Black Leopard, Red Wolf (The Dark Star Trilogy #1)

by Marlon James

“I will go. I have unfinished business with Sogolon.” “Venin?” Mossi said. “Who is that?” Venin said. “What? You are who. Venin is what you go by since I met you. Who else would you be if not her?” “It is not her,” I said. The him in her looked at me. “You been thinking so a long time,” they said. “Yes but I could not be sure. You are one of the spirits Sogolon write runes to bind, but you broke from her.” “My name is Jakwu, white guard for the King Batuta who sits in Omororo.” “Batuta? He died over a hundred years ago. You are . . . no matter. Leave the old woman to the bloodsuckers. She is like them in company,” Mossi said. “Do all the spirits want what you want?” I asked. “Revenge against the Moon Witch? Yes. Some want more. Not all of us died by her hand, but in all our deaths she is responsible. She drove me out of my body to appease an angry spirit, and now she thinks she has appeased me.” His voice was still Venin’s but I have seen this in possession. The voice remains, but the tone, the pitch, the words he chooses are all so different that it sounds like another voice. Venin’s voice went hoarse. It came out like a rumble, like the voice of a man long gone in years. “Where is Venin?” “Venin. She the girl. She gone. She will never be back in this body. Call her dead. It is not what she is, but it will do. Now she is doing what I did, roam the underworld until she remembers how she came by that place. And then she will seek out Sogolon, like all of us.”