Curse of the Nandi (Society for Paranormals Book 5) (20 page)

“Is it always so dry?” I asked.

Standing behind me, Mr. Timmons wrapped me in an embrace and settled his chin on my head. “The rains are coming soon, and then we’ll experience some floods, mark my words. But it will be stunning.”

Thus we stood for a few more minutes, saying nothing as we marveled at the grandeur of the world before us and allowed the soft calls of birds and insects to wash over us. During that small wedge in time, I could imagine that all was right with the world. And perhaps that was why we loitered, for there weren’t many places that could allow one to forget the terrible truth even momentarily.

Chapter 24

While I wished nothing more than to resume our conversation and decisively settle on a course of action, Mr. Timmons abandoned me the moment we landed, for he had a meeting at the Stanley Hotel with a supplier, so I was left to my own devices. I set off to visit Cilla. Her dejected spirit weighed on me, for it was utterly out of keeping with her character, and I yearned to alleviate her despondency. In addition, the sun was rapidly descending to the horizon. I knew my father would soon be up and about, and I longed to consult with him on all that had transpired.

I was let in by Esther, the new maid who had a fear of stepping outdoors. She did her best to avoid eye contact and anything resembling conversation, despite my efforts to greet her and inquire after her health. Abandoning the effort, I went directly to Cilla’s room of convalescence. I didn’t knock, for fear of waking her, but eased the door ajar sufficiently to peer inside. What I saw caused me to fling it open and utter, “Finally! Now I can box your ears.”

Drew sprung up and twisted about all in one motion, his unkempt hair floating about his agitated face. He bared his teeth, his lean muscles tensing, and the sight reminded me painfully of a cornered wolf. Still, he somehow managed to hold onto Cilla’s hand, despite her efforts to release it from his grip.

“Now, what’s all this commotion?” a stern voice issued from the other side of the room.

I gazed over and was much reassured to observe Nurse Manton seated in the corner, knitting in hand. She was likewise relieved upon sighting me, for she heaved herself up, gathered her items and marched resolutely toward me.

“Now you’re here, ma’am, I’d like to be off before those rascals get into mischief,” she said as way of excuse.

The rascals in question were the three Hardinge children whom I’d seen playing peacefully outside with a couple of hounds. Nonetheless, I allowed her pretext and let her leave.

Drew remained standing, his yellowish werewolf eyes so much like mine in color and yet so much wilder, as if he’d never stepped inside the walls of civilization. While I sympathized with all he’d endured, for he’d suffered perhaps more than I had, I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer.

“Drew, you need to decide where your priorities lie,” I chastised him. “You can’t go running amok with wild creatures while your loved ones worry about your wellbeing or, in this case, are stricken by malady.”

“Don’t be so hard on him,” Cilla pleaded. “He means well.”

“And I mean for him to decide where he belongs,” I said. “I’m sorry, Cilla. This conversation isn’t suitable for an invalid. Perhaps we should adjourn to another room, Drew, and let Cilla rest.”

“No,” Cilla said with more force than she’d exhibited in a while, and it gave me cause for cheer. I could see a brightness in her eyes, a flush in her cheeks, that all boded well for her recovery.

Crestfallen, Drew studied the floor, his straggly hair obscuring his features. “Was just trying to help,” he mumbled, his voice rough from being so little exercised.

Exasperated, I kicked the door closed behind me and crossed my arms over my chest. “How was abandoning Cilla and running off with the Kerit helpful?”

He peered at me through strands of greasy hair, his eyes twitching as if he could scarcely tolerate gazing upon my wrath. “I can communicate with them,” he said tentatively.

Before I could fully process the implications of that statement, Father eased open the door and entered the room. The softness of his smile, the tenderness of his eyes, inspired in me a reciprocating smile and a surge of anxiety. At that moment, I was abruptly reminded that Drew didn’t yet know we shared only the same mother.

Father must have detected the alarm in my eyes, for he placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Forgive me, Beatrice, but I earlier took the liberty of discussing a certain delicate matter with your brother,” he said, his every intonation overflowing with gentleness. “I knew it might be difficult for you.”

Unsure if I should feel relief or dismay, I glanced to Drew. He lifted his chin and pushed back his hair. His eyes held their customary underlying wariness, but his smile was sincere despite the elongated canines.

“It’s all right, Bee,” he said, his voice low and gruff, yet without discontent or distress. “I think I’ve always known. You had nothing of our father in you, neither in physical appearance or character.” A thoughtfulness settled on his features. “More than that, it was the way Mother would gaze at you when she thought no one was watching, and how she tried to shield you and your eccentricities from Father and the wider family.”

Stunned, I could only gape at my brother, my arms falling limply to my side. I barely registered my own father’s gentle grip tightening on my shoulder. “You knew?” I finally stuttered, wondering how he as a young child could have been so cognizant of these details, when I had never questioned the story with which I’d been raised. It was an odd sort of blindness for an investigator to demonstrate.

He shrugged diffidently and shifted his feet. “It makes sense really. At least I’m not the only monster in the family.” His unexpected chuckle softened his words, and I smiled.

“Yes, we are quite the family,” I agreed. “A werewolf, a witch, a vampire, a Popobawa and…” I paused. Was there any one word to describe what I was?

“A hybrid,” my father said as he patted my back. “And a very lovely one, if I do say so myself.”

Cilla was positively beaming at our interaction, and I expected her to utter an enthusiastic or encouraging remark as she was wont to do. Instead, she startled me with the question that I should really have asked: “Do you think we could utilize Drew’s skill at communicating with the Kerit?”

Flabbergasted yet again by my inattentiveness to such a critical detail and my slip in investigative process, I could only but grudgingly admire my bed-bound friend’s grasp of the point.

“That’s what I was attempting to do,” Drew said without any rancor. “But Mr. Elkhart startled them when he flew toward the train station. After that, I ran with them but they wouldn’t converse, and I lost them in the bamboo forest.”

“You’ll have another go at it, Drew,” Cilla said, all reassurance and optimism.

I was much relieved to see her spirits returned, even if I doubted the Kerit would listen to a werewolf. Why should they when there was a camp full of edible brains, as useless as some of those brains might be?

After that, the conversation turned to the weather and other useless topics until it was clear we should allow the convalescent to resume her recuperation in solitude. We three meandered outside to admire the darkening garden which was less a garden and more a slightly manicured extension of the wild lands surrounding the estate. It didn’t remotely resemble anything with which I’d been raised. Bougainvillea threatened to strangle the life out of one tree, the purple, papery petals bold in comparison to the yellow blooms of the tree. A thorn tree nearby had shed a few barbed branches that were hazardous to the unwary pedestrian, and the grass underneath our feet was prickly and dry.

Nonetheless, what English garden could boast a family of elephants lumbering across one corner of it, or a herd of small gazelle sampling Lady Hardinge’s attempt at a vegetable patch in another? And the sunset, while brief in duration, was bold in its coloring of the sky.

“It really is quite stunning,” I contemplated aloud.

Father sighed in a manner that bespoke contentment and concurrence. Drew asked, “How is he stunning?”

“What?” I asked before sighting Jonas, who was decidedly not stunning, hurrying through the herd of gazelle, shooing them as one might any four-legged nuisance. The less emboldened creatures leaped away, sending a wave of nervousness through the others that impelled all to explode into movement. Within a few breaths, the garden was empty of the slender, doe-eyed gazelles.

Unfazed by the experience of marching through a stampede, Jonas scurried up to me with what can only be described as an irritated air about him, as if I’d disturbed him greatly by granting him employment.

“Message from town,” he said with little civility. He handed me an envelope.

“It’s been opened,” I noted.

Jonas shrugged, spun about and returned to whatever activity had engaged him before this inconvenience had arrived.

I removed from the envelope a sheet of paper upon which was written a curt note in a scrawl that could only be produced by the pen of a doctor.

“What is it, dear?” Father inquired.

I knew his eyesight was better than my already impressive vision, and that he could with a glance peer over my shoulder to read for himself. Being the well-mannered gentleman that he was, he gazed ahead at the evening vista before us, allowing me to tell him what I pleased.

“It’s Dr. Ribeiro,” I replied. “He’s requesting my presence immediately, if not sooner, at his clinic.”

“An odd request at this time of day,” Father said with a certain disapproval.

I smiled, for Father didn’t know Dr. Ribeiro as I did. “He’s a tad absentminded about such details. He means well.”

“Then you intend to go?” Father asked, incredulous.

“It seems a matter of urgency,” I said as way of reply.

“I’ll accompany you,” Father said.

“As shall I,” Drew said, startling me both by his nearness and his offer.

With that decided, I left a note for Mr. Timmons and joined the others in the barn where Jonas was engaged in putting an ox under yoke, muttering irritably all the while. We climbed onto the two-wheeled wagon and set off into the twilight.

“What do you do when we aren’t around, Jonas?” I inquired as the wagon lumbered along the rough path worn into the grass.

He grunted but remained mute, his shoulders slouched under the threadbare shirt, his eyes fixed ahead. We passed through a stand of yellow-barked acacia, and he glanced up into the branches. I did the same and saw an infinite number of shadowy hiding spots that would be perfect for a cheetah or Kerit.

“So?” I asked once we’d cleared the potential danger.

He shrugged. “Things.”

My curiosity roused, I pressed him for details. “What sort of things?”

“Personal things,” he said.

“What my daughter is attempting to ask you is in what manner of personal activities do you engage when alone,” Father asked with a merry twinkle in his eyes.

At the word ‘daughter’, Jonas startled and glanced back at me. I merely smiled and Jonas shook his head, assuredly marveling at the eccentricities of the Europeans.

“I am searching for my daughter,” he finally replied. “She has been lost for a couple of seasons, but I will find her.”

“Wanjiru,” I murmured, remembering his story. “But where do you search for her? Surely you’ve scoured the entire environs of Nairobi.”

“There are other ways,” he said, his very posture and tone evasive.

I left it at that and Father’s merriment had been replaced with a somber gaze, for he well enough understood the plight of a man separated from his child.

We entered Nairobi when it was well and truly dark. The intensity of the African night never ceased to amaze me. Without the lamps and smoke of a city to obscure the sky, the thick clustering of glittering stars was visible in all its glory. Hardly a spot could be found above us that wasn’t graced with at least one light blinking brightly. Surely, I reflected, such a vision should inspire even the dullest of humans to wonder at the possibility of a divine hand in it all. But even with the radiant starlight, there were puddles of darkness amongst the trees and in between buildings, broken only by the faint flickering of a kerosene lantern or candle.

Dr. Ribeiro’s clinic was ideally located at the edge of the Bazaar nearest the camp and was therefore close to a myriad of potential customers in need of various remedies. The most common maladies were those associated with imbibing large quantities of the homemade African brew and the resulting intoxicated altercations. The structure housing the clinic was assembled with a ramshackle assortment of broken crates and metal sheets. It inspired in me a twinge of anxiety, for the whole arrangement seemed as if it could collapse if anyone so much as sneezed. Compared to the shacks and stalls around us, it was the embodiment of sound architecture, which only exasperated my concern for our wellbeing.