Chapter 81

1115 Hours Local Time,
Friday, 31 October, 2014 (Halloween)
The Chancellery Complex The City of Haven,
Province of Oregon The Commonwealth of Haven

I was in the middle of screwing a now undead version of Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, aka the original “Fergie,” when I felt the presence of two more French ghosts. They were Marion Cotillard and Sophie Marceau. I quickly and eagerly made undead wives of them, which were distinct by now from the Undead cavalry. They could join said force, led by Nydia, my stepdaughter-wife, or not, but by now a clear legal precedent distinguished those categories from each other. At the moment, they were busy pleasing Fergie and me, including analingus whenever I wasn’t inside them.

“You have quite the collection, but so do I, and mine will increase just like yours. Excuse me while I hurt lightning bolts at warlords and slavers in Mali. The local variety are particularly heinous these days, and more to the point, they’re holding three Irish women in captivity who were there originally as nuns and aid workers. I’m placing them here, so you can take them as wives and sire some good Gaelic stock among all of those Frenchies,” God teased me a little as I spilled my seed inside my latest brides.

Then he really hurled lightning bolts from his hands into the sky, as if they were mere darts or something. It was quite impressive. Then again, he was Almighty God now, wasn’t he? He was certainly an improvement over his predecessor, who instigated Fireball Day, after all.

“How bad is it in Mali, anyway? Or elsewhere in West Africa? Or central Africa, for that matter? Or East Africa?” I inquired while humping a rather seductive Isabelle Adjani, now undead as well.

“The warlords in Mali are so strong that they have openly and formally partitioned the country into twelve different zones or territories. They work closely with slavers in order to buy more chattel, as well as sell captives through them. I have a feeling that the number of slave traders is about to drop dramatically, along with the number of warlords.

“People there are also dying from malnourishment and famine, not to mention cholera, typhus, typhoid, and dysentery. Hepatitis rates have spiked as well, especially since the warlords like to tattoo new recruits and slaves, often without sanitary protocols. HIV positive infections are rising, often by means of rape and forced prostitution.

“There are ethnic and religious aspects to the conflict as well, with many warlords identifying strongly with a particular tribe or sects. The Tuaregs, a Berber tribe, meanwhile, are resisting all of the warlords, insisting upon their own state called Azawad. The Catholic Church in Mali, flawed, corrupt, and misguided as it is, has at least avoided division by its prelates withholding allegiance to either rival pope until after a new church council that represents all factions in the clergy and laity. It has helped organize a paramilitary security force to defend itself as well as innocent civilians.

“Traditional animists are being persecuted by all sides. Three hundred thirty-five members of the pagan Dogon sect were massacred on the orders of an imam in the city of Kayes, with the tacit approval of the local warlord. Protestants have also been persecuted by Catholics as well as Muslims. One Pentecostal minister was brutally hacked to pieces by nuns egged on a local priest, so the Church’s hands aren’t entirely clean, either. Not the same nuns that I am sending here, of course.

“In neighboring Burkina Faso, the chaos caused by the death of the President has divided the country into supporters of him, leftists, Islamic militias, and Christian militias. In Côte d’Ivoire, straight up religious war between Christians, Muslims, and animists has resulted in extreme violence and atrocities, including intramural fighting between Christian and Muslim sects. Especially Shia vs. Sunni and Catholic vs. Protestant.

“Niger is embroiled in a particularly horrific famine, as is the former Central African Republic. The death toll and number of refugees is absolutely staggering. This has also increased political, economic, and social instability and caused even more deaths from violence as well as deadly diseases, communicable or otherwise. Warlords, tribes, gangs, cults, sects, and factions, etc.

“The same basic situation has repeated, with many local variations, from Senegal to Somalia. Mauritania has had an especially bad spike in slavery and the slave trade, something that never fully disappeared, despite certain laws. The chaos that has followed Fireball Day, with various rival militias and military units under their old field commanders, has only exacerbated this issue.

“In Nigeria, though, the Boko Haram insurgents have created an Islamic clerical state in the north, a very oppressive regime that enslaves and kills ‘infidels’ or imposes jizya on them. The Igbo tribe in the southeast has been able to establish a new version of Biafra, a separate Igbo nation, at least for now. The rest of the country is in a state of lawlessness and anarchy, with predictable results. The drug trade is particularly rife there.