6°48'31.5"N 5°16'23.1"W– Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast

  21.05.2024- 10.15 UTC +00.00

  By the time we reached Br?lant, a small unassuming tee-shop with a dusty and wooden exterior, I was already stabilized. Julien no longer carried me, although I still needed Drissa’s help in maintaining balance. I could not tell if this was because of my leg wound, or the shot in the head.

  I entered the small café by pushing the door open. The smell of mold mixed with mint and ginger rushed into my nostrils as I did. I took a seat next to the door, while Drissa ran to the kitchen.

  “Won’t you grab a seat?” I asked Julien, who was nervously standing right between me and the door. We weren’t the only ones in there: an wrinkly old woman was reading a magazine, tucked comfortably into a corner of the shop, while a young boy scrubbed a table at the other corner. He was wearing a colorful variation of a kente cloth around his waist. No one paid much attention to us.

  “Where did Drissa go?”

  “To fetch someone. See if she can help,” I answered, and I could feel myself frowning already at the idea of involving more in this situation. I did not feel like I had much of a choice anyway. I removed the hoodie that was previously hiding my face.

  Julien sat across the table without taking his eyes off me. The young man came over to our table and left two cups made of tin filled with a crimson drink, fueling further the aroma of ginger and a hint of pineapple. I tasted it.

  “Sobolo is always in the house, nuabea,” a woman’s voice welcomed me, calling me sister in her own Akan dialect.

  “Maakye,” I wished her good morning, as I left the tin cup on the table.

  Drissa had returned, and next to him stood Efua, a woman my age whom I had not seen for very long. She looked as tall and built as I remembered, but her features were sweeter than in my memories. Her coarse hair was lifted as if in a small crown, and wrapped by a small yellow band. She was wearing a large dress, and an apron, appropriately matching the color of her shop. Her eyes were filled with nostalgia and worry, but not just for me. There was something else as well, a primal worry in her expression.

  “Maakye,” she responded as I stood and approached her. She looked deep into my eyes; she did not need an explanation. She pulled a tiny bell from one of her pockets and rang it. After she said a few sharp words, the old lady nodded and left. The young man went to the kitchen, after first turning the label of Open to Closed on the door.

  Drissa sat next to me, and Efua sat across.

  “What do you need Demi?” She asked. Her voice was demanding, but not insisting. There was an unspoken shame between us: I hadn’t seen her in years after she was retired. She was ashamed of leaving our profession, I was ashamed of never reaching out.

  “I am in danger,” I said.

  She chuckled. “Well, isn’t danger your job?”

  “Not like this. This is different,” I responded, “really different.”

  She looked at me amused for a moment, but when she saw I was not smiling, her voice turned down an octave. “And why is the kid mixed up in this?” She glanced at Drissa, who protested immediately.

  “I am her apprentice! I can…”

  “He is not involved,” I interrupted, “at least no more involved than any Cursed this side of Africa.”

  “And who is this?”

  “Julien,” he introduced himself, “enchanté.”

  Efua did not respond but weighed him with her glance.

  “Do you drink nsafufuo, Julien?” She asked as she rang the bell once more. The young man with the kento pattern entered the room again, carrying a tray with two tin cups and two glasses. He served the glasses with the palm wine in front of me and Julien, leaving another round of sobolo for her and Drissa.

  I grabbed the glass and inhaled its alcoholic vapor. Wine before noon was never my habit, but it felt appropriate given the circumstances. I sipped it and let it burn my insides.

  Julien hesitated but followed suit.

  “So, who are you running from?”

  “Authorities from the Ivory Coast,” I answered.

  “You are not here for some cops Demi, spit it out.”

  “Possibly the Kanem Empire as well. This was a mission for one of their barons,” I said, “the militia chasing us south of here could have been them.”

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  “Possibly. Could. Whose else could they be?” Efua asked, sipping from her glass.

  “A new player. Someone calling themselves ‘the Haunt’. But it is unclear. I know they set my last mission up with a mole, and it failed.”

  “You better have a good reason you are showing up here despite...”

  “Marin is dead, Efua. He died with me, four days ago.”

  I hadn’t met anyone else who knew Marin since our mercenary group got decimated by Rox. Saying those words out loud made things even worse.

  “Despite me getting out. I am out of that life Demi,” she said and moved her hand above her apron.

  “When are you due?” I asked. Her eyes were enough proof of her pregnancy, but her not drinking the wine she served had all but confirmed it.

  “Six months. Got a while ahead of me,” she said.

  “We will be long forgotten by then,” I answered, “all we need is a place to hide for a day and a safe passage to Banfora.”

  “I might need more than a day to get you to Burkina Faso,” she complained.

  “We?” Julien protested. “Aren’t you jumping to conclusions?”

  “Come on, I saw your hide-out, Julien. I am doing you a favor including you in this, but you are welcome to go back. And Drissa,” I turned to my apprentice, “unfortunately there is no choice. I thought you could run away with your family… but this is related to our Curse. You are only safe with me, and I have an obligation to uphold.”

  “Nah,” Efua interrupted, waving her hand in protest, “I don’t want to listen to this. I don’t want to know what you have gotten yourself into.”

  Drissa drank from his cup without responding. Julien laid back on the chair.

  “Fair enough,” I said, raising my hands, “you won’t hear a thing. Can you give us a place to rest? Help me get tickets to Banfora?”

  Efua tightened her lips. She rang her bell one last time, for the young man to run to her stead again.

  “Kwabena, prepare two rooms for our guests. I will heat up the casserole. And you boy,” she turned to Drissa, who had not spoken a word, “I have some ointments for your Teacher. A bullet is showing.”

  I touched my forehead, only to touch a cold piece of metal protruding. My Curse would soon dissolve it, but until then, I had to rest.

  “Meda w’ase,” I thanked her.

  “Has he decided?” I asked Drissa, as he carefully laid a green paste on my head. I was lying back on a couch in a darkly lit room. The smell of ginger permeated the walls from the kitchen into here, but I did not mind.

  He nodded negatively.

  Drissa had changed into a set of cleaner clothes, and from their kento patterns, I deduced that they were from Efua’s young helper. He had worn them in his own way, twisting their style, to accentuate his piercings.

  The paste tingled on my head but did not hurt.

  “Ghana looks good on you. Maybe that’s where we should run to,” I added.

  He did not respond. Instead, he grabbed the gauze from the table next to him, and cut it in long pieces.

  “You don’t want to either, do you?” I asked.

  He paused, still holding the gauze in his hands. He then sat on a stool next to the couch.

  “I did what you said. When I saw them, I ran. I dropped everything. My bag, the rifle. I was useless. I just ran.” It was the first time I had heard his side of the events, what happened when we were attacked inside the house. “I was supposed to warn you, but I had even lost my phone. I just ran. And then still, I got caught.”

  “You will learn. You are still a kid.”

  “But until I am not. I will just make it more difficult for you.”

  “Yes, you will.”

  “Was that why your Sparked tried to kill me?”

  “No,” I answered. I had never been dishonest with him, and I was not planning to start now. “He sensed our connection. He felt that if you die, I would be free of my Curse.”

  For a whole minute, he sat there leaning against the table, and I lay on the couch with the paste drying on my forehead. Every second, I could feel the wound closing faster and the bullet being pushed outside my head.

  Through the thin walls, we could hear Efua yelling orders to Kwabena.

  “What is in Banfora?” He asked eventually.

  “A way to destroy whatever is in those,” I said, pointing at the pouches on the couch.

  “I thought you wanted to open those,” Drissa said and leaned over me to continue his caretaking duties.

  I saw Drissa’s face up close, and I decided I could not tell him what Julien told me and what I had deduced.

  That to open the pouches, people risk dying, a task that would not hinder me, or Drissa for that matter, carrying as he was a variation of my Curse. That the men hunting us, needed whatever was inside them, and we were both very convenient living keys. That I suspected the reason the men kept him in a van until we rammed into them, was because someone knew one too many things about our unique Curses.

  “I changed my mind. It is too much risk who knows what could happen if we were to open those pouches,” I answered.

  “Catastrophe,” Drissa said, I heard them using this word. And all I could feel was dread.”

  My mouth dried.

  “I have heard this before,” I said and closed my eyes, trying to remember, “one of us at least.”

  “I know,” Drissa said, “it was like I could hear you talking about it. Somewhere, at the back of my mind.”

  I kept my eyes closed. This word was important, it was a weapon, a Curse, and a legend at the same time. I could feel it at the tip of my tongue. I could feel my ancestors pulling their spider webs deep inside my brain, striving to scheme a message. I could feel them pulling the strings, one, two, three. Again, and again, tapping at the back of my skull, a warning and a threat.

  “Three; the Catastrophe,” Drissa and I uttered in one breath.