"Tolu… it might not be as bad as—"
"Oh, it feels as bad." Tolu said quivering, "Didn't you hear what that baba said will happen?"
Ifadahunsi sighed, then dropped his head. "I did." He said quietly.
When Niola got home, she just kept pacing back and forth, she heard a whooshing sound coming from the hallway, and her heart skipped. Her face scrunched up like she was about to cry. Now she was scared, she stealth towards the hallway and heard a low throaty growl.
"You don't have to sneak," The croaky voice said; it was the possessed sorcerer. Half of his face was disfigured with a series of tears, his skin was pale, his eyes were all blackish and bloody, and he stood weirdly with his almost disgusting appearance.
"Jesus!" she screamed wide-eyed.
"Don't tell me you are going to run?" He snarled licking his bloody hand, "Humans," he rolled his eyes with a devilish grin curving his lips. "Wish you knew how famous you are in our world… you are our messiah… or rather, your blood… is our messiah." He laughed maniacally, then began running wildly towards her.
Niola shrieked, as she ran towards the living room, heading towards the door, she bumped into the couch, stumbling over, and fell. Niola tried to get up, but she wasn't quick enough and he almost caught her. Suddenly a dark heavy smoke with red eyes dashed out of the wall and into the sorcerer pulling out another smoky image from inside. The sorcerer cried out as both demons expelled his body into the wall.
Niola trembled, panting heavily, she slowly got up the floor and kicked the body to turn it over; he was pale and looked like a withered plant. And an awful smell reeked from him. Niola Panic. Getting off the floor quickly, she picked up the keys to her scooter and left the house, and headed for her mother's place.
Meanwhile, Ifárànmī and his son fagbohun had other plans, Tolu gave them a piece of her hair earlier when they said they needed it to make a concoction for her, but they kept a tiny piece of it. And after Tolu and Ifadahunsi left, they started a tracking spell, using the mother and daughter bonding to get to Niola. Fagbohun sat at it for almost an hour, trying to connect his mind to the trail.
"I found her," Fagbohun said finally opening his eyes. "She's been marked, I felt it."
"Alright, we better get moving," Ifárànmī said getting up from the old armchair, he picked up a Dagger made out of bones. "Every demon roaming amongst us now is after her, we need to get to her and take her down before they do." He smirked putting the dagger in the pouch across his shoulder.
"Take her down? I… I thought we are going to stop those demons from getting to her." Fagbohun asked looking concern brow.
"Yes my son, we are. No matter what, we can't prevent demons from getting to her, they are, hundreds of thousands of them, and we are just two. We can't let them get to her. The only way to stop them is by driving this dagger of purification into her heart, it's made from the bones of saints, and It turns any cambion to ashes. That way those bastards can't get anything out of her."
Fagbohun was speechless, his father's plan sounded perfect, neat, and safe, but it felt wrong. Poor child; he thought, she didn't ask to be amongst humans, guess fate does fuck people up sometimes.
His father has waited all his life for this day, so nothing was going to change it. "It doesn't matter if she is marked or not, this was always the plan?" he asked wistfully and his father nodded. " Ok, let's do it." No matter what happens, he'll always be by his side.
Ifárànmī's first encounter with a demon was with Cupidum, he came into their home using Ismail Busari's body as a vessel, and told Ifárànmī all about the great evil Amargonia, how it escaped hell, and its plan with the Devil; to open the gate of hell and purgatory, to set all of them free for eternity. But he told him all those things in exchange for an anchor.
Demons leave hell if they are summoned, but returns after a short time once their task is completed one way or the other, but if they are summoned and anchored by someone, they get to stay among human for as long as the person they are anchored to, stays alive. Ever since Ifárànmī was cupid's anchor, he has to help Ifárànmī stay alive and strong, both spiritually and physically, except it doesn't stop the old wrinkles.
Ifárànmī drew a symbol on the wall of the cave, then said an incantation, and a portal opened.
"Let's go, son," he said and they both stepped inside and it closed behind them.
Niola tried calling Chiamaka for the sixth time and still, there was no answer, she paced, trying to figure out what might be going on. Danielle's phone has been turned off ever since the last time she called, and now Chiamaka wasn't answering her phone too, could it have been something bad that had happened?
"No way," she shook the thought out of her head, those Demons are after her not them, it's impossible she thought, maybe they are just having a good time and left their phones lying around the corner.
Back at Danielle's place Iman pulled over at the front of her house, she tried calling Danielle's line again and it was switched off.
"Argh!" she came down from the vehicle and sauntered towards the door. She knocked a few times but no one answered, she tried turning the door knob and it opened.
"Seriously?" She scoffs and stepped in, "Danielle!" she shouted looking around, " where the fuck are you guys?"
Heading towards the stairs, she paused as she caught the sight of blood on the floor, "Oh my fucking God, that's blood… Danielle! Are you home?" she looked around again and saw there was a trail of blood towards the kitchen, she turned on her phone's flashlight and followed it. She got to the kitchen and saw Danielle lying on the floor in the corner, at the end of the kitchen counter.
"Danielle!" she ran to her quickly, checking her, she felt she was still breathing, and she shivered at the sight of the cut on her head. Quickly she tried to unlock her phone, trying to call an emergency line, but suddenly something dropped on her head. She touched her head and look back at her hand; it was blood. She cursed under her breath and looked up quickly.
*Snarling! Chiamaka jumped on her from the ceiling while she screamed, and bit off her throat.
It was past 4 pm and Niola tried calling Chiamaka again and it was still the same, she sighed as the thought of going there crossed her mind, she was worried, but she couldn't, her mother might arrive anytime soon and she wouldn't like to jinx them either. As she kept on thinking, she heard a knock on the door, her heart jumped, and another knock followed and a manly voice too.
"Hello! Is anyone home," she hesitated for a moment before having the courage to answer the door.
But as she swung the door open, one of the men blew something to her face, and she passed out immediately, Fagbohun caught her before she reach the ground.
"What now? Fagbohun asked Ifárànmī as she put her gently on the couch.
Ifárànmī looked around the house and then started to draw another symbol on the wall, "We can't do it here, we need to prepare her and the dagger," he said. "We should take her away from here."
"To the cave?"
"No, I know a place."
Danielle slowly opened her eyes, there was a sharp pain on her head, and she winced as she touched the injury on her head, it was still fresh and bleeding. Startled she saw someone lying in front of her.
"Hey!" she whispered trying to wake whoever the person was, she stood up slowly, burning pain aches all over her body from when she rolled down the stairs. She stepped forward to take a peek at the person lying on the ground, She gasped, it was Iman, and her throat was ripped out of her neck.
"Wakey-wakey!" Chiamaka grinned coming down from the ceiling.
Danielle cowered in the corner immediately, frightened, too shocked, and scared to move. "Chiamaka, what have you done?" she said quavering, almost inaudible.
"Chiamaka?" She laughed maniacally. "Chiamaka can't hear you, this baby is whimpering somewhere in the dark. I am in charge now." With a wide grin, she held Danielle's jaw firm and made her look deep inside her terrifying black eyes and it was like she was hypnotized.
"Good girl," she laughed loudly and Danielle followed her blindly out of the kitchen to the living room; where she had drawn some sort of demonic symbol on the floor. She halted Danielle right in the middle of the circle and began murmuring some words in Latin.
The floor quaked and demons came out from the ground and entered Danielle, all of them at once. Then the shaking stopped.
Quickly the Chiamaka bowed her head immediately before Danielle as she opened her eyes; her eyes were all white without the iris
"My lords," she said still bowing.
"Find a way to wake the others, and find kimora. We need to get her to Amargonia's altar. " The voice coming out of Danielle's mouth sounded like hundreds, talking at the same time.
Soon Niola's mother arrived with Ifadahunsi, the car parked out front, and kunle got the bags down from the trunk.
"Eniola!" Tolu called as she helped Ifadahunsi inside the house, "ah-ah… come and help with our bags now." She shouted helping Ifadahunsi get to the couch.
"Eniola?" She called again with a concerned frown, heading towards the hallway, she sighted Niola's phone on the floor.
"Eniola!" she shouted intensively this time searching the house.
"What is that?" Ifadahunsi asked catching the panic in her voice, he got up from the couch trying to find his way toward where he heard her voice.
Tolu came back to the living room breathing heavily, with her eyes glistening with tears, "She's not here," she said. "She's not here," she trembled.
"Try calling her," he suggested.
"I would have, except I found her phone here, on the floor, which is weird… Eniola doesn't go anywhere without her phone." She said as kunle brought in the bags.
Tolu called her sales boy asking if he'd seen her come by the shop. Unfortunately, Jerry said he had not seen her at all. She sighed and he hung up, then she thought of going to Niola's place. She showed kunle the kitchen Incase he needed anything for himself and Ifadahunsi before she gets back, then she went outside and told the driver to take her.
After she left, kunle went to the kitchen to get a glass of water for Ifadahunsi, he picked up a glass cup and fetched water from the tap, meanwhile behind him, a demon came out of the wall with red burning eyes, and entered him.
"Kunle!" Ifadahunsi called him after what felt like minutes, "Where is the water?" He heard a footstep approaching, "what happened, why did you take so long." He said stretching out his hand, expecting water. But suddenly there was a bright light, bright enough to blind a man, a sharp pain shot through his eyes and she rubbed both eyes with both hands. "Kunle… kunle?... Are you there? My eyes, I think I saw light." He said full of confusion, he blinked back a few times, and surprisingly, he could see.
"I—I can see?" He turned to where kunle was and he suddenly saw his appearance and his eyes and he froze in shock. "Cupidum." He muttered shakily.
Tolu directed the driver till they finally got to Niola's house, there were no lights from the window, and now she was very sure something was wrong. She told the driver to wait outside and keep the engine running, while she went to check the house. She was about to place a knock when she realized the door was open, she pushed the door wide open and stepped in, heading for the light switch, she turned the lights on and noticed one of the couches went sideways. She walked towards the couch to adjust it, then she heard the car horn pong.
She rushed outside quickly, only to find Danielle and Chiamaka sitting on the car bonnet and the car. "Oh, thank God," with a sigh of relief she approached them. "Have you seen Niola? I've looked every—" she paused as she saw the driver bleeding out on the driveway. "Oh my God," she said under her breath, frightened at the sight, she noticed something weird in the way they looked, then she remembered how Fagbohun described demons. Their eyes.
She took a few steps backward then turn around to run back inside the house, But the sorcerer was behind her, and as she turned. He placed two of his index fingers on her forehead, and her eyes drooped, then she entered a kind of slumber.
Niola woke up strapped to a tree in the middle of nowhere, the burning fire crackled, and Ifárànmi mixed some concoction while Fagbohun sprinkled something like salt or sand at her feet.
"Who the hell are you people?" she shouted as Fagbohun strained the rope, it was obvious they wasn't under any demonic oppression, they seemed to be in a rush. "What are you doing?… please, let me go… you don't understand, there are people after me, please… please let me go."
"It's ok child… it will be over soon," Ifárànmī said as she approached her and raised the dagger to stab her.