Blood Colony (8 page)

Before the Living Blood, and after.

Jessica needed to remember who she was. Sometimes she was in danger of forgetting.

She touched her fur hat from Botswana, a patchwork of textures and colors. The hat was precious to her because it was a gift from a child who had lived near her Botswana clinic and hadn’t had much to give. Today, he was a physician to his people. The hat from Moses reminded Jessica of why she was here. And why she had the face and body of a twenty-seven-year-old woman when her birth certificate knew full well she had just turned forty-six.

Jessica held a child’s toy, a Troll with wild purple hair her friend had given her years ago.
WRITE ON,
it said on its overstuffed belly. Sweet, thoughtful Peter.

Dawit had killed again. And, yes, Fana was right: He was good at it.

Peter Donavitch had been one of the most gentle and generous people she’d ever known, and he had accidentally planted himself in Dawit’s path.
Painless,
Dawit had insisted. How could anyone who’d seen all that blood on the windshield believe there had been anything painless about Peter Donavitch’s death?

Even after eighteen years of prayer and meditation, Jessica could not forgive Dawit for Peter’s murder. But she’d done the best she could. She had learned to live with it, even if her throat sometimes felt bloated from all the poison she’d had to swallow. And maybe it was her fault, for not knowing the truth herself. For being so blind.

But now Dawit had killed a
priest
? Had it happened the way Fana had described?

A small, frail sob caught in Jessica’s throat before she shoved it away.
No
. She had sworn years ago that she would never shed another tear over David Wolde. He was gone, a lie. She forgot that sometimes, since Dawit was so much like the man he had created to fool her into an ignorant marriage. But she could never forget. He was Dawit now.

“I miss you, David,” she whispered.

“I’m here.”

Jessica didn’t turn. She felt her muscles and limbs slowly coating themselves with armor, like the passage in Ephesians.
“Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil…,”
If Jessica closed her eyes, she could imagine being in their old bedroom in Miami, sharing a cramped space full of promise and normality. And in the room beside theirs, a lost daughter named Kira was five years old, sleeping peacefully in her bed. Awaiting her long, untroubled life.

Jessica could taste the sour poison in her mouth, threatening to spill.

“You’re here to explain. Then explain.” Jessica didn’t recognize her own voice.

Dawit’s silence told her what she already knew: There was no way to explain. And if he couldn’t explain, there was nothing but air beneath her feet.

“There has to be a
why,
” she said, turning around to look at him. Her husband’s face usually had the power to wipe her mind clean, capturing all the beauty she had seen in him when she’d first met him in his classroom, dazzled by his knowledge of the world. But not this time. His white-haired disguise hid him from her.

Dawit was near tears. “I only wonder if you would understand. If even I do.”

He crossed the room to their bed, sitting at the edge as if he were winded. Legs wide, he folded his hands between his knees, staring at the floor. “I saw a gun. I thought I was protecting Caitlin. Protecting all of us. I made a mistake.”

“Like when you killed Peter.”

Dawit sighed, lowering his voice until she could barely hear him. “Jess, you have to remember that time. Our family was in danger. My Brothers had threatened to kill everyone I loved. You saw how they tried to kill your sister.”

Jessica hadn’t mentioned Alex’s name first for fear of what Dawit might confess. Alex had nearly died the instant Jessica had told her about her husband’s blood, the first time she’d unknowingly waged Alex’s life for the knowledge. It was pure fluke that Alex had survived an attacker’s push from her apartment balcony with only a lifelong limp.

“What really happened with Alex that day?” Jessica said.

Dawit didn’t answer, looking puzzled.

Damn him. He was going to make her say it. “Were you the one?”

Dawit rose to his feet. “God, no, Jess. I promise you. I knew nothing of Alex’s attack.”

“But it could have happened if she’d confronted you. As soon as I told her, she said we should beg you to heal people with your blood. What would you have done?”

“I don’t know.” He didn’t even take time to think about it.

“You would have killed her if you’d thought you had to, Dawit. That’s who you are.”

“Jess, it’s who I
was.
Please remember that time.”

“
How the hell am I supposed to forget that time?
” Her rage, voiceless before, rang in the walls. It was as if she’d hated him all along, and only now was remembering how much, how deeply. His ritual had given her provisional immortality, but he had stolen her world in the process. She could forget that for years at a time, but tonight Jessica’s memory was sharp.

Dawit kept his distance, waiting until the walls no longer rang. Then, his voice was all quiet rationality. “I thought he was a threat to me. I couldn’t risk being discovered. I couldn’t face the thought of leaving you and…”

Kira. He was still afraid to say their daughter’s name.

A feeling as powerful as a bolt of lightning set down in the room, tethering them. Kira was in a place beyond blame. Dawit’s hands might have killed her in his quest to give her immortality, but Jessica shared in his complicity. She had not protected Kira. She had not left Dawit when she’d learned the truth about who he was. And she had hesitated instead of finishing the Ceremony Dawit had started, choosing to send her child’s soul Home rather than exiling her forever in the land of the living.

Despite the miracle in her own veins, Jessica never would have married Dawit if he had told her about his blood, his history, the danger, and his hidden Brotherhood of men who didn’t die. If she had left him when he’d first told her, Kira would still have been alive—and Fana never would have been born: an impossible choice for her heart.

“But Jesus said, suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for such is the kingdom of heaven.”
Sometimes, knowing that Kira had made it to Heaven was Jessica’s only joy. Would Kira have to represent them all there?

Both of them had killed Kira. Both of them would have to raise Fana. Somehow.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the priest?” Jessica said.

“I was going to. When we were alone.”

Jessica realized that she didn’t want to be alone with Dawit tonight. Dawit might have heard the thought, but that was all right. The more he improved his mind arts, the less she would be able to hide from her own feelings, constantly twisted between then and now.

“Bring Caitlin to Fana,” Jessica said. “She never should have been treated that way.”

“I’ll get her now. But the Brothers won’t like it.”

“Does that matter?”

Dawit almost smiled. For years, they had wondered what else might trigger a repeat of the awful events from Fana’s early childhood, when she’d left a trail of corpses.

Jessica sighed. “We have to assume Fana knows everything about us.”

Dawit nodded sadly. “Yes.”

“Then I need to know, too. Who else, Dawit? How many others have you killed?”

Stark alarm swept across Dawit’s face. He didn’t answer.
Are there that many?

“All of them,” Jessica said. “I want to know.”

Dawit’s eyes implored her, as if she was torturing him. “Jess…”

“Do you even know, Dawit? Can you count them?”

Something foreign stole into Dawit’s eyes. She suddenly saw the five-hundred-year-old man he was; unknowable. How could she ever have mistaken him for David? He was nothing like the college professor she had stood with at the makeshift altar in her mother’s living room.

“Let me see…,” Dawit said, sarcasm lacing his voice. “When I was twelve, I hit a man with a stone so hard that the side of his head caved in. I did it to save my master’s son, because I was a slave and a soldier from the time I was a boy. That’s the one I remember best.”

“How many?” she whispered. She felt like she was prying now, but she wanted to know.

Dawit’s eyes brightened with an anger that hollowed his cheeks. “Then ask me as my
wife,
not my interrogator. I’ve fought in wars, Jessica. Shall I tell you about the pimply-faced boys I stabbed with my bayonet in Gettysburg? Or the Italians who murdered old men, women and children in search of my blood? Who blubbered for their mothers as their guts spilled out? How many did I kill? Not enough, by far.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Her husband was shaking.

But maybe she was, too. Jessica allowed herself a single tear.

“He was a priest, Dawit. Did you know that before you stabbed him?”

Dawit only blinked. The answer, clearly, was yes.

Jessica’s mind expanded when she prayed each morning—she could feel herself stretching in all directions—but she still could not understand her husband. She wanted to love him the way she had when he’d only been David, but she had no idea where to start.

“Then
why
?” she said. Her voice trembled.

“He was a man with a gun. He was waiting for Caitlin. That was what was in my mind.”

Jessica sifted her fingers through the wiry hairs of Dawit’s phony beard. She looked away from his unknowable eyes. “Doesn’t God mean anything to you?”

“There are many gods in this world, Jessica,” Dawit said. “The greatest being I ever knew was a man named Khaldun, who gave me this blood. I have yet to choose my God.”

“And the Blood?” she whispered. Khaldun had claimed the Blood came from Christ, but Jessica rarely spoke those words. All of them in the Big House believed it: Her mother. Alex. Cal and Nita Duhart. Maybe even Lucas, despite himself. What else could explain it?

“Khaldun told a story about the Blood, yes,” Dawit said. “Khaldun told us many stories. In one story, he cast himself as Judas, the most misunderstood disciple. In another, the man you worship on the cross was another Life Brother, no different than any of us. Under other circumstances, the Gospels might have been written about Fana. Or me. Or you. Khaldun is a wondrous being, Jessica, but not all of his stories are true. Why shouldn’t I assume the Blood was Khaldun’s all along?”

“Then why are you here?”

Dawit blinked, and a sheet of tears fell across his eyes. “My Brothers believe another of Khaldun’s stories…that our daughter is a deity,” he said. “Whatever she is, like you, I want to nurture her heart. I want her to feel zeal and drive and passion for this world. With my Brothers standing with us, the blood mission can be more than the naive fantasy of very young immortals who haven’t lived long enough to know better. But I must confess: I prefer the peace of Lalibela. I’m here only for you,
mi vida
. I’ve always been here for you.”

Standing so close to Dawit but still missing the man she had married, immersed in his unchanged scent, Jessica felt sadness with no end.

In her long silence, Dawit walked away from her to the foot of their bed and picked up the small black flight bag he still hadn’t had time to unpack. He held it against his chest, waiting.

Jessica couldn’t ask him to stay, even though her anger had been replaced by a hole.

“I don’t know you, Dawit. Still.”

“You can, Jess. You will,” he said. “But please remember this: When I first found you giving your blood away, I warned you nothing but heartache was ahead. I told you there was a reason we had lived so long in secrecy and had shunned mortals so.”

That was true. Jessica could never say he hadn’t warned her.

“Your heart compels you to use the Blood to heal, and I fight for your wishes every day,” he went on. “But let’s not forget the truth of it, because you know all too well: The Blood heals, and it brings death. I learned this generations before you were born. If killing gives you pause, you need a new calling. I promise you, more will come.”

He was the same rash man who had killed her friend when he hadn’t had to.

“Then it’s lucky that the killer in you is your most practical aspect, Dawit,” Jessica said.

From Dawit’s face, no weapon could have injured him more.

H
er parents’ argument was far from Fana’s ears, beyond several closed doors and sturdy walls, but its spirit filled the entire house. Even with Caitlin sitting beside her on the bed with an avalanche of intrusive thoughts, Fana’s mind was rooted to her parents.

No wonder she avoided anger. She was clumsy at it, even cruel.

Fana heard her father’s sure footsteps in the hallway, then down the stairs. He was leaving the house. He usually tapped on her door to tell her good night at ten o’clock, but this time he avoided her room. Caitlin was afraid of him.

Dad would sleep in his Brothers’ quarters tonight.

Except for Dad, only Teferi and Jima kept separate houses with mates and children; the rest lived in a communal state as they had in Lalibela, another habit that had been conditioned into them over centuries. But Dad had never slept outside of these walls when he’d been in town. What if she had shorn the fragile thread between her parents?

Caitlin nudged Fana’s shoulder. “We have to get my father, then we all need to
get the hell out of here
. That means you, too. Your teacher wants you to meditate four hours a day? Come on! That’s
bullshit,
Fana. I’d rather die when I’m sixty and be free instead of living forever cooped up in the woods.”

“They can’t stop me from giving you blood, Caitlin.”

Caitlin’s mouth fell open as she gaped, disbelieving. “God, I hope you’re not that naive.”

Fana sighed. The Life Brothers could make Caitlin vanish, and probably her entire network. That would happen unless Fana was willing to fight ugly—and she wasn’t. She had fought ugly as a child, and she couldn’t survive that again. She wouldn’t even know how.

“We can’t even make plans,” Caitlin said. “You said your teacher can get in your head.”

Fana and Teka never spoke aloud during their daily lessons anymore, one of the few times Fana practiced her mind arts consciously. “Not if I’m careful.”

“What about me? They can force me to name everyone I know in the Railroad. They probably know everything already. And they won’t let me go, Fana. My dad either.” Caitlin’s lips shook. “Do you know how
scared
Dad is right now? He’s throwing up. And it’s our fault.”

The Underground Railroad. The North Star. Nicknames for the network of Glow distributors in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Fana’s blood was the only source of Glow in North America. If Caitlin’s supply was cut off, that might end the healing for a continent. Caitlin was as important in her world as Fana was in this one.

Fana knew there were other reasons the Life Brothers would never forge meaningful ties with the Underground Railroad. Fana sometimes heard the Brothers’ comments, as she had tonight in the Council room, but their thoughts were worse:
Leave the monkeys to themselves,
Berhanu often thought. But Fana hated to admit her people’s bigotries to Caitlin.

“It’s the drug laws,” Fana said instead, which was mostly true. “They have to work with cooperative governments. Places where they can cover their trail.”

With enough secretiveness to hide the immortals’ existence—but with the blessing of a handful of national health ministers—her parents’ network practically had obliterated the raging AIDS problem in Botswana, South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria. Other nations would follow soon. The blood’s effects were so powerful that a little went a long way.

But it was different in the United States. Glow had been classified as a Schedule II drug—the most dangerous—because of corporate meddling and fabricated reports of fatalities. There were even new rumors cropping up in the news that Glow was related to terrorism. With so much controversy and mystery, Fana knew that Glow would never get past the FDA for legalization. For now, the prevailing theories were that Glow contained synthetic blood cells or nanotechnology, but it wouldn’t take forever for outsiders to realize the truth.

Then catastrophic times would begin.

Every month, there were drills to make sure all of them could vanish in minutes, leaving their homes to retreat to the underground shelters.
The price of helping people,
Mom always said. The children had turned drills into games, racing each other.

“You need to see what’s going on out there, Fana,” Caitlin said. “Health care is shit, and it’s getting worse. Insurance is a scam. The only reason there are laws against Glow is because the multinationals don’t know how to profit from it. The health corps get richer while people are
dying
. Without us, the people are trapped in the system. We can set them free.”

Fana had seen plenty on the internet about the health care crisis: hospitals dumping the indigent on the streets. Families losing their homes. Children and the elderly dying for lack of care. That was why she had decided to tell Caitlin about her blood three years ago: She couldn’t sleep at night knowing she was only hiding in her room, doing nothing.

Fana’s heartbeat quickened. “Even if we did make it out of here…where would we go? My mind shorts out when I’m around too many people. I’ve told you that.”

“There’s people in the Railroad who give shelter,” Caitlin said. “Please, Fana? I think Dad and I might die if we don’t go. Or worse.”

“What would be worse?”

Caitlin blinked. “Failing. If we couldn’t get Glow out in the world.”

Fana stared at the photograph of Harriet Tubman that had been taken in the 1800s. Grim-faced Tubman was resolute in a formal dress, her head wrapped in a scarf, fighting her way into history. Tubman had run and led others to freedom. Sometimes running
was
the answer.

“We have to leave your father,” Fana said.

Caitlin’s face went flat, stunned. “No.”

“We have to. He’s under guard, and our chances are better alone.”

Berhanu would not allow them to take Justin O’Neal from under his nose. Fana didn’t even dare probe him from a distance. Berhanu’s mind arts were nearly as strong as Teka’s, and she would never dream of trying to pull that trick on her teacher. She wasn’t ready, not by far.

Caitlin’s head fell forward, as if the bones in her neck had collapsed. Fana took her friend’s hand. Gramma Bea liked to say that touching her was like squeezing the sun, a burst of light. She hoped that was true for Caitlin, too.

“I promise you, they won’t kill him. I
promise,
” Fana said.

“Please, Fana. Please please please?” Caitlin whispered. “We have to go get him.”

“Either we leave without him or we stay. There’s no other choice. If you’re right, staying here means your network could disappear. Look at me, Caitlin: During slavery in the American South, do you know why more slaves didn’t run away?”

Caitlin’s weary, frightened eyes alarmed Fana. She had never seen Caitlin so broken.

“They were…afraid of getting caught?” Caitlin said.

“No,” Fana said. “They didn’t want to leave their families. They were worried about what would happen to them. They didn’t want to be alone. Neither do I. But I’ll do it for you. For Glow. To heal. And you have to make the same sacrifice.”

Caitlin’s head hung again, and her shoulders shuddered with a stifled, keening sob. That was how Fana knew that she had made up her mind.

Fana jumped from the bed and found an empty Miami Dolphins duffel bag her cousin Jared had given her. He would tell her she should stay until she was older, but that was easy for him to say. He didn’t have the Blood. And he was already gone, tasting the world outside.

The current of blood pounding through her veins made Fana dizzy. She was going to do it. After years of fantasies and wishes, she was going to leave.

“Come on, help me pack,” Fana said. “If we’re going, we have to go tonight.”

Glow had transformed Caitlin into a revolutionary, Fana realized.

She heard her friend crying softly, but the sobs were only quiet, huffing exhalations as she trotted behind Fana, keeping perfect pace. Caitlin was focused on escape.

The darkened schoolhouse appeared in front of them at the edge of the eastern woods, the small brick building where Fana had studied before Teka had become her sole teacher. Fana had enjoyed many happy moments in this building, when she’d finally felt like she’d had a normal life like Caitlin and the kids outside.

The school building was her last piece of home before the woods.

Fana grabbed Caitlin’s arm, ducking them around a corner where they would not be seen from houses, nor by the sentries who lay in the darkness ahead of them. Fana leaned against the wall, slowing her breathing, and Caitlin followed her lead. Fana had stuffed only a few clothes and snacks into her Miami Dolphins duffel bag, but it was heavier than she had expected.

Caitlin’s fear and grief smelled bitter in her perspiration.

“He’ll be fine,” Fana said again. “They’re not cruel.”

Caitlin sniffed hard to clear her nose. “Right.”

They couldn’t worry about Caitlin’s father now.

Before they left, Fana had drawn out a map for Caitlin in her bedroom, showing her the route she’d used to escape the colony three years ago. The firefence was sure to be different now—its patterns changed several times daily—but their general route would be the same, ending on a mile-and-a-half dirt road that would take them to Toledo. They would have to stay clear of the paths, even the horse trails, because they would be more easily spotted there.

“Remember…,” Fana whispered. “I run, I find cover, and crouch. It takes me time to sense what’s around us, and I have to be still. If we get separated, go to the nearest cover and
don’t move
. That’s the most important thing. Just don’t trip the firefence. I’ll find you.”

Caitlin nodded, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her Berkeley sweatshirt.

“What happens if I trip it?” Caitlin said.

“Best-case scenario, they know exactly where and
who
you are. Worst case…I don’t know. There’s a charge. It might just knock you out, or it might do worse.”

Caitlin nodded, accepting. Her life was full of danger now. “What else?”

“It’s a workout. Your legs will burn from crouching,” Fana said. She had been shocked at how tough the exertion had been last time.

“‘If you are tired, keep going. If you are hungry, keep going,’” Caitlin whispered.

Harriet Tubman’s words, the conductor of the original Underground Railroad. Scholars said the words were a fiction created by one of Tubman’s biographers, but Fana knew they captured Tubman’s spirit. Fana clasped her friend’s unsteady hand, finishing the quotation: “‘If you want to taste freedom, keep going.’ We’ll be free, Caitlin. We’ll free the world.”

Her only answer was another quiet sob in the dark.

Fana was afraid, too. Sometimes dreams and premonitions guided her, but she didn’t know what would happen to Caitlin’s father. She didn’t know what the Life Brothers would do once they realized she was gone. And now she would have to spend all of her days in hiding, always expecting to be found.

Fana felt Caitlin’s resolve in their clasped hands, and she knew Caitlin could feel hers. Their belief in their mission burned through their skin, a fire to warm the lonely night.

“Let’s move,” Fana said.

As Fana launched herself from the wall to sprint toward the woods, she ran headfirst into someone walking around the corner. Her arms and legs tangled with another’s, and she heard a woman gasp with surprise as they lost their balance and fell in a heap.

Fana knew her peppermint smell even before she sorted through her startled thoughts.

“Lord have
mercy
…,” Aunt Alex said. “Fana?”

“Oh, sh—Aunt Alex, I’m so sorry,” Fana said. Her mouth moved on its own, because her mind had come to a standstill from seeing Aunt Alex in such an unexpected time and place.

“‘Oh, shit’ is right. What are you doing back here so late?”

A flashlight beam glared into Fana’s eyes, and she shielded her face. How hadn’t she noticed an approaching flashlight from around the corner? Why hadn’t she sensed anything at all? “Caitlin? You’re out here, too?” Aunt Alex said.

“Just taking a walk, thinking things through,” Caitlin said. She shoved her hands in her pockets. Although Caitlin’s face glistened with tears and mucous, she sounded amazingly nonchalant. Glow had turned her into an actress, too.

Fana recovered her mind and voice. “What are you doing up so late, Auntie?”

“I came back to grab my lesson plan before morning. The older kids are reading
Lord of the Flies,
if you must know, and I haven’t studied it since high school. But you’re not the one asking the questions. I hope you girls aren’t trying to do something stupid.”

Aunt Alex knows.
Fana lost her voice again. Even without telepathy, her mother and aunt had such sharp maternal perceptions that Fana was still startled by it.

“We’re just talking,” Caitlin said in a young-girl voice. “We wanted some privacy.”

Aunt Alex’s voice softened as she stroked Caitlin’s hair. “Honey, I know you’re worried about your father. But like I told you before: And this, too, shall pass.”