WitchLove (16 page)

As she turned and called the four quarters to the north, south, east and west, like Franny had done back in Manchester, the coven began to sway and increase the volume of the low chanting. Electricity crackled in the air as each coven member connected with the next and so the circle was complete and we were imprisoned at its core.

My aunt turned back to the altar and taking something small from its surface she turned back to us.

‘Wear these rings as a symbol of our unity and a mark of your belonging.’

She then gave each of us an intricately carved ring. Brittany had a silver one like Sarah’s, but mine was a golden metal.

‘Obviously yours cannot be silver Jessica, so we have had a golden one specially made for you. Try them on.’

The ring was beautiful, the design reminding me of a Celtic ring Alex had always worn, but both rings were huge, and there was no way they were going to fit. We swapped puzzled glances as Aunt Sarah urged us to take them and put them on. We did and immediately I had to cover a shriek of surprise as it began tightening around my finger, stopping at the perfect fit. Brittany grinned and hid a nervous giggle in her new cloak.

‘Now girls, for the time being you can go and stand in Susannah’s place, over there,’ my aunt said, pointing to the tree without a witch. We nodded and jogged over to it.

‘She’s not here then?’ Brittany whispered once we got there.

I shrugged.

‘Good thing too,’ a grating drawl I recognised instantly as Saffy’s whispered back from the tree next to us.

‘We have already performed the Rite of Persephone, offering our thanks for all that we have achieved this year, and now we shall bring the celebration to an end with the Rite of Eris, sending thanks to the gods,’ my aunt said from the centre of the circle, frowning slightly at us.

We watched as she moved the altar and placed it at the back, just on the edge of the circle’s perimeter. Collecting several planks of wood, she then placed them in a pyramid shape where the altar had stood and began to chant.

‘To nurture in ourselves the seed, of magic’s strength. In thought and deed, we now aspire to

kindle well, the purple fire of Heaven and Hell. Through this Erisian rite we strive, to bring the opposites alive.’

As her words faded the coven joined in, their voices rising with each line.

‘Eris, Goddess of the Night. Eris, Portal of the Light. Eris, Phoenix from the Fire. Eris, Icy heart for hire.

My aunt placed her hands over the wood and great orange flames sprang forth, turning the pyramid into a raging bonfire.

‘Blessed art thou! Our mortal sister, vessel of light, divine forever!’ My aunt said.

‘Breathe the light that shines in darkness!’ Saffy said, from my side.

‘We are one,’ Franny said, from my other side.

‘So mote it be,’ the coven said simultaneously.

After a couple of silent seconds my aunt turned and began to close the circle, walking counter-clockwise around all of us as the coven hummed, their voices vibrating quietly. As my aunt passed she paused in front of each witch and drew the witch’s hood back, letting it fall down her back.

‘Blessed be,’ she said each time.

When she reached Brittany and I our hoods were already down, so instead she smiled.

‘Welcome Jessica. Blessed be,’ she said to me, before doing the same to Brittany.

Once she had been round the entire circle of witches it immediately disbanded as witches fell into small groups, chatting and laughing. Saffy immediately turned away from us and walked across the clearing to another girl around our age with dark, almost black hair and a small snub nose. Both girls stared at us before turning their backs and giggling like schoolgirls.

‘Well, that’s mature,’ Brittany said.

‘Hmm, it’s a shame Susannah didn’t come. I wonder why,’ I said.

‘I think she needs a little more time dear,’ Franny said suddenly from behind me. I turned around quickly and smiled sheepishly.

‘It’s okay. We’re all hoping she’ll make it to Samhain next month. It’ll be the ideal festival for her to cast aside her demons and start afresh,’ she added.

‘Can I go over to the fire and warm myself?’ Brittany interrupted. ‘I’m freezing.’

‘Of course dear, although we’ll be going back inside shortly for all that lovely food you’ve been helping to prepare. Noah will be waiting for us as well, no doubt,’ she added with a crooked smile and a wink at Brittany.

‘Ha!’ I gave her a friendly nudge as she went past me, her cheeks blazing, but over-judged my strength again and sent her stumbling.

‘Thanks,’ she hissed, as Saffy and her friend both exploded into a fresh burst of cackles.

‘Sorry. Come on, let’s go in.’

Chapter Twelve

Brittany and I were hiding in a dark corner of my aunt’s salon. Once the coven witches had all introduced themselves and asked their pointless questions, when we both knew they really wanted to ask juicy, vampire-related questions, they grew gradually bored of us and drifted off to the buffet table. In some ways this was worse, because now they were talking quietly amongst themselves and shooting the occasional glance our way. We knew we were the topic and it harked back to parent’s evenings at school, when you knew your teacher would be discussing you, but you didn’t know what was being said. Ugh!

I smelled him before I saw him, so when he whispered ‘Boo!’ just behind our heads it was Brittany that jumped, not me.

‘Argh, are you trying to give me a heart attack?’ she said, grinning.

‘Jess obviously smelled me coming though… super witch!’ he said.

‘You’re right there buddy, you stink,’ I said.

In truth he smelled fantastic and after drinking his blood I was even more attuned to his chocolatey scent, but I wasn’t going to let him know that.

‘So, do you come to all the witch Sabbats,’ I asked.

‘Nah, just when I’m hungry, have run out of funds and fancy a feast. Anyway I’ve spoken to Mom and she’s agreed to let you come to New York with me tomorrow for a couple of days, as long as there’s no funny business,’ he said, waggling his eyebrows up and down.

Brittany snorted, trying to avoid spitting a mouthful of punch out across the room. I grinned.

‘New York?’ I asked.

‘Yes, duh… you know where I live? Where there is a special club you’d like to visit…’ he whispered.

‘Oh, heck! I can’t do that. She’ll kill me,’ I whispered back.

‘What she won’t know won’t hurt her. You’ll be fine and Brit… I’ve found out some info as promised on your family in the south.’

‘You what? What info? What was promised?’ I asked, frowning at the girl who took a step back and smiled innocently. ‘Brit… what info?’ I persisted.

‘Well, you didn’t think I’d just side with him over the whole biting thing for the hell of it did you? I’m
your
friend, so I’m on your side… generally,’ she finished with a grin.

‘So…’ I prompted.

‘So, he said he could try and find out where my mother’s family are from. Find their coven for me.’

I sighed. ‘And when were you going to tell me?’ I asked.

‘Now! I mean me and you were never going to be able to find out as we don’t know anyone, but he has loads of contacts…’ she trailed off and shrugged.

‘So he said that if you helped persuade me to bite him…’

‘Or stay out of the way,’ she added.

‘Then he’d find out about your family for you?’ I asked.

‘Yup. I need to know Jess, and it gives us another place to stay if we get booted out of here,’ she said with a quick grin.

‘Which is likely to happen if we go to New York and I start going to vampire clubs,’ I said grimly.

She shrugged.

‘You know it makes sense. It’s always good to have back-up,’ she added.

‘Or maybe not… I mean they might not be quite suitable for that,’ Noah interrupted.

‘What?’ I asked as we both swung round to stare at him.

‘We-e-ell,’ he looked shifty. ‘They aren’t normal witches, Brit. Our coven doesn’t know them.’

‘What do you mean they don’t know them? How did you find out about them then?’ she whispered.

‘Well the coven know
of
them, but they wouldn’t socialise with them because they practice a different kind of witchraft. Did you say your mom was Creole?’ he asked.

‘Yes, well Dad said she was from somewhere in Louisiana I think. I don’t remember much because I was taken to England when I’d just turned six, but I know we lived in America and the summers were scorching. We had this lovely wooden house, a bit like this in a way, but the land surrounding it was so different and I wasn’t allowed to swim in the ponds in summer in case there were alligators.’

‘Mmm, sounds about right,’ he said.

‘So you say they aren’t the same kind of witches as us?’ she prompted.

‘No, they’re Hoodoo witches, Brit. They practice Hoodoo.’

‘Hoodoo? Don’t you mean Voodoo?’ I asked, confused.

‘Voodoo, Hoodoo it’s very similar. But your nan is their priestess and let’s just say that whilst most Voodoo witches practice white magic… well some do not, and unfortunately your family is somewhat feared across the entire region.

‘No way! I remember my mother. She was sweet and kind, and pretty. She didn’t raise zombies and curse people. You’ve got it wrong,’ Brittany said, her voice beginning to rise.

‘Shhh,’ I said. ‘People are watching.’

‘Come on, let’s go in the back room,’ Noah said turning and leading us towards the door.

‘Hey Noah,’ Saffy’s friend said, wrapping her arms around his neck and reaching up to kiss him on the cheek. ‘I didn’t know you were up from school. You should have called me.’

‘Sorry Mira, it’s just a fleeting visit. I’m off back again tomorrow. I just ran out of food, you know how it is,’ he said, attempting to unwrap the girl from his neck.

‘Oh, well, why don’t you and me go have a little stroll in the woods. I bet the fire’s still warm and we could get nice and cosy,’ she said, batting her eyelashes.

‘I’d love to Mira, I really would, but I need to talk to Jessica just now, sorry.’

The girl’s smiley face crumpled and morphed into an ugly look of contempt.

‘Of course, I should have known you’d be attracted to
her
type,’ she said. ‘I suppose I’m no good, because I can’t bite you.’

‘Put a sock in it Mee and run back to your sidekick,’ he said, pushing me ahead of him and storming out of the room after Brittany.

‘So, basically what you’re telling me is that my mum was a Voodoo princess who raised dead people and cursed her enemies?’ Brittany said, her face stony.

‘No, of course not. I don’t know your Mom… or your Nan, but what I do know is that
now
, their coven is one to be wary of, and it probably isn’t the best place for you two to go noseying around,’ he said.

‘Well tough, because they’re my family, so they’re hardly going to threaten us, are they?’

‘Brit, you don’t know them, okay? You need to know what you might be getting yourself into, so read up on Voodoo… Hoodoo, whatever. But first, we need to get poor hungry Jess to New York, so she stops watching the veins in my neck.’

‘Ha bloody ha, you think you’re Mr Funny, don’t you?’ I said scowling and trying not to look at his neck.

The following morning we piled into Noah’s car and set off early, with my aunt’s warning words about being careful and not leaving Brittany or Noah’s sight ringing in my ears. The car journey was a straight four hour drive down the motorway… or freeway as Noah called it, and Brittany had enough snacks to supply the state.

‘Eeeek, this is so exciting,’ Brittany said, poking her head between the two front seats as I pointed out signs for the Bronx.

‘I know. That’s because it’s… New York. Concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there's nothing you can’t doooo. Now you're in New York…’ we sang together as Noah attempted to cover his ears, groaning.

‘So can we go up the Empire State Building?’ I asked.

‘Sure, I don’t see why not, and we’ve got all day tomorrow. The club won’t open till tennish anyway.’

‘But it’s a Sunday, are you sure it’s open at all?’ I asked.

‘Yup, as you know it’s a vampire hangout. You guys need to feed all the time right, so Sunday night is called the
Sunday Chiller
. It’s big on campus, but most of the kids don’t actually know that the gorgeous people there are vampires.’

‘Hmm, are you sure this is a good idea? I mean I’m thankful and everything, and I really hate those damned blood packs your aunt keeps handing me every morning, but…’

‘Look Jess, I know there’s a danger, but you can do camouflage spells right? So we camouflage you with different hair and eyes. You’ll be fine,’’ he said.

‘Eyes?’ Brittany said.

‘Yeh, it’s her green eyes that give her away. I’m surprised you guys haven’t already thought of this. I would have thought it’d be obvious. Never mind changing her hair colour or whatever, you need to change her eyes back to red/brown.’

‘Duh! Do you think we haven’t tried? Well we did, and it doesn’t work. Jess’s eyes stay green. Your mom even tried a really tough cloaking spell on them and they stayed unchanged. There’s nothing we can do,’ Brittany said.

‘Right, and being such
clever
witches you failed to consider how humans change their eye colour?’ he said staring at our blank faces. ‘The most simple way possible… contacts!’ he said taking one hand off the steering wheel to root about in his pocket.

‘Here,’ he said handing me a small box.

Star Vision Contact Lenses,
the box said.

‘You’re not bad really, for a boy,’ I said, grinning.

‘You too cuz,’ he said.

‘But how did you get our vampire colour?’ I asked.

‘The company make them to your own specification; so you can merge your own colours online and order the colour you want. In our case dark brown with a hint of burgundy,’ he said grinning.

‘Fine okay, smart idea. So we change her hair too… but what colour? She originally was known for having dark hair, but will everyone know that it’s gone back to blonde? Should we go for something different?’ she asked.

‘I don’t reckon people outside the coven, who haven’t seen me will know my hair is blonde, and the people from the coven aren’t going to be socialising with the New York vampires anyway, are they?’ I said. ‘I think I should keep it as it is.’