Afromyth Volume 2: A Fantasy Collection: AfroMyth, #2

Afromyth Volume 2

A Fantasy Collection

N.D. Jones Nicole Givens Kurtz J.S. Emuakpor Lela E. Buis Alanna Robertson-Webb Michael W. Cho Michele Tracy Berger T. W. Cox Michelle Mellon Rose Strickman Mikal Trimm DJ Tyrer Akil Wingate

Anthology copyright © 2020 Mugwump Press LLC.

Individual contributions copyright © 2020 by the contributing authors

Cover art copyright © 2020 by Jason Chizea

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief, attributed quotations.

Published in the United States of America by Afrocentric Books, an imprint of Mugwump Press, LLC, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, March 2020

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018956458

ISBN 978-1-946595-07-2

AfroMyth is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Afrocentric Books | Mugwump Press

2136 Ford Parkway, #8018

Saint Paul, MN 55116

www.afrocentricbooks.com

www.mugwumppress.com

Contents

Introduction

A Gleam of Life

Filigree Ballerina

When Monkey Stole Esu’s Voice

The Garden

Riding The Gods

In Service to the Goddess

Boat Market

Issa, The Warrior God

The Modern Priestess

Rain Mother

The Investor

Etta, Zora, and the First Serpent

Sister’s Keeper

Tangalimlibo

Author Bios

About Afrocentric Books

Also from Afrocentric Books

Introduction

WELCOME TO AFROMYTH: A Fantasy Collection, Volume 2. In 2017, Afrocentric Books introduced readers to a compilation of Afrocentric (African-centered) short stories penned by authors from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. This anthology has everything readers loved about the first volume—engaging plots, unique tales, lovable characters, and fantastical worlds.

The late science fiction and fantasy author Octavia E. Butler once said about writing, Every story I write adds to me a little, changes me a little, forces me to reexamine an attitude or belief, causes me to research and learn, helps me to understand people and grow. The authors in this anthology have crafted fantasy (and science fiction) tales of myth, magic, gods, spiritualism, romance, and horror. They have mined for gold nuggets of African history and culture, masterfully weaving the results of their explorations into stories for the mind, heart, and soul. Like Butler, the authors undertook a journey—changing, reexamining, understanding, and growing. After reading this anthology, I believe you will have experienced the same.

So, are you ready to begin your journey—a mental and emotional plunge into the refreshing depths of Afromyth? Of course, you are. Come along. Hold my hand. Let’s dive in together.

Fourteen worlds of wonder are before us. You choose. Where would you like to begin?

N. D. Jones

African Diaspora, 2020

A Gleam of Life

Nicole Givens Kurtz

BLAISE WATCHED Janae sleep and wondered why anyone would ever get out of bed when beauty like Janae’s remained beneath the covers. When her soft snores arrived, he untangled himself from her warmth. He scooted to the edge of the bed. Every fiber of his being demanded he leave. And soon. Other women had taught him a lasting lesson: mortals died. Even his powers to revive the dead only met with the usual pain and heartbreak when those he’d resurrected died—again.

He couldn’t stop death.

He could only undo it.

Damn it. He cursed his hands, as he spread them out in the dim light. Across his palms, small purplish marks stood out against his dark brown skin. In the shadows of the bedroom, Janae hadn’t seen them up close. His gloves had been discarded with haste along with the rest of their clothes. His waist-long dreadlocks sprawled around him.

As if sensing his thoughts about her, she rolled onto her back, her soft, tight curls pressed against the pillow case and her mouth slightly open. Her smooth, brown skin seemed to glow against the ivory pillow. She seemed so peaceful.

A teacher. A damn teacher. He shook his head.

Most nights he hardly slept, so he’d prowl around online. It had all been safe and normal. Hidden behind a computer screen and wireless internet, Janae had been shielded from his powers, his world, and his demons. Yet, each night that he’d logged on, staring at the blue dot that told him she was online, he’d had that cold inkling of guilt. Over the last six months, Janae had become his salvation after a night of dealing with death. Cliché, but she made him feel alive. They talked about literature and life, television and travel. She knew nothing of his job, except that he worked evenings, and he worked with the dead at a cemetery.

When he’d met her, an evolution of his routines, his beliefs, and his life had commenced. He had to walk away from it or destroy her. Necromancers and humans didn’t make the best romance stories. Someone always got hurt, and to be frank, he didn’t think he could withstand watching her die. The temptation to revive her over and over again would be too great.

The heartbreak.

The hell.

Best to sever the fragile attachments before they embedded in his heart—and hers. Still, he bent down and kissed her lips, causing her to moan and change position. She rolled toward him, reaching for him in the dark.

Blaise shifted to avoid her touch. If she’d been successful, he might not have been able to stop himself.

No, he had to be mature and responsible about this. Damn his emotions for letting it get this far in the first place.

With a heavy sigh and a final caress of Janae’s cheek, he turned away. Pushing off the bed, Blaise retraced his steps out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the living room, retrieving his clothes and belongings as he did so.

He dressed in a hurry because if he didn’t, he would change his mind. When one lived as long as he had, regret lost some of its teeth, but he didn’t want to engage that tiger if he could avoid it.

Outside, broad boulevards turned into small streets and segued into abandoned alleyways. Blaise cut through the still populated street like a grim reaper wrapped in a frosty wind. People parted as he approached. He knew they didn’t understand why they felt compelled to avoid him, and he preferred it that way.

Especially tonight.

Despite the cold weather, a smoldering rage burned inside him.

He knew this life story well. At some point, she’d accuse him of losing his humanity, of becoming a monster, a pervert, or a deranged and botched man. Then weeks later, she would come to him, calmer. No name calling, just the insistence that he stop being himself.

Janae hadn’t done any of those things, but Blaise had walked that path so often with others, he could write the script.

He had tired of the reruns.

Darkness had fallen early in the winter months. He walked along the frigid evening in the gathering dark. Street lights glowed in the crisp cold air and the city appeared to groan in chilly agony. He had no idea where he would go, but he didn’t want to think.

Walking helped.

The weather did too.

He couldn’t feel anything but the biting cold. Everything else was numb.

At the moment, it matched his emotional state.

He could still smell Janae on his skin and taste her on his lips.

Somehow, he knew that even when he got home and showered, her essence would linger long after he toweled off.

The winter temperature sat just below freezing. Despite the heat from her lit fireplace, Janae huddled back into her robe. Cold didn’t describe it. A numbness had nullified her ability to feel anything.

She couldn’t believe Blaise had abandoned her. It seemed so out of character. Perhaps he’d gone to work, and hadn’t wanted to wake her? One thing was certain. She’d woken up alone.

She considered all the possible choices, but the gnawing in her gut announced her worse fear.

But really. How well did she know him? A guy she’d met online could pretend to be anyone. Then she’d been just as foolish as those desperate people on reality TV, falling in love with him—the presentation of him. The dark, sexy, and mysterious man had been played by Blaise perfectly.

And she’d fallen for it.

She glanced at her cell phone again. No new texts.

Fuck. She turned away from the fireplace and plopped down in the chair. It had been a beautiful lie. So damn fine.

The churning sound from the washing machine reminded her of the mundaneness of her life. Her eyes burned from unshed tears. Still, she fought them back. Silly. Instead of giving in to the fear, she could go straight to the source.

Blaise.

She texted him.

Janae: Where did you go?

Blaise: I had to leave. Work.

Janae: Duh! Why no note or text msg?

Blaise: Sorry

Janae: Call me later

Blaise: I dunno

Janae: I’ll be up

Blaise: Ok

Janae put her phone down on the end table beside her favorite chair, but the nagging rose in her gut. Something didn’t feel right.

She went to her bathroom and took a shower. Not thinking about anything in particular, she relaxed beneath the warm stream and allowed her subconscious mind to mull over the feelings to which she couldn’t attribute words. Sometimes, she closed her eyes to see with what her momma labeled third eye.

Her momma was Wiccan, but Janae’s grandmomma had practice Santeria. Janae had seen all the bloody skeletons, violence, and death she could stand. So, she’d left both alone. Now, as the steaming water soothed her fractious emotions, she let her third eye wander.

Through whirling fog, Blaise stalked along a darkness-cloaked landscape with a shovel resting on his shoulder. The sharp odor of decomposition pressed at her from all sides. As Blaise struck the shovel in the ground, blood splattered across his face.

The magic hadn’t left her. But was that really blood on Blaise’s face? Or was it dirt? Or both?

When she emerged ten minutes later, smelling of lavender and oat soap, Janae had a plan. Even as she pulled on jeans, socks, sneakers, and sweater, the night called to her. An unknown urgency spiraled through her and pushed her actions to move faster. When she got down to the garage and unlocked her car, the enormity of the plan became amazingly clear.

And it scared her.

She didn’t fear Blaise.

She feared the outcome.

With the key in the ignition and the twist of her wrist, Janae released a slow, steadying sigh. The drive helped calm her, soothe her frayed nerves. Maybe deep within her, the late-night drives through the city reminded her of the comforting midnight jaunts to the Waffle House for breakfast, she and her momma, when Janae was a kid. She used to sit in the back of her parents’ car and watch through her window as the star-filled sky coursed by at cruising speed. Back then there hadn’t been so much light pollution.

Not like now.

Janae hadn’t realized how magical and dangerous the night could be until her momma had nearly killed her dad with a botched ritual.

Once Janae cleared the garage, the evening unfolded seductively—an urban lover in velvety bloom. Going straight to the source in terms of text messages hadn’t satisfied the rawness in her emotions. She had to put eyes on it herself.

Victimhood didn’t suit her. Bait-and-Switch didn’t either. Her patience for tomfoolery didn’t register on any scale. Still, when she reached St. Thomas’s Cemetery, guilt reared its head. She squashed it with indignation. He’d slept with her and then left. On the surface, it had all the hallmarks of a booty call and she had to reconcile those feelings with the ones she’d had prior to their physical joining.

The iron gates were unlocked. A thick chain and its padlock lay open, like the gates themselves. Were they always open at this time of night? They had to be. Blaise said he patrolled the grounds and warned off grave robbers. It didn’t seem real, until she had called the cemetery and asked politely to speak to Blaise. They said he wouldn’t be in until 9:30 that night.

So, at that time, she had believed him.

Tonight, he said he’d been called into work, so maybe a co-worker had fallen ill. She didn’t know. Part of her didn’t want to know. The other thought she had no choice. She drove in slowly, careful not to hit the uneven gates. Darkness blanketed the grounds. No lanterns, lights, or flashlights, but then she looked left.

A beam of yellow lit up the sky. Like a lighthouse beacon, it illuminated her safe passage through the sea of blackness. Her vehicle a ship headed to safety, to Blaise.

The fear returned the closer she came to the light’s source. She didn’t know what lay ahead.

If she found him working, she would feel foolish for doubting him.

If she found him not working, she would take cold solace in being right.

She stopped the car at a grave site. Two outdoor spotlights shone a brash light onto the plot and headstone. Heaps of dirt and a shovel lay on either side.

Sure enough, Blaise stood deep inside a shoveled out grave. Only his head and shoulders could be seen from this distance. Covered in dirt, and grassy debris, he squinted against the light in her direction.

Relief.

Regret.

As Janae climbed out of her car, and walked across the grass, she could see further into the grave.

When she got closer, Blaise held out a hand drenched in what looked like blood—or was it dirt?

Stop! he shouted, eyes wide.

Blaise? All instincts screamed at her to return to her car, get in, and drive home.

Had she interrupted a burial?

But also, like the scene of a horrible train wreck, the awfulness drew her curiosity forward, while the horror repelled her.

Blaise tossed dirt over his shoulder. Don’t come closer!

Janae then realized that Blaise wasn’t alone.

What are you doing here? A woman with an athletic build and pinched facial features demanded.

A man dressed in a dirt-covered tee-shirt and jeans stood behind the headstone. Another woman with her cellphone pointed at the grave stood across from the pinched-face woman. The two blondes, both dressed like they’d gone out to dinner at a high-end steak place and ordered salads, seemed irritated by the proceedings.

What nonsense are you up to Jose? The other woman remarked.

Annoyance hardened her tanned face. Both women shared similar features, and Janae could only assume in the harsh lighting that the two women were related. The second woman wore factory outlet clothing, including last season’s purse, but she looked like someone who would pretend it wasn’t.

Nothing Mrs. Scott. We’re finished in about 10 minutes more. Then we’ll get that information from your husband. The dark-haired man, Jose, gave her a big, cheesy salesperson grin.

He then said to Blaise, We need to talk later.

A thin layer of what she assumed was salt had been poured in a circle around the grave. Janae had stopped about 15 feet away.

Don’t! Blaise shouted to her. Don’t come any closer. Just go home, Janae.

What. The. Holy. Hell.

She wasn’t going anywhere.

With an annoyed expression on his face, Blaise went back to whatever he was doing in the depths of that grave. She wasn’t leaving until she got some answers. She’d seen enough horror movies and her momma’s workings to recognize ritualistic shit when she saw it.

She was frightened for him.

Why did Blaise need a protection circle?

The realization hit her like a ton of bricks. Her knees threatened to buckle, but she wouldn’t give. Her momma had been labeled, banished, and beaten as an African American practicing Wicca, by those who feared African witchcraft.

Janae needed to talk to Blaise, allow him to explain. He’d clearly lied about being night security. The salt trail was glowing.

Strange.

She’d never seen a protection circle drawn like this. All the ones her momma had cast kept evil out of their house.

Blaise and the others had stayed inside their circle too. So, what was the circle supposed to keep out?

Janae jumped at the sound of scurrying animals. She searched the blackness around them, but nothing else moved. The hairs on her neck rose in stark disagreement.

Why did they need a protection circle to bury a person?

There was something unbalanced in all of this.

She tightened her leather coat and hugged herself.

Blaise’s warmth beside her from a few hours ago seemed like a long-ago summer.

A hard cough caught her attention. The two women had huddled together on the right side of the grave, slipping whispers between them. The air smelled like fresh blood—coppery and wet and—something else.

Death.

She hadn’t tried to use her abilities since she’d witnessed her father’s accident. Her momma’s ritual for healing had nearly killed him. At twelve, Janae had shut her spell book and put away all things otherworldly.

She hadn’t needed those abilities.

Until tonight. Janae shut her eyes and focused her breathing. The window in her mind’s eye opened, and she could see the auras of those inside the circle. No surprises.

Except for Blaise.

He didn’t have one.

Her eyes popped open. Shit!

An immortal. No wonder he’d hidden it from her. Janae had only met one other person in her life who lacked an aura. He’d taught her grandmomma and then had gone back to Haiti.

An agony drenched groan broke up her musings. One of the women screamed and stumbled backward as the body inside the casket sat up.

Janae hadn’t noticed until that moment, but the low humming sound skating across her skin was Blaise chanting. Once he opened his mouth to speak, it ceased.

Are you Mr. Reginald Scott? Blaise asked, his tenor rumbled across the hushed cemetery.

Yesss, Mr. Scott answered.

Decomposition had begun and rotting pieces of flesh marred the embalmed-living look. Even from this distance, Janae saw that he had been dead. She shut her eyes again and called upon her abilities to read auras.

Mr. Scott’s was missing one too.

Immortal?

When she looked again at the grave, Mr. Scott swayed in his coffin. Gray, unseeing eyes stared ahead.

No. He wasn’t immortal at all. He’d died, as was obvious by his tattered clothes and the scent of decomposition.

The safe combination, Harold! One of the women demanded.

Blaise shook his head. Jose waved the woman off. Do it like we said.

The pinched face woman ignored him. Mind your station, dirt boy.

Jose scowled. Dirt boy?

Blaise’s voice bellowed over them all. Mr. Scott! What is the combination to the safe?

The newly raised Mr. Scott slowly turned his head back to Blaise. Ssssafe?

The safe in your bedroom closet. Blaise spoke slow and enunciated each word.

Bbed. Rrooom. Mr. Scott twisted his torso to face the two women.

Oh, for the love of all things holy. Give me the safe’s combination, Harold! The pinched face woman stepped toward him, squatted down beside the grave, reached out, and grabbed the man’s shoulder. Do you not hear me?

If she’s like this when he’s dead, she must’ve been a real bitch to live with. Janae said aloud, to no one in particular.

Helen? Mr. Scott might have been dead, but he wasn’t stupid. Clearly, he recognized his wife’s or daughter’s nagging tone.

Janae had heard of people who summoned the dead. She thought they could do it with spirits, channeling them from the afterlife but not raising an entire corpse. Her momma had presented it as a spiritual power.

Blaise was a necromancer.

Jesus had been the first when he’d raised Lazarus from the dead.

Who are you Blaise?

She was no longer afraid. She should have been afraid.

Yet her curiosity about the freak show in front of her kept her pinned to the spot.

Or it could’ve have been her love for Blaise.

Janae wasn’t sure.

How many times did he have to explain to clients that you don’t talk to the fucking deceased? The summoning’s blood-bond connected him to the being. His life force commanded and controlled the person. People wanted to rest in peace. Waking them up for petty things, like a safe’s combination because one was too cheap to hire a locksmith, only made holding on to the tether harder. Talking to them irritated them even more. Not all brain cells had been ignited and too much interference could force shit to get out of hand.

Like now.

Mr. Reginald Scott—the fifth—was not having any of his former wife’s nagging.

The stinging snap of the disconnect slammed Blaise back into the earth. The impact took his breath.

Damn. Blaise scrambled out of the grave as Jose herded the two women out of harm’s way.

Not quick enough.

Mr. Scott had clawed at his wife’s hair and managed to entangle a hand in the mass of her hair-sprayed style. The more she tried to pull away, the more it snared.

Jose tugged to free it.

She screamed.

The more she screamed, the angrier Mr. Scott became.

Blaise grabbed the man and wrestled him to the ground. Mrs. Scott came too. Mr. Scott’s brittle bones broke, and gooey body