Excerpt

He saw her before she saw him. His body was tense and his face hard. There was an air of expectancy in the way he sat hunched forward on his chair. Ọwa felt every nerve in her body tighten as if pulled by a wrench. This was a battle that she had yearned for, one she was prepared for and would fight to the finish.

'Amosu Aghali! Albino-witch! You have finally arrived!' Dibia Ọgam said, reaching down for his raffia bag, his eyes watchful, following every tiny movement of his visitor. 'I have long expected you and now you have shown your yellow face in my compound,' he rose from his chair, his voice rising, his face thunderous. 'You dare to challenge a lion in his own lair, you foolish woman! So, now you are here. I see you clearly. What can you do?' He spat at her, missing her by inches as she side-stepped his spittle.

Ọwa pulled off her dark sunglasses. Her eyes blazed a furious dance. She removed the chicken feather and palm-frond from her lips and turned to the witchdoctor.

'Murderer! Vile Dibia who would butcher an innocent child for your nefarious trade! Your day of reckoning has finally arrived! You have spilled your last blood; you and your despicable deity. Take a good look at me because you are looking at your death!'

She pulled off her headscarf, exposing the full yellow glory of her hair. With unhurried care, she placed her raffia bag on the ground, together with her scarf and sunglasses. Her heart pounded, a thud of rage. The Earth Goddess had shown her every single detail of her daughter's murder. In her dream, she had seen the plot hatched between Enu, Eze and the Dibia; the despicable horror perpetrated on her child by the vile one that went by the name of Dibia Ọgam. The Earth Goddess had revealed the route to the witchdoctor's shrine in detailed clarity and shown her where to find the body parts of her daughter. Finally, the great deity had told her the sacred process to bring her daughter back to life. It was now time for the first of the conspirators and murderers to die.

Ọwa began to untie her wrapper, her movements deliberate, unrushed. As the wrapper fell to her feet, exposing her pale, knife-mutilated thighs, the Dibia shut his eyes and turned his face away.

'Shameless slut! Is this how you plan to avenge your daughter's death, by exposing your shame for all to see?' his voice was laced with contempt. 'You think I will collapse at the sight of your skinny body?' Dibia Ọgam snorted and turned around. He stared at her with steely resolve, mockery glinting in his black pupils. 'Foolish woman! Just look how you shame yourself; see how the people have gathered to watch your disgrace,' he pointed towards the entrance of his compound where a growing crowd had gathered underneath the mystical Ngwu tree to observe the confrontation between the two medicine titans.

The citizens of this unfamiliar village had earlier observed the unusual sight of an albino woman making her determined way to the dwelling of their famous witchdoctor, asking nobody for directions as strangers would normally do. Her step had been as sure as that of a chicken returning to its coop; such was the confident resolve in her stride. The black and white paint on her face and the white chicken feathers and palm-fronds clenched between her teeth, screamed out her status with mega-phone clarity – Dibia! Now, their curiosity had driven them into their witchdoctor's compound and the spectacle before them made it worth their while.

'Dibia Ọgam, take a good look at me!' Ọwa screamed, her deep masculine voice resonating beyond the compound.

The crowd gasped and stumbled backwards, fear and uncertainty replacing the earlier glee on their faces. Surely, a male demon spoke through the lips of the Aghali medicine-woman, they thought. Yet, they stayed, curiosity mastering their fear.

'Worthless piece of dog-shit, open your eyes as wide as an owl's and see me! See me, vile creature! See me!' Ọwa pulled off her black mourning top and her black bra, pounding her bloodied stab-bruised chest with angry fists. 'See me, demon snake! See me!'

The first fly settled on her yellow hair like a black seed from a wind-tossed tree.

'See me!' her voice thundered. The second fly landed on her forehead. Then the third, fourth, fifth. Soon, her yellow hair was coated with a swarm of wriggling, buzzing black flies; and still she shouted, her pale, blue eyes blazing, oblivious to the flies.

'See me!' The last item of clothing dropped from her body to the ground. The crowd roared in disbelief, their eyes goggled.

Now, Ọwa was as nude as the day she exited her mother's womb, save for her Jigida, charmed waistlets, stringed black beads of sorcery roped around her waist. The four beaded waistlets would give her body the supernatural strength to carry the possession of the Earth Goddess and repel attacks from malevolent entities.

She ignored the loud gasps of the assembled villagers as her steps steadily drew closer to the witchdoctor's veranda. And still the flies kept arriving in their hundreds, thousands, dressing her nudity in a heaving black coat that glittered under the intense noonday sun.

'I see you, shameless Aghali-witch!' The witchdoctor mocked, his voice raised in outrage. 'I see you in your filthy nakedness, just as everybody else sees and laughs at you. I see...s-see…?' the words died on his lips.

And finally, he saw her.

Dibia Ọgam saw death in all its gory, ghastly, terrible forms, shrouding the tiny body of the medicine-woman like a colossal bottomless grave. He saw the bloated death of the drowned, the charred death of the burnt, the twisted death of the hung, the wasted death of the sick, the skeletal death of the starved, the bloodied death of the executed, the mangled death of the war casualties, the maggot-riddled death of the forgotten dead.

From her soil, Mother Earth spilled out all the rotten meats she had received through the ages, regurgitating them in their foulest terrible forms for the Dibia to see. Her high-priestess wore them all, reflected them all, shared them all with the quaking witchdoctor. In her tiny form, he saw the ghastly deaths of everyone he ever loved, both the living and the dead; his sons, his parents, daughters, grandchildren, his mistress, his brothers and his little sister. And they all died in shrieking, writhing agony, their dying eyes staring at him, accusing him, hating him.

And death laughed at the medicine-man, laughed at his flailing hands as he strove to maintain his balance, find his charmed bloodstone. Death shrieked at his madness as he tried and failed to shut his eyes and shut out the unspeakable horror that was slowly draining his life-force and his sanity. His eyes would not shut, would not look away and save themselves from the shrieking terror before him. And the final death Dibia Ọgam saw before the flies dived at him in a ferocious attack, was the stunned, wide-eyed, shrieking death of the sudden-dead - his own demise.

The flies filled his open mouth, choking out his cries. They blocked up his nostrils, stealing his breath. They crowded his ears, killing all sounds, even the wild cackles of death's harbinger, Ọwa. Dibia Ọgam was a dead man before his body hit the hard cement of his veranda.

The crowd screamed and scattered in all directions, including the immediate family of the dead witchdoctor. They covered their faces with their hands and ran, lest their eyes see the same nightmare that felled the most powerful witchdoctor in their village and beyond.

A great wail arose amongst the people—A mighty tree has fallen! They had believed Dibia Ọgam indestructible, his presence a reassuring constancy in their community. His fearsome reputation kept them safe from land-grabbing neighbours and his wizardry protected their health from sicknesses and their farms from crop-stealing locusts. Now, the true meaning of the Igbo proverb came home to haunt them – THE greatest wrestler will one day meet the soil of the earth at the hands of THE greatest wrestler! Their witchdoctor's reign had clearly come to an inglorious end at the hands of a greater Dibia, a woman Dibia no less. Only a fool or a lunatic would dare confront a killer of demons. Only a deaf person would hear the sounds of war and refuse to run.

Even before Ọwa turned and made her way towards the thatched-roof shrine that housed the Grand Room of Mirrors, she was alone in the compound of the late witchdoctor, her sole companions, the rapidly decaying corpse of the Dibia and some white shrine chickens wandering about aimlessly in search of food. She bent to collect her discarded clothes, return herself to the dignity of womanhood. Her nudity was for her deity and her work, not for the entertainment of ignorant villagers or vile deities like the one whose shrine she was now about to enter.

She paused at the dwarf door of the shrine and took a deep breath. She felt light-headed from the latest possession of the Earth Goddess, but her Jigida kept her strong, physically ready to face her greatest trial within the shrine of the wealth-deity. Her mental state was another matter. She would have to call on everything within to come to her aid and chain her anguish; hold onto her sanity at what awaited her inside this shrine.

Ọwa entered the shrine of Aku n'uba, the deity of wealth and fame. The black mirror walls faced her like an impenetrable forest. A sudden chill crawled down her spine, layering her skin in goosebumps. A feeling of déjà vu overwhelmed her. Everything was exactly as the Earth Goddess had shown her in the dream; everything but the smell, the overpowering stench of death, her daughter's death. In dreams, there are no smells, just sights and sounds, feelings and actions. Now, unprepared, she inhaled with excruciating agony, the scent of her daughter's demise.