“I did not know how to tell you,” Jean Luc said. “How do you feel?”
“Feel?” she paused. “I feel… angry. You hid this from me for so long… how could you?”
“Your memories are a delicate subject. I knew I had to approach it carefully.”
“Jean Luc,” I said, interrupting them, “Delphine had a right to know about her past, about who she was. You’ve been sitting on this for a very long time… that doesn’t seem fair.”
“If I were to have told her about her past, she may not have turned out to be the vampire she is now. She is capable, and powerful. Her skills are growing every night, and more importantly, she has not felt the need to seek Marie out and ask questions.”
“So, that is what this is?” Delphine asked, growling now. “You did not tell me because you thought I would run to Marie in search of the truth?”
Jean Luc sized her up, then nodded silently. “I could not risk it. We were at a time of crisis. We still are, Delphine.”
“And you could not trust me with what you have just told me?”
Slowly, solemnly, he shook his head. “I could not.”
Delphine scowled, then fled the room in a blur of shadow, leaving Jean Luc and I alone in the study. I looked over at him, then sighed. This was clearly a family issue. I felt like a total outsider, and yet I had a part to play in this, a piece of it that was mine. “She won’t go to her,” I said.
He nodded. “I know.”
“You should’ve told her sooner.”
“I know.”
I stood from my seat. “I think I should probably get out there and look for Delphine. We have a plan to attack Marie, but we need her blood.”
He angled his head to the side and watched me, curiously. “Her blood?”
“Well… you’ve just confirmed what we suspected, that Delphine carried Marie’s blood in her. We’re going to use Delphine’s blood to affect Marie without needing to even be near her, no matter where she is.”
“So, you could put an end to this soon?”
“I’m not one to count my chickens before they’ve hatched, but… yeah, I hope so.”
“Anything you need from me or my people, we are here, and we are yours.”
Mine. A shiver ran down my spine. “Thank you, Jean Luc… your help is always invaluable.”
“We shall see each other soon. Be careful tonight.”
I nodded and left his house, taking care to exit as quietly as I could. I thought I’d have to go looking for Delphine, but I found her standing at the edge of the street, staring up at the moon. It was almost full and shining brightly on the city below. When she heard me coming, she slowly spun around and looked at me.
“I am a vampire with no memory, and a witch with no powers,” she said.
“That’s not true,” I said, “You have power, and plenty of it. I’ve seen it.”
“Jean Luc doesn’t trust me.”
“I don’t think it’s that… I think Jean Luc is the kind of man who craves control. Telling you what he just revealed would’ve made him lose control of you.”
“I do not want to be controlled.”
“I know…” I sighed. “Look, I know you’ve been through a lot tonight, but the others and I… we think we have a way of bringing Marie down, but in order to do that, we need something from you.”
“From me?”
“It’s the reason why I came… I don’t want to ask, but… if we had your blood, we may have a way of hurting Marie without having to find her.”
She turned her eyes up at the moon again. “This is why you came tonight, isn’t it?” she asked.
I nodded. “It is. Know that I don’t like the idea of… using you… like this, but I don’t see another choice. Our plan could work, and if you agreed—”
“I agree,” she said, cutting me off.
“You… do?”
“I want to help. If there’s something I can do to destroy the woman who… killed me… I will.”
I swallowed hard. “It could be dangerous. For you.”
She nodded. “I have lived a long life, even if you count the many years I spent asleep. Longer than I should have. If it is my time to suffer the final death, I will lay down my life if it means ridding the world of the poison of Marie.”
“Okay… let’s go and find Nicole. There’s no time like the present.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Are you sure about this?” Jared asked.
We had gathered back at the mansion, all of us, to try and perform Nicole’s ritual on Delphine’s blood. Problem was, Nicole didn’t have a ritual in mind—only an idea. Magick used on a person you can’t see couldn’t usually be done on the fly, it had to be prepared first, allowed to simmer a little, before it could come into the world. Without a proper way of doing this, the effect wouldn’t work.
“I’m not,” I said, “I didn’t even know this was possible until today. Frankly, I’m not even sure if it’ll work at all.”
“What if it does? What will you do to her?”
I shrugged. “I’m gonna kill her. Everything that’s wrong with everything is because of her. That woman has touched one too many people with her poison, and she needs to be killed.”
“I thought you were going to get the vampires connected to her blood to leave.”
“I am, but first she needs to die.”
“And if you can’t have both?”
I pressed my lips together. “I don’t know… I’ll figure it out.”
Nicole returned to my office with a book in her hand, flustered like she’d just gotten back from the gym. “I think I have something,” she said.
“Think?” I asked, “Think could make the spell not work at best, or kill us at worst…”
“I know. And I know we’ve been at this for a few hours already, but I think my incantations will work.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Well… like you said, we could end up dead.”
“That’s not good,” Jared said, “I don’t want you guys to do it if that’s a possibility.”
“It’s a risk,” I said, “But it’s always going to come down to us or Marie, right? We may as well give it a shot.”
“Really?” Nicole asked, “I didn’t think you’d be so receptive…”
I stood and walked over to her. “You’re usually the worrywart… if you’re confident in this plan, then I have no reason to believe it won’t work. Y’know, unless you’ve grossly miscalculated something.”
“I… don’t think I have…”
“When it comes to magick, your guesses are better than most people’s educated opinions. Let’s get this over with.”
“I still don’t like this plan,” Jared called out of the office.
Nicole followed me down the hall and into the dining room, where the table had been cleared so a ritual space could be set up. Delphine was there, as was Nina; the former looked like a perfect little statue, the latter looked like she could do with a cigarette.
“It’s not gonna work,” Nina said when she saw us enter, “I know it isn’t. We’re just gonna kill ourselves, and then the vampires are just gonna burn this mansion, too. Then what’s left?”
“Why do you think it won’t work?” I asked. “Nicole seems confident…”
“Seems being the key word. Magick isn’t something you just gamble with.”
“Look, we aren’t going to kill ourselves, okay? We aren’t even going to use the kind of magick that could kill a person.”
Nicole cocked an eyebrow at me. “Really? Because I could’ve sworn overhearing you say you were totally going to kill Marie.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I said that, but if this is going to be tricky enough, then maybe I’ll just… I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Nina said, jamming a finger at me, “First of all, there is no you; there’s us. We’re the trio, which means we need to decide together what we’re going to do, and then act it out as one. If we’re going to try and kill her
, it needs to be the three of us that make that decision and work the magic accordingly. Right, Nicole?”
Nicole nodded. “She’s right. Everything I’ve read about ritual magick, or even sympathetic magick, tells me the witches casting the spell must do so in unison. If one of us alone were powerful enough to perform the ritual on their own, that wouldn’t be a problem, but we aren’t, so it is. We need to agree before we say a single word what it is we want to do to Marie and those with a blood connection.”
“Including me…” Delphine said, speaking softly.
I walked over to her and held her shoulders. “You’ll be here with us,” I said, “Whatever happens to you, we will reverse the effects.”
She nodded. “I am putting my trust in you… all of you.”
I turned my head and looked over at Nicole. “What do you think? Are we ready?”
Nicole shrugged, then opened the first page of the book she’d been scribbling notes into. “As ready as we’ll ever be.”
“For the record, I still think this is crazy,” Jared said.
“I thought you weren’t invited to this witch’s only party?” I asked, grinning.
“Hey, if you’re gonna die in a few minutes, I’d like to get a good look at you first.”
“No one’s gonne die. We’re gonna get Marie out of New Orleans, and by this time tomorrow night, everyone’s going to be doing much better. Nicole? You should lead us out.”
Nicole, who looked like she was about to perform, for the first time, a play she had never rehearsed for an auditorium full of people, stepped into the center of the pentagram she had created using candles. I followed, and Nina did the same, the two of us arranging ourselves on either side of Nicole, while also staying inside the pentagram.
A moment later, Nicole set her book down on a table, having memorized her own incantation, and held each of our hands. “I want you to repeat after me,” she said, “But only when I tell you to speak, understood?”
“Understood,” I said.
“What happens if we speak out of turn?” Nina asked.
Nicole gave Nina a grave look. “I don’t know… but it won’t be good.”
Nina nodded. “Alright. Take it away, maestro.”
Nicole took a deep breath, followed by another, and another. Already I could feel the winds of magick beginning to fill the room. She called for Delphine to stand before us and present us with some of her blood. Delphine did as she was asked, standing before the trio of witches and biting into her left forearm with her formidable fangs. Cold, black blood began to ooze like blueberry jelly from the wound, which was an unusual sight considering blood was red and flowed rapidly from wounds.
“Madison,” Nicole said, “Smear the blood on your forehead, on mine, and on Nina’s.”
I swabbed at Delphine’s forearm with my fingertips and smudged a little blood on my own forehead, then on Nicole’s, and then on Nina’s. The candles were starting to stutter now, as the breeze in the room steadily increased. Then Nicole began to speak the words of magick, throwing a rhyme out into the world that, when repeated and infused with intent, would collect the power the three of us were generating and turn it into something incredible.
Nicole bid me to follow her rhyme, so I did, falling into place with her like we were singing Row Your Boat. A moment later, Nina joined in, and then the three of us were speaking, and as we spoke, the breeze turned into a gust that pushed and pulled at my hair and made some of the paintings on the walls start to wobble. Miraculously, the candles didn’t go out—none of them did—instead they gently flickered, undisturbed by the wind.
The environment deteriorated as we continued to speak. Paintings were now kicking and bucking wildly on the walls, the contents of several cabinets were shaking, and the ground was trembling along with them. Still, the candles did not falter, allowing us at least to see what was happening around us. From outside there came a bright flash of white light, followed by the roll of thunder and the pattering of rain falling on the house.
The world itself seemed to be trying to tear itself apart as our collective magick grew, but I couldn’t stop the ritual, I couldn’t stop talking; I needed to see it through to the very end. Nicole had been explicitly clear about that, so I continued, doing my best to ignore what was happening around me when, slowly, like a headache, I thought I caught a glimpse of Marie, though not with my eyes but with my mind.
It was like seeing a memory of her playing out in the back of my head, only it felt nothing like a memory at all. There was an otherness to the way in which, in my mind, she angled her head to the side and frowned, like she could see us—like she was aware of us. Memories didn’t know they were being summoned from within the depths of a person’s brain, but this one did.
“You dare interfere with me, witch?” she hissed, her voice echoing, booming into my mind. The very sound of it was like having an icicle drilled into my head; cold, and incredibly painful.
“Leave,” I heard Nicole say, “Leave and take your dark kin with you, bloodsucker.”
“Oh, no child… I’m afraid you have made a terrible mistake.”
I could see Nicole in my mind, almost like a virtual avatar. She was standing atop the roof of this very house, her right hand wound back and crackling with magick. In the sky was Marie, her face roiling like the clouds, thunder grumbling behind her eyes, lightning whipping around her face.
“Leave!” Nicole screamed, her voice sending prickles crawling across my forearms and back.
Marie’s head descended, and with a frown, she said, “No.”
Nicole then grunted and threw the handful of magick coruscating around her fingers and hurled it at Marie’s giant head. At the same time, our chanting became louder, more forceful. Around us, the house continued to shake to the point where one of the bucking paintings finally gave way and fell to the floor with a loud thud. Somewhere in the dark, wooden fixtures—or maybe floorboards—were cracking apart, a sound that made me feel nauseated on top of everything else that was happening.
But the ball of magick hurled from Nicole’s hand didn’t vanquish Marie. Instead, the giant head in the clouds swallowed the magick, then opened her mouth, and sent it streaking right back at Nicole. I screamed her name and pushed her to the side, pushing her out of the pentagram and sending her to the floor, but that didn’t stop Marie’s magick from roaring to the spot upon which Nicole was standing.
It was like I was there with her, watching as this magick ball of light came for us. There was only one thing I thought I could do—I crossed my arms in front of my chest and summoned Eliza’s shield to protect us both from the missile that was about to strike. My magick was no good here. We had opened a bridge to Marie with our ritual, we had sent magick at her, and she had sent it right back at us.
When the ball struck, there was a bright, excruciatingly painful shock of pain, and then everything went dark.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I woke up with a start, gasping for breath. When I opened my eyes, it was Jared I saw, gently pushing down on my chest to keep me level with what I assumed was the floor. My ears were ringing, my heart was pounding, and my head was throbbing. I blinked away some of the daze, just enough to focus on his face, then reached for his face and stroked it.
“She’s awake!” he called out across his shoulder.
I wanted to look at who he was talking to, but I couldn’t move. Everything hurt. “Ja—Ja—what happened?” I asked.
“Can you hear me?” he asked, his voice swimming into clarity as he spoke.
“Yeah… I can.”
“You passed out, all three of you. Nina is already awake, but Nicole…”
“Nicole what?” I tried to move again, but he pressed against my chest.
“You need to stay on your back. She’s not dead, but she’s also not waking up. Just relax for another moment or two, try moving your hands first.”
My arm responded to my mental commands, but it did so sluggishly, like there were weights attach
ed to it. He asked me to wiggle my feet, and I was able to do that, but only after the third try. Something really had happened to me. I felt strangely slow, and encumbered, like I had fifty people sitting on top of me. Somewhere nearby, I heard Gelrot speaking to who I assumed was Nina—he wanted to let her know he had fixed the floors, whatever that meant.
“Madison, you need to tell me what happened to you,” Jared said, “I need to know if it was the same thing that happened to Nina.”
I shut my eyes to concentrate, but I didn’t have to try very hard to remember. Marie was there, her shadowy, cloudy form imprinted into the back of me eyes. I could see the way the cloudy surface of her face shifted in menacing ways, I could hear the rumble of thunder that came from within her, I could see the flashes of lightning streaking across her features. Then I watched her expression twist into a grin, and for a horrified instant I wondered if that really was just a memory or if a piece of Marie was still buried inside my mind.
“The spell didn’t fail,” I said, “It worked… but even together we weren’t strong enough.”
“Strong enough for what?” he asked.
“There was something… she did something to us, something I didn’t think vampires were capable of. Oh Gods, where’s Delphine!?”
Delphine came into view like a shifting shadow; her soft, porcelain face as calm and statuesque as ever. “I am here,” she said, “Still undead.”
I felt myself relax, but only a little. I shook my head and sighed. “I’m so glad you aren’t hurt,” I said.
“What did Marie do?” Jared asked, helping me focus again.
“It was like… a feedback pulse. We were reciting the incantation, everything was going well, but then when it came time to throw magick at Marie, it was like she… swallowed it, and then spat it back at us. I couldn’t protect us from her… I… I just couldn’t, because Marie was already inside. We’d already let her in.”
My head started to pound again, and I winced from the pain. Jared pulled a glass of water off from one of the tables nearby and handed it to me along with some aspirin. “Here, drink.”
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