Moon Shadow

11

Once Joshua and Nuru Bendera arrived downstairs, Suzie took us to the living room before leaving. Two open windows let the light in, highlighting the two black couches in front of them and a flat-screen TV on the wall beside it.

A wide bookshelf with glass doors displaying religious books stood beside the flat-screen TV. It had three rows and columns, and after every fifth book, the sixth one's cover related to the occult. It didn't take a genius to connect the dots of the alignment: 666.

Now, why would the preachers have books on the occult?

I smiled.

The biggest lesson I learned after becoming an occult detective: humans were worse than demons.

Demons never pretended to be one thing or another. They were what they were. But humans? Oof. You'd be lucky to find one person who was honest with you as they were with themselves. We all hid the bad parts of ourselves for fear of judgement.

"Thank you for seeing us," Joshua said, his left arm interlocked with Nuru's right. He was a chubby, dark-skinned man with a horse-shoe hairline, a stubble, and a potbelly that showed even when wearing a large grey suit.

"Your file said you believe a demon has possessed your daughter's corpse, and you want me to exorcise it. Is that correct?" I asked, then glanced at Esther, who sat opposite the preachers, leaning on the backrest with her hands behind her head and her legs spread apart. She really made herself at home.

"Yes," Joshua replied. Nuru rubbed off the sweat on his forehead with a handkerchief. "But it's not that simple."

I hated hesitant clients. It was obvious there was more to the story. A lot more. It was why I was here. As a last resort, it meant you couldn't keep secrets from me. Otherwise, we'd both lose. "Explain."

Joshua looked at me with his bloodshot eyes. It seemed he had been crying all night. His wife had only spared me a single glance since I arrived in the living room, focusing on her husband by rubbing the sweat from his face and patting his back before he said anything.

Nuru seemed like a traditional Tanzanian wife—or looked the part really well. Apart from her oily brown skin, she had full lips and a pointy nose. A scarf covered her updo, while the thick cotton clothes she wore tightened around her beefy arms. She was a working woman, for sure.

Having done this job for so long, her patting Joshua's back and nodding after he spoke, were signals for when he should and shouldn't talk. She was the one in charge here.

"I don't have all day," I said, frustration hiding the desperation in my voice, eager to know what the fuck was going on.

Joshua looked at Nuru, and she nodded. He turned to me. "Have you heard of the Followers of Judas, also known as The Fellowship?"

"No." I glanced at Esther, who shrugged, then back at the preachers. "Should I?"

"No." Mr. Bendera pinched the bridge of his nose while his wife massaged his shoulders. They exchanged a quick glance—Nuru nodded—before he continued. "They're a secret society that believes good only exists if evil does, justifying their actions by saying someone has to be evil so the world can be good again."

"So The Fellowship is the evil?" Esther asked.

Nuru looked at her and said, "Yes."

That bitch! She had been ignoring me this whole time, but Esther asked one question and she got her full attention? Wow. Talk about favoritism. And to think I came all this way to help her dumbass daughter while the only thing the necromancer wanted to do was watch. Mxiu!