Nkumbi had wandered through the night, following the trail of discarded arms and hands gnawed to the bone by wild dogs, into a neighbouring village that had been almost as devastated. He later learned it was the Congolese, not dogs, who had consumed the flesh of their victims, wearing pieces of bone and shrunken skin as charms. This was the juju--the black magik they relied on to keep them in power for many years. That experience drove Nkumbi to abhor the supernatural, to crack down on it as the crime against humanity that he believed it was, and to become a member of The Unit.
The sun rose, glittering over the mountainside, and Nkumbi waited until it chased the shade off his vehicle before stepping out of the squad car. He hesitated with a hand on his holster. The gun would be of no use to him. He thought it might be used against him, so he locked the pistol in the cubbyhole.
He had had no legal reason in the past to breach her property, though he had always been curious. Fear did not grip him like it should have, and he was keenly aware of that nagging fact. As a child of the Congo, he had already met the devil in the jungle.
His suspicion that she was not invincible came from her claim to reincarnate. To reincarnate, one must first die. But, he wondered, how does one kill a devil? He got his answer from her book. Gold, he had read, was an integral part of her world. It was formed during creation's big bang, and it scattered and settled under the earth. She used gold in many of her recipes, giving her readers plenty of access to it through her alchemy, and she lived in South Africa, where gold was its number one production.
What he found, through hours of research, was something that attacked gold, and that was chlorine. Father Charles had suggested that he mix the chlorine with holy water, and Nkumbi patted the plastic vial of the mixture in his shirt pocket, hoping he would not regret leaving his gun.
Thick blue-green bushes parted like fine hair as Nkumbi pushed his way through them. There, under the bushes, the ground shifted slightly. The rising sun broke through the parting and landed on the gate. Wherever the sun touched the gate, there the tall iron, barrel-sized bars turned into an off-white knotted fence no taller than he. The blue-green bushes struck by the sun turned brassy and lifeless.
Not knowing exactly what hid beyond her gate did not slow him or his investigation; investigating was not only his job, but also his responsibility. He did not want to, but had to--there was no one else but him. Countless others would disappear, as Edward had, without justice unless he carried through with what he was about to do.
A wide path led up into the murky thick of her forest and after a long sigh, Nkumbi placed a hand on the fence and climbed. Straddling the top, wet from the morning dew, he slipped, twisting an ankle when he fell to the other side.
The atmosphere immediately changed and an eerie silence rushed him. His stomach lurched and air pressure inside his ears threw him off balance. His ears rang. His throat became drier. He began to cough violently. Swallowing over and over, hoping his ears would pop and bring some relief, he concentrated on keeping his thoughts at arms length, far enough away from her intrusions.
She's coming for you.
Glancing back up over the gate, he realized that his ankle would hinder any escape. He thought of the dog Jeffrey had reported seeing in the middle of the road, and he also remembered what the dog had done to Jeffrey's car. Perhaps he should have brought his gun.
Nkumbi stepped out of the sun, into the forest's shade, and into her mirage. Soft ground moved underneath and he lost his footing in the mud. Arms out to balance himself, Nkumbi straightened his legs. Mud sucked at the steel-tipped boot of his good foot, threatening to swallow it whole, and he struggled for its release. Summoning resolve, he pulled, and the earth regurgitated his boot as he lifted his leg to take another step closer to the house.
Lively green trees dropped dead leaves onto the shaded path that led downward. Each footstep became a military maneuver as he aimed for the fallen leaves to keep free of the mud, somehow knowing there would be no rustle under his feet, no crunch. Nothing was alive there. It was an illusion.
Baobabs and Knob Thorns leaned into one another for support. Green-bearded sycamores, a conjured variety that did not grow naturally in South Africa, hung their heavy heads to their chins, waving their leaves in each other's faces. Wide, fanning Pine tree branches spread their arms and reached down to him. Nkumbi leaned against a rippled tree trunk, cowering briefly. The bark did not feel right. It was too smooth, like cold marble under his palm.
Nkumbi took in every oddity as quickly as possible. Something about the ground caught his trained eye and his resolve returned. He knelt, pulling out a pocketknife. He speared the earth and flipped the dirt with the blade. Both hands dug and squeezed the dirt in his fists. Instead of clumping, it sifted through his fingers like sand. Spearing deeper, where the ground should have been alive with worms, beetles and other squirmy living things, all he dug up was more and more brown sand.
The woman was a lie. The dirt she walked on and the air she breathed--the same air he now took into his thinning lungs--was filled with deceit.
There were no insects, worms, rodents, birds, smells, or sounds, only the sensation that something or someone was there, lurking beyond the trees, following. It certainly was not just his imagination that ran through those woods. Nkumbi slapped the remaining dirt from his hands. Consumed with duty, he refused to turn back.
After what seemed like hours of limping and panting and coughing as he walked down, then up the hill, the forest finally opened on flat ground. The sun illuminated her crumbling house teetering on its foundation. The flat-topped mountain with sharp, chiseled edges climbing up behind it provided a foreboding background to a house that appeared more like a box than the mansion Jeffrey had described. Nkumbi processed the information as it hit him: Jeffrey had only been there at night.
Jeffrey had seen the illusion, or the lie; the house was cloaked at night. Nkumbi was seeing the house in the daylight, without its mask. Even the owner unmasked herself in daylight, and as he gazed up, Nkumbi thought he saw the demonness in the window through the haze of dust and dirt crusted over the glass.
No; she is deep in slumber.
"Who is there?" he asked, turning in circles. He looked back to her empty window. Hooking his thumbs in his pockets, he raised his eyes to the sky.
The sun was higher than it should have been, Nkumbi noted, and he checked his watch to see if he had in fact spent an entire morning climbing. The watch hands were frozen at five thirty-two a.m.
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In the driveway sat the Rolls. Nkumbi peered in the driver's window, but the window was too dark and his reflection stared back at him. He circled the black car, stopping at the taillights where deep shoe prints were molded into the drive's sandy gravel. Those prints had to belong to Phred.
Phred was no stranger. The two had met three years ago just outside Johannesburg. Nkumbi had been on patrol, cruising the city streets, when a black Rolls Royce pulled onto the road. The left brake light of the Rolls was out and Nkumbi followed for several kilometers on the gloomy, quiet highway stretch before he turned on his siren. The Rolls pulled to the roadside and Nkumbi parked behind, and ran the government issued plate before stepping out of the police car.
The Rolls belonged to Edward van Hollinsworth, a registered diplomat from the Kingdom of Lesotho, father of Eva van Hollinsworth.
Nkumbi would warn the driver about the brake light.
Approaching the driver's window with a pocket torch in hand, Nkumbi had swung the light across the car. There were no outside door handles. The tinted window whispered open and he was taken aback by his first glimpse of Phred. Pink was not his colour. Phred wore it on his eyelids, lips and in bright circles on his cheeks and a pink shirt peeked out from under the collar of his black jacket.
Phred tipped his feather hat when Nkumbi asked for his papers. While Phred searched the cubbyhole, Nkumbi aimed the light into the dimly lit car. The partition between driver and backseat was closed. All the wi
ndows were one-way glass. Bulletproof, no doubt. Phred handed over the papers and when Nkumbi opened them, the Roll's backend shook.
"Open the boot," Nkumbi commanded, dropping the papers to the ground, hand hovering over his firearm, torch fixed on Phred. Nkumbi made note of everything; the placement of Phred's hands on the steering wheel, his empty lap, heeled feet on the pedals.
The back window slid down. "Officer?" the passenger, a man, called out. Representative Edward van Hollinsworth.
Nkumbi didn't answer, but once again commanded Phred, "Open. The boot."
"Officer. You can't search this car," said Edward. "I'm a Labour Representative of the Kingdom of Lesotho." He held out an identification card. "I have diplomatic immunity. This car is government property."
Nkumbi took in a deep breath and lowered his hand from his gun. He stepped over to the window, taking the card from Edward. Nkumbi bent down to the window, flicking his light back and forth, comparing face to photo. What he really wanted to see was the much taller figure sitting next to Edward. Neither Nkumbi nor anyone he met had ever seen Eva. No pictures of her existed on file. The reports he had did not corroborate each other; she was a mysterious persona with a string of accusations that led nowhere.
The red-blotched neck of a woman sat high above Edward's. Scabbed hands shielded her face. Her fingers, grotesquely long with thick, pointed nails, stretched from her cheek all the way up to the top of her balding head. Sores ran through her scalp and he heard a hiss from behind her hand. Had he been on her property and under her spell, perhaps he would have seen the beauty that would later captivate Jeffrey.
The boot shook again.
"Sir. What is in your boot?" Nkumbi asked, not as politely this time.
Edward's hand withdrew into the car after he snatched back his ID. "Give my driver back those papers."
What else could he do, but comply? Edward was right; he could not search the car. "Your brake light is out," Nkumbi said, as he bent to collect the papers, torch light moving from the driver to Edward. Slowly, he handed the papers to Phred.
"Phred," Edward said, "Let's go."
Both windows whispered up and the Rolls pulled onto the road and drove away.
Nkumbi put hands on his hips and contemplated the house. What he would give to have the courage to search inside. Lack of fear he had, but courage was not the same as fearlessness. Courage required motivation, and right now, he had little. The longer he stood on her grounds, the more she stole from him.
Nkumbi took the steps up the stoep. Dried up Guarri bushes fell away from the stoep's edge and he stepped over a crack in the cement as he approached the front door hanging open on busted hinges.
He peeked inside, not giving in to the temptation nudging his footsteps, fearful of the evil under those floors. Winded breaths of air rushed out in bursts. The house was an empty, wide-mouthed hole. Dust floated in sunlight that beamed in through the open door.
She is here; she is everywhere, like the dust.
"Hello," he called inside the house. Hotter air puffed in his face. The inside grew, dizzying Nkumbi. He steadied himself, but not before throwing up in his mouth. He swallowed so as not to litter her ground with his fluids.
Nkumbi stepped cautiously off the stoep towards a lower level window at the house's far left, the last window on the corner that sat above the foundation. The window was at ground level and he thought he might be able to peer inside.
Shriveled bushes grew chest high, their tops reaching the bottom of the window. His hands sunk into his pockets and he ducked his head into his collar, elbowing through the bushes.
Deep etchings in the foundation twirled and twisted in different directions, weaving along the base of the house. He took a step closer to see the design.
Thick silver matte snake necks intertwined with each other, their dinosaur heads fast asleep while their bodies trailed under the foundation. Heaps of wormed African Mambos-- their heads, tails, and bodies all resembling globs of entrails--laid in masses under the giant snakes' chins as pillows.
Movement squirmed on the foundation. Nkumbi snapped his head away from a darting tongue as the etchings slithered over each other. He turned and wasted no time hobbling back across the lawn, not giving the koppie he fled towards a second thought.
Atop the barren koppie, he spotted a barn. Nkumbi skirted the outside of the barn with no intention of entering until the wind carried a soft cry to his ears. It came from inside. He had long suspected that Phred stole people off the streets, most of the victims going unreported as missing, and tucked those forgotten souls into the boot of the Rolls, bringing them here.
The handle turned easily like it had been greased, but the door jammed on something on the floor. Not a cry, but a screech came from the other side of the barn. There was just enough room to squeeze through the door and once he wiggled inside, the door snapped closed.
77
Nkumbi tried the handle. Locked.
Moist, humid heat dampened his face, neck and arms. Checking the ground for whatever had jammed the door, he saw only a thin line of clear slime trailing off under a bush.
An established garden surrounded him, crammed with bushes, small trees, flowers, potted plants and soft moss underfoot. Plants sat and hung all around, genera he had never seen before. Shelves along the wall stocked terra cotta pots and plastic buckets, shovels, and dirt-covered trowels. Light came from overhead, and the green vines and branches stretched above him, crawling into each other, forming a leafy canopy ceiling. He reached out to a plant hanging in front of him, one with a yellow flower and bright orange center. Its perfume begged him to come closer and inhale.
The screech beckoned again releasing Nkumbi from the flower's hypnotic hold.
Using his arm like a sickle, he swatted his way through to follow the screech. His legs took him one way when his ears picked up a sigh, leading him another way.
He stopped to listen. Were those clouds above his head, he wondered, or was it smoke? He sniffed, detecting a faint, bitter-sweet odour, like a dose of vinegar had been added to fragrant roses. But then the scent was gone, his throat tightened, and he began to cough.
The screech. No matter how close he thought he got, the screech sounded just as far away. It no longer sounded human, though he was not sure what it had sounded like the first time he heard it. Swimming through tall, wide-leafed grasses, Nkumbi smacked into a tree. Its branches spread and umbrellaed him like a full-leafed Balboa.
Puckered, red, oval shaped pods hung within his grasp. The pods--or were they fruit, he wondered--seemed to be a cross between a pomegranate and a lemon and they hung from white flowering branches. He placed a hand on the trunk; it was warm and rippled like a real tree, not the false ones in the forest. Condensation dripped from the red fruit--he was sure it was fruit. His dry mouth opened and he licked his lips.
He had almost taken the fruit, was ready to bite into its flesh to satisfy his sudden thirst when the screech sounded off again. "Where is that coming from?" he asked, irritated with its persistence.
He had to get out of there. It was a trap and he had been suckered inside.
Pushing and tripping through the foliage, his sense of direction was like a shaken compass. Nkumbi mopped his face with his shirttail. He believed he was lost.
The screech came from directly behind.
Turning, another curtain of branches hung in front of him. He parted them, exposing a grey vine that stretched along the garden's wall, its thorns screeching back and forth against the aluminum siding.
Nkumbi trudged up to the vine to follow its trail. It was attached to a shoulder, attached to a neck, attached to a blinking head! An animal. It gaped at him, its knees drawn up under its chin. The vine was an arm and the thorns were its claws screeching against the wall leaving a wave of scratch marks on the siding.
Not an animal. The creature's gape gave way to a snarl. It belched, releasing a putrid stench that had, up until then, been masked by the flowers' strong perfume.
Nkumbi put his hand to his nose. He peered over the tops of his fingers into the creature's green eyes.
"Hello, Nkumbi," the creature said with a high pitched voice. "I believe we've met, years ago."
The Congo. That is where Nkumbi saw those eyes. The creature before him had been there, inside all those men.
"I'm Mr. Granger."
Granger. Granger? A demon name from Eva's book. Beside each name had been a job description. Granger; guardian. Nkumbi realized what he had overlooked-- Caroline had known its name and had told Jeffrey. Jeffrey had told Lindsey, thinking the name belonged to a government official, and Lindsey had repeated the story to Nkumbi. He should have put the pieces in place months ago. Caroline was being tormented by Eva's demon, Mr. Granger, and the grotesque snuck through the hole in the wall that inexplicably connected Eva's house to Caroline's bedroom and to her hospital room.
Mr. Granger shook its knobby head. "You can't be expected to know it all, Nkumbi. I don't. Eva doesn't." It stretched its long legs towards Nkumbi and said, "I've been away from this garden too long--at Caroline's, at the hospital. Now I'm home."
Nkumbi stumbled backwards when a clawed toe wiggled against his shoe. Mr. Granger simpered, its fleshy cheeks wrinkling.
"Why Caroline?" Nkumbi asked. He had been warned during his training in The Unit's demonology course not to engage a demon, but if this was the end of the road for him--lured into a barn, pulled like a marionette on a string--at least he would have some answers to take to the grave. Perhaps he would be more useful dead, dealing with Eva spirit to spirit.
"Caroline was more open to possession," it said, giving up the information quickly, "dabbling in the fine supernatural arts without much faith but with much curiosity. She took something from Eva she shouldn't have and then refused to give it back. I understand you had the fluids from her navel tested. The hospital found it was drywall. Would you believe that Caroline broke a hole in Eva's wall? She pushed her hand through and let me out." Mr. Granger chuckled. "I'd been waiting a loooong time to get out and stretch.
Seeking Samiel Page 20
