Blood Colony

by Tananarive Due

  Papa hugged Caitlin while he cast Michel a predictably wary look. DO NOT BE TOO CLEVER FOR YOUR OWN GOOD, MICHEL.

  She is a simpleton, like soft clay.

  AND ANOTHER IN THE VAN? HOW MANY MORE?

  “Father!” Michel said, enjoying the term’s double meaning as he interrupted Stefan’s mental stream. “Por favor. Our friend was shot. We need a doctor.”

  While Stefan called for a stretcher, shouting at the attendants, his stream was clear and uncluttered: WE MUST NOT ALLOW ANYONE WITHIN FIFTY METERS OF HER. PERHAPS MORE. SHE WILL NOT BE FOOLED LONG. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE HER.

  Papa was bold to say so much with Fana just inside the van, a grand gesture of trust in Michel’s ability to keep their communications private. More and more, Papa treated him like the Most High, instead of only preaching the words.

  I have the best advisor in human history, Michel told his father. I will not fail you now.

  Michel hopped out of the van, extending his hand for Fana. She took it, clinging to his fingers, and he supported her weight as she stepped to the running board, then to the ground. As she stood in the bright light, the sun made her skin glow. Beneath her scarf, her face was a blinding wonder. Michel could keep his father’s thoughts muted, but he could not hide the tear that came to Stefan’s eye. Of course Papa was overwhelmed. Papa had always had a taste for Ethiopian beauty, and Fana could be his mother’s sister. And Fana’s power! Her presence was like braving a windy beach before a storm; intense and electrified, countless grains of swarming sands.

  Stefan looked at the ground, away from Fana. “All the b-bloodshed…,” he said, babbling. “So many have suffered in our cause.” His first words sounded like a confession.

  “Father Garcia feels everyone’s pain as his own,” Michel said to Fana.

  “Father Arturo, you mean,” Caitlin said. “I saw him on the news.”

  Dumbstruck, Michel looked at Caitlin. Her thought had come from so deep a place that it had emerged unnoticed. And Papa was here to witness his sloppiness!

  Stefan looked angry before he remembered to soften his brow. “The news?”

  Fana’s dull eyes became alert, suddenly glued to Papa’s face. Michel tried to probe her, but for the first time, he met a wall. His effort to control Teka and the other immortal meant that he had no reserves to work around Fana’s barriers. Papa was right: He had stretched himself too far.

  Michel’s heart fell. Had Fana turned against him so soon?

  “A priest was killed,” Fana told Stefan. “You look like him.” Judging by her eyes, she wanted to say more. If only Michel could glimpse her mind again!

  Stefan clasped his hands. “And now he lives forever in our Father’s arms, no?” he said with a warm smile. “Please come inside. We will care for your friend.”

  Fana didn’t smile, but she followed the direction of Stefan’s outstretched arm, toward the open doors. Her thoughts were still cloaked, but hiding might only be a reflex, Michel remembered. The powerful always brace in each other’s company.

  Others are coming, Michel told his father as he walked behind him. Fana’s mother and the others had landed at Nogales International, and they were already on their way to the church. Michel sensed Fana’s father nearby, too; Dawit was coming on his own.

  But he was ready for Dawit.

  Stefan glanced at Michel over his shoulder, unable to hide his surprise. OTHERS? Once again, Papa trusted Michel to safeguard his thoughts.

  We are family now, Papa. Her Blood is our Blood.

  HOW MANY OTHERS?

  This time, Michel did not answer. Instead, he held Fana’s hand as she stepped into the unfinished sanctuary and gazed up at the beams high above them. Stefan’s smile veiled disapproving eyes as he clamped his hand on Michel’s shoulder, as if to amplify his thoughts.

  IT WAS ARROGANT FOOLISHNESS TO BRING OTHERS. ROMERO AND BOCELLI WILL DISPOSE OF CAITLIN AND THE BOY.

  Even when he sowed death, dear Papa never lost his smile.

  Thirty-one

  7 p.m.

  The taxi lurched to a stop at the base of an ancient oak tree on the twisting, unpaved mountain road. Dust flew up behind the battered white Jeep. If not for the tire tracks ahead of them, Dawit would have been certain that Teferi had lost Fana’s mental scent long ago. They were forty minutes outside of Nogales on a road ringed by thick bands of oaks and pine.

  “Lo siento, pero no más lejos,” the driver said earnestly, shaking his head. “I stop here.”

  The sky was losing its last light. Dawit surveyed the brush, expecting a gang of bandits to emerge. He and Teferi had scanned the driver’s mind for good intentions at the sitio taxi stand near the tunnel opening in Nogales, but their probes were not infallible. The driver’s name was Javier, a white-haired grandfather, and he had seemed trustworthy. He supported a large family as a pollero smuggling migrants across the border, and he valued his reputation as a man who kept his word.

  Mahmoud was sitting directly behind the driver, so he leaned forward, tapping his gun on his side window. “Vamos.”

  “No, no, lo siento,” the driver said, shaking his grizzled head. His fingers brushed the rosary beads and wooden cross swinging from his rearview mirror. “I am sorry for this. If you ride back to Nogales, I will take you to a very nice hotel, no charge. I cannot go here.”

  Mahmoud flicked the driver’s ear with his nozzle. “Then you’ll travel on foot.”

  The driver flinched, gazing at Mahmoud’s reflection in his mirror, but he didn’t dare look him in the eye. “Truly, I am sorry,” the driver said. Pleading.

  HE IS AFRAID OF FEDERALISTAS, Teferi said. THE ARMY PATROLS THIS AREA.

  “Are soldiers looking for narcos out here?” Dawit asked the driver.

  Mexico was in the midst of an internal war between narcos and an unpredictable federal army that was accused, at turns, of either widespread corruption or overly cruel tactics against suspected drug dealers. On any given day, it was impossible to predict which side the army was fighting for. Mexico’s northern neighbor still sowed chaos far beyond its borders.

  “There are soldiers here since the construction started,” the driver said. “A big church.”

  A church! “How far?” Dawit said.

  “Less than two kilometers, señor. You will see it soon, on a ridge. If your friends are there, you can find them. But my car is my life, señor.”

  I HAVE AN UNEASY FEELING, DAWIT, Teferi said. WE ARE TOO FEW.

  Dawit wished they could enlist Berhanu and the others, but they could not wait for their Brothers to arrive from Arizona. They needed the vehicle, no matter what advantages lay in going on foot. They needed transportation to take Fana to safety.

  “Get out, Javier,” Dawit told the driver gently.

  The driver’s eyes were moist. “You will leave an old man? Like a dog in the street?”

  “Better than what’s ahead,” Dawit said. He peeled his cash from his wallet, about five thousand American dollars. “For your trouble.”

  As the driver snatched the money with twitching fingers, the nozzle of Mahmoud’s gun was at the sun-crisped nape of his neck. “We’re finished,” Mahmoud said. “Lágarte.” Get lost.

  “Dios,” the driver whispered, nervous. Lips pursed, he opened his creaky door while he grabbed several children’s photographs pinned to the sun visor and the rosary from the mirror. Breathing fast, he stepped away from the car with his hands above his head.

  Dawit climbed out of the Jeep to take the driver’s place, and Mahmoud slid into the passenger seat, his gun trained on the driver.

  “We’ll find you on the way back,” Dawit told Javier, closing his door.

  Javier wrapped the rosary tightly around his palm. “I am a child of Christ, so I must warn you even though you are thieves—”

  “Thieves?” Mahmoud said. “We should charge you to take this wreck.”

  Javier clung to the door handle. “They call it a church, but it is not from God,” he said in Spanish, staring a
t Dawit with dark, earnest eyes. “El Diablo is building that church. There is much death on this road. Remember: The Aztecs sacrificed humans to Huitzilophochtli because they believed their god needed blood to live. ¿Comprende?”

  Javier looked wild-eyed. His mental streams told Dawit that he knew nothing of Sanctus Cruor or the Living Blood—he was only worried about corrupt police and drug lords destroying his nation. But Sanctus Cruor indeed fed on innocent blood.

  “Comprendo,” Dawit said and patted his leathery hand. “Thank you for your charity.”

  As Javier sighed, resigned, Dawit switched gears. Dawit fished out his gun and sped off, jouncing over a large hole in the road. In the headlights, he saw a low-hanging branch ahead weighted down by moss and a massive beehive. Bees flitted against the windshield.

  Dawit gazed at Javier’s slouched, weary posture as he vanished in the rearview mirror, wondering how the unlucky man would fare in the dark.

  “We might soon envy him,” Teferi said from the backseat, his fingers clacking on his keyboard. “Sanctus Cruor might have bought half the army. And I’ve been looking for satellite images, but everything is shadowed. No sign of a church. It’s as if this road does not exist.”

  Dawit’s phone, too, had failed him. He had tried to call Jessica several times, and by now he was certain something was wrong.

  “An ambush awaits us,” Mahmoud said.

  Dawit eased his foot on the accelerator until he was driving at a crawl. “We should separate,” he said. “One drives on as a decoy. Two others take separate paths on foot.”

  “One or two may not be enough,” Mahmoud said. “We must—”

  WAIT! Teferi’s voice screamed in Dawit’s head. Dawit jammed his heel on the brakes, and the car slewed left several feet in the dusty gravel, making a half-spin.

  A hailstorm fell upon them.

  The sound of punching metal and shattering glass swallowed Dawit. He heard the rapid sound of automatic gunfire only later, as instinct made him crouch low, reaching for his door handle. A brief glimpse, and he saw Teferi already slumped over the dashboard. Teferi’s thought stream was gone, leaving a deafening, painful silence.

  The gunfire came from everywhere.

  Mahmoud sprang from the Jeep in a roll, and Dawit escaped through his door. Dawit landed hard on his hip when he tumbled, and his gun flew free. No time to retrieve it! He scrambled toward cover in the trees in an evasive, erratic pattern. Bullets rained near his feet, spitting into the earth.

  Tree bark scraped Dawit’s palms raw as he scrambled across the forest floor, hiding behind the trunk of a fir. He saw Mahmoud bound catlike over a fallen log on the other side of the road, in characteristically fluid motion. Mahmoud was quick, as always. Dawit’s heart sailed.

  Two, then. Mahmoud and I will find Fana.

  Dawit’s thought died when the back of Mahmoud’s head flew away, a bloody tail of long hair trailing behind like a kite string. Mahmoud’s body went limp, and he fell.

  Alone.

  The tree trunks around Dawit chipped away with gunfire, and he crawled on the twig-strewn ground to seek out new cover. A swishing sound a few yards behind him made Dawit whirl around. He saw movement from the corner of his eye.

  Dawit’s knife flew.

  A man cried out from the brush.

  Dawit bounded toward the noise. He found a bare-chested, tattooed young man on the ground, wearing green army trousers and boots. Dawit’s knife had pierced his breastbone to the hilt. Both of the man’s hands clung to the knife, pulling. His eyes were wide with shock.

  The man’s hair was long, and he was unshaven. Enlisted army? Not likely.

  With Teferi beside him, Dawit might have probed the dying man’s thoughts quickly, but Dawit couldn’t risk allowing him to live long enough to yell out again. Dawit yanked the knife free, gagging the man’s scream with his palm. The terrified man tried to bite him, crazed with anguish. His muffled cry was cut short when Dawit slashed his throat.

  Blessed silence. Nestled by shrubs, Dawit searched around him for the soldier’s weapon, his prize. Nothing! It must have flown free when he’d fallen, hidden in foliage. Dawit cursed.

  Dark green federalista uniforms swam through the brush from every angle. In the glare of a floodlight, he saw at least thirty, perhaps more! The commander was close enough for Dawit to feel the man’s adrenaline and excitement. Army defectors impersonating soldiers, Dawit realized. He raised his head long enough to see the commander point toward him, shouting out his location.

  As Dawit ducked down again, bullets taunted him. His heart thundered. He might have killed them all if he’d had an automatic weapon, but he was trapped with nowhere to run.

  Gettysburg. Adwa. In five hundred years, Dawit had slain scores of men and tasted death’s sleep a dozen times. But he had never found himself panting as he’d pulled off his shirt and waved it above his head, frantic for the white fabric to be seen.

  Surrender. If he was felled here, eight hours’ sleep or more might mean losing Fana. But he might still have a chance if he gave himself up. These troops were not immortals; they were only paid guns on Sanctus Cruor’s payroll. Dawit would still have the advantage of telepathy even if he was subdued, and that might be enough.

  For what seemed like an eternity, gunfire chopped the leaves around him. In the din, Dawit was deaf even to his thoughts.

  “No más!” Dawit shouted. He could barely hear his own voice. “Me rindo! No más!”

  Dawit closed his eyes as wood particles pelted his face. He hoped the bullets’ treachery would at least be quick; Dawit loathed being shot.

  Faintly, he heard the commander’s voice again: An order to cease fire! One soldier’s voice after another called out around him, and the volleys of gunfire slowed, replaced by the footsteps running toward him. Light flooded him.

  Dawit stood slowly, his hands raised high. “Por favor, no más!” He soaked his voice with fearful tremors, in case he could fool them into underestimating him.

  Like most soldiers, these were very young. Some barely looked old enough to shave, and their uniforms hung too big on wiry frames. Dawit tried to find their thought streams, but there were too many at once. All he heard was noise.

  The commander was older and bearded, nearly as thick as Berhanu. He charged purposefully toward Dawit with his machine gun ready. Careful to keep his hands raised while he blubbered for mercy, Dawit tried to penetrate the man’s thoughts.

  His name is Raffi. Dawit saw a palatial church on a ridge. He almost saw a face…

  Then, an explosion of crimson. Dawit barely saw the commander lift the buttstock before a blow across his jaw knocked Dawit from his feet. His concentration was too scattered to probe as the soldiers swarmed him, binding his arms and legs with ropes.

  Six soldiers began dragging him back to the road. Dawit lifted his neck high to keep the ground from abrading him, but even so his face was poked by twigs and brush.

  “No tengo drogas…,” Dawit said, although he knew these soldiers weren’t looking for drugs. “I don’t have any drugs! I’m an American t-tourist. My friends and I were lost!”

  “Silencio,” the commander said and kicked him in the stomach.

  Dawit had trained his body to absorb such a basic blow, so he exaggerated his groan of pain. He blinked rapidly, feigning light-headedness. Better to be quiet, he decided. As long as he was conscious, he might learn something about Fana. And even if I’m rendered useless, Teferi and Mahmoud will find her when they wake.

  But as Dawit blinked dust from his eyes to watch the soldiers rushing around him, he felt his heart go still. Two soldiers were dragging Teferi from the Jeep. The commander snapped his fingers, ordering another group to retrieve Mahmoud.

  “Tráigame los cadáveres,” the commander said, motioning. He wanted the bodies!

  Dawit breathed faster as he watched the soldiers dump Teferi and Mahmoud beside him, close enough to smell their blood. Even knowing they would wake, grief stabbed Dawit when he sa
w Mahmoud’s lifeless eyes staring at him. The soldiers threw blankets across the bodies and lashed them with ropes as if they, too, were prisoners. As if they knew!

  Dawit’s heart tumbled. He closed his eyes, searching for mental clues about his fate. The commander’s thought stream was fragile, but Dawit held on with all of the concentration Teka had taught him. Sensation melted away as he slipped more deeply into the stream. All noise, gone. Only images: The church. A courtyard. Two monks with unfamiliar faces. Money changing hands. Tráigame los cadáveres.

  The monks had asked for the corpses! The soldiers didn’t know about the Living Blood, but the monks did. Not only was Sanctus Cruor close but they also expected to capture immortals. Someone had known they would be coming.

  Suddenly the thought stream was gone as the commander walked away, barking orders to at least two dozen soldiers gathered around him. Two Humvees drove up from the direction of the church, and more young soldiers jumped out. Someone straddled Dawit and tied a sour-tasting, grimy rag over his mouth, pulling it tight. A gag.

  Was he about to be executed?

  Dawit’s heartbeat seemed to shake the ground. It had been five hundred years since Dawit remembered what it felt like to fear death. Possible catastrophes always awaited Life Brothers—especially the specter of being buried alive. He and Mahmoud had once wished for death after drowning at sea, stranded in the open water, their bodies racked by dehydration as they’d been stalked by predators for days. At the time, it had seemed worse than death.

  But now, Dawit knew the difference.

  Sanctus Cruor could dispose of them permanently: Burial. Mutilation. Incineration. Perhaps his time had come at last. The idea awed him as much as it filled him with dread, with one thought tormenting him above all: Like this? The day felt like a fever dream.

  He heard scuffling feet, and several soldiers grabbed Dawit’s legs and armpits, then dumped him in the bed of a Humvee. Dawit’s face skidded against the metal floor. He tasted blood from a split lip, but he was grateful for consciousness.

  The commander must want him alive, for now.