“Some of we, we try to leave, but the cows slow, and we slow, and he find we on the trail and kill everybody and drink out the blood. Every man and woman and beast rip in two. Sometimes he eat the head.”
“Ask him when he came around last,” I said.
“Two night ago,” the old man says.
“We need to locate the boy,” the Aesi said.
“We’ve found the boy. I was waiting for him to find Nyka. But we have found him.”
“No one here mentioned anything of a boy,” the Aesi said.
“Good men speak of me as if I am not here. You wish to leave me out in the open so that your boy will find me?” Nyka asked.
“We will not have to. When Sasabonsam comes tonight, he will bring the boy. The boy will demand it until there is no quieting him,” I said.
“I do not like this plan,” the Aesi said.
“There is no plan,” I said.
“That is what I do not like.”
“It took six of us to beat him last time and we still could not kill him. Ask what weapons they have.”
“I say we let what happen, happen and follow him to where he hides,” the Aesi said.
“Where he hides could be two days’ walk.”
“He is too smart to risk the boy.”
“I will kill this thing tonight or fuck the gods.”
“Shall I say something?” Nyka said.
“No,” we both said.
“Ask them what weapons they have.”
Four axes, ten torches, two knives, one whip, five spears, and a pile of stones. I tell truth, these people, who left the hunt for the field, were foolish to forget that this was still a land full with wicked beasts. The men brought the weapons, threw them at our feet, then scrambled to their huts like mad ants. This did not surprise me—all men are cowards, and men together only added fear to fear to fear. Darkness snatched the sky, and the crocodile had eaten half of the moon. We hid by the fence near the north of the village. The Aesi crouched low, holding a stick I did not see him with before, his eyes closed.
“Do you think he calls on spirits?” Nyka said.
“Speak louder, vampire. I do not think he heard you.”
“Vampire? How harsh, your words. I am not like who we hunt.”
“You have witchmen hunt them for you. We will not have this argument again.”
“It would please the night if you were both quiet,” the Aesi said.
But Nyka wanted to talk. He was always like this, needing endless chatter. He used chat to mask what he was plotting at the same time.
“I have not killed a man today,” I said.
“You said many times, over many years I have known you, I am a hunter, not a killer.”
“If not Sasabonsam, then I will kill every man here for being so weak and pathetic.”
“Careful, Tracker. You’re in the presence of a vampire and … whatever this Aesi is, and yet you burn with the most ill will. And even if you do joke, you were funnier back then,” Nyka said.
“Which then? Before or after you betrayed me?”
“I have no memory of that.”
“Memory has much of you. You never asked about my eye.”
“Did I too cause that?”
I stared at him, but turned away when seeing him only made me see myself. I told him how I got the wolf eye.
“I thought a man punched you in the eye and left it so,” he said. “But I see I am responsible for that too.”
He looked away. I could think of nothing more to do with Nyka’s remorse than punch him in the face with it. How I wished I had Sadogo’s knuckles to punch his head clean off. Sadogo. I had not thought of him in many long moons. Nyka opened his mouth again, and the Aesi covered it.
“Listen,” he whispered.
The sound cut through the dark, shuffling, jumping, running, falling over the fence, and cracking branches. And coming at us. No flapping of wings. None of the giggle, gurgle, and hiss of a child failing to mask himself. One rammed me in the chest and knocked me over. Then another. His knee in my chest, he looked up, sniffed quick, and turned to see others piling themselves all over Nyka, and the Aesi, screaming, grunting, shrieking, and grabbing. Lightning men and women. More than I could count, some with one hand, some with one leg, some with no feet, some with nothing below the waist. All of them rushing at Nyka. Two larger ones, both men, kicked the Aesi out of the way. Nyka yelled. The lightning women and men search and seek the Ipundulu; he is their only desire and purpose and they yearn for him forever. I have seen them run towards their master, desperate and hungry, but I had never seen what happens when they finally find him.
“They devour me!” Nyka shouted.
He flapped his wings and blasted lightning, which hit several of them, but they sucked it in, fed on it, grew more mad. I pulled both axes. The Aesi kept touching his temple and sweeping his hands over them, but nothing happened. The lightning people were an anthill on Nyka. I backed up, ran, leapt up, landed on the back of one, and rained his back with hacks. Left, right, left, right, left. I kicked one and chopped the side of his head. One wrapped her hand around Nyka’s neck and I chopped at her shoulder until her arm fell off. They would not let go and I would not stop.
A foot coming from nowhere kicked me in the chest. I flew in the air and landed on my belly. Two jumped to charge me. I had one ax and pulled my knife. One jumped at me, I rolled out of his way, and he landed on the ground. Knife in hand, I rolled back to him and plunged it in his chest. The second ran at me but I spun on the ground and chopped her leg. She fell and I hacked half her head off. They were still on Nyka. The Aesi pulled two, throwing them away like they were small rocks. Nyka kept pushing them off but would not attack them. I ran back to the pile, pulled one out by the foot, and stabbed him in the neck. Another I pulled and he punched me in the belly, and I fell to the ground, howling in pain. Now I was mad. The Aesi grabbed another. I pulled myself up with an ax and found another. One that crouched on Nyka’s chest to suck his neck, I chopped straight in the back of the neck. Lightning flashed through all of them, but they would not even turn from him. I rained chops down on his head and kicked off a woman beside him. She rolled off and came running back. I crouched, swung my ax, and hacked her right above the heart when she ran into me, and I swung the other down on her forehead. I chopped them all away, until there was Nyka, covered in bites and bleeding black blood. The last one, a child, jumped on Nyka’s head and gnashed his teeth at me. Lightning lit his eyes. I jammed my knife straight in his throat and he dropped in Nyka’s lap.
“He was a boy.”
“He was nothing,” I said.
“Something here is not right,” the Aesi said.
I jumped right before a woman from the village screamed.
“At the back!”
The Aesi ran off first, and I chased after him, jumping over these bodies, some of which still sparked lightning. We ran past huts hiding in the dark. Nyka tried to fly but could only hop. We got to the outer boundary to see Sasabonsam, his foot claws around a woman and flying away. The woman still screamed. I hurled an ax and hit his wing but it cut shallow. He did not turn.
“Nyka!” I said.
Nyka flapped his wings and thunder shook and lightning burst from him, but it shot west and south of him, not straight at the beast. Sasabonsam flapped and flew away, the woman still fighting. She struggled, until he kicked her in the head with his other foot. But there was no thicket to hide him in this savannah. My ax glinted in the dirt.
“He is flying north,” the Aesi said.
A flock of birds that I did not see far off changed course and flew straight to Sasabonsam. They charged him two and three at a time and he tried to swat them away with his hand and wings. I could not see all, but one flew in his face, and it looked like he bit into it. More came after him. The Aesi’s eyes were closed. The birds dived for Sasabonsam’s face and arms, and he started to swing his arms wildly. He dropped the woman, but from so high that when she hit the ground she did not move. Sasabonsam swatted away so many birds that they shot through the sky. The Aesi opened his eyes and the remaining birds flew away.