David Mogo Godhunter

by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

  But he never said anything. He just looked at me, confused, most likely by my weird demigod signature. Then he turned and went away, towards Tafawa Balewa Square. I didn’t follow him. I told Papa Udi, and he thought it was the wisest decision I’ve ever made.

  How Ajala knows that Ibeji is situated here is both interesting and not my concern (he is a wizard, after all). I don’t know much about the orishas (no one does), but there’s one thing I do know: no one ever just stumbles upon a high god. If you come across one, they definitely wanted you to.

  The godlings sense me now, sense something confusing—a whiff of that pure godessence of high gods they’re used to, but abominably mixed with filthy human?—and are converging, coming to see what manner of creature this is. The first one peeks out of a small First Bank with a lease banner still hanging over it. More follow, peeking out of streets, of ATMs, of old parking lots, of trees, of abandoned yellow danfos. I can’t see any of them—this close to their centre, they’re basically invisible; humanoid forms covered in a shimmer sheet, like when you look above a fire. I imagine them watching me ride down, blinking, chattering in their gobbledegook godspeak.

  I’m almost at the end of Broad Street when my collarbone starts to throb and my neck warms up. The image is clear in my mind. There is only one thing that can emit so much spiritual energy.

  I brake right into Martin Street, and the maze of broken buildings that used to be Balogun Market.

  This is the farthest I’ve ever come in my five years of godhunting. I’m flying blind for the first time. Balogun Market wasn’t even a good place when humans inhabited it, and if there’s a place the worst of the worst deities would reside, especially those interested in manhandling humans, Balogun Market seems like a perfect fit.

  I park the bike, unsheath my daggers, and put on the mask.

  You know those Virtual Reality stuff them folks abroad are wearing these days? I swear this is what they must be like. At first, Martin Street is a long stretch of darkness, skeletons of the former shops jutting out of its sides. Then everything is bright, too bright; then everything is back as it was, except those tiny warm-cold signatures have become corporeal bodies.

  This mask was def produced via a ritual. Rituals differ from recipes and charmcasting, in that their power lies not in living biology, but in language and the stories told with them. The ancient tongues of gods themselves are powerful carriers of godessence, and if the right stories are woven from them in the right way—through invocations, incantations, song, or writing—they can be used to make massive, massive change in the corporeal world. Of course there’s the part where you have to know these languages to the very last, which is no small feat in itself. Papa Udi uses Nsibidi, an ancient divine system of thousands of artistic symbols depicting words, ideas and concepts. It’s more common with wizards from Eastern Nigeria, but Payu says his dearest friend, a wizard called David Mogo (yes, this is who he named me after; ridiculous, I know) taught it to him. With it, he weaves stories and crafts charms, amulets, wards. All he needs to do is draw the right symbols.

  This mask, however, was not built with Nsibidi, as far as I can tell. Same with the Yasal bottle. I have no idea what tongues were used, and maybe the less about Ajala I know, the better.

  I go down the street, ignoring the unblinking, unsettling stares. Godlings, in their true form, are the oddest things. Bipeds like humans, but only a close approximation. Their lower limbs look like arms, their toes like thumbs. Their arms themselves are spindly, willowy things with tiny appendages. Complete with lashless round eyes, plastered flat noses and conspicuously rounded torsos, they’d only need to be green to finish up the classic alien look.

  If I were them, I’d want to remain invisible too.

  I’m picking the massive signature a fair ways down the road, close to the now decrepit Oluwole Urban Mall, where textiles used to be shopped. It’s like, what, 800 metres? I roll my daggers, breathe into my mask and continue the trek.

  A line of abandoned mannequins suddenly moves, and rodents and godlings alike scamper out of the ground floor shops, shrieking. Tattered cloth from ruined umbrellas follows the wind and blows across in their wake. Above, the skies have turned sour as darkness fully descends.

  I now have a clear point on the signature. It burns bright, not from the mall, but from a small building next to it: triangle-topped, five pillars, topped with moon-and-star symbols—a mosque. Typical. Fallen or not, gods love to be worshipped, don’t they?

  I crouch in a corner and reach out with my esper, projecting it slightly, hands feeling for spiritual energies in the dark. I immediately start to feel dizzy and nauseous, the usual side-effect, but I hold steady, struggling not to puke. The esper shows me there are more godlings in there, but there’s definitely a high god among them. Just my luck. I pull my senses back, rise and tiptoe into the mosque.

  My eyes adjust to the darkness. The room is small, dark and quiet. No seats, but rolled-up mats are piled against a corner. There’s a dais at the opposite end, raised like a throne room. One creaky chair stands in the centre, its back to me. Someone—something—is seated in it, humming softly and mumbling words in a weird language, tapping a drumbeat into the chair handle with its fingers. There are three to four godlings on each side of it, statue still, listening with rapt attention and unblinking eyes.

  Then its fingers stop mid-air. I swear I feel it sniff before it jumps up and swirls.

  Taiwo is almost seven feet tall, lithe, dressed in a red-and-white robe that dances slowly, always a fraction of a second slower than normal. I smell bark, humus and fresh green off him, and I’m not sure whether the smell is real. His skin glows translucent, and he shimmers, so I see two things at once, juxtaposed—the willowy man in front of me with the long, young face; and also a wooden carving, a dwarf with a long head, unblinking eyes and a crown.

  I swear he sniffs again and frowns.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I get that a lot.”

  I move faster than he expects, the Yasal bottle bobbing at my chest. He’s slow to respond, slower even than the godlings, who shriek in godspeak and scamper, stretching their limbs and legging it. Taiwo is stuck to the spot, so stunned that I have time to thrust the Yasal bottle at him.

  Nothing happens. It takes me a few seconds to realise I forgot to pull the stopper.

  With a pop, the form in front of me dissipates. I catch a brief taste of salt on my tongue. Someone laughs: not the full, chesty laughter of an adult, but a childlike giggle, mischievous.

  Then the voice says in Yoruba: “Who’re you?”

  I project my esper and pick a signature above me. As I look up, Taiwo comes falling down, landing on my shoulder. Dematerialised, he’s light for seven feet, and does only enough to knock me over. I roll and flash my ǫbę iṣèṣé.

  Man, the way this guy’s eyes light up when the smell of ebo hits the air. His faces change, suddenly overrun by childlike, primal fear—of mortality, it seems, something he has probably never had to deal with before.

  And like that, he starts to run.

  I jump up and follow him out of the mosque, down the street. He’s running like an old man or a child, swinging his legs too high. He’s screaming in Yoruba, asking what he’s done. I press my arms to myself, duck my head and sprint.

  He makes a turn and I follow him, panting, LSPDC House looming in front of us. It’s a narrow street, empty caricature shops scattered about and silent, monolithic shopping complexes frowning down on us. More godlings shriek and shriek, as if alerting others, and the noise intensifies, distracting me, making it difficult for me to see Taiwo properly. I have to keep my esper extended in front of me, which slows me.

  Taiwo gets further away from me, makes another turn right.

  I suddenly no longer have any bearings. I’m definitely lost now. I’m not even on a street; I’m in a narrow space between two buildings, within some tattered clothes spread on lines, long abandoned by their owners. Then I see Taiwo gliding between the clothes,
barely disturbing them. I sweep them aside and push on.

  He’s giggling, muttering things, but also worried, screaming, hysterical. If he were human, he’d have passed for schizophrenic. I don’t care, though. Cardoso House needs this money.

  He turns again, and again, and I follow him, keeping his signature within sight, so that even when, twice, I lose sight of him, I relocate him easily, and he shrieks each time. Now he’s suddenly run into a wide open road, and as soon as I jump out, I recognise it: we’re back at Broad, only a few yards from where I parked my bike.

  I turn back and sprint the remaining yards of dimming light, jump on the Bajaj, kick, swing the bike in a quick circle, and I’m on my way back up Broad.

  People say gods are wise, and I’ve always believed it. Today, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more stupid god. This guy looks back, sees me coming at full speed, and what does he do? He yips and continues to run in the same direction.

  It’s too easy.

  One hand off the throttle, I yank at the Yasal bottle on my neck as I approach. The line snaps and, other hand on the brake, I swing a wide arc about Taiwo, cut him off. Now he realises he could turn into a side street, but it’s too late.

  I pull off the stopper and thrust the bottle at him.

  First thing I think the bottle does is immobilise him. He struggles to move, but is failing. Then the juxtaposed dwarf image vanishes, and I’m staring only at the lean, young face. Slowly, he starts to fade in bits. First, the parts closest to the bottle: his right ear, his right arm, his right foot. Then the rest of his body, including the mouth he’s opening to say something, but the bottle is sucking it away, snatching his words, snatching him.

  It takes less than a minute. Soon, every scrap of the essence of the once gleaming high god is gone.

  I put back the stopper, rest on the bike handlebars for a minute. After catching my breath, I rise, tie the bottle back to my neck, then rev the bike again.

  One down.

  Chapter Four

  IT’S A LITTLE past midnight when I find myself back at Agbado rail crossing, fagged out and aching in my joints. A silent policeman at the palace gate lets me in.

  There’s some activity to the far end of the compound. A handful of policemen and palace guards are roughing up a line of kids, boys and girls no less than fourteen and no more than nineteen. They’re being filed into a room through the side of the house at gunpoint; I can see the shiny reflections of tears on many of their faces, hear the stifled whimpers.

  Now, I’m no soothsayer, but that doesn’t look good to me.

  “What’s happening with those children?” I ask the policeman.

  He looks at me incredulously, as if I’ve just asked for his wife’s hand in marriage, then shakes his head, mutters something, and directs me to a large shed behind the palace, his eyes never leaving me for a second.

  The room is long, and piled with herbs in every corner, low-lit by a lone yellow bulb, like a stable. Ajala is there, his back to me, elbow-deep in selecting herbs. He’s a far cry from the man I sat with yesterday night and this morning. All the royalty and elegance is gone, and he now wears a flowing black robe without embroidery, his feet in simple slippers. When he turns to face me, without all the distractions of knuckle rings and cashmere shawls, I see him for what he truly is: an aging wizard, with his best days behind him.

  “Ah, David Mogo,” he says, then waves the guard away. He’s frowning, as if he didn’t expect to see me. “You’re early.”

  I shrug. “When I say I’ll deliver, sir, I deliver.”

  He nods, studying me. “I knew I underestimated you.”

  I sigh and pull the Yasal bottle from my neck. “I got just one, though.”

  His brows dip. “I asked for the twins.”

  “I know,” I say, tired, extending my arm with the Yasal bottle swaying from the string. “I searched the extent of Ìsàlẹ̀ Èkó that you said: Broad, Marina, Breadfruit, Williams, down to Nnamdi Azikiwe and Ereko. Nothing.” I shake my head. “A waste of an evening. I didn’t meet a single orisha except Taiwo. Are you sure your information is correct?”

  A flicker of irritation passes across his face, then is replaced with a cold smile.

  “It’s fine, it’s fine.” He sniffles, returning to his herbs and waving his hand at a nearby table. “Drop it there.”

  I lay it down. The heat in the room is stifling, and I start to sweat.

  “I’ll manage with the one for now.” Ajala is saying. “Come and get the bottle tomorrow and find Kehinde.”

  “Hm,” I say, then shuffle my feet. He pauses his work to look at me.

  “Your money?”

  I shrug. “I’ve brought half of the delivery.”

  He takes a long time to look at me again, then sighs and says: “Fati!”

  A teenage girl, dark-skinned with deep, fat tribal marks etched into her oily cheeks, shuffles into the room. She’s closer to fifteen than thirteen, and wraps herself in a black chest-length hijab and black robe that make her look like a floating ghost. She kneels before Ajala, and he places a hand on her head, caressing. The way he moves his hand, the way he looks at her—it’s not like a parent or carer, but something more like a lover.

  Cringe.

  He speaks to her softly in Yoruba. Something about something under his bed. She leaves the room without so much as a glance in my direction. Ajala wants to return to his herbs, but sees the distaste in my rigid posture.

  “You don’t approve.”

  I shrug again. “That’s not why I came here.”

  He chuckles and dives back into the herbs. “You must’ve seen the kids outside, yes? The police pick them up every now and then. Illegal hawkers, petty criminals, loiterers. The stations are filled with them, so I’ve decided to take some off their hands. When they brought Fati in, I knew she was special. She can’t talk, but she’s smart, you know? She doesn’t belong with the others.” He sniffles again. “Who knows, I might just go to her parents after this, eh? She can be my fifth.” He chuckles when I don’t respond. “Don’t worry; I’m not marrying her for fucking.”

  I wish he could see my face, because it’s clearly saying stop now, man, stop. But his back is to me, so he keeps going.

  “When you’ve reached a certain place in life like me, you can’t trust anybody, you understand? Especially women. They become your weakness, see? You stay far from them. But then again, after all the wives I’ve had, I’m used to companionship. So I need something, somebody to love. Fati will do that for me.”

  I’ve been trying to settle upon the reason Papa Udi detests this man, and I think I’ve found it. It’s not because he’s powerful, but because he can charm his way through anything, and is willing to walk over everyone.

  Fatoumata comes back in the room, lugging a small Ghana-Must-Go bag. With the sound it makes when she thumps it on the ground, I know there’s only one thing that can be in there.

  “That’s one-point-five,” Ajala says without looking. “Come back for the bottle tomorrow and find me Kehinde, then we talk about the rest.” Then, to Fati: “Mu fun.”

  The girl hands me the bag, lifting it with both small hands. She’s bowing her head, refusing to look at my face. I see her fingers and arms painted in black, swirling henna, snaking under the cloth.

  Our fingers brush when I take the bag from her, and hers are cold, like something sickly, something with a fever. Simultaneously, something ignites within me. A memory, a thought, a premonition; a flash of fire, gone as soon as it had come. In its wake, I taste fine sand, the kind that’s whipped up by a storm.

  I won’t be forgetting those fingers in a long, long time.

  THE BAG RESTS on my fuel tank between my arms as I ride back to Cardoso House. That musty, bittersweet smell of hard cash filters through to my nose. But excited as I am that I’ll soon get a roof back over my head, maybe a bigger gen, a refrigerator (cold beers, man!), the coldness in Fatoumata’s fingers, the lingering image of her henna-painted hands, of th
e memory or vision that is not to be remembered: it unsettles me and sours my victory.

  So all through the journey out of the mainland, I’m telling myself that the reason I’m this way is that I’m a softie. I’ve left myself grow weak in this world of men, adopted the feelings of these humans, adopted some of their bad traits too (like maybe being greedy, capturing my own kind for roof money, right?)

  Yet as I ride over the Third Mainland Bridge, the lagoon breeze of wee morning slapping at my shirt and filling my ears, I think maybe that’s not true at all. Maybe my tongue has suddenly become sour with this Ajala man because I understand what it means to be Fatoumata: what it means to be lost, abandoned by the people who’re meant to love you most, left alone to fend for yourself in a strange place. Maybe I understand what it means to settle into a world that doesn’t suit you, but to also be too scared to leave because you don’t even know what’s out there, if it’s better or worse. I know what it is to be caught in the interstices, to be liminal, to be half-and-half.

  It’s not like I could’ve just pulled her, or those kids, out of the house, right? I mean, I don’t want to think of what an angered wizard is capable of. But at the same time, I do this job because I want to save things from their helplessness—godlings and people alike. Shouldn’t I be running in the opposite direction, then?

  I brush off the thoughts as I approach Carsodo House. It’s dark, because Payu has not put on the gen, as usual. After parking the bike and tossing the Ghana-Must-Go bag under the stairs, I’m about to retrieve the gen when I feel it on my collarbone. A white hot icy signature.