Makun searched the bar for anything out of place and found nothing. Straining his forehead any further was only going to hurt him, but just before he let it go, he saw Joe slump over Shane and the eerie energy leave his body, as if whatever had been holding him had simply let go.
Makun stayed in his seat. He was still underestimating this new world, he realized; he hadn't begun to understand what mysticism could do. Should he leave? He wanted to, and to have nothing to do with any of this.
But if he got up now, wouldn't that look suspicious? He seemed to be the only one in the bar who had noticed anything wrong, and leaving now would tell whoever had done this, if anyone had, that he was aware, that he could see. He couldn't afford that, not while he was this vulnerable.
The noise pulled him back. People were moving and shouting, chairs scraping across the floor. Three men rushed in, and a broad-shouldered one in a stained apron hooked Joe under the arms and hauled him off Shane. "Get him up! Someone get water!"
An older, balding man knelt beside Shane. Blood covered Shane's face, his nose was crooked and one eye was swollen shut. "He's breathing. Barely."
A woman pushed through the crowd with her phone in her hand. "I'm calling an ambulance."
"No cops," someone muttered at the back.
"Screw that, he needs a hospital."
The man in the apron dragged Joe to a chair by the wall. Joe's head lolled forward and his eyes were glassy and unfocused, like someone waking from a dream he couldn't remember. "Joe, can you hear me? Joe!"
Joe blinked slowly. "What... what happened?"
"You beat the hell out of Shane, that's what happened."
Joe looked down at his split knuckles and the blood smeared across his fingers, none of it his own. "I didn't..." His voice cracked. "I don't remember."
The crowd murmured, some of them angry, some unsettled. Makun watched from his seat. Of course Joe didn't remember. It hadn't been him.
Shane groaned as the older man helped him sit up against the bar, and someone handed him a towel to press to his face. "Why'd you do it, Joe?" His voice was thick and slurred. "What did I do?"
Joe shook his head. "I don't know. I swear, I only remember you calling me a liar."
The woman with the phone was still arguing with someone about the police, the bartender was trying to calm everyone down, and the music had stopped. The room felt smaller now, and tighter.
Makun leaned back. He would leave once things had calmed down. Where am I even rushing to? He had nowhere to be: no job to wake up for, no apartment to go back to, only a sports bag holding a book that drained him and a pendant from a mystic who expected a payment he didn't yet know how to make.
The TV above the bar flickered to a news broadcast. An anchor in a pressed suit wore a serious expression, and a banner ran along the bottom of the screen: UAP PHENOMENON, APRIL 10, 2032.
"Another sighting today, Saturday," the anchor said. "Unexplained aerial phenomena have been reported around the world, and governments continue to refuse to confirm or deny." Shaky phone footage played, a night sky and lights moving in patterns that made no sense, too fast and too coordinated for planes or drones. "Witnesses describe objects defying known physics. Military officials have declined to comment, and scientists urge caution against speculation."
Makun stared at the screen. Were any of these stories true, and if they were, how did they connect to mystics? Were those things up there mystic too, or something else entirely? The book had spoken of entities, Primordial beings, Hollow dwellers, spirits. Did they live up there, in the sky? Or were they down here, hidden behind the Veil, pulling strings the way someone had pulled Joe's tonight? He didn't know, and the ignorance felt heavier than the bag on his shoulder.
The bar was settling. The ambulance hadn't come yet; Joe sat slumped, staring at his hands, while Shane was helped to his feet, still bleeding but conscious. Makun finished the last of his beer, warm and flat now, and stood up quietly. Nobody noticed. They never did.
He slung his bag over his shoulder and walked out into dark streets. At night Naija City looked like a place that had given up: broken streetlights, cracked pavement, graffiti on every wall that wasn't already falling apart. He walked slowly with his hands in his pockets. The cold bit through his jacket, but he barely felt it. His mind was elsewhere.
Maybe I should go to the edges of this city. The thought came suddenly, and clearly. Staying in the center, where mystics like Zuri and whoever had controlled Joe could move freely, felt dangerous and exposed. He needed distance, space to think and read and work out what he was supposed to do next.
He took out his phone. The screen was cracked, but it still worked, barely, with thirty-four percent battery. He searched for homeless shelters in Naija City. Most of the results were downtown, too close and too crowded. Then he saw it: Hope's Rest Shelter, at the edge of the city in the industrial district near the old factories. Open twenty-four hours, no questions asked. The map loaded slowly and traced a blue line across the city. Bus 42 would take him there.
The bus stop was empty: a rusted bench, a flickering light, a schedule behind cracked plastic. It was 10:47, and the next bus was due at 11:02. He sat down, dropped the bag beside him and leaned his head back with his eyes closed.
His body ached, though not from anything physical. It was something deeper, a spiritual exhaustion. The book had taken more than he'd realized, and forcing his sight in the bar, even for a few seconds, had drained what little he had left. He felt hollow, as if something essential had been scooped out of him and he was running on fumes.
Traffic hummed in the distance, a dog barked somewhere, and the wind pushed trash across the street. When he opened his eyes, the street was empty, no cars and no people, only him and the dark.
He wondered whether he would make it, whether a man with his luck could stand against powers he couldn't even imagine yet, how he would ever get out of this. Too many questions, and not enough answers. The book was supposed to help, and so far all it had done was show him how little he knew.
Headlights appeared down the street. Bus 42 pulled up with a hiss of brakes, and the doors opened on an older woman driver with tired eyes, who barely glanced at him.
"Where to?"
"The edge district. Hope's Rest."
She nodded. "Two fifty."
He dug crumpled bills out of his pocket and counted carefully, which left him thirteen dollars and fifty cents. He went to the back and sat by the window. The bus was nearly empty, only an old man asleep at the front and a woman with headphones staring at her phone.
It lurched forward, and Makun pressed his forehead against the cold glass and watched the city slide past as buildings gave way to warehouses, the streetlights thinned out and the roads grew rougher. This part of the city felt abandoned and forgotten. It was perfect.
"Hope's Rest," the driver called at the edge of the industrial district.
He stepped off, and the bus pulled away, its taillights shrinking into the dark. The shelter was a squat, single-story concrete building with barred windows and a flickering sign over the door: HOPE'S REST SHELTER. The parking lot was empty except for a rusted van and a shopping cart tipped on its side. The place looked as if it had been built in the eighties and never touched since.
But it was open, and it was far from downtown, and that was enough. Makun pushed open the heavy door and stepped inside.