The whole group threw themselves on the floor and started to pray loudly and Mara threw her bouquet of flowers down and rushed to grab Mama Haga to rise up and begin to pray hard as that dreaded day had arrived. The two knew what to do at a time such as this. Mara said, "Please try and stay calm, stay together in here and pray as hard as you can and mean every word according to what we taught you. Then you will be safe. If you don’t pray, you have no defence.
“Those who don’t know how to pray, just keep calling the name of Jesus with all sincerity and you shall be saved. No matter what you do, do not venture out of this place until we are sure the worst is over. We are under attack from evil spirits, so please do not underestimate what they are capable of. Just pray and don’t doubt in your heart and God will fight for us.”
The evil spirits came crashing on the roof of the prayer room looking for whom to snatch. They had killed a few people in the other villages but somehow, they wanted more blood as they had seen more bodies to drink from at the wedding party.
Leona was hysterical that her nightmare had come true and she was all of a sudden reminded of the story that her mother had told her about her grandmother dying on her father’s inauguration as king. She felt history had repeated itself and worried of who the evil spirits were going to destroy. She hated the thought of her dream coming true and frantically looked for Tamura whom she had been separated from by people thronging onto them trying to get back into the prayer room.
Another crash and the evil spirits landed on the roof of the prayer room and the people got serious with their prayers and calling on the name of Jesus and pleading His Blood. Tamura’s uncle was killed among a few other people who could not be accounted for as they had not taken heed of the urgency to get inside the prayer room to pray. They had remained outside drinking alcohol at the back of the yard and laughing merrily. They were too drunk to notice anything was wrong or the commotion that followed. Ten of them had been killed in one swoop as the evil spirits worked and moved at ferocious speed.
Grandpa Kakupython died of shock from seeing so many dead people around him. His weak and fragile frame could not take the stress and strain of rushing into the prayer room and he collapsed in a heap and gave up the ghost just as he got to the threshold. The one nearest to him had dragged him inside the prayer room without realising that he was already dead. They thought he had fainted. They placed him in a sitting position and carried on praying unaware.
The spirits continued to try and invade the prayer room, but they faced a strong resistance and Mara continued to build up ranks of prayer warriors to withstand the advances of the evil spirits. They howled and growled loudly and blew a stench of stale wind in the air. Right at that moment, the sky turned red as pillars of fire came down from heaven and angels with fiery double-edged swords swooped above the evil spirits and slew them, slashing them from limb to limb with thunders and lightning accompanying their every attack.
The evil spirits realised they were outnumbered and had tried to escape and retreat towards the Baminga Mountains where they had been banished to hundreds of years ago, but this time it seemed a higher power had taken hold of them.
The evil spirits fell into an ash heap on the grounds of the field below, near the compound. None of them could escape and Mara watched as an army of angels destroyed these spirits with fire spewing from their mouths like a fiery furnace and with the edge of the sword.
She was amazed at how such a gentle angel who used to speak with her so calmly and yet now he looked fierce and fiery and had such power and authority. Mara collapsed on her knees when she realised that the evil spirits were totally annihilated by the army of angels who had come to their rescue. She felt a great big weight had been lifted from off her shoulders.
Mara was aware that there were some casualties, but she was convinced they were not as many as could have been killed if the angels had not intervened as she was not sure how many people were really praying or even prepared to face this day of doom. She dreaded the head count and to discover who exactly got killed.
The whole compound fell silent and in shock, people started emerging from the prayer room to see the devastation that had taken place in the compound. There were screams and mourns when people discovered their loved ones or relatives lying dead as they went through the carnage searching for bodies.
Those who had fallen victim were left an ashen grey corpse as all blood had been sucked out of them without a drop left for colour. Chief Wambu’s family found him with a mug of beer in his hand and looked like he didn’t even try to put up a fight as he was too drunk to try and escape. Fanu loved his father despite his shortcomings; he fell into his dead father’s lap and wept silently. Tamura came over and took him away to console him. Leona was in a state of shock and had gone into the palace with her parents. She was just glad that all of her family were still alive. She felt sorry for Tamura’s loss of
