Blood Colony (40 page)

Charlie stood so still that Fana forgot he was separate from her. Charlie’s fingertips fanned across her back with the clave’s one-two-three rhythm. He dipped her slightly, and her hipbone nudged against his erection. His arousal fascinated her. How did longing feel to a boy? The humming vibrated up her legs, her calves. Behind her knees.

Fana moaned.

Charlie’s hair brushed across her face as he leaned toward her chest. His hair was a perfume of warm, damp scalp and soap. Charlie’s hand slid to her breast. When his hot mouth touched her nipple, Fana’s world became all rippling sensation. Charlie sucked, a hungry babe, and Fana writhed beneath his tongue. Droplets of perspiration between her legs electrified, sending shocks up and down her body.

Fana whimpered.

Charlie’s free hand traveled across her hip, toward her thigh.

Gently sliding, burrowing, he pressed his hand across the denim that separated his skin from hers. Fana squeezed her legs tight against him. Her body wanted to swallow him whole. Charlie’s tongue flicked across her nipple, and a river dampened Fana’s thighs.

Yes.
She would give herself to him. Today.
Now.

Fana’s body and mind fell against Charlie, and he met her in the place no one except them could see. Naked. Luxuriating. Were her feet still touching the floor, or were they both floating, buoyed by the humming beneath their feet? Her toes dangled, tingling. Weightless.

Michel.

The name came first, unadorned.

Michel.
Fana nudged, probing, and washed her mind in his.

The sensation was like flash-fire.

Fana’s lungs howled when she gasped. She heard a
thump
as her feet landed on the floor, and she swayed. The room spun, lurched, and spun again.

A dagger must have pierced her. The pain was astonishing, like everything about him.

The songstress had warned that death was easier than heartbreak: At least she could visit the dead. Her wondrous Charlie was simply gone.

“Johnny,
wake up
!”

Someone was calling him.
Caitlin?

Johnny blinked, stirring. A wall of light swallowed him when he opened his eyes. Whiteness, as far as he could see. Was he dead?

“
Yes,
that’s it!” Caitlin sobbed. “Johnny, p-please—wake up. Oh, God…please…”

He was staring at a ceiling, he realized. From a bed. Johnny’s head seemed too heavy to move, but he forced himself to look toward Caitlin’s voice. Movement ignited pain in his stomach, and he gasped. Pain made him forget everything else. His vision doubled.

“Johnny,
they’re coming to kill us,
” Caitlin’s voice said, a hissed whisper.

Johnny blinked again, and this time he saw Caitlin standing about twenty yards from him, facing a closed door. Her back was turned to him, her arms pinned to her sides like a wooden toy soldier. Caitlin looked back toward him, straining to see over her shoulder. Her pose was odd, as if she was fighting against her own body.
Where are we?

Caitlin’s face was bright red. She must have been calling him a long time.

“J-Johnny…,” she said, her jaw shaking. “They’re coming. T-two of them. They have guns. Close your eyes and pretend you’re sleeping. They’re g-gonna pump you with poison…You have to fight them. I c-can’t move.”

Unwanted memories flooded Johnny, and the room whirled. He hadn’t been able to move either! Johnny remembered Charlie’s grinning face, covered in bees.
The Other.
A gun. Shocking pain. Johnny’s brain rejected the memories before they could fully surface.
I was shot. I should be dead. She healed me.
He felt himself slipping away, back to the calming darkness.

“Johnny, we’re both gonna’ die if you don’t stop them,” Caitlin whimpered. “P-please.”

Alertness returned, sharp. Caitlin and Bea-Bea needed him.

“Where’s Bea-Bea?…” Johnny said, his voice hoarse. His mouth felt coated with sand.

“
Shhhhhh,
” Caitlin said. “Pretend you’re sleeping. They’re coming. I hear them.”

Johnny lay still, his eyes closed, but he was sure his heartbeat was shaking the walls. Fear and confusion tangled his mind.
Who’s coming? Stop them how?
Sweat drenched Johnny’s legs and arms, and his pores wept with panic.

He was breathing too fast. Anyone would know he was awake right away.

The door opened with the squeal of a tight hinge. At first, Johnny couldn’t tell if the sound was real or just his waking nightmare. His breath caught in his lungs.

The voices came, two men chatting casually in Spanish. One of the men cooed at Caitlin in the doorway, and they both laughed. “
Hai dormito bene, bella
?” one said.

Not Spanish. Italian? The men chatted cheerfully, but Caitlin was so quiet that Johnny had to fight to keep his eyes closed. Was she all right? His heart knocked the base of his throat.

Johnny dared a fluttering glimpse through his eyelashes. Two monks stood near Caitlin, one in front of her and one pressed behind her, playing with her clothes. The shorter monk pulled up Caitlin’s shirt and murmured something that made the other laugh. The taller monk’s hairy arm snaked inside Caitlin’s shirt, and he closed his eyes, biting his bottom lip with mock rapture. The sight shocked Johnny almost as much as the blood in Casa Grande; a glimpse of Hell.

Johnny remembered to close his eyes just as the shorter monk turned his way. Footsteps in his direction. The other monk grunted, and Johnny heard Caitlin’s legs dragging across the floor. The bedroom door swung shut, penning them inside. Rage soured Johnny’s mouth.

Footsteps, closer to him. Adrenaline turned Johnny’s limbs rigid. Johnny heard Caitlin cry out across the room, a sob, but his ears were riveted to the sound of a stranger breathing above him. Johnny could smell his sweat.

The monk clucked, speaking gently, as if to soothe him.
Does he know I’m awake?

Johnny felt the stranger’s hand graze across his cheek with a stink of cigarettes. Johnny’s teeth gritted tight, but he lay still. When the monk moved his hand away, Johnny couldn’t help slitting his eyes open again.

The monk’s deep-set eyes were focused on a hypodermic needle. He tested the needle; a spurt of clear liquid. The large golden cross that hung past the monk’s waist was swinging slowly in front of Johnny’s nose. Last daylight from the window made the cross gleam like fire.

Seeing God so close by changed everything.

The monk pulled Johnny’s arm, stretching it out to find a vein, the needle poised above Johnny’s skin.
I surrender, Lord. Show me.
Johnny felt his pulse slow.

Caitlin cried out again; this time, in pain. The monk with the hypodermic turned over his shoulder to call to his friend. “
Rallenta,
Romero!” he said. An admonition?

His companion only laughed raucously, drowning Caitlin’s cries.

Teeth still gritted, Johnny swiped at the needle, snatching it away. While time crawled around him, Johnny’s mind and body had never felt so quick. The man above him didn’t have time to speak or turn. Johnny plunged the needle into his exposed carotid artery, and pushed the plunger. Moving so quickly made him dizzy.

The monk looked at him in openmouthed silence—part surprise, part admiration. Loose skin on his face trembled, and he sank to the floor without a sound.

Bless me as you blessed David against Goliath, Lord.

Johnny ripped the IV out of his arm, ignoring the sting.

As he sat up, dizziness rocked him, and he planted his palms on the mattress to keep from falling over. Caitlin lay across the bed on the other side of the room, her legs folded at the knees. The monk lay astride her, his hand exploring her freely while he tried to trap her face beneath his mouth. Caitlin was as still as a rag doll; all she could do was sob and try to turn her face away.

Bless me as you blessed Moses against the Pharaoh, Lord.

Johnny looked down at the dead monk at his feet. His frayed robe had fallen away, revealing a black shoulder holster. Johnny slid from the bed, his soles silent against the floor. His fingers shook, but he commanded his body to unsnap the holster and dig out the unfamiliar nickel-plated pistol. It was heavier than the gun he’d held in the car.

Bless me as you blessed the Archangel Michael against the dragon.

Johnny’s knees wavered as he took one step toward the bed. Then, another. He should not be on his feet, he realized. He would faint before he could shoot.

The monk was nuzzling Caitlin’s neck; or he might be biting her, from the pain wrenching her tear-streaked face. But Caitlin’s face softened when she saw Johnny, her eyes wide and clear.

The gun seemed to weigh fifty pounds, but Johnny lifted it and pointed. The room slid out of focus with every heartbeat. Caitlin and the monk were side by side. He had to walk closer.

Bless me as you bless all believers against the Beast, Lord.

Johnny’s last step was a stumble. His arm ached from the gun’s burden, but the back of the monk’s head looked close enough to touch. The monk chuckled, taunting Caitlin’s ear.

Johnny pulled the trigger.

Nothing. The trigger wouldn’t give. The room was silent, except for Caitlin’s feigned whimpers that didn’t match her eyes, begging Johnny to shoot.

His gun was jammed! Johnny heaved for air, silently. Doubt welled up, ready to bury him. The monk would see him soon.
I need you, Lord. Please don’t forsake me now.

“Safety!” Caitlin called out, the same instant Johnny remembered. “Thumb!”

The monk raised his head to look at Johnny; an easier target. Johnny’s thumb found the lever and pushed. When the lever wouldn’t go up, he clicked it down. Johnny felt calm to his bones even as he watched the monk’s arm snap for his own gun, racing him.

The monk’s hand was only halfway to his holster when they both knew he was dead.

The monk grinned like a ghoul, leering with gray teeth.

This time, Johnny Wright’s gun fired six times straight.

S
omewhere, there might have been gunshots.

Otherwise, the room was silent, or seemed to be. Fana’s ears took in no sounds.

Who are you?
Fana quivered as she stared at his face, learning and unlearning. She could barely keep steady on her feet. Her teeth chattered; the room was suddenly frigid.

He was a name with no face, and a face with no name. He was a stranger, yet she knew him. She knew which soccer shirt he had worn on his fifth birthday, and the way he liked his steaks to bleed. His memories were nearly as vivid as hers; some of them more so, especially from his childhood. The new memories collided with Charlie, dominoes falling in her head.

Fana sobbed.
Why?

Something stirred at her feet. Fana’s bare foot had backed against her robe (
you showed yourself to him and let him touch you
), and the fabric moved as if a raccoon had scurried beneath it. Suddenly the robe flew up in a swoop. Fana gasped as the cloth billowed toward her, chasing her when she sidestepped it. When the fabric lighted across Fana’s shoulders, she screamed and flung it off. The robe slid across the floor, limp.

COVER YOURSELF,
his voice said.
IT WON’T HURT YOU.

Fana felt silly, which only enraged her. She hated giving him the satisfaction of seeing her startled by such a simple levitation. She grabbed the robe from the floor and flung it around herself, trying to close any gap where she might give him another stolen gaze. Remnants of arousal chafed her. Fana trembled with rage at the memory of his touch.

I HATED LYING TO YOU, FANA. I’M SORRY.

His true voice was chilling in its foreignness. Standing near him felt like swimming against a current, and Fana’s mind whirled. Now Fana understood how her mother had felt when they’d tried to meditate together, and Mom had said she’d felt her racing away.

He adjusted his thoughts, trying to give her clarity, to slow down for her. She felt his efforts, but he was still a blizzard. His unfiltered presence made Fana’s head hurt, but she didn’t block him out. Instead, she waded more deeply into him. She didn’t like what she saw in his head, but it was better than not seeing.

He could kill her with a thought. And he believed he loved her. His love for her was as real as the blood on the Rolfsons’ wall.

He turned away, as if to give her privacy. Fana didn’t trust the shame he seemed to feel.

“You killed them.” Fana spoke aloud. Her voice was shaky, but words carried more significance when they were aired out. “A whole family. A
minister
.”

A HERETIC.

“A fourteen-year-old boy! There’s no way to justify it. You’re a murderer!”

AM I THE ONLY ONE OF US WHO HAS KILLED?
He made himself sound gentle.

Fana’s wrists shook. She still didn’t have control of her body. She didn’t think he was manipulating her limbs—she hoped she could tell—but his presence made her body forget itself. Rage was so foreign to her that it blotted out her muscles. It blotted everything.

Fana’s face flamed. “I was three years old!”

YOU WERE READY TO HAVE ME KILL THOSE MONKS IN THE VAN. EVERY KILLER HAS REASONS. OUR LIVES WERE ORDAINED FOR US, NO DIFFERENT FROM THAT BABE PAINTED BY DA VINCI’S HAND.

In her fearful indignation, Fana’s knees knocked together. “You’re deluded! You’ve forgotten everything He grew up to say.”

THE LETTER OF THE WITNESS SPEAKS ALL, FANA.

“Did that letter tell you to kill Maritza?” Fana said. “What else would Jesus do with this blood except give it to the sick?”

“WREST THIS BLOOD FROM THE HANDS OF THE WICKED.”

“
You’re
the wicked! That’s what you’ve become. Those were innocent people!”

I WOULD GRIEVE TO HARM A TRUE INNOCENT. I HATE HURTING YOU, FANA.

“Use your voice,” she said. “I don’t want any part of you inside of me.”

His face stiffened. Her words could lash him.
Good.

He stepped away to pick up his own shirt, quickly pulling it over his head and tucking it into his jeans. “I could have ridden you,” he said. “Like a horse. I chose not to.”

“So it’s better to lie?”

“Isn’t it?” he said.

His eyelashes made Fana’s stomach cinch; she nearly vomited from mourning Charlie’s memory. She turned her face away. She couldn’t look at the Frida painting either. Instead, she forced her unsteady legs toward the door. She heard a lock click as soon as she got close. The air seemed to ripple as a humming sound skated past her ear.

“Let me go!” she said.

“I can’t, Fana,” he whispered. He took a step, as if to comfort her. But only one.

As she probed him, the humming rattled Fana’s teeth. A cloud traveled from the room’s eastern windows to the northern ones, slowly stealing the moonlight. The room was getting dark, casting the paintings in Shadows.

“Where’s my family?” Fana said.

The blizzard in his head gave way to a blank spot. He was still withholding from her, she realized. What else was so horrible that he wouldn’t want her to see?

“Show me,” she said. “
Right now.
”

A kaleidoscope of images from home battered Fana. Blood. Weapons. Tears.

Gramma Bea.

Fana screamed, remembering Gramma Bea’s visage on the roadside with trauma so fresh it was stamped on her face. “
I never got the chance to say good-bye!
” Fana said.

“I’m sorry, Fana.”

Fana’s knees gave way, and she slid to the floor. She had suspected that Gramma Bea was dead, but it was worse to know her suffering. Gramma Bea should have passed quietly in her sleep, or doing something she loved. Gramma Bea could have died well.

“
You’re SICK!
” Fana shrieked from the floor.

He offered his hand, standing high above her. “Heal me, then.”

The floor’s vibration roiled beneath her. That same power had lifted their feet from the ground while they’d kissed, she remembered. The floating sensation had been real, not just her love-struck imagination! Had the Shadows carried her? Fana had shied away from the Shadows since her first taste, but he breathed Shadows as if they were oxygen.

They came to Fana as soon as she stopped ignoring their call, flushing her with giddiness. The humming suddenly thrilled Fana the way his fingers had thrilled her skin, scores of gentle tendrils. Fana’s skin and mind crackled, charged. The humming was deafening.

Fana stared at Michel, realizing she had never hated anyone so much. As soon as the thought came to her, blood crawled from his right nostril in a teardrop.

Did I do that?
A pinch of concentration, and blood trickled from his left nostril too, resting above his lip.
Am I hiding from him somehow?

Yes. Hiding in the Shadows.

Fana imagined Michel’s mind as light patterns, like the firefence she had learned to evade at home. She felt herself eluding him, too, predicting his probes. She hid inside the pathways his mind’s potent stream carved in her, like riding on a lion’s back.

Blood dripped to his shirt, and he stared down. “I’m bleeding.” He sounded shocked.

Fana’s heart thrashed with both fear and exaltation. She forced herself to her feet.

“The Cleansing starts now,” Fana said. “With you.”

Fana rode the Shadows’ surge. His ears bled next, spurts across his neck. He winced in pain as he clapped his hands to his ears. He looked at her, confused.

“Fana…you would try to kill me?” he said. He sounded exactly like Charlie, because a part of him
was
Charlie, of course. How else had he created Charlie so convincingly?

He created Charlie to hurt you. He wanted Charlie to touch you.

The man with Charlie’s face cried out and lurched in anguish, backing into an end table, crashing it on its side. When he spun, blood oozed from his mouth. He gazed at her, wide-eyed. Even knowing who he was, Fana couldn’t stand to watch him suffer. She turned away.

“You’re a quick study,” he said. His throat gurgled.

“I’ve had practice,” she said. “Remember? I killed a Life Brother when I was three. You’ll lose every drop, just like him.”

“But he wasn’t me, Fana,” he said, gasping. “I shouldn’t bleed from you.”

“Your mistake,” Fana said. “You let me in.”

He spat. Blood splattered the spotless floor.

“Re…” His chest heaved, his breathing became labored, and he spat again. He smiled widely, with bloodied teeth. “Remarkable. You’re exquisite. Papa was right…”

Slowly, his smile faded. His face, streaked crimson, lost its humor. “I hope you understand, Fana…” He tried to straighten, bracing himself against the wall, where his palms left a collage of bloody handprints. “I can’t allow this.”

His arrogance was infuriating. The Shadows surged through her, and he howled.

“Don’t be naive!” he shouted. He spat again. “You think because you’re hiding, I can’t find you? That I’m defenseless? Fana, please—don’t make me hurt you. The time comes when…you can’t stop yourself…”

Fana closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to watch him bleed to death. He might have Charlie’s face, but his voice was not Charlie’s. Between agonized groans, he vomited blood.

DON’T MAKE ME KILL YOU!
he screamed, just when she had hoped he was dead.
IT WOULD BE WORSE THAN KILLING MYSELF, FANA.

“Then kill yourself,” Fana said. “My way will hurt more.”

DON’T

His thoughts babbled, snuffed.

Suddenly, a vise encircled Fana’s head, tightening her eyes in their sockets. While Fana was still absorbing the scope of the agony—it was new and dizzying; worse than physical pain—a water glass danced on the nightstand, then fell and broke. Paintings jumped from the walls in succession, cracking wooden frames. The floor shook violently, nearly swaying.

Earthquake.
But it wasn’t nature’s work.
He
was causing it. Or she was. Or both.

STOP, FANA, OR I’LL HAVE TO HURT YOU. SHOW YOURSELF TO ME.

“I’ll die before you touch me.”

THAT PAIN YOU FEEL IS ONLY A TASTE. FERMATI! STOP THIS

Fana felt his probe riding with her inside the humming. He couldn’t penetrate her mask to control her body, but he could find the source of his pain. He held on, fighting to turn the currents she was riding against her. His strength was a wonder.

I can’t win,
she realized. No wonder he had begged her to stop! If he couldn’t unmask her, his only defense was deflection. The pain wasn’t from him: He was only sending it back to her. Soon, she would be bleeding, if she wasn’t already.

Even if she killed him, she would die too.

Don’t wanna die for a while
…
I think I’ll fly for a while

Reflexively, Fana tried to retreat, to separate from the Shadows. But suddenly the humming was the only thing she could hear, even as she watched furniture tumbling around her. The bowl of mango fell to the floor, breaking in silence. The humming clogged her ears.

He said she might not be able to stop.
Maybe everything out of his mouth isn’t a lie.

Nosebleeds always came first. Warm blood dripped across her lips and chin.

Fana tried to be ready, but the ripping sensations surprised her. Her insides cramped and twisted, wringing out. Her vision shifted, and the light in the room faded to dim red.

She looked at her white robe, dotted with blood. Fana’s throat and cheeks burned as her veins and capillaries burst, and blood spilled out of her mouth. The salty, coppery taste drowned her tongue. Fana’s heart wriggled, struggling. A mountain sat atop her chest, smothering her.

Fana’s body craved the fetal position, but she staggered to stay on her feet. She looked up at him and saw the horror on his face, inside his bloody mask.

FANA PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME.

Another surge came, from nowhere and everywhere. This time, both of them screamed.

Senseless with suffering, Fana threw herself against the trembling wall, where her bare feet slipped against spatters of blood on the floor. She fell in a heap, her muscles locked. Hot blood escaping her ears snaked across her collarbone.

Michel grunted, as if he was carrying a heavy load, and he pulled himself upright. His teeth were gritted so hard that it transformed his face, expanding his jaw. His body shook violently, as if his skin could pull itself free.