My Soul to Take (35 page)

Michel’s face on the statue felt like a slap. Fana blinked away, startled.

No wonder she had stayed in Lalibela. No wonder she had blocked him for so long.

The massive courtyard was empty except for their cars. Lush bougainvillea hedges twenty feet tall ringed the courtyard, crowded with bright blossoms. The manicured grass was dotted with sago and pygmy date palms, the ones she kept in her room. The grounds were as well kept as a painting.

Berhanu, Fasilidas, Teka, Teferi, and Rami surrounded the three women as the group followed Romero toward the dozen marble steps. Dawit walked behind Romero, and Rami fell to the rear. Even Adam hushed his chatter, his bright eyes darting among the new sights as he sat perched on Rami’s shoulder.

Fana wished they had brought Michel a gift beyond the chatter monkey. But what? She’d been confused about courtesies when she
met with health ministers and presidents about Glow, but it was too late to think of better gifts now.

She was the only gift he wanted.

The air in front of the palace seemed to shimmer. Michel stood at the top of the palace’s steps, between statues of Vulcan and Venus. Or, they might have been Shango and Oshun. Fana smelled his mental scent, nearly impossible to separate from the sweetness of the Shadows.

To keep from looking at his face, Fana concentrated on Michel’s bright clothes: white linen slacks and a peasant-style white shirt with crisscrossing laces across his chest. His thick gold Sanctus Cruor ring.

Michel jaunted down the steps. A large white German shepherd trotted down behind him at a well-trained distance.

Fana hadn’t expected Michel to meet them at the door, much less alone. He’d been in full regalia the last time she’d seen him, infatuated with ceremony. Now he looked like he was on his way out for a walk. Fana felt overdressed in her silly business skirt and jacket. She wished she could climb back into the car.

Instinctively, Phoenix began humming “Gotta Fly,” almost under her breath. The song helped Fana escape to other details around her. A man and woman stood in the wings on the steps behind Michel, hanging back—Stefan’s parents. When Fana stared at the woman’s face beneath her white Ethiopian head scarf, she was startled to see herself. Michel’s mother was her twin sister in every way; Teru might be a vision of her future.

And Teru’s mind was as close to blank as anyone’s Fana had ever come across. Adam’s head was busier than Teru’s! Most of Teru’s mind was still, like someone deep in meditation … but hovering, not listening. The woman’s face was mostly empty, too, except for a tiny smile of anticipation. She watched her days unfold like a dream.

No one could have scared Fana more.

Beside Teru, Michel’s father gave Fana a warm, actor’s smile. Stefan’s thoughts were carefully concealed, but Fana could guess what was in his mind. Stefan was a sick man. There might not be enough time to undo his damage to Michel.

Dawit stopped walking within five yards of Michel, and Michel stopped, too. For a moment, standing in silence, they looked like they might duel. Her father’s smile was thin.

Fana still could not make herself look at Michel’s face. She stared at the Mediterranean tiles at his feet, as close to him as her eyes would go. Michel was wearing suede loafers the same copper color as his eyes.

Dawit gave Michel the deep bow he would have given a Life Brother. “Michel Gallo,” he said, pointedly avoiding Michel’s preferred title. “We represent the Lalibela Colony. Thank you for agreeing to host us.” Teka had suggested a longer speech, but Dawit had said no.

“I’m honored to receive you at my home, signore,” Michel told Dawit, appropriately grim. “You are my treasured guests. I’m sorry for our unfortunate beginnings.”

Her mother’s temper surged in a hot red shimmer. Michel must have seen it too.

“I’m especially appalled at my role in the terrible loss of your mother, signora,” Michel said to Jessica quickly. “I’ve shed many tears over her death. If it takes eternity, I intend to prove to you that I’m not the monster you think I am.”

Michel was really talking to
her
, but Fana still would not look his way. Her mother’s thoughts were churning so furiously that Fana wondered if she would slap Michel. Jessica’s lip trembled, and she gathered a deep breath before she gave Michel a nod.

“Thank you for your apology,” Jessica said. “You didn’t mean for it to happen.”

The visit was already a miracle, if only Fana could look at him just once.

Adam squealed, suddenly bounding toward Michel’s dog. The German shepherd towered above Adam, but the dog didn’t move as the monkey circled him. The dog looked to Michel for guidance.

“I hope your monkey doesn’t bite. My dog is shy. Aren’t you, Caesar?” Michel joked, and his men laughed. Chatter monkeys were clever, but Michel’s dog had sharper teeth.

Teka pulsed Fana a query:
FANA?
She had planned to present Adam to Michel.

When Fana didn’t answer, Teka bowed to Michel. “Please accept Fana’s gift from our House of Science. The breed is unique to Lalibela.”

“Your colony’s House of Science is unmatched,” Michel said. “I accept Fana’s gift with humility. You and Dawit are greatly respected by your Lalibela Brothers here, who are eager to see you.” He didn’t remind them of the Brother, Alem, who had brought him the virus.

Adam bounded to Michel, practically at his feet. He stood on two legs and bowed as he had been trained. “My name is Adam, Most High,” the monkey said in his reedy voice. “I promise to be good, I say the words, but I tell lies lies lies!” Adam had improvised the end of his speech; chatter monkeys were proud of their lies.

Michel laughed, genuinely amused, and Michel’s parents and guards laughed, too. Any gift that brought laughter was a good one. Michel held out his arms, and Adam leaped to him. Fana knew that fickle Adam wouldn’t have jumped to Michel without a mental prod.

“Adam is a lonely name for you,” Michel said. “We must find you an Eve!”

She knew how much he wanted her to look at him for the sake of his faithful who were watching. She tried, but she couldn’t make herself raise her head or address him, even to send him an apology. Would she destroy her mission over such a simple thing?

Michel snapped his fingers sharply, and Fana nearly jumped, expecting his displeasure. Two girls who looked fifteen came scurrying out of a shadowed corner, dressed in long aprons.

“I’ve made a promise to some of the girls who cook for me,” Michel said. “You have fans here. They begged for a chance to shake Phoenix’s hand. I hope you don’t mind.”

To Michel, asking his followers to shake Phoenix’s hand was the same as an apology. Phoenix managed a bright smile, keeping her thoughts about her family’s abduction and detention off her face.

If Phoenix could smile for Michel, why couldn’t she? Wasn’t she as strong as a mortal?

Michel had never met the girls before—they’d been chosen by his kitchen matron—but their titters as they approached Phoenix were touching. Both girls wore their hair in prim buns. They were
more awestruck by Michel, to be in
His
presence, but they loved Phoenix, too. As Phoenix shook their hands, the taller one said she was Consuela, the stouter one Pilar.

“Mucho gusto,”
Phoenix told them. “What’s your favorite song?”

“‘Party Patrol’!” they cried in unison, and dissolved into shy giggles.

The girls’ giggles made Fana forget that she was avoiding Michel’s eyes, and a careless gaze brushed past him. Their eyes caught.

The dusk sun amplified Michel’s black eyelashes and honey face, showering every ringlet of his springy dark curls with gold dust. The sky careened out of place, dizzying her. Fana nearly lost her balance, her legs fighting to stand upright.

I HAVE MISSED YOU MORE THAN I KNEW WAS POSSIBLE, FANA
, Michel said.

If her thoughts hadn’t felt as empty as Teru’s, she might have said the same thing to him. She couldn’t answer, spoken or silently. She had been so angry with him, so hurt and confused, that she had made herself forget.

Michel’s splendor filled Fana’s eyes with tears.

A
t Jessica’s insistence, dinner had been cut short.

Jessica prayed she was only dreaming again. Maybe she had dreamed the tears, speechlessness, and nervous fever that had gripped Fana since she had first seen Michel. Please, God, let her have dreamed what she’d seen in Fana’s eyes when Fana stared at him.

Jessica had seen those same empty, glassy eyes when Fana was three.

Why had she let her daughter come back to him?

Jessica flipped open the small oval mirror she kept in her purse, checking her reflection. Her eyes stared back at her from her mirror, panicked and red rimmed. No dream.

Berhanu and Fasilidas were posted outside Fana’s door, but Fana needed guards inside her head, instead. Jessica hadn’t seen Fana cry since right after she had first met him.

Fana’s strange mood had continued at dinner with Michel’s family. Fana and Michel had sat at opposite ends of the table, but the room had been invisible to them. Fana had been too absorbed by Michel to touch her food.

Jessica wondered if she was the only one still in her right mind.

Fana and Teka stood at the window with their eyes closed. He was guiding Fana back to a familiar mental landscape, he said. Strains of rapid stringed music floated into the room through the open doorway, where Phoenix was learning a violin duet with Rami.

Jessica wanted to leave, but Fana had said she preferred to meet in a private room. And Michel, of course, already had rooms made up for them. The room intended for her and Dawit was adorned
with a wooden opium bed identical to the one they had shared in Miami. Leave it to Michel to use stolen memories as decor. Dawit noticed the bed, too, and they shared a painful glance. Did Michel expect her to spend her days in a haze like his mother? Like Fana?

“Let’s get her far away from him,” Jessica said to Dawit. They had been through this test before, and they had failed. He’d given them their bed to remind them.

Dawit’s eyes were sad. He couldn’t give up on Fana. “If she will go,” he said.

Teka opened his eyes, excusing himself from Fana’s side. “She wants to stay,” he said.

“I need to hear
her
say that,” Jessica said.

“Do not assume Michel is exerting influence on Fana,” Teka said calmly. “Remember, Jessica, these are two unique beings with extraordinary mental skills. They react to each other on a physiological and psychic basis. Her thoughtstreams are faster now, but they seem to be hers. I warned her that her response to him would be significant.”

“I
saw
him go into her,” Jessica said. “I saw her eyes change.”

MICHEL’S RESPONSE TO FANA MAY BE NEARLY IDENTICAL
, Teka told her privately. He was shy about speaking about Michel aloud in his house, not that it mattered: Michel could hear everything anyway.
HE WAS PROJECTING—

“He could project himself as my grandmother,” Jessica snapped. “It’s a movie screen, Teka. He’ll show you what he wants you to see.”

“Michel was much more composed than Fana,” Dawit said, agreeing.

“He has had a year to train himself for her,” Teka said. “I believe—”

“Stop believing anything about him!” Jessica said. “
All you see is what he lets you see
. What’s wrong with you, Teka? You know better! Does he have you too?”

Compelled by Michel, Teka had been piloting the plane where her mother had died, refusing Jessica’s pleas to answer Bea’s chest pains. How could they trust Teka’s advice? How could any of them believe their own words? Their own minds?

Please help Johnny against him, Lord
, Jessica thought, hardly realizing she was praying.

“Mom,”
Fana’s voice said sharply. Fana’s eyes were suddenly wide open and clear. She stood directly over Jessica.
TURNING ON TEKA WON’T HELP ME. OR WISHFUL PLANS AGAINST MICHEL
.

Jessica’s racing heart rocked still. How could she have been so careless?

“Stay out of my head,” Jessica said.

“We have to work
not
to hear your head,” Fana said. “Your thoughts bleed everywhere.”

“Who’s we?” Jessica said. “You and him?”

Fana looked startled by the question. “Yes. Me and him. Me and Dad. Any of us who are higher telepaths.” Fana was pulling farther away from her, wading more deeply into the fog where Jessica had lost her. If Jessica had known that Dreamsticks would cost her Fana’s trust, she would have let Kira and Bea die long ago.

Jessica held Fana’s face between her cheeks. “Fana, even if he doesn’t want to … he could be pulling you toward him. Maybe he can’t help it any more than you can. How can you expect him to resist leading you if you make it so easy? At least look at the possibility.”

“Of course I’ve looked at it, Mom.”

“Then what’s your strategy?” Jessica held up her mirror for Fana to see her reflection. “How do you check in with yourself?”

Fana turned her face away from the mirror, as if her image pained her. “Stay with the mission,” Fana said. “Remember my goals. Nothing else matters.”

Fana was wrong. Plenty else mattered. But at least that was what Fana would say.

“We all saw it,” Jessica said. “You’re not ready, Fana.”

Now Fana laid her hand across Jessica’s cheek. “I wasn’t ready before, but I’m ready now,” she said like a schoolteacher. “I’ve adjusted. Just being here makes me learn so much faster. I should have veiled the way Teka advised me, but I wanted to show Michel I had nothing to hide.”

Fana sounded satisfied to feel that she shared a pull toward
Michel that even Teka didn’t have a vocabulary for. And it might be only Michel’s ruse.

“I’m not surprised, dear Fana,” Teferi said. “Khaldun’s Letter of the Witness says you are ‘mates immortal born.’”

A cold needle pricked the base of Jessica’s neck. “You sound like you’re ready to join Sanctus Cruor,” Jessica said. “Like your Brothers.”

“No, of course not,” Teferi said quickly. “I’m horrified by Michel’s methods and interpretations of the Cleansing, but the Letter—”