Blood Colony (16 page)

Jessica Wolde had something like love in her eyes, even though her face usually cracked any time she tried to smile at him. He had led violent people to her family once. He was responsible for her nurse’s death, and nearly her sister’s.

Cal and Nita Duhart had never liked him much either, but at least Cal had invited him squirrel hunting once. Cal couldn’t look him in the eye now. The old woman and her daughter Alex weren’t here, maybe because he’d nearly led Alex to her death.

All he had to do was forget?

“I’ve never felt square with you,” Justin told Lucas and Jessica.

Jessica smiled at him, and her face didn’t crack this time. “You’ve made up for it, Justin. Your work has shown us who you really are.”

“The past is done.” Lucas extended his hand. “You’ve worked hard.”

“Thank you.” Justin shook the scientist’s hand, surprised to be overcome with gratified tears. Without him, it might have taken the immortals decades to accomplish what had taken Clarion only a few years.
He
had helped them do that. If they hadn’t been so cautious, they could have reached half a billion people by now instead of only thousands.

But maybe they’d been right to be cautious. Maybe he was proof of why.

“Where do you come from?” Justin asked Teka. “What makes your blood this way?”

“Tell me your decision,” Teka said.

“I agree to the sentence,” Justin said. His tongue felt too big for his mouth, but he got the words out. “I’ll lose the years. I knew the risks. I can’t say I don’t deserve it.”

Nita Duhart sighed, shaking her head as if he had just agreed to an execution. Without a word, she left for the kitchen, with the French doors swinging angrily behind her. Still, Justin sensed relief in the glance between Lucas and Jessica. They were glad to avoid a fight.

“Are there others like you?” Justin asked Teka. He was just trying to buy extra time in his own head, the way Caitlin and Casey had tried to stall him at bedtime when they were young. Another glass of water. Another toy in their cribs.

Teka’s voice sounded closer; his singsong speech was lulling him somehow.

No. Not speech. Teka’s lips weren’t moving. He was talking to Justin with his eyes.

THERE WERE FIFTY-NINE OF US TO START, AND THEN CAME JESSICA AND LUCAS. AND FANA. OUR FAMILY GROWS. WE LIVED TOGETHER FIVE HUNDRED YEARS, AND I WOULD LIKE TO THINK WE SHALL LIVE TOGETHER AGAIN. OUR BROTHERS DO NOT SUPPORT OUR BLOOD MISSION. THEY ADVOCATE SEPARATION.

“Could it be your own people after Caitlin? The murders…” Justin’s voice fell to a whisper to match the gentle voice in his head.

For the first time, emotion gave way on Teka’s face. Sadness.
WE PRAY NOT.

“Don’t give up the mission,” Justin told him.

Teka smiled, noncommital.
ALL THINGS END.

“Where’s Teferi?” Justin said, wishing he had said good-bye to his oldest living forebear.

This time, Jessica broke in, her voice snapping the eerie link he had felt with the man across the table: “He’s out looking for Caitlin. They think she was in Berkeley today. A boy named Johnny Wright may have left with her. Caitlin is with friends. Teferi will find them.”

Thank God. He could trust Teferi to keep her safe. Caitlin was Teferi’s blood.

Justin had never felt so much peace. Was Teka helping him with that, too?

Justin drained his water glass. Cold and crisp. Perfect.

“What happens now?” Justin said. Was he only imagining the shimmer in Teka’s eyes?

YOU GIVE ME YOUR BLESSING. MEMORIES ARE EXTRACTED BEST WHEN THEY ARE OFFERED RATHER THAN STOLEN. THE MORE FREELY YOU RELEASE THEM, THE MORE GENTLE I CAN BE.

The anxious fear Justin had felt in his cell came back, and his body went rigid. How could he make himself hand over the past eighteen years? He would need to be drunk for that. Justin’s hands were shaking, so he flattened his palms against the tabletop. He couldn’t meet Teka’s eyes again. He was afraid of Teka’s eyes now.

They were immortals. Telepaths. A race of them! If Greek mythology was any lesson, mortals and gods had never lived well together. Justin hoped he would still remember Atlas and Prometheus when he was cast from this Garden, even if he forgot Dawit, Teferi and Teka.

“Will it hurt?” Justin said. He felt only Teka’s presence. Needed to hear Teka’s voice.

YOU WON’T FEEL ANYTHING, SO LONG AS YOUR MIND IS CALM.

“What should I think about?” Justin said.

THE DAY YOUR TWINS WERE BORN,
Teka said. A whisper across his heart.

Justin saw the same golden late-afternoon light he’d seen in a shaft across his wall when he’d opened his eyes after he’d heard Holly call him. He’d been lying facedown on the bed in his suit, so tired he hadn’t taken off his coat and hat even though he’d been sweating. Chicago winter.

“I can remember that,” Justin said to someone, or maybe he only thought he did.

He’s too tired to move, but he’s sure he hears Holly calling him from downstairs, excited and a little scared. He gathers his strength and pulls himself to his feet. Holly needs him. She grins, gritting her teeth through her pain, when she sees him on the top landing. The light catches her face from the second-floor window, that perfect golden glare, and he knows this is the most important day of their lives.

“I want painkillers,” Holly says. “Lots of them.”

Anything you say, Holly. Anything for the twins. Anything for Caitlin.

Anything so you won’t get hurt, sweetheart.

Casa Grande, Arizona
Wednesday
6:25 a.m.

W
hen the PT Cruiser finally reached the beige bungalow at the end of a cul-de-sac, Caitlin steered left of the driveway’s rows of narrow cactus to stop under twin green acacia trees. Fana had told her not to underestimate the Searchers, so Caitlin wasn’t taking any chances. She didn’t want anyone to be able to track their car from the air.

Mitchell and Sheila Rolfson had moved to Casa Grande, halfway between Phoenix and Tucson, last year, saying they wanted to live in a smaller city; thirty thousand instead of more than five times that. The new house wasn’t as big as their last, which used to have enough beds for a dozen travelers at a time, but Caitlin could already see why it was a good place to hide. The suburban street was cookie-cutter and could be anywhere, except for the paved lawns to compensate for a lack of rainfall. And the Sonoran desert’s purple morning light.

Fana needed the quiet.

Thank bejeezus Mitch and Sheila moved out of Tempe.
Caitlin wished she could have stopped at the safe house in Vegas instead—it was three hours closer than Casa Grande—but if Fana hadn’t been able to handle Portland and Berkeley, Vegas might have made her head explode.

Most of the houses on the street were dark, with cars safely parked at home for the night. The street was sleeping.
Oh, God. We made it.
The promise of rest made Caitlin’s hands shake.

Caitlin dialed Mitchell’s number from memory, using the cell phone she’d bought from a street vendor in Berkeley. The phone rang twice.

“Come on in,” Mitchell said before she could speak, and the white aluminum garage door rolled open with a subdued whir, revealing a neat garage with plenty of space. The only thing parked inside was a black Kawasaki painted white in desert dust. Caitlin sighed. Mitchell should have listened for her voice and run it through his analyzer before he opened his door.

But that was Mitchell. He hadn’t changed in six years.

As soon as the door was clear, Caitlin sped inside the garage. The sudden motion woke Johnny, who had finally fallen asleep after a sleepless night. He looked around, shielding his eyes against the garage’s bright fluorescent glare. Behind them, the door was already on its way down again. They were hidden from sight.

For the first time in two days, Caitlin’s muscles unclenched.
Safe. We’re safe.

“Where are we?” Johnny said.

Caitlin glanced back at Fana. Good. She was sleeping.

“Where we’re supposed to be. Stay in the car with Fana. I’ll be right back.”

Johnny suddenly grabbed her arm, yanking her back toward him. His eyes were bleary but angry. “Hell, no, Caitlin. You’re not leaving me here until I know where we are.”

They shouldn’t have gone to Berkeley. They never should have brought Johnny. Caitlin hoped Berhanu hadn’t picked up Fana’s mental scent in Berkeley, when he had been so close. What if Fana’s masking hadn’t worked? Fana had been so overcome that she might have lost her concentration. She could be leading the Searchers right to the Rolfsons.

“It’s a safe house, like I told you,” Caitlin said. “We can rest and plan our next move.”

“
What
next move?” Johnny said. “Look, maybe you treat your Glow people like shit, but I’m not just anybody else.” His eyes softened from anger to a deeply grooved hurt.

“I
will
tell you,” Caitlin said, for what she was sure was the hundredth time. She was so tired that she wanted to cry. “We just have to make sure we’re OK first. Trust me, that’s the most important thing right now.”

Johnny looked sulky, arms crossed as he stared away from her, but at least he was quiet. Caitlin wanted to talk to him like a friend, but she only had the strength to open her car door. After twelve straight hours of driving with only one bathroom break, Caitlin’s knees were shaking. Crumbs from the vanilla wafers she’d been quieting her stomach with fell from her lap when she stood. She wished she had a stun gun, at least. She felt naked.

But thank God it was Mitchell and Sheila. She had known them since she was fifteen.

There was a doorbell beside the door inside the garage, glowing in inviting white, but the door swung open before Caitlin could raise her finger. She was washed in the overwhelming scent of frying bacon. And pancakes. Caitlin’s stomach flipped, and saliva flooded her mouth. She was so hungry that she felt sick to her stomach.

Mitchell’s beard was trimmed low, and his curly brown hair grew to his shoulders like his hero, rocker Jimmy Page; he hadn’t changed much from when she’d been in high school and he’d been Mr. Rolfson, her philosophy teacher in the gifted program. He was lanky, with a spray of pale freckles across his nose. It still amazed Caitlin that her former teacher had decided to change his life, uprooting his entire family, because of her.

“That was fast,” Mitchell said. He gave her a tight hug and kissed the top of her head. The gesture made Caitlin miss her father so much that her throat clenched. “You made it, Cat.”

“There’s two more in the car. My friend isn’t feeling well.”

Mitchell glanced eagerly toward the car. “Justin?” he said, relieved.

Caitlin just shook her head. She had told him that she and her father were in trouble, but she couldn’t talk about it now, and not just for the sake of secrecy. Squeezing her elbow, Mitchell didn’t press. “Sheila’s got breakfast on for anyone who’s interested, and beds ready for those who would rather sleep. Another traveler beat you here, and we just got the table set.”

“There’s a traveler? From where?”

“Canada. Vancouver.”

Laurel Reid in Vancouver was one of the best conductors in the Railroad, single-handedly responsible for the Glow that crossed north. After all Laurel had been through, she would never send anyone to the Rolfsons without a thorough screen. But procedure was procedure.

“Before we come in, I want to see the traveler’s file. Name?”

“Charlie Dominguez.” Mitchell’s head listed to the side as he shrugged impatiently. His tone said
Oh, come on
. “He’s Laurel’s. I just talked to her ten minutes ago.”

Caitlin loved Mitchell, but he had the same tendency to skate over details he’d had as her teacher, when she’d thought it was cool that he didn’t sweat anyone about missing class. In the Railroad, everyone had been conscientious in the beginning, but most people had loosened up. Life under high alert was joyless, and most people didn’t have the stomach for it. Maritza hadn’t.

“Why’s Dominguez here?” Caitlin asked.

“Pinching. First Phoenix, then Vegas. Laurel’s been dry for three months.”

When Glow supplies were low, couriers were sent to “pinch” Glow residue from conductors around the country—everything from old vials to IV bags to hypodermic needles—hoping to salvage trace product. Most pinched Glow was too weak to cure a cold sore, diluted to nothing. But Caitlin knew why Laurel was dry in Vancouver: Laurel’s godson, Ethan, had been abducted and murdered, just like Maritza. Half of Laurel’s supply had disappeared with him, never recovered. This had been a hellish year for the Underground Railroad, but Laurel hadn’t quit, and neither had any of the other conductors. Even with four people in jail, no one had talked. Caitlin felt herself trembling again; part nerves, part fevered jubilation.

You can’t stop us, you bastards. There are too many of us. And now we have Fana.

“Send his file to my phone. My friend doesn’t go near anyone I don’t know,” she said. “And you have to get rid of the bacon. My friend is sensitive to the smell.”

“You call the shots,
mi capitan
. We only cooked it for you.”

Caitlin would check Dominguez out herself before they set foot in the house, accessing the encrypted database a sympathetic MIT professor had set up for the Railroad. Names. Faces. Histories. A legit courier would be registered, and Caitlin didn’t trust anyone’s eyes but her own.

But if Charlie Dominguez was who he claimed to be, today was Canada’s lucky day.

Johnny glared when Caitlin came back to his window. She answered by staring away from him, the closest she ever came to apologizing. She was typing into her phone, barely looking at him. “That was Mitch. His wife’s name is Sheila. She’s a Unitarian minister, one of the coolest people on the planet, and he was my teacher in high school. I trust them with my life, and they cooked pancakes.”

“That’s all I’m talking about, just some respect,” Johnny mumbled. “Shit.”

“Excuse me for my lack of bedside manner, but my father might be dead right now.”

“He’s not dead,” Fana said from the backseat. She raised the tarp above her eyes to cut the light. She still looked sleepy, but she didn’t seem to be in pain anymore.

Caitlin finally stopped the manic scrolling on her phone, giving Fana a sharp, skeptical glance. “You look better. Be right back,” Caitlin said and vanished inside the house.

“Is she always like this?” Johnny asked Fana.

Fana rubbed her face, trying to wake up. “Way worse since Maritza.”

“Who killed Maritza?”

“We’re not sure.”

“But you think the same people could be after us?”

“We have to assume they are.”

“But why?”

Fana gave him a heartbroken smile. “Glow. When it’s real, it works. It’s valuable.”

Johnny remembered his brush with violence from Ryan LaCroix. He touched Fana’s forehead again, gauging her temperature. Fana’s skin was unlike any he had ever felt—warm, but not just that. Her skin seemed to vibrate beneath his fingertips.

“Well, Doc?” Fana said playfully.

“You’ll live,” Johnny said, trying to smile. “What’s going on with Caitlin’s dad?”

Johnny couldn’t mistake the shadow across Fana’s face. “Let’s get settled first,” she said.

In other words, you ain’t gonna’ tell me shit,
Johnny thought.

“Trust us,” Fana said, grasping his hand with such sudden urgency. “We have to tell you enough so you can protect yourself. Anything else would be irresponsible.”

Finally, Fana seemed to be talking sense. “Deal, Lil’ Sis,” he said, and squeezed her fingers. Maybe he was only imagining it, but he felt better every time he touched Fana. Less pissed. Less scared. Less convinced that he had just been kidnapped.
But what about that weird feeling? What about when you thought you could hear her voice talking in your head?
Johnny wanted to ask Fana about it, but the question felt ridiculous in a hundred ways.

The door to the house opened suddenly, and Caitlin waved them inside.

“All clear!” she called out. “Sorry for the smell, Fana.”

Johnny hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he climbed out of the car and the scent of breakfast made his knees go weak. Bacon! What the hell was Caitlin apologizing for?

A middle-aged man and woman were waiting on the other side of the door, in their kitchen. They were a grinning welcome party, still dressed in robes and slippers. The bearded man’s long hair made him look like an escapee from the 1973 cast of
Jesus Christ, Superstar,
and his much shorter wife had a round, ruddy face that was the Webster’s dictionary portrait of
perky.
She looked like a farmer’s wife, a bit chubby with blond hair in a bowl cut. Johnny liked her cheerful, active eyes. They each held a bundle of clothes wrapped in plastic.

“Road kit,” the woman said, offering her bundle to Johnny. “Sweatpants. Arizona State Sun Devils T-shirt. Undies. Toothbrush. Welcome to Casa Rolfson.”

“She’s Mitch. I’m Sheila,” the man said, then he winked at them. “Or something like that. We’ve been up since four-thirty. Who’s hungry?”

So,
this
was the Underground Railroad, Johnny realized as he introduced himself and shook his hosts’ hands. Like abolitionists fighting slavery in their own quiet way in the 1800s, Caitlin’s network took in fleeing strangers. Johnny couldn’t imagine what it had felt like to be a runaway slave who’d found food and shelter after a long, harrowing journey, but he was plenty grateful now. Even the cool air in the house was a welcome change; Caitlin had left the AC off in the car to save gas. At six bucks a gallon, she’d said they couldn’t afford to waste a drop.

“I’m Beatrice, but my friends call me Bea-Bea,” Fana said quietly. She looked sick again; her hand was pressed to her stomach. “Is there anywhere I can just?…”

Johnny moved toward her, feeling an instinct to scoop her up and carry her into the house. Caitlin beat him, hugging Fana with one arm and guiding her out of his reach.

“Sorry,” Caitlin said. “She gets carsick.”

“Poor baby,” Sheila Rolfson said, about to whirl away. “Nate, too. I’ve got Dramamine.”

“No need. Sleep will do it,” Caitlin said. “Mitch, can you take us down to the beds? I’ll come right back. Why don’t you guys go to the table? Don’t wait for me.”

When Johnny started to protest, Caitlin gestured that he should go with the Rolfsons. Caitlin followed Mitchell, leading Fana across the kitchen and around the corner, out of Johnny’s view.

Alone in a stranger’s kitchen, Johnny felt self-conscious and nervous. He noticed a pea-green phone mounted on the kitchen wall. Three or four days might go by before his roommate missed him, but his parents had expected him to call yesterday. They must be worried even if Zach wasn’t.