Curse of the Nandi (Society for Paranormals Book 5) (29 page)

“It is rather peculiar that you’re here of all places,” I commented to the woman guiding us deeper into the mansion. “And with him of all creatures.”

“Strange times, strange bedfellows,” Koki cooed as she glanced back at me. “Come closer, Miss Knight. Don’t worry, I won’t bite you.” She laughed as she eyed the metal contraption that had replaced my left hand.

Gideon hissed by my side and I gripped my walking stick tightly. Before I could summon a suitably cutting retort, the corridor opened up to a room lit by a central fire pit that did little to dispel the damp and gloom. At one end, a tall, narrow window allowed in a faint, watery light; at the other, a hefty, stone throne jutted out of the rocky wall. A skeleton sat on either side. Carved for a goliath, the royal chair currently held a less than imposing figure in its stone curves.

But if a mansion can balance on two small pillars of rock in the midst of the ocean, then a dwarf called Nameless can sit upon the throne of a dead prince.

“What a delight to see you again, Miss Knight,” Nameless called out in a posh Londoner accent.

Despite his muscular build, the dwarf’s voice had a decidedly feminine pitch to it, one that was in odd contrast to the appearance he strove to maintain. He had changed not at all since the time he’d abducted Lilly and me. His dark hair was slicked back with a heavy handed application of oil and ended in a ponytail; his ample mouth was framed with a sharp goatee and long mustache, as if the length of the facial hair could make up for his lack of height. He was well proportioned for one of his species and muscular, with an intelligent and handsome face, bright eyes and a regal bearing.

But I knew better than to trust appearances. I was in the presence of two notorious and psychopathic villains who were each in their own way repulsive, if not in looks than in character and deeds.

“And you brought along Gideon. Splendid!” he continued.

“Hardly splendid,” Gideon muttered, clearly remembering his previous encounter with the dwarf, during which the ghost had been trapped in a bottle.

Rather than vent my thoughts, I merely nodded at his greeting, disinclined to engage in the usual conversational banter that polite society utilized. After all, I most certainly wasn’t in polite society, so why maintain the pretense?

“You mentioned to Kam that this meeting was essential,” I instead said, half my attention on the dwarf, the other on Koki who was drifting just out of my line of sight.

Nameless chuckled, although it struck me as a giggle. “How I’ve missed your directness of speech, Miss Knight. Truly delightful. And I heard congratulations are in order. You managed to wed, despite your obvious limitations.” He gestured to my metal hand and my torn ear before clapping in a manner that could only be described as sarcastic.

“And I see you’ve managed to find a throne upon which to seat yourself, despite your own limitations,” I replied and gestured to his entire being.

Koki flung her head back and produced a melodious laugh that echoed through the hall and overwhelmed any rejoinder that Nameless could supply. With a forced smile, he stood up and said, “Shall we begin our negotiations then? I’m sure you have other activities in which to engage. I know we do.”

I didn’t dare contemplate what Koki and Nameless would do, for they were as foul a pair as I’d yet to meet. And I’d met my fair share. Maintaining both my silence and my posture, I indicated for the psychotic dwarf to proceed. While I had no intention of taking up his offer to throw in my lot with whatever the two of them had concocted, I had promised Kam I’d at the very least listen and report on what I learned.

As we sat down on a set of stone chairs off to the side of the throne, I speculated that as long as those slender pillars didn’t crumble and Koki didn’t attack me, I just might be able to extract a few answers from Nameless. And if the ropes held up on the return trip, I’d be home for my afternoon tea.

For the first time that day, I smiled.

Do you think this scene should be in the next book,
A Spider Comes Calling
? Send me an email (
[email protected]
) and let me know yes or no. What twisted plan do you think Koki and Nameless are devising?!

Facts & Fiction

Perhaps you’re wondering how much of this narrative is based on anything resembling historical fact and what is more in the realm of fiction. Below are the facts and fictions as I understand them.

Fact: British East Africa was formally known as the East Africa Protectorate and was created in 1895.

Fact: Lake Naivasha, where the Timmons had their honeymoon, didn’t have a lot of trees around it until the mid twentieth century when it became known for its forests of yellow-barked fever trees (
Acacia xanthophloea
).

Fiction: I decided to ignore that fussy little detail about trees, for I love the Acacia forests that now grace the shores of Lake Naivasha. Therefore, there is a forest for Mrs. Knight’s honeymoon where none should have existed.

Fact: The Medical Officer Dr. Alfred Spurrier is a historical character who was in Nairobi when the Bubonic Plague occurred. He complained that there were too many Indians, and called them coolies. He felt the colony was more like a province of India.

Fact: Indians outnumbered Europeans in East Africa, and controlled most of the commerce. Indian troops were deployed in military campaigns, the Indian legal codes were applied in 1897, and the Indian rupee was the accepted currency.

Fact: The Trypanosoma brucei parasite does cause sleeping sickness and is transmitted by the tsetse fly. Dr. Ribeiro’s description of the symptoms are fairly accurate. Likewise, Necrosis is a real condition causing patches of skin, and in extreme cases whole limbs, to die, looking very much like the rotting limbs of a zombie.

Fiction: As far as I know, there is no mutated version of Bubonic Plague that incorporates sleeping sickness and necrosis. Any one of these diseases alone is bad enough.

Fact: Sir Arthur Hardinge is a historical character, and was Her Majesty’s Commissioner of the East Africa Protectorate at some point.

Fiction: I don’t believe he was ever the appointed guardian of a Popobawa.

Fact: There was no proper sanitation in Nairobi at that time. There were instead the euphemistically named ‘lavender carts’; after dark, they removed soil buckets filled with human excrement that residents left outside their door in the evening.

Fact: The store at which Mrs. Knight did her shopping existed. Rossenrode MacJohn & Co was one of Nairobi’s first general stores and was located on Victoria Street. It was started by J.H. Rossenrode, an engine driver, and Mesrop MacJohn, an Armenian shopkeeper from Mombasa.

Fact: Nelly was referred to as a ‘salted horse’. Many horses died of horse sickness; the few horses that recovered from sickness were known as ‘salted horses’ and were very valuable.

Fact: The Nandi were unhappy over the abduction or enticing of their women into the squalid railway camps in the Nyando Valley. Their complaints went unheeded and caused friction. The warriors raided the railway for telegraph lines to make jewelry for the women, fishplate bolts to fix to their knobkerries for braining their enemies, and lengths of line to fashion into their long, thin spears.

Fact: The Prophet and influential diviner Koitalel of the Nandi people in Rift Valley is another historical character. He foretold the coming of the Iron Snake, and described the People of the Fog who talked like birds. He warned his tribe that the strangers would take over the land. The Nandi fought the British in the late 1800’s for 8 years under King Koitalel Arap Samoei.

Fiction: The Nandi did not unleash a disease or a supernatural beast onto the colonialists. The Kerit, also referred to as the Nandi Bear, was the colonial version of an urban legend, a mix of hyena, bear and imagination. Or was it…?

Fiction: The post office was never based in the railway station, as mentioned in earlier books.

Fact: The first post office was in Victoria Street and was burned down in 1905. Its main business during railway construction was to send railway workers’ remittances back to India. Flags were flown from the mast on the building to indicate movement of mail. A blue flag meant that a mail ship was on its way; a red flag meant that oversees mail had been received in Mombasa; and a white flag signified that the mail was ready for distribution.

Fact: The first Stanley Hotel opened in Victoria Street in a building rented from Dan Noble, the Nairobi postmaster, by the irrepressible Mrs. Mayence Bent (a dressmaker by profession), who named it after Henry Morton Stanley, the great African explorer. Known to her bar patrons as ‘Mummy’, she ran the hotel until it burned to the ground in the great fire of 1905.

Fact: Dr. Ribeiro actually existed. Here is a first-hand description of Dr. Ribeiro:
Around 30 years of age, well dressed, three-piece suit and tie with a homburg hat made of light brown felt and a stiff, curled brim; he rode his zebra with great confidence, but his demeanor was quite humble and sincere. Bearded man, of average build, of Goan descent, his warm brown eyes calmed and his Indian accent distracted his patients
.

Fact: The Plague, which happened in 1902, was first diagnosed by Dr. Ribeiro in two Somali patients. A total of 19 out of 63 patients died of it. The doctor knew the symptoms after witnessing an outbreak in India. Rats had bred in the filth that had accumulated in a small area of the Bazaar. The real-life Dr. Spurrier had described the area as a collection of ‘
damp, dark, unventilated, overcrowded dwellings on filth-soaked and rubbish-strewn ground housed by hundreds of people
.’

Fact: The Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Spurrier, had no experience with tropical diseases. He panicked at the news about the Plague, and ordered the Indian Bazaar evacuated and burned to the ground. Dr. Ribeiro's surgery went up in flames with much of the town.

Fiction: The Adze were not involved in the destruction of Nairobi; that’s just a vicious rumor. These fire-loving vampires were reputed to turn into fireflies in order to sneak into homes where they eagerly devoured blood and various organs. Delightful, aren’t they?

Fact: The traditional attire of the Kikuyu was similar to other tribes: they wore tanned leather garments and adorned themselves with glass beads, cowries and brass wire circled around their limbs. Many daubed their bodies with red ochre mixed with animal fat.

Fact: Every member of the European staff and over 50% of the Indian workforce suffered from malaria at one time or another. Ulcers and jiggers (little insects that bury under the skin and lay sacks of eggs that cause intense irritation) were also a menace.

Fact: There were three years of drought in the mid 1890s following a decade of below-average rainfall. The drought was ended by an exceptionally heavy rain.

Fact: The Rational Dress Society did exist and focused on the health impacts of London fashion which overly constricted women’s ability to breathe. They highly approved of the women’s cycling costume as a safer outfit to wear while on a bicycle. Lilly did too.

Fiction: Vered doesn’t own a horse, salted or otherwise.

Fact: A big round of applause is owed to:
Monica La Porta
, a good friend, a great Beta reader and an awesome author (
http://monicalaporta.com
); Starla Huchton, cover designer extraordinaire (
http://www.designedbystarla.com
); you, the reader, for joining the Society; and Kam, the best summoner of lightning and trouble there ever was.

Fact: Mrs. Knight’s (or should I say: Mrs. Timmons!) adventures continue in Case 6: A Spider Comes Calling (
http://veredehsani.co.za/book6
).

Fact: Vered has other books you might want to read (their descriptions are farther below).

Fact: If you leave a review wherever you bought this book, you will earn the author’s eternal gratitude. If you subscribe to her website, you get a couple free books. If you enjoyed this book, please recommend it to others. I deeply appreciate your support.

Cheers until next time

Vered

from Africa… with a Bite

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