My Soul to Take (41 page)

Johnny’s heart raced. “I can—”

“Uno momento,”
Enriquez hushed him calmly.

Two riders approached from the opposite direction, whipping off their hats to wave in an exaggerated cowboy style. “Howdy!” called the one with the beer belly.

“¡Buenas dias, senores!”
Enriquez said, suddenly in character with a cheerful grin. “I truly hope you are enjoying your stay at El Ranchero!” He poured on a thick Mexican accent. The riders told
him how much they loved the ranch, how it was a childhood dream come true.

The moment they passed, Enriquez’s grin dropped from his face. “This place makes people happy,” he said. He sounded baffled by the idea of happiness.

“You’ll see why one day,” Johnny said. “God willing.”

Enriquez gazed at him with stripped eyes.

“I already see it every day,” Enriquez said. “Welcome to my daily dose of sanity.”

The sky opened in front of Johnny. They had reached a cliff overlooking the basin at the edge of the world, a memory from when everything was new. Fiery fall foliage painted the mountains’ slopes, reflected in the basin’s lake of orange, gold, and red below. Johnny realized he had never seen a real autumn before. God had sent him a clear map, with space and colors. No evil could touch them here.
We can do this
, he realized, awed.

“My condolences on the loss of your family,” Johnny said.

Enriquez didn’t answer, staring at his daily meditation.

“I can’t bring your father and family back,” Johnny went on, “but I can promise you a long, healthy life. And anyone you love. Even your horse.” Pet owners had their own internet Glow network.

“I’ve always been very interested in Glow,” Enriquez said. “It once brought a cousin back from the dead, or close enough. He’d been shot four times. That made me a believer.”

Johnny and Caitlin had considered approaching Enriquez as a Glow supplier for Canada months before, since his ranch was a perfect cover. Drug runners already had effective networks—but they had decided that the Enriquez family’s history of violence didn’t represent the ideals of the Underground Railroad. No drug wars in the name of Glow, if they could help it.

What’s changed?
Johnny asked himself with Fana’s voice, always inside him now.

They had lost Fana. Everything had changed.

But what’s changed?

“We can get you enough Glow to last fifty people a hundred
years each, maybe longer,” Johnny said. “You get to choose who gets it and how much.”

“Only a hundred years?” Enriquez said. Definitely a businessman.

“We say a hundred years to be fair,” Johnny said. “The truth is, we don’t know yet. You’d be one of the first to find out. It’s possible a man lived twice that long. Remember: health is the one thing people would trade everything for.” He almost said
mortals
.

“You brought a sample?”

Johnny heard the two bodyguards approaching behind them. One of the men’s horses whinnied. Despite the open air, Johnny felt claustrophobic. Did Enriquez somehow know that he had Fana’s Blood in his veins? He wasn’t armed, he hadn’t gained super strength to overpower them, and he wouldn’t get far running away on his horse. His new earlobes tingled, his only evidence that the Blood would protect him from injury. All he’d lost was his earring. But no blood would keep him from getting captured. Fear of imprisonment was one reason the Lalibela immortals had created a prison of their own.

“The sample will be delivered once we both understand what we want,” Johnny said, keeping his voice calm. “If you don’t mind, I don’t want your men listening, Mr. Enriquez.”

Enriquez considered, and gestured for his men to move back. They turned their horses to find another vantage point, out of earshot. Johnny watched them walk down the trail before they turned their horses around to observe nearby a stone outcropping. Something darted through the carpet of dry leaves below Johnny’s horse. A rabbit, maybe. He almost jumped.

Enriquez sipped from his coffee tumbler. “Is your father still alive, Mr. Wright?”

Johnny’s heart skipped. Was Enriquez threatening him? Now that Fana was gone, he couldn’t be sure his parents had enough protection from their immortal minder. Johnny had hired a Cape Town firm himself, but Phoenix’s security had failed. There might be a breach in the security, or Michel might be the breach.

“Why’d you ask?” Johnny said.

“To see if you can imagine what it would feel like to find your
father nailed to a wall. You walk in to find his skin so pale that you don’t need a coroner to tell you he’s been drained of every drop of blood.”

Exsanguinated. Johnny’s stomach turned as he thought about Caitlin’s friends, the family who had died harboring them at the safe house in Arizona. They’d lain in bloody pools in their beds, drained, too, with a bloody message left behind on the wall:
AND BLOOD TOUCHETH BLOOD
. The stench in the doomed house seemed to clot Johnny’s nose again.

“No, I can’t imagine my father like that,” Johnny said. “But I’ve lost people to him too.” His voice almost broke as he thought of Fana. “And as bad as that is, he’s worse than you’ve seen. He has a deadly biological agent, and he wants to own the world the way he owns Nogales. He’s already begun spreading a plague.”

From where they sat astride the horses, facing the vista, it was easy to imagine the world emptied. Except for birds, there were no living creatures as far as they could see.

“God’s watching us, so I won’t paint a pretty picture about Charro,” Enriquez said. “My brother wasn’t always that way—he had bad influences—but he was greedy, and people are dead because of him. Federalistas, mayors, wives, girlfriends. I knew, but I didn’t know everything. Women and children? He never told me, but I knew the rules. If it had just been Charro who died, or me, what could I say? God’s judgment. I always expected it. But Arturo? My cousin was only sixteen, a good kid in school. And then Papi …” Enriquez filled his lungs so he could go on. “Papi was a crippled old man. When I saw him nailed to the wall, the
way
he was nailed, I knew God doesn’t live in that church. Whoever did it enjoyed his pain.”

“No,” Johnny said. “
He
enjoyed your father’s pain.”

Enriquez was silent as the mountain. His face colored as he slowly crossed himself.

“Others have tried, but he always knows,” Enriquez said. “You die where you sleep, with your blood on the wall. His legend’s on the radio, The Curse of El Diablo.
Tres Ojos
in the Back of His Head. You’ll die if you speak his name in vain. In Sonora, get this, the children
pray
to him in school. Light candles for him. They’re turning a demon into a
santo
. Or a god.”

At least Enriquez knew what they were up against.

“He has a weakness.” Johnny swallowed the knot in his throat. “A woman. He’s getting married Thursday morning. A public wedding, in the tower. He’ll be exposed.”

Enriquez’s face came to life, shocked. His lips fell apart. “Where’d you hear that?”

“I know the woman he’s marrying.”

Enriquez whispered to himself in Spanish. “If that’s true, I should be paying you.”

“Your payment is for the risk,” Johnny said. “It may not be enough.”

He wouldn’t lie to the man he’d hired. If he couldn’t convince Enriquez with the truth, he would find a way to do it himself. He would never lie in Fana’s name.

“Ah,” Enriquez said, understanding. His face flattened. “That’s why my gringo homey called me instead of risking his own
culo
.”

“He has influence. He’s bought off your government and most of mine. He’s made friends internationally. He’s gotten away with mass murder, and he’s about to unleash something way beyond genocide. There may not be another chance like this.”

“No,” Enriquez agreed, nodding thoughtfully. It was as good as saying yes.

“This woman, his fiancée, risked her life to get close to him and expose him for us,” Johnny said as his throat tried to close. “She can’t be hurt. If she’s hurt, there’s no payment.”

Enriquez’s nodding stopped. He looked troubled. “That’s harder. When bullets fly …”

“That’s a deal breaker. You won’t get your Glow.”

Hunger flared in Enriquez’s eyes. He would have killed Michel for free, but he wanted the Glow for his trouble. “Then we don’t need an army,” Enriquez said. “We need a sniper, and I know a good one. Him and a little backup. A smaller circle’s better anyway. Fewer leaks.”

“Leaks don’t worry me,” Johnny said. “Make sure your sniper’s
nowhere near Nogales when you contact him. He shouldn’t come within a hundred miles before he has to. I’d suggest farther away. We can give him satellite photos of the area.”

“Oh, I know exactly where that damned place is.”

“I want to meet your sniper,” Johnny said. “But don’t mention
his
name to anyone. Or his title. Or the name of the sect. None of us should.” He pointed to his eyes.
“Tres Ojos.”

Enriquez nodded. He crossed himself again. “Yes,” he said. His voice was faraway.

Johnny and Enriquez understood each other fine.

“In my family, you expected to die young,” Enriquez said. “Even if you had your head in the sand like me. If one of you farts in the wrong direction, the whole family’s dead. I grew up scared. But if I have something to die for, maybe I can pay my way into Heaven.”

“Amen.” Johnny scratched his tingling earlobe. He wished he hadn’t lost his earring.

A chill made Johnny long for a heavier jacket. The expanse of the open valley and fifteen hundred miles south to Nogales might not be enough space from Michel. He could be hiding in the colorful treetops. Or inside one of Enriquez’s men. Michel could be Enriquez himself.

But it had begun. Enriquez’s Glow sample would be delivered as soon as Johnny called the courier from a local company to bring it, unaware. Enriquez would use a Glow strip to test it. Within an hour, a gunman would get the order to shoot Michel on his wedding day.

If Michel was shot, Fana could take over the battle. Or Dawit. All they needed was a chance to overpower him. Tomorrow, Michel could be dead!

But if not …

Johnny’s heart knocked in his throat.

Fana had been right: the Blood wouldn’t protect him from Michel.

It was time to write a goodbye letter to his parents.

A
lthough the room was cool, Jessica dabbed away beads of hot perspiration from Fana’s forehead with a washcloth. Fana’s first fever in eighteen years. Fana’s eyes were still closed as she sat by the fireplace in the room Michel had made for her parents.

Fana had suffered a lifetime of trances, but this one was far different. Jessica tried to remember her daughter’s patience as she waited for Fana’s eyes to open—a sign that she was near them, temporarily freed from her Blood fever. She and Dawit had spent hours at Fana’s bedside when she was young, watching for the fleeting moments when Fana would open her eyes to the world. Once again, Jessica looked for signs that her baby girl was still there.

Jessica had always known that Fana would go to Michel, to the Shadows, but knowing was different now, so deep and wide that there was nowhere to run. She didn’t have enough tears left to fill the hole in her. Just let Fana stay awhile longer, and open her eyes from time to time so Jessica could check in and see her daughter again.

Teferi, Fasilidas, Berhanu, and Teka had encircled the room, trying to erect a mental web to protect their group’s thoughts, an attempt at privacy. Michel would know he wasn’t welcome. Jessica was a part of the tighter circle around Fana. They had all fallen into place, slowly closing in, plugging the gaps. Dawit beside Jessica, and Rami beside Phoenix, both musicians quietly playing their violins. Fana’s teacher sat across from her, close enough for her to hear his breathing. Fana had always known she would need her circle of voices with her.

Somehow, maybe because of what Michel had shown her, Jessica knew it was time.

Fana pulsed Jessica a memory:
Will I look different when I lose my baby teeth, Mommy?
Fana had asked when she was three, before times turned bad. Fana reminded Jessica of the brightness of the afternoon out by the kraal with the goats in Botswana, and her own voice still alive in Fana’s memory:
YOU’RE GOING TO LOOK A LOT OF WAYS WHILE YOU GROW UP, FANA
, she had said.
YOU’LL ALWAYS BE BEAUTIFUL
.

Yes yes yes yes, she had tried to tell Fana even then. She would cry later, but now Fana needed her to rejoice in the truth of their shared memory. Fana would always be beautiful.

Fana opened her eyes to stare at Jessica, unguarded.

“I couldn’t have been strong enough without you, Mom,” Fana said.

Fana spoke out in the air, where words had weight. Where Jessica could always hear them again and again without the help of Dreamsticks. There hadn’t been enough tender talk between them, only the battles, and now the time had passed.

“I love you, Fana,” Jessica said, choosing her words to Fana carefully, in case they were her last. “You have a gift, sweetheart. Kill him, if you can.”

Fana’s open face fell into impatience.
HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT NOW?

“He told me to tell you my thoughts,” Jessica said. “He knows it’s the best thing. Otherwise, he knows he’ll hurt you.”

BUT YOU SAW US
, Fana said.

What had Jessica seen? She had seen two showers of light crossing, a sky of flaming embers. New pathways gasping to breathe, a horrible aching.

“I don’t know how to explain what I saw,” she said.

“What he made you
think
you saw,” Dawit reminded her gently.

“You and Michel may be two halves of something bigger,” Jessica told Fana. “That’s why it hurts to stay apart. If you keep fighting, maybe you’ll get weaker. It’s already started: your visions are hazy. You’ve been saying it for months, and now I understand why. But Teka says …”

Teka cleared his throat, preferring to speak for himself. “I
said it’s
possible
that the reaction could be eased if Michel’s heart stopped,” Teka said. “His remaining thoughtstreams should wither. But we don’t truly know. Why wouldn’t he have killed Fana to quell his pain?”