"The local authorities found another woman dead in Boko, near St. Lawrence University, with teeth marks on her neck," Ahmed Kissamo said through the TV. A well-known news anchor for Tanzania's TBC, Ahmed's big ass forehead covered the whole screen while he spoke. Damn, it was distracting. "We've had five victims so far: all women, studied at St. Lawrence University, lived alone, and came from outside Dar Es Salaam. The authorities say a pack of wild dogs are responsible, and they hope to catch the canines before they kill again."

I turned off the TV and sighed. Wild dogs weren't at fault—it was those stupid werehyenas and their uncontrollable night transformations. The moment the clock hit midnight—boom!—they shifted. And the fact the self-proclaimed "monster hunters" hadn't been able to find them up to now was a testament to how poor the hunting community had become. What was so hard about catching werehyenas? They were hyenas, for fuck's sake, not lions!

It didn't take two balls and a pair of tits to realize the werehyenas were also students at the university.

I rubbed my forehead with my forefinger, chasing away a potential headache. Watching hunters fail to do their job was such a pain in the ass. And there were so many of them too: demon hunters, monster hunters, ghost hunters, angel hunters—all useless.

If only they had accepted my offer of being my disciples. I would've taught them so much about hunting and magic usage. Instead, they labeled me a con woman with no life experience.

Ebo! Me? Binti Nasra—the first, middle, and last—didn't have the life experience of being a teacher? Mxiu! Shame on them. Shame on all of them. Just because I was charging a price of 50,000 Tshs an hour for my intellect didn't mean I was a con.

I was rather... um... there was a word for it. Something, something, con was the opposite of pro. Whatever that means.

"Are you alright?" Mama Joni asked from behind me.

I turned and saw a frown on her face. She was a chubby, dark-skinned woman with large hands and feet. During the day, she sold food from her shack at a cheap price. And at night, she took care of Joni—her son. He was her pride and joy, and the only person she had left after her husband died years ago.

"I'm fine. You?"

Her red eyes showed the tears that had been there earlier, and were now temporarily at a halt, waiting to see the results of me being here.

What can I say? I gave people hope.

She tugged the midsection of her grey button-down dress. "I'm worried."

Eh! That wasn't what I wanted to hear. I placed my hand on her shoulder. "Don't be. I'm here now. If anyone can save your son, it's me. What's my name?"

"Binti Nasra."

"And what's my job?"

"Dealing with occult thingies."

I patted her shoulder. "Don't forget that."

Mama Joni reminded me of my mother; tough, kind, and loving. The love she had for her son was like that of my mother and brothers—being a middle child left me forgotten most times.

Pastor Hans entered the living room, panting and sweating like a pig. "Nothing works on it. This makes little sense. It's a demon. Faith Magic should work on it. It has to. It's faith magic. It comes from God himself."

The frustration on his face made me grin. I had told him faith magic wouldn't work on the type of demon we were dealing with, but he didn't listen. And this was the problem with the clergy; they thought they were better at things they knew nothing about. Their seminars told them faith magic was unstoppable, and they believed it. Then when they entered the real world, they realized they had been duped.

"Vanas differ from other demons," I said with half a shrug. "But what do I know? I'm just a con woman, right?"

"Yes, you are."

I gasped, placing my hand on my chest. The nerve on the bastard. Mxiu!

A vana was a soul that had escaped damnation and hitched a ride in a human's body, acting like a parasite while it fed on its host's soul before jumping to another.

Faith magic didn't work on vanas because they had already faced judgment. Someone—or something—was freeing them from a life of burning, and I had no clue who it was.

Mama Joni came close to me and whispered. "Please go help my son. This man can't do it, but he's too proud to admit it."

"Alright." I nodded at her.

"The magic of God is more powerful than anything in this world. If it didn't work on the demon, then nothing will," Pastor Hans said as I walked past him.

Sometimes, I believed the clergy was cursed with stupidity. All of them. There was no way they should have been this stubborn to facts. No way. I nearly shoved my foot down his throat to shut him up. But sadly, that wouldn't have helped. If I wanted to teach him a lesson by shitting on his fragile ego, then I had to show off. People—Me—called me the best occult detective in the world for a reason.

A narrow hallway filled with children's toys stood between the kitchen, Joni's room, living room, and entrance to the house. Entering Joni's room, I found him lying on his bed. The room's tidiness took me by surprise. My brothers had given me the impression boys' rooms were supposed to be like a dumpster truck.

A small table to the right side of the bed had candles on it, their honey scent filling the room. A wooden closet with a mirror on its door stood to the left, and next to it was a basket full of folded clothes.

A breeze came through the open window to the right, blowing loose strands of my hair on my face. I tucked them behind my ears and inhaled—the night air always smelled good.

Staring at Joni's milky-white eyes, I hadn't known he was this far gone. Mama Joni had said her son started acting weird after coming home from buying groceries. He could move objects without touching them and had an unnaturally deep voice, which he used to threaten her life.

After realizing a demon possessed her son, Mama Joni struck him on the head with a frying pan, then called Pastor Hans—who proved useless—before needing my services.

By my estimation, the vana had possessed Joni in the last eight to ten hours. But the thing was, it should have taken at least a day for his eyes to change to milky-white.

Vanas didn't work this fast.

Something was wrong.

Sitting beside Joni, I closed my left hand into a fist, activating my moon magic. A surge of energy increased within, like someone was slowly turning up the volume, making me clench my jaw. When it was at maximum capacity, my body hummed with raw power.

Moon magic was intoxicating, like that old boyfriend you couldn't stop going back to no matter how much of a fuck boy he was.

In the wrong hands, it could do a lot of damage.

Sadly, a lot of sorcerers thought I was the "wrong hands".

"Your tattoos are glowing," Pastor Hans said.

I always got weird glances from people because of the white tattoos all over my body. Tattoos weren't a common thing in Tanzania. So for someone to have white ones was blasphemy—especially in the eyes of the religious zealots. But I had no say in the matter; they came with the moon magic.

I placed my right hand on Joni's chest. It was cold, reminding me of the time I hid in a freezer from a family of popobawa, hoping they wouldn't pick up my scent. Focusing my magic on my palm, I sent a jolt to Joni's body.

Black smoke—the vana's true form—slithered out of Joni's mouth and covered the boy's body like a cocoon. It looked like a jelly-like monster had swallowed Joni. Truthfully, that was the easiest explanation. Vanas possessed people by wrapping their smoke-like elastic form around them, displaying their symbiotic nature.

The vana sat upright and stared at me with its milky-white eyes. Its large, muscular body nearly touched the ceiling while the bed looked to be on its last legs. It looked more like a parasite than a demon.

"I've been waiting for you," it said with a deep voice, then glanced at Pastor Hans and smiled, revealing its sharp black teeth and long tongue. "He thought he could exorcise me with faith magic. I'm offended."

"Forget him; he's an idiot." I tapped the vana's shoulder, and it turned towards me. "Why were you waiting for me?"

"I have a message for you."

"From who?"

"A woman I've never seen before. And I've seen a lot of women." It licked its lips.

I didn't like how comfortable the vana looked while possessing Joni. What I feared may have happened—I was still hoping that wasn't the case. "What did she say?"

"This city will be hers soon, and there's nothing you can do about it."

"A city full of sorcerers more powerful than me, and she chose me to tell that to?" I hated vague messages; they reminded me of puzzles my brothers used to force me to complete to improve my short-term memory and problem-solving ability. Kha! Like I needed that during adolescence. "Anything else?"

The vana collapsed on the bed, and its jelly-like body slid off Joni like a car on a wet road. Then it transformed back into black smoke and hovered above everyone in the room.

"I guess that's a no."

I expected an attack. Instead, a normal hell portal with scorching flames opened on the floor in front of the bed, threatening to burn down the room as they rose and dipped like ocean waves. But no matter how hard they burned, hellfire only hurt its intended target. And no one in the room was it.

Beneath the flames came the voices of billions upon billions of people screaming and crying for help.

"Is that a gateway to Hell?" Pastor Hans asked with widened eyes and sweat covering his forehead and nose.

"Yes," I said.

He removed his black jacket and white clerical collar, then unbuttoned the top three buttons of his black shirt. "I can't breathe. I need to breathe." He wheezed while leaving the room.

"Goodbye, Binti Nasra," the vana said, then dove into the portal. It closed right after.

Standing there quietly, I processed what had happened. The demon knowing my name wasn't surprising; I came from a family of occult detectives known by all supernatural forces in Tanzania.

What had alarmed me was the fact someone else had opened and closed the portal—that person had to be close by. They could've been watching and listening to us the entire time, and I hadn't noticed their presence even once, which was a first.

Only two groups of sorcerers had the magic power and knowledge to call upon and exorcise vanas: grim reapers, and necromancers.

I had no quarrels with grim reapers—only fools did.

That left out one group: necromancers.

Those dirty bastards. It had to be one of them who sent the vana to deliver the message. It had to be.

My chest burned with anxiousness, and my hands shook from nervousness. This was the first time since losing my soul I felt tense. A necromancer coming after me wasn't a good thing, but I wasn't one to back down from a fight. I wanted all the smoke.

"Binti Nasra," Pastor Hans called from beside me.

I hadn't noticed his return to the room: he had the clerical collar back around his neck, his shirt buttoned to the top, and wore his jacket.

He sat beside Joni on the opposite side of the bed. "I can't feel his pulse." Pastor Hans' hands were on the boy's neck and wrist.

What I feared had happened: the vana had eaten Joni's soul.

I hated this part of the job. I couldn't stand it. Having to be the bearer of bad news to the victim's parents and loved ones was never easy. It always made me think of my family and the day I would receive that dreadful call. I couldn't stand the idea of it. It turned my stomach into knots and forced my organs to play jump rope with it.

Pastor Hans stared at Joni's body with tears in his eyes. The realization he had wasted his time and energy trying to expel a demon from a corpse must've broken his spirits.

Reality was fucking cruel, and only the strong-willed and strong-minded survived it. Pastor Hans was fresh out of The Ministry—a religious organization that trained sorcerers to exorcise demons and kill monsters. Soon, he would learn the limitations of faith magic, and he'd either grow strong from it by embracing other magic forms or slumber away into mediocrity like most.

"Get yourself together," I said while turning away from him and heading for the exit. "We still have to tell Mama Joni."