate to show--"

"I'm not retaliating. Mar, he's the only guy I've ever been with and now he's talking marriage, permanent lockdown. Sure, he's ready, cool with it, because he's been around the block enough times to make your head spin, but I never even allowed myself to sorta look around, and check out the horizon... what if I'm missing--"

"You do the testing and trying on new shoes before you find the one. After you've found him, it's the rare male animal that can accept that you've tried on another pair after him. Before is hard enough for them to swallow--after, it's not done."

Marlene's gaze was firm but nonjudgmental. "This Richards-Rivera pair is a perfect fit. You mighta spied some shiny new red stilettos in the window, girlfriend, but before the night is over, they might hurt your feet and might not be practical, no matter how good they look in the store. Got it?"

Damali chuckled and began rooting in her drawer again. "But they was a fine fly-ass pair of^shoes--da butta." "How fine?" Marlene asked with a smirk.

"Oh, girl . . ." Damali whispered, her eyes holding Marlene's with mischief.

They both covered their mouths and laughed hard behind their hands.

"This fine," Damali said, finally recovering and letting her voice dip to a sexy, sensual octave, before throwing her head back and crooning in a low whisper.

Lover... just love me hard and tender. You asked, and I surrender. Don't forget, when stars are falling Your colors make me blind. 'Cause, see, lover... Tonight I'm where I'm not supposed to be. Not sure where that is or where you're from... But lover... I'm about to, oh, yeah... lover... Just breathe and I'll answer. This thing is beyond right, but is it wrong? When the moment is what it is... The solstice burns the night to cinder, Cuts hot gold and sends wet shivers Lover... I'm trying to tell you... Your whisper melts... my... yeah, my mind... C'mon lover... don't play with the divine. I ain't right when you stop time

"That is dangerous," Marlene whispered hard, shaking her out of the song.

"Marlene, Marlene, Marlene... the brother stepped out of the astral plane, or some-danged-where, six-five, carrying a gold blade, older... a little silver at the temples, built like a brick-shit-house, and packing enough iron to make you squint--and is a musician."

Marlene shook her head, let out a silent whew, and ran her palm over her locks. "Chile, please, be careful. Ask yourself if you're ready to risk the loss, because that's what it will come down to, a permanent decision based on your actions--you're in control of this dance. Always remember that. They don't have the emotional makeup to take it, if what I think mighta happened almost did. Don't do nothin' crazy, hear?"

"What are you, psychic now?" Damali said, chuckling at her own bad joke.

"Yeah," Marlene said with a conspiratorial smile. "So, talk to me. Who is this guy that had you calling on Jesus for help, huh?" Marlene smiled and closed her eyes. "Girlfriend, that was real bad form. Coulda caused a cosmic standoff."

Damali laughed quietly, wiping her eyes. "He was so fine and so smooth, he scared me, Mar. I ain't never had one roll up on me like that, I swear. I didn't know what to do."

"Who is he?" Marlene asked again, this time her tone carrying more concern.

"I don't know, but dayum!"

"Okay, sister. Pull it together. At least give me a name to run through my mental database and black book."

Damali stared at Marlene for a second and then burst out laughing. She covered her mouth and shook her head. "I don't know," she mumbled.

"You don't know?" Marlene was incredulous.

"I don't know his name," Damali said, wheezing through a sudden case of the giggles. "Didn't need it. If you'd seen him, you wouldn't have been focused on the details, either."

"Oh, Lord," Marlene said, placing her palm over her forehead as she stared at Damali. "Markings, description, something so I know not to flat-out ice this brother if he rolls up on you quietly in the compound."

Damali glanced around the room as though someone else might be there, and she leaned in to Marlene so closely that their noses almost touched. Her voice dropped to a hissing whisper. "Mar. He's a Neteru!"

"What!" Marlene said louder than she'd intended. "Oh, shit." She yanked Damali deeper into the room and then dragged her laughing into the bathroom and shut the second door. "You have got to be mistaken. Get out of here!"

"For real," Damali said, her gaze leaving Marlene's to scan the abandoned tub. "Girl, he had this sexy Neteru tattoo on his chest, eyes blazing gold and silver. Stepped out of nowhere, apexing, chile! Soaked up the colors from the light on my bathroom floor, and busted a move on me like... I get the shivers just telling you." Damali began walking in a circle as Marlene opened her mouth but didn't close it. "But I had enough sense to tell him to back up, I didn't know him well enough yet to jump into anything too wild, and... but, shit, he was apexing, and--"

"On the summer solstice? And you're a Leo--a child of the sun... ooohhh... shit!" Marlene ran her fingers through her locks and also began walking in a circle. "Chile, now you listen to old Mar, hear? This is nitroglycerine. Waaaay too volatile a situation to be joking around and playing with. Carlos, God bless his soul, will freak. Do you hear me? And, by rights, I need to diplomatically get up with Father Pat to find out when and where a second male Neteru could have been made. That's not even supposed to happen." She looked up at Damali with pure terror in her expression. "Unless we're at the exact end of days and Heaven is opening its gates." "For real, Mar?" Damali said, new realities killing her mirth. "This is it?"

"How else would another one have gotten made?"

"He said he had to incarnate for this one last time to learn the lesson of selfless sacrifice, and I was going to be his biggest challenge yet." Damali was breathing hard and fast as she spoke in run-on sentences. "He said he could deal with guiding and teaching me, as long as he was in spirit, but the moment he came into the flesh, he was losing it. I mean, you should have seen this brother--but, but, I thought Nzinga was my guide, my Neteru mentor off the female council. How did he get to be my mentor, Mar? How come he's my music muse?"

"What!" Marlene nearly shouted again, and then clasped her hand over her own mouth for a second. "Your muse?" She grabbed Damali by both arms and her voice came out in a fast, rushing hiss. "Muses are supposed to be spirit-manifested inspiration, not flesh!"

"I know, I know," Damali whispered quickly. "He came to me while I was mentally composing in the tub!"

Marlene's eyes darted around the room. "He pierced the veil? Shit! Music is the most sensual... girl... oh, Lawd. Listen, sweetie--"

"Mar, he gets turned on and turned out every time I compose. How the hell am I gonna work, now?" Damali's voice had become a fervent plea. "He said I'd had him in abstinence for a year, hadn't communed with him, feel me? You should have seen him. Said, and I quote, 'detriment to my soul, I need you now.' The brother was begging so hard and so smooth... I almost fell on the floor. Then, then, Mar, he kissed me, sent a sound wave inside me that blew my freakin' mind. He was so upset he walked across the room, tripping, talking about how he had to go, wasn't supposed to be all in my face, but I guess since I'm at the apex of my craft, he's apexing within me, or connected to me, or some wild mad-crazy drama... and I have to create, have to sing, have to compose, that's as much a part of my life as fighting evil, but if my muse just up and manifested into rock-hard flesh--Marlene--he was hung like a damned Georgia mule!"

"I don't know, I don't know," Marlene whispered, swiftly spinning around to look over her shoulder. "We have to send him back, close the hole in the universe. This is a good entity, but you can't do him. It's like... like... sleeping with an angel--not done! If he gets put out of his realm, and if he rules music, music could die!"

Damali covered her mouth and silently screamed behind her hands, eyes wide. "When I hear music in my head, creating my own, it's like elongated foreplay for him." She finally breathed out, closing her eyes. "When I sing, this brother is liquefied." She gulped and grabbed Marlene by both arms, shaking her. "Are you hearing me? He kissed me and I gasped, and I thought it was all gonna be over. He almost had a--you know what I'm saying, just from my voice--it was the sexiest shit I've ever seen in my life! The rapture was all over his face. The shit was so intense I lost my towel, dropped my freaking Isis blade--didn't care, girl! I just wanted to create."

Marlene's eyes were so wide that tears had formed in them. "All right, let's get rational--we need a plan."

Damali's head bobbed as she released Marlene and wrapped her arms around herself.

"First off, we have to get a bead on what shifted things in the universe to pierce the veil."

Damali nodded, hanging on Marlene's every word as though she was listening to a doctor explain cancer. "He said time stopped." She shook her head. "Sho' he right!"

Both women looked at each other and spoke in unison. "The tsunami."

Marlene closed her eyes. "The Earth wobbled on its axis, it happened in the east--the lands of deep cultural expansion and the earth's clock is off by milliseconds."

"He walked though an invisible fold in the air like a curtain had parted. Said I was alone, calling him with composition. And, when I think back on it, I did mentally say, 'Muse, baby, where are you?' as I was trying to figure out chords and melodies for a new song that was taking shape in my mind. But I thought a muse was a metaphorical thing, and female, okaaaay? Not some fine-ass, six- five entity or deity that would rock my daggone world!"

Marlene stared at Damali. "Bingo." She let out a quick breath. "Okay. Then, he's not likely to manifest unless you're alone... we hope."

"We hope," Damali concurred.

"So, until we get him tucked away and back in spirit form, you only compose during the day with somebody in the room, cool?"

"Challenging, but it makes sense." Damali ran her hand over her hair. "But here's a question. If he manifested, what if more of them are walking from spirit into flesh and back again through this rip? Like, what if all sorts of positive guides, beings, whatever, that are normally supportive, but detached, because they've left all earthly, flesh-created weaknesses behind to ascend, and are coming to their charges--as is their mission, but when they get to them, in the flesh form, they're bugging?"

The fact that Marlene just looked at her, stunned, pushed Damali dangerously close to hysterics. It was too crazy to totally comprehend. As the reality fully dawned on her, Damali pressed on, her quiet voice becoming shrill.

"Mar, think about it. Like, what if your guardian angel just happened to be some tall, dark, fine warrior that always had your back, but as he comes to you to help you out of a jam, accidentally becomes flesh, and then wigs--because all of a sudden, all of the stimuli and intense feelings of the earth plane slam that brother? Blow his mind. Make him remember what human life felt like? You understand where I'm going? Houston, we have a problem, 'cause all I know is, muses demand creation. Demand conception. Are jealous lovers. Must sire something. Have to connect with the artist, or the artist will practically die if they can't give birth to what the muse has planted within them. And you and I both know that there is nothing on the planet more... more... sensual, fulfilling, or completing than giving birth to a new muse-inspired thing... an inventor must invent, a painter must paint, a writer must write, a--"

"Girl, we gotta close that door."

Damali nodded. "Marlene, if he rolls up on Carlos . . ." "And Carlos kills music . . ."

"That's just it, Mar. I don't think Carlos can whup this brother's ass. You should have seen him."

Again, the two women just stared at each other.

"This Neteru is bad, Mar." Damali walked away. "I love my baby, and he ain't no slouch, but. . ."

"Damn," Marlene murmured with appreciation. "You think he could take Carlos?"

"Yeah, like I said," Damali whispered, just shaking her head. "You know how you knew in your heart that if Shabazz went up against Kamal it would be ugly."

Marlene closed her eyes and simply nodded. "Chile . . ."

"Uh-huh. Like that, Mar."

"Damn . . ."

"That's what I keep saying," Damali said, laughing as tears came to her eyes. "Now you see why I wigged?"

"You don't have to say another word," Marlene said, placing her hand over her heart.

"The worst part of it all is, Mar, right about through here, if. . ." Damali shivered and hugged herself and looked out the stained- glass window. "I've gotta get this song outta my head. He turned me on so bad that--"

Marlene held up her hand. "Been there." She sighed and looked at Damali. "Let me repeat. I know Carlos almost got with that were demon, but you now have intimate knowledge of the urge the brother was fighting from what was then his realm. The tables have obviously turned, and the Light is going through something we don't yet understand. But like I tried to tell you, it didn't have anything to do with how much Carlos loved you. It was something real crazy-primal, and for a few, she opened his nose. Now, the shoe, literally, is on the other foot. But you're not going to be able to throw his old dirty laundry up in his face to make a logical argument. This isn't about logic; it's pure emotion. He, as a man, is not going to process the situation with the same level of accepting grace that you, as a woman, did. And before you start arguing with me about what is fair, what's right, and the new millennium, and what have you--we both know, like you know in your soul, this will not go over well."

"So, keep it to myself and get it out of my system while we figure out how to close the rip." Damali let her breath out hard. Grace? Marlene just didn't know. Grace was the last word she'd choose to describe how she'd handled a recent scenario along those very lines. But Marlene was right, going tit for tat about Juanita or any of Carlos's other past misdeeds versus this entity would not go over well, if she slept with it--no matter what.

Marlene looked at her hard and smiled. "Take it to your grave. This is a solo mission." They both smiled.

"This is a porch-rocker moment, baby," Marlene said, her smile widening. "When you're an old lady, and you two are sitting out there watching the sun set, and you chuckle softly to yourself, and he asks, 'Baby, whatcha thinking about?' your response will be, 'Oh, nothing, honey. Just about how much I love you.' He don't even need to know all. But you might wanna let the old girls on the Neteru Council know, for a little help."

"Black box."

"Steel vault."

"Never happened."

"I don't know what you're talking about." "Sho' you're right, Marlene."

A high five was exchanged and Marlene ran her finger over her lips, sealing them.

"Not even Father Pat?"

"He's a priest, and he can't give up no tapes--it's in his oath. He's the only one I can sit with to figure this out." "Shabazz?"

"You crazy?" Marlene said. "Oh, hell no. Too close to home."

Damali nodded and chuckled. "Thanks, Mar."

"For what?" Marlene said with a shrug. "Nothing happened."

The bathroom door opened and startled them. Both women practically fell into the tub.

Shabazz's gaze shot from Marlene to Damali. Suspicion laced his tone. "Everything all right?"

"Of course, baby," Marlene crooned. "She's nearly packed and ready to go. I just wanted her to come back in here with me to see that there was nothing to be afraid of."

Shabazz relaxed, the melodic tone of Marlene's voice seeming to quiet his suspicions. "All right. But y'all hurry up. There's a lot of tension in the other room."

"I'm hurrying," Damali said, swallowing a smile.

"Cool," he said, his fatherly gaze roving over her, still inspecting her for damage. "It'll be good to have you home again, baby girl. Never liked you out here all by yourself alone."