Free Blood Colony by Tananarive Due Page A

Despite how he felt about Justin O’Neal, Jessica and Fana must share his decision. Hell was waiting for him across the path, at home.
    Berhanu’s jowls shook with anger. “I will not have our blood stolen. Never again. Why do we sit here awaiting disaster? Are we simply mad, or has it been too long since one of us was left in a cage to bleed for the pleasure of others?”
    Dawit felt his heart surge in agreement. He and Berhanu had spoken many times about the blood mission’s risks not only to them but to Fana, as well. Dawit never doubted Teka’s wisdom, but he heeded Berhanu’s, too. Berhanu was a warrior, and a battle was on the horizon. There were more signs all the time.
    In the past six months, there had been four abductions; the first in Vancouver, British Columbia, another in Ann Arbor, one in San Francisco, and the last in Miami. The first victim, who had turned up dead two weeks after being reported missing by his mother, had been an insignificant drug dealer with no connections to anyone in Dawit’s circle—hardly worth noticing. Dawit would not have noted his killing at all, except for the web that connected him to the rest.
    A biology professor at the University of Michigan. An artist with a Haight-Ashbury studio. A social worker in South Beach. All of them abducted and then murdered. Each abduction higher in the chain, skillfully reaching closer to the supplies they risked their freedom for, to sell on the streets in the so-called Underground Railroad.
    Somewhere, an enemy was too close for comfort. Much too close to home.
    “Tell us what happened in Seattle, Dawit.” Teka sounded uncommonly weary.
    In silence, his brothers turned to him, waiting. Now, it comes, Dawit thought.
    “Aloud, please. Your thoughts are disordered,” Teferi said, crossing his arms. “A guilty conscience, I hope. Poor Caitlin tells a ghastly tale of a priest with a broken neck.”
    Dawit’s headache amplified, ringing in his ears. With such sudden unison, his brothers’ mental probes were uncomfortable. “I regret his death,” Dawit said. “I bear the responsibility.”
    Dawit felt a soothing mental hum; his brothers understood. Sometimes innocents died.
    “What went wrong?” Teka said.
    “My mind art failed me.”
    Teka nodded. “That was my biggest fear when you left. The art is too new to you.”
    He might have succeeded if Teferi had been with him. Teferi was far more advanced, but the Brothers had decided that Teferi should be excluded from surveillance involving Caitlin. He was too attached to her, by blood.
    ANOTHER TRAGIC BIT OF NONSENSE, Teferi’s voice niggled in Dawit’s head, purposely amplified for effect.
    Dawit ignored Teferi and went on. “I knew someone was waiting for her…”
    As soon as Dawit had stepped into the hallway of the shelter in Seattle, he had known that he and Caitlin O’Neal had not been alone. The sensation had been like slipping his head through an invisible film, a faint pulse between his ears. Someone had been hiding ahead of him, no farther than fifteen feet from where he’d stood. The stranger had a gun ready in his hand.
    Dawit had known all of these things in the space of a single breath. The certainty had not been of his eyes, nor his ears, nor any sense he had relied upon until only a few short years ago. Dawit’s perceptions had invaded the other man’s, sluicing words and images that had nearly drowned his own thoughts. Myriad perceptions had made Dawit’s heart race.
    A nickel-plated revolver. A bloodied white robe. A syringe.
    But something had gone wrong.
    Dawit finished: “All I knew for certain was that he had a gun, and he waited for Caitlin. Nothing more. I should not have gone alone. I was vain.”
    If only he could have brought Teka! There was no one among them more masterful at thought translation, but Teka never ventured from the colony. His demanding meditation schedule alone made trips outside difficult. Teka had brought much-needed weaponry from