The Ring Of Sheba Read online

  Still chomping on his helpless prey, Abiku swept toward the Portuguese sailors. Most of them had started reloading their weapons, but all of them abandoned the long guns and reached for their blades as the monster came for them.

  Kangela reached the Portuguese and tried to break through. A swift kick sent one of the men to the ground. Kangela stole the fallen man’s knife from his belt and buried it in the throat of another slaver who reached for Emeka. As the dying man stumbled backward, the man behind him shoved him aside and leveled his pistol at Kangela.

  Shifting his aim from the bokor, Ngola aimed at the Portuguese sailor’s face and pulled the trigger. The ball slammed the man’s head backward, then he dropped to his knees and fell forward on his bloody face.

  Abiku struck the midst of the Portuguese, scattering them at first, then plucking up five of them with long tentacles that suddenly uncoiled from its neck. The screaming men hung like fruit from the monster’s appendages and it ate one of them like taking a grape from a bunch.

  “Colin!” Ngola shouted. “Get Kangela and Emeka out of here!”

  Drury broke from the shadows and raced toward Ngola’s wife and son.

  Lukamba whirled around to face Ngola. Rifle ready again, Ngola took aim at the bokor and fired as the old man lifted his staff and shouted once more.

  The ball stopped in mid-air amid a shower of purple sparks, then dropped.

  Lukamba laughed and preened. “Captain Ngola. I missed you at your village, but I have you now. This is an unexpected pleasure. And your wife and child are here too.” He shook his head. “There will be no escape from this place.”

  Ngola tossed the Baker rifle aside, knowing it would be of no further use. Balls couldn’t reach Lukamba through whatever magic he was using and they were ineffective against the creature.

  Some of the Portuguese broke and ran, racing back along the way they had come only to be met by Drury and the away party. Drury, Joao, and some of the other men fired their weapons, cutting down the slavers before they reached them. The bodies of the Portuguese toppled to the ground as one of the fleeing women and two of the children raced past.

  Abiku loosed another ululating wail that reverberated from the mountain and echoed over the countryside. The air just beyond Drury and the men wavered and Ngola felt the hum of electricity.

  The woman and the two children never slowed down, but when they reached the wavering area, eldritch magic stripped the flesh from their bones and they fell to the earth as gleaming ivory skeletons and the demonic drumming from the ogbanje continued around them. Two other children had been at the woman’s heels.

  Drury caught one of the children and halted her, but the other was past him before he could grab her. She met the same fate as the others, falling to the earth beside them.

  Barely controlling the horror that filled him, Ngola stared at the heaps of bones as he ran toward his wife and child.

  Lukamba cackled gleefully. “I told you that none of you may leave this place. You can serve Abiku, or you can die.”

  Either way, Ngola knew, death was in the cards—if they couldn’t find some way to break free of the creature’s power. Ripping his cutlasses free of their sheaths as he ran down the incline to the cistern, Ngola thought back to the houngans and mambos he had met while on Haiti and along the West Coast. Vodun was powerful, but it had its weaknesses. Blood, fire, and salt all disrupted spells, curses, hexes, and the evil eye. Even non-practitioners had defenses against the unwanted attentions of the loa.

  The hapless Portuguese in the monster’s tentacles cried out for help, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. Salazar tried to marshal his men to him, but that task was made harder because Drury and the away team pressed them hard, shooting them and keeping them penned between them and Abiku.

  “Father!” Emeka stood within his mother’s sheltering arms and stared at Ngola.

  “Husband!” Kangela held her position, but Ngola knew she was torn between her son and fear for him.

  Knowing he was the last hope his wife and child had, Ngola sprinted toward Lukamba. “Stay, Kangela! Keep Emeka safe!”

  The old bokor raised his staff in defiance and threw out his empty hand. Purple flames lashed out like a whip, narrowly missing Ngola as he threw himself beneath them and slid. Once the flames passed overhead, Ngola popped back to his feet, still clutching the cutlasses in his fists.

  Abiku lashed out at him, dropping its massive head earthward. Ngola leaped, throwing himself high into the air, and reversed the cutlass in his left hand. As his boots claimed brief purchase on the monstrous head that passed beneath him, he shoved the cutlass deep into the scaly flesh and hoped it would be enough to anchor him to the foul thing.

  Roaring with rage and pain, Abiku lifted its head. Three tentacles whipped toward Ngola. Swinging his remaining cutlass, Ngola hacked the tentacles off close to the thing’s body. Green blood jetted from the stumps. Other tentacles slammed a Portuguese captive into the monster’s body close to Ngola.

  Holding fast to the embedded cutlass in Abiku’s head, Ngola reversed his second cutlass and slammed it home into the monster’s flesh as well, then yanked free the first. He pulled himself farther up on the thing’s head, cutting two more tentacles away as though clearing brush.

  Abiku roared again and its pain and anger threatened to shake the mountainside. Writhing, it shifted again, trying desperately to unseat Ngola. Clinging fiercely to the embedded cutlass, Ngola planted his free blade in one of his opponent’s eyes. Green gore gushed out of the wound. Bellowing mightily, Abiku crashed its head into the ground.

  The impact jarred Ngola loose. Knowing he could no longer manage a hold, Ngola kicked free and angled his fall toward Lukamba. The bokor stood frozen, watching in disbelief as Ngola launched himself from the monster’s upper lip. At the last moment, Lukamba realized where Ngola was headed and tried to flee, but it was too late.

  Ngola landed boots first on the old man and drove him to the ground. Lukamba’s spine snapped like a twig. He lay on his face, gasping, and tried to breathe the dirt.

  Rolling to the side, Ngola came up with his cutlasses in both fists. His dark gaze raked the monster as it bellowed and wallowed in the cistern. Two Portuguese sailors still hung within its tentacles like bizarre ornaments. They squalled in fear, wide-eyed and crazed.

  “Ngola!” Kangela yelled.

  Ignoring her, Ngola focused on saving them. Blood, salt, and fire—those were the things used to banish vodun. He hoped that would be enough to banish the monster thrashing angrily before him.

  A ragged breath tore through Lukamba’s broken mouth. Reversing the cutlass in his left hand again, Ngola slammed the blade through the bokor’s back and into the earth. Then, as the monster twisted its gargantuan head to see him again—only one eye on this side now, Ngola knelt and searched through the old man’s pack. One of the first things Ngola found, as he hoped, was the salt sack the bokor kept to create protective circles around himself when he dealt with evil beyond his control and needed a defense. Ngola had used salt himself in the past.

  Ngola claimed the salt as his own and dodged away as Abiku lunged at him. After taking the salt sack in his teeth, Ngola drew one of his pistols and shoved it toward the monstrous thing’s remaining eye as it struck at him, then pulled the trigger.

  Green ichor sprayed from the ruined orb as a small cavity opened up. Otherwise unaffected by the gunshot, the monster’s head struck Ngola and knocked him reeling. He fell heavily and the breath left his body. He flailed and recovered his feet, then turned to face Abiku. Two tentacles snaked along the ground and wrapped Ngola’s right ankle. Howling with blind, murderous intent, Abiku lifted its head and shook as though to clear its vision. Green tears wept from its wounds.

  Desperately, Ngola flung the spent pistol away and seized the bokor’s staff from nearby. His fingers just grazed over the hardened wood at first, but he got the staff on the second try. He curled the staff into his fist and watched in horror as the thing dangle
d him with its tentacles over that monstrous maw.

  Ngola maneuvered the staff, hoping that the fire-hardened wood and whatever magic it held made it stout enough to stand against the monster’s strength. Needle-sharp teeth closed around him, then stopped when the staff prevented the massive jaws from closing.

  Holding onto the staff to provide leverage, trying desperately to ignore the sick churning in his guts at the creature’s stench, Ngola twisted and thrust the cutlass into the thing’s snout, hoping it was sensitive. Undoubtedly the snout was sensitive enough, because Abiku screamed and sent two tentacles slithering for the weapon.

  Taking advantage of his momentary respite, Ngola grabbed one of the teeth with his other hand and hauled himself into the creature’s mouth. Bracing his back against the roof of the monster’s mouth, legs trembling with exertion to keep him locked in place, Ngola opened the salt sack and spilled the contents down the thing’s throat.

  Abiku’s cries came to an abrupt halt as it choked. Its flesh peeled back in great blisters filled with thick, oily pus that popped like gunshots. It shivered and shook and ululated its agony and rage.

  The staff snapped suddenly and the creature’s crushing strength closed in on Ngola as it sought to close its wounded maw. Ngola set himself and held back the monster’s jaws through the sheer prowess of his back and legs, but he knew he couldn’t hold back his death for long. Already his strength was flagging.

  Pulling the powder horn from where it hung at his side, Ngola pried it open and scattered the gunpowder down the thing’s throat as well. The dry powder clung to the blisters and sores that had opened up in the thing’s flesh. Taking the mambele from its holster at his back, Ngola sliced a long furrow along his arm. His blood mixed with the salt and gunpowder.

  “With my blood, I curse you to hell, to rot and to die, in agony and fire.” Ngola pulled his flint from his pouch and struck sparks from it with the mambele. He prayed that he survived only long enough to kill the thing that had threatened his family.

  Flames leaped up as soon as the sparks touched the gunpowder. Some of the powder was wet from the creature’s saliva and the leaking pus, but enough remained to guarantee a hearty blaze.

  Abiku howled in renewed rage and agony.

  Ngola reached up and grabbed the largest broken piece of the staff imbedded in the thing’s flesh as the monster shook its head in a dizzying whirl. Several tentacles snaked into its mouth, rushing over Ngola but not closing on him. Feeling the monster’s strength failing, Ngola forced himself between the thing’s jaws, escaping just before rows of teeth slammed shut. Ngola clung to the thing as it writhed and searched for him with its tentacles.

  Smoke blew out the monster’s nostrils and gills, and fire lit it up from inside. The head snapped and jerked in torment.

  Heaving himself away from the creature when he was close to the cistern’s bank, Ngola tumbled to the hard ground and came up on his feet immediately. He lunged to the side, shoved a foot down on Lukamba’s corpse, and pulled free his cutlass. He turned to face the cistern again, expecting the monster to come for him.

  Instead, Abiku dove into the black water.

  For the first time, Ngola realized that the drumming had stopped. He gazed along the shore and saw the four ogbanje lay sprawled in death again. As he stared at them, the corpses withered and turned to ash. Whatever dark magic had animated them had gone. The drums aged and collapsed, falling into pieces as the leathery faces curled up and tattered.

  A moment later Abiku’s corpse floated to the top of the cistern, slack in death.

  Remembering there was still a fight to be fought with the Portuguese, Ngola turned around and took a fresh grip on his cutlass and drew one of his remaining pistols.

  Salazar lay dead on the ground. His men lay dead around him. None had been spared by Drury and Mambele’s crew. Mercy wasn’t something Ngola’s sailors were prepared to give to slavers.

  In the next instant, Emeka ran to Ngola. Smiling, Ngola dropped to one knee and wrapped an arm around the boy, lifting him easily as he once more stood.

  Tears streaked Emeka’s face. “I thought the monster had eaten you.”

  “No. I crawled inside him and killed him.” Ngola grinned, and he hoped his son didn’t feel him shaking. A brave face would allay his son’s fears. “I only did it to worry your mother.”

  “She was scared.”

  “Then it worked.” Ngola strode forward and slipped his cutlass into its sheath, then took Kangela under his arm as she came up to embrace him. He leaned down and kissed her, feeling all the warmth and love that a man could ever feel, and those were the things that made the battles a man had to fight worthwhile.

  Kangela touched his brow where one of the monster’s teeth had grazed him. “You are wounded.”

  “Only a little,” Ngola replied.

  “Several times.” Kangela wiped at some of his wounds that he hadn’t even known were there. “These need to be cleaned before they become infected.”

  Ngola laughed and kissed her again. “If that thing couldn’t kill me, I won’t let infection do the job either.”

  Drury joined them, bloodied and worn.

  “How many did we lose, Colin?” Ngola asked. He didn’t want to know how many others they would add to the men they lost in taking Salazar’s ship.

  The Irishman grinned and shook his head. “Not a one. The Portuguese were too worried about that thing to pay much attention to us. By the time they decided to attend to us, it was too late. We had them boxed.”

  “Good. Do we have wounded?”

  “Not so wounded that we can’t leave.”

  “Then let’s leave.”

  Drury grinned again. “Mayhap you’ll want to tarry a little longer, Captain.”

  Ngola studied his second-in-command silently for a moment. “I have memories enough of this place.”

  “Aye, and I do as well. However, I wouldn’t want to go off and leave all that gold.”

  Ngola thought about that. “You found The Scorpion?”

  “Near enough.” Drury jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “While we were scouting the city, Joao discovered one of the collapsed houses covered a tunnel leading down to a cavern at the river’s edge. The Scorpion’s inside. She’s still got her cargo aboard. From what Joao says, it’s going to take us a few days to load it all up.” He grinned again. “I’m thinking there’s enough to allow us to take some rest. God knows we’ve earned it.”

  Ngola nodded. “We have, and Kangela’s people will need to be relocated. We cannot take any chances that Salazar might have gotten word to the Portuguese that he had found them. Others will search for them to get at us.”

  Drury nodded. “Agreed. Want to come down and take a look at our ill-gotten gain?”

  Ngola started to answer yes, because he was curious about the treasure and the things The Scorpion’s crew might have taken all those years ago, but Kangela squeezed his hand and looked up at him defiantly. She understood English well enough to know what Ngola and Drury were discussing.

  Ngola shook his head. “Not tonight, Colin. Tonight I am going to take my son to the safety of the ship and open a good flask of wine to share with my wife.”

  Drury snorted in mock derision. “If I hadn’t just seen you kill a god with your bare hands after getting eaten whole, I’d say marriage was making you soft.”

  Ngola held onto his wife and son and headed out of the ruins, watching as the sun rose in the east behind them and turned the heavens pink. The Scorpion’s riches could wait. He knew that he had all a man could ever hope for.

  THE RING OF SHEBA

  Mpinda, The Kingdom of Kongo

  West Africa

  June 1825

  1.

  The Slave Block

  Filled with disgust and vibrating with white-hot rage that he could scarce contain, Ngola Kilunaji gazed out over the auction square lit by the hot noon sun hanging over Mpinda. He had no love for the city. It had been founded by Portuguese slavers ov
er three hundred years ago. Although though the native people had ousted the Portuguese, the slave trade continued unabated. The profits just filled other purses these days.

  Only the fact that he was so close to ending the career of a black-hearted demon like Captain Bartolomeu Machado Jorge brought Ngola from his ship into this slavers’ nest. If anyone in the city learned who Ngola was, they would be after the price on his head offered by the Portuguese. Even the British navy wanted him.

  A fat hawker wearing a powdered wig stood on the block beside a hulking brute laden in chains and a slender young girl who was only now beginning to flower into womanhood. She would be a prize. For a time. Then she would be discarded, broken and without hope. Ngola had seen too many girls and women like that.

  “Gentlemen, here I have two fine specimens for sale,” the hawker cajoled the crowd in the courtyard. “This bull male is strong and capable, a veritable goliath ready to work in fields wherever you need him. While this comely lass,” the barker ran the back of his hand against the girl’s cheek, causing her to pull away as far as the chains at her wrists would allow, “has other charms you can see for yourselves. In addition to that, she can cook and clean and be a governess to your children.”

  The girl wore rags that barely concealed her modesty. Her hair hung in ringlets, proving that the selling agency had paid attention to her marketing value. She kept her eyes on the wooden floor beneath her bare feet. Tears tracked her cheeks and she shivered as though chilled.

  “Come, come.” The barker strode the short length of the auction block like a master showman. He waved his arms. “These are prizes, in the prime of their lives. Ready to be shaped and molded into whatever you desire. Who will open the bidding?”

  Immediately one of the well-dressed white men standing at the front of the crowd before the auction block raised his hand. “I will give you twenty dollars for the girl.”

  The barker shook his head and frowned as if outraged. “I am sorry, my good man, but I cannot take your bid. These two come as a pair. If you buy one, you will get the other. This is a steal.”