Goddess Of The Diamond

CHAPTER ONE

15th July, 2011

Roy Harcourt

Rivers State

My name is Tano Ibierembo Abbey-Hart, an offspring of late Chief Tamunoibuomi Apiri Abbey-Hart, whose death is the reason for all these narratives. At twenty-seven years of age, I know little or nothing about the occult or marine world.

Everything I’m going to say or narrate happened within a year, and although I do not have any specific reason for doing this, I feel it has to be done. This is because after all I’d experienced in the past one year, it is important that persons all over the world should know the powers and forces that exist on this planet, which they have no knowledge about.

Surprisingly, the word ‘marine,’ to the best of my knowledge, only concerned the activities of fishermen, animals and plants that live in the sea, a member of an armed force in the United States or United Kingdom who is specially trained for military duties at sea as well as on land, offshore oil exploration activities and freight activities on the high seas… Anyway, let me delve into what I came here for before you lose interest in what you’re about to read; and so the story goes like this…

* * *

It’d been six months since the final burial of my late father, after which mysterious things began to happen to all the entire wealth my father and his immediate family members possessed. The last time I bothered to check (a week after his final burial), my father’s estate stood at a whooping seven billion Naira (#7,000,000,000.00), but as I sit in this empty church auditorium, that same estate is not even up to a million Naira (#1,000,000). This is after all the remaining tangible assets had been liquidated and stashed in a savings account in Access Bank in my name.

For more than an hour that Tuesday evening, I sat quietly staring at the pulpit, while allowing my mind to stray to past events of the last few months, until I decided to check the time on my wristwatch. The time showed five-thirty, as I stood up slowly, rubbed my smooth head with my right palm, and began to head for my younger sister’s apartment where I was presently ‘squatting.’ Although I felt ashamed to be ‘squatting’ with my younger sister, I felt that the only advantage it had was that it ‘hid’ me from unwanted friends and acquaintances of my parents who might desire to visit their late friend’s children.

I knew in thirty minutes people would begin to trickle into the church for a weekly Bible study known as ‘Digging Deep,’ where a particular minister led the congregation to dig deep into the word of God – the Holy Bible. I smiled at the thought of the name, while thinking of how best to dig into the Holy Bible which had never provided answers to all the questions that presently troubled my mind. Buttoning my jacket, while walking briskly to the gate, I was stopped by a male security guard who was also referred to as a ‘holy policeman.’ He recognised me due to my mother’s commitment to the church and its growth.

“How’re you doing?” he asked, with a look of suspicion.

“Just surviving sir, just surviving,” I replied with a forced smile.

“Aren’t you staying for digging deep?” he pressed.

“Today’s fifteenth,” I answered impatiently, “the doctor wants to see me concerning my mother’s condition…” I lied.

At the mention of my mother, he quickly discontinued the conversation and bade me farewell, while I kept walking to the main road, hoping my sister had not left her apartment. Walking down in the July cold that penetrated my body, the jacket notwithstanding, I regarded the entire situation as funny; that I, Tano Ibierembo Abbey-Hart who once gave out huge donations, and awarded multi-million Naira contracts, was now jobless and presently ‘squatting’ with his younger sister. I swore to get to the bottom of the whole mystery with the last drop of my blood if the need arose. But that didn’t matter minutes later, when my tired frame stood a few meters in front of her apartment door, unable to wade off the brutal feelings of hunger which ravaged my stomach.

It was exactly ten minutes past six when I knocked thrice on the door. Two seconds passed and I was about to repeat the knocking when I was stopped by my sister’s countenance. She must have applied some oil to the door hinges, because no sound emanated when the door swung open. The temporary deafness caused by hunger…

“Good evening big brother,” she greeted.

“May I come in?” I whispered after responding to her greeting.