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T he boy knelt shivering within a roughly drawn circle on the sand beside a river.

Palm fronds wielded by three women in red and blue robes landed on his body as they danced in circles and spoke in a strange language.

As he writhed under the fiery pain tearing open barely healed wounds, the prophet held out an open Bible.

“Repeat after me,” he bellowed, face wrinkled and saggy. “My desire is a sin before God.”

The boy opened his mouth, but a red door appeared. A woman in towering headgear stood by it.

“Do everything he asks you to do, okay?” she said, before fading along with the door.

The boy reached for her, as the beatings intensified.

“Don't leave me here, Ma. Please, I'll be good.”

But no matter how loud he screamed inside; the words wouldn't come out.

The prophet's grotesque face appeared before him once more, leering and cackling. “Did you call that name? Resist the devil. I'm a man like you.

From within his face, another appeared. Diamond-shaped, smooth-skinned, blazing eyes. Full soft lips breathing, “I think I like you. Like really, really like you.”

“No, no, no,” the boy moaned, “Go away. Leave me.”

Then, it was the prophet's again. Cackling. “I dare you! I dare you!”

Hands descended on his shoulders. Shaking him. Loud laughter. Dancing. Pain. Frozen water.

“Timi, wake up!”

His eyes flew open. Diamond-shaped face hovered over him in the beckoning darkness. Plump lips moist and parted, breath escaping in minty puffs.

Kainye.

Panicked, Timi batted at the face, struggling to get away.

Hands grabbed his flailing arms, wrestled him into something soft, their weight pinning him down.

“No, no,” he moaned. “You're not him. You can't be here. Leave me!”

The hands continued holding him until he eventually surrendered to the darkness.

Barely forty-eight hours after that disastrous night at Lee-Gratias, Timi faced the eventuality of throwing up again.

Why does National Health Excellence still have Jude Lawson on their website? Is their prestigious award now meant for criminals?

Save those village kids. Probe Jude Lawson's activities .

brEAKING: 49 Gay Wedding attendants in Delta granted N400,000 bail by court. Grooms still locked up.

Police NG, how long does it take to arrest a failed celebrity? Or is the law reserved for poor people?

“Who the fuck is this Sporax guy?” he gritted, pacing back and forth in his moderately-sized office stacked with sparse furniture, pot plants, cartons of scripts and files, and a life-sized teddy bear staring creepily from a corner. “Did I murder his wife?”

From the long glass demarcation facing a short corridor, his staff stumbled over themselves to rescue Uncle Jude from the jaws of the mob.

Gone were the people who treated his sudden appearance with jerky bows, stuttered welcome, and averted gazes, as though they believed the crap trending, or were simply fed up with a boss who always plunged them into inconceivable situations.

They looked fiercely determined now, and his heart managed a flicker of gratitude amidst the rage squeezing it.

Nigerians were actually coming for Uncle Jude's accolades and pushing a jail term for him. The abject fuckery. He was still reeling from a disastrous weekend and now this.

A fist slammed down on his desk. “We should contact Spider,” Nejeere said. “Or we might not rise out of this pit.”

Spider. The anonymous cyber-vermin exterminator politicians and some top celebrities used as the last resort.

Timi had heard stories. Their brutal thoroughness and limitless methods.

In fact, the disappearance of some people had been traced back to them.

But since they had many influential people in a firm grip, the rumours had remained that, rumours.

He never thought the name would crop up in a conversation with Nejeere.

“Are we thinking of the same person?” he asked.

Nejeere looked up at him. Stress had deepened the grooves between her nose and mouth. “At least tell me why you can't reveal how you met Uncle, ehn?”

He walked over to a window. “I'm sorry, Nej.”

Her phone rang, and she dissolved into another shouting match with the unfortunate caller .

Beyond the window, traffic flourished. Choked double-lane roads flanked by lines of shops, with people dodging irate drivers, trudging pavements, and hawking goods, the consequences of their existence stamped on their weary faces.

How many of them had their phones opened to that blog championing his annihilation?

If he stepped out now, would they take a break from their unlucky lives to stone him, as they did with those gay guys in Uyo?

Or would they run after him, hailing him to make it rain, too hungry to maintain standards ?

Involving Spider was a hard no as his conscience couldn't take on additional guilt. Operation Fish Out had to take the central point. He'd left it to Hulk, but now he needed comprehensive feedback on how close they were to catching the Sporax bastard.

Hulk.

He hadn't seen him since the night at Lee-Gratias. He couldn't remember anything, but Charles had graciously expounded in a voice note how he'd royally disgraced himself.

“I think you should quit drinking for a while, guy,” he said. “And better raise that your assistant. Dude carried you like nothing. Helped clean you up too. We had to leave him. Don't get mad he crashed at your crib; you practically forced him upstairs.”

Nejeere had called the next day. “I don't know what you think being your assistant entails, but you're responsible for your actions. They don't have to do anything because you took a drink on their behalf.”

“I didn't—” he began protesting.

“You said that more times than Dame B says Buck in her sentences.”

Okay, that was a lot. She'd once said, Of course, Buck is Buck, as every Buck artiste Buck handles, hardly bucks under the strain non-buck artistes buck under .

“I was high,” he immediately backpedalled. “I say nonsense when I'm high.”

“You hide your truth in drunken words. Alex is here to work, not be your…drudge. Only God knows what terrible thing you've roped him in to believe it's his job to help you in every way. ”

And beneath her scolding, he'd sensed something more. Something…vindictive. They must have had plans, and he ruined it. And although he was contrite, something in him lightened up at the thought that Hulk had chosen him over…well, everything else.

Hulk hadn't resumed yet, and an apprehension added a layer of depth to the sadness and fury consuming him.

Then, his door opened to reveal the object of his thoughts, and like a meteor rock splitting the earth open, a memory from last night lanced through his brain.

Hulk seated beside a sprawled Timi on his bed. Timi's hand wrapped firmly around his wrist, preventing him from getting up.

“Don't go. Too noisy. Too empty. Can't be alone with him.”

“Okay. Do you want me to get anything? Do anything?”

“No. Just…stay. With me.”

“Okay.”

“I was going to…disappear, y'know?”

“Hm. I know.”

He twisted his neck to watch his face. “No, you don't. You don't know anything, Alex.”

“You want to tell me?”

“I was leaving myself behind, Alex.”

“I don't think you've called my name before.”

“I shouldn't?”

“You should. I call you Timi.”

“He's not me.”

“Who are you, then?”

He paused, then asked softly. “Why are you really here, Alex?”

Alex sighed. “I have some regrets, and you need my help. I want to give you my help. Did you drink so much because of that man?”

His eyes widened. “You saw him too? I didn't imagine him?”

“I did. Who is he?”

He turned away, though he kept his grip on Alex's hand. “He's the devil.”

If the ground beneath him didn't cave open and bury him under this heap of embarrassment, he would never drink again. He plastered himself against the wall as though it was Platform 9 3?4, beyond which a magical world filled with infallible humans awaited him.

“How's your face?” He heard Nejeere ask, and he turned to face Hul…Alex fully. Across his smooth cheek, was a thin gash. Though he still looked disgustingly good in his green cuff-sleeved jacket, pink open-necked shirt, and white slim-fit trousers.

“How again did your neighbour's cat get to it?” Nejere continued, taking a metal box with a Red-Cross sign on it from him.

Alex looked directly at Timi; his eyes appeared…different. “Daisy's quite…tall. Must be from consuming all that protein.”

Timi's chest fell to his stomach, as another memory swished through.

A body pressed down on him, hands pinning his hands on either side of his head.

“Hey. It's me. You had a nightmare.”

He stopped struggling, eyes frantically roaming the face above him. “Alex?”

A sigh trembled through the body pressing him into the bed. “Yes. It's me. “Alex's voice came out thick and wobbly. “I…I'm so sorry it took me so long. So sorry.”

He closed his eyes against the hot tears forming. “I'm glad it's you.”

Alex released his hands, then tucked him back under the covers, brushing his hair from his eyes. “I'm here. You're safe now.”

Nebuchadnezzar's blood. What the hell happened that night?

He remembered the nightmare all right, because it was the same recurring one he used to have when he first arrived in Lagos.

In fact, it had been part of the reasons Uncle Jude allowed him sever ties with his past. Asides it, the whole night cropped up in jumbled bits.

And Alex had witnessed everything. How could he come back from this?

Eyes everywhere but on the tall man who wouldn't stop looking at him, Timi chose the least embarrassing topic. “Is that first aid?”

“Obviously,” Nejeere said. “ If you're going to face who sent you to a hospital, we might as well go prepared.”

Okay, he'd miscalculated. Today was definitely Timi Embarrassment Day. “You told him?” Accusation coloured his exclamation .

“If I had to torture him by sending him to dear mother, he had to get acquainted with that Nile croc.”