14 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: DAUGHTERS OF EVE

Caesar was propped up in bed reading Arthur C. Clark's Of Time and Stars when his mobile phone burred again.

"Hello?"

"Hi! It's me Tony."

Caesar smiled. It was barely an hour after the young cop had left the residence and he was already calling him. He knew what for.

"Hi, Tony. What's up?"

There was a brief silence at the other end.

"Listen, what you saw is not what you think. Me and Belle are just friends."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Hey, Caesar, don't be difficult. It was just…"

"I don't know what you're talking about. Get my drift?"

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Another moment of silence.

"Sure, Caesar. Thanks."

"Don't thank me. Now is there anything of great importance you want to tell me?"

"Er… Yes. I checked on Ani's background. This will kill you. There is no background. No records whatsoever. No Birth Certificate, School Leaving Certificate, no nothing. It's like he doesn't even exist."

"In other words a ghost. There are too many ghosts already. The killer is a ghost because he can't be seen. The victims are ghosts because they have no next of kin and now our lovable bartender is a ghost as well. Kebby Creek is a ghost town."

"Very funny, Caesar."

"Thank you. Anything else?"

"Yeah. I traced that license plate number you gave me."

"So what gives?"

"It belongs to Plymouth Motoring Services, A car rental company. I checked who hired the car. Guess the name I saw? Vera Ixan."

Caesar whistled.

"The same one who bought the knife set?"

"Yeah. Sure you don't know who the chick is?"

"Nope."

"Okay then. Bye."

"Over and out."

Caesar stretched and yawned. He looked at the time on his Omega wrist watch. After nine. Alex hadn't yet come home and he wanted to discuss a few things with him. He lay back on the bed and began to sift jigsaw pieces in his mind.

Messalina, A secondary school secret cult that Vera, Isabelle and seven others had been members of. A female secret cult for that matter. What did he know about female secret cults?

Nothing really except that he knew they were very clandestine in operation. He knew they existed on higher institutions all over the world and that they were quite efficient.

Back on his days at the university of Nigeria, Nsukka he had never been able to identify any group outright but several strange encounters he had made him believe that he must have come across them even unconsciously. These encounters helped him from a hypothesis on the existence of such cults. He grouped these female cults into three broad categories:

One, those focused on witchcraft and other occultic activities, two, those bound together by lesbianism or male phobia, three, those engaged in organized prostitution and related services.

Caesar believed that a shroud of secrecy enveloped the female cult phenomena which enhanced their operations. He had to admit that he admired their efficiency. Unlike their male counterparts who gleefully announced their membership in such clandestine organizations and were readily accosted and apprehended by law enforcement officials, the females stayed in the shadows. Everybody knew that these female cults existed but they could not with certainty point out individual members of these groups.

However Caesar had run across such people during his rather eventful school life. Certain incidents had made him believe that he had had close encounters with members of the first and second categories namely witchcraft and lesbianism.

The first incident occurred when he, Alex and Peter had gone for their daily rounds in the female hostels. The three fools usually made it a point of duty to visit as many female friends as possible in a single night before calling it a day and returning back to their rooms in the dead of the night. It was only later in life that they realized what damage they had done to their P.R.s but back then they didn't really give a hoot. So one day when they were minding their own business, which was to visit a particularly sassy class girl of theirs with even sassier roommates, another class-girl blocked their path.

"Hi boys:" said Linda, a slim fair complexioned bomb shell will a shady attitude, "forget Sophia this evening and come to my sisters room. She's having her birthday today."

The stared at her in trepidation. They all talked once in the a while to Linda in class but they were not close in any way. Anyway her sister was completely unknown to them and they doubted if she would be in the same level as Sofia's roommates.

Caesar grinned his Cheshire cat grin.

"We would really love to meet your Sis, Linda," he drawled smoothly, "But we really have an appointment to keep."

"This way please." She said beaming and shepherded them to the last room of the wing where some weak strings of pop music could be discerned.

The boys were rather taken aback from the scene in the room when Linda politely hustled them in. There were not less than twenty girls sitting or standing in various positions around the room. They all stared blankly at the boys when they made their entrance.

Linda's sister Amelia, a carbon copy of her senior sister, came over to them and gave them warm hugs.

"Thanks for coming to my birthday party" she gushed, smiling nervously, "Linda said you guys wouldn't fail to come."

"We wouldn't have missed it for the world, "said Caesar blithely as he gazed around, "Judging from what I'm seeing here I'm going to be coming a lot in your party."

She didn't understand what he meant but Alex and Peter giggled.

"Please sit down" she said hastily..

"There's no parking space for our lean fannies."

"Let me make room for you guys."

She told three girls sitting on the bed to scoot and had the boys planted on the soft foam. The trio stared in consternation around them. They were completely surrounded by Daughters of Eve.

It was only then that they noticed that there were two other chaps in the room.

Edmund and Henry were what the trio termed "fellowship Boys'. They did not like fellowship boys. Their primary assignment was to round up all the pretty girls on campus and enlist them in a fellowship. The girls were then told that 'unbelievers' (anyone not in their fellowship) should be avoided at all costs especially the males, who could only lead them astray and deliver them into sin. Hugging, hissing and get sticky with an unbeliever was a grievous sin. Hugging, kissing and getting sticky with a believer was not a sin. As long as anything you did was in the name of the Lord than you did right. Unbelievers, especially the likes of Caesar, Alex and Peter should be avoided like the plague of London. The trio especially disliked Edmund because he was the undisputed king of the fellowship boys. He was loud, not lacking in self-confidence and thought he was every girl's dream man. Henry, his faithful cohort, was proud, aloof and had his financial expenditures settled by dithering females and spent ninety percent of his school life in their presence. The trio didn't know who they disliked more, Edmund or Henry. The two clowns were manning the DJ equipment. Caesar noticed to his surprise that the usually cocky pair were looking nervous and unsure of themselves.

"We are about to start dancing, " announced Linda, "So everyone get up and have fan.".

The girls got up to dance and so did the boys.

The funny thing was the girls danced among themselves and completely ignored the Trio who shuffled uncertainly on the floor.

"Let go of me!" snapped Alex angrily as Peter held his waist.

"The girls don't want to dance with me", said Peter shrugging, "So led me dance with you."

"I've always suspected you, " Caesar said suspiciously "Don't come near me."

The Trio sat down and resorted to watching the girls dance among themselves. When the music stopped they all sat down again abruptly.

The party was a charade. They took photographs, played silly birthday games and told jokes but there was a certain surreal quality to what was going on. It was like the girls were trying to make the party 'normal'.

"Something's not right" remarked Alex.

"My view exactly" Peter agreed.

"What the world is going on?" asked Caesar confused, " Something strange about all these girls. Do you notice that none of these chicks blink?"

"What are you talking about?" asked Alex.

"Look and see."

Alex stared around him at the faces.

"God, you're right" he breathed.

"They do blink," observed Peter "But it's as if they are doing it deliberately."

"Spooky, huh?" whispered Alex.

"Very."

When the charade was over, the boys blessed the celebrant and hurriedly made their exit. The next day Ceasar ran into Edmund in a lecture hall.

"Hey what the hell happened yesternight?" he demanded, "Who were all those girls?"

"I don't know," Edmund sounded mystified. "Linda just met me and Henry and begged us to organize music for her sister's birthday party."

"I thought you loved being the man of the moment, Edmund, how come you were so quiet?"

"I really don't know myself. It's like I was under a spell."

Under a spell, thought Caesar. Hmm.

The next episode he had was even more bizzare. The Trio had a friend called Toni. She was tall, well built, fair in complexion with handsome rather than pretty features. She talked a lot, followed them to drink and smoke and even played football with them. She could stand fearlessly in any male dominated gathering and no one would have the liver to play funny with her. Probably this was enhanced by the fact that she was a black belt in Taekwando. The trio also got to know that she liked only girls.

It took a long time to come to this conclusion since she was rather cryptic about it but various actions she exhibited apart from following the boys to discuss the finer points of female anatomy made them suspect this. Not least considering she wore only masculine jeans, trousers, short, perfumes and a close cropped hair style. She also seemed to be a 'Queen' in her hostel as every girl there seemed to worship her. She was a mother figure and many girls didn't make any moves unless she said so. They came to visit her, brought her presents and kissed her reverently on the cheek.

Her birthday party was attended entirely by females, the Trio being the only male representative and just like the last time no one danced with them. In fact this time it was personal because there was a particularly skinny, man like lady who glared rudely at Caesar whenever he danced with Toni. Finally she announced (in a baritone) that she would not dance again with anyone and staged a walkout.

"She seems upset, "commented Caesar. Tony giggled and wrapped her arms round his neck.

"Oh don't mind Harriet. She's only jealous."

Caesar winced. He'd bet.

Harry, as he later got to know they popularly called her was not the only one who was jealous. Toni couldn't stand the Trio having anything to do with girls. She felt that their primary ambition was to deflower the entire female population of the campus and she was on a crusade to thwart their evil plans.

It was around this time that he ran into Angelica. She was very dark, chubby with heavily rounded carves and had this sleepy, disinterested look in her huge eyes that turned him on. Caesar zeroed in on her, charmed her knickers off with his Cavalier banter and she was soon squirming under him in the privacy of his well-furnished room. When Toni found out about his latest exploits she was furious and demanded that he leave the poor girl alone. Caesar grinned at her and informed her that if she cared to join them there was enough space on his king sized bed for all. Strange things happened after that.

Once, when Angelina was sleeping over, she woke up in the middle of the night screaming blue murder Caesar just barely managed to calm her down after she cried hysterically that 'they were after her'. Another day when they were just getting mushy, Angelica spied his rosary under his pillow and nearly went into cardiac arrest. On yet on another afternoon when Caesar was trying to convince her that female cults exist he got another surprise.

"There is a way you can identify members a lesbian cult you know," he said studiously.

"Really?" Angelica asked her huge eyes watching him, "Tell me."

"Well, one way is to look at their eyes. Most of them have this flat, blank look in the eyes. They can just stare right through you and they hardly blink."

"That's interesting. Are my eyes like that?" Caesar noticed to his chagrin that her eyes were like that.

"Nah. Not really, "he said evasively, "Another way is to look at their hands. They usually carry very short fingernails on both hands or may be on just one hand. Some times they have short nails on only the … er… fingers that matter."

To make his point he picked up her right hand to scrutinize it. All the fingernails were short. He checked the other hand. All the fingernails were long.

"Well" asked Angelica smiling.

"Maybe that method isn't very good" he said sheepishly, "Let's talk about something else…"

To cut a long story short the relationship crashed and Angolan was last sighted sitting on Tony's laps. Caesar philosophically told himself that whatever a man can do a woman could do better and that included snatching girlfriends.

Messalina. They fell into the third category: Prostitution. He had never encountered them before but there was always a first time. Messalina was another name for a woman of easy virtue. That was smart. To name a prostitution cult Messalina. Very smart. And he was very sure they were at the bottom of the mystery.

So Vera was involved in this? Even tried to kill him! What kind of nerve was that? To flatten him with a Honda Accord? Not to mention Ani the bartender who had also set him up with a bunch of thugs. Ani L. Assem. Suddenly he sat up straight, his heart racing.

Taking out a pen and paper, he wrote the name backwards.

M-E-S-S-A-L-I-N-A.

No wonder Tony couldn't find any dirt on Ani the Bartender. Ani did not exist.

"Caesar!" called Isabelle from the main bedroom, "Can I see you for a minute?"

He grinned wolfishly. He had been expecting her call too.

"Sure!" he replied loudly, "I'll be right there."