Jose," the voice he knew as Rider's said in almost a whisper. "Father Pat, Marlene, either of you guys got something for dude-something to help him bite the snake that bit him?"
He felt hysteria rising in him. Carlos chuckled, but he kept his eyes closed. The sound was hollow even to his own ears. Rider. That's right.Hombre was human and had brass balls... had been chained to the ground as bait while the harpies pulled out his guts. Crazy white dude yelling at Hell's worst nightmare, talking trash with no weapon in his hand, trying to divert the predators away to give him a chance to beat the rising sun. Very cool of Rider... he wouldn't forget the debt. "You drink Jack Daniel's, right? Add a little color in it for me and I'll buy you a drink, man. After what we just went through on the docks-you buy; I'll fly. Cool?"
Silence in the vehicle surrounded him. No one but him was laughing. He could feel the vehicle slowing down.
"Get him inside, Father Pat," an older woman said from somewhere within the Jeep. "He's delirious."
A pair of strong arms threaded around his back and nearly lifted him off his feet. What seemed like a battalion of clerics wearing long black robes and white collars accosted him with phalanges of holy water, striking at him in the sign of the cross, making him cringe, as he turned his face away to protect it from the assault, to no avail. Relentless, they swung heavy brass pots filled with smoking frankincense at him as the burly brother hoisted him over his shoulder and advanced up the cathedral steps.
He could feel several hands dressing him... someone was anointing his head with oil. Then he was being moved again, up what seemed like an endless spiral of stairs. Footsteps, many, many footfalls, rushing like a military SWAT unit, followed him. The sound of choppers in the air, bright sunlight filled his eyes and touched his face, but like the incense and holy water, it didn't burn.Why ? he dimly wondered.
Confusion tore at his brain. Blurred white birds of metal with a crest on the side... blue, a crown of thorns, a sword, a bleeding heart-just like Father Pat's medallion-opened at the side, filling its belly with humans that eagerly climbed in and dragged him with them.
This was a vampire's true Hell. The chairman had indeed had the last laugh. The choppers were flying toward the sun! Carlos braced himself against the pain once again. How long would the chairman continue to torture him?
Pilots wearing dark aviator sunglasses never turned around as he begged them to release him from the Sea of Perpetual Agony. He suddenly feared Damali's touch; what beast would she turn into? An Amanthra? He squeezed his eyes shut, refusing to watch her gorgeous brown eyes change into slanted, glowing orbs while her beautiful body transformed into a serpentine menace. Or maybe the chairman would be particularly cruel and she would become a were-demon. It would be a painful taunt to remind him of his brush with that entity in the Amazon; Hell always beat your ass down with past mistakes in the place where there was no such thing as forgiveness.
Carlos's thoughts scrambled, trying to figure out an escape, a way to negotiate a shorter sentence. Hell was eternal, so peace and the lack of acute pain had to be measured in milliseconds. For every minute that passed where no direct pain was being inflicted, he had a chance to rest, maybe regenerate, just enough to be able to withstand the next assault that was destined to come. If he wasn't in pain, he could think. If he could think, he could bargain. But what aces did he hold? What could he barter with at this juncture?
When the choppers touched down in a deserted section of airport runway, and the illusion of humans helped him toward a crest-bearing private jet at the end of the landing strip, he had to wonder just what the chairman had in store for him now. And could he bear it?
Carlos opened his eyes, his breathing labored as he tried to form words. He searched the impostor Damali's face as she led him by the hand with Big Mike on his flank helping him walk. "Where?" was all he could manage to get out.
"Ethiopia," she said quietly, tears shining in her eyes. "Baby, we have to get out of Sydney and go to a Christian stronghold there.