by Vered Ehsani
“I really, truly hope you’re Nyambura,” I said and the lion roared softly, which did little to convince me I was anything more than dinner. I raised my walking stick.
“Miss Knight,” the lion shouted.
Well, that can’t be right, I thought. It sounds an awfully lot like a man, not a girl-lion.
Kam jumped out of the bush as the were-lion skidded to a halt in front of me and my walking stick, which I was quite prepared to use even if the large cat was really just a young girl. The two other lions slunk away.
“The chloroform, Miss Knight, quickly,” Kam said, holding out the saddlebag.
Overhead, a loud crack was followed by a sheet of lightning; the tree cover was thick enough that all I could detect were a few splotches of brilliant white that subsided into darkness. The air tingled with ozone.
I looked warily at Nyambura the lion, but she was busy swatting at a large moth with an even larger paw. Gunshots echoed through the narrow strip of forest and the girl’s large, tawny brown head swiveled around, her furry ears twitching.
I reached one hand to Kam, my stick still firmly clenched in the other as if it would be any use against a large, moth-chasing lion. Well, it just might be. More surprising things have happened.
I rummaged through the leather bag and extracted the two glass bottles full of a clear liquid that sloshed against the sides as if seeking a way out and into our lungs.
And that led me to a concern I hadn’t previously raised.
“How,” I asked, “do we dispense this without knocking ourselves out in the process?”
Behind us, branches snapped and men’s voices rose in excitement and fear while something bigger barreled through the brush and the dark toward us.
“Very carefully,” Kam said solemnly as he climbed a tree to a low, thick branch. There he sat with the large cloth sack he’d extracted from his belt. “Keep the bottles until I’m ready and stand there.” He gestured to a place under the branch.
“Why?” I demanded with a sinking feeling.
“Bait.”
If I hadn’t been a Society investigator for as long as I’d been, I might have been put out by the implication that I was no better than a slab of meat to lure a paranormal carnivore into a trap. Fortunately or not, I was accustomed to such antics, having posed as bait numerous times in my active, not to mention hazardous, career.
“Do you really believe she’ll be thinking about food at a time like this?” I asked as I moved into position, wedging the bottles into a pocket.
Kam smiled grimly. “Pretend you are hitting Nyambura.”
“I think I’d rather be the bacon,” I retorted but dutifully raised my stick over the lion’s head. She lay down at my feet, rolled on her back, slapping paws that were as big as my face, perhaps catching invisible moths.
“Little one,” Kam said softly, “cry out.”
Nyambura began meowing pitifully, so much so that I felt guilty for even pretending to hurt her. That guilt melted under the heat of a hideous roar that brought to mind images of long, sharp claws shredding the night or my back into tattered ribbons.
“She comes,” Kam said, quite unnecessarily.
I sunk into a crouch, the way Prof. Runal had taught me, my walking stick gripped in both hands, my feet ready to kick, jump, do anything to survive. Even in the shadows, my tightly clenched knuckles reflected the bits of starlight, as did the whites in Kam’s eyes.
Nyambura rolled onto her stomach and coughed in answer to a second shriek that sliced up the air into chunks of fear. The hunters’ noisy approach faded into the background as a second lion pounced into the small clearing.
This one’s energy flickered rapidly between human and lion, but the lion part glowed more vibrantly. And the sound from its mouth was all lion, fierce and raw and unforgiving.
“Kam, I don’t mean to rush you at all,” I said, backing away from the approaching lion, “but any time would be just fine with me. Assuming of course you don’t knock us out as well.”
Now that would be a pickle indeed.
Ooma’s amber eyes narrowed to glittering slits; her ears lay flat on her large, golden head; and her lips peeled back in a horrible toothy grimace as she spat and hissed at me.
“Really, I didn’t hit your sister,” I said as I backed up to the rough trunk of the tree.
I didn’t dare look up into the night hovering close above, but I could smell Kam, a rich combination of wood smoke, dry earth, and wild places. I didn’t dare inhale further, for if I breathed in the heavy musk of the approaching lion too deeply, I might be trapped by the strength of it and be unable to move when Kam implemented his plan. If he did.
Ooma’s tail flicked rapidly once, twice, as she crouched, her eyes fixed on me. I could no longer hear the hunters or the other lions, only the low hissing, spitting of Kam’s niece as she prepared to launch her sizable body at me.
“Open a bottle and don’t breathe,” Kam whispered above me.
“Don’t worry, I’m not breathing,” I replied as I popped a cork, the sound as out of place as I felt.
Despite my lack of breathing, I still caught a whiff of a pungent sweetness that enveloped me. As I didn’t have a third hand to plug my nose and I most certainly wasn’t dropping my stick, I determinedly repressed my lungs’ natural impulse as the lion leaped.
I couldn’t suppress the involuntary squeak that escaped me—a detail I wouldn’t be including in my report to Prof. Runal—and then a gasp as a large shadow fell down onto Ooma, throwing her off balance and away from me, a most fortunate turn of events. I hardly dared to blink as Kam threw the large sack over the lion’s head.
“Now! Pour it now,” Kam grunted as he held onto the lion, which was yowling and twisting and shaking her head to rid herself of the bag and the large man clinging onto her with all his muscular might.
Shouts bounced around the forest. The hunters must’ve heard the commotion. I was certain the whole savannah had by then. Gripping the bottle, I darted forward and splashed the sweet, clear liquid onto the bag, trying my best to avoid Kam’s face while doing so. A large paw with dagger claws swept at me and I jumped back and forth, dodging and splashing until the bottle was empty.
The lion was still awake but considerably less energetic. Encouraged, I popped the cork off the second bottle and poured the entire contents in one attempt. I tossed the bottles into the bush and staggered backwards, dizzy from holding my breath and avoiding disembowelment.
Kam finished tying the sack around his niece’s hairy neck and rolled off. The lion rolled the other way, her breathing heavy, her limbs twitchy and weak as her form quivered, convulsed and shrunk into the shape of a girl.
“It worked,” I breathed out. “Kam, get up. Kam?”
He pushed up on his elbows and eyed me groggily. “I forgot I’m a human,” he muttered before collapsing, face in the dirt.
“Brilliant,” I muttered. “The man gets himself knocked out by a little chloroform.”
I had little time to wonder what he meant by his last comment, for just then someone shouted up the slope from us, “It came from over here.”
Before I could say boo or bah, a man stumbled into the clearing. His eyes widened at the sight of a lion standing in front of me. Raising his rifle, he aimed it square at Nyambura. Without thinking the situation through, I jumped up and waved my arms.
“What…?” the man shouted, swinging his rifle toward me.
“Oh dear,” I said.
As if my hand waving had a power beyond mere exercise, the man collapsed and Mr. Timmons of all people stood behind him, his rifle gripped like a club.
“Oh dear,” I repeated with more intense emotion. How should I feel about the scenario, apart from grateful and worried? What was he doing here? That he was up to no good I was certain, but he had yet again assisted me just when I needed it.
“Are you all right?” he asked, but his gaze was fixed on Nyambura and the sleeping Ooma. I narrowed my eyes and his energy c
ame into view. A tentacle of it was reaching out toward the lion sisters.
“Keep away from them, Mr. Timmons,” I said, hefting my walking stick before me, mentally flicking through the itinerary of tools hidden within. Which one would be best? If I had time, I could pull out the slingshot, knock him out and use the cord of rope rolled up in another compartment to tie him up.
Oh, the delicious possibilities…
His dark gaze lifted to my determined one. He smiled. “Fear not, Mrs. Knight. I joined the hunt to protect them.”
He wasn’t lying, but there was some tinge of untruth in there, enough to concern me greatly. Rather than argue, I said, “Thank you. Consider your mission accomplished. Perhaps you could distract the others and send them upriver, away from us and the other lions?”
He hesitated, his eyes flicking between the sisters and me. Whatever his true purpose, it was clear it involved the girls.
“Please, Mr. Timmons, we don’t have an abundance of time,” I said, watching his energy sway back and forth, as if uncertain where to go.
“As you wish.” With one last piercing look at the twins, he slipped away into the shadows.
Deciding I would dwell on Mr. Timmons’ true motivations later, I called out, “Nyambura?”
“Yes, Miss Knight,” she said as she materialized behind her drugged sister.
“Hurry,” I whispered, “and help me move these two. Try not to breathe too deeply, dear. Actually, it would be best not to breathe at all.”
We dragged Ooma into the bush, her head still stuck in the bag. I contemplated removing it and wondered about the health impacts of leaving it on. I then wondered at the health impacts of an infuriated, half-drugged lion with a grudge.
The sack stayed on.
Lugging Kam into hiding was another business altogether. For a man to faint, even if due to chloroform vapor, was entirely unacceptable, not to mention inconvenient; it left me with the awkward task of tugging a tall, heavy body through the dark brush.
“If those lions return,” I vowed under my breath while almost wrenching his arm out of its socket, “don’t imagine for one moment that I will stay by your chloroform-stinking side.”
“What, Miss Knight?” Nyambura huffed while pulling at the other arm.
“His feet are sticking out,” I said.
Sure enough, Kam’s big, shoeless feet jutted out of the bush, signaling our location to all and sundry. And to further bother me, a tree blocked our progress backwards. Irritated, I signaled to Nyambura to stop pulling just as I dropped my side of her uncle. His head smacked against a tree root in a most satisfactory manner.
I wiped damp strands of hair off my forehead; it wasn’t particularly warm as the temperature had dropped quite abruptly with the setting of the sun, but the exertions and the humidity among the trees near the river colluded to leave me overly heated and offensively moist.
“Stay here,” I hissed as I stepped over Ooma’s comatose and reassuringly human body.
The noise of the hunters was so close I could just make out words. Flickers of light from a couple of torches they had lit winked at me through the brush. If I breathed in deeply, which I didn’t dare do, I would surely be able to smell the burning wood and the men’s body odor.
So much for Mr. Timmons leading them away, I thought uncharitably.
I knelt by Kam’s feet and gingerly grasped one calf and pushed and wiggled until his knee bent. I maneuvered the leg into the bush but as soon as I shifted to the next leg, the first slid back out.
“How bloody inconsiderate,” I told the unconscious man. “You were the one who said not to breathe, and what did you do?”
Kam remained mute but a hunter shouted through the trees, “I think I see something.”
“Guns at the ready, men,” another ordered.
I wondered what story I could possibly tell the hunters to explain how I ended up in this small grove of trees in the middle of the grasslands with two drugged-up bodies, a shape-shifting girl and a pride of lions.
Any story I could imagine seemed improbable and likely to land me in more trouble than is acceptable for an Englishwoman, even in a place so far removed from the gossip of London as Nairobi was.
So I did what any socially-attuned, gossip-adverse, paranormal investigator would do: I forcefully stuffed both of Kam’s legs back so far his knees nearly smacked into his chin; then I squeezed myself back into the bush, the bottom of his feet pressing against my spine; I pulled a few branches in front to screen us all; and prayed the hunters didn’t have dogs or a tracker with them.
And all of that in the nick of time, for a couple of hunters barreled into the small clearing, huffing, puffing, sweating and swearing, guns swinging, and torches swaying precariously close to dry, flammable leaves.
“Miss Knight,” Nyambura whispered behind me, her warm cheek pressed close to my ear. “I can turn back and scare them away.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” I said sharply but quietly. “It’s a most brave offer to make, but scaring stupid men who are armed is a very dangerous business, especially for a lion.”
So we sat there with the cloying scent of chloroform, musk of lion and decaying leaves covering us as much as the darkness and bushes did. Kam began to snore, his legs shifting behind me.
“This way,” a voice shouted in the darkness. I recognized Mr. Timmons’ deep voice. Finally, he was doing something.
Only when the hunters had wandered off in the direction of the voice, their noise diluted by the night, did I dare ease out of the bushes and into the stillness.
Chapter 27
It was Nyambura who led me back to the place we’d left Nelly. Kam, staggering about like a giant drunkard, decided to wait for her on the path to their village, a well trussed-up Ooma still asleep by his side.
Only as I began to follow Nyambura away did he slur out an acknowledgement that might’ve been a thank you. “You hid us well.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, certain he wouldn’t want to be seeing me for a while after he sobered up. Regardless of cultural differences, men are men, and no man wants to admit he needed a woman to save him.
Talking of sleeping lion girls, Nelly was doing just that when I walked up to her. She was exactly where I had left her, her hooves sunk into the soil, her snoring disguising the buzz of insects. She was as unperturbed by my appearance as she was by my disappearance. Then again, the only thing that could ruffle her composure was a missed meal, the fat little horse.
Wearily, I clambered onto my half-asleep mount and waved at Nyambura. The girl seemed completely awake and chipper as usual. With a bright smile, she transformed effortlessly into a lion, and with a flick of her tail, she vanished into the grass. With considerably more effort, I kicked Nelly into action and hoped we met neither lions nor hunters.
I don’t recall much of the ride back apart from having to occasionally wake Nelly up, and it was with utmost relief that I collapsed into bed, after which I have no recollection of the rest of the night.
While nothing compares to a Shongololo or a ghost lion in terms of inconvenience, nonetheless a mosquito trapped in the sleeping net was frightfully annoying. While sheer exhaustion prevented the insect from keeping me awake, I did spend the last part of the early morning alternatively tossing, covering my ears with a weary arm, and trying to swat the little bloodsucker with my pillow.
I only mentioned this to justify my foul temper the next morning, particularly when the first person I laid eyes on was the one and only Mr. Timmons.
I had finally succeeded in smashing the mosquito into insect oblivion and was planning on returning to my slumber when something thumped on the front door. And it thumped again, much as a fist would.
“Oh now what?” I muttered as I hastily pulled on a coat over my rumpled clothes and went to answer the door.
The rest of the household remained in deep slumber and Jonas was nowhere around, which only increased my aggravation. I didn’t even have the energy or decency
to blush as I appeared in public in a state of disarray. As is often the case, I seem to greet news or events of any significance immediately after tumbling out of bed.
“My apologies for the early disturbance,” Mr. Timmons said the moment I opened the door.
And he did look somewhat apologetic as far as a man of his uncivilized temperament can. But that didn’t ease my irritation, especially when the sun was nowhere to be seen. Only a slight shimmer kissed the horizon, leaving the rest of the landscape in night’s cool embrace.
“Well, I should hope so,” I snapped uncharitably. As the man actually had the decency to look shamed, I modified my tone. “Oh, do come in. I have no interest in being further bitten tonight.”
Frowning in confusion and glancing at me for signs of teeth marks, Mr. Timmons followed me into the silent house. As I was about to close the door, I noticed a large black and white mound on the ground near the house. I squinted at it.
Although one zebra looked pretty much like every other zebra to the untrained eye, I was fairly certain this had been the possessed one. It was now dead. I was as equally confident that the serpentine creature formerly possessing it was very much alive, in as much as a paranormal creature of that sort can be.
Well, it served the zebra right for devouring Mrs. Steward’s silk roses. But now I had a malevolent spirit on the loose. Sighing, I closed the door. The serpentine spirit and the zebra carcass would have to wait.
“We can sit in the kitchen,” I said as much to inform him as to distract myself from his looming presence. My shoulders twitched but I couldn’t say if it was from a sense of danger or anticipation. “I don’t know about you, but I certainly need a cup of tea.”
