The murky warm sludge has risen, covering her nose. Her eyes will be next.
A brief flicker. Is Michel telling her he’s sorry? Yes, she is certain he is. She can feel the pulses of his helplessness, trapped in his healing sleep.
When the Shadows rise above her head, tugging her hair down, too, Fana holds her breath and seals her eyes. She listens for Phoenix’s singing, her parents’ voices, but ooze plugs her ears. Fana’s lungs burn to breathe. Hot tears gather behind her eyelids, with nowhere to go.
She has read about how painful it is to drown.
Shadows leak into her mouth, her lungs. Finally, Fana opens her mouth wide to the muddy waters, refusing to gasp and choke. She drinks as much as she can hold.
WELCOME HOME, FANA, says the gravelly voice she has not heard since she was three.
Forty-two
Bees pasted across the windows sealed out the day’s sun in Jessica’s chamber with Dawit. Jessica pressed her palm to the warm windowpane, absorbing its vibrations, stronger all the time. Were the bees swarming all of Nogales, or just Michel’s prison?
Phoenix had never stopped singing. She sat on the floor, rocking in the doorway of the empty closet, where she was wrapped in a blanket, ready to cover herself and slam the door if bees escaped into the room.
“Why bees?” Phoenix said, half spoken, half song. “Bees nurture us from flower to flower, tree to tree. They bring us so much sweetness. Bees spread life on their wings.” She improvised a sorrowful scat at the end, the sound of the courtyard’s massacre.
“Bees aren’t the Shadows,” Teka said. “They’re only attracted to the scent.”
Jessica remembered being wrapped in a blanket of their venom’s sting when she had rescued Fana from her hurricane trance. Like any of God’s creatures, bees had many faces.
“The soldiers, they shot their own people,” Phoenix sang, heartbroken, shaking her head. “Killing their fruit, their own seeds—men, women, and children. Why? Why? Why?”
“Think of the Shadows as an entity of living rage,” Teka said. “The fusion between Fana and Michel attracted the Shadows in a way I have never known. They have great potential within both the Shadows and the Rising. Perhaps this was Khaldun’s prophecy of the Bloodborn. But … this unnatural rupture has freed the Shadows. While Michel sleeps, Fana faces their potential for destruction alone. Casualties may …”
He didn’t finish. Jessica winced, remembering the sniper’s bullet. Teka had already explained that they might see the start of the Cleansing.
“The Shadows siphon rage from their hosts,” Teka said. “Their worst impulses. I believe that’s why the soldiers were shooting. The Shadows are too thick here today.”
As thick as bees, Jessica thought, her palm facing the busy mass on the window. She might have persuaded Johnny to trust Fana if she had trusted Fana first.
“How is her fight, Teka?” Dawit said quietly. Jessica had asked Dawit and Teferi to speak aloud instead of lapsing into telepathy. They couldn’t afford the price of secrets today.
Dawit was sharpening a ceremonial Ethiopian sword that had been hanging over their bed as decor, his only remaining weapon. The guns in his travel case had turned to dust. His steady lashing across the blade with the stone, back and forth, made her anxious. Jessica was afraid she knew Dawit’s plans for the sword, although she couldn’t bring the thought to light.
“Her heart beats, she walks,” Teka said, solemn. “But I cannot find her.”
Teka and his understatements! “What does that mean?” Jessica said.
Teka sighed. “She is lost in the Shadows, Jessica. For a time, at least.”
Had any parent ever been told so gently, Your daughter is dead?
Dawit’s sword sang against the sharpening stone, joining Phoenix’s song against the steady hum of the bees. Dawit’s rigid, grieving face could have sharpened the steel.
Jessica would always remember the sight of the casualties in Michel’s courtyard, but she prayed she could one day forget Fana’s glare. Would it be the last thing between them? The loss of her daughter’s love was far more frightful a prospect than the Shadows.
Please, Lord, guide us through this day. Give me my daughter back, or give me the strength to carry out her mission.
“We’ll try to reach Fana as long as we can,” Dawit said. “Jessica has reached her in the Shadows before.”
“And Michel likes to hear his name,” Jessica said. “So call him.”
With her voice hoarse from her songs, Phoenix sang about love overcoming pain.
“Then we’ll finish the mission for Fana,” Jessica said. She sounded confident, reasoned, steady. “We’ll prevent the Cleansing in her name.” She heard herself speaking the words, but would not contemplate their meaning. She forced away the memory of Dawit’s hands around Kira’s neck as he strangled the life from her.
Dawit’s blade went quiet. His eyes closed for several seconds before he began sharpening again, his head low.
“Yes,” Teka said. “That’s what she would want from us.”
Phoenix sang of climbing mountains past the clouds, and how much they would see.
Above them, the tower’s bell tolled.
“If the Shadows want the Cleansing,” Dawit said, “we know where to find Fana.”
Berhanu’s course, and quick timing, had been best. It would have been far easier. At least Dawit had chosen Fana’s guardians well.
“What if we stop his heart?” Dawit said. “Destroy his corpse?”
“Two Bloodborn have never fused, as far as I know,” Teka said. “You’re asking me to predict the future. I am not Khaldun.”
“Your best guess, Teka.”
Teka was dressing himself in the crimson robe he had liberated from the guard they had lured into the room, straightening his collar in a mirror. The unfortunate young man lay with a snapped neck in their bathroom, and a small pile would soon join him. Jessica had asked Dawit to kill as few people as necessary, but they didn’t have the luxury of prisoners. They would need three more robes and weapons to reach the Cleansing Pool.
Teka paused. “In truth, the damage to Michel’s brain is so severe that he should be as good as dead, until he heals,” Teka said. “Our Blood lives as long as the heart beats, so he could be more vulnerable during his sleep. But stopping his heart may not be enough. If the Shadows have found a host in Fana … Michel might take refuge outside of his body too. He had fused to her. He might have the ability.”
“He might live when he has no physical body?” Dawit said. Was Michel a god?
“They are energy as much as flesh, Dawit,” Teka said. “He might live through her. Or, one will absorb the other. We know Michel has proven stronger, in the Shadows. He has taken her literally in his sleep.”
Could Michel walk forever wearing his daughter’s face? Dawit wondered.
Teka swallowed painfully, and Dawit shared the bitter burn in his throat. “I think we must assume … that she had not advanced far enough in the Rising.”
Just as Jessica had warned!
“And …” Dawit had promised an end to their constant telepathy, but he couldn’t bring his next question within Jessica’s ears: What if both bodies are destroyed?
Teka made certain that Dawit saw his wretched eyes when he answered, IT IS THE SAFEST COURSE … IF WE CAN. Teka walked quickly away, overcome.
Dawit held the edge of the sink, suddenly unsteady. He dared not look up to see his face in the mirror. The man in the mirror had vowed never again to hurt one of his children.
He felt someone watching him, and saw Jessica in the bathroom doorway.
Jessica ignored the dead man on the floor without questions. She walked directly to Dawit to hug him to her with surprising strength.
He wouldn’t have to tell her. She had seen Fana’s eyes in the tower.
“We have to be sure,” Jessica whispered.
Dawit nodded, pulling Jessica’s face to his chest, wrapping his arms around her ears. He tried
to speak and couldn’t.
If they survived the day, they would have the rest of their lives to mourn.
Invisibility. They walked Michel’s hallways like ghosts.
One man walking almost pace for pace with Phoenix in the crowded hall glanced at her curiously, looking for a good angle to see her face, then his eyes moved on. Phoenix couldn’t remember the last time she’d walked invisible in a crowd. Fana’s teacher had concealed their small circle in the bowels of Hell. They heard the occasional perdóname, but Teka said their faces would seem blurred, indistinct, as long as they walked close to each other and the safety he had built. They joined the sea of crimson robes flowing like blood through the building’s hall.
Michel’s home was so grand in its stately reverence, bigger than life. The candlelight alone was enough to feel God peeking down. God wasn’t afraid to visit anywhere. No wonder Michel’s followers thought they’d found God’s living room.
The ringing bells sounded happy. Apology, invitation, promise.
Most of the people were harried, robes askew and hair windswept with the stories they had to tell. They’d been there since the wedding, and ninety minutes felt like a lifetime ago. Sanctus Cruor was trying to keep its head on straight. Chatter was quiet in the processional, but everyone had plenty to say in hushed snippets.
“He said he was immortal,” a woman whispered behind Phoenix, before she was hushed.
Romero was waiting at the crowded archway to the Cleansing Pool, shouting for organization, directing people right or left. Phoenix stiffened when she saw him, remembering the rage on his face when he had tried to shoot her in the tower.
REMAIN CALM, Teka said. HE IS A VERY POOR TELEPATH.
Romero seemed to stare straight through her.
Alem waited squarely around the corner when they entered the Cleansing Hall. Their Brother who had given Michel the virus stood in their path.
Dawit readied his hand on his sword’s hilt. Were they thwarted so quickly? Alem was as close as Fana had been to her groom in the tower, staring with his copper-colored eyes. Alem looked straight past Teka’s group mask. Perhaps his ties to his Brothers were too strong to be fooled.
Alem did not smile, but he grasped Teka’s shoulders. BROTHERS, he said, his face contorted as if he’d been holding his breath. BERHANU IS GONE.
Was Alem still a Brother who loved them? Did that mean that Fana could be wrested from the Shadows’ spell, too? Alem touched Teka’s face fondly, and then Dawit’s. His eyes shone like pennies in a bright stream, past madness.
HE BEWITCHED ME, Alem said. HISTORY FORGIVE ME.
We mean to stop it, Dawit said.
YOU CANNOT, Alem said, full of certainty. IT IS AS GOOD AS DONE.
Alem’s eyes shifted to the center of the Cleansing Hall, toward the pool … but higher. Thirty feet above the floor, a shadow moved against the ceiling, gliding like an eel.
When Dawit glanced toward Alem again, their Brother was gone, his head bobbing as he excused himself past the followers crowding the door, on his way out. Alem would not help them, but he would not hinder them, at least. He was running from damnation.
Safe journey, Brother, Dawit thought.
Michel was propped on his throne overseeing the Cleansing Pool, his condition unchanged since Dawit had seen him at the altar in the tower. He had barely been wiped clean—not that much could have been done for his appearance. His prince’s suit had been replaced by his crimson Cleansing robe with the Sanctus Cruor crest prominent on his chest. His blood didn’t show against the matching fabric. He listed to one side, his damaged face hidden against his shoulder.
Wake, Michel, or sleep always, Dawit said. Even if he roused Michel from sleep with anger, Michel would be kinder to Fana than the Shadows. She was gifted at reasoning with him. She had come so close!
Michel did not stir. He made no answer.
Movement across the ceiling sent a cold, wet tendril across the nape of Dawit’s neck, as if Fana had reached down to touch him. Dawit looked up in time to see Fana zip to a darkened corner in the rafters, gliding between oversized banners, her Sanctus Cruor robe flapping behind her. She was still a bride, dressed in white.
She was fast. He would have preferred a crossbow to the knives he’d stolen.
Beside him, Jessica clamped her hand over her mouth. She had seen Fana, too.
Phoenix’s hoarse singing was ever-present, but Dawit heard her raise her weary voice. “My soul gets cold from standing still … If I can’t spread my wings, I’ll die …”
They needed Teka’s protection, so their group moved slowly through the masses. There was no seating except in the crowded balconies. Dawit recognized some of the world leaders who had come for Michel’s wedding, now present for a different event entirely. Dawit was too far to probe them. Did they understand? What had Michel promised them?
MICHEL MIGHT WAKE SOON, Teka said, excited. THE SHADOWS HAVE MASKED HIM, SO I CANNOT HELP HIM HEAL. BUT I FEEL HIS HEALING—HE IS GLOWING.
Dawit whispered the news to Jessica, and her face brightened with hope. Could any of them have imagined a day when Jessica would rejoice to see Michel?
While they stood within the huddle of the faithful, Phoenix sang to Fana and Michel, asking them to bring their union back to solid ground. Dawit felt a sharp pang, missing Rami. He’d wanted to ask Alem for word on the fate of their other Brothers’ corpses, but his concerns of the world had narrowed to the Cleansing.
Dawit stared at Michel, the sleeping puppet king.
Could I get to him? Dawit asked Teka.
Teka shook his head, emphatic, as he sent his hurried message. IMAGINE HE IS IN A SEALED CASE. NO GUNSHOT OR KNIFE WOULD DISTURB MICHEL NOW. WE SHOULD NOT MOVE AGAINST THEM UNTIL IT BEGINS, WHEN THE SHADOWS TRAVEL SUCH A DISTANCE WITH HIS VIRUS. BUT BY THEN, IT MAY BE TOO LATE.
His words were so deeply hidden that Dawit could barely hear him.
The Cleansing Hall went silent, all eyes skyward.
Fana hovered directly above the Cleansing Pool in her now-spotless white vestments. Her dreadlocks gently framed her cherub’s face. Fana looked so much like his child that he hoped she had found her way back.
Fana’s voice crackled above them from end to end.
“Thus is it written in the Letter of the Witness,” Fana’s voice said, and Dawit’s hopes melted. “‘And so a man and woman, mates immortal born, will create an eternal union at the advent of the New Days. And all of mankind shall know them as the bringers of the Blood.’”
There was no healing in Fana’s recitation—only hunger. Only Shadows.
I’m going to slit your throat, Michel, Dawit taunted him. Just as I slit your father’s. And then I’ll shovel your pieces in the furnace. Millions may die, but so will you. So will Fana.
Yes! Teka encouraged him. I MIGHT HAVE FELT HIM STIR.
The bees beat the rooftop like a hurricane.
Fana’s voice went on. “All peoples of the world shall face a time of Cleansing,” she said. “The Cleansing will bring weeping, but it will bring feasts and rejoicing. The Cleansing will bring sorrow, and it will bring new life. During the Cleansing, husbands will cling to their wives, and mothers will sit vigil over their children. Without Cleansing, wars shall flourish. The air will be choked with smoke. The sun will scorch the earth like fire. The oceans will turn to poison. The very world itself will die.”
What about Fana? Dawit asked Teka.
SHE APPEARS RIGHT BEFORE ME, DAWIT, YET HER MIND IS QUIET.
Fana would not fight her way back in time. Fana might have been erased from herself.
If only he had a gun! Even a mortal’s gun would be faster than his blades. To reach Michel and Fana, he would need to be virtually two places at once. He could envision a dozen swift strategies with Berhanu and Fasilidas by his side, even if Fana flew like a peregrine falcon across the ceiling. Teka was a mighty telepath, Khaldun’s most loyal student and Fana’s finest teacher, but he was an untested warrior.
I WILL D
O WHAT I CAN, DAWIT, Teka said. I WILL GO TO MICHEL.
They both knew that Teka couldn’t bear to destroy Fana, even if he could reach her first.
“Today,” Fana’s voice boomed, “you will be both witnesses and participants …”
Dawit received an excited pulse from Teka, a nudge to look to his left. All he saw, at first, was a sea of robes. Then an olive-skinned young man wearing a beard leaped to his vision.
Mahmoud was within ten yards of Michel, then gone. Dawit knew Mahmoud’s stealthy approach well. He planned to strike.
Tell him to wait! Dawit told Teka. Mahmoud was too far out of his range for a pulse.
Mahmoud straightened, suddenly still, and turned over his shoulder to meet Dawit’s eyes. Teka had already sent his message, and helped Mahmoud find them.
Dawit’s oldest friend inclined his head in a joyless, respectful bow.
Mahmoud would wait. For now.
Jessica nearly drowned in conflicting emotions when she saw Mahmoud bow to Dawit. She’d almost forgotten how much she despised him.
Her terrible burden with Dawit felt heavier, more inevitable, with Mahmoud so close to Fana. Mahmoud did not love Fana. He would celebrate to see her die.
“Where are you, Michel?” Jessica suddenly heard herself scream out in the open when she’d only been trying to send him a thought. “Are you too weak to protect your new wife?” Yes, Lord, let him come, Jessica prayed. Let him come in a rage and strike us all down, but let him save Fana. Give Fana time to bring him to her Light.
Appalled followers grumbled and shouted at Jessica. She saw a commotion in the crowd as Sanctus Cruor guards made their way toward her to remove her.
Phoenix looked at Jessica with wide, startled eyes. Her song faded on her lips.
“Keep singing to her,” Jessica told Phoenix. “Stay close to Teka’s mask.”
Dawit’s eyes on her were as childlike as Phoenix’s. JESSICA, NO—
Jessica pushed through the crowd in front of her, struggling to make it as close as she could to Fana, to stand beneath her daughter’s shadow. Jessica moved only ten feet. Rough hands clawed at her arms, her robe, her hair, nearly staggering her from her feet. A man’s elbow knocked Jessica’s jaw so hard that her vision went white, and she would have fallen if not for the bodies smothering her.
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