Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 02 - Dark Carnival (8 page)

As we waited for the
light to cross to the next block, I took out my cell and snapped a quick
picture of the graffiti.  When I lowered my phone, I was surprised to find the
same guy from the bar and the café, hanging out in the entrance to one of the
liquor stores.  His hands were in his pockets, and he casually looked across
the street like he had nothing better to do.  He looked like a still frame
from some old rebel movie.  All that was missing was a cigarette and a
motorcycle, and I had a feeling he had one of those stored away in a garage
somewhere.

I felt Ruby tap my arm,
and I was jolted back to reality.  I hurried to put my phone away as we crossed
to the next block, where there were four guys hanging out on the corner,
laughing loudly.  They didn’t notice us yet, but I felt Ruby tighten up anyway.
 “Head down,” she murmured to me.  I did as she said.

We made it to the next
block.  Ruby didn’t walk quickly, but she didn’t stroll casually, either.  I
kept up pace with her and in no time, the four guys took notice of us and were
soon walking with us, randomly shouting out, “Hey, baby, where y’all goin’?
Y’all lookin’ for somethin’? Hey, look, we havin’ a party later, y’all wanna
come?”  And they laughed some more, but we kept walking.  Three of them hung
back, but one kept following us, and he started singing to us while the others
laughed.  Soon, he gave up and went back to his buddies.  

We rounded the next
corner and then hung a right into a small alleyway.  Ruby stopped at the back
door of the second shop on the left and, pulling out a key from her coat
pocket, unlocked the door and we went in.  My eyes took a couple of seconds to
adjust to the dark room that was lit by a black light that highlighted a few
Day-Glo posters of 60’s rock icons along the walls.  There was a distinct odor
in the room—something that brought back memories of my old apartment building
in Los Angeles.  To complete the effect, “White Rabbit”
by Jefferson
Airplane was playing from some speakers I couldn’t see.

“Papa!” called Ruby.

“Your dad lives here?” I
asked.

She rolled her eyes at
me.  “He’s my spiritual father.  From Nigeria.”

“Nigeria, yes, but I’ve
been here so long that my homeland feels like a distant memory.”  

I turned toward the sound
of the voice.  A short, plump, dark-skinned man stepped through a doorway
partitioned by a beaded curtain.  His teeth and white beard glowed from the
black light.  He wore a black t-shirt that featured a purple silhouette of Jimi
Hendrix.  Around his neck was a small leather strap with some kind of animal
tooth hanging from it.  He smiled brilliantly at me.  

“I am Papa Mulogo,” he
said, taking my hand in both of his.

“Hi,” I said.  “I’m—”

“Leigh,” he finished.  “Ruby
told me she was bringing you.

I looked suspiciously at
Ruby.  “I thought we were looking for the mask,” I said.  She smirked, pulled
out a joint from her purse, lit it and stretched out on the couch.

“The two of you will
continue with your mission shortly,” said Papa Mulogo.  “But there is something
we should do first.  Please,” he said, gesturing toward a small table in the
corner.  I didn’t know what Ruby or her spiritual father had in mind, but I was
hesitant to stay any longer.  I doubted Miles had this in mind when he sent us
out together.  “It will only take a moment,” said Mulogo, still smiling.

I relented and took a
seat at the table.  Mulogo sat opposite me and then, pulling a cigarette
lighter from the pocket of his faded jeans, lit a black candle and a white
candle which were already on the table.  He opened a drawer on his side of the
table, pulled out an incense stick and lit that as well.  He placed the stick
in a holder in between the candles, put the lighter back in his pocket and
reached out for my hands.

I looked at him
suspiciously.  He laughed.  “Don’t be frightened.”

“What is it that we’re
doing exactly?” I said.

“Ruby thought it would be
wise to do a cleansing process to clear your mind.  If your mind is free from
clutter, it will help you on your quest.”

I eyed Ruby, who smirked
at me from the couch, her long legs stretched out to the arm rest, looking like
she hadn’t a care in the world.  “What does this process involve?” I asked
Mulogo.

“Just breathe deeply,
close your eyes, and place your hands in mine.  It’s quite alright.  Nothing
will harm you here.”  He smiled reassuringly at me.  I cautiously placed my
hands in his, eyed Ruby once more, and then closed my eyes.  “Just relax,” he
instructed.  I inhaled deeply, taking in the earthy aroma of the incense.  It
was very strong and bitterly unpleasant at first, but the more deeply I
breathed, the less I noticed the smell.

“I want you to picture
total darkness.  You are alone in this darkness, but do not be afraid.  You see
nothing and nothing sees you.  You hear nothing and nothing hears you.”

The sound of his voice
seemed to get farther and farther away, and the song that was playing faded to
silence.  My senses were not working, and I soon felt unsteady.  I could not
even feel my hands in his.  I started to panic.  I tried to open my eyes, but
my lids were very heavy.  I willed them open, and all there was before me was
an empty, dark, engulfing space.  I wasn’t even sure if my eyes were really open.
 It was like I was in a dream state.

Slowly, faintly, I began
to hear voices chanting from somewhere—a language I did not recognize.  I heard
one voice—a female—sing out among the chanters, and it sounded ritualistic in
nature.  There was a soft glow in the distance before me.  I tried to walk to
it, but my legs would not work.  I instead found it coming toward me, slowly.  As
it grew closer, the eerie chanting and singing grew louder.  And then I could
see the glow was coming from countless candles held in the hands of the
chanters.

I could start to make out
their style of dress; they wore long black cloaks and held white candles.  They
were being led by the lone female vocalist, who appeared to be a high-ranking
African priestess.  As they approached, I noticed with growing horror that
their faces were rotted, some with teeth showing through the sides.  Their eyes
were a ghostly white.

The procession of these
horrific figures—about fifty of them—walked past me without noticing me.  There
was one lone figure that walked a few feet behind the last row.  When this one
approached me, I could see it was a man, but he did not look like the others.  He
looked human, and his eyes soon found mine.  It took me a moment to realize
this was Miles.  He stopped, pulled back his hood and stared at me with a blank
expression on his face.  His eyes lifted slightly and looked beyond me.

I turned around and there
was a large lake before me, and I found myself standing on the shore.  There
was a half moon high in the sky, and it reflected brilliantly off the water.  I
turned back around, but Miles was gone.  I walked over to the water and felt
gentle waves lapping at my bare feet.  I gazed down at the surface and was
surprised to see my mother’s reflection.  My heart ached instantly for her.  I
reached out, touched the water, and she was gone.  Instead, I now saw in the
reflection a flock of dark birds gliding across the sky.  I looked up and, with
dread, realized they weren’t birds at all. High above me, were countless angels
with black wings sailing through the darkened night.  

My eyes shut and opened,
only to find myself in the darkness again.  This time, I soon heard Mulogo’s
voice, coming from far away, but getting closer.  “You can come back now.  You
can return.  You are safe.”  

I opened my eyes and had
to shut them again because the candlelight was suddenly too bright.  Mulogo
shook my hands in his and said, “It’s okay.  You are safe now.  You are here
again.”  I opened my eyes and squinted at his grinning face.  “You did a good
job,” he said.

I let go of his hands.  “A
good job of what?  What kind of trip did you put me on?”

He laughed loudly.  “Everything
you saw and heard was all you.  I had nothing to do with it.”  I looked over at
Ruby, who was no longer smirking at me.  Instead she gazed at me with some
weird combination of pure hatred and …
hurt
?

“What’s the matter with
you?” I asked her.  She ignored me, putting out her joint.  She got up from the
couch and headed for the door.

“Don’t sit there all day.
 We have to go find that damned mask,” she muttered, shutting the door behind
her.

“What’s wrong with her?”
I asked.

“Don’t worry about Ruby.  She
is the best student I have ever had, but she is constantly looking for
something that she cannot find.  This makes her difficult at times.  I wouldn’t
keep her waiting too long if I were you.”

I nodded and got up.  “Um,
thanks for the … What was that again?”

He paused.  “Truthfully?  It
was a test.”  I waited for his explanation.  “Ruby needed to know if she could
trust you.”

“Doesn’t look like I
passed.”

“You did.  But I think it
left her with more questions.”

“I saw a woman.  Some
kind of priestess in my dream or whatever it was.”

Mulogo smiled proudly.  “You
are right.  She is a priestess.  She carries souls from one life to the next.”

“Why did I see her?”

He shrugged.  “Think of
it as a dream, open to interpretation.”

I softly laughed.  “What
is that?  Some dark part of my psyche?”

“Everybody have a dark
side.”  He rose, gesturing toward the door.  “Now if you will excuse me, I have
some things to attend to.  Good luck with your quest,” he said, as a Rolling
Stones song started to play from the hidden speakers.  I nodded my thanks and
left.

When I stepped out, Ruby lit
up a cigarette and started walking.  I followed her, deciding it was best not
to bother her with questions.  I was actually startled when she spoke.

“We’re going to cut
through the park so we can get back to the garage faster.  You don’t want to be
out here when it’s too dark.  You have a problem with going through the park?”

“Should I?”

“Yes.  You should,” she
said, walking quickly ahead of me with her coat wrapped tightly around her.  I
stayed a couple of feet behind, careful not to be sucked into her gravity of
loathing toward me.  She stopped only when we got to the entrance to the small
park, which was little more than a run-down basketball court surrounded by a
chain link fence and a child’s play area with  a rusted slide.

“Shit,” she said, looking
toward the court at the far end of the park.  The same guys who harassed us
earlier were playing basketball, but they hadn’t noticed us yet.  Ruby looked
to her left where the playground was.  “We’ll go over towards the
merry-go-round and walk around the perimeter.  Don’t look at them.  Just keep
your eyes on the ground.”  She threw her cigarette down on the cracked pavement
and began walking briskly.

In the distance, the
thuds of their sneakers and the echo of the basketball provided a menacing
soundtrack as the men laughed and taunted each other.  We made it almost
halfway through the park when I could no longer hear the bouncing ball.  What I
did hear was, “Hey!”

“Eyes down,” Ruby
reminded me.

“Hey!  Y’all change ya mind
‘bout the party?” shouted one of them.  This was followed by laughter from the
group.

“Walk faster,” instructed
Ruby.

“Won’t that get them
going?” I asked.

“Too late. Just walk
faster.”

When we sped up, one guy
shouted, “Hey! Where y’all goin’?”

We started to move a
little faster and that’s when we heard them running toward us.  We made it to
the other side of the park and exited through the main gate.  We rounded a
corner in between some tall, unkempt hedges, partially hiding us from the
on-coming group.  As soon as we rounded the corner, I saw the guy who was
following us earlier, the same one from the bar and the café.  He was running
toward me.  I stopped, preparing to defend myself from him, but he leaped high
into the air over me and came crashing down on one of the thugs from the
basketball court.

I turned around to see
that he knocked him unconscious while the other three caught up with Ruby.  She
reached into her coat pocket and pulled out some black powder.  She blew it
into the face of one of them while the guy from the bar easily took out the
other two with his bare hands, sending them crashing to the ground.

The one who now had a
face full of black powder stopped in his tracks, started looking around like he
didn’t know where he was, and then began to scream.  He fell backwards, got up
and ran away, still screaming.  The guy from the bar picked up one of the thugs
and threw him over the fence.  The other one started to beg for mercy.  Bar Guy
picked him up by the throat and said softly, “Leave.”  He tossed him against
the fence.  The thug got up and ran away.

Bar Guy turned back
toward us.  Ruby had a very annoyed look on her face.  “I could have handled
that,” she said to him.

He smiled at her.  “Didn’t
look like you were handling it.”

“I was waiting to get
them by surprise,
which
I would have done if you had just waited a few
more seconds.”

“Sure,” he said,
smirking, which only made Ruby more agitated.  She stormed off in a huff.  After
she was out of ear shot, he said to me, “I guess she
could
have handled
it, but how is that any fun for me?”

I looked him up and down
nervously.  “Sorry.  Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.

“I wasn’t scared,” I
lied, but I didn’t sound very convincing, not even to myself.

He politely stifled a
laugh.  “I’m Noah, by the way.  Noah Dallion.  I’m a friend of Ruby’s.”

“Yeah, I was shocked to
find out she had friends,” I said, not realizing I just verbalized that
thought.