“I need to know what I’m dragging my son into,” Lucas said.
“We’ve drilled dozens of times,” Jessica said.
“So why does it feel like we’re being taken into custody?” Lucas said.
“You’re not.” She took his hand and squeezed it between her palms. “There may be…another sect of immortals. They’re violent and fanatical, and they’re looking for anyone else with our blood. Dawit and Teka think we need to go to the shelters tonight, just in case.”
Another knock, and the door eased open before Jessica could say anything.
A young, dark-skinned black man as tall as Jared stood in her doorway, dressed in a black wet suit. A stranger! Sanctus Cruor? Jessica gasped, turning to reach for her gun case. She was dismayed to realize that she was a full six strides from where she’d hidden it.
Teka peeked from behind the stranger in the hall.
“It’s all right,” Teka said quietly. “This man is with me.”
“Forgive my intrusion,” the stranger said and bowed deeply. “Aznall. My most sincere apologies. My name is Fasilidas. I am guardian to Fana, She Who Is Most Holy. Now I will be guardian to her Blessed Mother. I beg you to move with haste. We must go to the shelters.”
The man remained bowed low, both hands behind his back. Was he one of the men who lived in the woods? He must be. There were four of them, and tonight Jessica was glad of it.
“Rise, Fasilidas,” Jessica said. By the immortals’ custom, he would not rise until invited.
Jessica’s nephew looked at her as if she had become a stranger before his eyes.
The house had no elevator, so the two immortals helped Lucas carry Alex down the winding staircase, heavy feet thumping and squeaking on aged floorboards.
The Life Brothers rarely mingled, but Lucas recognized the huskier man as Jima. The other was Yonas, Jared’s minder from England. The house was mostly dark, except for dim alarm lights with eerie synchronization, like flashbulbs. With his flashlight, Jared led them down the stairs. Every time the hall lighted from the alarm, Lucas saw the panic on his son’s face.
He had been a fool to bring Jared home.
Bea and Jessica were beside the door in the foyer. Jessica bent over her mother, speaking softly as she secured a heavy blanket over her. Bea sat in the wheelchair she had used after she’d broken her hip; the man who had called himself Fasilidas was pushing her. He was a shadow, appearing from thin air. Were there more Brothers here than he knew?
When they opened the door, Teka was waiting outside.
“We must go to Cal’s, Lucas,” Teka said. “There is trouble, perhaps.”
Teka was the king of understatement, so that might mean anything. “As in?”
“Cal is packing his vehicle. He has vowed to leave with his family.”
“Please go talk to him, Lucas,” Jessica said. “I would, but I don’t think it would help. It’s too dangerous to send them out. They might be captured.”
Jared exhaled sharply. “What?”
Jessica sounded more like Dawit every day, Lucas thought. “We’re talking about Cal and Nita and their kids,” he said. “Let’s just let them drive straight up the 10 into Canada, all ties cut off. What are the odds that—”
“I don’t know the odds, Lucas,” Jessica said. “What were the odds of you finding my clinic in Botswana? What were the odds that my nurse would get murdered by an army of mercenaries? We should go down to wait out the night. I agree with Dawit.”
That was when Lucas first noticed it: Aside from Teka, the other immortals were armed. Jima and Yonas had weapons beneath their tunics; he could see the impressions of the holsters under the fabric. Fasilidas had an ominous black baton strapped to his outer thigh. Even Jessica was carrying what looked like a gun case under her arm. These four men in this foyer were not his friends. If Cal and Nita wanted to leave, it was a damn fine idea.
“Being a prisoner won’t sit well with Cal,” Lucas said.
Jima said something impatient to Teka in Amharic.
“Prisoner is an unkind term,” Teka told Lucas.
“My father raised me to call things the way I see them,” Lucas said. “So if you expect me to go talk my best friend out of doing something I’m pretty damn sure I should be doing myself, don’t expect me to coat it in bullshit.”
Fasilidas and Jima shifted, startled. Fasilidas’s eyes studied Lucas more carefully. The immortals didn’t like anyone mouthing off at Teka, but too bad.
Teka’s face fluttered, torn. “We cannot permit Cal to leave,” he said. “Nor you, nor your son. If you must call it imprisonment, the facts render my arguments moot. I am sorry.”
Lucas turned to Jessica, who looked more torn than Teka. “Was this supposed to be a part of the mission, Jess? What would Alex say about this?”
The last question was a low blow. Both of them had trouble keeping their eyes dry.
“They agreed to stay here,” Jessica said, blinking. “All of us did.”
“How can you make an agreement with people who don’t tell you the truth?” Lucas said. “Cal had no idea who these people are.”
“Don’t you blame Jessica,” Bea said suddenly, her head rising from its slumped position. “You knew this was a sacred commitment. Remember your Scripture from Joshua, Lucas. The Lord said, ‘Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee wherever thou goest.’” By the end, she was nearly breathless. Bea was in pulmonary distress. Lucas could hear it.
“It’s all right, Mom,” Jessica said, resting her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “He has a right to his feelings. I concealed information.”
“She needs oxygen,” Lucas told Jessica.
“My breathing is fine,” Bea snapped. Her voice was nearly a rasp.
Lucas held Jessica’s eyes. “There are O2 tanks in my quarters. Alex and I stockpiled medical supplies. You take care of Bea.” Lucas sighed. “I’ll have a look at her. First, I have to see if I can keep Cal from getting his brain fried. Or worse.”
A man who was like a brother to him might die tonight. That was plain.
“I’m going with you, Dad,” Jared said.
“No, you’re not,” Lucas said. “Go down and see after your grandmother.”
In the flash of light, Jared’s face was stone. “You heard me. I’m going.”
Lucas had forgotten that Jared was a grown-ass man now, twenty-four. Adults had to be negotiated with. “Jared, your Gramma Bea needs you. Please. I’ll be fine.”
“Come on with us, baby,” Bea’s voice said softly. Only then did Jared’s lips curl, relenting. The look he gave Lucas scorched him.
But that was all right. Jared didn’t understand, not yet. Jared hadn’t been sitting at the dinner table when Justin O’Neal had casually been stripped of the most meaningful years of his life.
Jared didn’t have the foggiest idea what it was like to watch memories die.
Headlights shone from a distance as Lucas and Teka waded through ferns, taking a shortcut from the Big House to Cal’s land five acres away, on the northeast side. Lucas stumbled on a stone in the darkness, twinging his ankle, but he didn’t slow.
“Don’t screw with his head, you hear?” Lucas said. “I mean it, Teka.”
“Is it not dangerous—and cruel—to leave his fears unabated?” Teka sounded like a zookeeper debating whether or not to shoot an animal with a trank gun.
“Leave him his damn dignity.”
“I will use all possible restraint. But dignity is the least of what’s imperiled tonight.”
The Blazer’s rumbling engine was the only sound in the night. By the time Lucas reached Cal’s ranch-style cedar house, Nita and the kids were already in the car.
Cal stood with one foot on the running board of the Blazer’s open driver’s door, a shotgun over his shoulder. Two immortals dressed in white looked ghostly just beyond the headlights’ beam, blocking Cal’s path fifteen yards down. The trees were too dense to
allow Cal to drive around the men, and it was too dark for Cal to go out of his way to find another pathway. Lucas couldn’t see if the other immortals were armed, but he’d better assume they were.
“Shit,” Lucas muttered.
Cal waved toward Lucas. “Good!” he called. “Get in here, Lucas. We got plenty of room. Where’s Jared?”
A thought froze Lucas in place: What if Teka’s controlling me like a puppet on a string? For two heartbeats, he couldn’t speak. If he couldn’t trust that he was himself, who was he?
“Jared’s in the shelter, Cal,” Lucas said.
“Then you’re out of your goddamned mind,” Cal said.
Nita’s window came down. She was in the backseat. In the dim light inside the car, Lucas saw the twins’ round faces beside her, strapped into car seats. Hank was in the passenger seat up front, and Lucas realized Hank probably had a gun, too.
“Lucas?” Nita’s voice was both gentle and stern. “Get in. We’ll stop for Jared and Alex.”
“I’m only here to ask you to stay,” Lucas said. “Just tonight. There’s a crisis. Please.”
Cal stepped down from the running board, cracking a thick twig beneath his boot. He jacked a cartridge into his shotgun’s chamber, a sound that echoed in the treetops. “Did they get to you too, Lucas? Got you rewired to do what they say?”
I hope to hell not. “No,” Lucas said. “Cal, please put down the gun.”
Cal took a step toward them, eyeing Teka. “That your new massa, Doc?”
“Cal, I understand why you want to do this, but they’re not gonna’ let you jump in your rig and go. Our situation needs fixing, but this isn’t the way. Weren’t you there with Justin?”
“More reason to get the hell out!”
“You planning to run those two men down?” Lucas said.
“That’s their choice,” Cal said. “I expect they’ll be all right, by and by.”
Lucas swallowed hard. He took two strides until he stood squarely in the beam of Cal’s headlights. “I’m not worried about them. But you and Nita? Those kids? I’m worried plenty.”
“I fucked up, Doc,” Cal said. His voice was coarse, near tears. “I believed in something so much, I let myself go to sleep. But now I’m wide fucking awake. So I tell you what: I’m gonna’ leave tread marks over any dumbass who isn’t smart enough to get out of my way, present company included. Then I’m gonna’ take my family somewhere far from here. End of story.”
Lucas clasped his hands together, linking unsteady fingers. He had known Cal Duhart a long time, and Cal might run right over him.
“Cal, they won’t let you go. I wish to God it weren’t that way, but it is.”
Teka spoke up. “These measures are only temporary. I assure you, Mr. Duhart, your concerns will be—”
Cal cut off Teka. “Doc, tell your new massa I’m full up on horseshit.”
For the first time, one of the immortals farther down the path spoke up loudly enough to hear. “Be advised, monkey, to always address Teka with the honor he deserves.” His basso voice filled the woods with thunder. Lucas’s skin went cold. He had suspected that some of the immortals weren’t fond of the rest of them, but the word “monkey” added a whole new level of clarity.
Cal pursed his lips, aiming his shotgun at the voice. The muzzle was rock steady. “Say one more word, you smug, superior sonofabitch.”
Lucas’s heart shook. “Cal…”
Inside the car, Nita sounded like she was praying.
“Last chance, Lucas,” Cal said. “Do the smart thing, or God help you.”
“My wife and son are here. My work is here.” Those words felt weak, but the only other words he could think of were Please don’t force their hand, and he knew those were pointless.
“Then excuse us monkeys, Doc. You better move.”
Cal climbed into the Blazer, slamming his door. When the brights flicked on, flooding Lucas’s eyes, he took a step back. His heart hammered at his throat.
“Move your ass, Lucas!” Cal shouted.
The Blazer lunged forward with a squeal, grinding and spitting stones. Lucas shielded his face, locking every muscle in place. He won’t hit me. Light burned through his eyelids, and he felt heat baking from the car’s monstrous grill. The engine was a roar.
The Blazer swerved just as instinct made Lucas leap. His leap came too late, and directly into Cal’s path. Lucas flew.
Pulverizing waves of pain; first his left side when the Blazer clipped him, and then his right after he flew forever and landed against a tree. He heard himself say “Oooomph” as ribs collapsed, all air exiled. His head snapped back, more dizzying pain. Lucas was amazed, and dismayed, to still be conscious. He lay crumpled at the foot of the tree. He was in the worst pain of his life. He couldn’t move, not even to moan.
Red taillights. The Blazer righted itself and sped away from him, toward freedom. GO, Cal, Lucas thought, fevered. You can make it!
But Cal didn’t make it, of course. One last roar of the engine, and suddenly the Blazer slowed. Then stopped, rocking.
The last thing Lucas heard was Nita Duhart screaming her husband’s name.
“So…how does it work?” Jared said, voice unsteady. Jessica’s nephew’s face was ashen.
Lucas lay stripped to his boxers on one of the three twin beds in the small, wood-paneled room in the shelter. He was unconscious, and his chest and pelvis were bloodied and battered, splotched purple and black. Lucas looked like he needed to be in an emergency room, not in a shelter fifteen feet under the ground.
Jessica looked at her watch. It was two-thirty in the morning.
“He may not be completely healed by dawn,” she said. “But soon after. He’ll be hungry, so I’ll bring food for him. The food helped me when I lost my hand.”
Jared shook his head. “I can’t believe Uncle Cal would do this.”
“Only because he knew Lucas would be all right.”
Jared’s jaw shook. “But he didn’t know. Dad cut his arm with a razor to show me, but this is different. Uncle Cal might have killed him.”
Jessica shook her head, sighing. “He chose his children first, Jared. Most people would.”
“So I’m supposed to forgive him, too. Like I’m supposed to forgive Fana.” He whispered Fana’s name. When Lucas first told Jared that Fana was responsible for Alex’s condition, Jared had cried for the first time since his arrival.
When Jessica stepped closer, Jared inched away. “I’m sorry for this, hon. All of it.”
Jared ignored her apology. “I have a girlfriend, Issa. We were both going to apply for biology posts at the University of Dar es Salaam next fall. But I can forget about Oxford, and I’ll have to give up Issa along with everything else. I never had a life of my own, did I?”
“That’s not true, Jared. Like Alex would say, this will pass.”
“I saw that look in Dad’s eyes, Auntie. His best friend just rammed the piss out of him trying to get out, and you have no idea what’s wrong with Alex. What if she doesn’t recover?”
“She will, Jared. Fana—”
“Fana was responsible,” he said, cutting Jessica off. “That doesn’t mean she can fix it.”
Jessica had never heard so much anger in Jared’s voice; his adoration for her had turned inside out.
“I believe she can,” Jessica said quietly. “With all my heart. It was an accident, Jared.”
Jared sighed. “When Dad offered me the blood Ceremony, I told him I would think about it after my doctorate. Well, I don’t want it.”
Jared sounded like Alex now. When Jessica opened her mouth, he motioned her to be silent. “I’ll help it reach the places it hasn’t,” Jared said. “I’ll work in the clinics. If I have to, I’ll give my life for it. I probably already have, Auntie. But I won’t accept the double standard. I won’t turn myself into something I don’t want to be.”
“Sweetheart, you’ll always choose who you are, no matter what,” Jessica said. “Blood doesn’t change th
at. And if you need to reach your girlfriend…”
Jared shook his head. “I won’t bring her into this,” he said. “I’ll stay here with Dad. Call me if there’s a change in Mom or Gramma Bea, Auntie.”
Her invitation to leave, Jessica realized.
Outside of Jared’s door, the Life Brothers were waiting. Fasilidas and Yonas were talking quietly, but they snapped to alertness and bowed when she appeared. The Life Brothers’ customs had embarrassed her once. Had the Blood changed her, as Jared feared?
“Make sure Jared has anything he needs,” Jessica told Yonas.
“Of course, Blessed Mother,” Yonas said. He might have been fifty when he’d undertaken the Ceremony, of older appearance than the rest. “It is my honor to serve the family of Fana.”
It looked like midday instead of the middle of the night. The cement-fortified passageways had naturalistic lighting from bright lamps on sconces, and the hall flurried with activity. Six Life Brothers huddled in conference a dozen yards from her. The white-clad Brothers acknowledged her with inclined heads but did not speak. None smiled.
Teferi’s wife Abena excused herself past Jessica, groggily shooing through a noisy flock of chickens as she led her children toward their quarters. Abena’s three boys dutifully held neatly folded blankets up to their chins, each looking sleepier than the last. The boys all had Teferi’s long, lanky legs. Jessica rested her hand on the head of Teferi’s youngest, Miruts.
“You’ll be in bed soon,” Jessica told him and kissed his precious face. He playfully brushed the kiss away, and Jessica smiled. They’re safe, she thought. Tonight, anyway.
Abena cast wary eyes back at Jessica but forced herself to smile. “Teferi says wives should trust their husbands, but why is there a drill at this hour?” Teferi’s senior wife, an Indian woman named Sharmila, was bolder and often spoke for both of them.
“Teferi and Dawit are worried that an old enemy may be close. They’re very protective.”