WAR GOD

Chapter 5

Vera stared at the cryptic message for minutes, searching through her past and present for the relevance of the message to any particular event in her life. She found nothing.

She didn’t know if the person was a secret admirer or just someone returning a favour for a good deed she didn’t remember. She didn’t even know if the anonymous angel investor was male or female but she was some percent sure that it was a male.

She stared at the cheque and the message on the envelope that she spread on her sparkling glass table; the handwritings in both were different. The anonymous person had meticulously planned it that she wouldn’t be to find him. 

In the past, she had tried to track the names written on each of the cheques given but it had never been successful. What had never changed was the lemon-coloured envelope with flowery designs at the corner of the envelope and the words, “Your anonymous angel investor” written in a cursive handwriting with a pen. 

“At least let me say thank you,” Vera said with a frustrated voice. 

A call from her mother buzzed her phone; then she remembered that she had vanished from the party unannounced. 

“Shit,” she said and picked the call.

“Vera, where are you?” Catherine said. Vera’s mother’s voice was calmer than she had expected. She had expected to angrily shout in her ears.

“I-I am in my office,” Vera said, still not believing her ears.

“Alright, please don’t cry my baby, I don’t—“ Catherine was talking before her daughter cut her short.

“Hold on, why would I be crying? What’s going on? I left there because of an emergency at my office,” Vera said, her brows creased at what her mother had said.

“Steve is dead…” Catherine said, almost breathlessly then she broke into tears.

Vera’s eyes almost popped from her sockets when she heard what her mother said. Vera thought perhaps her mind must have distorted the message or might not have heard well.

Vera hated Steve but not to the point of wanting him dead. The realisation that the wealthy and powerful heir of Anderson died on the celebration day of his birth paralysed her a little. At the same, she couldn’t bring herself to believe what her mother had said. 

“Are you joking or—“ 

“No!” Catherine said, “I’m not.” 

Vera stood from her swivelling chair and told her mother she was on her way. Vera ran in her heels out of her office.

Not too long, when she got there, she saw many police officers walking in and out of the building like ant as she drove by. She walked over to the building after parking across the street. 

She saw every guest from the party at the ground floor of the building, with the horror of seeing a dead body telling different stories on their faces. Some were crying, some had sad faces, some just went along with the gloomy atmosphere with a straight face.

Vera found her mother leaning on the wall, with her eyes fixated on the marble floor until she raised her head and looked at her. She spread her arms out in embrace and watched her mother walked slowly into it before she wrapped arms around her. Vera detached herself to look at her mother’s sad wrinkly face then she asked her what happened.

Her mother began to explain but couldn’t finish because she began to cry. From what Vera heard from her mother, Steve shot himself in the head because they found a gun in his hand. The story didn’t look credible for Vera to believe; she had thought that, perhaps, her mother had been traumatised and shaken by the sight of a dead body and had begun to affect her thinking. 

Vera’s thoughts shifted from trying to find the truth of what she heard to the thought of how Steve’s parents must have reacted to the death of their son, whom they had seen probably some minutes before his death. 

“How did his mum take the hit?” Vera asked. She had contracted the gloom and sadness too.

“She didn’t take it well… minutes after she screamed, she slumped and lost consciousness,” Catherine said as she wiped her face, blocking the tears that were about to well up out of her.

“Oh my goodness…” Vera said, almost pushed to tears. Vera covered her mouth slightly and remained speechless as her mother recounted to her that his father, who was notorious for being emotionless, instantly began to cry on his son’s body, asking for forgiveness.

Vera couldn’t take in the news any more, so she told her mum to stop. Vera’s eyes got stuck in the air as she tried to create a mental picture of what her mother had narrated. It was too much. 

Her eyes wandered off to look around the room and found a group of people at a corner, whispering words to each other while looking at her direction. Catherine asked her daughter what was so important that could make her leave that way but didn’t receive an answer.

 Vera took her eyes off them for some minutes and looked back at them; they had their eyes still on her. They had one particular look, they had penetrating stares of suspicion. Vera saw that as they whispered to themselves, they looked nowhere else but her.

Catherine was waiting for answers from her daughter but saw that she was lost, her fixed gaze on a group of the guest, mumbling words to themselves and at the same time drawing attention from the subject of their gossip — they were talking about her daughter and she knew why. She made a deep sigh that brought her daughter’s attention to her without taking her eyes off them.

“I feel these people are gossiping about me,” Vera said to her mother.

“Why did you leave?”

“I can feel their googly eyes on me,” Vera said.

“Why did you leave?!” Catherine said with an angry voice, bringing her focus to her. Vera saw that her mother was greatly annoyed with her. 

“I… I told you I had an emergency call, it… it was important, I had to be there,” Vera said to her mother. Her mother said to her face that she had gone at the wrong time.

“They suspect you. They suspect that you killed him because you left,” Catherine said to her.

“What?” Vera said. She couldn’t believe the stupidity in what her mother had said. She had barely let her mother’s words settle in her when a woman and a man came to her. They were detectives.

“Miss Vera, we would like to speak with you for a minute,” the female detective said.

“Me?” Vera asked them, feeling like a criminal.

“Yes.”

“What’s your name?” The blind girl heard a voice call to her, which jolted her. It was the voice of the woman.She was still trying to comprehend where she was as the environment she found herself was strange. 

The woman and the man who had rescued her had taken her down a path that didn’t lead to her home. She knew this but she had lost strength to fight back, if they weren’t actually good people. Before she knew it, she found herself in something moving even though she remained seated on a spot.

“Where am I?” The girl frantically asked the female voice. 

“You are in a car. Have you ever been in one?” the man said while he had his hands on the steering wheel.

The only thing girl knew about cars was that they were noisy large insects that buzzed back and forth as she went about her day. Based on what she was made to believe from people who helped her cross the streets, she was supposed to avoid and run away from them. The man telling her she was in one was a very confusing idea. Her hands brushed back and forth against the soft leather of the chair.

The man assured the girl that she didn’t need to be scared and that she was in safe hands. He then looked at her from the rear mirror to know her reaction to what he had said. He could see the traumatising fear on her face from what had happened to her before he and his partner came to her rescue.

“I’m sorry about what those boys did to you back there,” the man said and saw through the mirror that her face had relaxed a bit and was trusting gradually. 

“Thank you,” the girl said to them. The man and woman looked at each other and smiled.

“My name is Sara,” the girl said. The woman turned with a smile to talk to her; she told the girl her name was Diana and the man was Eric. 

She told Sara they were taking her somewhere and they would arrive at the place soon. Sara didn’t ask further questions and went silent. They had saved her, and she felt what she could do to return the favour was to trust them. The soft breeze that slapped softly against her face took her to sleep.

Sara suddenly felt a sudden and sharp jolt that woke her up; the car had come to a stop. “We are here,” Eric announced. 

She was scared by a loud jam from her left and right side; it was the car doors. Next, she heard a strange sound of the car door opening from her side, and felt the full breeze of air and the heat of the sun. Diana helped her out of the car until she stood on her feet before she handed the girl her walking stick. 

She heard the loud jam of the car door again and almost fell but Eric stopped her before she could taste the dust. Eric wrapped his arms around one of Sara’s arms and led the way while Diana followed them behind. 

They got to a point where the air changed for Sara and couldn’t feel the sun on her skin again. The place they entered had a cold air that cooled the burn from scorching sun in seconds. She felt her feet and her walking stick on a firm and smooth ground. 

As they walked further, she could hear voices at a distance. The voices were getting closer as they moved. Sara didn’t have time to think because they were walking at a fast pace. 

The distant voices were now close to them. The owner of the voices were other new gods. Eric and Diana had brought Sara to the secret headquarters of the new gods.

“Is she the one?” One of them asked Eric.

“She is the one,” Eric said, “but she doesn’t remember a thing.”

Sara’s ears picked the words from Eric and was beyond confused. What does he mean by she doesn’t remember a thing? She thought. From what she could understand from the conversation Eric had with that person, it looked like they had been searching for her for a long time; and it was shocking to her to hear that she had lost her memory.

“Where’s Ares?” Diana asked them. One of them replied that he was waiting for them. They began to walk down the way that looked like it was never ending to Sara. She observed that they had gone silent; her heart began to beat fast as they took further steps. 

“Please tell me what’s happening” Sara asked Eric and Diana. 

“You’ll know soon,” Diana said. Her voice sounded serious and wasn’t as sweet as the one she had in the car. Her presence had put her at rest in the car but at that moment, it had become something. 

They came to stop. Sara heard as Eric pushed a large door open and pulled her with him inside. They stopped after taking about 10 steps forward away from the door; Sara felt they had reached their destination. She suddenly could feel another presence in the room. 

She heard as the presence took gradual hard hitting steps towards her that had her heart following the same rhythm. The presence was Ares.

“Hello Sara,”

said Ares, with his deep, reverberating voice.

“Who are you?” Sara said to him in her trembling voice.

“I am Ares.”