Chapter 7 - Boundaries
Despite her best efforts, Leah Clearwater couldn't stop the fur on the back of her neck from bristling. She had slightly better control over her growl; only the faintest hum rumbled in her throat.
The reaction was rather unexpected. She'd seen extensive footage of the Nso' leader—the Fon—both during the Great War and on the flight across the Atlantic to Cameroon. She'd heard the stories of his prowess in battle and read about his success in uniting a heavily fractured country.
Even before she'd met him, Leah knew that His Royal Highness Adjatay Mbassi was a formidable individual.
But seeing him in the flesh, being near enough to notice the faded silvery scars beneath healing wounds of angry red, feeling the almost tangible force of his imposing presence—she was both awed and wary. Her every instinct demanded she assume a defensive position at a time when goodwill and cooperation were imperative.
The lion stood almost a foot taller than her, but his corded muscles and thick brownish-black mane gave him the appearance of looming much larger. Regal eyes carefully surveyed their small contingent; a slowly twitching nose drew in just as much information from the scents in the dry air. His tail curved out gracefully from his heavy body, the tufted end held high like a regimental guidon.
On either side of him waited a tensely-poised leopard that was nowhere near the size and stature of their leader. To Leah's chagrin, however, both spotted cats still had several inches and at least a hundred pounds on her—just like most of her wolf brothers. Being the slightest of her kind and the only female did nothing for her confidence, though she did take consolation in being the fastest. She wondered if she could outrun Fon Mbassi's leopard guards.
Though there would be no time for frivolous races during their visit, of course. Vice Chancellor Cullen and Ambassador Black—accompanied by their security force consisting of Jasper, Kate, Garrett, and herself—had traveled to Kumbo to investigate the vampire attack and discuss relief efforts with town leaders. It was a somber and difficult affair to undertake in the midst of such ruin.
Leah had seen her share of destruction during the Great War, yet the horror of its reality struck her just as hard every time. Kumbo proved to be no exception. On the way to the village's outer border, she'd tried to keep her eyes focused on her two charges, the Vice Chancellor and the Ambassador, but it was impossible to ignore the wooden fences reflecting their splintered lines in the moonlight and the scattered rubble of small mud huts that had once served as homes for the Nso' people. Some of the collapsed roofs made of thatch still smoldered and contributed to the hazy cloud of smoke and dust over the town.
Not even the Fon's own palace had escaped damage. The status briefing she'd received on the flight over was short on details, but it did state that the renegade vampires' two-hour-long rampage had finally ended there. Nso' spirit warriors, including Fon Mbassi, surrounded them in one of the palace's small courtyards. Three leopard guards perished in the fight, leaving a total of only four spirit warriors to protect their people, the Banso, against further attack.
Leah wondered if more Banso would begin changing after their exposure to vampires, like members of her own tribe had done. The Banso numbered about 100,000, and yet with less than 1,500 remaining Quilleutes, eleven of her fellow tribe members possessed the ability to transform.
Vice Chancellor Cullen glanced her way and shook his head almost imperceptibly. She realized he must have heard her errant thoughts and decided to respond in the midst of his conversation with one of the Fon's advisors. She'd have to ask later why the Banso had so few spirit warriors amongst their large population.
Or why her people had so many.
The initial presentation of their convoy to Fon Mbassi did not last long. The advisor, a stout middle-aged man named Ndedi Kiessou, ended his discussion with the Vice Chancellor with a forceful shake of his head and then moved to stand in front of the Ambassador's motorized wheelchair. Edward suppressed a very human sigh of frustration as the Nso' man spoke the words he'd been given by his leader.
"We understand your desire for more information, but our Fon will not allow his kind to walk among our people," Kiessou snarled, giving Edward a sideways glare. "We must rid our village of dark forces, not invite them in."
"The Cullens are not responsible for the attack, and they have nothing to do with the ones who are," Billy replied calmly. "We are here to help."
Kiessou stood firm. "You may survey the damage and render aid. Fon Mbassi welcomes our exalted spirit brothers and their kin. You are invited to lodge at the palace for as long as you wish. But any viyoy ve bi ví, any Evil Souls, that cross onto our lands will be hunted and destroyed on sight."
Jasper tensed in his position to Edward's right, but a twitch of the Vice Chancellor's fingers kept him from taking any action. His gaze darted between Kiessou and the massive lion who stood tall between his guards, watching the proceedings with an impassive expression on his feline features.
But although Fon Mbassi projected a calm and confident demeanor, Jasper sensed that the man's true feelings were very different. Grief, anger, guilt, fear—those emotions swirled in the Fon's mind and threatened to choke out rationality. Had Jasper not been confident in the Vice Chancellor's ability to determine Fon Mbassi's mental state on his own, he would have insisted on putting himself at the front of his delegation. If the level of tension in the Nso' group increased any more, he'd do just that—no matter his brother's wishes on the matter.
While Billy could not read thoughts or emotions, he also seemed to fully understand the delicate nature of the situation.
"Your Highness," Billy said, careful not to meet the leader's eyes directly as per custom, "We would be honored to accept your gracious offer of accommodation. I do ask, however, that you allow us to share any relevant information with our Vampire Populace counterparts. The reason for this attack must be discovered. As you know, the creation of new Vampires is prohibited, and if the two responsible for this atrocity were newborns as you suggest—"
Jasper leaped forward as a deafening roar drowned out the Ambassador's words. Behind him, Kate, Garrett, and Leah all sank down into low crouches, ready to spring on his command. The Nso' guards coiled their muscles as well.
"Wait," Edward murmured to his security detail, placing a restraining hand on Jasper's shoulder. He didn't have time to explain his reasoning and hoped the subtle gesture would be enough to prevent an altercation. If Jasper held steady, Kate and Garrett would follow suit. Edward's main concern was Leah's sometimes volatile nature.
During the Great War, the lithe gray wolf fought in several battles alongside fellow spirit warriors, but her counterparts had been fellow Native North Americans who shifted to their spirit animals in a similar manner as Quilletes. She'd never given much thought to the transformation process of other ethnic groups and thus didn't understand what was happening when Fon Mbassi's substantial feline body seemed to suddenly lose cohesion and cascade down upon itself like a collapsing sand sculpture. Instead of a mound of granulated particles, however, a dense black cloud rolled and roiled above the spot where the lion had previously stood.
As a pack Alpha, everything within Leah's being called out to strike, to protect her group from any threat. It didn't matter that four of them were vampires, a race she once despised, or that those vampire were more than capable of defending themselves. The moment she had assumed the mantle of leadership, something within her changed. Her sphere of responsibility expanded beyond herself, and she understood that the needs of her pack took precedence over her own. And though the residents of Cullen Manor weren't actually members of her pack, she viewed them as a sort of extended family—one for which she would willingly sacrifice her life.
So it was with great effort that Leah restrained herself from taking action, though what she could do to fight a bubbling ball of fog, she had no idea. With her body shaking and bent so low that the hairs on her underside tickled the ground, she watched as the dark cloud expanded upward into the shape of a tall, muscular man.
As soon as Fon Mbassi's transformation was complete, he began shouting at Ambassador Black in thickly accented English.
"What do you mean: if the Cursed Souls were newborns as I suggest?" he raged. "My people have fought against such evil for hundreds of years; we are familiar with their ways of existence." The Fon glowered at Edward, whose steady gaze never wavered. "I saw your kind tear down villages and kill men, women…even babies! You infected our children with your səm arim and made them eat their kin. I saw their bodies wake up with blood eyes and cold skin and mind sickness. Oh yes, I know very well what a 'newborn' is like! I swear on the peace of my ancestors that the two Evil Souls who killed my people were newborns."
Edward nodded to show acceptance of the Fon's account, though its legitimacy had never come in question as far as he was concerned. He'd already seen the thoughts of all four Banso and did indeed agree with Fon Mbassi's assessment of the vampires' newborn status. Considering their gross overexertion of strength and the peculiar bright crimson shade of their eyes, he judged the newborns to be less than a month old—still emotional, unpredictable, and insatiably hungry.
There were numerous questions about the attack that needed answering, and one of the foremost on Edward's mind concerned the identity of the newborns' sire. Billy had been attempting to address this when Fon Mbassi transformed. He was determined to try again.
"It is important that their creator is brought to justice, as I'm sure you'll agree, sir," the ambassador said. "Do you have any information that can help us determine the culprit?"
"Each one of them is capable of such evil things," the Fon snarled. "We should exterminate them all."
Both Kate and Garrett hissed quietly behind Edward, who was doing his best to swallow back his own sigh of frustrated annoyance. Jasper recently claimed that public opinion was swaying in their favor, and yet within the span of three days, he'd stood face to face with two different people calling for the genocide of his race. On some level, he could understand; he'd once labelled himself a monster and rejected his kind as a terrible accident of nature, a scourge that only brought death and destruction. His own journey toward a different perspective had been arduous, so he couldn't realistically expect a global change to occur with any less difficulty.
Still, it wasn't a pleasant feeling to know there were many who wanted him dead.
In the interests of avoiding the escalation of tension, Billy chose not to address the Nso' leader's hateful remarks. He took a deep breath to rein in his temper and spoke calmly.
"We must find out how the newborns came into being and stop any further tragedies from happening. A technique has been developed to identify individual vampires and possibly determine their…parentage, if you will. This can be done with small samples. If we…if someone…could search the village, especially the palace courtyard, to look for any remains that may have survived the fires, we might be one large step closer to an answer."
Fon Mbassi did not reply, but Edward inhaled sharply at the nature of the man's thoughts. The spirit warrior glared, his glittering black eyes daring Edward to share the revelation with the rest of his contingency. But the Vice Chancellor remained stalwartly silent, refusing to take Fon Mbassi's dangled bait. For several minutes, their gazes remained locked in a tacit battle of wills, an imperative test of conviction and understanding.
A humorless chuckle broke the spell. Fon Mbassi's head twitched downward in a barely noticeable acknowledgement of Edward's determination.
"We have already cleansed our lands of all traces of the newborns and our cursed dead," he announced in a strident voice. "I can assure you that no 'samples' remain to be found." The Nso' Fon held out a large, calloused hand to Kiessou. "No samples…except for this one."
The portly advisor reached into a pouch on his belt and retrieved a small gray chunk of what appeared to be mortar, or perhaps concrete. All of Edward's companions, save Billy, took deep breaths through their noses, trying to pull in the possible scent of vampires. Edward knew their efforts would likely be futile and waited with studied patience for Fon Mbassi to continue.
"Entombed within this stone is a fragment of a Cursed Soul," Kiessou said, his words spoken in a low, chanting murmur. He raised the piece high above his head and then stretched his hands out toward the Nso' leader. "We ask our Father in Heaven, the Juju spirits of the Banso, and the sacred community of our ancestors to gather the forces of Evil that have touched our lives and purge it from the land of the living, even as we return the body of Evil to its people and banish it from our sights."
Fon Mbassi placed his hand over the item and tightened his fingers as if he meant to crush it to dust. His head dropped to his chest as his mouth moved in soundless prayer. After a moment, he withdrew his touch with a heavy sigh. Kiessou walked to Edward, placed the fragment at his feet, and then backed away in a crouch, his eyes never leaving the small gray object.
"And now, with the stone in your possession, you have no reason to be here," Fon Mbassi said with a sneer. "I expect you to be far from our borders by daybreak. If you stay, we will not hesitate to destroy you just as we did your two brethren."
Edward heard Billy's mental indignation and cleared his throat sharply before the Ambassador had a chance to protest. Despite the insults, threats, and overall offensive behavior, Fon Mbassi had turned over the fragment, which would hopefully prove crucial in unraveling the mystery of the newborns' existence. Little good could come out of the further escalation of tension, no matter how much Edward appreciated Billy's to speak up for them. It would be best for everyone involved if the members of the Vampire Populace did as the Fon wished.
With all the gravity that over a century of existence afforded him, Edward dipped his head to signal both his thanks and his farewell. And because the Vice Chancellor wasn't completely without ego, he turned his back on the Nso' leader and walked away without another word.
There is a second part to this chapter, but just before posting, I went crazy on it with the proverbial red pen. Since I'd mentioned on FB I'd be updating, I don't want to delay any longer! The second part is mostly finished, and I'm crossing my fingers to post before the week is out.
I've done a good deal of research on the Nso' people of Cameroon, but even so, detailed information was hard to come by. Their culture, while embracing Christian and/or Muslim ideas, is heavily steeped in mysticism and belief in witchcraft. Unlike the Quileute people (whose real stories tell of descending from wolves but not transforming into them—that was SM's twist), the Nso' relate tales of how their Fons are able to transform into lions who protect the people during the night. The Fons' closest advisors were said to transform to leopards. I've tried to stay as true as possible to a realistic depiction of their beliefs within my fictional setting and apologize for any mischaracterizations on my part.
Thanks so much for sticking with this story! It's the most complex plot/narrative I've attempted so far and is much more difficult to write than my other WIPs when RL gets busy.
Love and happy holidays to you all! :D