WitchLove (21 page)

‘Missy, git in here an help me wit dis girl. She’s gone an fallen down asleep on da floor,’ she called out.

Oh heck! Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea lying on the floor, after all?

A second set of footsteps crossed the floor and suddenly I felt hands underneath me as both women began to lift me from the floor. Considering the grandmother looked well into her sixties and the other woman not far behind, they lifted me easily and carried me back to the other bed where they dumped me. They paused and I felt their stares, as I again consciously breathed and fluttered my eyelashes a little, as if dreaming. I was at least thankful for one vampire trait - our ability to stay motionless.

‘There’s someting mighty strange about dat girl,’ the younger woman said quietly.

‘She’s got some power there, that’s for sure, but she don’t know how to use it yet, Missy. Set em free, and keep em close. You saw how she followed my girl here? We’ll do the ritual immediately and let them leave come sunrise. When Brittany comes back, we’ll catch dem both,’ she said, her voice fading slightly as they turned away. Whilst one person walked out of the room, I heard another set of footsteps walk a few paces and pause… I flinched as I heard the slicing of blades cutting through something, but just as I’d decided to blow my cover and find out what was going on she left, shutting the door behind her.

No sooner had the door clicked shut then I sat up in bed and looked across at Brittany. The girl was fast asleep, but her breathing was normal, steady. What had been cut?
What ritual?
I had to find out. After waiting several minutes I slipped from the bed, and again thankful for my vampire abilities, stole silently across the room to the door. I grabbed the handle and millimetre by millimetre I pulled the handle up, praying it wouldn’t squeak. I held my breath. It didn’t.

The upstairs corridor was unlit and all the other doors were closed. I paused and listened. I could hear muted voices coming from below, so after checking for any breathing behind all the doors, I crept down the stairs. Again the hallway was in darkness, its empty decaying walls lending it an eerie, haunted house feel. Shadows cast from the weeping willow outside the door filtered through the porch windows, as dawn began to make an appearance.

The room we’d been ushered into on arrival was now empty, its lights switched off, the door swung wide. Two other doors were closed, but after listening beside each one I crept on, confident that they too were empty. The corridor led me on, further into the depths of the church and round a bend into a kitchen area, which too was empty and decaying, slivers of morning light just beginning to creep into the shadows. I paused and frowned. The chanting was louder here, but I could see no obvious adjoining room. I stood in the centre of the room, my ears on high alert, my eyes zeroing in on every crevice round the room, and that’s when I saw it.

I’d initially thought it was a broom cupboard, but as the dim dawn light was blacked out by my shadow swinging across the door I noticed the sliver of light. I walked over to it and studied it closer. Electric light was coming from inside, and as I placed my ear to the wood I could hear chanting and feel the vibrations of several humans inside… and below me. It was a cellar door!

I frowned. There was no safe way for me to open the door and creep down into the cellar, so I would have to find another way to see what they were doing. I thought back to my aunt’s house in Malden, Daniel’s house back in Manchester and even the old church building I’d been imprisoned in, in London. They all had cellars and all the cellars had windows. Knowing the Voodoo clan were now beneath me I made an extra effort to be silent as I retraced my steps out of the kitchen and down the hallway. The front door clicked open easily and I stepped out onto the porch and scanned the walls of the building.

With the slowly rising sun, the heat levels were already increasing. I needed to get the job done and both of us out of here before the sun got high enough to give away my true nature. For now though I was fine; I couldn’t even see the sun. Instead beautiful wisps of blue light were streaking across the horizon, highlighting the vastness of the swamp that lay all around me, the ghostly grey of the cypress trees and the undergrowth, which appeared to be climbing up out of the swamp and forcibly taking back the land, pulling it into its watery depths.

The vegetation was creeping and crawling over every wall and where the vines hadn’t yet reached, damp, mossy algae took its place. I stepped down into the scrub and began searching the edges of the building for a window. It took some minutes, but eventually I saw a single pane of glass shining, with the dawn reflections. I dropped silently to the ground and edged forward until I could get close enough to look through.
Damn!
It was blacked out. The entire window was covered on the inside with black fabric so there was no way I could see through it and into the room beyond. I carried on round the perimeter, until I came to another window and this time I was in luck. This window had also been blacked out, but whoever had carried out the task had been in a hurry and one corner of the fabric had fallen back revealing a small hole, behind which I could both be hidden, but also see perfectly into the room.

The clan obviously didn’t bother with the typical accoutrements of ritual. Instead of candles, a single fluorescent strip lit their surroundings so brilliantly that I could see everything and everyone in the room. There were no cloaks, no ceremonial dresses; unlike the witches in Malden there wasn’t a bare foot to be seen. Yet there was an altar, an altar unlike any I’d seen before. For a start this one had several skulls on it and above it, one being decidedly human, another which had once belonged to a long-horned type of cattle… and the other had the long snout of an alligator… Ugh! Anyway, the table was covered in a black cloth, the human skull having pride of place in the centre. This was surrounded by the only candles in the room, which all burned fiercely. To one side a sinister-looking male doll with a white skull-like head, a black suit, black hat and a purple brooch stood upright, pinned to a wooden post. Golden objects, black pots and glass jars also filled a shelf behind the altar, and a
scary as hell
mask was propped up against one side of the table.

‘Charles, have you finished the doll?’ The priestess’s voice carried across the room, startling me from my scrutiny.

A man I recognised from earlier appeared and handed over a small cloth Voodoo doll made out of plain cotton, with two green button eyes and worryingly real-looking dark hair sewn in place. Could that be Brittany’s hair? I was unsure, but I’d heard the priestess’s words in the bedroom, and I was positive that she had no intention of harming Brittany, so I decided to let them carry on.

I watched as she anointed the doll with an oil from the shelf and then placed it before them on the altar they grouped around, the other members chanting in a low hum, the male member slowly drumming whilst the priestess cast her spell.

‘I command you, I compel you. I command you, I compel you. I’ve covered you with powder,’ she said, as she leant forward and flung a handful of dust over the altar.

‘I command you, I compel you. I command you, I compel you. I’ve covered you with powder,’ she repeated as the unease began to grow in my stomach.

‘I command you, I compel you… Hear my voice,’ she finished, before I could do anything to stop them.

I moved suddenly, wondering what to do, but before I could decide I heard a scrabble in the room below.

‘There! There was a movement. Priestess, are you sure both the girls were asleep?’

I didn’t wait to hear the answer and knowing my path inside the house would be a dangerous one, I sped around the side of the house and leapt up to the bedroom window ledge, ricocheting from a nearby tree so that I landed gracefully in a crouch beside the pane of glass. I sent up a quick prayer that the sash window would be loose, fingered my mojo bag and prised my fingers underneath the frame.

Phew!
The window slid effortlessly upwards, enough for me to crawl through. Being careful not to step on my sleeping friend on the bed beneath me, and hearing footsteps on the floor below, plus the clicking of the porch door I’d left unlocked, I slid the window closed again, leapt across the room and dived onto my bed. A couple of minutes later our door opened, footsteps entered the room, paused for a minute before leaving and closing the door once more. I opened my eyes and checked on Brittany. Had they spelled her? I wasn’t sure, as her sleep was undisturbed and her hair appeared intact. Hopefully I was wrong and the spell had been intended for another unsuspecting victim.

Chapter Sixteen

An hour later I was beginning to get anxious about both the rising sun, which was now visible above the horizon, and the still slumbering Brittany. I reached down and gave my friend a little shake, but nothing. I shook her a little harder and called her name, and finally she moved, rolling onto her side with a groan.

‘Brittany?’ I whispered.

‘Hmm?’ she replied.

‘Are you awake?’

‘No, are you?’ she whispered back, smirking.

‘Haha! You’ve been out a couple of hours. I couldn’t wake you. They drugged you. Well, they tried to drug us both, but you went and drank the lot,’ I said.

‘Oh shit, yeah. I remember now,’ she said, sitting straight up and immediately grabbing her head and lying back down.

‘Ughhh, my head! I think I’m going to throw up,’ she said.

I crouched down next to her and felt her forehead. She was warm but not too hot, though she looked deathly pale.

‘Brit, we need to get home, like now. I’ve got loads to tell you, but look at the sun.’

Brittany nodded and closed her eyes. I sat on the bed and stroked her hair back from her face.

‘Brit, if it gets too hot I won’t be able to get into the sky. There’s no cloud cover out there this morning. We need…’ I was cut off by footsteps pausing outside the door, a second’s warning before the door opened and the priestess walked in.

‘Oh, you’re awake I see. Jo, you still look pale… Brittany, are you okay?’ she said hurrying over to the bed. I shifted over a little, even though I wanted to stand between us. I wanted to throw the woman out of the room and get the hell out of there.

‘Brit’s still a little tired, but she only just woke up,’ I said.

‘You’re very pale girl,’ the witch said, her face stony.

‘I’m fine, feeling better already. I’ve been thinking things through and I think you
are
right. Maybe I
should
return and finish my exams with Je..o. Then I can come right back, can’t I?’ Brittany said, flushing a little after her near mistake.

The priestess frowned quickly, her eyes darting between us.

‘Of course you can. We’re plannin’ somethin special for the Fête des Morts. You shall join us, yes?’

Brittany looked at me and I gave a little nod; anything to get us out of here quicker.

‘Yes, we will, but maybe we should get going soon. It’ll probably take us longer going back as I’m still a little tired and we’re expected back in New York this afternoon.’

I held my breath, not sure if Brittany had pushed too fast.

‘We could always stay a while if you like. I’m sure we could phone the coven and explain,’ I said, hoping the priestess wouldn’t see through my bluff.

‘No, no. You girls need to get going. We’ll see you back here in no time and have a fine party, shan’t we?’ she said, smiling a slightly gappy grin and patting Brittany on the head. The picture of innocence was so acute that even I was finding it hard to recall the Voodoo altar in the basement.

‘Come, you’ll have a better vantage point from the gardens now the sun’s a coming up,’ she said, walking towards the door.

I looked at Brittany who was struggling to stand up, her face pale, her eyes sunken and slightly glazed. Something wasn’t right.

‘Energy,’ I said in a barely audible whisper. I felt the earth energy flow up from the swamp below us, through the wooden beams of the house directly into my feet, legs and arms, travelling down to the tips of my fingers where I placed them momentarily on Brittany’s back, letting my energy flow into her; watching the life flow back into her cheeks.

‘Thanks,’ Brittany whispered, as we followed her grandmother out of the room and down the stairs.

The rest of the clan were nowhere to be seen, and the woman led us straight out of the front door and onto the porch, seeming suddenly in a hurry to get rid of us.

The sun was barely visible on the horizon and it can’t have been more than seven thirty, but already the humidity levels were rising and the golden light was racing across the swamp, illuminating it and reflecting off the shallow ponds. My skin prickled where the sun caressed it, making my nerves jangle slightly, every instinct ordering me to leap for the sky and head north as fast as possible. I held myself back and smiled at the old woman.

‘Thank you so much for having us, Mrs Doucet,’ I said.

‘It was a pleasure. I thought I’d lost my granddaughter as well as my daughter, and now it seems I have two young people to add to our family,’ she said, drawing Brittany into a tight hug, before releasing her, stooping slightly and looking directly into her eyes.

‘Brittany, go now, but
hear my voice
, when I call thee near.’

Brittany nodded, her eyes momentarily glassy again. It was a look I would have missed, had I been human, as it flashed so quickly across her face..

‘Come on then Brit,’ I said, nudging my friend who seemed a little confused, but smiled swiftly, covering it up.

‘1… 2… 3 race, yeah,’ she shouted and shot from the floor, her legs using all her remaining energy to propel her up and into the sky.

I shot a swift smile at her grandmother and shot after her, careful not to propel myself too fast, knowing she was watching me, like a lion with its prey.

I caught up with Brittany a couple of minutes later, as soon as we were well out of sight of land and heading north. I slowed down and linked my arm through my friend’s, noticing her yellowish pallor and panda eyes. The dawn lent a beautiful glow to the phosphorescent lines weaving through the atmosphere, reminding me we were in a race against the sun, a race to find some cloud cover and a cooler climate… a race Brittany wasn’t up to running.