Akata Witch

at her and she nearly dropped her juju knife.

“This is the last effort?” He laughed, turning away as if they were nothing. He began drawing something with chalk around the children. Behind them, Sunny could hear Sasha and Chichi making their way over as they fought the bush souls, fled the birds, and worked jujus to hold back Black Hat’s thugs.

“You come any closer and you’ll ruin what’s already in motion. Then I’ll have to slaughter you two instead of just these children. Get outside,” Black Hat said. Then he seemed to be speaking to someone else. “You all may leave, too. These kids are harmless. Go watch for real threats,” he said. All the commotion and squawking behind Sunny instantly stopped as the bush souls obeyed. Even his thugs went back to the gas station. Sasha and Chichi came running in.

“What the hell have you done?” Chichi shouted the minute she saw the children. “You evil bastard!”

Sasha took one look at the children, pulled something out of his pocket, and blew into it. It was the conch shell he’d bought from Junk Man. Its deep guttural sound made Sunny’s head vibrate. “Come now!” Sasha shouted. “Take Otokoto’s blood!”

Every insect in the area obeyed as if they knew the world depended on it. The air grew black with them, all trying to bite, sting, or defecate on Black Hat. Taken by surprise, Black Hat screamed and staggered back. Orlu and Sunny each grabbed a child. Sunny got the boy. He was limp in her hands, his skin cold. He was dead.

Black Hat shouted something in a language she didn’t understand and all the insects fell to the ground, dead. He raised a hand and Sasha’s shell dissolved into dust. He glared at Chichi and Sasha. “You’re as pathetic as suicide bombers,” Black Hat said. “You die for nothing.”

Sasha brought his juju knife up and Black Hat laughed, doing the same. Orlu and Sunny took off with the children. When they reached some bushes a few yards away, they put them down. “They’re not alive!” Sunny said, frantically wiping rainwater from her face. “They’re dead! We’re too late! They’re dead! We-Sasha-”

“Shut up!” Orlu hissed. “Just go. Go help the others.”

She moaned when she looked toward the obi where Sasha and Black Hat were having some sort of juju battle. Sasha was slowly sinking to the ground as a white cloud hovered around him. But he still held his knife. She couldn’t see Chichi.

“They’re dead!” she shouted. “We’re all going to die! Why’d we come here?”

Orlu knelt in the mud beside the children. He put his knife down and clapped his wet hands loudly. He pushed his sleeves back, shook out his hands, and wiped his face. Lightning flashed, immediately followed by the bellow of thunder and heavier rain.

“Orlu, what are we going to-Orlu?”

He had a faraway look on his face, the same one he’d had at the Zuma Festival when he handled the masquerade. He began rocking back and forth, drawing symbols in the mud with his finger; they melted back into the mud seconds later. “Go,” Orlu said calmly, not looking at her. “These children are dead. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I have to do it alone.”

She turned, about to flee.

“Wait,” he said. “Pull out one of your braids.”

She yanked one out. She was in such emotional shock, she didn’t feel the pain. “The hair of one who walks between,” he said, taking it. “Now go.”

She had no plan. The rain was now a deluge. The children were dead. Black Hat was killing Sasha. Where was Chichi? Sunny stepped into the obi just in time to see a bolt of red lightning shoot from Black Hat’s juju knife and slam into Sasha’s chest. He went flying out of the obi into the rain, skidding backward in the mud. Then he was still.

Sasha! she screamed in her head. She grasped her juju knife. She had no intention of using it to work juju. She was going to bury it in Black Hat’s back.

“I am a princess of Nimm!” Chichi screamed, standing at the front entrance. She slashed her knife from left to right and shouted some words in Efik. She stabbed her knife hard on the concrete floor of the obi. Sparks flew, but it did not break. “This charm is from Sunny’s grandmother Ozoemena, to my mother, to you, Black Hat Otokoto.”

Black Hat stared at Chichi as if seeing her for the first time. Chichi nodded, a wild look on her face. Then the colors came. Red, yellow, green, blue, purple. They blasted Sunny with heat as they flew past and went right for Black Hat. As they whirled around him, he shrieked.

“Past sins will always come back to haunt you,” Chichi said.

Black Hat shrieked and shrieked, smoke rising from his skin, his clothes catching fire as the colors harassed him. One of his ears fell to the ground. Chichi scrambled to the side as he ran out of the obi into the rain. The drops of water hissed and vaporized as they made contact with his skin. But then his screams changed to laughter. It was an awful, awful sound. “You can kill me,” he said, his voice gurgling. He coughed wetly and laughed again. “I am but a vessel! You’re too late!” He threw his head back and shouted, “EkwensUUUU!” He grinned at Chichi, his mouth all teeth now.

“No!” Sunny shouted as Black Hat brought his knife to his neck and slit his own throat.

“Just needed one more death,” he said in his gurgling voice. He fell over, gouts of blood and life pouring out of him.

Silence. Sunny met Chichi’s eyes and even in the rain she could tell Chichi was crying.

Suddenly, the ground shivered with the most terrifying beat she had ever heard. THOOM! THOOM! THOOM!

“Sunny!” Chichi shouted. “Help me!” She’d run to Sasha and was trying to drag him back into the obi.

“It’s too late!” Sunny shouted over the deep beat. It came from within everything around them. She grabbed under Sasha’s armpits. Chichi took his legs. They hauled him in. Then Chichi knelt beside him and checked his pulse. “He’s alive,” she said, her eyes wide and twitching.

Outside, with each beat, the mud rose into a higher and higher mound.

“Oh God, she’s coming,” Sunny moaned.

“Buck up,” Chichi said, looking angry. “Where’s Orlu?”

“Out there,” she said. “With the children. On the other side, near the bushes.”

She couldn’t tear her eyes from what was happening. The heavy downpour was causing the ground to flood. The thunder and the lightning had become one. But nothing drowned out the steady drumbeat of the masquerade. The mound was now three feet high, pushing aside Black Hat’s body as it rose.

Chichi cursed, patting Sasha’s wet cheek. “Sasha, wake up!” She pushed his eyes open. Only the whites showed.

The termite mound was six feet high now. Termites buzzed from it, but the rain beat them into the mud. Something enormous was coming through. It looked like the leaves of a dead, dry crackling palm tree tightly packed together. They crackled more when the rain hit them. Chichi held Sasha’s hand and then took Sunny. “He’s done it,” she said. “We’ve failed.”

Sunny was speechless, frozen with terror. A monstrosity was growing before her eyes. The Aku masquerade was nothing compared to Ekwensu. She was of such deep evil that her name was rarely spoken, even in the Lamb world. As her monstrous form grew, she gave off a smell-an oily, greasy smell, like car exhaust.

Ekwensu was over one hundred feet high and fifty feet wide. She was all tightly packed dried palm fronds.

“Pull him back,” Chichi suddenly said. “Get back.”

“What are we gonna do?” Sunny asked as they dragged Sasha to the middle of the obi.

“Pray,” Chichi said. “No use running.”

For over a minute, the horrifying thing that was Ekwensu just stood there. Then there was a heavy gust of wind and Ekwensu slowly began to fall. When she hit the ground, water and mud spurted in all directions.

The two girls huddled over Sasha. Chichi wiped the mud from his face so that he wouldn’t suffocate.

The drumbeats stopped. So did the thunder. Sunny wiped mud from her arms, legs, and face and slowly stood up. “Is it dead?” she whispered. She hoped. Maybe Black Hat hadn’t performed the juju properly or maybe he’d done things prematurely.