Authors: Cathy MacPhail
He reached out a hand and touched Mosi’s shoulder. ‘You were brilliant, Mosi.’
‘I shouldn’t have done it.’ The words came out in a sob. ‘I should not have done it.’
‘Hey, pal, I could have been sliced and diced there, and you saved me.’
Mosi peered at him through his open fingers.
‘But now they will tell everyone how I can fight and then . . .’
Patrick smiled. ‘Is that all you’re worried about? That bunch telling what happened here? Are you jokin’, Mosi? You think that JD and the rest of them are going to broadcast that they were beat by one wee asylum seeker? That they left here running like scared rabbits.’ He laughed. ‘I don’t think you’ll have to worry on that score. I mean, there is no way they are going to tell anybody that.’
Mosi drew his hands away from his face. He held Patrick’s gaze. ‘You are sure about this?’
‘I can guarantee it. You will have to watch them from now on . . . but I think they’ll be too scared to come near you.’
Mosi let out a long sigh. ‘I hope you’re right.’
‘But I don’t understand why you want it to be a secret. You’re the best fighter I’ve ever seen, and you let everybody think you’re a coward. I mean . . . where did you ever learn to fight like that, Mosi?’
Was Patrick right? Mosi was thinking. Would those boys be too ashamed to tell? He hoped so. If he still prayed, he would pray for such a thing.
Patrick repeated his question. ‘Go on, Mosi. You can trust me. Where did you learn to fight like that?’
Mosi looked hard at him. Could he tell him, tell him something he had told no one else here? He wanted to. But could he trust Patrick, and was it fair to tell him?
And then he saw again the moment when Patrick had his chance to escape. He could have left him to his fate. Mosi would never have fought those boys off. Never have risked them finding out that he could fight. But Patrick had not left him. Instead, Patrick had come rushing back, leaping on them, yelling at Mosi to run to safety. Risking the rage of a gang out of control to save someone who was hardly a friend. True bravery.
He knew in that moment that, in spite of Patrick’s jokes and smiles, here was someone he could rely on. Someone he could really trust.
And there, in the black darkness of an old abandoned garage on an estate in Glasgow, Mosi began to tell his story, and take Patrick with him on a journey to the heart of evil.
‘I was just an ordinary boy once. Back in my home in Somalia, I went to school, I played with my brothers. I worked with my father. We were poor but I was happy. I can remember the day everything changed. I was playing football in my village, my friends and I . . .’ Mosi began his story, his voice soft. So soft, Patrick moved closer beside him to listen.
‘My best friend was Asad. He was tall for his age, the best at football. We were laughing so much we didn’t hear the lorries coming into the village . . . until it was too late. The lorries were full of soldiers and we stood and stared at them. Some of the boys ran away. They were the lucky ones. But not Asad and I. We were fascinated. The soldiers looked so handsome in their uniforms, so brave with their guns slung across their shoulders. We waved at them and they waved back. I thought they were just driving through our village – there was a war going on somewhere, we knew that, but it seemed far away to us.
And then, one of the lorries slowed down. I saw two soldiers reach down for Asad, lift him off his feet and haul him into the lorry with them. He was still smiling, as if it was a game, but that was when I realised what was happening. I could see it in the soldiers’ faces. Their smiles disappeared. I became afraid, and it was too late because they had Asad. I called out his name. And I ran, hoping I could drag him free of them.’
‘And they took you as well,’ Patrick said in a whisper.
‘It was the last time I ever saw my . . .’ Mosi’s voice became a sob as if he could not bear to think of it. ‘My village.’ It was a moment before he began again.
‘The lorries left the village, snatching up other boys as they passed. Mothers and fathers ran from their houses, chasing the lorries, but they had no weapons and the soldiers were well armed. They began shooting into the crowd. I could hear screams and shouts. They pushed me on to the floor of the lorry. One of the soldiers held my head down with his foot. I was too afraid to call out.
‘We seemed to drive for miles. When they dragged us from the lorries it was dark. I saw Asad and tried to run to him, but they held me back. They put us in a line and told us we were soldiers now. One boy, even younger than me, began to cry. A soldier hit him with the butt of his rifle and none of us dared cry after that.
‘And that was when I first saw him . . .’
Patrick drew in his breath. ‘Mr Okafor?’
‘I could see his medals shining in the light from the fires, they made me blink. I could hear his voice. “You have no family now,” he told us. “I am your family. I am your papa. You will obey me in all things. And if you do not . . . I will know. Because I am magic. And I know everything.” And I believed him. We all believed him. “Remember my name,” he told us, and the name alone terrified us. “I am Papa Blood.” ’
‘Papa Blood . . .’ The name sent a shiver through Patrick too.
‘At first I was a runner. Whenever there was a battle, I ran with ammunition, or water, whatever the soldiers needed at the front.’
‘Sounds dangerous,’ said Patrick softly. There was a drip somewhere in the dark. It had started to rain again outside.
‘Of course it was dangerous. But we were not important. We were easily replaced. If one of us was killed, another was sent in their place. We had no choice. We could not refuse to fight.’ Mosi’s voice cracked. ‘Two boys tried. They tried to run away. But they were caught and dragged back. They made us all stand to attention and they stood them in front of us. Their hands were tied behind their backs.
‘And he came again. Closer this time. He walked among us and I had never been so afraid. I could see his face, the cruelty in his eyes. He said the boys were cowards, and there was only one way to deal with cowards.’ Mosi buried his face in his hands again. He said nothing for a moment.
‘What did he do to them?’ Patrick asked softly.
Mosi shook his head. ‘Don’t ever ask me to tell you that, Patrick.’
Because Mosi couldn’t bear to remember that moment. Remember the terror on those boys’ faces, and what Papa Blood did to them.
There, in front of them all.
‘No one refused to fight after that. I promised myself I would never risk his anger. After that day I really did become a soldier. I learned to shoot. Though most of the guns were bigger than I was. The first time I fired a Kalashnikov it threw me halfway into the jungle. But I learned. I learned how to use a machete. I learned how to fight. I had no mercy for anyone. I have done some terrible things, Patrick. Terrible things. But I wanted to survive, and Papa Blood had great magic, and we knew it was true. He knew everything. He could soar like a bird and see us, see if we held back during a battle, know if we tried to run away. He could become anything. The mosquito we brushed from our ear, the snake in the undergrowth. I was terrified of him. We all were.’
Again Mosi went quiet, and Patrick began to think he had finished his story. But after a moment he went on. ‘And now, I am going to tell you the worst thing . . . the worst thing ever.’ He was silent again, as if he needed to draw on every bit of strength he had to tell Patrick this.
‘One day he came, and made us all kneel on the ground. He walked past each of us. He would select three, he said, as an example of his magic. To show us how he got his power. He touched the head of one boy, I saw him tumble to the ground in fear. I kept my head down. He moved on and touched the head of another. I heard the boy scream, “No, no, no,” but they dragged him off. And then, and then . . . He was so close to me, I could have reached out my hand and touched him and I prayed to become invisible. I wanted his magic to make me invisible. I prayed for him to choose any other boy but me, any other boy, even my best friend, Asad.’
Mosi stopped. Pressed his knuckles against his lips.
‘And it was Asad he chose,’ Patrick said, knowing Mosi couldn’t bear to speak the words.
‘And that is when I knew I wasn’t human any longer. I was evil like him.’ Mosi couldn’t stop the tears now. ‘He killed them. He said their deaths would make him more powerful. But it was worse than that, Patrick.’
Patrick drew in a deep breath. He was almost too afraid to listen.
It seemed a long time before Mosi spoke again. ‘And then he drank their blood.’
Patrick’s spine turned to ice. How could Mosi have survived after seeing those things? Patrick had been worried about a vampire on the estate. But this monster was worse than any legend. This was real life.
‘Now I understand why you were so scared that night when you saw him. But you’re safe now, Mosi. Here.’
Mosi’s voice was a whisper. ‘Papa Blood has great magic, Patrick. That was what held us all there, terrified of what he would do to us if we disobeyed him. He could soar like a bird, change shapes, become anything he wanted.’
At that second, there was a sound, and a shadow passed across the doorway to the garage. Both boys jumped.
He was coming for them.
Then another shape joined the first. A girl giggling. The couple moved into a clinch, started kissing. Patrick breathed a sigh of relief. The boy and girl stood for a few moments more, then they moved off again.
‘Popular place for that kind of thing,’ he whispered to Mosi.
Mosi was pale with fear, and Patrick knew he had seen it too, that shadow, and had thought the same thing as him. In those seconds the monster had come back to get him.
‘We’ve got to get away,’ Mosi said.
‘There’s a boat leaving for South America, is that far enough?’
Mosi turned to him quickly, and a hint of a smile lit his face, just a hint, gone in an instant. ‘You always joke, even at a time like this, you can still joke.’
Patrick shrugged. ‘Would you prefer me to scream? I think I could manage that as well.’
Mosi shook his head. ‘I wish I could be like you.’
‘Well, that’s a first, somebody wanting to be like me.’ But it gave Patrick a good feeling that someone could think that way about him.
They got to their feet, and all the time Patrick was thinking of the story Mosi had told him. The horror of it.
They came out of the garage, checked left and right to see if anyone was watching them and ran on. The rain was coming down like steel spikes now. They stopped for a moment to shelter in a doorway.
‘It was him who killed Grady,’ Mosi said.
Grady. Patrick imagined his body, torn apart and bloodless. The story of Grady’s death was almost legend already. No one would ever believe the truth. But who needed truth when you had imagination?
Patrick bent over, hands on his knees, trying to get his breath back. Mosi stood straight, not out of breath at all. ‘You’re sure? He’d be risking getting found out if he killed Grady.’
Mosi went on. ‘Grady tries to hurt him. Grady dies. Yes, I am sure, Patrick. He would never allow anyone to hurt him, to humiliate him.’
‘We’ve got to go to the cops.’
‘Have you been listening to me, Patrick? I can’t go to the police. If they find out I’m . . .’ He stopped dead as if he was about to say something else. ‘I was a boy soldier, if they find out what I’ve done, they’ll send me back. They’ll send my parents back. No. I can’t go to the police.’
‘Well . . . I could go.’
‘And say what? You recognised Okafor as a wanted war criminal?’
‘I could have seen a photo of him on the internet.’
‘There are no photographs of him on the internet. No photos anywhere. That’s how he could hide so easily.’
Patrick would not give up. ‘I could say I suspect him, I think that he’s the one who’s been doing all those things around the estate, the cat, the blood. They would have to investigate, wouldn’t they?’
Mosi’s eyes went wide as footballs. ‘You would be in danger then, Patrick. Don’t you understand by now how evil this man is?’
‘But I’d be given police protection, a new identity.’ That sounded exciting. ‘Relocated . . . somewhere better than here.’
‘Then you would be just like me, Patrick, always afraid he would find you . . . come after you.’
‘But how would he find out?’ he whispered.
And Mosi sighed. ‘Magic ways, Patrick. He knows everything.’
Patrick held up his hands. ‘Don’t say another word,’ he said. Because the picture that came into his mind, one that grew bloodier by the second, was Grady’s fate in the cemetery.
‘But we can’t let him get away with this, Mosi. There has to be something we can do.’
The rain was a torrent, the sky grey black. The tower blocks closed around them like mountains. Mosi’s voice was as dark as the night. ‘I think he will win, Patrick. He always wins.’
Patrick tossed and turned all night. Couldn’t sleep. In a way, he didn’t want to. Sleep brought dreams, nightmares. Vampires wandering the estate, waiting for him in the underpass. In the darkness, clinging to the roof, ready to drop on to him. In the snatches of sleep he did manage, he was wandering the dark streets alone, heading home. He heard the swish of wings behind him and he swivelled round, and there looming above him was Papa Blood, arms wide, bared teeth a flash of steel. And he couldn’t get away. No matter how he ran.