Bloody Love

Chapter 2: The Ritual

The sky was as black and thicker than we usually know. That is how the shrine was — Cold black. The only thing that supplied light were seven tiny lamps in the shrine. They burnt bright red instead of yellow or orange. Whenever it rained, it never touch the shrine and sunlight doesn’t penetrate it either. Everything about this juju-man’s shrine was mysteriously scary and different.

As it is, only the bold and the extraordinary could get there. Like the speed of lightning, the six devils appeared in the shrine. Their attire immediately changed into a red cloth tied around their waist and white cowries, in form of a necklace, appeared on their necks. The herbalist himself wore a braided hair decorated with white cowries. The red shirt and skirt on him too were beaded with cowries. He looked very young and agile, but he walked and talked slowly, as if he managed.

“Baba! Please, help us!!”

“Forbidden! It’s forbidden to come in here with fear!” The herbalist yelled. “Look at how you’re all shivering like premature chickens!” He rolled his eyes at them and hissed. Looking so disappointed.

“Death chased us, Baba! Blade is already dead.” the one with pot-belly begged, controlling his heavy breath.

He had a round, shiny head and a deep scar across his left eyebrow. Within the seven devil’s gang, they identified him as scorpion, but his real name was Samson Gbadebo.

“Yes! I know. I know what you don’t know, my son. And I see what you can’t, beforehand. I gave you guys a warning, but you ignored it. Perhaps it’s been six months since you last renewed your power.”

The baba looked at the six of them straight in the eyes, one after the other. They tried to hide the pains they were all feeling, looking back into the old man’s eyes with boldness like a steady lion ready to pounce on its prey.

“You guys are weak! Your power, like the evening sun, has faded!!”

“We all know who you are! The greatest living creature in the entire land! Baba, we are brave, but you’re the bravest! You are the light that would never quench, the tree that would never fall.” The boss praised.
“What should we do now? What’s the way forward?”

“You’ve spoken well, my son. The way you should have spoken when I gave you warnings. But! It’s never too late!” He took a long wooden staff from the corner of the room, which was electrocuting.

He lifted his legs as if they were too heavy for him to lift. The old herbalist was in his late 80s, but he looked actually younger and acts like someone over 150 years of age. Only God knows how he lived till that moment. Definitely, he must have exchanged his looks for his actions (walking and talking).

He marched to where his gods were, but the gang stood in the middle of the shrine. They hung two mighty Python heads, facing each other at each corner of the room, yet they looked so much alive. Everything looked dark and scary, but to the old man, it looked like paradise.

The herbalist’s lips were naturally pure black. Anyone seeing him for the first time would be scared, but that was his fashion. Well, the baba asked them to wait a bit, then he made some incantations to appease the gods.

It took a while; he paused at the three red looking statues facing each other, with so much joy and pride. He blushed, chuckled, then he stopped in between. After that, the herbalist came back into the cycle and faced the boys. Their injuries faded immediately as he joined them, and they looked at each other with excited faces.

“Don’t feel too happy because the gods and spirits of the land are angry with you. You denied their warnings, but the gods are kind. They pardon you.”