“Iam your family, Addae. Ama has denied you that. Had denied your motherme. Your mother might still be alive today if I had been afforded the chance to raise her.”
I swallowed the knot in my throat. I didn’t want to think about my mother. She wouldn’t have wanted this. I just knew it. I didn’t answer, waiting for Effie to kill me.
She took a cleansing breath, channeling the last bit of patience she had for me. She rose to standing in one fluid motion, not needing anything to assist her.
“Get up,” she commanded. “This ends now.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Effie pulled me up by my elbow. My knees buckled beneath me, and she held me up until I could get my footing. She was supposed to be my grandmother, but there was nothing at all grandmotherly about her.
She led me back into the grand foyer, to where I’d fallen through the main level and down into the cellar with the abalsom horde.
Simon Hall, with his perfectly tailored suit and Italian leather shoes and sharp facial features, was there in the middle of a heated argument with Franco: “I need the damn samples, Franco. I’m not leaving here without—” Simon stopped when we entered, bowing his head in fear or reverence. I thought he would have stayed back at the college commanding his guards from the safety of his research facility. Guess not.
“Why is he still here?” Effie asked, scowling as she prodded me ahead of her.
Franco shrugged. “He’s demanding his samples.”
“Just a little, Awuraa.” He stumbled over the unfamiliar word.“Something to begin our research right away.” He looked at Luke. “For my nephew.”
Effie sneered at him, baring her teeth so he shrank back, his arms drawing up. “You’ll get what I give you when I give it to you. Or you can be the one that feeds them.” She cast her eyes down at the jagged hole in the floor where abalsoms writhed.
He slammed his mouth shut, and Franco cackled with immense pleasure.
The foyer was littered with the dead ones who’d toppled over with me from the second floor, except one was still alive. Luke. His head was in Hailey’s lap as she whimpered. She looked around, making sure no one was watching, and she leaned to the side, her ankle drawing up to meet her. I thought it was bothering her again, but instead of rubbing it, she slipped two fingers between sock and skin, and pulled out a tiny clear glass vial, the size of trial tube of perfume, with a black rubber stopper.
I checked to see if Effie had noticed. She wasn’t looking Hailey’s way. Hailey shielded her movements, plucking the stopper out. She held it in one hand, using her other to pry Luke’s ruined, blackened lips apart. She tipped the vial upside down, pouring the shimmering reddish liquid into his mouth, murmuring in his ear.
He didn’t move at first. And then he bucked once, his body arching. His bloodied fingers went to this throat and he struggled, grimacing. His arms flopped to his sides. Then he stopped moving. Hailey looked at me with huge, wide eyes begging me to understand why she’d hidden the vial from us. She held his ruined hand, watching to see if he’d come back to her.
Meanwhile, Simon continued to stand guard, glancing at his nephew and niece with a worried expression. He hadn’t anticipated all of this. He probably thought he’d be able to control an angry ancient goddess. He had thought wrong. Between Simon and Franco, Simon could be reasoned with. Franco was too far gone, having taken Effie’s blood and becoming her familiar. Franco was irrational and jittery, alternating from foot to foot as he kept arguing with Hailey’s uncle Simon. Franco kept his gun on Sekou and Lyle to keep them in line. Lyle tracked Franco’s every movement, waiting for the right moment to make his move.
Nana Ama was in bad shape. Signs of a fight painted her body in hues of deep crimson and purple. Blood ran from her nose and from a cut above her eye. I had never seen her look so breakable, and my body ached knowing she was in so much pain.
Below us, in the hole I’d opened up, was the horde of abalsoms, crabs in a barrel clambering over one another to get at the blood they smelled from Ama.
I was happy to see everyone was there, alive. I shared a look with Sekou, shaking my head so he wouldn’t come knocking at my mind’s door. Effie would hear us as easily as Nana had.
Effie inspected them one by one, her disgust growing until her eyes finally rested on Ama. She took stock of Nana from head to toe as her sister nursed a wounded arm, sitting against the wall, a couple of dead abalsoms at her feet. Gingerly, Nana Ama rose to her feet, wincing as she did.
“Can you not heal yourself?” Effie asked incredulously. “What have you done to yourself? You are the daughter of Nyame the Sky God. How is it I can bind you with ropes and make you bleed?You should feed as is your true nature. You have your choice here. How about the girl you came to save? Your Kin?” She stretched the word. It was an insult coming from her.
Effie released me, setting Naira in her sights. Naira’s eyes widened; like Simon, she shrank back, crab crawling backward until she was next to Luke and Hailey, against the scaffold leaning on the wall, long plastic sheets swaying in the wind. She stuck out her arms, making as if to ward Effie away.
Effie stalked over to her, ignoring my demands to leave Naira alone. I blocked her, trying to slow her down or stop her, but Effie flung me away as if I weighed nothing. Naira kept shaking her head, pleadingno, no, no. She didn’t want to be in Effie’s clutches. Never again.
Franco cackled in the background, cheering Effie on like the sad little man he was. He swung his gun from Hailey to Luke, then Sekou to Lyle, enjoying the way they swayed to avoid the gun’s barrel. I heard a long, low moan. I turned my head to see that Luke, who not too long ago had attacked me with nothing but emptiness in his eyes, was moving slowly as if waking.
His eyes shot open, and the previous vacantness, like no one was home, now showed signs that someone had returned. His pupils normalized as he studied us, his ravaged face showing the faintest semblance of humanity in his eyes, eyes I realized were much like his sister’s. His mind was a muddled mess, his body warring with itself, the hollowing against the taste of elixir Hailey poured down his throat, each trying to regain control. I let out a burst of short breaths. Luke’s mind was lucid, if only temporarily, and he was sorry. He was in pain. He was in a panic, knowing hecould not hold on for much longer and that Hailey needed to get away from him before he lost his inner battle.
Effie was too lightning quick, lunging for Naira so fast it was like a movie on four-speed fast-forward. She grabbed Naira’s braids, wrapping them around and around her fist to tighten the hold, and yanked her away from Hailey’s and Luke’s outstretched hands.
Effie’s eyes narrowed to slits, noticing Luke for the first time, that he was there when he should have been gone, like the others down below or lying dead around the room.
“What is this?” she asked in complete surprise. Her head turned toward Franco, and a sheen of sweat popped up on his face. “How is this possible?”
The gun trembled in Franco’s hand. He blubbered, stammering an unintelligible response as he searched frantically for an answer that wouldn’t incur Effie’s wrath. Hailey tried too late to slowly put the vial where she’d gotten it, and it slipped from her hand, dropping to the floor with ating, and rolling.
