Free Blood Colony by Tananarive Due Page B

Lalibela, but Dawit knew he would be reluctant to put the weapons to use.
    “This priest had a gun?” Teka said. “I find that significant.”
    “This nation is armed. Their children shoot each other at their schools,” Dawit said. “He said the gun was for protection. You would do well to model him.”
    Teka ignored the chide. “What other thoughts did you find?” Teka said. “Show me.”
    Dawit offered his memories to Teka, slipping into his teacher’s familiar mental stream. He remembered himself in the shelter’s kitchen, when his thoughts had been overrun by the injured priest’s cascade of English and Italian words barely ordered enough to decipher. Only one word had leaped uncluttered into his consciousness: Sangue. Blood.
    Then, images again: a crimson ribbon wound through a medallion imprinted with the unmistakable patterns of a cross and a crest he knew too well. The medallion had lain on a path within the smoking ruins of a village, evidence of killing. Burned huts. Charred remains.
    “What startled me most was…the medallion of Sanctus Cruor,” Dawit said. “I saw a vision of it, from a burned village I came across during the war.”
    The end of the nineteenth century had wearied Dawit to his soul, between being thrust into the American Civil War and then Ethiopia’s war with the Italians on its heels. The nation of his birth had nearly been destroyed by a quest for their blood, even if the history books told another story. Sanctus Cruor had been a small sect, but its high-reaching influence had served as an enduring example of the danger to their kind if their blood was ever traced to them.
    “Brothers…I believe I lost control,” Dawit said. “I felt transported to another place. An earlier time. There is no excuse.”
    “When you delve in the memories of others, you are likely to unearth your own,” Teka said, one of his most oft-repeated warnings. “Still, we must consider the possibility that the priest was involved in these killings. We’ll begin with him.”
    “Father Arturo Bragga lies at the King County morgue, a martyr to our noble cause of healing the poor and infirm,” Dawit said. He raised his drinking glass in a mimicry of mortals’ customary dinner toast. “A true man of God should welcome such a selfless death. Shall we make a contribution to his church?” he asked, half in earnest, half in jest.
    Teferi’s face was so grim that his skin was ashen. “I see the killer in you is wide awake, Dawit.”
    Was Teferi, like Teka, another who hoped they could give away blood without taking blood in return? Teferi had fought by his side in Miami fourteen years ago, fending off a rich man’s mercenaries. In the 1700s, Teferi’s own son had slit Teferi’s throat, as if he had been slaughtering livestock, draining his father’s blood into a bucket for days.
    “The killer in me is my most practical aspect,” Dawit said as gently as he could.
    It was the worst of timing.
    Suddenly Fana stood in the room, watching Dawit. Her tear-streaked face glowed with hurt that looked too much like the pain he had offered his wife long ago. Dawit’s stomach felt sheared.
    The room hushed. Fana rarely entered.
    Dawit’s Brothers rose to their feet, their heads lowered in deference. Dawit rose as well, but not as an acolyte. Dawit had vowed never to make that mistake, no matter what the temptation. This was his child .
    Dawit left his Brothers’ table, reaching out to take his daughter’s slender, delicate hand into his. In Amharic, Fana’s self-chosen name meant “light,” and Dawit felt the light endowed by her touch. She drew away at first but relented when he clasped her hand again. She allowed him to escort her away from the table.
    He had been mad to think he could kill the father of his daughter’s friend. To kill either of the O’Neals would kill a piece of his child’s heart. And what of his own?
    “It’s time for me to go home, Brothers,” Dawit said. “To my