Damali's Journal: Volume Two

I think I’m loosing my mind. I heard the man die. What am I saying? Carlos Rivera was dead when I last saw him. Correction—I heard him go down… heard them silence his voice. He’s extinct. And what I’m feeling is beyond loss… it’s phantom memory, reflex… agony. Forever is a very long time for somebody to be gone.

I can’t wipe out enough vamps to replace him, still can’t sleep at night. I’m now like the walking dead—no feeling, just fury, raw, unadulterated anger… rage so deep that I’m scaring myself. The team said we beat Hell. They’re wrong. I’m the living dead in the middle of Hell with no way out…

But every night, when a stare up at the moon, it’s almost as though I can hear him whispering my name. So I just have to keep my blade sharp and ride. I can’t bring him back, not sure that I’d want to if I could… Marlene probably knows how to—but how crazy would that be? And if I did, then what? I have to laugh at myself… if Carlos Rivera ever came back from the dead, it would be all over. I’d wake it with fangs, no doubt… ‘cause there’d be no way to resist him this time around.