Must Read: The Claw, The Tail, And The Cross. - Season 1 - Episode 9

7 years ago

Must Read: The Claw, The Tail, And The Cross. - Season 1 - Episode 9

“It’s not what you think,” she said. “I’m not here to hurt you or anything like that. It’s just…

what you have, it drives me crazy. It’s like I’m a bee being drawn to honey.”

I continued to watch her silently as she
adjusted a little on my bed. She had since come
over her shocking transformation in my room
and was now drinking a glass of water I had
offered her. Everything was so clear to me now,
I could see her aura, her passion, I could almost
even hear her thoughts. I was more alert than I
had been since my last encounter with Mr A****
and I was not in a very good mood.
“You tried to s£duce me, you more or less put
me under a spell the moment you saw me, you
wanted to make me yours by sleeping with me
and taking my powers…which part of any of
these did not involve hurting me?!”
“The s£duct!on part?” she said with a wry smile.

I frowned and she had that look of alarm in her
face again before calming down.
“What’s that about, anyway?”I said angrily.
“What?” she asked.
“Anytime I get upset with you, you have this
frightened look on your face…”
“Well,” she said, “you need to see your own
aura when you are upset. It lights up in violent
flames, as if you want to turn everything
around you
to ashes.”

She was right. i did feel like I could set
everything on fire if I wanted to. I was actually
angry at myself for being so blind as to be
almost used by this pretty damsel. I was so
angry in fact, that I had my sight fully open, I
could feel spiritual energy coursing through my
veins and for a moment I felt I was going to
have a fit. I closed my eyes and tried to get a
hold of myself and then I opened them and saw
jenny looking at me with apprehension. It was a
bit difficult remaining angry with Jenny for long;
she seemed so delicate. I took a deep breath
and tried to calm down.
“So, which part of this business trip is my effort
and which part is yours?” I asked.

She looked a little surprised. “I have already
told you, my influence stopped at making sure I
saw the man who had such an alluring and
powerful voice. The rest of it was all you.”
“I’d hate to think I got here through any way
other than my own effort…” I said.
“Even if you did, it wouldn’t be your fault
because you didn’t solicit for help. Come on,
I’m telling you the truth. I promised I would.”
“Okay then”, I replied. “What were you
planning to do to me the moment you had me
under your power?”
“Had you under my power?” she laughed. “It
seems you do not know your own strength,
Chukwudi. There is no way I would have been
able to
control you, I just wanted to get you in a
position where I could…er…manipulate you into
doing favors for me.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Well, someone like you would have a lot of
pull…or influence in the spirit realm, having you
by my side would have made me more
formidable to…er…competitors.”
“There’s more of you?” I asked incredulously.
“Why so surprised?” she said smiling, “human
beings are all over the place, what makes you
think we mer-people won’t be the same?”

I sighed. But I was much calmer inwardly now.

I knew that she was more frightened of me than
I was of her though I still wasn’t sure why.

I guess it had to do with what she thought I
could do, things I obviously wasn’t aware of.
“So how did you get your powers chuks?” she
asked. “I see no dark light in you so you can’t
be a ritualist or anything like that.”
“I’m a Christian.” I said.
“I know,” she replied. “I can see the seal that
identifies true followers of the Son of GOD on
you. And the worn hilt of your two-edged sword
indicates that you have been close to your
guardian angel for a long time, although I
cannot see him anywhere”.
“I have a sword?” I exclaimed. Chukwudi had
mentioned something about this a long time
ago. “How do I use it? Can I use it here?”
“How should I know?” she asked. “It’s your
sword. Haven’t you drawn it from its hilt
before?”

I hadn’t experienced anybody describing the
manifested me before and it was a bit
unnerving. I decided to change the subject.
“Tell me about the ring” I said.

She looked down at the silver ring that was
once again encircling her index finger. It shone
brightly and on closer inspection I could see
small embers of fire, blue and hazy, emanating
from it.

“It became necessary after I talked to you for
the first time. Your voice alone caused me to
manifest in my office. I passed out after talking
to you.” She saw the alarmed look on my face
and smiled. “Don’t worry, nobody read
anything into it. But my curiosity was aroused. I
wanted to meet you, see what kind of man you
were, but I knew if I came in close contact with
you I would probably manifest again, so I got
the ring.
“What does it do?”I asked.
“It sort of scrambles powers, sometimes drains
them. It keeps the person it affects deeply
embedded in this earth realm and so he doesn’t
see things that go on in the spirit realm.

Even with it on, it was still difficult to suppress your Sight, but it enabled me to work my seductive
charms on you. I don’t understand though, it
should have worked in that area at least. You
must really love your fiancé.
“Yeah, she’s an absolute angel.” I said.
She looked at me with those piercing eyes, “I
wish I could experience the kind of love you
have for her. Most of the men I have come
across are more interested in my looks than in
my personality. It gets quite irritating after a
while. I don’t even need to use any charm on
them, I just smile and they fall at my feet. I
eventually get what I want from them without
having to use any magic whatsoever.”
“You get what you want? How do you mean?”
She sighed. “I’m not evil Chuks…”
“That point is very debatable.” I countered.
“Well I’m telling you that I’m not! I can be
labeled bad, naughty, a cheat maybe, but I’m
not evil. We mermaids are individuals like any
other race, we have the good, the bad and the
ugly among us as well and I’m telling you,
when you see an evil mermaid, you’ll know.”

She replied indignantly.
“So what did you mean by you get what you
want?” I asked.
“Haven’t you used your sight to gain a favor or
two before? Haven’t you used it to help you
choose friends, stay close to those that would
benefit you? Do you call that being evil? I have
used my beauty to make my transition to
success smooth but that hardly classifies me as
being evil. Other ordinary girls do the same.”

I heard a beeping sound and I looked at my
watch. It was already 5pm. How time flies when
you are having fun. Or interrogating a mermaid.

“You’ll have to go. I want to have some rest and talk to my Nina. Then there are some files I
have to work on before tomorrow, right?” I said.
“Or you could let me stay the night, knowing
who and what I am, knowing I’m as much
under your power now as you were almost
under mine,
and I’ll persuade the boss to move the deadline
tomorrow.” She said.
“Wow,” I whistled, “You don’t give up easily do you?”
“No I do not sir.” She said and smiled again.

No matter how many times she smiled I couldn’t
get tired of it. It was uncanny. “Is there any
other thing you want to ask me?”
“Yeah,” I said, “how come you could see the
leopard in the field?”
“I’m a mermaid, chuks. My vision though the
veil is not torn out when I come into this realm.

Anyone with half a gift for seeing things others
cannot see would have seen the leopard.”
“So was it a kind of test? For me, to get me off
guard or to prove my powers?” I asked
curiously.

She stopped smiling then and her face looked
scared again. “Actually, I see a lot of things on
this job, things I would rather not talk about,
maybe because I have nobody to talk about it
to…but, that leopard has been there since the
day we arrived in Asaba a week ago. Sometimes
the leopard appears well fed and quiet, and at
other times it seems agitated, hungry and even
angry. The first time I saw it I mistook it for Mr
Bells pet but then the next day I saw two
leopards and one of them had two tails. One of
them was Sidney of course and the other was
the manifestation. Sidney saw it as well and
paid obeisance to it. Nobody knew why Mr bells’
leopard was behaving the way it was but I
knew…”
“Wait, back up! Sidney can see the manifested
leopard?” I said quite surprised.
“Why of course,” she replied. “Sidney can see
everything, he does belong to the cat family,
and their eyes are even sharper than ours.

Sidney knows what I am and always becomes wary when I’m near him. I don’t like cats much either whether big or small so I try to avoid
him.”

“So, then, If you were not the one that conjured
up the leopard then who did?”
Jenny met my eyes. “I think one of our staff is a
man-animal.”