NARA:
The phone call came three days after I stopped pretending my life made sense.
Three days of Ezrael sleeping on my couch—or not sleeping, just lying there with his eyes closed, looking like a Renaissance painting of Beautiful Damnation. Three days of jumping at shadows that moved wrong. Three days of teaching myself not to stare at the way light caught the silver scars beneath his skin, tracing celestial law like script I was learning to read.
Three days of pretending I didn't feel him breathing when I was two rooms away.
I was in the back office, sorting through my mother's old files—receipts, exhibition catalogues, letters written in her neat Igbo script—when my phone buzzed against the desk. The vibration sent a stack of invoices skittering to the floor.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
My thumb hovered over the screen. After Adanne's visit, after watching shadows move like liquid across my walls, I'd learned that unknown could mean anything from NEPA's latest scam to something with wings and teeth.
I answered anyway. "Hello?"
Static crackled, thick and wrong, like the line was calling from somewhere electricity didn't quite work properly. Then a voice—male, rough with age and cigarettes—cut through.
"Nara Obiakor?"
My chest tightened. I knew that voice. Hadn't heard it in seven years, but memory has roots deeper than time.
"Uncle Chukwudi?"
A sharp exhale, relief mixed with something darker. "Nara. Chineke m o." (My God.) "I wasn't sure you'd answer."
Inspector Chukwudi. My father's partner from the police force, back when Papa was still alive and the world made sense. I'd seen him at the funeral—standing at the back in his worn uniform, face carved from grief, refusing to meet my eyes.
"Uncle, why are you—"
"Listen to me carefully." His voice dropped, urgent and strained. "Your mother's death. The fire at the gallery. It wasn't an accident."
The floor seemed to tilt beneath me. I gripped the desk edge, knuckles white. "What?"
"It was murder, Nara. Targeted. I've been investigating on my own—quietly, you understand. Too quietly. But I have evidence now. Documents. Names." He paused, and I heard traffic in the background, the blare of Lagos horns. "We need to meet. Tonight. I can't talk about this over the phone."
My mother's face flashed through my mind—warm and alive, laughing as she showed me how to mix burnt sienna and ochre. Then the other memory: the gallery engulfed, flames licking the night sky orange, firefighters pulling her body out in a bag.
Accidental electrical fire, they'd said. Faulty wiring. Old building.
I'd believed them because believing was easier than the alternative.
"Who—" My voice cracked. "Who wanted her dead?"
"Not over the phone," Chukwudi repeated, sharper now. "Meet me at Mama Ngozi's bar in Surulere. You know it?"
I did. A quiet spot, tucked between a phone repair shop and a fabric store. Dim lighting, older crowd, the kind of place where people went to disappear into their drinks without being bothered.
"I know it," I said.
"Come at nine. Alone."
"Uncle—"
"Alone, Nara. Don't tell anyone. Not your friends, not—" He hesitated. "Not anyone staying with you."
My blood went cold. "How do you know someone's staying with me?"
"Because I know your family better than you think." His voice softened, almost pitying. "Your mother was protecting something. A secret. It's why they killed her. And if you don't learn what it is, they'll come for you next."
The line went dead before I could respond.
I sat there, phone pressed to my ear, listening to silence that felt heavier than it should. My hands trembled. The office walls seemed to close in, shadows pooling in the corners like they were waiting for something.
When I finally looked up, Ezrael was standing in the doorway.
"How long have you been there?" I asked.
"Long enough." His silver eyes tracked my face, reading every micro-expression. "Who was that?"
I told him. All of it. The fire, the funeral, the seven-year hole in my chest that had calcified into quiet grief. By the time I finished, his expression had gone carefully blank—the look of someone preparing for war.
"You're not going," he said.
"Excuse me?"
"It's a trap."
I stood, anger flaring hot and sudden. "You don't know that."
"I know that everyone connected to your bloodline is either dead or hiding." He stepped into the room, and the temperature seemed to drop. "I know that celestial forces don't announce themselves with phone calls. They use mortals—people you trust—to draw you out."
"Chukwudi isn't some random stranger. He was my father's best friend."
"Which makes him the perfect bait."
"You're being paranoid."
"I'm being realistic." His voice was low, controlled, but beneath it I could feel the bond between us humming with tension. "If your mother was killed for protecting something, that something is connected to you. To what you are. Whoever killed her won't hesitate to finish the job."
"Then I need to know what she was protecting." I grabbed my jacket from the chair. "I need to know why she died."
"Nara—"
"I'm going, Ezrael." I met his eyes, and something in my tone must have told him I wasn't negotiating. "With or without you."
Silence stretched between us—thick, charged, crackling like lightning gathering in storm clouds. Outside, Lagos hummed its eternal song: generators, traffic, the call-to-prayer echoing from a distant mosque.
Finally, Ezrael exhaled. "Then I'm coming with you."
"He said alone."
"And I said I'm coming." He moved closer, close enough that I could see the faint pulse of light beneath his skin, like stars trying to break through midnight. "You're not walking into danger without me. That's non-negotiable."
Part of me wanted to argue. The other part—the part that had seen shadows with wings—felt relief flood through me like warm water.
"Fine," I said. "But you stay outside until I signal."
"Define 'signal.'"
"If I scream, that's your cue."
His mouth twitched. "Comforting."
EZRAEL:
Mama Ngozi's bar was exactly what I'd expected—cramped, dim, smelling of palm wine and decades of cigarette smoke pressed into the walls. The kind of place where humans came to forget, temporarily, that the world was larger and darker than they wanted to believe.
Nara insisted I wait outside, tucked into the shadows of the alley beside the building. I agreed, but only because I could feel her through the bond—every breath, every spike of fear masked as determination.
If anything went wrong, I'd be through that door before her next heartbeat.
I leaned against the concrete wall, feeling the city pulse around me. Lagos at night was a living thing—electric, hungry, vibrating with a thousand prayers and curses spoken into darkness. Somewhere above, celestial eyes watched. Below, infernal ones waited.
And here, caught between, was Nara.
The woman I'd fallen for across lifetimes, walking into a trap I couldn't prevent.
Through the bond, I felt her enter the bar. Felt her scan the room. Then—recognition, followed by a spike of grief so sharp it made my chest ache.
She'd found him.
NARA:
Inspector Chukwudi looked older than I remembered. Grayer. Thinner. He sat in the back corner booth, hunched over a bottle of Star beer, his face etched with lines that hadn't been there seven years ago.
When he saw me, something in his expression cracked.
"Nara." He stood, awkward, like he wasn't sure whether to hug me or keep his distance. "You came."
"You said it was about my mother." I slid into the booth across from him. "Of course I came."
He sat back down, glancing around the bar with the practiced paranoia of someone who'd spent too long looking over his shoulder. The bartender—a heavy-set woman with a wrapper tied around her waist—paid us no attention, wiping glasses with mechanical efficiency.
"I need you to understand," Chukwudi began, voice low. "What I'm about to tell you—it's going to sound insane."
I laughed, brittle. "Try me."
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a worn manila folder, sliding it across the table. Inside were photographs—my mother, younger, standing beside people I didn't recognize. Documents in Igbo and English. And at the bottom, a photocopy of something that made my breath catch.
A symbol. The same symbol from the mural in the gallery.
"Your mother," Chukwudi said, "was a guardian. Her family—your family—they've been protecting something for generations. A shrine. In your ancestral village in Enugu State."
I stared at the symbol, feeling something stir in my chest. Recognition. Memory I shouldn't have.
"What kind of shrine?"
"The old kind. The kind that existed before missionaries came. Before anyone tried to tame what couldn't be tamed." He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Ala. Amadioha. Ekwensu. The old gods, Nara. Your ancestors were their priests."
My mouth went dry. "That's just mythology."
"Is it?" His eyes bore into mine. "Then how do you explain what happened six months ago? When your mother died and the fire burned only the section of the gallery where she kept her most sacred paintings? When eyewitnesses said the flames looked like they were reaching for something?"
I couldn't answer. My hands trembled on the table.
Chukwudi continued, relentless. "Your mother knew something was coming. She'd been getting threats—calls in the middle of the night, strange men watching the gallery. She told me she was trying to seal something away, to protect you from a legacy you weren't ready for."
"A legacy of what?"
"Power, Nara. Divine blood. You're not just Igbo—you're descended from the first priestesses who walked between worlds. Your mother tried to sever that connection, to give you a normal life. But you can't outrun blood."
The room felt too small. Too hot. I wanted to stand, to run, but my legs wouldn't obey.
"Who killed her?"
"The Veil of Ash." He said the name like a curse. "A secret order. Part cult, part witch coven, part something older. They hunt bloodlines like yours. They wanted what your mother was protecting—the key to the shrine. The thing that keeps the old gods sealed."
His words echoed what Ezrael had told me, but hearing it from someone human—someone I'd known since childhood—made it real in a way that terrified me.
"My sister—she was your mother's age-mate," Chukwudi said quietly, almost pleading. "Biko, help me, Nara. The family is in mourning. I just need to understand—"
He paused, switching to English, his accent thickening. "Oya, help me small. My sister, na her mate. The family dey cry their eyes out. I just need one small thing wey fit help." (Please, help me a little. My sister—she's her age-mate. The family is crying their eyes out. I just need something that can help.)
"What do you need?" I whispered.
"The shrine's location. Your mother left you something—a map, coordinates, something. If we can find it first, we can stop them. We can end this before—"
The lights went out.
Complete, absolute darkness. The kind that felt deliberate. Wrong.
I heard Chukwudi's sharp intake of breath. Heard the bartender curse softly in Yoruba. Then—silence. Too much silence.
"Uncle?" My voice trembled.
No answer.
Then, from somewhere in the dark, a wet, choking sound.
When the lights flickered back on, Chukwudi's eyes were wide, staring at nothing. Blood bloomed across his throat, spreading like dark wings across his shirt.
His body slumped forward onto the table.
I opened my mouth to scream.
A hand—cold, impossibly strong—clamped over my lips from behind.
"Quiet now, prophet." The voice was female, smooth as silk and sharp as broken glass. "We've been waiting for you."
I struggled, kicking, but the grip tightened. Through the corner of my eye, I saw them—shadows peeling away from the walls, taking shape. Three figures. Maybe four. Their eyes gleamed like oil catching firelight.
The bartender stood frozen behind the counter, her expression blank. Possessed. Used.
"Your mother thought she could hide you," the voice purred against my ear. "Thought if she died, the bloodline would end. But gods don't forget, nne. (Mother.) And we never stopped watching."
My hands—I don't know why—began to burn.
Golden light erupted from my palms, sudden and violent. The woman behind me shrieked, releasing me. I stumbled forward, crashing into the booth, Chukwudi's blood soaking into my jacket.
The light spread, wild and uncontrolled, turning the bar into a cage of radiance. The shadow-creatures recoiled, hissing like oil on water.
"What is she?" one of them snarled.
"More than we expected," another answered, voice layered with hunger. "Take her. Now."
They moved as one, closing in—
And then the door exploded inward.
Ezrael stepped through, wings unfurled—black and fractured and glorious—celestial fire burning along their edges. His eyes blazed silver-white, ancient and terrible.
"Touch her," he said, voice resonating like thunder through stone, "and I'll show you what happens when Heaven falls twice."
The creatures hesitated. Just for a heartbeat.
It was enough.
Ezrael moved like lightning given form—too fast to track, too brutal to be called holy. His blade manifested from light and shadow, cutting through the first creature before it could scream. The second lunged at him; he caught it mid-air, slamming it into the ground hard enough to crack concrete.
I stood frozen, light still pouring from my hands, unable to stop it. Unable to understand it.
The third creature turned to me, desperation overriding caution. It dove—
And I raised my hands instinctively.
The light exploded outward, a wave of pure, searing radiance that burned through shadow like paper. The creature's scream was cut short, reduced to ash that dissolved before it hit the ground.
Silence crashed down.
I stared at my hands—glowing, trembling, wrong—and felt something inside me crack open. Not break. Open. Like a door I'd been standing in front of my entire life, finally unlocked.
"What's happening to me?" My voice was small, broken.
Ezrael was beside me in an instant, his wings folding around us both. "You're awakening."
"I don't want to awaken." Tears burned my eyes. "I want my mother back. I want—"
"I know." His hand cupped my face, thumb brushing away a tear that glowed gold against my skin. "I know."
Behind us, Chukwudi's body lay still. Around us, the bar was destroyed—blood and ash and shattered glass.
And in my hands, the light continued to burn.
Ezrael's expression was grim. "We need to leave. More will come."
"But he—" I looked at Chukwudi's body, grief twisting in my chest.
"He's gone, Nara. And if we stay, we will be too."
He was right. I knew he was right. But it felt like drowning anyway.
Ezrael pulled me toward the door, his wings shielding us from the eyes I could feel watching from every shadow. As we stepped into the Lagos night—humid and electric and alive—I heard it.
A whisper on the wind, layered with voices that shouldn't exist.
"The guardian's daughter wakes. The seal weakens. Soon, the old gods will remember their names."
And somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled—though the sky was clear.