The Daughters of the Darkness

by Luke Phillips

  As she turned, she met Thomas’s gaze from the open doorway.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but in my defence, if you haven’t learnt that I don’t always think things through by now, it’s probably too late.”

  “It’s okay,” she smirked. “I mean, it’s not, but we’ll talk about it later. I would just have preferred if I had been the first person you spoke to about it rather than Keelson.”

  “Who?” Thomas quipped, staring at her soft naked skin.

  “That,” she purred, “was the right thing to say.”

  She stepped over to him, taking his hands in hers and placing them on her waist. They pulled her tight to him. They kissed softly and slowly as she began to strip away his clothes until they were both naked, tentatively touching each other with a nervous eagerness. She led him over to the bath and they stepped in together. She sat down in the warm, milky water with her back to him. She felt his legs sidle past her and he began to bathe her, his hands cupping the silky liquid and letting it fall over her neck and shoulders. A stream cascaded between her breasts, and suddenly his hands were there too, rubbing and stroking to her delight. She leaned back, nestling her lips into his neck to nuzzle softly. She arched her back, lifting herself and squeezing his legs back between her own. They made love slowly and tenderly at first, but giving way to their passion as it broached. They giggled together as each impassioned lunge sent a wave of water over the top of the bath. They held each other for some time afterwards before she stood up, looking down at him coyly.

  “I’m still going to need that shower,” she whispered.

  Thomas watched her go and moments later heard the shower begin to run in the adjoining room. He leaned over the top of the tub and grabbed a towel from the rail. His first instinct was to follow her in, but he held back, knowing they had a serious conversation ahead of them. He tied the towel round his waist and walked out of the bathroom and across the hall to the bedroom. He passed through into the oak lined walk-in wardrobe and started taking the heavy, leather luggage down from a back shelf. As soon as the preparations were made, they were heading to Africa.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MKUU, TANZANIA/KENYA BORDER

  The battered and dented white Mitsubishi Shogun bumped along the dry, dust encrusted track. Robert Botha looked across to his client, an Italian named Leonetti whose wallet outweighed his shooting skills by some margin. They had been out since dawn after hearing the lions during the night. And the Italian wanted a lion, badly. Robert watched the man as he nervously gripped the Famars .416 Rigby Africa Express rifle, his knuckles white with the pressure.

  “Ease up old boy, we’ll find them before you have to leave. The plane will be landing at the lodge at 4pm, and trust me, it won’t leave without you after what you’ve paid,” Botha reassured him.

  The man smiled, and seemed to relax a little as he let out a breath and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  Botha stood up from the raised bench seat that sat squarely against the cab of the Shogun and looked out over the top. He scanned the road ahead and immediately banged hard on the roof of the truck. His driver, Enzi, brought the vehicle to a juddering halt as Botha jumped over the side. He knelt by the track, examining the large fresh pugmarks. The lions had used the road because it was the easiest route through the scrub, but it made him wonder where they were going. He was worried they were heading for the river and the Kenyan border, where they would not be able to follow. But further up at a bend in the road, the prints led off into the acacia-potted wilderness.

  Botha walked back to the truck.

  “Looks like we’re on foot from here my friend,” he said.

  The Italian climbed down from the seat and over the side of the truck. Abasi, Botha’s tracker and gun bearer, climbed out of the passenger side of the Shogun. He carried the two long wooden sticks that would make up a gun rest and slung Botha’s Weatherby rifle over his shoulder. Botha and Leonetti followed him past the bend in the road and into the surrounding scrub. The tall, dark-skinned Maasai scanned the landscape ahead. He walked forty yards before stopping again, his gaze set on a thick tangle of scrub in the shade of a thorn-studded acacia tree.

  “What is it Abasi?” Botha whispered as he joined him.

  “There is a kill. See the tai?” Abasi asked.

  Botha looked to the horizon. The dark silhouettes of griffon and white-backed vultures, or tai in Swahili, were easy to spot against the azure sky. They rode the thermals in a slow arc, their outstretched wings carrying them with ease over the savannah.

  “They have not landed,” Abasi stated simply.

  Botha nodded. The lions were still feeding, or at least guarding the kill. He turned and beckoned Leonetti to them.

  “We’ll stay downwind and head towards that clump of trees. We think the lions are laid up there. Go slow and go quiet, okay?”

  The Italian nodded, his shirt already drenched in perspiration. Botha nodded to Abasi, signalling they were clear to move off. The men skirted the scrub together, and clung to the thin pieces of cover between them and the yellow-flowered candle bush where they planned to try for a bead on the lions. When they reached it, they knelt and took a draw of water from the canteen Botha carried. The going had been hard, hot and slow, but they were now within shooting distance of the acacias and the shade they offered.

  Abasi seemed to squint as he searched out the dark recesses beneath the trees. Finally, he relaxed and rammed the two sticks into the ground, their crossed ends forming a natural rest for the client’s rifle. Leonetti was brought up, and he placed his gun between the two pieces of wood whilst Botha pointed out where he should be looking. Botha used a pair of old Zeiss binoculars as Leonetti searched through his scope. He found the animal easily. The scrawny looking young male seemed to be alone. But it was a prize worth taking. The pale colour of the hide looked slightly out of place against the tawny scrub, and hinted the animal was something unusual. Over the last decade, east Africa had seen more and more so-called white lions in their populations. The reason for their strange appearance was unknown, but it would make for quite the trophy.

  “You’ve got a whitey,” Botha whispered. “Not every day you get a chance at one of those. He’s sitting up nicely, all you have to do is squeeze the...”

  The explosion of sound rolled around the arid dustbowl surrounding them as a lick of flame erupted from the end of the rifle. Botha watched with annoyance as a giant pock mark was etched into the trunk of the acacia, a few inches from the lion’s head. The animal jumped up immediately, melting into the undergrowth seamlessly as it dashed behind the tree. You can lead a horse to water Botha thought bitterly, looking to the sweat sodden Italian for an explanation.

  “I went for the other one,” Leonetti stammered, “I only saw a shadow, but it was there. It made the other one look-a-like pussy cat.”

  Botha sighed. It wasn’t the first time a client had shot at shadows. The heat and sun played tricks on the eyes as well as the mind out here. He had wanted the man to get his lion, but he knew they were out of time.

  “Well let’s go see what old Simba was snacking on hey,” Botha offered.

  The three men walked slowly over to the tree, careful to watch in case the lion decided to make a return. With ten feet still to go before they reached the acacia’s welcome shade, Abasi stopped suddenly, throwing his arm out to the side to hold back the others. Through a thick swarm of jade-bodied blowfly, the torn remains of a man lay scattered in a heap amongst the crimson stained grass. There wasn’t much left. The abdomen had been opened, the spilled guts devoured and fought over. The trampled and flattened brush showed several lions had fed here. The sheered, neatly gnawed rib cage had been broken through so the prized morsels within of heart, liver and lungs could be extracted. The legs had been severed below the knee, ripped off as individual prizes to be consumed away from the slathering mob. Botha spotted a crunched, nearly fleshless foot laying a little way off from the body. The skin and meat from the man’s cheeks
had been licked away by the sandpaper tongues of the cats. Only a few flaps of skin and tattered strings of flesh still clung to the broken and battered body.

  As Botha took a step closer, an ear-splitting roar rose up from the scrub where the young male had disappeared. Abasi’s eyes grew wide as the sound echoed away into nothing. Botha could read the uneasiness on the man’s face.

  “I think we’re in danger of overstaying our welcome,” Botha said. “We’ll call this in when we get back to camp. Besides, we’ve lost them now. They’re headed to the Kenyan side of the river, and there’s no sport shooting there I’m afraid.”

  Without a word, the three men worked their way back to the truck, each offering nervous glances behind every few steps.

  A few hours later, Botha watched both his client and a small metal container containing the remains of the man they had found board the Vulcanair P68C TC plane at the camp’s private runway. He waved them off as the twin engines pulled the plane into the sky, but the day’s events vexed him. Although the client had enjoyed a fine safari of nearly thirty days, he suspected he would not see Leonetti again. Not getting his lion meant the Italian might venture further south for his next hunt. Namibia and South Africa offered more certainty these days. The camp at Mkuu was spectacular in location, right on the border of Tanzania and Kenya, in the shade of Mount Kilimanjaro itself. But the hilly outcrops, thickly packed wooded gorges and fierce desert scrub made sport shooting difficult. That was exactly what he had intended when he had set the place up, a safari experience that harked back to the golden era of hunting. A place where the danger was real and the animals were wild. But shooting had changed. Game farms offered a sure thing for the fraction of the price, with the story behind the kill left to the client’s imagination once back home. He sighed, pondering if he should consider moving south too.

  ~

  She waited in the grass, hunched and coiled. She had watched as the strange upright animals had left the kill, only to return and remove it. She had nearly charged, but instinct held her to the warm earth under her belly. As the light had begun to dim, the wind had changed and now the pungent scent was carried straight to her. It was immediately recognisable, a sweet, honey-like odour combined with a taint of leather or hide. The aroma was never alone, often wrapped in other scents, some bitter, some more delicate. But she had become accustomed to it and now recognised it as prey.

  She was wary of the dark sticks the animals carried. She had learnt to no longer answer their thunderous noise with a roar. Although it brought the prey to her, she had seen others killed in their proximity. She now only ever roared when she was sure of the prey’s position and a successful strike. Patience was something she had learnt as she sat above the entrances to warthog burrows, often for hours before the animal emerged. And no such vigil was necessary for this animal. They seemed careless.

  The change in the wind brought confidence and she finally stirred with a flick of her tail. The tall savannah grass consumed her, the light dappling her silhouette and outline until it was just a glimmer. She knew these things by instinct, this being her favoured time of day to hunt. As she padded through the scrub, her ears pricked up and faced forward. She made little, rumbling grunts as she went. The other members of the pride flanked her but never out stepped or overtook her. They followed the scent laden trail from the cover either side of the dry red track that cut through the landscape. She knew this area was free from lions, as she had killed a large male and taken over a family group here. The surviving members had joined the pride amicably after that. But she still showed caution this side of the river. There was less prey here, and she couldn’t tolerate the disturbance and taking of a kill.

  Night was beginning to descend, but the scent trail remained thick and pungent. The pride stepped out of the grass together, entering a scrub-strewn gap in the cover. She stopped, her ears pricked at the distant sound of fire and the animals up ahead. She held her head high as she took in the smell of smoke laced with the teasing taints of hot fat and blistered meat. As she headed straight across the sparse ground, the others flanked and spread out on either side. They reached a maze of rocks and flat-topped acacia on the other side of the break and sunk to their bellies, inching forward as their amber eyes sought out the emergence of prey from the inky blackness. They made no sound now. Each tawny coloured cat made minute adjustments to their approach, pushing their noses into the wind until they could see the prey ahead of them. Some stood, straining forward as their heavy padded feet and unsheathed claws anchored them to the ground. Others hugged the earth, every muscle tight and wound for the rush to come. They waited.

  ~

  Botha sat back in his canvas chair and watched the men begin to pack away for the night. They secured the food stores inside coolers and metal containers then loaded them onto the back of the shogun for added protection. He grabbed another bottle of Castle Draught beer from an ice box being carried past him, giving the man carrying it a nod as he did so. The lager was South African, like him. He had allowed the men to celebrate the end of the safari as usual, despite his misgivings of how the last hunt had gone. His crew behaved themselves, accepting the cold beers gratefully and not over indulging, something he took a dim view of. He pressed the condensation laced glass bottle to his forehead and closed his eyes for a moment as he enjoyed the cool comfort it brought.

  When he opened them again, he settled his gaze on the dying fire. A log crackled and fizzed, its scorched bark popping in the dry air. He rolled and cracked his neck and looked up, above and through the wisped tops of the flames. There in the darkness he saw two golden embers of light. It took a few moments for his tired gaze to realise it wasn’t part of the fire he was looking at, but its reflection in the mirrored irises of a cat. As he stared, he thought he could begin to make out the white guard hairs of the chin. At first, his fatigued mind told him it was a caracal, a small golden coloured cat that often hunted birds and mammals in the grass beside the camp. As the shadow took form, suddenly and silently rushing forward, he realised to his horror that it was a lioness.

  He sprang from the chair as the great tawny beast leapt from the other side of the fire, its hubcap sized paws reaching out for him through the harmless and dying licks of flame. Botha only had time to half scream a warning, his words cut off as 350lbs of hard packed muscle hit him like a locomotive. He was thrown back nearly six feet onto his back. As his head struck the stony ground and the wind was knocked from his lungs, the momentum of the lioness brought her head and body smashing into his. Her open jaws found flesh and her top set of four inch fangs sank into his shoulder and the back of his neck, whilst the bottom set broke through its side and his right cheek bone. The crushing force splintered his jaw and ruptured his vertebrae, but he was still alive when the lioness split him open from belly to groin with a rake of her rear claws. As the lioness lifted him from the ground, she bit down harder, strangling the remaining life from him in a few seconds.

  Roars erupted all around the camp. The men panicked, running in every direction as they sought an escape. None materialised. Rippling, bounding shadows spilled into the camp, swamping the fleeing men. One man ran for the truck, only to be brought to the ground and dragged off into the darkness, his screams coming to a sudden, cut-off end moments later. Another ran for Botha’s tent, hoping to find the South African’s rifle there. He did, and he died reaching for it as a lioness entered the tent and pinned him against the canvas, her growls drowning out his fearful sobs as she straddled him. A moment later he was rendered silent with a crushing bite to the chest that penetrated his heart and lungs.

  Abasi sprinted away into the darkness, along a track that he knew would lead to the main village of Mkuu some three miles away. He didn’t look back as the sounds of roaring and screams melted away into the night. He had always been swift and was running flat out. Guiltily, he hoped the lions would be content with his co-workers. He made it nearly two hundred yards before he found out he was wrong. As the moon brok
e free of a cloud and began to paint the savannah below from its still low position in the sky, a pale, grey coloured blur burst out of the undergrowth and barrelled into him. His tall, six-foot frame crashed and tumbled some way through the patchy and dry Bermuda grass. As he lay dazed and stunned, he thought of the white hunters he had helped purge the land of game. He knew they were rich beyond his understanding whilst he had remained poor. And now the land was poorer too. Was this the price to be paid for such disrespect and squander? The head man of his village had always preached that the Earth had a memory. It was what they believed. Perhaps she held a grudge too.

  He was aware of a shadow passing over him. He cried out in pain as his feet were pinched between the jaws of the great cat. As he was dragged into thicker cover, his arms and legs were torn by the acacia thorns on all sides. He tried to reach up and claw at the animal’s ash-coloured flanks, only to be ripped back down by the barbed branches. He gasped as they came to a stop deep in the thicket. There was no light here and he scrabbled with his fingertips for a way out. A deep, angry rumble penetrated the darkness and reverberated around the ragged walls of his prison. Abasi felt the hot breath of the animal on his face before a dry, rasping tongue raked across his cheek. A flick of a claw opened up his throat, and he gurgled and spat out his last breaths as the animal lay down by his feet and began to lick and clean them of flesh.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It had been a painful and slow-turning three weeks for Thomas whilst Kelly made all the necessary arrangements, but he was pleasantly surprised by what she’d been able to pull off in that time. The seventeen-hour flight had been interrupted by a stop in Turkey, to take on supplies they weren’t legally or otherwise able to procure in the UK, but it had been without incident. The Alenia C-27J Trojan cargo plane Keelson had somehow acquired on loan from the U.S.A.F was certainly more comfortable than some of the more antique aircraft he’d been in, but it was still a bare basics military transport. Catherine had tried to sleep a little, but the constant reverberation and juddering of the plane was something she wasn’t used to. Keelson had kept herself busy checking and re-checking everything on board and didn’t seem tired even now.