18°41'34.2"N 12°55'10.6"E

  Bilma, Niger

  27.05.2024 – 11:45 UTC +01.00

  “It is all because of you,” I said. I did not mean Nassor; he was a pawn just as I was. I meant my torturous Curse. I assumed Aisa was the leader of the Lions, and that I had protected her from a coup that day, stopped a poisoner. My Calling was to protect her that day, I thought. I was mistaken. I thought it had led me to Aisa to find my brother’s assailant, but it couldn't care less.

  What had really happened when I crashed into that party and joined that meeting?

  I must save face and appear at the party. As the Lioness.

  Aisa’s words. She had almost admitted it to me, but she just decided not to.

  My Calling never cared for what I wanted or what my brother needed. All it needed was for me to follow it blindly and vulnerably, lead me to force a poisoning of a political envoy, and let someone else take the helm – someone like Aisa, who saw in Cursed, like Yahaya and me, weapons.

  My Calling had sent me there to kill a gang leader and create the power vacuum it wanted. I had already done it. Now, Aisa bred more of the chaos that my Calling needed to breed.

  Catastrophe, even, that’s how Yahaya had called it. Was that what she meant?

  I felt my blood boil in rage. Rage at my Calling. At myself. At my other reflection on my phone screen as it darkened, the part of me that was happy to be compliant and submissive to fate.

  “Trust me. We have no interest in meddling with Curses,” Nassor said. I stared at him.

  “And here we are both sitting, irreversibly meddled. Do you feel this, Nassor?”

  He nodded from side to side.

  “I can feel what you feel, Nassor. Lying does not work,” I said. “Your heart won’t take long. Your weakness, sadly, complicates things.”

  “What are you going to do?” He asked. I had to maintain a fine hold over his free will for now.

  I looked at my phone. A voice told me I was making a mistake, and I wondered if it had to do with the fear I felt in this man’s heart. Or the questions I had about Aisa’s intentions.

  I would do this my way.

  I was about to stand up when my mouth spoke of its own will:

  “I should reconsider.”

  Invisible binds held me down in my chair. My ears rang with a high-pitched sound. My vision turned blurry, if only for a moment. The café blended in the background, with the people, the décor, and the sky merging into one white scene, where Nassor sat.

  Do not dare! I threatened it back, and I felt it screaming in my head before it ceased.

  It was my Calling. It could have been no one else. But I had never felt such anger from it. It was pure rage, mirroring my own against me. It would make me regret my choice, but at the same time, I felt more right than ever.

  The white retreated, and my vision came back to me.

  I then looked around. Everyone in the terrasse was prone and unconscious, knocked out by a malevolent wave of hexes. My hexes, unleashed during my confrontation with the Calling. They were not dead, but I could sense their weak Nabd.

  Nassor was gone.

  “Shit.”

  I sensed his Nabd, somewhere below me. He was slowly trying to escape the building. I calmed down. I was still in control.

  I left my table and took the lift to head to the ground floor.

  “Irritating. Useless. Inconsequential,” I said, unsure who I was directing the insults to. “Useless insect.”

  I was angry, considering all my options. I was no longer planning to hand Nassor in. I did not care about anything or anyone. I was not going to be my Curse’s toy-thing without learning first why it was beckoning to N’Djamena. And that man knew something.

  I exited the building of the coffee shop just as Nassor crossed the street, about to enter the corporate building he had exited just when I grabbed his heart.

  “Nassor!” I shouted, my voice deep, unwilling to waste time playing with the man. He looked behind, but managed to resist. He pushed through the door and walked slowly past that.

  I walked through the street. Fuck covert. It did not matter.

  “Inconsequential, insolent,” I muttered.

  Cars around me stopped as I crossed the street, their drivers’ hearts halting just as well.

  I pushed the door open, finding myself in the reception of a modern corporate building. Paintings hang on the walls. Various pots with ficus plants were carefully laid around the room, following modern guidelines of interior décor. Security detail by the reception listened to Nassor’s hurried words as he turned back and pointed at me.

  I could not care less.

  “Don’t fucking dare,” I shouted to the men who were ready to unsheathe their handguns. I extended my control as far and wide as I could. My Calling resisted – not like the last time. Now my heart ached too. But I did not care. “Come here, you insolent dog.”

  Nassor stopped talking to the men and ran towards me. The receptionist reached for the phone. I only needed a word for one of the security guards to shoot him: “Die.” The receptionist collapsed, his heart stopped by a bullet shot not by me, but still by my command.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Nassor knelt in both knees in front of me. I enthralled him fully again, before any more ideas got to his head. “Don’t,” I said, and his eyes twitched as he looked at me. His mouth moved but remained silent. I caressed his face, twirling his mustache. I knew he felt disgust and lust. I did not care. “For now, believe it or not, our interests might be aligned.”

  As I said the words, I realized how true they were. Yes, I could hand him over to Yahaya for whatever devious purposes Aisa would have her fulfill. But this man was leverage.

  “What does that mean?” He asked.

  “It means that you will now follow me. You play your cards right, and I can keep you alive. If you resist, your heart won’t make it.” I leaned lower, staring at the frozen guards still in the room. “Stop resisting.”

  We had to hurry. It was a matter of time before Yahya arrived in the coffee shop across the street. So much effort for being covert, only to be sabotaged by my Calling.

  For a short moment, Nassor and I were standing in silence, beside the air conditioning working full-time in the reception.

  My phone rang, killing the silence. I saw Walid’s name and immediately picked it up, as I pointed Nassor to stand up.

  “Just the man I needed,” I said, “I will send you coordinates. Come pick us up.”

  “Miss…” his voice tried to interrupt me.

  “Run for it,” I said and hung up. I turned to Nassor, and he felt my command. We had to run away from here. As we exited the building, I let the guards' hearts move their hands once more, two gunshots simultaneously ending them.

  ? ? ?

  Running away from the neighborhood was step one. I had, regrettably, texted Yahaya to find us there.

  Step two was to find Walid. I had shared my live location with him so that he would drive and find us no matter where we ended up. It did not matter what direction Nassor and I would get lost in, as long as Walid could find us before anyone else did. We kept turning randomly in the streets nearby, as far as possible from the café and Nassor’s office.

  A thought sprang up in my mind, ten minutes in.

  “Is anyone tracking you?” I asked Nassor. I really should have thought about that earlier.

  “Yes,” he said and showed his phone, unable to lie.

  “If you cannot disable it, throw it away.”

  The man cursed profanely but threw the phone in a trash can. People around stared at us for a moment, taken aback by his profanities. I breathed in and strangled his will. I stepped closer so that he could hear me clearly, even if I whispered. Passers-by could interpret this as a lover’s quarrel, for all I cared.

  “You have to behave, or this ends for you.”

  “I… can’t run… like this,” he said, gasping for air. I clicked my tongue on my teeth. If I held him tight, he could not run. If I released my hold, he would not obey. I had already killed three people today. What did I have to do to make that man bend?

  I looked around. The café’s terrace was not visible from here, from our position. His offices still were. We were at a crossroads somewhere in the center of the town, and as the midday sun hung higher, the crowd wandering in the streets thinned out. I felt scorching heat on my skin, hotter and drier than usual.

  I turned to him, still struggling to breathe, his face three inches away from me. Staying put was no solution either. If Nassor’s bodyguards followed our trail, the bloodbath would continue.

  “I guess I have no choice,” I said and released my hold. I could still feel his heart, and if needed, I could regain the connection. As I did, his eyes widened, and he looked like one of those frogs from the pond earlier today.

  Scared. As if a wave had come and ruined his life, a Curse. He was unsure of what his next step was, rightfully. He was a bit taller than I, so I leaned forward to whisper in his ear.

  “There is a witch way scarier than me, looking for both of us. You can stay and place the bet that your bodyguards find us before she does. Or you can walk with me to the safest possible place for you right now.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  I ignored him and started walking away.

  Once again, my ears rang with my Calling screaming me to change course. The scenery started turning white, blurring my vision again. I tried to count as I walked, pushing through it with every step I took, and it subsided.

  It only took me counting to fifteen before I heard Nassor’s steps running behind me.

  I looked at him. His eyes were kinder now that their heart was released.

  “Don’t make me regret this,” I said, but I could see his eyes spelled the same back to me.

  “Who sent you? It was not Kabiru,” he said, walking fast next to me.

  “The Ngam Kúrà,” I answered. I needed to have him share information, and if controlling him could not do that, talking had to work.

  “Oh. So, are you one of them?” He asked.

  His tone was clear: he had expected it.

  “No. Freelancing witch. Headhunting whom I am asked to.”

  “You botched this job,” he said and chuckled, “Why?”

  “Haven’t botched it yet. I can always hand you over to them. But not if you tell me what I need to know,” I said.

  He did not say anything, as his lips tightened. I knew I was on the right track because of my Calling: the more I wanted to learn this man’s story, the more it screamed in my ears.

  “You will talk. In due time.”

  “Miss!” Walid shouted. As I heard his voice, I saw him driving by us in his black SUV.

  For a moment, Nassor looked directly at me. I knew he planned to run, and he knew I could knock him out and get him inside anyway. A stalemate he could not win.

  Walid pulled over, and I opened the door.

  “After you.”

  Nassor tightened his lips further and entered the car. I jumped in right after him and locked the doors.

  “Get us to the Inn, and ask the Banadiq to show up. I need security everywhere,” I said to Walid. He pressed on the gas and accelerated quickly.

  This morning, when I had left the Inn, I had told no one where I was headed or why. I did not want anyone involved or to know what I would have done for money. Walid could guess the context, being the one who had brought me into contact with Aisa again.

  So, steps one and two were complete. And soon, the third and last step of my plan so far: get to the Baobab Inn. From there, I could discuss with Qadir our next steps – we could run away and use Nassor’s resources while he would be under my control. Or Yahaya and Aisa could come to negotiate with us and give him up after we had a better understanding of the situation.

  But above all, I could buy time until Nassor revealed the crucial piece of information I sensed he possessed. The information that I needed to decipher my Calling’s intentions, which perhaps were as catastrophic as Yahaya had warned me about.

  Yes, getting Nassor to talk was step four of the plan. Or it would have been if Walid hadn’t brought me out of my wishful thinking:

  “But Miss, that’s not possible.”

  “What do you mean, we paid you all already. We arranged it!” I lashed out, thinking this was about their greed for money.

  “No, that’s not it, Miss. I understand. But please listen. They are all out. I tried to tell you. Your brother has disappeared again, and we are looking for him.”