My Soul to Take

by Tananarive Due

  Caitlin had warned him about his pattern of falling for women he couldn’t have, starting with her at Berkeley. But this was different—far different. Caitlin had tried to help him keep his sanity when he was near Fana, but no one could have. How had Caitlin avoided falling in love with Fana, too? Or had she?

  “I wasn’t thinking straight, Caitlin. I just wanted …” Johnny’s new heart of brick pounded at his sternum. How much should he tell her? Caitlin might be the only person he could truly trust, unless Michel was hiding somewhere inside her. “I wanted to feel less helpless. We’re not helpless, Caitlin. I’m not. I won’t let Fana face this alone.”

  Slow horror unfurled in Caitlin’s eyes. “That’s why you did this?” she said.

  “Anyone can die,” Johnny said. “Even Michel.”

  Johnny looked for a spark of fire in Caitlin’s eyes, but there was only fear. Michel’s men had butchered Caitlin’s girlfriend to learn about Glow. Michel had stolen control of Caitlin’s body to walk and talk inside her, too. Caitlin might not know it, but Michel had broken her.

  Rare tears crept into Caitlin’s eyes. “Fana stopped your heart by thinking about it. If we’re worried she isn’t strong enough, what makes you think you are?” she whispered.

  “I may not be,” he said. “But how can I not try?”

  Johnny took a step toward the door, but Caitlin leaped in front of him. “Wait!” she said, her anxious face reminding him of how he must have seemed to her at Berkeley: naïve and excitable. “Johnny, one of the immortals is coming to talk to you. Yacob, I think. Fana asked him to orient you. She made me promise you’d talk to him, and then I’d get you to Doc Shepard. We’re meeting them in Lagos.”

  “You tried, Caitlin. I have to go.”

  “Why? She gave you the Blood, so you think you can fly now? Walk on water?”

  That whininess again. Caitlin was the first soldier he’d known, so it hurt to see her so afraid. Fighting for Glow had taught him how to think like a fighter. All he needed was a plan.

  “I’m going to kill him, Caitlin,” he said. “Or maybe I’ll die trying. You know why I have to. My beliefs don’t give me a choice.”

  “Because you think he’s the antichrist?” Caitlin said, exasperated.

  “Don’t you?”

  “I don’t know if I believe in the Bible—how can I believe in the antichrist?”

  “We saw what he wants to do, Caitlin,” Johnny said. “Both of us saw.”

  He recognized the memory in her eyes. She had seen Michel’s projections of the Cleansing, too: a planet stripped of most of humanity, exclusive to those who remained. She had seen the photos from Nigeria and North Korea, and how his virus posed the dead to pray to him.

  More than that, Caitlin’s fear of Michel was personal. Michel’s men had touched her while she lay pinned under his mental paralysis. Caitlin’s terror at that moment still swam in her eyes. She didn’t want to face Michel again.

  “How?” Caitlin said anyway. “How would we stop him?”

  Johnny’s chest shook with the aggressive thumping of his reinvigorated heart.

  “With help from my new Brothers,” he said.

  UPWORLD

  Learn or die.

  —Earthseed: The Book of the Living

  Octavia E. Butler

  Parable of the Sower

  The price one pays for entering a profession or calling is an

  intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

  —James Baldwin

  Twenty-three

  Phoenix was nearly hoarse from singing, but she didn’t stop. She sang more softly, pacing herself, taking long breaks, sometimes only mouthing the words. Singing worked better for her than screaming, and screaming was all her body wanted to do.

  Phoenix sat with her back against the door, her tailbone sore from the frigid floor in clothes so thin they were like tissue. Since Marcus had been stolen, her room was too cold. Phoenix had never gotten used to the cold after growing up in Miami. Her teeth chattered while she shivered violently. Her palms and the backs of her hands felt numb. She missed the blankets, but she’d given up asking for them back. She’d come to terms with begging long ago, but begging hadn’t worked.

  Phoenix’s nose had plugged up the same day as Marcus vanished, an illness invading her when she was weakest, and she had to breathe through her dry mouth. Sometimes phlegm walled her throat, and she couldn’t breathe. Phoenix couldn’t sing during her coughing fits, so she waited for those to pass. She felt her lungs constrict with each hacking cough. Maybe bronchitis. Maybe pneumonia. Whatever had happened at the Glow concert had killed her cancer cells, but her body could still be attacked.

  Whatever had happened. Phoenix hated her ignorance. If she knew exactly, she would have told everything. Her defiance had vanished with Marcus. She’d answered every question as well as she knew how, wishing she knew more:

  Her name is Fana. F-A-N-A, I think. No, I don’t know her last name. John Jamal Wright came to my house and tried to give me a vial of Glow. I refused it. He had access to more. I don’t know why they came to me. I asked them to try someone else. I was worried about the stories I’d heard, but I thought one concert would be okay. They offered me money for charity. Something happened to us at the concert: Fana raised her arms and healed us.

  But what she knew wasn’t enough, apparently. They wanted something else from her. She only wished she knew what.

  Phoenix was enraged at Fana and John Jamal Wright for the trouble they’d brought her. Sometimes her anger at them dwarfed her rage for the captors who watched her freezing to death and carefully avoided her eyes when they brought her scraps or ice-cold water to drink.

  Phoenix sang of forgiving her captors so she would not scream.

  She sang of seeing Marcus again so she would not scream.

  She sang of Carlos so she would not scream.

  And when she was half asleep, Phoenix sang about the palace on the hilltop she dreamed about, and the man and woman who held dominion there.

  The Lioness meets the Lion

  In the place where love collides.

  Keepers of agonies and wildest dreams

  Draw blood from shadowed skies.

  Phoenix woke to hear herself singing and didn’t recognize her own words. Sometimes her song about the palace terrified her—blood from shadowed skies? And yet … Sometimes her strange songs brought her indescribable comfort, transporting her far outside her cell and the faceless facility that had stolen her life from her.

  Those moments were always over too soon.

  A tall, wide man was approaching her cell door to open it. Harley. She didn’t allow herself any feelings about Harley’s coming, since there was nothing she could do about it.

  Phoenix moved away from the door. As she scooted back, her palms flopped against the floor like dead fish, numb. Today she would tell him about her dreams and songs!

  Harley wasn’t his real name, but his large Harley-Davidson belt buckle made Phoenix imagine him in leather chaps. The bridge of his nose was crisscrossed with old knife scars. Phoenix didn’t like being close to his heavy black boots, so she tried to pull herself to her feet. Her hands rebelled, useless. Her fingers were numb, too.

  “You’ll piss me off if you make me do this the hard way,” Harley said.

  The first morning after Marcus was gone, he’d had to literally drag her to the interrogation room. She’d been out of her mind that day. She was still out of her mind, but she’d learned how to hide it better.

  Harley didn’t seem like himself. He was the only one who scared her, who shouted at her and stood close enough to pose a physical threat, but Harley was a professional. He didn’t start out in a bad mood.

  “No,” Phoenix said. “I’m up, see? I’m ready. I thought of something I forgot to tell you—it’s the whole thing. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before now. And then you’ll bring Marcus back? And let us go?”

  Phoenix didn’t recognize her own voice anymore. A bla
thering jellyfish.

  “That’s what you said yesterday, Mrs. Harris,” Harley said, shrugging. He cuffed her hands behind her back, too tightly. That wasn’t like Harley either, using such a low street cop’s trick. Harley was yes, ma’am and no, ma’am even when his eyes had a different message.

  Phoenix realized she could smell the sour spice of Harley’s day-old deodorant. He was standing too close to her, a mound of body heat. Harley ran his palm across the top of Phoenix’s head, lingering at her neck. It was an intimate touch, one she saved for Carlos.

  “You know, your cold’s not getting any better,” Harley said. “You need to get out of this hellhole before you really get sick.” His words were tender, but his voice was not.

  “Carlos is all right?” she said, hoping to tempt him to say the words. Waiting for Harley to answer made Phoenix so anxious that she started coughing. “There’s a palace, maybe a church, high on a hilltop …” she began, breathless. A wheeze.

  “Save it for the room,” he said, leading her into the hall. “Let’s get it on tape.”

  Until then, Phoenix hadn’t been sure they would leave her cell, with Harley’s mood so strange. Relief quivered her knees. She didn’t want to be locked in her cell with him.

  As he pulled her into the hall, Harley ran his hand across her scalp again, and farther down her neck. Caressed her shoulder blades. He always touched her in ways she didn’t like, subtle taps on her kneecaps now and then, but his hand felt heavy and purposeful now.

  “There’s a valley below the church, or maybe it’s a palace …” Phoenix said.

  Harley’s hand slid casually across her lower back as he walked her briskly down the hall.

  “You’d say anything to get out of here today,” Harley said.

  “All this time, I was looking in the wrong place,” she said. “It’s the dream I should have looked at. I’ve had the dream more than once. I had it the first time the night of the raid, when I was brought here. I should have realized …” Her teeth were chattering.

  Two soldiers were waiting in the elevator. The dark-haired one had a mustache, the one who brought her oatmeal and stale bread occasionally, making jokes about room service. She had never seen the younger soldier, who was about twenty-four, badly sunburned, his carrot-colored hair shaved into a crewcut. The new soldier was husky, but he watched Harley with trepidation, taking a step back. Neither soldier met her eyes.

  Harley led her inside the elevator, his hand pressing harder against her back. Phoenix despised Harley’s touch, but at least his hand was warm.

  The elevator door opened, and Harley’s hand guided her out. The last door on the right loomed at the end of the hall. Would they be alone? Was there a camera in the interrogation room? His two hundred fifty pounds could crush her.

  It didn’t matter, she tried to tell herself. Nothing Harley could do to her body was worse than Marcus being away from her.

  “No time to drag your feet now,” Harley said.

  “I’m not dragging,” she said. “Let’s get this done quick, real fast, so I can go. I’ll tell you all about the palace. It’s … Spanish, maybe….”

  “This isn’t a good day for you to jerk me around, princess. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Her feet were dragging. He lifted her by her armpits every few steps to keep her walking. Her weight was nothing for him to carry, but she knew that if she didn’t walk faster, he would fling her over his shoulder the way he had the day they took Marcus. And then he’ll rape me as soon as he closes the door.

  It was more than a premonition; it was just a hard fact. She’d never had those thoughts about Harley, who was stern and loud, sometimes, but always professional. Harley had changed.

  “Just—just give me a chance to tell you,” she said. “It’s all in my dream.”

  “Walk.” His grip around her arm was a clamp. The suddenness of the pressure made her realize he could snap her arm in half.

  “Ow!” she said. “There’s no reason to hurt me. I said I’ll tell you all about it!”

  Phoenix saw moral outrage in the younger soldier’s eyes. He was scared for her.

  Phoenix’s own fear caught in her throat, and she started coughing again. This time, Harley shoved her. She flew ahead three steps, nearly losing her balance against the wall.

  “Uh, sir …” the younger soldier began, before he’d planned out what he would say.

  “Mind your goddamn business,” Harley said.

  As if to punish Phoenix instead, Harley leaned against her, pinning her to the wall with his weight while he pulled out his key card for the interrogation room. He was so big, he smothered her light. Her insides gave a spasm from the effort of coughing against his bulk.

  Through the crook of Harley’s arm, Phoenix saw the soldier staring at her, flinching as his instincts told him to help her. His jaw was shaking, he was so mad. Or scared. Phoenix didn’t know which. Maybe, like her, his rage and fear were tied together so closely that they were impossible to pull apart.

  “You think you’ve got the guts for my job?” Harley said to the soldier.

  “No, sir,” the soldier said quickly, and the second soldier shot him a cutting glare. The soldier with the mustache had never had a problem seeing Phoenix as a prisoner. Maybe he’d seen worse. Maybe he had done worse to Carlos.

  “You think we should sit back and let this spoiled, crazy bitch open our doors to bioterrorists?” Harley said. He leaned harder, and one of Phoenix’s joints cracked. The soldiers heard it, too. Phoenix’s body was too compressed to feel new pain. Harley had never called her names before. He sounded as if he were talking about someone else. Becoming someone else.

  “No, sir,” the soldier said in a small voice. “I don’t think that at all.”

  The panel glowed green with approval. Phoenix heard the door click open.

  “Got any other quandaries you want to chat about, dogshit?” Harley said.

  “No, sir.”

  Phoenix gave the soldier a smile that she hoped was more than miserable. “It’s okay,” she wheezed through her cough. “I’m stronger … than I look.”

  The pep talk won her a punch in the stomach with an impact like being hit by a car, ramming her spine against the wall. Phoenix had never been punched so hard. She sucked in a long gasp while her lungs tried to remember how to breathe. Red and black spots cartwheeled before her eyes.

  Her legs were gone now, or seemed to be. She couldn’t move, much less walk.

  “Still feeling strong?” Harley said, his breath hot and full in her ear. His gums smelled infected and his breath stank of coffee, but Phoenix inhaled his odors, hoarding the air.

  He dragged her beneath her armpits, clawlike fingertips digging. Instinct made her feet scrabble against the floor. The orange-haired soldier’s apologetic eyes were the last thing Phoenix saw before Harley pulled her into the interrogation room and closed the door.

  This door was metal, not glass. No one could see in or out.

  Phoenix braced for another blow, or Harley’s hands tearing at her clothes.

  Instead, Harley gave out a strangled grunt, and melted to the floor at her feet. To Phoenix, it looked as if someone had pulled a plug and deflated him. His huge palm, which had stroked her back only moments before, flopped open. His key card skittered under the table.

  Phoenix stared at him in confusion until she saw the ring of blood across his neck.

  Two masked black soldiers stood behind her in green fatigues, out of sight from the doorway. One of the men was nearly as big as Harley. The other man was slender, holding a bloodied knife. The big man raised a gun, pointing toward the empty wall beside the door. Phoenix realized he meant to shoot at the other two soldiers through the solid concrete.

  “No!” she said. “He—”

  But her call came too late. The gun made a sound like two puffs of air, virtually a whisper. Two holes appeared in the wall, three feet apart. Chest level. The masked man had aimed directly at the soldiers’ hea
rts.

  “The lioness and lion meet …”

  Phoenix sang instead of screaming.

  DON’T BE AFRAID, Fana’s voice said in her head. THEY WON’T HURT YOU.

  The voice made Phoenix’s eyes snap open. She was still being carried over the big soldier’s shoulder, her sore stomach and bruised ribs chafing against him with every jouncing step. The men spoke to each other in a rapid-fire language she didn’t know. Despite their uniforms, they weren’t American.

  Where was Fana? How could she hear Fana’s voice? Was she dreaming?

  The big man called out a warning in a commanding basso. The man leading them, the one with the knife, dove across the floor, reaching the end of the hall in time to surprise a man rounding a corner in a three-piece suit. The soldier plunged a knife into his neck, once on each side, so efficient it was like an illusion. Blood spurted in twin fountains. The dead man didn’t have time to make a sound before he was on the floor.

  No! Phoenix tried to say. Not for me. No more killing for me.

  DO NOT BE AFRAID, Fana’s voice said. YOU’LL SEE MARCUS AND CARLOS SOON.

  Red lights were flashing in the hall, silent alarms. More urgent whispers from the soldiers, and she was jounced in yet another direction. The soldiers were running up the stairs, talking back and forth, increasingly agitated.

  What if she was sent to her cell again? What if these men were worse than the last?

  Phoenix felt herself swooning, her consciousness fading into a wave of panic. Each jolt up the steps was a new blow to her stomach. She wanted the soldier to put her down on her feet so she could stumble some kind of way on her own. She wriggled, but his iron arm held her.

  DO NOT BE AFRAID, Fana’s voice said. LET ME HELP YOU BE LESS AFRAID.

  Yes, yes, yes, Phoenix thought. Please. I’m hurt.

  It was as if Fana’s voice was the voice she had been looking for when she tried to talk to God. Time had taught her to be satisfied with silence when she really needed to think God was there—in the cell downstairs, and when her mother had been screaming in pain at the hospital. But sometimes she’d thought the silence meant that no one and nothing was listening. Deep down, she’d wondered if it was foolish to believe anything else.