by Layton Green
Grey’s eyes flicked back and forth between the boy and the two men. The boy reached for a jar and unscrewed the lid, tilting the open jar forward as if ready to toss its contents onto Viktor. Grey called out, warning him.
But the two had already engaged. Viktor swooped onto Doctor Fangwa as would a bird of prey onto a rodent, enveloping the air around them. He thrust into Fangwa’s midsection as Fangwa raised his arm to strike.
Fangwa’s thin blade clanged to the floor, and he sagged. He lowered to the ground, supported by Viktor’s hand on his back. Viktor thrust deeper into Fangwa.
Viktor pulled the curved knife out of Fangwa’s body, glistening and scarlet. Grey watched, stunned, as Fangwa crumpled to the floor.
The boy waited with an open jar in his hands, his stiffness layered with an almost human confusion. The boy made no move towards Viktor.
Fangwa lay curled in a spindly ball, wheezing and clutching the robes bunched at his midsection, crimson flowing across his fingers. Viktor watched him with a mixture of sadness and relief, of pleasure and pain. One emotion, Grey knew from experience, was missing from Viktor’s face: he didn’t have the innocent shock of one who has never taken a life, of one who has never seen the essence drain from another human being and is transformed forever, appalled at the implication of what has just been done.
Viktor addressed the boy. “Release him.”
The boy put down the jar and produced a set of keys. He walked towards Grey and unlocked his chains. The boy stood blinking, as if the astral umbilical cord to the dream world the mind clings to in the moments after awakening had yet to fully dissolve. He looked impassively at Fangwa.
Grey rubbed his wrists, unable to wrench his gaze away from the boy. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I’m unsure. The Doctor’s will is quite strong. Come, we must question him before he’s gone. I don’t think we need worry about the child.” He turned to the boy. “Is that true?”
The boy continued eying Fangwa with a blank face, and Viktor frowned.
Grey stumbled as the blood returned to his ankles and wrists. He held his left arm out to the side, like a broken wing. It had blistered from wrist to elbow, and pain still swarmed up and down it. All from two light brushes with that horrific substance. Grey shuddered.
“How badly are you injured?” Viktor asked.
“It can wait. Fangwa isn’t the N’anga. Neither is Lucky. The N’anga has Nya and I have no idea where. I’m not sure if Fangwa knows, but we need to find out.”
Grey couldn’t discern his reaction, if any, to the information. He and Viktor bent over Doctor Fangwa. He lay gasping on the floor, holding his stomach, but his eyes still shone with the fervor of belief. What secrets did this man think he knew, such that he didn’t fear the unknowable journey?
Just as Viktor opened his mouth to speak, Fangwa seized Grey’s leg. “You can’t comprehend what he’ll do to her.”
He yanked his leg from Fangwa’s grasp. “Help us find her, since you’re so worried.”
Fangwa cackled like a maddened hyena, the sounds tumbling out of his ruined body.
“Are you afraid?” Grey prodded. “Do you fear him?”
“I am past fear. If I could feel such things… then yes, it would be wise.” He licked his lips, an obscene gesture. “I am left with only desire.” He wagged a finger for Grey and Viktor to come closer. “My bedside table. A photograph.”
Grey caught his breath. “You know who he is?”
“I was sent by my government to find him.”
“To bring him back to Nigeria?”
His attempted laugh escaped as a wheeze. “To kill him.”
“Why?”
“What he seeks in Zimbabwe, someone fears above all else.”
“Someone who?”
He curled his lips in disgust, his face contorted by pain. “The prime minister of my country.”
Viktor and Grey exchanged a confused glance. Grey said, “What could the N’anga possibly be looking for in Zimbabwe that frightens the prime minister of Nigeria?”
Blood flecked Fangwa’s stretched lips. “His oruko.”
“His what?”
“His true name,” Viktor murmured.
48
Grey had no idea what he was talking about, but Viktor’s lips pursed with understanding. He said, “I understand why your prime minister would fear this—but why does he believe his true name is to be found in Zimbabwe?”
Fangwa groaned. “Bring me a potion.”
“You’ll tell us now,” Viktor said.
Fangwa stared at Viktor with unfettered hatred. He began to babble in his native tongue, hands fluttering.
Viktor struck him across the face. “Nor shall you curse me. If you utter another word that doesn’t concern Nya or the N’anga, I’ll deliver your corpse to the N’anga myself.
Fangwa’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t dare. I’ll-”
“You’ll do nothing. You’re dying.”
“Death is a hiccup. I’ll seize your spirit from the ether and drag it behind me.”
“You’ll have to escape from Orun Apadi first. Now talk, or I’ll end your miserable life right now.”
No, Grey thought, Viktor is most definitely not a stodgy professor.
Blood dribbled from Fangwa’s mouth, and he again clutched his stomach. Grey saw the clammy pallor of Fangwa’s face, and knew he didn’t have long.
“He needs something,” Grey said. “He’s not going to last.”
Viktor reached inside his coat and pulled out a small flask. “Drink this,” he said, without a trace of compassion.
Fangwa allowed Viktor to pour some of the liquid down his throat, and Grey caught the familiar green tinge of Viktor’s muse. Fangwa drank until his eyes took on a satisfied glaze. Grey feared he’d go to sleep and never wake up. He thought of Nya and willed Fangwa to stay alive and reveal what he knew.
“I’ll tell you a story. A story for my Nya.” He said to Grey, “If you reach her before the N’anga has finished with her, I won’t pursue your spirit.” His head lolled towards Viktor. “To you I make no such promise.”
Viktor didn’t respond or change his expression, but Grey saw him swallow ever so slightly.
“There is a village Igjabo in northern Yorubaland, a village with a tradition of Juju. It was once home to a powerful babalawo—some said the most powerful in Yorubaland. In this village were three boys, each with much promise. Two were taken by the babalawo for their potential in Juju. The third and eldest was groomed for his skill in leadership—this one was destined for secular power. With the aid of the babalawo’s reputation, the eldest became prime minister of Nigeria. He remains so today.”
“Isn’t it unthinkable that a babalawo would reveal anyone’s true name?” Viktor said. “I thought this was taboo among the Yoruba. Even among the dark sorcerers.”
“It is as you say, even among us. Strictly forbidden.”
“Is this babalawo the N’anga?” Viktor asked, then said, “But how old…”
Fangwa arced in a soundless spasm of pain, then continued speaking in fitful starts and gasps. “I spoke of two boys strong in Juju—one wise, more fit to be babalawo, a born shepherd of his spiritual flock. The other was the babalawo’s son, and Juju sang within him—he was the most gifted boy the babalawo had ever seen. But something was missing in the song. The son’s heart was wrong from the beginning, and the babalawo knew.”
“Was this you?” Grey asked.
Fangwa coughed, and Grey threw a worried look at Viktor. Viktor poured more absinthe down Fangwa’s throat, and then onto the wound. Fangwa screamed, then the glazed look returned to his eyes.
“Mine was a different path.” Grey thought he detected a wistful flutter of regret. It must have been the wormwood, he thought coldly. “The babalawo’s son grew powerful, and more consumed by Juju. He found the dark places, realms where none should venture. His father tried to intervene, but the son fled the village.
“The babalawo grew old, and ga
thered his Awon Iwe - his books of Juju and names. The eldest boy was already a politician, and the babalawo feared what his son would do. He sent the Awon Iwe away with the third and youngest boy, the babalawo in training. The boy disappeared. He was never seen again in Nigeria.”
“The dark one—the son—is the N’anga,” Viktor said.
“Yes.”
“Where’d he go?”
“That is a mystery. He did return to Nigeria once,” Fangwa said, his hands twitching feebly. “Three years ago. He returned to kill his father and terrorize his village.”
“Jesus,” Grey said.
“He didn’t find what he’d come for—his father’s Awon Iwe. By this time the eldest was prime minister. It’s believed the N’anga has spent the last three years seeking the prime minister’s name, hidden with the youngest boy—now a man of late middle age.”
“One of the boys became the prime minister of Nigeria,” Grey said, “the other the N’anga—what happened to the youngest boy, the one the babalawo sent away?” Grey’s mind delineated the facts that he knew, and the story Nya had told him. He blanched as Fangwa watched him.
Fangwa grinned. “We know what happened to this boy, do we not?”
“Nya’s father,” Grey whispered.
Fangwa cackled with delight, then convulsed in pain. Grey put a hand on his chest, easing him down.
“The N’anga’s cult is a pretense,” Viktor said. “He discovered where his childhood rival fled, and thinks he has the Awon Iwe.”
“Had,” Grey said. “Nya’s father was murdered eight months ago. The same time the N’anga came to Zimbabwe.”
“He didn’t find it when he murdered Jeremiah,” Fangwa said, “or he would have returned to Nigeria. And you are wrong. He enjoys his flock.”
“That’s why you wanted Nya,” Grey said. “To use her to help you find the books, as leverage against the N’anga.”
“That is one of the reasons.”
Click-clack.
“Why not just kidnap her?” Grey asked.
“This is not my country. There are… other ways.”
Viktor pressed him. “Why didn’t he approach Nya earlier?”
“Perhaps he didn’t believe she knew her father’s secrets. Perhaps her father misled him.” A fit of blood-flecked coughing overtook Fangwa again, and his body curled into a spindly ball.
Grey’s stomach bottomed out every time Fangwa stopped speaking. Viktor gave him half of the trickle that was left. Grey knew they had minutes, at best.
“It would be unthinkable for a babalawo to entrust such knowledge to a woman. Nevertheless,” he wheezed, “I’ve had her residence watched at night.”
Grey swallowed his next question. “What?”
“I was personally there to observe your lovemaking.”
Grey’s face reddened.
“Ignore him,” Viktor said. “He’s dying.”
“Not fast enough. “So what’re they blackmailing you with?”
Fangwa gave another of his soundless laughs that Grey found so disturbing. “They think because they have my son I’ll do their bidding. I would gladly sacrifice my son for the books. I would sacrifice him myself. With the Awon Iwe I would have come back and turned the prime minister and his family into my slaves—then we will see who does the bidding of whom.”
Grey listened with revulsion. Viktor leaned into Fangwa and held his head close. “What happens inside the circle? How does he do it?”
“Ah,” Fangwa giggled, eyes rolling in pain. “We keep our secrets, until death and beyond.”
Viktor gave a low laugh of his own. “They’re not your secrets. They’re his. You don’t know, do you? His Juju is stronger than yours. He has the favor of Esu.”
Fangwa’s mouth curled. “The secrets drive you, don’t they? You’ve stared into the darkness and found nothing. You don’t know where to look.”
“What happens to the victims?” Viktor said. “If we’re to help Nya, we need to know.”
“The N’anga prefers to perform the two hundred cuts on his victims. He did so with his own father before he killed him.”
Grey grew very still. “What did you just say?”
Fangwa tried to raise up, but couldn’t. He extended a gaunt finger, motioning for Grey to draw closer, until their faces were inches apart. “With Nya, there is something else he will do. It’s what I would do. It’s why you must find her for me, before he has a chance to do this thing.
“What thing?”
“He will make her his iko-awo.”
Click-clack.
Grey looked back and forth between the two. “What does that mean?”
Viktor avoided his eyes.
“This mustn’t happen,” Fangwa said. “He must not have her.”
“Whatever he’s planning on doing to her… how long will these rituals take?”
His voice wavered and dropped even lower. “”Three days from when she was taken. No more.”
“You miserable skeleton.” Grey took him by the collar of his robes. “Where are they! Where’s he keeping her?”
Fangwa spit a word out of his foaming mouth.
“Lucky?” Grey asked. “What about him? Does he know?”
Viktor emptied his bottle into Fangwa’s throat, and let it clang to the floor. Grey knew this was the last reprieve. The darkness was coming into Fangwa’s eyes.
“Lucky knows nothing. The N’anga uses him as do I, for unpleasant tasks. I would have used Lucky to find the N’anga.”
“How?”
“A ceremony. Tomorrow night. Lucky will help prepare.”
The Doctor sagged in Grey’s grasp, a limp scarecrow.
“Where’s the ceremony! Will Nya be there?”
The Doctor’s neck went slack. Grey held his head up. “Where is she?”
“The igbo-awo,” Fangwa said, a feverish sheen glazing his dying eyes. “She mustn’t die with him.”
“Do you know where it is? Please.”
Fangwa’s eyes closed, his skeletal face relaxing as much as the taut skin would allow, and his last, whispered, truthful no struck Grey harder than any blow. Doctor’s Fangwa’s hands fluttered, the last act his frail, ghoulish body could manage, and he died.
49
Grey cradled his burnt arm, but that pain was nothing next to the knowledge lancing through his veins, hotter than any fire. He couldn’t believe the madness he had just heard. Nya. He felt drunk, reeling, a marionette to his emotions.
He worked to steady his breathing. She needed him calm, in control. He looked at the boy; he was staring at Doctor Fangwa’s body with heavy-lidded eyes.
“I fear the drugs have affected his frontal lobe,” Viktor said. “I’ll arrange for him to be transported to an orphanage in Nigeria.” Viktor turned to the boy. “Where does Fangwa keep medical supplies?”
The boy led Viktor to one of the shelves. Viktor grabbed a box of gauze and a roll of medical tape. The boy followed them out of the dungeon and back into the ground level of Fangwa’s townhouse, where the trap door exited behind the stairwell in the foyer.
Grey walked to the bathroom and ran cool water over his burns, and Viktor wrapped his forearm loosely in gauze. The pain had subsided to a tolerable level.
“How’d you find me?” Grey said.
“Our departed doctor wasn’t the only one spying. I was watching from across the street when you were brought in. Lucky and his men didn’t try very hard to conceal their actions. I had to wait until they left before I came in, which was just before I found you.”
They stood in front of the door to Fangwa’s bedroom. Viktor eased the door open, but Grey put a hand on his arm. “Thanks. You saved my life.”
Fangwa’s bedroom didn’t look any more lived in than the last time, and left Grey wondering if the Doctor hadn’t slept on the gurney in the basement, surrounded by the ghosts of his victims.
They searched the room again, and Grey found himself staring at the closet, where three of the Doctor’s w
hite linen suits hung from a bar. They moved to the nightstand and Grey withdrew the sole contents, which hadn’t been there the night before: a manila folder.
The folder contained a single photo stapled to the inside cover. The eyes of the ebony man in the grainy photo bored outward, fierce and bright, alight with pride and confidence. He was a robust, youthful man, although drops of silver flecked his cropped hair. A red tunic covered his body, and a busy African street surrounded him, crowded with fruit sellers and businessmen, beggars and hawkers.
Grey held the photo for a long time, both memorizing the N’anga’s features and trying to steady the anger boiling within him. His hand shook at the thought of Nya in this devil’s grasp, alone and frightened.
“You think Fangwa was telling the truth?” he asked Viktor in a harsh voice, to mask the tremble.
“I believe his perverse concern for Nya was genuine.”
“What did he mean by-”
Viktor held a hand up. “We can talk later. Let’s finish searching the house.”
“I’ve already searched it.”
Grey led Viktor to the secret door in the hallway, and exposed the gruesome contents of the room. Viktor surveyed Doctor Fangwa’s workshop with a grim satisfaction. “Remarkable. But the Doctor’s exposure to the world will have to wait. We don’t know if the N’anga was aware of Doctor Fangwa, and we can’t risk alerting him. We’ll need every advantage we can get.”
“Agreed. The Doctor can rot in his own basement until after we find Nya.”
Grey meant the statement to be a positive affirmation, but an uncomfortable silence ensued.
“When did you last see her?” Viktor said finally.
“Early yesterday morning.”
“Then we need to assume she has no more than forty-eight hours. Fangwa said the ceremony is tomorrow night. Do you know how to find Lucky?”
“His club, but it won’t open until tonight.”
“I need a few hours to take care of the boy, and a few other things. Then there are items we need to discuss. Shall we say the Meikles at two?”
“I’ll be early.”
• • •
Grey left Viktor with the boy. If Doctor Fangwa could reduce another human being to such a state, then what would the N’anga do to Nya? Was she still even alive? Fangwa had given them a sliver of hope, albeit for his own twisted purpose, and Grey clung to that sliver. He made a silent vow: Lucky would lead them to that ceremony whether he wanted to or not.