******************
Ah, Mr chukwudi, welcome.” Mr A* said invitingly. “Please
have a seat.”
I declined. As much as I would have loved to sit down to
camouflage the shaking of my knees, I was much too wary to
sit. I could see Mr A****’s ever present bodyguards, as clearly
as I could see them that day although now they both wore
sheaths on their waists. Mr A**** himself was dressed in his
usual native attire and a cap with many feathers on his head. I
closed the Sight a little and saw he was actually donning a
simple grey french suit and grey trousers. Even then his spirit
guards were visible. I could only hazard a guess that their
spirit pressure was so much that even a lay person would have
gotten the shivers by getting close to him. I however, due to
my abilities, was so engulfed in their aura that I had initially
thought them to be real people. I could feel chuks the stronger
gearing up for a fight and the last thing he had told me about
Nina was kept aside for now, I would dwell on it later.
“I would rather stand, thank you.” I said calmly.
Mr A***** studied me briefly, he gazed at my head and I knew
he was wondering about the creature he put there.
“Don’t look too hard, it’s gone.” I said.
“Obviously,” he replied. “But how? Did any of those
meddlesome pastors that come to hospital to preach pray for
you? I have encountered some with real powers. Perhaps that
was how you escaped.”
“No,” I said. “I ripped it apart with my bare hands.”
“You?” he laughed gently to himself. “You don’t have any
power. Even now I’m talking to you I can see you trembling.”
“One might tremble out of indignation or anger or excitement.”
I said. “One does not always tremble from fear.”
“We shall see,” he promised and tried looking over my
shoulder. “Have you attempted to free Nina? What did you
make of my hypnosis spell?
Wonderful, eh?”
“Yes. Interesting.” I said, noting his confident tone in thinking I
had attempted to free her. I didn’t want to reveal anything yet,
I wanted him to continue underestimating me. “Why did you
do that to her? I thought you said you needed her free will.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat then and I noticed the
dust swirl around his feet. This was actually the second time, I
had noticed it earlier when he was looking for his lunacy
creature and had attributed it to a gust of wind. But now I was
beginning to feel it held a far more significant meaning. Like he
was getting ready for battle. He sighed, looking very
despondent all of a sudden.
“I can’t waste any more time. I need her to perform the pact
with my son and align her destiny to my lineage. Do you know
how rare it is to find someone of her caliber, someone with
such a rich and powerful destiny? I tried to trace her parents;
the real people taking care of her- that is, my cousin and his
wife, are just her guardians. I suppose she has already told
you this. I thought if I could find her parents, maybe I could
suck out some of the power she inherited from them, but try
as I might, spiritually and otherwise, I wasn’t able to find them.
And so I stuck with their daughter, tried to get her to marry my
son, tried to get him to exchange blood with her so she would
fall under my authority, but that hasn’t worked either. I was
actually coming with him to lagos this time to observe them
and see how they were getting along, to see if there was any
hope of consummating the relationship with the pact soon, but
then I saw you, a visioner, lurking around her. I saw your
flames of passion and deep love engulfing you and her, and I
knew if I didn’t act fast she would gather enough courage to
leave him and come to be with you. I couldn’t let that happen,
not after making boasts in certain, er…spheres, that I was
soon going to become more powerful than any of them! I had
to get rid of you somehow, without drawing too much attention
to myself. Hence the idea of driving you mad, like I have done
to numerous
people that have stood in my way. It has always worked
before but then, I have never used my skills on a fellow seer
before either. Since that didn’t work, I guess I’m going to have
to find another way to deal with you. Then I will work some
more on Nina. If I cannot get her destiny to be mine, I’ll do it in
such a way that she will never shine, I will increase the fire in
the chains I have already put around her, stifling her
potentials! I will have her power or no one else will!
And then he made a sudden gesture with his hand and one of
the demon guards rushed forward, arms outstretched.
What happened next, I cannot really explain. For a moment it
was me, and then it wasn’t me. The next thing I knew was I
had guard by the neck, lifted him off his feet and slammed him
to the floor. I maintained my grip on him and then my hand
caught fire and so did he. He screamed and writhed but I held
firm and did not let go. and there was a fire burning in my
chest and every fear and indignation, every anger and shame I
had felt in the past few days in the hospital, at work, at home,
went into that hand, and in a while the writhing stopped and all
was quiet, the only physical acknowledgement of what had
happened being a swirl of dust on the dirty floor.
I looked up at Mr A**** and saw his bewilderment at what had
happened. He looked on as his guard turned to ashes and
disappeared. Then he looked back at me and for the first time I
saw uncertainty in his eyes. I, on the other hand felt good, like
I had relieved myself of some pressure or burden. I couldn’t
feel Chuks the stronger again and slowly it dawned on me, that
I was Chuks the stronger . I felt free, alive, volatile . And i loved it.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, breaking the silence and
startling Mr A**** a little. He stood up slowly from the chair
and I watched as an
ancient looking spear with a wooden handle and strange
carvings formed in his right hand. I shook my head.
“Just one question before we continue” I requested again. “It’s
been really bugging my mind.”
“Go ahead.” He said.
“It’s about the hospital admission and the phone calls,” I
replied. “You could have driven me mad, then dropped me off
at a remote location to leave me wandering about for the rest
of my days, but you chose to keep me in a hospital. Then my
parents, I am assuming you were the one that alerted them
after searching through my contacts on my phone. You called
them to come and then you changed my SIM card. I don’t get
that part.”
“Simple,” he said and I saw him make a slight gesture and the
spear increased in size and the tip slowly began to burn
reddish gold. “I normally keep my victims admitted until I am
sure they are properly labeled as mad, that way if they ever
regain consciousness like you did, the drugs they will be
placed on will keep them subdued and even if they refuse the
drugs, the social stigma that goes with someone being
officially certified as being crazy will stick with them forever.
Their credibility will always be in question, and if they run
across me anyday and dare to raise an issue, I can always
argue that their madness is beginning again. I had a fellow like
that who regained consciousness after some prayers by some
overzealous Christians. He tried to confront me and I made a
mockery of his statements in public, even offering to pay to
have him re-incarcerated. He couldn’t take the shame and
commited suicide soon after. As for you, however, I wanted to
see your parents. I don’t know how or why some people will be
gifted in having special children like you that are born with
unique abilities while I had to toil for mine. It’s not fair. And so
I called your parents to size them out, and see if they had any
special powers I could benefit from. However I didn’t see
much to impress me and so I planned on showing some
money around, offering to take care of your finances with the
hope that they would entrust you to my care and return to the
village. I had plans of hypnotizing you and sending you there
to kill them and then kill yourself on the way back. Everyone
would weep at the tragedy of the young man who went mad
and returned home to massacre his own parents and then kill
himself. But then I checked on you in the hospital and found
that you had gone, that you were better, that your file had even
been closed as a case of misdiagnosis! I wanted to strangle
the doctor! All the careful planning of calling your colleagues
and getting them to believe you had travelled already had been
punctured. So I made some adjustments and told them your
parents who you said were sick were now better and you
wanted to return to work. I was willing to let things go at that
point. I felt you would be too scared to continue the issue and
besides there was no way of you knowing that Nina was still in
this lagos and hadn’t gone back home to marry my son.
Imagine my surprise when my monitor Bats came to alert me
that you were in the house! I was greatly impressed. But now I
have to tie up loose ends. I won’t make the same mistakes
with you again."
He suddenly stabbed the other demon guard with the spear
and it roared in pain but remained where it was. I watched as it
increased in size and took on the shape of a large gorilla
instead of a muscular man that had been there previously. I
had an image of Marvel’s “the hulk” and wondered if this is
where the artist had gotten his inspiration from. Probably he
had possessed the Sight as well…
The Guard –now-Gorilla lunged at me. I stepped aside,
keeping an eye on Mr A**** but he did nothing to join in the
fight. The gorilla guard turned and rushed me again and was
able to get a hold of my arm. I felt myself being lifted bodily off
the ground and then I went sailing through the air to crash on
the ancient television. It made a popping and crashing sound
as it broke and I felt pain as shards of glass tore through my
shirt and into my back. Mr A**** was laughing in the
background.
“So you just gathered some small energy and thought you
could defeat me eh?” he chuckled. “Stand up my friend!”
.
.
.
.
I felt good.
I mean, it was painful, my back hurt like a bastard and the
front of my shirt had been torn from the hurling through the air,
but…but...I felt good.
I wanted this, I wanted to fight. I wanted the exhilaration to
last and last. And so I got up, dusted myself a bit and then
said:
“Do you always talk so much?”
Mr A**** was infuriated. He expected me to be cowering on
the floor but here I was standing and then I started to
advance.
“I have never been much of a talker myself,” I said, “Takes the
fun out of all the action.”
The gorilla guard rushed at me again and I stepped back and
stuck out my foot. It tripped clumsily and crashed to the floor
and I went behind it and wrapped my arms around its large,
sinewy neck, and squeezed, tighter, tighter, and it struggled
and attempted to get up but I forced my knee down on its back
and squeezed, shouting now, screaming, feeling salt in my
mouth as I choked whatever animated its monstrous form out
of it, until with a gurgling sound it finally lay still and I dropped
its lifeless carcass on the floor.
it lay there for a while and then it too vanished.
I had gotten up and was standing over the creature when I
heard a yell and footsteps. I knew Mr A**** was rushing
towards me and I waited a bit, timing it to the last minute then
turned as he tried to run me over with the spear. I grabbed the
spear by its shaft and it shone brightly and Mr A**** yelled like
he had been burned and let go, backing away slowly.
“No…No! That is the spear of my forefathers! No one can hold
it but me!”
I held the spear in both hands, put it over my knee and broke
it.
Mr A**** shouted out in alarm and the regalia of clothes he
had been manifesting in, disappeared.
“I just broke a noble spear because of you,” I said, for I could
feel the spear in my arms, its pride, its shame, its weeping.
“You are the first person in your line to use your family gift for
evil. You are a disgrace to yourself and your ancestors!”
Mr A**** cringed and cowered near the old sofa. He couldn’t
understand what had just happened. I could feel his
manifestations slowly dispersing as he lost control of them,
the bats overheard shrieked and started flying away, the house
began to lose the misery it had been steeped in, and he
suddenly began to look older in my eyes.
“Please, please,” he said. “Spare me!”
“You think I’m going to kill you?” I asked, disgustedly. “I’m not
like you. I would prefer it if you saw the error of your ways and
changed. With what I feel in this spear you were wielding, you
would have been a source of great joy to a lot of people
instead of allowing greed and corruption eat into your heart. It
is not too late. You can change. Anybody can change if given
another chance.”
He didn’t say anything, just remained cowering in the corner.
Nina must have heard all that was going on because she came
out and ran to meet me. Mr A**** looked at her in shock.
“You, you are free?” he cried, “But how now?”
She didn’t answer but held on to me tight. “Please let’s go…”
she said. I agreed and we started to move to the front door. I
will admit I was distracted, I wasn’t looking at Mr A****
anymore, he had appeared so defeated there on the floor. The
next thing I knew Nina had flown back into his arms. It was as
if an invisible cord had tugged at her waist and she had been
propelled backwards. I shouted and made to go after her but
Mr A**** did something and the gold chain that held her, that
had been glowing belligerently, suddenly caught fire. Nina
screamed in agony and I stopped in mid rush.
“Good idea,” said Mr A**** grinning wickedly from ear to ear.
“I may not have much of my powers but I still have enough to
kill her with pain. Now step
back!”
