Moaning, Jessica rolled on the floor, and bees crunched beneath her when she moved. There were no stings in retaliation, not this time. Thank you, thank you, thank you, she thought.
Was she only thanking her tormentor? During an instant of blind gratitude, she didn’t care. It was enough just to feel that sweet instant of reprieve.
“Fana!” Jessica screamed, remembering herself.
The stinging began again, silencing her. Jessica felt herself sink into in an ocean of pain.
• • •
Fana was tired of crying, so she had forced herself to stop. She was hiding. When the wind got very strong, she’d been able to run away from Giancarlo, and then she’d run away from Kaleb, too. The wind protected her.
She’d found a very small cave, much smaller than the cave at the colony, a cubbyhole just big enough for a girl her size. The cubbyhole also had plenty of fat pillows for her to rest on, and when she heard a drip-drip-drip sound outside, she reached her finger out to feel the sticky liquid dripping in front of her cubbyhole and realized it smelled just like butterscotch. Better yet, when she tasted it, she realized it was butterscotch! There were few things Fana enjoyed more than the butterscotch candies Gramma Bea sent her from the States, so she considered herself lucky that she had found a cave dripping with butterscotch syrup. It wasn’t yellow the way butterscotch was supposed to be—it was dark red—but that didn’t bother her. Colors were usually wrong in the not-real place.
Fana was in a much better mood now. She could still hear the winds, but they didn’t scare her anymore. They helped her. Giancarlo and Kaleb were gone, and even the Bee Lady was nowhere in sight. Fana thought she might not mind staying in her cubbyhole forever. She had never felt more safe. She lapped up more of the butterscotch dripping in front of her, not caring how much it smeared across her face. When she’d had her fill, she planned to stretch out on her big pillows and take a long nap. The winds would sing her to sleep.
“Fana.”
Fana stopped drinking the syrup, her tongue still hanging from her mouth. She could hardly believe what she was seeing! The Man was sitting right in front of her cave in his white robe, his legs crossed beneath him. He looked more blurry than he usually did, not as if she could reach out and touch him if she wanted to, but she recognized him right away. His face wasn’t happy. Fana hoped The Man wasn’t going to tell her to stop drinking the candy syrup. She had already decided she was going to do only what she pleased.
“You went away for a long time,” Fana said. She didn’t feel like smiling at him. If he had been here before, she wouldn’t have been so scared. “You left me here by myself. You and Mommy.”
“They made it hard for me to find you, Fana. They hid you from me.”
Fana didn’t have to ask who they was. Fana felt scared again, remembering how the Bee Lady had held her around her ankles, swinging her upside down.
“Well, go away,” Fana said. “I don’t need you anymore. I found a safe place.”
The Man rubbed his beard slowly. His eyes were sad. “Where you are is far from safe, child—for you or anyone else. It only feels safe. I can understand that feeling, because you’ve had a very frightening time, but don’t pretend you don’t know what’s happened. You have surrendered.”
“I have not! I’m resting.”
But she knew The Man was telling the truth, just as she knew what the word surrendered meant: It was a word for people who had stopped trying, who had given in to someone stronger. She felt tears in her eyes again. The Man had told her that no one was stronger than she was. No one.
But that had been a lie. Almost everybody told her lies, but she hadn’t expected The Man to.
“Yes, I know,” The Man said gently, nodding. “They have let you see things that make you feel powerless. But what if I told you those are only pictures in your head, Fana? What if I told you that Giancarlo and Kaleb were never really here? They weren’t chasing after you.”
“That’s not true! I saw them.”
“You thought you saw them, Fana. What you really saw was only your fear. They want you to remember your fear, Fana. Terrible things happen when you feel afraid. Awful things.”
Fana lowered her eyes away from The Man’s. She knew what he meant by that: the storm. She hadn’t thought about the storm in a long time, but she knew what the wind was doing. She knew about the flying people.
“It’s not my fault,” Fana whispered.
“Fana . . . look at me,” The Man said, and when she did, she saw tears in his eyes, too. “No—it is not your fault. But you are the only one who can make everything better.”
“I . . . can’t.”
“If you don’t, Fana, your mother will sleep forever. They’re using you to kill her.”
That was a lie! Her mommy couldn’t die, because she had the blood, and people with the blood didn’t die. Except for Kaleb. Remembering him, she felt a stab of alarm.
“Your mother is looking for you,” The Man said. “Don’t you hear her calling?”
As The Man said those words, Fana thought she heard a mouselike whisper from somewhere far away, her mother’s voice: Fana, come back!
Fana shivered, hearing the voice. It sounded like her mommy, but maybe The Man was trying to trick her. Her mommy didn’t like The Man. Her mommy thought he was a liar, that he tricked people into doing things. He was probably trying to trick Fana right now. He wanted to con-trol her the way he’d controlled her daddy and all the other men with the blood.
Once again, Fana started sobbing. Her head hurt from feeling confused. “Go away!” she yelled. She knew that if she tried hard enough to make The Man go away, he would lose her again. He would never be able to find her in the not-real place if she didn’t want him to.
“It isn’t fair that you have to grow so quickly, Fana,” The Man said. “I know that. But remember what I’ve shown you about yourself. You are chosen, child. You don’t want to stay here alone. You cannot allow so many to die. You want to see your mother and father. You need them.”
Go away, Fana thought, closing her eyes. She pushed her thoughts as hard as she could, as hard as she ever had. And when she opened them again, just as she’d wanted, The Man was gone.
“See? I don’t need anyone,” Fana said to the spot where The Man used to be.
And Fana smiled.
55
Star Island
3:45 P.M.
Dawit could hear skulking footsteps from upstairs. Rushing. Preparing.
“There are more of them, Teferi, maybe two or three,” he said, craning his neck to gaze up at the popcorn ceiling, trying to track the footsteps. Teferi was crouched near him, his weapon trained toward the winding stairs, since the elevator would be useless to any attackers, blocked as it was. Dawit hoped there wasn’t a second staircase, but there might be. He and Teferi should not wait for the men to come looking for them, he decided. They had to act.
The ceiling was high, at least twenty feet. If only . . .
“How far can you hear thoughts?” Dawit asked Teferi, inspired.
Teferi looked puzzled at first, then he glanced up at the ceiling. “From upstairs, you mean?” he whispered. “You jest, Dawit. It’s more difficult without an aura to read, nearly impossible.”
“Berhanu can do it. And Teka. And others.”
“Yes, Dawit, but they are advanced—”
“Just try,” Dawit said between gritted teeth. “That advantage is invaluable.”
Another sound of footsteps running above them. Teferi honed in on the sound, turning his head to follow it. He closed his eyes, concentrating. He stood that way so long, Dawit was on the verge of giving up on the strategy. They had no time for nonsense.
“At least two of them. Paid soldiers,” Teferi said at last, murmuring. “Oh! But one of them is older, a lawyer . . .”
“I don’t want their biographies, brother—can you pinpoint where they’re standing?”
Teferi sighed, exasperated. “I think so, Dawit,
but what’s the use of it?”
Outside, the wind raised its pitch, suddenly shrieking. Dawit could see the picture window trembling against it, making their reflections flutter in the glass; in a short time, he realized, this window was going to break, bringing the wind into the house. If the wind didn’t break the window, the rising floodwaters certainly would.
“Remain here, Teferi. Pinpoint where the men are standing. And set that gun up a notch. The higher setting is intended to penetrate mortals’ bulletproof vests.”
“But I still don’t understand.”
“Your gun will penetrate the ceiling at that setting,” Dawit said, struggling for patience. Must he explain everything? “Do you understand now? On my word, shoot them from below. Find their thoughts, then allow your gun’s sight device to track the heartbeats for you. You should not miss.”
“Splendid!” Teferi said, his face brightening.
Ideally, Teferi should fire at the same instant Dawit arrived upstairs to finish off any survivors, but Dawit knew he would need to split the men’s attention somehow so they would not notice his approach immediately. A diversion would do that.
Dawit’s eyes found the open elevator, and he smiled. He would send the two dead men to the second floor in the elevator at the same instant he climbed the stairs. If there were any survivors after Teferi’s onslaught, they would be too confused to react quickly enough. Dawit smiled, feeling the same heady sensation he’d experienced during the battle of Adwa in Ethiopia, and at Milliken’s Bend and Richmond, when he’d fought to free the slaves during America’s Civil War. Khaldun had tried to drum it out of him, but the warrior in him had never died. Part of him, as always, relished a fight.
“Remember—wait for my signal before you fire,” Dawit whispered to Teferi, hurrying toward the elevator. With his foot, he shoved the dead black man back inside the car, then pressed the button for the second floor. At first, the elevator did not move, and Dawit jabbed the button angrily. Then, he noticed the small square security mechanism posted outside the elevator door—he needed a card of some sort! Searching, he noticed a thin black card the size of a credit card that one of the men had dropped in the rear of the elevator. He picked up the card, swiped it through, and pressed the second-floor button again. This time, the metal doors slowly closed, sealing the men’s movable tomb. Dawit heard the elevator begin to rise.
“When you’ve finished, come behind me,” Dawit whispered to Teferi, running toward the stairs. “Have your weapon ready.”
Careful to keep himself ducked out of sight on the winding staircase, Dawit climbed quickly, trying to match the pace of the elevator’s ascent. He paused just as the stairway’s curve would have put him in sight of the second-floor hallway; no doubt, the men upstairs were waiting to ambush him there. Soon, the elevator sounded its ding.
“Now!” Dawit shouted down. Instantaneously, he heard the rondo of contained explosions chipping away at the concrete ceiling. His brothers’ technology warmed his heart; he wished he had a closet full of weapons just like it, rather than mortals’ cruder weaponry. Dawit heard men’s cries.
Judging that it was safe, Dawit raised his head high enough to see the second floor. His first sight was the white tiles, already spotted with blood. A man with a silver ponytail whose face was concealed behind sheer netting had been hiding around the corner, waiting for him. Now, the man was doubled over, cringing, his mouth hanging open as he cupped his hands over his genitals. His pants were soaked with blood. The man screamed epithets at him.
Dawit stopped the man’s heart with one clean shot, and he fell to the floor.
Farther down the hallway, a second man lay twitching facedown on the tiles. He was already dead, Dawit decided, only his muscles didn’t know it yet. Teferi had done good work!
“Alexis!” David bellowed out. He hoped Jessica’s sister was nearby.
Unmistakably, a woman’s voice emerged from a closed door not far from him, hidden to his left: “I’m in here!” There was a hurried click of a lock, the sound of a door opening. “Come in here!”
Dawit heard heavy footsteps on the stairs, and suddenly Teferi was breathing hard behind him. Teferi tugged at Dawit’s shirt to hold him still. “Use caution, Dawit. The woman is near, but I believe there’s a third—”
Teferi’s words were interrupted by a gunshot, and Dawit clearly felt the heat of a bullet racing past his arm. The oomph sound from Teferi behind him told him the bullet had found its mark. Teferi cried out, stumbling backward down the stairs.
Now, as in wartime, Dawit’s senses narrowed. Tracking the bullet’s origin although the gunman was not within his sight, Dawit returned the fire in a hail. He saw a black Luger fly out from a hidden corner ten yards ahead of him, damaged in the exchange. A hidden man yelled in pain. Then, Dawit saw a blur as a man dove for safety. He was quick, rolling expertly beneath Dawit’s gunfire. He is skilled, Dawit thought, feeling pleased despite himself. He respected a worthy rival.
Just as Dawit was ready to pursue him, he heard a woman scream. Alexis!
Dawit saw the open doorway now—with splattered blood on the doorframe and on the patterns of forest-green-and-pink-patterned wallpaper beyond it—but he didn’t dare show himself. The gunman was with Alexis, and he might still be armed. A misstep now would render his search fruitless. He could not afford a mistake. Damn! The mortal was quick and well-trained, and now he had won an advantage. If Dawit had misjudged him too badly, Alexis might die.
At that instant, Dawit heard a monumental crashing sound from downstairs, as if a dozen chandeliers had just broken on the tile flooring, and he realized the living-room picture window had given at last. Dawit hoped it was not an omen.
The storm had made its way inside the house.
• • •
Rusty Baylor, aka The Chameleon, aka Russell Hardwick—thirty-seven years old, born to Twyla and Palmer Hardwick at 76 Prescott Lane in Leeds, England—was beginning to feel afraid.
This was no small turn for a man like him. All his life, Baylor had known he wanted to be a soldier. He was a master of voices, having fought hard to lose his Yorkshire accent, so he could imitate a New Yorker, a South Londoner, or an Oxford professor with equal ease. His stint in the British army had been short-lived because of a drunken insubordination, but he’d found other ways to get his combat fix: He’d taken part in a failed coup attempt in Maldives in 1988, he’d floated through Central America for a time, then he’d joined a South African–based “security corporation” to fight in Angola in the early 1990s, then in Sierra Leone, then in Zaire, then in Bosnia. He believed he had personally killed at least two hundred men, and that estimate was on the conservative side. He hoped it was more than that, actually. Through all of that, he had rarely felt frightened.
But he did now, after what he had just seen. He had faced tanks, Uzis, and grenade launchers in his career, but he had never faced anything quite like this. It was almost, he thought, as if the storm itself had unleashed the attack. As if he was facing something other than mere men.
The American with the long white hair, Patrick, had insisted on staking out the stairs. This is when the fun really starts, the old duffer had said, or something very close, still in a state of euphoria after shooting the scientist, his first kill. And in a way, he’d been right, because there had been something fascinating, very nearly amusing, about watching Patrick’s balls get blown off when the attack had begun from below. Someone had known exactly where Patrick O’Neal was standing, just as they had known how to cut down poor Terrence behind him. Baylor had watched both men fall, but he’d been able to dive out of the way before the floor could eat him, too.
By now, the great calm of mind Baylor had become respected for was dissipating quickly. He understood he might die today, and all in an assignment that had seemed dodgy from the very beginning. Magic blood! It had started to go wrong from the outset, with that wild-eyed Boer losing the courier and then shooting everyone in sight at the Botswana clinic—and t
hen a hurricane, more bad luck. It had not been meant to be.
Almost as if God Himself had intervened.
That ugly notion had been reinforced to Baylor when a freak shot had blown his gun from his hand. He cursed and ran, figuring he had only one last chance: These people, whoever they were, knew the prisoner and probably cared about her. She was a waiting hostage, his only hope.
And in the midst of all the gunfire and the sounds of dying men, he’d run into the bedroom to find the black woman leaning over the dead scientist, trying to resuscitate him. Even when she’d screamed with surprise at his sudden appearance, she didn’t move her hands away from his chest.
Baylor decided it might be the most bizarre sight of his life.
• • •
It’s the End of the World as We Know It . . .
The refrain from the REM song was playing in Justin’s head like a jukebox gone haywire, blocking out all sounds and most of his remaining lucid thoughts. His chin was bouncing to the manic rhythm in his mind. He was on his feet now. He’d stood up when he’d heard his father’s cries in the hallway. Justin had never heard a man in such agony. His father, who had just been here. In agony.
And he’d opened the door, not to go to his father (he didn’t want to do that, not since the final gunshot that had silenced his father’s screams), but because Alexis had said, Let them in. They’re here.
But it was not a they who came. Instead, one man had come skidding into the room like a scared rabbit. It was the English mercenary, the one who had been reading The Trial, who believed there was no relationship between crime and punishment, who’d thought Justin was a phony the first day he’d met him, and who’d been absolutely right.
Baylor, that was his name. Seeing him, Alexis had screamed. Justin met the mercenary just inside the doorway, holding his shoulders tightly.
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