A deep and biting pain in my chest woke me. This wasn’t a good sign. I grabbed my sword.
I looked around the living room. Something was wrong. The space was no longer warm and inviting. Although the fire still roared in the grate, the room was cold, as if I’d stepped out of summer and straight into winter. When I turned my head, I saw that the cushions Zion and I were lying on were not new. They were dark, dirty, ripped in places, and smelled of mildew.
I sniffed again and noticed the walls were leaking water, dirt was caked around the baseboards, and small bugs streamed up and down the walls. The table we’d dined on was broken. The chairs were rickety. Something inside me said, You need to leave this place.
The clasps on the packs we’d brought with us had been broken, as if someone had been rummaging inside them.
I shook Zion awake. When he opened his eyes, I placed my index finger over my lips and then pointed at the room. He looked around and scrunched his nose in disgust.
“I’m gonna find out what Agwu knows,” I whispered.
“We have to leave!”
I shook my head. “No. You leave. I’ll be back.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
He reached out to clutch my hand as my eyes closed. I stilled my heart, releasing all emotions, and brought Dambe to the surface. One second I was right beside him, and the next, we became part of the air.
The music inside the house was haunting, deep, and evil, almost like what I had felt in Shukti, but not quite. We moved as quietly as a breath across the room, sensing the god nearby.
I heard a scurrying in the darkness. I slashed my sword. Agwu grasped it and stopped its momentum.
“Ikposa!” Aliyah yelled. I turned to see her standing in the open doorway, her eyes ablaze.
My heart almost stopped. “Aliyah, no!”
Zion screamed.
The images changed in front of me like a whirlwind, air rushing through every opening like a cyclone. I looked down to see Agwu morphing into a small being hanging on to my sword, small, ugly, with mottled skin.
The sword moved, and the creature raised its arms.
“Aliyah, Zion, run!” I yelled.
“Ikposa!” Aliyah screamed again.
The home exploded in flames, and the blast sent Zion and me flying through the open doorway, causing me to lose consciousness.
The smell of ash forced my eyes open. A mixture of flames, wood, and rock surrounded me as I stood, my ears ringing. I couldn’t hear much, but I could see.
The god held two blades in his hands. I turned and saw Zion and Aliyah, covered in soot and coughing. Agwu soared over our heads, holding his blades, looking nothing like the warm figure we had seen when we were under his spell. His red eyes bulged from his dark head, which was bigger than his overall body. His stomach was rotund and spilled from underneath his filthy dashiki. He reminded me of an oversize baby having a fit because they didn’t get what they wanted.
Aliyah and Zion pulled me to my feet. I crushed myself against them. “Aliyah, you shouldn’t have used the spell!”
She shook her head. “You were gone too long. You said wait half an hour. Fifteen minutes was enough for me. I was not gonna leave you on this island alone.” She stared at her hands. “I was strong enough to use the spell. I knew I was.”
My eyes widened. Fifteen minutes? How? We had eaten and slept! It had felt like hours! Zion pointed to the sky. “Incoming!”
As the god flew above us, the blades he held crackled with energy, with lightning.
“Move!” I screamed, throwing my full weight against Aliyah’s and Zion’s bodies as two bolts of lightning hit the ground.
“Where’s the holder of the Book? I can sense him,” the god screamed, raising his blades above his body. His voice wasn’t the voice of a child’s. It was deep, rich, and powerful; it cut through me like a knife.
We scrambled out of the way as another blast lit the grass around us. It was dead; even the trees surrounding us were nothing more than dried-out, dead things.
“Go, run, hide, do something,” I said to Zion and Aliyah. “I’ll try to get the scepter from him.”
In a split second, they disappeared, the magic of Dambe taking over. I cowered behind a boulder as another bolt of lightning hit the ground. I held up my hands in surrender as a plan began to form in my mind.
“I can’t help you if you kill me!” I said.
The ugly god looked down at me with his red eyes before lowering the blades. “Where is the holder of the Book?” he asked again.
Raising my hand in the air, I called, Ugo! The air vibrated with the force of his wings.
To Agwu, I said, “What do you want with the Book?” Even though I was fearful, I tried to keep my voice calm.
“I want release from Okeniyi! Only the queen or the holder of the Book has that power. The princess promised me that I would get it if I kept the scepter a secret until the right time. This is the right time. Did she send you?”
At his words, I felt a pain in my chest. I kneeled on the ground. Something in me reached for the god and the lightning radiating through his body. His eyes followed me as I sank to the dead grass.
“Hmm, what do we have here?” A devilish grin appeared on his face. “I knew you were the one with the Book. The power of the gods swirls within you, boy. Let me out of this prison.”
“I will free you,” I lied, gasping the words out because of the pain. “Give me the scepter first. The princess wants it back.”
He raised his hand in the air as he floated downward just a bit. “Give me the Book, and I’ll give you the scepter. You can’t argue with a god, boy.”
“Why not? You’re not much of a god if you’ve been trapped here for decades,” I said.
He whipped his blades in the air and sent another bolt of lightning toward me. Thunderstorm clouds gathered in the sky, and rain began to fall. I wiped my forehead and stood again.
“You don’t know how powerful the queen was,” Agwu said. “She might as well have been a goddess based on the magic she was gifted. When I lost against her, I was driven back here, ripped of my will. I wanted to die, but I could not.”
His voice turned deep and bitter. “No human should be able to wield such powers. Those belong to us.”
He glared at me. “And look at you, with more power than you should have,” he spat. “I knew you were human as soon as you stepped on my island. I slowed your journey through the forest to my home just because I could. We are gods. We have existed for thousands of years. Being a prisoner here is beneath the dignity of a god.”
“Are you going to give me the scepter?” I asked.
“Are you going to give me the Book?”
When I shook my head, both his hands went into the air. “Then you will die like everyone else who has dared to come here!”
“I don’t think so,” I said, moving into Dambe. Lightning struck the ground where I’d been standing.
I bumped right into Zion. “What are you doing? Get outta here! Call Ike, your gryphon!”
“No, I’m staying!” he said. Our conversation was cut short by identical bolts of lightning that came our way. Agwu had descended from the sky, his face leveled with ours.
“We have to fight,” I said, clutching my sword.
“What about the scepter?” Zion asked.
“I know exactly where the scepter is.” At least I thought I knew. From the pain building in my chest, it had to be close by. I disappeared in the wind again and climbed the nearest rotten tree. My feet caught on one of the hard branches, and I used that momentum to launch myself toward the god with my sword outstretched.
Agwu saw me coming. He reached out and punched me in the face. I fell to the ground and felt a sharp pain in my shoulder and from where Agwu had hit me. I rubbed my face and rolled as another lightning bolt crashed into the ground.
I moved away again as the god swooped toward me. Zion appeared, let out a bloodcurdling scream, and tackled Agwu from the sky.
Agwu tumbled to the ground, his body forming a small depression on the island floor. Zion’s face scrunched as he struggled with the god. With one swipe of Zion’s hands, Agwu’s blades fell to the ground. In another swift movement, Zion held the god’s arms behind his back, sweat dripping from his face.
“If you have a plan, do it now!” he yelled at me.
The god lifted himself into the air and carried Zion with him. Zion held fast. Something stirred beside me, and Aliyah appeared.
“Let’s get the scepter,” she said.
“I think it’s inside him, just like the Book is inside me. We need to get it out of him somehow. Call your gryphon, Odum—once we find the scepter, we need to hurry out of here.”
I ran to a tree on one side of the clearing, and Aliyah ran to the other side, following my lead. We both hit the trees at the same time, our bodies making a sound like Agwu’s lightning bolts hitting the ground. We launched ourselves into the sky, careening toward the struggling god. We crashed into Agwu, and the momentum sent Zion screaming to the ground. His body smashed into a boulder, and I heard a sickening crack. Aliyah took Zion’s place as I grabbed the god by his filthy shirt.
“The scepter is mine,” I said as the most horrible pain radiated through me. Before I lost my nerve and my grip on the screaming god, I punched through Agwu’s body, the magic of Dambe aiding me.
The god stopped screaming, as if my fist hadn’t actually harmed him. I could hear wings around me as I gripped the long staff inside Agwu’s body. I pulled on the scepter, and the pain in my chest went away. In one movement, Agwu expelled it from his body and sent me falling toward the ground.
Ugo caught me as the staff began to vibrate in my hand. Aliyah fell, but her gryphon caught her, too. Zion was trying his best to keep his screams at bay as he gripped one of his legs. Ike was pawing at him with its beak.
In a swift movement, Ugo landed, and I was by Aliyah’s side, helping Zion onto the saddle of his gryphon as Agwu languished in the sky, dazed and confused.
“Time to go!” I yelled.
Agwu screamed and followed us.