“You are right, it does not but there must be a semblance of order to your lessons or else they are meaningless. Everything comes to pass in its correct sequence, as you have just seen and there must always be a balance. Come Lucius, it’s time for us to go.” He grabbed my shoulder gently and spoke an arcane word once more; and once again, we were suddenly somewhere else.
“Your enemies will know you, Lucius, and if they are smart they will have studied you. But you must never forget one thing that is to your advantage; there is no precedent to you for in all of creation for there has never been a creature as unique as you. For that reason, no one will ever know what you are truly capable of. When we fought and you cast me out I sensed a power that I had not sensed before within you open and offer itself to you. Yet even this new and powerful source is not the true power that lies dormant within you, much like the power which you sense within me. But this does not mean that it does not have its uses. We must confound your enemies with misdirection. They will expect dark ase so we will give them what they expect until the moment they feel comfortable, the moment they believe they know you and that is when we will strike them with this new power. And when they learn of this new power they will become fearful and confused. Remember that you have the seed of the God of Chaos within you and because of this all things are possible. When you truly understand this, there will be nothing to hold you back, but that is something I cannot teach you. In the meantime, you must learn how to use this new power along with your own familiar one. Once you have mastered it and are comfortable in its use we will move somewhere else for your final lesson, on how to manipulate reality. For now I want you to come at me. First, with dark ase, then second with this new power, and finally with as many combinations of the two as you can. I am shielded both physically and mentally; let’s see if you can break through.”
In battle, all of one’s senses are amplified to an almost superhuman degree and because I was already superhuman, you can imagine just how amped up I was now. Lo and I tore at each other without mercy, pushing the limits of my control and the strength of his shields. We fought for days and we fought for many nights and at times it seemed as if our battle had raged on for an eternity, though given our location in this timeless dimension, it was entirely possible that we had had been. I ran to my left, ducking a power bolt that Lo had thrown at me, knowing that it was a trap. I feinted left as I ducked, mentally preparing a bolt of my own in which I had intertwined more than one facet of my growing powers. I was hoping to trick him into lashing out at what would seem to be on the surface a trick of my own, so that he would miss my true objective which was to place several mental barbs in his shield so that I could slowly insinuate myself into him and defeat him. But I was wrong once again, for the Nephilim was an old hand at this and had set his own trap within a trap to bait me into trying just this sort of action. His goal was to teach me as much as he could and that meant hurting me, so he seized my weapons at their base and shattered them before my barbs could stick and before I could counter attack, I found myself on my back, blind and paralyzed, more humiliated than hurt by my failure. Lo released me from his hold and helped me to my feet. He studied me critically to make sure I was not injured and then suddenly he smiled that big smile of his and picked me up in a hug. “Lucius,” he exclaimed, “That was incredible! You almost had me. I am impressed; you are getting not only stronger but much more skilled. Next time hide a few more innocuous seeming traps within your traps. It is like sleight of hand you see. Your opponent will ignore the obvious in his or her search for what they believe must be hidden. While they search in vain for your subtlety and subterfuge strike out from your place of concealment with the blatant and the openly obvious. Come, take a break for a few minutes then we will begin again.” I was glowing with his praise and the smile on my face was enormous for our friendship had grown deep. Taking his advice, I sat back and caught my breath. The next round things would be very different, I thought, I had discovered a few new tricks on my own. I took a few more minutes to relax before turning to Lo signaling to him that I was ready. “I heard you my friend,” I said to him, “I heard you loud and clear. But I promise you that this time you will not win.” And with that I vanished from sight and the battle began once more.
We battled each other for a hundred years in that place pushing each other to the limits of our strength and forcing me to draw upon new and previously untapped reservoirs of power. As I had promised, Lo could not beat me now, and despite his huge reserves of power I sensed that I now had an edge and if I play it right I could defeat him. But deep inside me something else was still growing and all this flinging around of power was making it hungry, for its destiny was only to grow more powerful. As I battled with my friend and mentor the darkness inside me awakened and came to the forefront, and because of the hunger it inspired in me I formulated a different plan. I lowered myself to a craggy hilltop, and feigned exhaustion while preparing several weapons to not only lure Lo into complacency, but to make him think that it was a trap of a certain sort. I could feel him probing me with his power so I crafted a careful illusion that would fool his senses into thinking that I was weak and this drew him closer. He watched me from high above me, almost disappointed it seemed and I could feel him construct a weapon that he would use to drop me. I withdrew all my senses deep inside of me and reached into the darkness gestating within me and drank deep of its despair, and when Lo came in to finish me I crafted a weapon of a different sort and manifested it in my left hand just as he launched his power at me. I let his power wash over me, shielded as I was by my illusion; I even fell to the ground, my head and body bowed over the short-hafted Assegai spear that I held in my left hand, crafted out of the blackness and madness of the weapon brewing in my soul so that as my friend approached me to give the coup de grace, I rose unexpectedly and drove the black spear deep into his mighty chest. He staggered back a few steps and looked at me dumbfounded, trying to speak, but the weapon was already siphoning off even his immense energy and he quickly fell weakly to his knees. I kicked him to his back and looked down at him hungrily, gripping the spear that remained imbedded in his chest tightly with both hands as he asked me sadly, “Why Lucius?” I shifted my grip on the spear and sighed mournfully before answering. “I am sorry my friend,” I said, “but darkness is now my nature, and your power must be mine. These lessons were taking too long and I no longer have the luxury of waiting around for my own power to blossom, even in this timeless place.” I gripped the spear tightly with both hands and with a savage twist, I killed my friend and mentor the Nephilim and stole his awesome power.
10 In the early Twentieth Century throughout West and Central Africa European explorers were horrified to discover evidence of what they assumed was ritual cannibalism being perpetrated by a secret society of men and women calling themselves the Leopard Society. These men and women supposedly dressed in leopard skins and possessed three-pronged claw-like weapons with which they killed their victims who were netted like wild animals and torn apart alive and their various body parts distributed to the members of the hunting party. It was believed that they killed to gain the material needed to make a special medicine called Borfima which included human blood and fat. And they were right in their observation for that is exactly why these men and women committed these killings. But the thing is the people who were invariably caught and tried were actually men and women and this is where the truth ends and the mystery begins for there was a Leopard Society, but it was not the one that the colonialists believed that they eventually suppressed. The true Leopard Society was not a group of half-cocked and half-naked men and women running around killing young girls for their blood and fat; they were true shape shifters who lived among humanity unseen and undetected, for to allow their true nature to be seen who be to doom themselves to a quick extinction. Instead, they lived among the various nations and tribes of Africa accumulating temporal power by their strength, intelligence, vitality and longevity. The humans who w
ere running around killing people were no more leopards than leopards are human; they were simply ancestors of individuals who were trying to recreate an ancient ritual, and an ancient occurrence, albeit with faulty information. For once upon a time thousands of years ago, there were men and women who had hunted other men and women as these false Leopard Society men and women do, but it was for one reason only, and that was to obtain enough of the Borfima needed to act as a catalyst for a powerful combination of ritual magic and selective breeding that would culminate in the creation of a hybrid creature, one that was greater than its parts. This ritual had created this race of beings with the blessing of the Orishas and it was the ancestors of those who had witnessed the original ritual but had not taken part, who continued to hope against hope that it could be recreated. They hunted men and women believing this would bring about the transformation and every generation less and less true knowledge of that ritual was retained until all that remained as superstition. The true Leopard Society had spread throughout Africa and indeed even other parts of the world as Africans were taken as slaves all over the globe. Being leopards, they are territorial and being human they are power hungry and the combination of the two drives them to master their environment. In nature, the only cats that one may find in every environment on the planet are leopards, and in the same way the Leopard Society is everywhere, including on Georgia Avenue. Where there is power to be had you will find them hiding in the shadows waiting to pounce. But that was fine by me because you see, my mate was a hyena, and hyenas kill leopards on sight.
11 With my newly acquired powers and my newfound control, it was a simple feat now to manipulate reality so I secured the pocket dimension in which I had just killed Lo, leaving his body to remain there forever as a tribute to the friendship we had once shared. I then shifted out of it quickly, and even though I knew that there was no room for sentimentality, a part of me felt regret for the Nephilim’s death and it was out this sentiment that I chose to materialize behind Sunshine, where she stood looking out of the window in our apartment. Because she possessed amazing senses and because our growing relationship had bonded her tightly to me, I could not easily surprise her anymore and she immediately turned around a flung herself into my arms, while kissing me all over my face. I laughed as I returned her kisses and said to her, “I guess you really missed me. My God, how much time has passed?” She looked at me for a moment, drinking in my features which she had missed so much before answering. “It has been seven long years, Lucius” she said, “And yes, you numbskull, I missed you terribly, because even though I could sense you out there, I was worried. By the way, where is Lo?” I turned my head and looked down at her, sighing heavily before saying, “He is gone my dear and he won’t be coming back.”
“What do you mean he won’t be coming back? What happened? Did you guys fight or something?”
“Of course, we fought, that was the whole point of the exercise, silly. He was training me.”
“So where is he now?”
“Well, I kind of brought a part of him with me if you must know,” I said, not really trying to reveal that I had killed him. “What do you mean, by that? Oh Lucius, what have you done? You ate him, didn’t you? What the hell is wrong with you? He was your mentor, your teacher and your friend. Couldn’t you have snacked on someone else? I mean even we hyenas don’t eat members of our own pack. And how is that even possible? I would have thought that with all his strength he would have fried you the moment you tried to steal his power.”
“Honestly Sunshine, I did not want to do this but, what can I say? The devil made me do it. The darkness in me shot out of me and the next minute I found myself doing something treacherous. And to answer your question, yes, he should have been able to fry me, but the problem was he had taught me too well and I am a very good student. Even without adding his power to mine he had already accomplished what he has set out to do and more. I can now draw on and store huge amounts of power, manipulate reality and it turns out there are deep dark places within me from which I can draw even more strength. Whatever the God of Chaos gave Yemoja to put in me, it is limitless and it scares me. The weapon is growing quickly, I can feel it shifting within me and I am running out of time. What has happened while I have been gone?” She took my hand, leading me to a chair and seated me in it while neatly ensconcing her body in my lap. “The Leopard Society has openly taken control of this Georgia Avenue,” she said, “Lulu failed to sway them to our cause. If fact we have been hiding from them for several years now, since we refused to join them.”
“Oh really? I see that the cats have grown some balls in my absence. Well I am back now and it’s time to change the status quo. Go get Lulu, Samantha and Shawn and bring them all here so I can talk to everyone at the same time and I won’t have to repeat myself. But first, before we talk, I am going to take a wellearned bath.”
“And then what, Lucius? What is your plan?” “What is my plan, my love? It is simply this. I need much more darkness in my life, a lot more darkness. But how do I plan on achieving this? It is quite simple really; I plan on bathing in the slaughter and the despair that my future actions will create in abundance. Because Sunshine my dear, we are going to start a war.” Sunshine looked at me with mischievous eyes since because of her hyena nature this sort of talk was music to her ears. As I walked toward the bathroom, and she ran to inform the others, I could hear her singing a song, her happy demeanor a harbinger of the mounds of carrion which would soon be piling up in this underworld. And when war finally raged in every corner of this dark world, I would rampage through this world and pillage it and all its darkness would be mine so that once and for all I could complete the weapon, and get me and the others the hell out of here.
Yemoja stood at her usual perch inside the Refuge watching certain events unfold on the Earth. Her brother, Obatala had, against all her advice, challenged the Interloper to single combat and for his efforts had received only a rude awakening. There was no glory and honor to be gained in war, for in the end there was only one true goal for all its participants and that was to be the victor, by any means necessary. The Orisha of Justice and Reason, ironically had reasoned very poorly and when he had stridden out confidently onto the field of battle with his weapons ready and expecting a fair fight, he had instead been quickly taught the price of his folly by the Interloper and some of his servants, who had been hiding nearby and then surreptitiously entered what was supposed to be single combat between two honorable foes, and attacked Obatala. He was forced to flee the field badly weakened and sadly humiliated. As Yemoja watched this farce she could only shake her head in disgust. When would they learn that their enemy played by no rules, had no honor, and would stop at nothing to destroy them all? If victory was to be theirs they would have to do unto him before he could do unto them. As she watched the Interloper and his servants retire, she turned her sight once again back to the one place where even from the Refuge the Gods were blind to and in her heart, she hoped that somewhere in it was Alade, and that soon the power she had seeded within him would come to fruition. And when it was ready she would harvest it and use it without mercy upon the Interloper and all the younger Gods who dared challenge their rule. Where was Orunmila when she needed him? She needed his vision to guide her. Oh well she thought, for now she would have to be patient and content herself with the knowledge that she had not only primed her servant Alade well, but that the Omo Orisa was not the only supernatural race that Orishas had created. She had other servants in that dark world and through them she would watch over her weapon. After all, did not Esu say that she was one of the most far-sighted of all the Orisha? And does not victory love preparation?
Part 2: Initiation
12 I stood there looking at the dead leopard beneath me, watching as its body shifted back to it human form in death. I had not even fed upon its demise, so disgusted I had become with the senseless waste of lives that the prideful Leopard Society had caused by their refusal to submit to an obviously su
perior power than their own. In the last few weeks I personally had slaughtered dozens of them, and who knows how many Sunshine had eaten, leopards being the natural enemies of hyenas. After each battle, after each slaughter in which I grew in strength as I bathed in their death and in their despair, I soon saw their numbers begin to dwindle. Theirs was not a condition contracted by bite; it was created by a combination of genetics, biochemistry and magic and in this world where we had all been exiled to, they lacked the means to increase their ranks in significant numbers, at least not enough to replace those which I and my group were killing. I watched Shawn standing to the left of me as he inhaled great clouds of crack smoke, fueling his Mwbiri given strength, which had allowed him to rip apart shape shifters with his bare hands while reveling in the madness of his battle rage. He was oblivious to the slashes and bites that would have eventually taken their toll on him had I not used my power to heal him. Lulu also was eager to make up for her failure in recruiting the leopards to our cause, by unmaking as many of them as she could get her hands on. She was very familiar with the Leopard Society, being originally from the Congo, and she was cognizant of the spells used to bind the human and leopard forms together because in fact, it was her own ancestor who had first created them for the Society a millennium ago. Samantha, because of its sensitive nature, stayed away from the fray, but helped us by shifting our members to where they were needed and also it eavesdropped upon the leopards for us, allowing us to plan an effective strategy. But most importantly it provided Lulu with her constantly supply of bourbon which she insisted she needed to survive and to keep herself strong. And as for my beloved Sunshine, well she was poetry in motion, a killing machine of such perfection that often I forgot to feed, so enamored I had become of her beauty and her ferocity. She was relentless, her appetite unending and as she slaughtered the leopards she sang love songs and smiled at me whenever she had a moment. I reached down lifted the head of the leopard I had just killed, seeing only a young man whose life had been wasted because of the stubbornness of his elders and at that moment I decided. I shifted my position in space to a secluded alleyway strewn with split bodies, where Lulu was eyeing her handiwork and got her attention. “What’s up black tar baby?” she said, “Don’t worry I’ve got everything here under control. Go on back to ogling your psycho girlfriend,” she cackled and took a shot of bourbon. “I can see that,” I said, admiring her work. “I was drinking in the slaughter from way the other side Lulu, good job. But that is not why I am here. I want you to contact the Elders of the Leopard Society and tell them I wish to meet with them personally. This war must end.”
Alade (Irunmole Saga) Page 14