I: THE DEVIL’S HEIR

Sunday points forward and the architect follows his hand. Look as far as you can, everything you see, every tree, every leaf, my brother every monkey, they are all on my land. The architect nods, not knowing how else to react to the man’s bragging.

You will not say anything? Sunny asks.

The architect unrolls the long paper with the building plans. The building is to be Sunny’s base of operations. Sunday Akan is a simple man. He sees, he likes, he takes. That was how it was when he was just a foot soldier in his brother’s operation, sniffing out outsider’s in the area and taking them for what they were worth, that wasn’t a part of his brother’s operation, but how will a small boy be using iPhone and he will not show love? He laughs to himself as he remembers one idiot who flew their colours in State Housing at the height of Utibe’s silent war. He had taken the boy’s purple shirt, and his trousers and then collected the suya from him last last. A simpler time..

Now he was a grown man, and with growth came expansion. In his mind, UT was timid; a king who had grown soft in his reign and was content with his little kingdom. Maybe it was the whole getting married and having a daughter thing. I mean he had children with different women, but he never let that get in the way of the work. Why should they end at Marina and Calabar Municipality? Why not push for conquest? Kings of Calabar; he liked the sound of that.

To be kings they would need to crush skulls. Skulls of Vipers, Pirates, and Axes. So much blood, Sunny thought. Nothing like Utibe’s silent war. His brother had laughed at his plan and ordered him to stand down. Bapho was king. The name was scary sha; Baphomet. A whole demon. He remembered how UT could come back to the graveyard and scrub blood off his body before going to church to donate multiple buses during harvest. That is the man he feared. Not this man that has not bloodied his hands in years. Sunny decided then; he would carve out a kingdom of his own. Carving dey cost, even for barber shop, so the next step was funding.

That is where the cocaine came in oh.

Sunny looks over the architect’s plans and tells him to do whatever he needs to do to get the building erected quickly. Hustle need pay. My banker will wire you your money. How is your wife? Amara and Nnabueze? He tried to pronounce the names well.

The architect froze in fear, before recovering quickly. They’re fine, sir.

Sunny smiles. Every once in a while you need remind these people say your hand long. Cold and Bugatti were waiting in the car for him. He walked past crews of men carrying bags of cement and opens the back seat of his tinted Toyota Prado. Both men are seated in the front seat as Swinik plays out of the car speakers.

Cold, he calls out to his enforcer, off this Okpo Recordz song mbok. I want to go to De Sauce this night, abeg do quick.

No response.

Cold?

The man in the front seat falls forward, and Sunny’s eyes follow the blood trail from the SRS airbag sign to the unopened glovebox compartment.

Beads of sweat defy the air conditioning.

Bugatti?

The man in the driver’s seat turns to him, gloved hand clutching a black pistol with a cylindrical extension. Silencer.

Not Bugatti oh, the man says, not Bugatti.

II. THE SECOND DEVIATION

The shipyard opposite Marina Resort, once a promising beacon of economic prosperity for Cross-river state, was now a graveyard of secrets. The Nigerian Government made sure it stayed that way, so that Lagos would remain the port city. There are different ships, where underhanded deals and corrupt politicians’ hidden motives are buried, away from the prying eyes of the press and all other interested parties, All that remain are the skeletons of the ships, storehouses and old administrative buildings.

Rainfall, unusual for December in this region, washed over the abandoned docks as Utibe walked passed children huddled under the broken roof of the entrance to one of the admin blocks.

Utibe looked up to see if there were any hidden figures on the rooftops and higher ship decks; snipers were an inconvenience he’d accepted when dealing with the old crime families with whom he shared ownership of these docks. None today, Maybe there is honor among thieves. The massive shadow of the main storage facility looms, driving his instincts towards flight. Two guards, armed with assault rifles stand in front of the smaller entrance and knock on the door when he comes into view. The door is opened and UT walks past them as they nod respectfully,

Una dan chop? The guards look up hopefully when he asks.

No sir!

He enters the warehouse, making a mental note to send food over to the guys. Utibe looks over his little empire; men and women, standing over tables and workbenches, sorting out boxes that came in daily on ships that moved in the dark of night to dock at the Graveyard. Ships filled with boxes of the recently banned Codeine, Percocet, Promethazine and MDMA. He sent shipments through his territories; he sold to the Lebanese guys from Flourmill, the Chinese at HappyFood and to vetted low-level dealers. He also traded beyond the UNICAL lantern to the south, to regions controlled by others with which he held a fragile peace.

To the church community and his family, he is Utibeima Akan, an upstanding member of the community and treasurer of the Catholic Men’s Association in Saint Paul’s Cathedral, but here, he is Bapho. As he goes down the steel warehouse steps, he is greeted by Nasty, his right-hand.

Eyen eka, He jabs at Nasty’s chest, What is wrong?

Nasty is in his twenties, but, growing up deep in Calabar South, his skin had earned more bruises and scars than most people would gain in two lifetimes. Na Viper send person oh! Him wan see you.

Viper? Utibe is surprised they’d send a representative to the graveyard to meet him. Did something happen?

Nasty made knowing everything that happened in his territory a priority, so he told him the Vipers may have an issue with him selling their product. We haven’t na?

The Viper Confraternity were kings beyond the lantern, from Bateba to Afokang to Anantigha. On the outside, they had members in the upper echelon of Calabar; elite businessmen, politicians, University professors and the likes. In their underbelly, they dealt primarily in cocaine, and had a monopoly on coke in Calabar and its surrounding areas. Nasty shrugged and nodded towards the man. Bapho, he’ll listen to you, mbok sort this out, make e no cause fight.

Bapho laughs. I think say you like fight? Abeg give the guards money for food, or to get them food. Bapho walks away from him, past the people packing boxes and towards the man at the back. When he arrives where the viper is sitting, he feels uneasy. The Viper member smiles at him and stretches out to shake his hand.

Bapho, I bring greetings from the head. He says, referring to the head of the Viper Confraternity. Utibe responds and asks why he has come.

The viper laughed. Straight to the point abi?

You know say me I no dey waste time. If there is a grievance, let it be heard.

He signals for another plastic chair and sits by him. Very well, the viper adjusts his shirt. Someone has been trading in our area, selling our product. This cannot stand.

Why are you here telling me this? Utibe asks. My men know better than to go into the South with any product, much less cocaine. The Lantern was as far as they could go. If they even tried to sell beyond the imaginary line that cut the University into Calabar Municipality and Calabar South, wahala.

It is one of your men, the Viper’s expression is grim. A mistake has been made, but if you help us we will be able so sort this out quickly.

Utibe is worried, but he tries not to show it. He breathes deeply. How do we fix this? He asks, though he knows what the answer will be.

UT’s brother, Sunny, was the “black sheep” of the family. He’d tried to keep him legitimate; he pulled strings and got him into the University. Sunday spent just three months in UNICAL before he decided education was not for him and asked that Utibe teach him the family business. “I do this so you all do not have to, Sunny.” He’d said when his brother asked him to show him the ropes. “I stick my hands in the mud so yours can remain clean.”

The envoy leans forward. We want the one stealing from us, he says. We want Sunny.

Though he initially refused, Sunday pestered and he gave in. Sunny had a natural flair for the work, he was efficient and over time he and his men made a whole lot of money. Sunny had a flaw though; his greed. Now, so many years later, Utibe is staring at the consequences. He knew he’d have to save his brother’s life, which could mean all-out war, the kind that littered the streets from Federal housing to Goldie with bodies.

He set aside Utibe, the father, and welcomed Baphomet, the crocodile of Marina. The King of the Graveyard.

You Vipers think we all bow to your whims and fear you, abi? He got up and Nasty, who had been observing their conversation from a distance, knew something was about to go wrong. The viper envoy had come here without any backup, assuming his status would protect him. He’d overestimated. Nasty shouted to all the workers close by to clear out.

The envoy could sense it too. You wouldn’t dare harm me, we will burn down everything you hold dear. Use your eyes Bapho, look at your empire before we tear it down.The vipers will not rest till the crocodile dies. He says.

Tutu mkpa Effiom!

Bapho moves swiftly. He kicks the envoy square in the chest and he falls back, the shock seizing his voice. The legs of his plastic chair give and Bapho is on him like a predator. He pulls him up, elbows him in the side of the head, and sweeps his legs swiftly. Blows to the ears follow as the viper hits the ground. Bapho puts one knee on the envoy’s abdomen. The envoy struggles to free himself, but the other knee is pinned to his groin.

Bapho presses his neck with his left forearm and his free hand dangles a knife over the envoy’s face. You came to the crocodile’s swamp, one lone snake,TO THREATHEN ME?! His voice echoes through the now-empty warehouse. The vipers have forgotten who I am and I will use you to send a reminder!

The envoy begs, but Bapho is past the sixth tier of hell. His family has been threatened and he must respond. The envoy cries out; his legs spasm under Bapho’s weight as the graveyard king digs the knife into his eye socket. Blood gushes out as Bapho excises his eyeball. He stands up and holds his trophy. You are actually stupid o. He says as the man whimpers on the floor, nearly unconscious and now one-eyed. Nasty! He calls out.

Nasty comes closer. The altercation had been so fast he couldn’t even intervene. The Bapho he was seeing before him now had his old rage, the rage he’d used to burn through everyone during his ascendancy. Yes boss.

Clear this shit, he says, nodding to the bleeding man. Is the boat ready?

Nasty nods. He walks past him to go change. He scrubbed the blood off his skin and removed the stained clothes. He looked at his reflection in the bucket, counting down from five repeatedly, slowing his breathing each time. Utibe stood still, thinking about the consequences of what he’d just done. He needed to call his wife and tell her to get to Uyo through Oron till all of this blew over.

How long will this go on for?

Nasty interrupted his thoughts to inform him the boat was ready. Have you called Sunny? He asks. Nasty says he’s not picking his phone. When he does, tell him to meet me in Big Qua.

He hurried to the waiting speed boat to return to what he was doing. The boat made the eight-minute trip from the Graveyard to Marina Resort. Utibe jumped out and walked straight to the carousel, where someone was standing guard. He signalled to the guard; a cousin he trusted.

Daddy!

His daughter gets off the slowing carousel, runs to him and jumps. He catches her and she squeals as he throws her higher. He holds her up as she smiles at him. Where’s the ice cream you said you’d get for me?

Ohh. I forgot. He tells her he is sorry and kisses her cheeks repeatedly. She giggles.

She looks down at his shirt. Where did you change your shirt? He drops her but holds onto her hand. He knows he needs to keep her safe. Hopefully Uyo would be enough while he wages war to secure their home.

Did you have fun? He asks her. She says the carousel stopped working but the operator pushed them around three times till they brought light. He laughs. Let’s get you that ice cream.

Yayy.

He tells his cousin to bring the car around and while his cousin runs to go get the car, they stand by the waterfront.

You are sad, she says as they watch the water lap up against the shore. What’s wrong daddy? Her intuition was always spot on. Was his unease that obvious?

He smiles at her. I’m not sad oh.

She takes his hand. Whatever it is, it will be okay eh.

Such a bright mind, years ahead of her small, frail body.

They walk away from the waterfront. As they wait for his cousin to bring the car, his phone vibrates. He pulls it out and sees that he’s received a message from Nasty.

NASTY: SUNNY DEAD. THE VIPERS ARE COMING.

Utibe froze. He looked around and before he spoke, there was a dull percussive thud in the distance. His head jerks backwards and his hands flail in the air and he falls. His daughter stands there, staring in shock at the pooling blood, and the hole that has been drilled through her father’s head by a bullet.

III. THE LESSER EVIL

I look at the food before me and put my hand in the bowl set aside for hand-washing. As my hand emerges from the water, it is trembling. I can feel the dread flowing through my body and I cannot get any of it under control before my fiancee notices. She drops her bowl of soup and takes my hand, steadying it. Nsido mfana? She asks. What is the problem?

The words are stuck in my throat.

You can trust me, Theo, she says What is wrong?

I shake my head; I worry that if I tell her this, I lose her completely. Years ago, I fought at the Northern borders, protecting this damn country from terrorists it pays to destroy itself. No one talks about how much it sucks, to lose your comrades to a country that does not care for you. After death tried to take me the fourth time, I packed my bags and left. We met a few months after I had resigned my commission in the Nigerian army and entered the private sector.

In my time in this field, I’d done some things I was not necessarily proud of, but none like this. I had to do it. I say

Okay. She does not let go of me. She wants to know what I refer to. She wants to know who I had killed.

I told her; It was a standard job. I’d been paid by bad people to kill other bad people. I followed the first person to a construction site in Odukpani; where he came to oversee some work. Maybe a house he was building? I did not know. Now he would never live in it. I killed Sunny Akan, the man the vipers claimed was set to inherit the entire graveyard and the Municipal underground. His older brother Utibeima Akan, known to those who lived in the dark as Baphomet, the king of the Graveyard, was the other target.

I would have to kill the Crocodile of Marina.

I was high in an observation tower next to the GeePee tank near the waterfront, waiting for my target to arrive. I adjusted my rifle’s scope and then I saw him; a tall man in his thirties walking by the carousel. In one hand he held his phone and in the other, the tiny hand of his daughter, a little girl in a blue dress, who was hanging a tiny pink handbag. I do not know that I want to be the man who took a little girl’s father; it is one thing to do it when he’s alone but in her presence?

I could wire the Viper’s money back to them; the payment was made anonymously, so they wouldn’t know how to find me. In the moment before I made my decision, I saw them. I narrowed my rifle’s scope to get a better view; fifteen men all dressed in black with blood-red berets. The Viper confraternity did not take chances, and even though I’d been paid to kill him, they still sent their insurance policies, known for wiping out entire communities on their infamous rampages. They would capture the crocodile and his daughter and torture them both before killing them. I stiffened, aware that suddenly I was the lesser evil; I had to kill him...I squeezed the trigger, releasing the first bullet. Accounting for the wind and the angle of elevation, I would make a headshot.

I’d heard stories; of how the viper enforcers were devoid of emotion. They’d killed a father once, used a machete on his pregnant wife’s belly, while her young daughter watched. Then they turned on the little girl; they tried to rape her and cut her open because she was too tight. I shuddered at the thought. Monsters

I took a deep breath. I have to do it

I switched targets and reloaded, the Vipers heard the shots, but they were not phased. The hope I had that they would scatter when I fired was extinguished as I saw them closing in on her. I look at her in my scope; wide-eyed in confusion at the fallen body of her father. She turns and I know that she sees a horde of men running at her and I can see the horrible things they would do to her. I squeeze the trigger again and close my eyes once I’m done...

My fiance does not move when I finish my story. I look over at her, and see her gentle eyes. You had to do it. You chose to spare her the suffering.

Daddy?

I turn and spot Eden, my three-year-old, standing at the entrance to the dining room. She walks towards me and lifts her hands. I pick her up and all I can see is the pink bag on the floor. I pull Eden closer as I feel the first sobs rattle my chest.

I had to do it.