chapter twelve
"Mani!" An oof escaped Imani's lips as her little cousin collided into her with a bear hug that almost crushed her ribs.
What is Aunty Yejide feeding these kids? She grimaced as she hugged him back.
"Hey, Peter," she knelt down to his level once he disengaged from her. A wide grin appeared on the chubby kid's face, showing his missing incisors. "I missed you so much, how are you doing?"
"Fine, Mani!" His grin grew wider than possible.
"Aunty Imani," Aunty Yejide corrected from the foyer where she was putting her coat and shoes away. With her was her husband, Kelvin who had his hair in locs and standing at 6'3". In his hand was their little daughter, Jasmine, whose eyes were half-lidded as if she just woke up from a deep sleep.
Imani, for most part, did not care for the African customary honorifics. Besides, he is my cousin, not my nephew. "Just 'Imani' is fine, Aunty Yejide. Good afternoon and Merry Christmas."
Aunty Yejide's red tinted lips were stretched into a wide smile as she came forward to hug her. "O ma ti ga gan o," she whistled as she took in Imani's full height.
The younger woman subtly rolled her eyes, she was the same height as last Christmas when her dad had driven over to visit Aunty Yejide.
In fact, Imani had always been 5'9 since she clocked 15, crazy right? That was me being sarcastic by the way, was her internal monologue.
The two women disengaged before Imani looked at Kelvin and greeted him. Kelvin was an African American who worked as a chef at a restaurant with a high rating. He and Aunty Yejide had met when her class had gone on a excursion to the restaurant.
Imani could remember when Aunty Yejide had introduced Kelvin to the family. Zuri had developed a bit of crush on him and it was quite funny and squicky for Imani to even think about. They were thirteen back then and he had been their aunt's fiancé back then. Soon enough, Zuri had gotten over her crush but it was still funny to Imani.
Now, Kelvin stood with his smile flashing back at her. Imani returned his smile before leading her Aunty Yejide and her family into the main part of the house where the aroma of jollof rice, fried plantain and
Christmas turkey assaulted their senses.
Imani found her mother under the arch linking the kitchen with the dining area as she carried a roast pan which held the turkey in her hands cladded in kitchen gloves.
"Kemi!" Aunty Yejide squealed in delight at her sister.
Kemi turned her head around and a huge grin broke out on her face as she set the pan down on the table, a few meters from where she was standing, before going over to greet her sister.
"Yejide! Bawo ni?" The rest of their greetings and conversation had switched over to Yoruba which made Imani lose track as they went off in their conversation.
Rolling her eyes subtly, she walked into the kitchen to help her dad, Juan and Zuri with the other dishes. Lorenzo, her dad, was already holding a pan of peppered barbecued goat meat while Juan carried two boxes of mango juice with Marcos lifting a pack of canned soda. Imani decided to walk back to the kitchen, taking the seat beside Peter who shot her a grin with his missing incisors creating the perfect window into his mouth.
"Aunty told me that you and Zuri were not able to visit us because the two of you were in university, is it true?" The inquisitive boy asked as he delved into his jollof rice.
Imani was silent for a moment as she dished her food, placing some fried plantain and peppered barbecued goat meat along the side before she replied, "Yeah, we have been in the university for a while now."
"So, what is it like?" Peter asked, shoving a spoon of the meal into his mouth, making his cheeks puff out like those of a chipmunk.
"No talking with food in your mouth, Peter," Kelvin admonished gently before eating his own spoonful, or forkful of food. Not like Peter was listening as he continued to rattle off questions to his cousin.
Carefully, Imani did her best to keep up with the little boy's questions as she answered them one by one.
"What university do you go to?"
"U of Pittsburgh."
"What is it like? Is it like grade school? Do you guys play and have fun all day?"
"Not like grade school," Zuri had jumped in to answer. "It is fun but no, we also have to go to classes, or we would fail." Funny that was coming from Zuri whom she almost always saw at the International Students building every time she was there. Yet her twin managed to pass her courses. "It is daunting at first, but you'll get used to it along the way."
"Are the teachers nice?"
No, Imani wanted to answer, remembering that woman at the KINES building where she wrote her final paper. Some are bitches who wake up at the wrong side of the bed, she wanted to add but her parents and her aunt were at the table, and she would not cuss in front of a child.
"Most of them are. It is fifty-fifty though," Imani answered instead. Her plate was now almost empty, safe for a few grains of rice and some bones of the goat meat.
"What about your friends?"
"Most of them are international students," she answered again. Yejide, Kelvin, Kemi and Lorenzo had already moved to the living room, discussing the news while Juan and Marcos had taken Jasmine to the games' room to play a game of Table Hockey. The toddler watched with wide eyes as her cousins passed the puck to each other, trying to make sure it did not get into the slot.
"What does that mean?" Peter asked again. This child was going to kill her with the number of questions he was throwing at her and Zuri.
"So you know how some people travel from place to place?" Zuri asked, earning a nod from Peter. "Some people from other countries apply to universities either for better opportunities or because they want to advance in their studies and the universities here can help them with that. Well, most of our friends are from other countries."
"But you and Imani were not born here, does that not make you two international students?"
Good Lord, is this child going to keep asking us questions? Imani wanted to scream into a pillow. She loved her cousin to bits but boy, could he rip off her ears with his inquisitiveness. How do Aunty Yejide and Kelvin deal with this?
"Maybe when you grow older, you will understand," Imani answered instead.
Peter nodded before going to the next question, "Can I come visit your school someday? I wanna see what it is like!"
The twins exchanged a look with each other, "Maybe not now. When you get to high school, maybe," Zuri added.
"But why?" He pouted.
"You see, our school is big," Imani started.
"As in, bigger than your school," added Zuri, making an estimate with her two hands illustrating her point.
"You could get lost if you try to visit at your young age."
The young boy seemed to understand as he did not ask any more questions about university but went on to talk about their trip down to Reading and his misadventures in church. Peter talked a lot, but Imani could take that over him giving them a series of questions and answers.
"So, what took you and Ilya so long out in the woods?" Stephen asked, earning a groan from Lucas and Hermes while Ares looked heavenward for the hundredth time in the evening.
They had just had their Christmas dinner with Andrew, Hermes and Stephen just settling down in the study after helping Irina clean up the tabletop and put away the dishes.
"They went out for some wood," Lucas answered, the double entendre not missing in his tone as he took a sip of the sparkling ouzo cocktail, he had made. If there was one thing Lucas prided himself in, aside from his number of meaningless hookups, it was his ability to mix drinks and make alcoholic combinations that would impress the world's finest wine taster.
"Do not corrupt the innocents," Hermes yelled at him, ready to smack Lucas who just snorted.
"He is not a small boy; he'll be entering the university this winter. Besides, I am not the one fucking-," suddenly, Lucas had lost his voice and glared at Hermes who smirked at him.
This would be the hundred-and-first time Ares found his brown eyes looking up to the heavens, or the ceiling to be exact. Sometimes, it felt as if he was the oldest child, instead of the third child.
"Release him from the spell, Hermes."
Lucas sputtered as if his head had been dunked into a pool of water, "This has to be illegal and the fact that he was not in his dark form while doing that."
"You are the one mouthing off, Lucas," Andrew joined in.
"You are the one to talk, Mr. I fuck my husband in the woods," Lucas rolled his eyes at their youngest brother.
Hermes turned to Stephen who was watching amusedly and Ares who held his own ouzo cocktail, "This is why I used the silence spell on him, Son."
"I can't even walk past your room without hearing you two get it on like fucking rabbits!" Lucas added.
"Really? You are the one who brings in women, vampires and humans alike, to your room. There is a good reason why your room is located on the top floor!" Andrew shot back at his brother.
"Watch out with this one," Hermes leaned towards Stephen's ears, pointing at Lucas, "He is not gonna lead you anywhere near the straight and narrow path."
"At least, my room is soundproof, you and Hermes are like the worst offenders-."
"Why are you dragging me into this now?" Hermes was now engaged in a verbal headlock with Lucas.
"Yesterday, you and Irina-."
Stephen's face was full-on red at what his uncle was implying about his parents while Ares was losing patience with his brothers' antics. Suddenly, they had all lost their voices, making Stephen turn to his uncle who was in his dark form, red glowing eyes with cracks and veins showing on his face.
"All of you, shut the fuck up, right now!"
It was simultaneously terrifying and badass to see his uncle Ares in this form. Just as soon as he had gotten to his dark form, he was back with the veins and the cracks on his face fading away.
Lucas and Andrew rubbed their necks, sighing in relief that their voices were back.
"What the hell was that for?!" Hermes was now yelling at Ares who just took a full swig of his drink before pouring himself another drink. In all his years of growing up, Stephen had never seen his uncle this way.
"Okay, now, I am worried," Andrew spoke up, after being released from Ares' silence spell. "On a normal day, you are so quiet and gloomy but today, it is as if you got up from the wrong side of the bed."
Ares could only mumble something unintelligible as he downed another glass and was about to pour himself another when Lucas took the cocktail away from the table, muttering a "No brother of mine is going to become an alcoholic, not on my watch."
Stephen glanced at his father whose anger was now replaced with worry as said emotion etched onto his face, "What is going on, Ares?"
"Is this about your soulmate?" Andrew asked, earning him a few glares. Stephen, on the other hand perked up, his uncle had found his soulmate?! That should be a call for celebration, not whatever this was.
"We got our marks last night, more like early this morning, actually."
Oh, Stephen wanted to say. So that meant his uncle Ares had a romantic life partner, why was this being treated like it was bad news?
Hermes was the first person to speak, "So, how are you going to go about it?"
"I have no fucking clue," Ares groaned, pressing his hand against his right temple. "She is a human and there is some fucking psycho out there killing their women."
Oh. If she was human, it made more sense why Uncle Ares was like this. He never took well to humans, which made sense as he opposed the Integration when it was proposed by the council.
"Does this have to do with why the Pennsylvania State Police came over a few days ago?" Andrew questioned.
A bitter scoff escaped Ares' lips at that. Ilya must have told Andrew about that but that was not the reason for the sound of derision that escaped Ares. "Those fuckers think I did it."
The room fell silent again with looks of disgust and anger on the vampires' faces. Ares may despise humans but he would never stoop as low as soiling his hands with their blood, at least, not in this type of situation.
"The audacity of them coming over to accuse you," Lucas stood up but was immediately shut down by Hermes who glared at him.
"So, what are we going to do next?" Stephen spoke up for the first time in a while.
"I have offered to help the police department on this one," Ares started, eyeing the bottle of ouzo cocktail in Lucas' hands. "Whoever is doing this needs to be behind bars as soon as possible."
Ares was not doing this out of the kindness of his heart, he was doing this because of Imani. He should not want her but he would be damned if the bastard doing this touched one hair on her head.
He now faced Stephen, "I may need your help for this one, Stephen."
The young vampire nodded along as Ares stated his plans. He would do the same if he was in his uncle's shoes.
A/N: I just wanted to say here, happy new year and welcome to 2024. I hope this year will be a blessed year for all of us and I wanted to thank you all for picking up this book to read. I really appreciate that. Here are the translations for the Yoruba words used in this chapter.
Translation
O ma ti ga gan o - You have really grown tall
Bawo ni? - how are you?