The elephant’s legs slip from under it, once, twice, trying to fight the poison surging through its system. It’s back up to its feet, trunk reaching tenderly for that of the calf, a good-bye perhaps, then at last it pitches forward, legs stiffened and useless, and collides with the earth.
The cheering stops at the sound of a chopper buzzing through the sky. Papa Fuzz’s head whips up, sees it swarming in their direction, a flag painted across the bow. Not the South African flag. Ghana’s maybe. Or Namibia? Someone to his left yells, bullets ring off metal, and suddenly they’re all running back toward a flatbed truck half full of bloodied, hacked-off faces of elephants, massive tusks jutting out from lifeless expressions.
Muzi rips himself out of the vision right as a bullet pierces Papa Fuzz’s shoulder. That scar. That damned scar he’d worn as a badge of honor for saving the life of a young woman, this was how he’d really gotten it. Bile rises in Muzi’s throat. Intense rage builds inside him. He doesn’t know Papa Fuzz, not at all. Not a man who could take the life of something so precious.
Muzi pivots on one foot, an about-face that leaves his stare barreling down into his grandfather’s eyes. “Amari mwanakomana wangu, nhasi muri munhu” he shouts, and his grandfather stiffens in his seat. Muzi screams it again, and his grandfather rises, tries to run away.
No, Papa Fuzz. Not today. Muzi raises his hand up into the air. Energy flickers from his fingertips, and the static stands his arm hairs on end. Muzi concentrates, reaches out, and lassos both the minds of his teammates and opponents alike. He turns back and an army of soldiers dressed in green and black, and red and white, stand at attention.
“Get him,” he says and they obey, breaking stride and working together to tackle Papa Fuzz into the mud. The crowd shrieks at the commotion. Muzi hesitates, the thrill of his growing powers going bitter in his throat. Limitless, they seem, but there are grave repercussions. He’s got no choice now, though. He has to finish what he’s started. So with another hand gesture, the spectators go silent, still, like petrified trees. Only their eyes move in their sockets. “Bring him here,” Muzi commands his rugby army.
The players bring a struggling Papa Fuzz before him and push him down to his knees.
“Those words. What do they mean?” Muzi asks.
“Where did you hear them?”
“I suspect my great-grandfather spoke them.” Muzi’s words feel like weapons in his mouth. He watches his grandfather’s brown skin turn ashen as blood drains from his face. “Papa Fuzz, tell me what those words mean.”
Papa Fuzz lets his head drop forward. “Amari, my son, today you are a man. That’s what it means.”
“Amari. That’s the name you were born with? Not Fuzakele?”
His grandfather nods.
“And you’re not even Xhosa?”
“You have to understand, son . . .” His grandfather shakes his head, and all of a sudden, a rough accent weighs down the edges of his words. “It was hard, being an immigrant in South Africa at that time. So I listened to people’s stories, took bits and pieces of them, and retold them so many times that they became my own. I never meant to hurt anyone. I just wanted to give my children a history they could be proud of. And I wanted that especially for you.”
“Muzi?” Elkin’s weak voice comes from behind. “What is this?”
Muzi turns, seeing that Elkin’s been spared of his control. He’d promised, hadn’t he?
“I’m so tired.” Muzi falls down to his knees. He can’t take much more. Any moment now, fifty or so horrible memories are going to slam straight into his brain. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to keep sane through it. He’s got to tell Elkin now, before his headspace is no longer his own. “I never said what I made you forget.”
Elkin parts his lips to say something, but Muzi pulls him in, pressing his mouth over Elkin’s. On the field, among the vacant eyes of players and fans, Muzi savors the tartness of Elkin’s lips. He presses harder, losing himself in the moment until Elkin pulls back, his eyes full as moons, looking overwhelmed.
“Hot damn.”
“I’m sorry,” Muzi mumbles.
Elkin flushes. “Don’t be.”
“Not for that.” He smiles, but the weight of his actions weighs heavily on his mind, and in no time, he’s frowning all over again. Muzi raises his hand.
“But you promised!” Elkin shouts, right before Muzi makes a final grand gesture.
Twenty seconds later, they’re all back out on the field as if none of it had ever happened. Muzi fakes an injury, makes his way to the sidelines, then waits for the flood of memories to come.
Part IV
Chapter 26
Sydney
If there’s one rule in planning for world domination, it’s to make sure you look good doing so. Nobody wants to worship a frumpy god. So Sydney spends her last day passing as a human in one of the trendiest shops in downtown Port Elizabeth, Valle Ratalle, in an attempt to fit her size twelve body into a size eight dress.
“This is the biggest size we carry, but we can always special order from the catalog,” the perky attendant says as she steps back to consider the situation from all angles. “Would you like me to—”
“No, I would not,” Sydney says between her teeth, keeping every muscle clenched tight. With the dress only halfway zipped, she can’t afford to exhale now. “Just keep trying!”
“But—”
“Keep trying!” Sydney demands, and the attendant steps back up, cracks her knuckles, then takes a firm grip on the zipper one more time.
“Okay, on three, hold it in.”
Sydney grits her teeth and nods.
“One.” The attendant takes a deep breath, like she’s mentally preparing to bench press a rhinoceros. “Two . . .”
“Oh, get on with it already,” Sydney growls. This has to work. She imagines herself a radiant beacon of godliness in this silver-sequined gown, the entire world at her feet as she smites and causes plagues and demands the blood of each family’s firstborn. And doing it with style. Everything else is in place. Her hair, her nails, her plan. She’d gotten the tickets to Riya Natrajan’s concert easier than taking candy from a baby. She’d seen the rogue ball Muzi had kicked in her original vision and had refined it down to the exact minute after preying on the fear of an inside trader, a homeless person, a mime . . . and then she’d played the kid, fed into his guilt, and now those tickets were hers.
The emptiness is almost unbearable, though. She can only draw when it’s absolutely necessary, but tomorrow night will finally put an end to that. The chaos that will erupt at that concert will be unmatched, a tinderbox waiting for her flame. All that fear from thousands of fledgling gods, and she’ll be able to finally snuff Nomvula in the process. Then nothing will stand in her way.
“Three!” says the attendant. Sydney catches the determination in her eyes from the reflection in the dressing room mirror. She tugs, and the zipper moves up half a dozen more teeth, then the attendant sighs in resignation. “Miss, I’m sorry but this isn’t going to work. There’s not enough pull in the fabric. Perhaps I can show you something in a less form-fitting design?”