The Trial Of Summary James — Chapter Seven

A great African nation has risen in North America. But something is… wrong. Chapter 7 of 20 in the novella.

Nov 10, 2024

I awoke in a black room. If I had been able to put my finger in front of me, I wouldn’t have been able to see it.

I tried to piece together my last conscious minutes, but had trouble remembering anything more than a nasty cat video. This situation would not do.

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As my mind began to work out of its fog, I realized I was sitting on a chair with my hands tied behind my back.

Then I remembered the little Haitian man. I had been to several islands in the Haitian Republic, including Hispaniola, a few times. This was not the kind of hospitality I was used to. The Haitian Republic wasn’t just beautiful on the outside. The disposition of its people was almost a spiritual experience, none of it contrived. It abounded with grace.

Trigger warning: A bit of violent torture.

But then, His Eminence was no longer Haitian, was he? He had left for some reason, one I’d never likely discover. He had fled his own people. Somewhere along the way, he had become vicious. I knew I should leave the moment I saw the weird video.

When the video’s sequel appeared in the form of Alon, I should have made for the doors with wild abandon. I tried to figure out which moment he poisoned me. It had to be the tea, but how, at that point, did he know I was after one of his henchmen? And what, exactly, was this guy up to down here? I surveyed the blackness around me and didn’t like my chances of finding the answers.

My legs were free. A curious mistake, I thought. The chair was heavy, though. I tried to stand up while tied to the chair, but was unsuccessful. I wondered if the chair was bolted to the ground. I considered the likelihood that my phone was left on the table in the evil cat room. It was my lifeline to getting some help.

If they turned it off, Trace would get an alert, then do some kind of Trace thing. I imagined him using his lab to quickly bake an army of sword-wielding skeletons that would descend at light speed upon this place and send Alon scurrying away to hide under the nearest rock.

Trace would also respond somehow if they tried to mess with my phone in some way. My phone was set up so that if a foreign thumbprint made its way on the screen more than one time within the space of a minute or so, Trace would know.

The problem, of course, was that he was in Nzâmbi City, and I was in South Florida. As far as I knew, he didn’t have an army of skeletons or real people that could travel at light speed. A lack of phone movement would also eventually get Trace’s attention, but not soon enough to help. It seemed like I was on my own. I didn’t know what Alon was up to, but I needed to hope that his intent was just to put a little scare in me for some reason.

That reason then burst through the doors, accompanied by a blinding light. Horse Luemba, in the flesh, looking a bit more imposing in real life than he did in his picture and in my vision, barreled into the room, the door banging hard against the wall, with an even larger man behind him.

Luemba was big; not as tall as me, but wider. I had a lithe, cut body, whereas Luemba was only a few inches shorter but stockier with bloated veins that looked like they visited the weight room every day.

The other guy looked like a triceratops. His skin was almost a dark grey leather. He was wearing an assortment of beads and a big chain necklace carrying a large crucifix under an unbuttoned, sleeveless grey leather vest that erupted with massive shoulders. Both men had an array of complex tattoos that suggested they were ready to rumble rather than help maintain congregational piety.

Luemba was laughing when he looked at me. “Look at you,” he hissed. “Impersonating a priest.” He looked at his bald partner, who watched with a fixed, unreadable expression. The new light in the room was still so bright that I had trouble seeing the two men. I could see tats and largeness, but that was about all. And Luemba’s square afro, of course.

I wondered if he knew they forgot to tie my legs. For now, they were keeping a safe distance. I didn’t have a plan for escaping this mess, but I knew it would have to involve using my legs, which meant that not one, but both men would need to be closer than they were.

If I could kick one of them, that might draw the other one close enough for me to kick him, too, but that seemed like bad odds. I’d have to weigh out the situation because I knew they may be my only odds. Kick one, draw the other. It didn’t seem like a very good plan.

“Why are you looking for me?” asked Luemba.

“I like horses,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Haha, we’ve got a funny man here. You know we Seminoles love a good laugh more than most people. He likes horses,” he faked a laugh. “What do you think, Rhino?”

So the other guy went by the name of Rhino. That seemed about right. Rhino’s expression remained fixed. No smile, no frown, no look of anger or disgust or lust for violence. Nothing.

Luemba got serious. “Why are you looking for me?”

“We have mutual business.”

“I don’t think so. Tell me why you are looking for me.” He pulled out an action figure. It looked a lot more like me than it should have. “My boy, he loves these things. Made me outfit a whole battalion of these little dudes. Of course, that was before I killed his mother. Now he doesn’t talk to me.”

He tilted the action figure upside down and back upright again, examining it as if making a purchasing decision. He shoved it in front of my face. I thought about showing off my kicking skills, but it wasn’t right. I couldn’t find a good strike angle. “Do you think it looks sufficiently like you?”

I was quiet.

“I really do need you to tell me why you were looking for me.” He pulled the action figure away from me and walked around the room, fiddling with the action figure’s arm. I felt a strange tightness in my rotator cuff.

“You know where I’m from,” I said. “You know why I’m looking for you.”

“I know where you said you are from. But you’re an impostor. So no, I do not know where you are from. And you will tell me.” He pulled the arm off the action figure and threw it on the ground. I felt an agonizing, unbearable pain shoot through my shoulder. I could tell it was separated.

Good God, I thought, does this voodoo nonsense actually work? My eyes were watering from the agony. If he had more of this in mind, I had no idea how I would cope. I was tough, but this kind of situation isn’t like it is in the movies. People really can only take so much. Although he was just getting started, I knew I had limits. I didn’t know what they were, but I was alone in this room with these guys. If I didn’t come up with something, well, I couldn’t even contemplate that.

“You know, the beautiful thing about this,” said Luemba, looking again at his sadistic toy, “is that it is all so effortless. I don’t need to hit you or slap you around, or any of that nasty stuff.” He paced around the room a little.

“Small confession, Rhino, I’m ashamed to admit to.” He looked at Rhino, who was still wearing an emotionless face. “But I don’t like violence.” He leaned into Rhino to whisper to him, loudly enough to make sure I heard, “I never told you that!”

He continued, “I don’t like to hit people. Truth is, it makes me squeamish.” Then he pulled off one of the hands from the action figure. Instantly, my left hand felt like it had been crushed under a car tire. I screamed as my eyes filled with water, and I felt sick to my stomach.

I looked at my hand swelling up to three times the size it had been a few seconds earlier. Luemba, the man who claimed he didn’t like to hit people, wore the same crooked smile he wore when he killed Sonoma Williams with a baseball bat. He glared at me out of the corner of his eyes as if he wasn’t capable of looking anyone straight on.

“Why. Are. You. Looking. For. Me.”

He started to slowly twist the head of the action figure. Just barely, just enough for me to see and feel. My neck muscles tightened around the bottom vertebrae of my cervical spine, which felt like it was getting blasted with a propane torch. I couldn’t take any more of this. Luemba looked like he was just barely out of reach, but I tried anyway, thrusting a rapid kick outward that somehow knocked the action figure from his hand.

I was able to follow that immediately with a kick from my other leg, which caught Luemba on his lower jaw and drove it into his cheek as he fell backward. Rhino, making the mistake I was hoping for, approached me to deliver some punishment, but my kicks were like lightning bolts from the chair as I nailed him twice, once on each side of the head, then a third time right up the groin. I now had about one and a half seconds to find a way to untie myself from the chair.