Chapter 15.
580 Words
Liam was staring out the window late that night when he saw a shadow move in the bushes.
He waited.
The shadow moved again.
Noiselessly, he moved downstairs. Noiselessly still, he opened the front door and an overwhelming smell of sulfur hit him.
There was no one around.
His men were supposed to be on guard, but there was no single person in sight.
The bushes rustled.
He pounced, swiftly and silently.
The creature in his grip struggled but Liam's hold was too strong.
He dragged whatever it was into the light. He almost let go in shock.
The creature was the size of a small child, pale and slimy - almost like a goblin but Liam knew it was not. Its teeth were jagged and sharp, its ears large and pointed. Its eyes had been sewn shut and on top of its head was a small hole. It made a screeching, heaving noise.
A window opened from the house and a minute later, Nick was beside him.
“What is it?” Nick asked.
“Tokoloshe,” Liam replied, looking away from the creature in disgust.
“The men?”
“Nowhere to be found.”
“Liam?” came Sapphire's voice from the house.
The Tokoloshe screeched louder when he heard her. Liam slammed it to the ground.
“Leave him to me. Get a rope.”
Left alone, Nick glanced around his surroundings. The night seemed off. It was too still, too quiet.
Something was lurking around, that shift in the air made him sure that the night was different. Like there was a cancerous disease eating away at it.
And it wasn't just the creature he'd pinned down.
He reached out, spiritually, for a minute.
Somebody else would have missed the shadow waiting, watching. But he did not.
Liam arrived. Nick relinquished the Tokoloshe.
“Go back in,” with that, he took off in the direction of the shadow.
The shadow seemed to flit here and there for a while, as if taunting him, then simply vanished.
***
“I wish I knew what the f**k we're dealing with,” Liam said later to his brother. “That creature,” he pointed in a vague direction, “is native to Africa. How on earth would you find one here? And who is its master?”
Nick sighed. He held a drink in his hand, looking tired and drained. “Are the men alright?”
“They're going to be.”
The men had been found ways away from the house, relatively unharmed, but confused and disoriented.
It was no doubt the work of the Tokoloshe, a creature known to induce confusion and madness in its victims.
“Nicolas,” Liam called and just stared when he didn't get a response. Liam wasn't even sure if his brother had heard him.
He wished he could make it right for his brother, take away the pain and show up for him the way Nick had always done for him.
His charming, confident, always-sure older brother would move mountains for his sake if he had to, and would always go the extra mile for his little brother.
But this was a pain of an entirely different ball. He couldn't imagine losing Sapphire, her being taken away from him. He shuddered at the thought and cast it away from his mind.
This sort of pain he couldn't share, but his brother was hurting and that tore at Liam's heart.
- Writer
