Curse of the Nandi (Society for Paranormals Book 5) (4 page)

And thus I was awoken one morning, several days after our strange firefly visitation.

“My tongue isn’t in the pan,” I grumbled, but only after checking that the muscle in question was firmly within my mouth.

“I don’t believe he was referring to you, dear lady,” Mr. Timmons murmured at my side.

“It’s terribly irksome to be awoken with such a controversial statement,” I scolded him, as if it was his fault that such words had been uttered. “For now my curiosity is prodding me to awaken while the rest of me wants nothing more than to prolong my slumber.”

“Ah yes,” he replied, a smile in his voice. “The curse of the investigator: unbridled curiosity and an utter disregard for safety.”

I rolled over and peered down at the rogue. “You’re not planning on stepping out, by any chance?”

“I’m not an investigator.”

“Most inconvenient,” I said, for now my inquisitiveness and my bladder compelled me to bundle myself up and step out of the tent and into the brisk dawn air.

Our camp was at the edge of the lakeshore, hemmed in on one side by water and the other by an acacia forest. The surface of the lake glowed with the golden red of sunrise. The water’s smoothness was undisturbed except for a patch nearby where a herd of hippos resided, their large square heads barely visible, ears twitching as they studied me in turn.

“I doubt it was your tongues that caused the fuss,” I said and turned in time to see Jonas chasing a giraffe and waving a frying pan fiercely over his head in time to a string of Swahili words. Judging by the tone and his countenance, those words were best left untranslated.

The giraffe loped away, unfazed by the diminutive man who barely stood as tall as its large, knobby knees. A red-eyed, blue-headed bird cheerfully pecked at the loaf of bread carelessly left unattended near the campfire.

Despite the prospect of holes in my toast, I released a contented sigh, for it had been a blissful several days, untainted by Plague, brainless heads, decapitated corpses, revenge-driven Praying Mantis, or anything remotely dangerous, aside from a couple of firefly vampires, the hippos and Jonas’ cooking.

“Positively enchanting,” I pronounced the trip.

“Agreed,” a voice rumbled behind me as Mr. Timmons wrapped me in his arms and kissed my neck. Utterly pleased with himself, he strolled off into the undergrowth.

I could only hope that Gideon, my dead husband, wasn’t haunting nearby. That would indeed be awkward.

You’ll have to deal with it sooner or later
, I reprimanded myself, although later would be preferable to sooner.

Such cowardliness was uncharacteristic of me, for in matters of life, death, and maintaining one over the other by whatever means required, I was of a stout constitution. When however I was involved in matters of the heart, I preferred to shrink away and sharpen my blades or practice archery. It’s no small wonder then that despite my reluctant heart, I’d managed to marry twice within the span of a few years.

A shrill exclamation of outrage interrupted my rumination, for the giraffe had, not unpredictably, outrun the little man pursuing it.

“Jonas, do stop hounding the wildlife and come along,” I shouted after him. “We leave this morning and I don’t intend to travel on an empty stomach and without a pot of tea.”

He stomped back, although with bare feet the stomping was less than impressive. I ignored his grumblings, which made discontented references to my stomach and giraffes, although how the two should be connected was lost on me.

While Jonas muttered over breakfast preparations, I returned to the tent and attempted to make myself presentable. This was more out of habit after living with Lilly and Mrs. Steward for so many years; neither woman would vacate their rooms without dressing up as if in expectation of a spontaneous invite to a tea party.

I exited the tent, anticipating a serene breakfast, in contrast to what surely awaited us back in the village of Nairobi: the Bubonic Plague, a brain-eating monster and of course Mrs. Steward.

Instead, I saw a familiar form floating through the firewood. His soft brown hair waved across his angelic face, the delicate features translucent in the rays of sun that slipped between overhanging branches.

“Gideon,” I chided him.

“Morning, Beatrice,” Gideon called out.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I said, my features as firm as I could make them, for I had never been very convincing when scolding him.

“Oh, don’t fuss, my pet, I won’t cause any bother. I’m happy for you,” Gideon insisted.

I looked aslant at him. He appeared anything but happy.

Catching my eye, he grinned impishly like the rogue he was. “Although I must admit I’m a tad disappointed.”

“Gideon, I have a right to enjoy marriage with a man who isn’t dead,” I said in a huff, as if I needed to justify myself.

“Oh, and you certainly have been enjoying,” he said with a leer.

“Gideon!” I admonished him just as I felt a presence behind me.

“Mr. Knight,” Mr. Timmons hailed my former husband in an exaggerated drawl, “I find your presence at my honeymoon rather inappropriate.”

“As I find your presence,” Gideon quipped. “But you don’t hear me complaining, now do you?”

Jonas had ceased his grumbling and was studiously admiring the frying pan while silently chuckling, his hunched shoulders trembling with suppressed mirth. By any standard, this scene was surely the most entertaining one in the vicinity.

“What is it, Gideon?” I asked wearily.

“I can’t congratulate my wife on her marriage?” he asked with all the innocence that he was capable of mustering.

“Congratulations are noted,” Mr. Timmons said as he draped an arm around my shoulders. “I’m sure you can find your own way out and back to whatever transcendental hole you crawled out of this morning.”

Gideon eyed the two of us, and I was torn between irritation and sympathy, just as he was between love and loneliness. Then, with a cavalier shrug, he began to whistle a familiar tune while floating away, leaving me wondering why he’d bothered to come at all.

Chapter 6

Upon first hearing of our engagement, my cousin Lilly’s husband Mr. Elkhart had conspired with Lord and Lady Hardinge, his adopted parents, to provide a small workforce to construct a home. They were all of the same mind that we needed one more suitably apportioned and located than Mr. Timmons’ wood cabin. Upon arriving back in Nairobi that evening, we didn’t approach the tented construction camp, where the wood cabin was. Instead, we circled the outskirts of town to arrive at a stone cottage set among the Jacaranda trees, not too far from the Hardinge house.

“You go ahead,” Mr. Timmons suggested after assisting me off the wagon. “I’ll…” He glanced warily at Jonas. “I’ll help Jonas with the horses.”

Disappointed that I wouldn’t be carried over the threshold in a romantic fashion, I asked, “You don’t trust him with them?”

“Absolutely not,” he responded sharply and led the horses to a small structure that, in a pinch, could pass as a barn. Nelly, tied to the back of the wagon, sniffed about her, searching for flowers, and settled for the aromatic but poisonous white bells of an Angel Trumpet bush.

Suffused in what could only be described as marital bliss, I entered my new home distracted by all the happy memories and hopeful dreams that the honeymoon had evoked in me. Even the sight of our new set of Chinaware (a wedding gift from the Stewards), laid out in proud display across our dining table, thrilled me far more than bits of porcelain had any right to do. That will have to serve as an adequate explanation for why I didn’t notice the Adze until he attacked.

The creature had me caught up in his arms before I’d even set down my valise and walking stick. While I couldn’t resist appreciating the muscular grip and firm, toned chest I was pulled up against, I was a properly married woman now, my husband being neither dead nor unappealing.

It was most fortuitous that I was not so startled as to lose my grip on my items, and thus was in a position to use them to great effect. I dropped the valise on one of my assailant’s feet and poked the other foot with the pointed metal end of my stick.

Yao whispered in my ear, his breath causing a delicious tickling sensation, “There’s no need for that, lovely lady.” His grip hadn’t let up in the least and I wondered if African vampires had steel feet, for he hadn’t any shoes on to protect himself from my counter-attack.

“Rubbish. You’re manhandling me in a most inappropriate manner,” I rebuked him as I commanded my wolf energy to leave my metal hand and latch onto my assailant’s throat.

“What witchcraft is this?” the Adze yelped. He transformed into a firefly and zipped out of the wolf’s deathly grip.

I pressed two fingernails on the bronze fist atop my walking stick; a blade slid out the other end and I slashed it in the air at the bug. “What do you mean by entering my home uninvited?” I demanded. “It’s the height of ill manners and I simply won’t abide by uncouth behavior.”

“We’re hungry,” the firefly squeaked, sulking at being denied access to my neck’s vein.

“We?” I repeated. An image of Yawa lurking in the shadows of the barn rose unbidden in my mind.

“Kamalu said you could help us,” the vampire simpered.

“Oh, did he?” I snapped, wondering what game the Lightning God was playing now. I spun on a boot heel, wishing the firefly was underneath it, and marched to the door.

“Or did he say we could help you?” the Adze continued. “English is such a confusing language.”

“Either way, it would appear your instructions were erroneous,” I informed him just as Mr. Timmons burst through the doorway.

We collided and, he being considerably bigger with the greater momentum, I fell back under his weight. He grabbed me to him and thus I avoided smacking my head on some unforgiving surface. Jonas darted in behind him, holding a glass jar containing an energetic firefly in one hand, and a hefty club in the other hand.

“Miss Knight,” Jonas said, shaking the jar at me. “You’re still alive and uneaten.”

“So it would seem,” I replied. “A fortuitous turn of events, I’d say.”

“Although it astounds the mind how you’ve managed thus far to remain so,” Mr. Timmons said with a severe expression that boded no good for the Adze.

Yao transformed back into his handsome human form and growled, “Let my sister go, you filthy little beast.”

Jonas straightened. “I’m not so little and I bathe every day.” He again agitated the jar.

“Cease, you fiend, have you no compassion?” Yao wailed.

“Jonas may be close to useless at driving horses,” Mr. Timmons elucidated in a deceptively soft voice, his stormy eyes fixed on the vampire, “but he’s remarkably quick at capturing blood-drinking fireflies.”

Jonas pulled back his shoulders as he puffed out his thin chest in response to the praise. “Yes, bwana, I most certainly am. And horses aren’t very useful after all, unless they’re possessed like Nelly and can fly.”

“Oh bother,” I said, my blade still pointed at Yao. “You’re not going to start calling us mama and bwana, are you, Jonas?”

The man snorted, his face wrinkled up in disgust. “You have no children, and even if you are blessed in future, you’ll always be Miss Knight to me.”

Mr. Timmons frowned at that pronouncement, then turned to me. “Are you all right, love? You seem remarkably sanguine for someone who has suffered such an affront.”

“I just appear that way,” I informed him with a touch of acidity in my voice. “As a matter of principle, I prefer to have my nervous breakdowns in private.”

“Most practical of you, madam,” he replied, some of the tension leaving him as he begrudgingly smiled.

“Yes, and besides, I don’t think you’d appreciate me throwing all our lovely new Chinaware at Yao’s head, now would you?” I continued as I picked up a delicate porcelain cup. “I might miss and make a mess of the wall.”

Yao hissed while Mr Timmons snorted and asked, “Surely you’re not serious, Mrs. Timmons?”

I smiled serenely. “Of course not. I would never miss.”

“Let Yawa go,” Yao pleaded, his tone so plaintive that I was sorely tempted to do just that.

“Ignore him,” Jonas interrupted my willing thoughts. “He’s influencing your mind.”

Yao scowled at Jonas while Yawa yelled from inside the jar, “We should’ve eaten you first.”

“Why did Kam send you?” I inquired and prodded the blade against Yao’s ribs, wondering what the Lightning God could possibly be plotting this time. “I can’t imagine how we could be of assistance to one another, for I certainly have no inclination to offer myself up as a snack.”