Ehimen turned. Odion was standing beside him. He’d probably used speed to get there before Ehimen could hear him approach.

“No, it’s not.” Ehimen agreed. It was really, really, not good. From their reactions, it was clear that the unmarked people could see their compound. If they could see the compound, then they could see the large Enikaro mansion sprawled in the center of it. There was supposed to be a cloak preventing them from being seen, the cloak showed the compound as a forest and had commune magic laced in it to mess with emotions so that no one felt obliged to check it out.

There were fifty-seven people on the street opposite them, Ehimen did a quick count, and each one of them started moving towards the compound. Ehimen spotted a group of twelve middle-aged men, coming out of a bar across the street. Police, he easily identified them from their black uniforms, and the guns they carried. They were pushing people out of their way and heading directly for their compound.

He burst through the trees and stopped close to the outermost ring. He always unconsciously used hearing to give himself a sharper edge and so when the generator came on, the roar of it rung through his head. Ehimen stopped using all his evbaire then, stripping the enhancement from his senses. The trees were suddenly lit, but the lights were white instead of the violet they’d been before. Ehimen frowned. He went through the last set of trees and stopped between two large mango trees, staring out at the porthole riddled street. Lines of street vendors stood on the opposite side of the road, they roasted suya, cooked indomie, fried puff-puff, battered their goods, all yelling to be heard over the backdrop of so many roaring generators, and loud booming music. Ehimen watched them carefully and felt a certain chill run up his spine when their conversations halted, and one after the other, they turned towards the trees he stood buried in, pointed their fingers towards the compound, and then gaped, mouths hanging open, and eyes wide with wonder.

“Bleep, that’s not good.”

Ehimen pushed himself off the lamppost. Instinctively, he reached for Enforcer, and cursed when he found his whip holster empty. He’d been so grief-stricken that he hadn’t thought too much of the fact that Iye had seized his whip in punishment for his earlier defiance. He cursed again and reached instead for his speed. He still had a little speed evbaire left from earlier. He did a quick run around the perimeter of the mansion, and then went into the trees that surrounded it. It was dark with so much foliage blocking off the moonlight, so he used some of his sight evbaire to help him see through the dark. The evbaire painted everything in silver light. Sight lasted longer when used to extend vision, but it burned out quickly when used for seeing in the dark. Ehimen tried to balance his speed with his sight, hoping he could keep the speed lasting long enough to run through the trees before his sight burned out completely.

“What is this?” Her voice was so soft. She looked up at him uncertainly, smiling, but only with half of her face. It was the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

“A talisman, what else?”

She dropped her gaze back to the glowing silver-blue coral beads in her hand, then lifted it up and smirked at him. “So, this is how the ancestry do talismans, ehn? Hmm, una dey enjoy oh.” Then she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Thank you.”

Ehimen smiled and then he blinked, and she was gone. She wasn’t standing in front of him, it was all in his head. He stopped walking and leaned heavily against a lamppost for support. It had felt so real. He could even smell the lavender oil she bathed with and the citrusy scent of the wash she used for her hair. His chest tightened. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the lamppost, just for a second, he told himself, until he was strong enough to keep going.

But then the light that had seeped through his closed eyelids went away. He tore his eyelids open and found darkness. He was close enough to the celestial witches that he wasn’t completely dependent on the heavenly lights, the talismans still glowed bright, but all the other lights were out. No violet streetlights, no lights from inside the house, nothing.

“Thank you,” Ehimen took the steel cup that Mischief handed to him. He chugged the stuff down and then dusted off the rest of his food. When he was done, he leaned back against a tree stem and placed his empty plate and cup beside him. One of the younger litters would clean up, he knew, so he turned his attention back to scanning the trees and trying to guess which one the imp was in. Odion had said the imp was in a tree, but all the trees looked empty.

‘You’re too easy on her. She’s a fertile, my love, you don’t do her any favors.’ After having her say, she pulled out of the bond and turned back to her babies. The last two litters hadn’t started branding yet, so they didn’t need to eat evbaire, but mother fed the last litter a little of hers. She tore small bites of agidi off and put it into their mouths. In a few years, once their brands came out, they’d be wolfing the stuff down, like the eighth litter. They’d turned sixteen three months ago and branded then. Now they ate evbaire like they were starving. It would take at least a year before the hunger waned. Each of them had gotten three agidi, all with different powers, and five times the akamu that he had.

Part 7
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I still could not find Musa. I’d scoured through every inch of the land and there was no trace of my imp. The only imps here, were the ones in the cart. The three leashed jackals growled at the imps. They yapped with glaring canines at the cart, thrashing so forcefully that the shunned uspecs had hit them in the head a few times, just to shut them up.

The younger of the uspecs approached me. It, like its progenitor, had only one imp eye on its face. It was this uspec who had changed my position. Now, I sat more comfortably, with my hands bound by the manacles behind me. But my legs were free. That was an improvement on the chaining that I had awoken to.

The uspecs were soarus. I tried not to think of how the short tentacle stubs reminded me of longer and greater tentacles. Each time I thought of soaru, my mind darted to Katsoaru and the imperial who had called me friend. Now that imperial’s center eye was on my face, and it was shun, just like this one.

“Will you not tell me your name, noble?” the uspec asked. “If you tell me your name, pater will share the meat that it brings back from its hunt.”

The uspec stared hopefully at me. It wanted my name so that it could reach out to my line and ransom me. Fools. I continued to ignore the uspec, choosing instead to search for my imp. It sighed heavily. “The meat pater hunts is juicy…” it broke off and started mumbling, “how do I say juicy in the kute tongue?”

“Hungry?” it managed to say the single word in the kute tongue. Its progenitor was slightly more adept at speaking kute, but neither of them could form a complete sentence. I saw no need to make them aware of the fact that I could speak their tongue better than they could. My silence bought me time to search for my imp and formulate a way out of my chains.

I pulled at the chains then, feeling their restriction as the metal grated against my skin. The pain in my wrist served to remind me of those all around my body. I felt the wounds from the jackals’ scratches and their bites. Although the bite sites burned and stung, they did not bear undue discomfort. I just needed to figure out a way out of these manacles. I thought the uspecs were dumb enough to be tricked into releasing me, but if I attempted and I was wrong, I would be forgoing my biggest advantage, which was the fact that they did not know that I could speak their tongue.