Part 35 (1/2)

But what if they didn't?

In the end, Jessica was relieved when David and Kira walked back outside through the store's gla.s.s doors. Her chance was gone. No more decisions to make. All she had to do was ride in the backseat and wonder if David would ever actually shoot her, wonder what it would be like to live for five hundred years, wonder if Alex was all right, wonder what Peter had felt when his throat was slashed. And stroke her cat's tummy while he died.

”I saw an M!” Kira cried to David, pointing somewhere out of the winds.h.i.+eld. ”There.”

”You're telling tales, Kira. That's not nice,” David said.

”It is too there.”

”Then where's the M in Dairy Queen, young lady?”

”In the middle,” Kira said, and she was beset by giggling.

”Spell it.”

”D-A-I-R- ... Kira began, and laughed again, ”... M-Y ...”

Unexpectedly, Jessica chuckled once, deep from her chest. She didn't even know she'd been listening, but a part of her mind had decided to laugh. David glanced at her in the mirror, surprised. Too bad for him if he expected to see her smiling. Jessica couldn't remember the last time she'd smiled in days. She couldn't even remember where smiles came from.

”Just for that, you lose a point,” David said to Kira, his eyes still on Jessica in the mirror. ”You have to find L all over again too. I'm still ahead of you.”

Jessica's eyes locked with his, just that fast, and her stomach and chest and every loose part inside her seemed to gather, and she realized what she'd been thinking all this time she'd been staring outside: I'm still in love with him.

”Mommy, what's wrong with Teacake?” Kira was staring at the cat's wide-open eyes. Until she spoke, Jessica hadn't noticed that Kira had clicked free of her seat belt and was leaning over the seat to gaze back at them.

”He's very tired,” Jessica answered hoa.r.s.ely. Her voice was gone now too. Soon, she feared, everything would be gone. ”I think he needs to rest.”

”He's not the only one,” David said. ”Look out for a motel so we can pull over before the sun gets unbearable. More than it is already, I mean. Okay, Jess?”

Jessica looked. His eyes were there again.

Dawit was beginning to realize how selfish he'd been. He'd thought so much of his own losses that he hadn't considered Jessica's. He had never seen her look so wretched.

In fact, he had brought her nothing but wretchedness. Her life would have been better without him. He'd known this in the beginning.

Stay away from that woman, he'd told himself the first day he noticed her. You will make her life a misery, as yours always has been. You will bring her the same pain you brought Christina and Rufus and Rosalie.

”David, why did you fall in love with me?” Jessica had asked so often, especially when they were first married. To him, the reasons were obvious, but they were impossible to explain. How could he tell her that when he saw himself reflected through her eyes, he could forget what he was? He'd wanted her in his bed because of her face, her youthful shapeliness, the challenge in her defiant eyes. But he'd lost his heart to her because she was everything he was not. And for everything he'd known he would teach her, he had hoped she could teach him too.

What did she see now? Would she ever again touch him, or always tremble away?

He wanted her still. Despite all the turmoil of the past twenty-four hours and the worse suffering that he knew remained, all he could think as he stared in the mirror at her face was that he wanted so badly to make love to her and hear her whimper her pleasures in his ear.

He wanted to hear her say that she loved him, even if it was a lie, or to at least a.s.sure him that she'd loved him once. He, who had taken love so much for granted. Christina's love had been of no real value to him. And Adele's love only showed its true power when she was no longer with him.

Could he even name the others? Rana, of course. His first.

But what of the women in Cairo, the chieftain's daughter in Ife, the naive bargirl in Paris (Monique? Charmaine?), the n.o.blewoman he'd toyed with in Gonder before losing his hand to her husband's sword? They had all loved him. So was this what they had felt when he was gone, this horrible longing to step backward in time?

Oh, to take it all back. To take everything back!

Couldn't Jessica see that this was why he could not leave her and Kira? He could never leave anyone again. And if he must spend eternity longing to see the love missing from Jessica's angry eyes, then the punishment suited him. At least he would always, always have Kira. He must never give Kira reason to hate him as Jessica did.

Dawit clutched his daughter's hand. It was sticky from the c.o.ke she'd spilled from the burger place when she tried to push her straw through the plastic top. ”My legs hurt, Daddy.”

”They've probably fallen asleep because you can't move around enough. We'll stop soon, d.u.c.h.ess. Then you can stretch.”

First, to find lodgings, for rest and an escape from this horrible sun. Next, the Ritual. He had all he needed in the bag he'd brought from Walgreen's. Dawit's heart leaped from both joy and fear. He would do it sometime before morning. He could not dwell on it long, or he would lose his nerve.

And tomorrow? More driving. He hoped he would be able to locate his contact in New Orleans, the man who could manufacture pa.s.sports and birth certificates for Jessica and Kira. Fifteen years had pa.s.sed since he'd seen the red-haired man-he'd never known his name-and he had no phone, but Dawit knew how to find his secluded bayou home. It was unlikely he would have moved, even after all this time. He'd told Dawit, in his butchered English and with an ironic twinkle in his eye, how his family had owned the overgrown parcel of land since the days of slavery.

This would be Dawit's last return to the region stamped with his suffering. They would be away from here at last, beginning fresh. And living, at last, a life without unhappy endings.

53.

From somewhere, there was light.

Mahmoud's eyes flew open and he blinked hard, his senses momentarily stunned. His head was covered, he realized. He smelled blood directly beneath his nose. Beyond, he smelled pine trees all around him, and a fainter scent of exhaust fumes. When Mahmoud tried to move, his body grew so rigid that he had to clench his teeth in pain.

Suddenly, the rough fabric covering his face was whipped away and Mahmoud was greeted by the fresh, dew-drenched scent of morning.

”Come now,” a familiar voice said. ”This is a very strange resting place, brother.” Could it be his imagination? He was seeing his Life brother Kelile, the jokester, grinning widely beneath his wiry moustache. He had no skullcap, but he was dressed traditionally in a white tunic and white linen slacks. His clothes seemed to glow against his dark skin.

Kelile, with a grunt, reached beneath Mahmoud's armpits to pull him until he was sitting up straight. Someone behind Mahmoud began to yank the blood-spotted tarp from his shoulders to free him. Startled, Mahmoud turned to see who it was. Teka, the technological master from the House of Science! He, too, wore a white tunic and pants. How could his brothers be here? Was he dreaming?

Mahmoud's thoughts were interrupted by pain. He cried out, feeling as though his limbs were being torn apart as they tried to bring him to his feet.

”The devil has s.h.i.+t on you,” Kelile laughed in Amharic, touching Mahmoud's soiled Western clothing. ”What is this shambles?”

”Are you an illusion?” Mahmoud asked.

”No, my brother,” Kelile said, squeezing his shoulders hard. ”No illusion. Flesh.”

Despite his confusion and pain-wracked body, Mahmoud grinned. No joy could compare to the unexpected appearance of two Life brothers, and such well-respected Searchers. No other Searchers could boast the swiftness of Kelile and Teka, especially guided by Teka's devices. What a happy reunion! Khaldun always said Searchers should not think of themselves as individuals: They were a smaller family created to preserve the peace of the larger family. Mahmoud held Kelile and Teka in a long, hearty embrace.

As he leaned against them, he was barely able to stand. What had happened to him? The van with Dawit's wife and daughter had stopped along the roadside. He'd fired his gun at them. What next? Instantly, Mahmoud remembered the oncoming headlights, the grill of an automobile upon him. And its deadly impact, mercifully swift.

”Dawit must not have changed much,” Kelile said. ”By your appearance, I see he still has the heart and strength of ten men.”

”Not so. Do not be fooled. He is resourceful, but he is not the Dawit you remember,” Mahmoud said sadly. ”It is not so much Dawit's victory you witness here, but only my own failure. That is why Khaldun has sent you, I'm sure. But so quickly?”

”Sit, Mahmoud,” Teka said, indicating a patch of gra.s.s covered with pine needles. ”You are in a very poor state.”