Birth of a Dark Nation

by Rashid Darden

  "So where will you be?" I asked, following after Babarinde.

  "Denver."

  "Denver? Ain't no black people in Denver!" I exclaimed.

  Babarinde laughed and slapped me on the back.

  "There are a few. I'll be fine."

  Dozens of wagons assembled outside of the plantation. We loaded them up with our belongings and said our farewells. The mood was jubilant for most of us and melancholy for only a few. By and large, we were ready.

  Babarinde gave each of us boxes of important documents and wallets full of cash. The textile industry had been very good to us over the years. Babarinde also had other investments of uncertain origins that ensured our financial stability. I didn't know much about trust funds and investments, but I knew there were homes waiting for each of us at our destinations.

  The box accompanying us to Washington had passports with our new names on them. He had also written detailed, one page documents for us to study on the journey. They were our histories—forged biographies to match the names he had created. We had done this time and again in New Orleans, but this time it was far more serious that we know our stories since we would only have our small groups to rely on.

  "Eşusanya, please take this seriously," Babarinde said to me as we walked to the field beyond our house.

  "I do, Baba. I'm just happy. Can't I be happy?"

  "Yes, you can be happy. Just try not to revel in your happiness too much. We are destined for great things. Not for ourselves, but for the glory of our people. For Africa."

  "For the Razadi nation," Ogundiya said. He was as quiet in his walk as he was in his speech.

  "Indeed," Babarinde said. We continued walking to the edge of the field and Aragbaye caught up to us.

  "I worry about you being in Denver by yourself," I admitted to Baba.

  "I need the time alone," he said.

  "How will we reach you?" Aragbaye asked.

  "My address is among your papers."

  We stopped at the edge of the field where the forest began. Aborişade was already there, kneeling.

  "I put the best of you together," Babarinde said.

  "Obviously," I said. Babarinde smiled at me and continued.

  "There are some things I believe, that I've always believed. And I know you all may not believe as I do. We have our traditions. The Orishas. Our crowns. And then there are the scrolls that we came over with. The ones that survived. We know that one of them is lost to the ocean. And we know another was stolen by our kidnappers. But two survive. And I am taking them to Denver. Maybe I can make better sense of them there in new surroundings."

  "You'll never give up the old ways, will you Baba?" I asked.

  "Of course not," he answered. "The one thing I can decipher from the scrolls is The Key. The Key will deliver us. We have to be patient."

  Here we go again, I thought. Babarinde has got to be the youngest crazy old man ever.

  "You think The Key is in Washington?" Aborişade asked.

  "Maybe. I don't know. The scrolls suggest something like that. And I figure if it's true, I'd better have you all there, ready. Are you up for it?"

  "I am," I responded. "Not that we have a choice. But yes, yes I am ready to find The Key."

  "You don't have to look for him. He might not have even been born yet. Just keep your eyes open and he'll find you."

  "We will," Ogundiya said.

  I looked down at where Aborişade knelt. Sectioned off by white stones were the graves of Armand Forestier and Dominique Rabaut Forestier—our beloved Ariori and Dominique.

  "We cannot lose any more of our brothers and our loved ones."

  "We all miss them, Baba. But as we move forward, we can and will protect ourselves. Razadi comes first. All others wait," I said.

  "We protect ourselves, yes," Aborişade added as he rose from the ground. "But we have to protect the most vulnerable, also. I don't think our destiny is just survival. It's the protection of our kindred here in America. We failed terribly at Bernoudy. But we can succeed elsewhere, and in other ways. I don't know how, exactly. But I know we can. We're smart. We're strong. And if we can survive all that we have so far, we can survive anything."

  "That, dear brother, is why you will be in charge of the Washington cell," Babarinde said.

  "What! I am the eldest out of all four of us!" I argued.

  "Baba, I can't. Not me. But Aragbaye! He's Mama Abeo's chosen one and he's been your right hand for all these years." Aborişade said.

  "Fuck that!" I shouted. "I am the eldest and we've always followed the laws of deference around here. Always!"

  "Aborişade is the leader of your cell. There is no further discussion."

  I shut up immediately.

  "Brothers, I believe in you. Go to Washington. Enjoy Washington. Be Washington. When the time comes, we will be reunited again. May Olódùmarè smile upon you."

  He embraced each of us tightly. He got to me last and whispered in my ear.

  "You'll be glad I didn't put you in charge. Mark my words."

  I rolled my eyes as I patted his back. Before he left us, he knelt down before Ariori and Dominique's graves and said a silent prayer. He got up and walked back to the house with Aragbaye and Aborişade, his two obvious favorites.

  I looked at Ogundiya and he stared back at me.

  "What?" I asked.

  "Nothing."

  "Yes, it's something. What are you staring at?"

  "You."

  "Why?"

  "Because…you're so easily angered. You didn't even stop to acknowledge that you and I didn't have to be in Washington together. But we are. Does that even make you happy?"

  I scowled and walked toward him, clenching my fists. I stopped two inches from his face until he could feel my breath hitting his chin. He was a good five inches taller than me and twice as wide, but I wasn't afraid of him.

  For good reason.

  I smiled and threw my arms around him.

  "You know 'happy' is not my default emotion. Ogundiya, I'm ecstatic to be going to Washington with you."

  He wrapped his massive arms around me.

  "Me too," he said softly. "A new adventure, but it's still me and you."

  "Always," I said. "No matter what, no matter who, it's always back to me and you."

  By the morning light, Babarinde's wagon and our wagons were the last ones out. The journey would be neither easy nor short, but we would be at our destinations before we knew it. The Razadi were releasing ourselves from the trauma of our pasts and claiming our own pieces of the American dream.

  Chiyoko Kobayashi

  "You're up first, lover boy," I announced to Dante at our kitchen table. "Your target is Chiyoko Kobayashi. Made a vampire in the 1970s. Sole heir to the Kobayashi Gaming Company fortune. She's the Anubis Society's tie to business interests in the Far East. Make a statement, Dante. Get all the information you can out of her and then take her out."

  "Got it," Dante said.

  "That's funny," Justin said.

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "I've only heard the name Chiyoko once before in my life. We had a fundraiser at a bar on U Street, and this Asian woman came in and gave us a donation. Turns out she was the bartender. And it was funny because it turned into a swinger's bar at night."

  "That's her," I said.

  "She's a nightwalker?"

  "Did I stutter? Shit!"

  "I just never thought I already met one."

  "You've probably met several. You just didn't know."

  "I remember something she said to me. I shook her hand and it was cool to the touch. She said she had poor circulation and laughed it off."

  "Yup, that's a nightwalker for you."

  "She was nice. Do we really have to kill her?"

  "The only good nightwalker is a dead nightwalker, especially when it comes to Anubis! So put on your big boy fangs and cut out this sentimental bullshit. This bitch is going down tonight."

  This was the dirty part of our j
ob and Justin needed to get used to it. His precious ipsaji was every bit the cold-blooded killer that I was and he had to see death over and over again if he was truly going to be one of us. I wasn't from Babarinde's school of thought, not since the white man murdered Ariori.

  We rode out to the bar in my favorite mode of transportation: our inconspicuous white van. Chiyoko's gig at the swinger's joint on U Street was a pretty good way to have a steady supply of food and fun. I was a little mad I'd never considered that: a place where uninhibited people trusted their discretion with the bouncers and the bartenders every single night.

  It was late, but the club wasn't quite closed yet. The bouncers were still out front, letting people out but not letting anyone in.

  "We need Chiyoko alone in the club," I told Justin. "So I want you to hypnotize the bouncers."

  "Can I do that?"

  "Of course you can."

  "What do I need to do?"

  "Look into their eyes. Deep. And tell them what you want them to do. But don't just tell them. Push that emotion onto them. Like…push it. Visualize them wanting to do it."

  He hopped out of the van and I watched carefully as he went to work. I couldn't hear him over the unceasing U Street traffic, but I could tell by his stance that he was fearless. He bobbed his head around like an executive director trying to earnestly seal a donation from a major funder. Suddenly, his spine straightened and he seemed to grow more powerful by the second as the burly bouncers lost control of their own minds. They each walked down the street.

  Justin looked back at us and gave a thumbs-up signal.

  "Great work!" Dante said, patting Justin on the back.

  "What did you tell them to do?" I asked.

  "I just said they should take a walk down to the National Mall and take a nap."

  "Well, that'll do it. Let's go in."

  We entered the club, closed the door tight behind us, and took three steps down to the main floor, lit with soft neon lights in shades of pink and blue. We walked through the foyer and the place opened up. All the patrons were gone. Chiyoko was wiping down the bar in preparation for leaving. She looked up, noticed the three of us, and calmly put her towel down.

  "It's good to see you again, Justin," Chiyoko said, combing her fingers through her long black tresses, interrupted only by the rogue blond streak.

  "So you do remember me?" he asked.

  "Of course I do," she replied faintly.

  "Listen up. It's just us, Chiyoko," Dante said, revealing a crossbow with a wooden stake he had concealed under his long coat and aiming it directly at her heart. "What you're going to do is tell us everything we want to know."

  "And after that?" she asked.

  "There is no after that," Dante growled.

  Chiyoko's eyes darted all over the room in a panic. She knew we had her covered and there was no way out. Her eyes began to water.

  "I've never been in the inner circle of the Anubis Society. I don't know much. But I'll tell you everything I do know."

  "Don't waste my time, lady," Dante said.

  "Don't worry. I won't. But please, can you just relax? I'm not your enemy."

  Justin pulled up a bar stool and sat down. I scowled at him.

  "About twenty vampires live at the mansion," Chiyoko began. "Nigel and Cassandra are the master and mistress of the house. They're a few hundred years old, both European. They have a manservant and a maidservant. The manservant is named Andre—a black guy. The maid is Sasha Forzani."

  "Why do I know that name?" Victor asked.

  "She's pretty old—and she gets around. Then there's Malcolm. He's the muscle. He's ruthless and cold, and will skin you alive if he can."

  "Who else?" I asked.

  "Nobody of note. About half of them seem to believe what Nigel believes."

  "And what's that?"

  "That the Razadi are their biggest threat. And the other half think you guys could be great allies."

  "What about Orlando? What are they doing to him?" I asked.

  "I don't know. All I know is that he's being held captive. There are rumors that they're experimenting on him."

  "And he's still at the house?" I asked.

  "Yes, he's definitely at the house."

  "Why did you join them?" Justin asked.

  "You ask too many fucking questions!" I spat at Justin.

  "No more than you. He's just a baby. Leave him alone," Chiyoko said.

  "As you're well aware, my father was the innovator behind the Kobayashi Gaming System in the early 1970s," she continued. "His advances in the video game industry were genius; he was approaching his first billion by the time I was born. I wanted for nothing for the first two decades of my life.

  "I got sick in 1977, a few months after my twentieth birthday. The doctors quickly determined that it was ovarian cancer. They put me on an aggressive course of chemotherapy and gave me a radical hysterectomy. I was weak, ten pounds underweight, and utterly bald. But I survived. For a time.

  "Two years later, the cancer came back with a vengeance and spread fast through my body. I couldn't eat. I slept all day and lay in pain all night. I couldn't even use the bathroom by myself. It broke my father's heart to see his only child cut down in the prime of her life.

  "One night, my father brought a shaman to come see me, a kind of witch doctor. I was too out of it to understand what it was they were saying, but it didn't feel right. Didn't feel right at all. Nevertheless, I was dying. We were desperate.

  "A few days later, my father came into my room with a tall man. He was the handsomest man I'd ever seen. I felt self-conscious meeting him. He came to my bed and began cradling my face.

  "My father told me 'Chiyoko, don't worry. Mr. Yamaguchi is going to fix you. He's going to make you all better.'

  "And I asked him 'Is he a doctor?'

  "My father told me, 'He's better than a doctor.' And Mr. Yamaguchi didn't even say a word. He just bared his fangs and bit me in my neck. I was too weak to scream. Everything went black.

  "When I woke up, it had already been done. Mr. Yamaguchi had nearly drained me of all my blood, and fed me his own blood. He was now my maker. Not only was I beholden to him, but so was my father. In exchange for saving my life, my father sold controlling interest in the Kobayashi Gaming System to the Tsukuyomi Club of Japan—the ruling vampire organization in the country. The old fool thought he was saving my life, but what he really did was send me to an eternal hell on earth.

  "It wasn't long before he realized what he had done. When he saw what I was, what I was truly capable of, he had a stroke and lingered in a coma for weeks. I played around with the idea of giving him the same curse he had unleashed upon me, but I decided against it.

  "When he died, the Tsukuyomi Club thought it would be best for me to take over. And I did, serving for twenty years as the always young, always beautiful CEO of Kobayashi. I tried to age myself over the years, giving myself a white streak of hair and aging my style, but ultimately I had to give it up. But I'd be damned if I'd let the bastards who made me into a vampire take control of my family's company.

  "So, I did what any other bitter nightwalker would do. I hired my local yakuzas to assassinate my board of directors, all at once. Oh, you would have loved it, Victor. Such a well-executed execution. The black sludge of evil vampires filled the boardroom like swamp scum in post-Katrina New Orleans. Anyone who escaped a staking was burned alive. And I saved the best of my vengeance for my maker, Mr. Yamaguchi. My yakuzas subdued him, tied him to an antenna on top of Kobayashi Tower, and left him there to fry in the sunrise. Of course, I couldn't be there myself, but I watch the tape of his disintegration often."

  She cackled. I glanced at Justin, who remained transfixed.

  "Once the board was eliminated, I took control of the Tsukuyomi Club's shares and became majority stakeholder once again. I filled the board with my most trustworthy yakuzas and directed them to appoint one of my distant cousins as the new CEO. I'm still one of the wealthiest women in Japa
n, even though the world thinks my cousin is."

  "If you're so wealthy and powerful, why are you tending bar in America?" Dante asked.

  "I'd be lying if I said it was an anthropological study. Truth is, I came here on vacation, which I shouldn't have. Nightwalkers killing each other is a big no-no in international vampire law. So when I got caught, I was tethered to the Anubis Society. Of all the lodges and societies in this hemisphere, I had to get stuck with the one that has the religious nut as the head. At least working at this club, I get to have a steady supply of upscale dinners. And seeing Steve every week has been an added bonus."

  "You've been seeing Steve every week?" Justin asked.

  "Of course I have. That's the way the society kept tabs on you."

  "What?!" Justin exclaimed, standing straight up at the bar.

  "Don't worry. He doesn't do it on purpose. I hypnotized him once I found out who you were. He really does love you as a friend. I would never have gotten him to spy on you willingly."

  I could see Justin turning ill.

  "I really do hate the Anubis Society, though. I'm not like them. If I could escape my tether, I would. There's only one problem: I hate daywalkers just as much as nightwalkers."

  In one swift motion, Chiyoko produced a huge, partially rusted blowtorch from underneath the bar and aimed it at Dante.

  "Blowtorch!" Justin yelled, as he dove to the ground.

  The trigger on her weapon stalled. She tried to fiddle with it, but it was too late for her.

  "Shoot her!" I screamed.

  Dante pulled the trigger of the crossbow and the stake penetrated her heart in less than a second. Chiyoko screamed.

  "Thank you!" she coughed, before her final death transformed her from the inside out. He skin shriveled and tightened against her skeleton and darkened like a raisin. Her body fell to the ground behind the bar. We got up and ran to the end of the bar to see what happened, and, as I expected, there was nothing left but a puddle of what looked like tar.

  "Holy fucking shit," Justin said.

  "And that's how a vampire dies," I said.

  "She told us all of that…and was going to burn us to death anyway…" Justin mused.

  "That's what vampires do," I said.