“Yes,” Jessica whispered, clutching both hands to her chin as she leaned forward in her chair, rapt. Warm hums of affirmation from some Brothers clashed with impatience from others.
“I know I’m young,” Fana said. “I’ve only seen eighteen rains. I’m more like a mortal than I’m like you, my longer-lived Brothers. I count time like a mortal. I eat with a mortal’s cravings; breakfast, lunch, dinner.” She gestured in the air with a rigid chopping motion.
There was laughter, but Fana’s next words cut the laughter short.
“Yet, of all of us here, I am the only one who was not born to mortals. I’m the only one who was born with the Blood,” she said. “Me … and one other.”
The mental hums grew more anxious. The only subject more sensitive than Dawit’s upheaval of the colony, or Khaldun’s disappearance, was the existence of Michel. For five hundred years, they had not known there were others like them, who woke again after death.
“Yes … his name is Michel,” Fana said. “And although Michel doesn’t have a seat at this table, he is a member of our Blood family. And it is time for us to know him.”
The Brothers broke out with vocal cheers and dissent. The council was debating its position on Michel, but the Cleansing clearly had support within the Brotherhood.
“Do not mistake me: I am opposed to Michel’s Cleansing!” Fana said, raising her voice. “I can’t sit by while he implements plans for depopulation. And I will not tolerate members of this colony aiding his efforts. Michel has agreed to withhold further outbreaks until we meet.”
Fana’s language triggered objections. “Won’t tolerate?” Jima said, on his feet.
Now she had lost them, Dawit thought.
Jessica whispered in his ear, “She’s talked to Michel …?”
“She must be negotiating with him,” Dawit said. “Through their thoughts.”
“Then she’s already let him in,” Jessica said, almost to herself. A panicked whisper.
Dawit had long ago given up lying to Jessica to comfort her. “Yes.”
Fana spoke over the din. “I will take a delegation with me from Lalibela to see Michel. Everyone in my delegation must come resolved to protect the world population.”
“You will lead the delegation?” came the outcry.
“Protect the population? Lunacy! We’re infested! They fight for food—”
“We will meet with Michel on our terms.” Demisse’s voice, shaking with outrage.
“Fana won’t find allies here,” Dawit muttered to Jessica, translating. “If they have political reasons for avoiding Michel, it won’t feel like cowardice.”
“They’ll still be here debating after millions are dead,” Jessica said, a realization. Again, Dawit could not deny it.
A voice called loudly, “How will Michel receive us?” Rami, his Brother from the House of Music, stood in the rear. He, too, had taken wives and raised mortal children in years past.
The hall quieted, waiting for Fana’s answer.
“I don’t know,” Fana said. “We can succeed … but Michel is unpredictable.”
Jessica locked a grip on Dawit’s hand, silent. Her face was hardening to the pose she wore when she craved her Dreamsticks. Her terror and misery made Dawit ache for her.
“It is possible that Khaldun wrote the Letter of the Witness,” Fana said, and her pronouncement deepened the hush in the room. “Our father may be Michel’s father. If Khaldun gave birth to all of us, he envisioned our meeting one day. But is it prophecy? I only believe in a prophecy that preserves life. This is the purpose of our Blood. Any other interpretation of Cleansing runs against my deepest beliefs.”
“Then I have another proposal!” a too-familiar voice called out. Until then, Dawit had not seen Mahmoud among his Brothers. Had he slipped in during the speeches?
Mahmoud wore his Searcher’s skullcap, a visual reminder that, once, he had forsaken all mortal life for Khaldun’s wishes to bring straying Brothers home. Mahmoud walked far too close to Fana, so insolent that Fasilidas stirred. Mahmoud was close enough to strike her.
Mahmoud had tried to kill Fana when she was three. He had nearly been in tears when he begged Dawit to let him kill Fana after she exsanguinated Kaleb. Mahmoud once had believed that Fana would destroy their Brotherhood. Did he believe it any less now?
“I apologize, but I don’t know your courtesy title, Your … Excellence?” Mahmoud said, addressing Fana from arm’s reach. “Queen Empress? Or, like him, shall you be Most High?”
“I am only Fana.” Dawit could hear the brooding three-year-old still inside her.
Gently, Brother, Dawit warned Mahmoud.
“Then hear me out, O Light,” Mahmoud said with a hint of sarcasm and a shallow bow. His voice roughened. “These arrogant dogs, Sanctus Cruor, encroached upon Ethiopian soil in war to search for our Blood. I fought that sect at Adwa, as did Dawit.” He jabbed, pointing. “And Berhanu, and many of us who loathe mortals’ schoolyard skirmishes—but we defended our Blood. And now here is Michel and his self-righteous gibberish. I shun mortals for my own reasons, heeding my council’s opinions. So my proposal is this, O Fana: kill Michel as you killed our Brother Kaleb. Drain him of his Blood. Chop off the head of the beast, and the beast dies.”
Mahmoud leveled a gaze at Dawit when he spoke of beheading. Mahmoud apparently had forgotten that the beheaded do not always die.
“Remember who she is, Brothers!” Mahmoud finished, and took his seat.
Lively shouts rained on Mahmoud, support and denouncement. Fana stood stoically, her hands at her sides. Dawit probed to find out Fana’s mood about Mahmoud’s theatrics, and she pushed his probe away with her veil. Fana was laying none of her thoughts bare.
Jessica’s hand squeezed Dawit’s, hard. The bright red burst in Jessica’s aura told him how much she wished Fana would kill Michel. Or kill Mahmoud, perhaps. Fana was hidden, but Jessica was practically shouting.
You’re projecting loudly, Jess, Dawit told her privately, and Jessica looked mortified. She inhaled deeply, and the angry red glow began to fade from her aura.
Fana’s gently knowing eyes gazed directly at Jessica. “A child killed Kaleb with a child’s ease. I’m not that child anymore. And Michel isn’t Kaleb.” Fana spoke to Jessica alone.
“And that child hurt,” Jessica whispered through tears. “I know, sweetheart.”
Dawit gave Fana an encouraging smile. At least it will be over soon, he told her. Fana pulsed a heartbroken laugh to him, but she did not smile for the council.
So. Fana would not have time to unify the colony before she went to Michel, but what had she expected without planting the thoughts herself? She had begun her work with the council too late, preoccupied with the worlds above. She really was half a mortal. Khaldun had once said the same of Dawit.
“We should raze that mad prophet to dust!” Demisse cried. “You choose your course, girl—we’ll choose our own.”
“Course? You have no course!” Ermias said. “Fana knows—tell them what no one will say! Michel is the Most High, and the prophecy calls Fana his mate. What more shall be discussed? Read the Letter of the Witness. Read Khaldun’s own words!”
Dawit had never known Ermias to be a zealot who quoted prophecies, even Khaldun’s. The possibility chilled him: was Michel influencing his Brothers? What of Alem, who had gone to Michel with his knowledge of viruses? What of Fana? Teka had confessed that Michel could elude him, and Michel had fooled Fana before.
Yacob, the councilmaster, called for quiet. An angry hush swallowed the storm.
“Tell us why you came to us,” Yacob said gently to Fana. Yacob had loved as many mortals as Dawit, one of the few council members who wasn’t an avowed separatist.
“I’m taking a delegation to see Michel,” Fana repeated, although her voice had lost its spirit. “I’ve come to the council to find any among you who agree that we must preserve lives with our Blood. My parents will accompany me. So will Teka, Berhanu, Fasilidas, and Teferi.
”
A low hiss from a darkened corner. “Fanatics!” And baffled whispers.
Fana finished. “Would anyone who wishes to join us please rise?”
Her voice was full of youthful hopefulness.
Dawit rose first. Then Jessica, slowly, beside him. And Fana’s four guardians.
In a room of nearly thirty others, they stood alone. Fana’s beloved Mystics did not rise, though Dawit could feel their deep regret. Mystics never traveled far, at least in body. Yacob pursed his lips, clearly torn, but remained on his sitting pillow.
I’M SORRY, DAWIT, Yacob said. I DO NOT TRUST HIM TO BE A GOOD HOST.
When spiders unite, they can tear down the lion, Dawit reminded him, the old mortal proverb. Yacob’s grim laugh sounded like a sigh.
Finally, a Brother stood up in the very rear. Rami, the musician.
Fana smiled as if the entire hall had leaped to its feet.
Twenty-one
Even with so much to say, Johnny could only stare at Fana. She already looked like a memory in the thin vapor filtering the light in her mother’s dreaming room. Fana stood frozen in midstep with her hand on the door frame, literally dressed like an angel. Be patient, Jessica had told Johnny. She’ll come looking for me sooner or later.
Activity flurried just outside Jessica’s room. Fasilidas was there, and probably other attendants. Maybe Dawit, too, who wouldn’t be happy to find him in his family quarters.
“Close the door,” Johnny said.
Fana paused as if she wanted to slip back outside. Instead, she closed the door. “I’m glad she’s not in here burning sticks,” she said. “We’re about to leave for the airport, Johnny.”
That answered the only question Johnny had about the council meeting. Fana hadn’t changed her plans. His last hopes died with a sharp pain in his stomach.
“I tried a stick once,” Johnny said. “It just gave me nightmares.”
“You were creating the nightmares,” Fana said. “Lucid dreaming takes practice.”
“I’d rather stay awake.”
For a time, they ran out of conversation.
“I won’t be staying here,” Johnny said. “Not much point, I guess.” As mortals, he and Caitlin wouldn’t be safe underground without Fana and Dawit. The Washington colony had fallen apart as soon as Fana had run away from home, and Fana was running away again.
“You shouldn’t stay,” Fana agreed. “Go to your parents.”
Johnny swallowed back his irritation. Was he supposed to hide in his parents’ house? Go back to med school and forget what he knew?
“Just like that,” Johnny said.
“For a while.”
“How long?” he said.
“You know I don’t know.”
Fana seemed to shimmer in the room’s hazy light, already vanishing. She’d barely moved a foot from the doorway. He took a step closer to her, wishing he didn’t feel so much like he was trying to corner her.
“I want to hear you say it,” he said.
“Say what?”
“You don’t want to go.”
“Of course I don’t want to go.” Fana’s brow furrowed, her voice raw. “I have to go.”
Johnny was immediately sorry. His pain churned in hers, fresh.
“He knows you’re coming?” Johnny said. “You’re talking to him?”
Reluctantly, Fana nodded. “Once.”
Johnny almost didn’t ask any more questions. He dreaded the answers too much.
“Did my name come up?” Johnny said.
Fana gave him a desperate look. “Johnny …”
“That means yes,” Johnny said.
Fana’s face said it all: Michel knew about them. He knew their feelings for each other. There were a dozen practical reasons why Johnny wished he hadn’t tumbled down this impossible tunnel, in love with Fana. Now, Michel seemed like reason enough. The reason.
Johnny hated being afraid, but he was. His stomach wriggled from cold adrenaline as he remembered Michel’s face swarming with bees, a veil over his human disguise. Michel had put a gun in Johnny’s hand and made him shoot himself. Johnny still had nightmares about watching his own limbs defy him while his mouth parroted Michel’s words. YOU ARE WEAK, AND THEREFORE NOT A WORTHY DISCIPLE, Michel’s unearthly voice had growled in his head. THROUGH SUFFERING, YOU WILL BE CLEANSED AND LEARN OBEDIENCE.
Why couldn’t everyone else recognize Michel on sight? Why couldn’t Fana?
“Then I guess I’ll sleep with my lights on,” Johnny said. “Not that it’ll matter.”
Disappointment soured Fana’s face. Maybe she had hoped he had come to bring her strength instead of weakness. “If that was a problem, you’d be dead already,” she said. “Go see your parents, Johnny.”
Basic survival concepts were hard for Fana and the other immortals to grasp, except Fana’s mother and uncle. Fana’s unsympathetic lapses were typical immortalitis.
“Why would I inflict this on my parents? My enemies have big budgets and high positions, Fana.” Johnny lowered his voice. “One of them is the antichrist.”
Johnny knew his mistake as soon as the never-spoken words tumbled out. Fana’s face colored, blood pooling beneath her skin as her eyes blazed. Johnny hadn’t wanted to reveal so much, but he couldn’t leave it unsaid. He stopped himself from quoting Paul’s warnings about the Man of Sin in Thessalonians. Having the passages on his tongue made him dizzy.
“That is not true,” Fana said. “What would that make me?”
“That makes you God’s most beautiful gift to humankind,” he said. “To me.”
Fana couldn’t have looked more miserable if he’d slapped her. She walked away from him, pacing. Johnny heard Dawit’s voice outside the door, asking Fasilidas about her.
YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE COME, JOHNNY.
Johnny blocked Fana’s path when she tried to walk past him. He slid his palms beneath her fanning sleeves to hold her slender arms. Fana’s skin was electricity itself.
“I don’t want to die of an aneurism in the middle of the night,” he said slowly. “Or drive myself off of a bridge. I won’t be a sacrifice like Phoenix.”
“We’re leaving right now to save Phoenix,” Fana said.
“Save me,” he said. “I want the Blood, Fana.”
Fana’s face didn’t change. She’d known what he wanted as soon as she had seen him waiting for her. Her long silence was her only answer.
“Then you’re a damn phony,” Johnny said, and they both flinched from his words. “You think you’re so revolutionary, sharing drops here and there, but it’s only for a chosen few, Fana. ‘Give me your reasons, monkey.’” Johnny’s mouth was dry. “You told me to always keep it real, right? Tell you the truth?”
Had he hurt her? Made her angry? It was harder now to tell anything from Fana’s face.
Fana spoke softly. “Johnny, you would live hundreds of years, or thousands—and you won’t take a short breath to weigh this? Why make this decision in an emotional moment? Of course I want to share the Blood. I’ll work with the council—”
“Stop acting like you have to give a damn about the council! Show them the way, Fana. What good is a gift you won’t use?”
It wasn’t easy to make Fana cry, but her eyes dampened. Did he have her?
“I don’t want to make any more mistakes,” Fana said.
His hands shook because he couldn’t press his palms to her face and kiss her, only for fear that she would pull away. Johnny caressed the electric skin on her arms. “You will make mistakes,” he said. “But leave your Blood—our mission—inside me. Please, Fana. Don’t leave me with nothing of you—nothing of yours.”
Her eyes gently melted into yes, and Johnny’s flesh tremored.
“You have to die, Johnny,” Fana said. She stared earnestly, to be sure he understood. “It’s not like a dose of Glow. For the Blood ceremony, your heart has to stop. It’s real death. You’ll feel it.”
Johnny’s heartbeat shook his knees. He’d known his
heart would have to stop, but he hadn’t thought about what it would be like to die.
Fana was right. He wasn’t ready.
But Fana wasn’t ready for Michel either. She needed him.
“I want you to share your Blood with me, Fana,” he said. “Whatever it takes.”
Fasilidas, do not disturb me, Fana said to her guard beyond the door. Tell Teka and my parents I need to be alone.
YES, BLESSED FANA, he said, but she heard him wondering why Johnny was with her. Fana had promised a wall of privacy to her parents, Johnny, and Caitlin, but Fana knew her teacher’s thoughts, and those of her guards. Fasilidas constantly probed Johnny for clues that she was sharing her bed with him, roiling with envy and disgust. But Fasilidas wouldn’t dare probe Johnny while he was in her presence.
She and Johnny were truly alone. It was a small act of magic.
Johnny was rubbing her bare arms beneath the folds of her robe, a simple gesture that rocked her. She and Johnny had decided not to touch long ago, so Fana hadn’t known how much she enjoyed his warm, calloused hands. It was clear to Fana now: her mother had orchestrated the meeting to bring them together. Fana was as irritated as she was grateful.
With Johnny standing in front of her, their unfinished story in his eyes, she couldn’t ignore her grief. If not for Michel fooling her heart with lies, she might have loved Johnny first. The Blood would be her goodbye gift to him, but he deserved so much more.
Now she had to kill Johnny, just when she wanted to savor his love the most.
“You have to be sure,” she said. “There’s no going back.”
His nervousness filled the room; the flood of his perspiration, the flurried whisper of his racing heartbeat. “I’m sure.”
Was Michel watching? Fana remembered her promise not to defile the Blood, but she had never agreed on mutual language, a definition of terms. He had only mentioned the concerts. Still, Michel wouldn’t like it; she couldn’t lie to herself about that. They would argue about whether or not she had broken her word. There would be consequences. Fana’s heart sped, waking. Maybe Johnny’s nervousness was contagious.
My Soul to Take Page 21
