The Spider Stone

by Alex Archer

  In spite of his hardships and the lack of help, Tafari had flourished. At sixteen, he had joined a Yoruba warlord named Foday who preyed on the villagers and attacked and harassed the white men who came to Senegal to hunt. They'd killed some of them outright, but others they had held for ransom for a time before killing them.

  Six years ago, when Tafari had been twenty-seven, a group of British mercenaries had come to Senegal looking for Foday. They found him. They'd been hired by a family who had bought back a corpse. When the mercenaries were finished, so was Foday. They'd killed the warlord and decapitated him, taking his head as proof of his death.

  Tafari had gone down in the battle, taking two rounds through the abdomen. The mercenaries had left him for dead. He'd almost died before he was able to stanch the bleeding.

  But he had lived. And he'd gotten the group back together, proclaiming himself as leader. He'd only had to kill two other men who had wanted to challenge him. After that, the men realized that he was going to lead them to heights that Foday hadn't taken them. Now the group lived better than they ever had, with their pick of women and anything the villages had to offer.

  Over the years, Tafari had taken in three times as many men as Foday had been willing to recruit. Keeping them fed and happy required aggressive planning. That had necessitated having more and better weapons so he could in turn control larger groups.

  As a result, he had helped hide al-Qaeda terrorists, when the United States government had invaded Iraq, in exchange for assault weapons. That had earned him eternal enmity from the Americans. Occasionally mercenaries entered the brush seeking the bounty on Tafari's head.

  The man he hunted now had been one of them.

  Tafari's warriors had allowed the mercenary unit to get deep within the brush, then they'd taken them in the night, killing the guard and stealing the Land Rover the men had driven. On foot, the men had tried to make their way back to civilization.

  For the past four nights, Tafari had hunted them, taking them down one at a time. Each night for the previous three nights, he had killed one man.

  Tonight he would kill the last one.

  Movement broke to his left.

  Like a predator, Tafari went immediately still. Action attracted his eye and lifted images out of the darkness. He held the long knife down by his leg.

  The man was white, pale against the night. He'd tried to rub mud over his features, but he hadn't been able to conceal himself well. Big and hulking, doubtless made so by working out and the drugs that made men's muscles balloon, he looked like a monster in the darkness. Tafari had deliberately saved the largest man for last. The man wore a camouflage shirt and pants and boots that hadn't been off his feet in three days because the first night Tafari had taken one man's boots and they'd had to travel much more slowly.

  Less than fifteen feet away, Tafari could smell the stink of fear on the man. The man had had no rest. Last night, he and the other man had tried to walk through the dark hours. They couldn't. At a cold camp, they'd tried to stay awake all night. Tafari had slept only a few feet away. Then he roused before dawn, walked into the camp, and slit the other man's throat, leaving him dead for the survivor to find.

  The man out in the brush had awoken lying next to a dead man. He had run through most of the day, trying to use the sun as his guide because his compass and other equipment had been taken. As a result, he'd gone in a large semicircle and had exhausted himself and what little water he'd carried.

  During the day, Tafari had slept and rested, looking forward to his final night of hunting. Taking a fresh grip on the knife, he moved stealthily after the man. He came up on him from behind, levering an arm across the man's forehead and yanking his head back to expose his throat.

  "You are dead," Tafari told the man in English. He'd learned the language piecemeal over the years, from other warriors, as well as the Europeans he did business with. In West Africa, English was the chosen language of drug dealers, traffickers in human slavery and the black market.

  "No!" the man shouted. He struggled to get free, but Tafari wrapped his legs around the man and rode him like a beast.

  "You came here," Tafari said, "to my place. To take my life. That is unforgivable. Now you will pay for that with your life."

  "Don't! You can't do – !"

  Tafari rested the edge of his blade against the man's throat. "I can. You can't stop me."

  Squealing in horror, the man tried to run, aiming himself toward a tree.

  Taking gleeful pride in the man's fear, Tafari rode him, hanging on despite the man's efforts to pry free the arm around his head. The man's teeth gnashed as he tried to bite his tormentor. He grabbed for the knife. Tafari raked the sharp edge across the man's palm, slicing it to the bone. Blood sprayed everywhere, slung off by the man's exertions.

  The man howled again and rammed Tafari into the tree. The impact hurt, but Tafari only drew himself more tightly to the man and laughed in his ear.

  "Now," Tafari snarled, "you will die." He clamped his teeth on to the man's ear, tasting the man's blood. When his victim reared his head back to try to tear away from the teeth, Tafari slit his throat and felt hot blood cascade over his hand and arm.

  Tafari rode the man to the ground as he died, never once letting him forget who had killed him. When it was over, he stood and hacked the dead man's head from his shoulders.

  Holding the man's head by the hair, Tafari stood and presented his offering to the dark gods he worshipped, telling them this was a sacrifice he had made in their honor. If a man had to sacrifice to the gods, Tafari believed it had to be in blood. There was nothing else so precious.

  At that moment, a large pharaoh-eagle owl glided across the round face of the silver moon. The bird's tawny, white-and-black feathers gleamed in the light. A dead mouse hung from its talons.

  "Both of us were successful hunters tonight, brother," Tafari told the owl. He felt certain the bird's presence was an omen, a promise of good things to come.

  The winged predator made no response and quickly disappeared from sight.

  Kneeling, Tafari wiped his knife clean on the dead man's clothes, then stood and gave a loud whistle. In the distance, an engine started and headlights sprang to life. He walked toward them, holding on to the head.

  The driver pulled the jeep to a stop in front of Tafari. Three other men, all young and armed with assault rifles, sat in the back. Most of them wore tribal tattoos and necklaces of gold and ivory. They flaunted their wealth, because in West Africa wealth meant power.

  "You've finished your hunt," Zifa stated. He was young and hard, a man not to be trifled with, though most didn't realize that until too late. Scars covered his arms and there were a few on his handsome face. When he had been younger, in his teens, he had fought with knives for prize money in Dakar. To lose was to die. He had never lost, but he had been cut several times.

  "I have." Tafari plopped the dead man's head on the front of the truck. The other heads he'd taken were already tied there, all of them bloated and turning black from the heat. When he was done with them, he intended to have them returned to the man who had hired them.

  One of the men in back clambered out with elastic ties. He quickly secured the head to the jeep's hood, then stood back and admired his handiwork.

  Tafari waved the man into the jeep. He pulled himself into the passenger seat. "Have you heard from Ehigiator?" he asked the driver.

  They had communications equipment at their base. Some of the younger recruits had been to college and had learned about such things. Tafari prided himself on being able to use the knowledge they had for his own agenda.

  "No." Zifa put the jeep into gear and pulled around in a tight turn. Then he was following his headlights, using the vehicle's bumper to chop through the brush. There were few roads in northwestern Senegal. Most of the ones off the main thoroughfares were trails villagers used to get from one market to another.

  "Perhaps it is too early." Tafari studied the landscape.
/>   "Perhaps." Zifa drove easily, at home with the vehicle as it crashed through the brush. "There is another matter."

  "What?"

  "The Hausa village to the north."

  Tafari knew of the village. Over the past few weeks, the people living there had become a thorn in his paw. "What about them?" he asked.

  "They continue their rebellion."

  Tafari thought about that. In the overall scheme of things, the village wasn't much. It was like a raindrop in a monsoon. But it had the chance of becoming something much bigger if those who lived there persisted in their defiance of him.

  "Why haven't you dealt with this?" Tafari demanded.

  Zifa didn't react to the anger in his voice. He focused on his driving, and that angered Tafari further. He had placed Zifa second in command, had killed a man who had been with him longer but didn't have the cunning Zifa did. Failure in that position wasn't an option.

  "Jaineba is there," Zifa said. "You said you wanted to deal with her."

  Tafari cursed and spit. He didn't want to deal with the old woman. Nor did he want anyone else to deal with her until he knew for certain how he was going to handle her.

  "She is there now?"

  Zifa nodded.

  A trickle of fear seeped through Tafari's bowels. He still didn't know what to do about the old woman, but he couldn't put it off. He glanced at the line of heads bouncing on the jeep's hood. He'd made his offering to Ogun, chief among the orisha – the sky gods – and appealed to that god's sense of vengeance, praying that all of his enemies might be struck down in the days to come.

  Still, Jaineba was a person of power. Ancient and withered, the old woman was tied to Africa in ways that Tafari still didn't understand.

  But he couldn't put off dealing with her if she was getting in his way.

  "Take me there," he commanded.

  Zifa brought the jeep around, churning dirt as the wheels chewed into the earth.

  Reaching back over the seat, Tafari took the Chinese assault rifle one of the men on the rear deck handed him. If he had his choice and the situation demanded it, he would rather kill the old woman with the knife. But she commanded magic. He wasn't too proud to use the rifle if it came to that.

  His thoughts strayed to the Spider Stone, wondering if Ehigiator had been successful in wresting it from the Americans and the police. The Spider Stone was important. Especially if all the myths about it were true.

  ****

  The phone rang.

  Seated in bed at the hotel Professor Hallinger had arranged for her, Annja grabbed the phone by reflex. She pressed the talk button and put it to her ear.

  "Hey, Annja."

  She recognized Doug Morrell's voice at once. Her producer at Chasing History's Monsters had a distinctive New York accent. "Doug." She glanced at the hotel clock. It was almost 4:00 a.m. "You're up late or early," she said.

  "Both," Morrell replied. "I'm sneaking home after picking up a girl at Dark Realms."

  Annja knew Dark Realms was a Goth bar in Manhattan that her producer liked to frequent. In the nightclub, he was a count and high in the pecking order of wannabe vampires. Although he wouldn't admit it, Doug liked playing a vampire and hanging with the night crowd.

  The bar was owned by Baron Riddle, a mysterious millionaire who'd gotten rich with the five Goth clubs he'd built around the United States. There was a waiting list for memberships.

  "Sneaking home isn't exactly the gallant thing to do after a tryst," Annja pointed out.

  "It wasn't a tryst," he protested. "More like an exchange of fantasies. We did the biting thing. A little playacting with ropes and interrogation – "

  "Stop." Annja sat up straighter in bed, trying to work out the kinks she'd developed while working on the translation of the stone.

  "What?"

  "Too much information. I really don't need to know all the details of your little fang fest. You called at this hour for a reason?" she asked wearily.

  "I just heard about you on CNN. The thing down in Atlanta. So I thought I'd give you a call and see if there's anything in it for us."

  Annja answered immediately. "No."

  "Aw, come on," Doug whined. "This could be big."

  "You just want to jump on the coattails of the CNN coverage." Annja couldn't believe the story had made national news. Must be a slow news night. Or maybe they were wanting something off the beaten track, she figured.

  "It is an opportunity," Doug replied. "Ratings matter."

  "There's nothing for you here. No monsters. Those people were killed 150 years ago by a kid with a grudge and a racial issue."

  "We could work with that. Any chance that the warehouse is haunted?"

  "I thought you hated ghost stories," Annja said. Every time she had advanced the idea of pursuing a story and had to cite spectral manifestations as the only lure, Doug had shot it down.

  "I do hate ghost stories. We're not Ghosthunters. We chase monsters."

  "No monsters here," Annja said.

  "Are you sure about that?"

  She reached for the cup of coffee on the nightstand. "I'm sure," she said.

  "I'll take a ghost if I have to," Doug said. "Maybe we can parlay it into something else."

  "This is legitimate archaeological work." Annja said that slowly, willing it to sink in. Ever since she'd picked up the job at Chasing History's Monsters so she could have travel expenses paid for trips to places that she couldn't get to on her own, she'd worked hard to keep her real work separate from the sensationalism the television show demanded. "It's not television fare."

  "CNN seems to be running with it. They're even playing you up in the piece. Professor Annja Creed. Don't tell me you haven't seen it."

  Annja glanced at the armoire on the other side of the room. She hadn't even opened it. "Haven't even turned the television set on."

  "You should."

  "It's been a busy night. Maybe you missed the part about us almost getting blown up."

  "You almost got blown up?"

  Annja sighed. Doug had a tendency to hear only what he wanted to hear. "I guess you didn't call to see how I was doing," she said.

  "How are you doing?" Doug asked.

  "I'm fine. But I've got a lot of work to do."

  "What work?"

  "Translating the stone we found."

  "What stone?" He sounded excited.

  Annja had to smile. Doug Morrell truly had the most one-track mind of anyone she'd ever met. "I need to get back to it. I'll talk to you later."

  "I should have asked how you were first, huh?"

  "It would have been nice, but it wouldn't have been you."

  "I do care that you're all right."

  "I know."

  "Friends?"

  "Friends."

  "So if you find out the warehouse was haunted...?"

  "Good night, Doug." Annja closed her cell phone. Reluctantly, she got up from the bed and walked to the window. From there she could see the top of the warehouse. The lights of the police car whirled in the darkness.

  She walked to her notebook computer and logged on to the hotel's WiFi link. Once she was on the Internet, she opened up the archaeology newsgroups she favored. She'd placed pictures of the Spider Stone and some of the history of the site in the forums under Spider Stone less than an hour earlier. She hadn't expected much, but there were already three responses.

  She opened up the first one and began to read.

  Chapter 6

  Caught the story on CNN tonight. You're one hot-looking babe. Married? Looking for a cheap fling with a guy who can talk three languages?

  Great, Annja thought. And you probably sound just as charming and irresistible in all three languages. She hoped the other postings weren't as juvenile. She skipped the rest of the entry and moved on to the next one.

  I blew up the pictures of the stone, hausaboy@africanskys.org wrote. The digital camera you're using is freaking awesome. Wish I could afford one.

  That looks like
the Hausa language, unless I'm way off base here. Saw the story on CNN and got intrigued. From what I've been able to translate so far, the stone describes a journey from the author's homeland to America back in 1755.

  Okay, Annja thought, I'm evidently dealing with someone who's better versed in the Hausa language than I am. She checked the writer's e-mail and saved it off to a working file.

  The date caught her attention. If the stone was dated as being from 1755, it had been one hundred years old before it ended up in the warehouse furnace.

  Wait, she chided herself. You're tired. The story might have a date in it, but that doesn't mean that's when the stone was inscribed.

  The post continued.

  Have you translated the writing? If not, I might be able to assist. I'm Nigerian. Currently going to school at USC. Majoring in computer arts but have an archaeology jones I just can't shake.

  If you can shoot the rest of the writing in sequential order, I'd be happy to help.

  Even though archaeology relied on discipline, skill and exposure, Annja knew that luck couldn't be beaten. She got her camera out and shot the stone again, overlapping the pictures so the writing could be viewed continuously.

  Once she had them finished, she posted them to a Web site she maintained as a clearinghouse for projects. She created a page just for the Spider Stone images.

  Then she wrote a note to hausaboy@africanskys.org.

  Here are the pics. Thanks for your time! Would love to compare notes when you get something ready.

  The third posting was from mythhunter@worldoflegends.net.

  Just caught the pics you posted. Can't help you with the language, but maybe with some of the myth behind the stone.

  Are you familiar with Anansi? He was an African god. A trickster. His legend crossed to North America when slaves were brought over. He's still a major folklore presence in the Caribbean.

  Don't know if the rock you're looking at has anything to do with Anansi, but the spider pic is totally cool.