My Soul to Take (47 page)

A flight attendant, a middle-aged black woman with broad hips, leaned over to offer Johnny a mimosa from a silver tray. Johnny stared at her swinging necklace, a garnet teardrop that looked like blood. Johnny only shook his head and waited for her to move on.

He wished he could risk calling his parents. He could barely remember their voices.

Johnny wasn’t supposed to be using a cell phone, his usual ruse, so he tried to speak softly enough that his neighbor, a heavy man in a too-tight sports jacket, wouldn’t hear him.

“What’s up?” Johnny said under his breath to his radio, toward his pillow. He couldn’t pull off a casual tone, biting the words. Talking to Caitlin was all he had.

“Nothing yet,” Caitlin said, always on standby. “But it’s jammed solid, so it’s still on. Maybe it hasn’t started.” Johnny had his own access to the Nogales sat photos on his wristphone, but he didn’t want his eyes on that structure even through a satellite. Until the gunshot, Johnny didn’t want his name to be whispered anywhere near him.

Maybe they weren’t getting married in the tower. Maybe that was it.

“Any visual?” Johnny said.

“I’ve tried every angle,” Caitlin said. “Same problem.”

Too many shadows. Johnny tried to take a deep breath, but his lungs were locked up.

“How you doing?” Caitlin said.

“Not real good.”

Caitlin sighed. “Why are you on that plane again?”

So I can do it myself if I have to
, he thought. But Caitlin already knew why he would be landing in Nogales in an hour. He’d timed his flight so that if something had happened to Fana, he would be there for her.

“You’ll know when I know,” Caitlin said. “Good luck, Johnny.”

“Thanks,” Johnny said, but luck was only the beginning of what he needed.

Once the lighted sign above him freed him to unfasten his seat belt, Johnny got up to go to the bathroom, mostly because he needed to walk. Johnny hadn’t seen any initiates in regalia on the plane, but he could tell from their faces that most of the passengers were pilgrims. Johnny remembered chatter from commercial flights, people talking to one another, or at least reading, but the passengers bound for Nogales sat with straight backs and flushed, thoughtful faces, as if the plane were taking them to the shores of the New World. They were old women, young men, parents, teenagers, black, white, Latino, all of them ready to have someone they could believe in.

He isn’t the one
, Johnny thought.
But if you keep looking, you’ll find the way
.

The curtain between the cabins hung near the bathroom, and Johnny’s glimpse to the coach cabin made him freeze and look again. Did he know that beard?

In the rear of the plane, the passenger staring at Johnny looked like Mahmoud.

“Dammit.”

Raul hadn’t spoken a word to Martha in an hour, as silent as their radios. He had sunk into the details around them, floating on adrenaline. His ear caught every pebble rolling down the hill, every breeze in the leaves, every distant car horn. That was the thing he and Martha never needed to say: they felt alive only when they were disappearing into a mission. There was no other feeling like it, except Glow.

“Goddammit,” Raul said, his second word in an hour. His finger was getting itchy.

“Easy,” Martha said.

When the groom had first stepped out on the tower platform, he’d stood in Raul’s sight like he was posing for a photo. But Raul had forgotten he was so young, or he’d thought the pictures he’d seen were older. The kid was only eighteen or nineteen. Most soldiers were kids, but his surprise at the groom’s youth cost half a second. Raul had lost his perfect shot when the kid shifted left to start waving to the crowd.

Raul and the kid were dancing now.

Whenever Martha helped Raul lock on, the kid bobbed or artfully blended against someone else’s profile. The SOB planted himself behind a column and lingered out of range forever, taunting Raul with the white fabric of his jacket on his gilded shoulder.

For the first two minutes, maybe three, Raul thought the kid was lucky.
Really
lucky.

But after six minutes, Raul was remembering his cousin Andres’s mumbo jumbo about
Tres Ojos
, Three Eyes. How the kid claimed to be an immortal, and you should never think his name. A worm of fear ate away at Raul’s reasons for being in Nogales sweating in a ghillie suit. He imagined being forced to watch Martha nailed between trees, hanging like a scarecrow, an image so vivid it was like a memory. His mind was as itchy as his finger.

Time to turn on his jukebox.

An old Lynyrd Skynyrd tune revved itself in Raul’s mind, “Gimme Three Steps,” a dose of southern-fried inspiration. Raul needed the kid to walk three steps away from the column. He and Martha needed only three steps to stay out of the dragon’s mouth.
Gimme Three Steps, God
.

The bride and groom lined up at the altar, and the kid offered Raul the back of his head.

Raul’s beautiful postcard was in focus again.

“Ready?” Martha said. “Send it.”

Raul never heard her. He had already pulled the trigger.

W
e are witnessing the union between Michel Tamirat Gallo and Fana Beatrice Wolde: they have chosen each other today
. Teka’s voice guided Fana and Michel back to the tower when their thoughts tried to run away with them.

FROM THE FIRST TIME I FELT YOUR AURA
, Michel said,
I KNEW YOU WERE A QUEEN, FANA. EVERYTHING MY MOTHER SHOULD HAVE BEEN
.

We’ll heal your mother, Michel. Together
, Fana said.

Bands of light wound between them, wrapping them more tightly. What a sensation, to be held and to hold another!

Fana, do you choose this man to be your husband?
Teka said.

I do
, Fana whispered, somewhere far below. But the rest of her was launching through the rapids of their newly conjoined river. She couldn’t stand her ignorance.

I need to learn
, she said.

I want to teach you
.

I have to teach too
.

You already do
, Michel said.

Michel, do you choose this woman to be your wife?
said Teka.

I do
.

Fana rounded a new corner of herself, and was swept up in the Rising, high above the tower, pulling Michel away from her ear. Michel chased her, pouncing to follow her with a cat’s playfulness, but he didn’t have her speed in the Rising. Bright light emptied Fana’s mind except for the hum of the jet’s engine, somewhere over Texas.

A realization sparked in her thoughts: Johnny was coming to Nogales.

Why? Fana’s knowledge raced, yanking her ahead of what she knew, raising the barricades she’d tried to protect her loved ones with. And then Fana knew.

Was her sudden maw of fright a kind of love?

Fana’s mouth, her limbs, even her thoughtstreams couldn’t keep up with the knowledge. She stood frozen in an endless moment, watching from above, unable to race to the places where Michel could hear her.

The Shadows whispered to Fana in the growling voice she remembered from when she was three:
YOU SEE? YOU DESTROY EVERYTHING YOU TOUCH
.

One side of Michel’s face dissolved into a red spray. Gone.

Fana’s eyes couldn’t stop staring at her white dress, soiled with her husband’s blood.

By the time Jessica heard the gunshot echo across the mountainside, Michel was already slumped at Fana’s feet, as if to curl around her legs. His blood had streaked her dress in a single line, like paint from a roller. Had he tried to embrace Fana as he’d fallen?

Michel’s mother, Teru, was the first to scream. Her wail pierced Jessica so deeply that it dug out tears. No mother deserved to see her child shot down, even one with the Blood.

What have I done?
Jessica thought, and,
Thank you, Lord
. Two sides of her roiled at war.

Gunfire began from several directions below, and the ground shook with stampeding feet as people tried to run. Screams spread through the crowd, and Jessica’s heart withered. Her legs wobbled, and she nearly sank to her knees.

How could she have thanked God for gunshots? What had she become?

There were children in the crowd. A catastrophe was being born.

And Fana! As Fana stared at the perverse blood on her bridal gown, Jessica had never seen such raw bewilderment on her child’s face.

What have I done?
That might have been the only question remaining in Jessica’s mind.

Jessica ran toward Fana, but a barrier she couldn’t see knocked her away. Berhanu’s breath huffed behind her, and Jessica realized he’d pushed her aside with a mental stream. The impact was so unexpected that Jessica stumbled to the floor.

Berhanu snatched Michel up as if he were weightless, hoisting his limp body over his back. Michel looked so much smaller now, unrecognizable. Jessica looked away from Michel’s horrid veil of blood. The bullet’s wound had ripped away the top side of his face, leaving a horror. He would not wake right away.

Jessica wondered why Berhanu was trying so valiantly to help Michel.

Then she realized he wasn’t.

Stefan roared out in Italian, his gun raised at Berhanu. Stefan was red-faced and livid, and Jessica heard her own rage in his voice. A parent’s rage.

Until the shooting started, Jessica hadn’t realized there were so many guns in the tower.

Dawit fell on Jessica to shield her with his body, but she never blinked, so she saw a blur as Dawit’s knife left his hand. The blade flew into Stefan’s neck, embedding there. Stefan’s gun flew over the edge of the tower. He tried to yell in pain, but he couldn’t make a sound.

Well-orchestrated chaos played around Jessica: stone columns chipping from bullets that ricocheted against the bell above them, bodies diving and falling. Through wisps of smoke, Jessica saw lovely Fasilidas slumped in a heap, bloodied.

Only Fana hadn’t moved, except to raise her head to show her eyes.

Jessica didn’t like what was in Fana’s eyes. The bewilderment was gone. Her eyes were on Michel, who still rested in Berhanu’s thick arms.

“PUT HIM DOWN!”
Fana screamed, racked with pain.

Dust flew into Jessica’s face as Dawit’s gun vaporized in his hand. All the guns in the tower floated away in tiny clouds.

Fasilidas, Teferi, and Stefan all lay sleeping, gone for at least six hours, probably eight. The survivors squared off against one another, wary. Berhanu, closest to Fana, hoisted Michel over his shoulder, looking for a way out of the tower. Berhanu’s leg was splotched red from a gunshot, but he was still on his feet, lurching under Michel’s weight.

As Berhanu turned around to face Fana, his face was pained. The Life Brother’s nose was bleeding, a sight Jessica hadn’t seen since Fana was three.

“I’m going to burn him,” Berhanu said, staring defiantly at Fana. “To ash. And then you, and all of us, are free of him. I do it in
your
name, Fana. And for the Lalibela Colony!”

Jessica had never heard Berhanu make such a long speech. Blood peeked from Berhanu’s other nostril, and his jaw trembled. Berhanu was a powerful telepath; he was engaging with Fana, wrestling.

But he was losing, and badly. Jessica saw it in the burly man’s eyes.

Berhanu staggered to address the crowd, thrusting Michel’s prone body over his head.

“Any of you who find this corpse, burn it to cinders!”
he yelled in Spanish. His voice roared across the mountainside, woven inside the gunshots.
“Scatter it in the wind!”

Berhanu heaved as if to toss Michel over the tower, but he staggered backward again, dropping Michel to the platform. Berhanu’s last look was to Dawit, his final words silent.

With a cry, Berhanu took three running steps and launched his large frame over the side of the tower. More frantic screams rained below, but Jessica heard only hers.

“Fana, no!” Jessica said to Fana’s eyes, trying to find her in the holes torn by the gunshot.

Dawit went to Michel and reached for his neck. Jessica thought he might try to break it—but instead, he felt for a pulse.

“Fana, it’s not as bad as it seems,” Dawit said. “His heart is still beating.”

But Jessica wasn’t sure she had heard him. Fana didn’t look like she could hear anything.

•   •  •

“Johnny? Did you hear me?” Caitlin’s voice said, excited. “He’s hit. I dunno how bad yet. All hell’s breaking loose down there. Tell me you heard me.”

But Johnny Wright heard only the knocking of his heart. Caitlin was drowned out by every ounce of the blood throbbing through his veins.

Johnny felt his palms press against the armrests, flexed arm muscles launching him to his feet. His body was taking flight without him. Right leg, left leg; sure, swift motion. Johnny’s body left his seat and walked to the aisle of the plane.

He tried to tell Caitlin something was wrong, but he had lost control of his mouth. Crushing dread wrapped around Johnny, sodden and final.

Just two minutes earlier, when Mahmoud had winked at him from the rear of the plane, Johnny had believed again. Aside from Fana’s concert with Phoenix, or waking up after Fana gave him the Blood, seeing Mahmoud might have been the finest moment of his life.

It’s too late! He knows!
Johnny tried to shout his thoughts to Mahmoud, with no idea how. Could Mahmoud see him past the curtain? Did Michel have Mahmoud, too?

Johnny’s leg bumped hard against an armrest as he rushed past, a jolt of pain to let him know what was coming. Could he talk to Michel by thinking his name? Would it do any good?

What did you expect me to do, Michel? What would you have done?

Johnny stopped at row 6, leaning over to the sunburned man sitting on the aisle in 6A.

“I’m John Jamal Wright,” Johnny heard himself say.

The man’s face lit up with recognition. Johnny tried to scream at him, Kill me!

Don’t make me hurt anyone
, Johnny begged Michel.
Just let it be me
.

Johnny watched his own limbs move in a horrifying blur: an elbow to the man’s jaw, a deft snatch into his jacket for his Glock, and a dizzying
crack
against the man’s skull with his forehead, all in
a blink. Then the explosion as he shot the air marshal in the temple.