Curse of the Nandi (Society for Paranormals Book 5) (19 page)

Before any of those clothes could be swept away by the wind, Nelly’s angle pitched forward sharply and I was doubly grateful I had my eyes squeezed shut. Landing a horse was, I had decided, one of the more alarming activities in which I routinely engaged.

We had just enough time to slide off Nelly and pat our clothes into order when a giant bat carrying a loudly complaining African landed in a patch of weedy grass.

“Me, I don’t like flying by bat,” Jonas announced with a shake of his fist.

“Do stop your complaining, Jonas,” I said, with little sympathy. “He hasn’t dropped anyone yet.”

“At least not by accident,” Mr. Timmons added as Mr. Elkhart shifted back into his more elegant human form.

With that done, we glanced about as if expecting a tribe of Nandi to pop out of the nearby bamboo forest. The only thing popping out were the flies, and they were more than delighted to welcome us. Several paces away, a small herd of zebras studied us briefly before returning to grazing. Farther off, a giraffe plucked at the leaves of a thorn tree, utterly disinterested in the new arrivals.

“Giraffe really are the snobbiest creatures I’ve yet to encounter,” I said.

“Perhaps,” Mr. Timmons agreed, “but at least they are equally snobby to everyone.”

Having settled on the conclusion that giraffe were inclusive in their elitist attitude, we turned to Jonas, who scratched at the small, black and gray curls crowning his head.

“We’re on the escarpment,” Mr. Elkhart noted. “The villages are farther down in the valley.”

“Koitalel, his hut isn’t in the village,” Jonas said, still scratching his head. I wondered what he was thinking about with such intensity. “It’s just near here.”

I was always suspicious when an African made reference to time or distance being ‘short’ or ‘near’ or ‘almost there’. Time and distance, I had learned through various interactions, were concepts that changed with the culture. As Africans didn’t have watches, their concept of time was based on the location of the sun, what meal was waiting for them at home, or any of a number of factors that made little sense to the European mind. So when Jonas said ‘near’, I knew it could be anywhere from a few paces down the hill to halfway across the Rift Valley.

Jonas must have read the doubt in my eyes, for he said, “Ten minutes at most.”

“And how long is a minute, Jonas?” I inquired.

He shrugged, grinned and replied, “One-tenth of the time it will take to reach the hut of Koitalel.”

Thus reassured, we followed Jonas along a trail that only he could see. For me, it was all bush and scrub and tiny creatures scuttling amongst the undergrowth. A gazelle the size of a small dog leaped across the path ahead of us while a vulture circled overhead.

The path, such as it was, meandered down a gentle slope. Ahead of us, stretching far into the distance, was the Rift Valley, a flat expanse of grassland bordered by two long escarpments. After a bit of time that was longer than ten minutes, but not ridiculously so, we navigated a series of boulders and came upon a small, round hut with a thatched roof and a half dozen clucking hens.

Sitting on the ground, as if expecting our arrival, was a man clothed in an ochre-stained leather wrap. There wasn’t a shred of doubt that we were standing before Koitalel. Something in the man’s bearing suggested an otherworldly power. He nodded at Jonas, who sat with his head lowered to the side, and began to speak.

As we waited for Jonas to translate, I studied the diviner. There was a sense of contradiction about him: his skin was youthful even as deep lines creased around his eyes and mouth; his eyes were deep and old as the Rift Valley, but sparkled with childish energy; his head was smoothly shaven, yet the baldness indicated the head of a babe and not of an elder. He spoke with child-like innocence, yet his tone implied ancient knowledge and insight. As I struggled to correct the confusion these opposing elements created in my mind, his low voice filled the space about us, and Jonas softly provided translation.

“Welcome, People of the Fog,” Koitalel said. “You are most welcome in our lands. You are our honored guests.”

Bemused, Mr. Timmons drawled, “And here we thought we were living in a British colony.”

Jonas bestowed a dark glance at him and didn’t translate the comment. Mr. Elkhart bowed his head in a token of respect and I wondered if Koitalel was even aware of the danger his people faced.

“Sir, we come with a matter of great urgency,” I ventured to speak into the silence. “You see…”

Koitalel raised a hand and seemed to tap the air. “You are like the weaver birds, so busy, busy, busy, rushing about, building one nest only to toss it to the ground and start again.”

“So are we birds or fog?” Mr. Timmons mused.

“You are like the fog,” Jonas explained. “But you talk like birds, always chattering.”

“Flattering,” Mr. Timmons said.

“Enough,” Mr. Elkhart interrupted what looked to be a useless exchange of insults between Jonas and his employer. “Let’s learn what the man has to say.”

The man in question smiled at us as if we were little children seeking his advice about a broken toy. “I am aware of why you are here,” he said.

“We would rather avoid what is to come,” I said, ignoring Jonas’ disapproving glance. “If the Kerit continue to spread the Plague and the Nandi maintain their offensive against the British, we could end up with the Plague being spread throughout the region, and well-armed troops destroying your villages.”

Koitalel tipped his head to the side and studied me, his grandfatherly expression unchanged. “We cannot avoid our future,” he finally said.

I pondered the implications of these words. Did he see what the future held? Or did he believe they had no choice but to provoke the British into a battle the Africans couldn’t possibly win? Or…

“Kalu Akanu informed us about the zebra doctor’s concerns,” Koitalel continued. “We had no prior knowledge of this disease.”

“So Kam is involved,” Mr. Elkhart said, his countenance unreadable.

“Where there’s trouble, one is certain to find him about,” I muttered, wondering what the Lightning God was devising now. He had no love for the British or for those of us who had any connection with the Society for Paranormals, but certainly he wouldn’t provide advice that would lead to the annihilation of a tribe? Or perhaps he intended to strike down the troops with lightning bolts?

“Whatever his intentions, it does alter the situation somewhat,” Mr. Timmons murmured, his line of thinking eerily matching my own.

“Yes, but not entirely,” Mr. Elkhart said. “There’s still the matter of the zombie Plague spreading. And if the troops are defeated, Parliament will be more than willing to send more, and overwhelm any defense through brute force of advanced armaments and sheer numbers of disposable soldiers.”

Throughout, Jonas whispered translations to Koitalel who nodded his head in time with the words. “It is displeasing that your Queen has so little regard for the life of her warriors,” he said after a moment. “We have no desire to harm, only to protect.”

“Be that as it may, a battle is coming for which you may not be prepared,” Mr. Timmons said. “Even with Kam’s assistance, and the Kerit and Plague weakening the British, you will fall. Our Queen and her council give no mercy to those who resist the Empire.”

The diviner shifted his attention to the chickens pecking about the small space of packed earth in front of the hut. I wanted to pursue the conversation, to arrive at a resolution to the issues at hand, but something in the man’s posture and in Jonas’ reprimanding glance restrained me.

When Koitalel spoke, it was in a distant, detached tone. “The future has already been created,” he said with grave finality. “There is nothing more to say.”

Chapter 23

“That was a useless exercise,” I muttered as we tramped up the hill to our landing site.

No one replied, and I assumed they either all concurred or the dusty heat had worn down their energy to a state of muteness. When we reached Nelly, we found her deep in slumber. We paused to admire the view, and I couldn’t help but note what an incongruous group we were: Jonas, his shoulders slouched and his clothes mere rags, despite the new sets I’d given him; Mr. Timmons, his sideburns in need of a trim and his hair a tad disheveled; Mr. Elkhart, always smartly dressed in black, whatever the weather, his regal bearing and gentle eyes a strange contrast; and myself, a one-handed and somewhat pretty woman with little interest in fashion but always armed with a weapon or two.

“Jonas, why aren’t you wearing the new clothes we gave you?” I demanded. Admittedly, that wasn’t the most relevant question I could’ve asked, and Mr. Elkhart peered at me with some amazement.

Unperturbed, Jonas shrugged as if the state of his tattered shirt mattered not at all. “Me, I’ll wear them when it’s time.”

“How exasperating,” I muttered. “The purpose of providing you with suitable attire was to prevent you from appearing in public dressed like… well, like that.” I waved in his direction.

“While I’m certain the stylishness of Jonas’ clothes is of utmost importance,” Mr. Timmons said in a sardonic tone, “perhaps we should turn our attention to the precarious situation of the Plague and Kerit attacks?”

“Sarcasm fits you so well, dear,” I said. “So what of the Nandi?”

“There’s not much we can do on that front,” Mr. Elkhart replied and Jonas nodded his acquiescence. “It seems they are decided on their fate. Now we must sort out ours, for I don’t much relish decapitation or disease.”

I couldn’t help but admire that sentiment, for it was one I adhered to heartily, although I couldn’t help but wonder if a bat man would be susceptible to the Plague. Attacks by the Kerit on the other hand would adversely impact anyone with a brain in their head.

As if detecting our gloomy thoughts and desiring nothing more than to alleviate them, a rock hyrax popped up onto a cluster of rocks nearby. The bright-eyed, rabbit-sized rodent issued a sharp shriek at us, its plump, furry body quivering with nerves as it sat up, its front paws clutched in front of its chest.

“What a charming creature,” I murmured.

At that moment, an African kite swooped out of the sky at such a sharp angle I was certain it would smash itself into a feathery mess upon the hyrax’s rock. Instead, the bird veered up just before a collision could occur, and appeared to shoot out of the ground with the hyrax in its talons. The furry rodent struggled and managed to loosen the bird’s grip, only to plummet to the hard ground below, the tattered remains bespattered amongst the scrubby shrubs.

I’m not one to be easily perturbed by the splattering of blood and body parts, but I still recoiled. It was quite remarkable how abruptly life could transform into death. More to the point, I did detest a messy corpse. The kite, not at all displeased by the outcome, plucked up its conquest and soared toward a distant clump of yellow-barked acacia trees.

“Charming, indeed,” Mr. Timmons smirked, for he was even less disconcerted by dismemberment than I was.

“It’s an omen,” Jonas muttered with a full-body shiver.

“It can’t be that bad,” I said, rubbing my arms despite the sharp heat of the sun’s rays. “After all, the kite is quite contented by the feast.”

“Yes, but are we the kite, or the hyrax?” Mr. Elkhart queried.

On that note, he transformed into a giant bat and flew off into a robin blue sky with a somber Jonas in tow.

“I suppose that’s the end of that,” I said, still perturbed. I frowned, then remembered Mrs. Steward’s admonishments against wrinkling one’s face. On the off chance my husband held similar views, I smoothed out my features. “And we still haven’t decided what our next step is.” I turned to Mr. Timmons, who was more bemused than concerned.

“Shall we, Mrs. Timmons?” Mr. Timmons murmured, and I was momentarily startled by the use of my new name. He leaned in and bestowed a soft kiss at the base of my neck, causing a shiver of a different sort.

“A poor little beast plummets to a messy death, and this is how you respond?” I asked with a smile and a girlish urge to giggle.

He shrugged, a devilish grin assuaging my momentary despondency. “I was focusing on the bird.”

“How forward of you,” I said and smiled.

Yet still we lingered. Perhaps it was the grand view of the Rift Valley, stretching so far out in the distance that the end was obscured by the curvature of the earth. The untouched state of the place recalled to mind the location of our honeymoon, with only natural sounds flittering through the silence. I wondered how the valley would appear once the rainy season commenced.