by Aneesa Price
“Mon Dieu! Anais! It’s me, Raulf,” he cried out once he’d changed back to human form.
Anais continued screaming as though someone was skewering her and roasting her flesh alive. “Anais, it’s me. I’m here. Conall is going to get those witches to help you. Miss Suzette and your sisters will come too. Hold on, Anais, we’ll get you out of this hell.” Tears flooded his vision as he stared at the love of his heart, thrashing uncontrollably on the mattress, screaming out in torturous agony.
“Anais, you hear me! Don’t you fucking dare let go!”
It was the most emasculating experience he’d had yet. Raulf sat on the edge of the bed, where her flaying legs couldn’t reach and watch powerlessly while she continued to agonizing yelling. He prayed that help would arrive soon. Now!
Just when Raulf was about to run out and go and carry the help back himself, the witches arrived with the anxious faces of the entire household in tow. Then he spotted Conall – a man charged and wolf attacked. He growled, paws on the chest of the witch you put her there. He’d seen the sheets, smelled the sex and knew what had led to the state that Anais was in. In fact, it all began when she first came into contact with the fucking bastard! Raulf, the wolf, took a deep sniff of the witch, a cold nose swiping against his throat. But before he could take that fatal bite, V and Niul had him in stronghold and hauled him off. He changed back into human form cursing.
“Now’s not the time, Raulf. Whatever issue you have with Conall can wait.” V’s voice was firm, her tone clipped.
“My issue is that it all started with him. Her attacks,” Raulf waved an arm at the direction of the cabin, “it started with him. And do you know what?” He paused, breath huffing from rage, “they had sex in there before this newest episode – he’s fucking poison to her and as I chose her, he’s gonna be my next meal.”
“What you need to do now, my brother is cool the fuck down.” V tightened her hold on Raulf as did Niul. “The only thing any of us are going to do now is concentrate on helping her. Am I clear?”
Raulf looked at V’s bared fangs and shot her a sardonic look, “You will never scare me, V. But you’re right – the witch and I will have a little heart to heart later.” Raulf looked over at Conall, “Anything happens to her, I’ll come after you. I’ll rip your throat out and feed you to the wolves.”
Conall nodded, “If she dies, you won’t have to come after me, I’d go with you – I’d have earned it.”
“Okay, now let’s join the rest shall we in seeing how we can address the real issue at hand?” V was already with the others at the slave quarters before she finished her directive.
The slave quarters couldn’t hold them all but Raulf didn’t care; he squeezed himself into a corner near the bed and watched the sisters perform a magickal scan. Miss Suzette threw him the pants she’d brought along. He realised that she knew him well enough to have guessed what would happen. Transfixed on the grim scene in front of him, he forgot about his nudity until she jabbed him in the ribs as a reminder. He put it on, grabbing it from the floor where it had fallen, when she ribbed him.
The vampires were huddled on the small porch and steps, eerily still as they waited and observed. Miss Suzette was alternating between prayers on her rosary and prayers to the voodoo Goddess. Conall was calling to the witch Goddess as his sisters moved around the bed, chanting loudly. Their arms rose and fell, hands moved over and above Anais’ shaking form on the bed. It was a din of the strangest kind even for the bayous of New Orleans. And it didn’t take a genius to figure out that they didn’t know what was wrong or what to do – they were taking chances.
A voice interrupted the chaos and Raulf’s muttered expletives. Sylvain came forward and addressed the witch sisters. “I know what’s happening.”
Breaths were collectively held, only the echoes of Anais’ now completely hoarse, wounded shouts reverberated off the walls.
Sylvain repeated, “I know what it is. We have to move fast. She doesn’t have much time left.”
For once, no one argued. Propelled by a desperate need to save her, everyone followed Sylvain’s rapid directives. They moved with supernatural speed to remove the bed and prepare the protection circle. Sylvain took the lead, a gold halo surrounding him as he chanted in a strange language that no one else seemed to know. Sylvain stood at the top end of the circle, Conall at the other and his sisters and Miss Suzette in between. Different magicks, Sylvain’s obviously unique kind, mingled with voodoo and witchcraft. None knowing what the other was doing came together with the singular purpose of saving Anais’ life.
At last, Anais was still. Sylvain proceeded to address the rest of them. “The worst has passed. I’ve seen something similar happen only once. Ages ago, long before man had took control of this land. It wasn’t something I thought I’d see again.” Sylvain should have been drained, exhausted, after the incredible feat of magick he’d just led and performed, yet the only sign of any distress was the grim tightening of the lines of his mouth, the concern in his eyes.
He still had their attention as they waited for further enlightenment, “Anais’ powers are very powerful, very pure magick – royal witch magick and they were bound by very dark magick.” His sought out Conall and noted the shock.
“How can that be? We are all alive and accounted for?” Conall’s expression was incredulous.
“All but one.” Fianna reminded her brother while Sylvain nodded in agreement at the connection she’d made. Fianna felt the weight of it and sat down on the edges of the circle, where Anais now lay still as though in a deep slumber. “If you’re right, Sylvain, then this changes much.”
“What are you talking about? Come on! We’re here too, you know!” V’s frustration was eating at her. She’d had to watch witches take over the protection of her sister twice now. She’d had to watch her maker and friend writhe in agony while she could only stand and do nothing.
“She’s not out of the woods yet. We’ve only kept the magick at bay for the time being and it could come back at any moment. I’ll give you the shortened version now and then I’ll explain fully when Anais is with us. You need the context so that we can progress to the next stage, the unbinding stage.” The three witch sisters visibly shuddered at the implications of his statement. The others offered grim nods.
“Many years ago, when religion came to the land that is now known as Europe, a royal princess was taken captive and her powers were bound. She had the purest of witch magick yet her capturers thought of her as a heretic. I happened to pass by the area where she was being held and witnessed her passing as her bound magick ate at her very being, her very soul, while trying to escape the bonds that had been placed on it. I was too late to help but I witnessed how she was at the end and her aura, her symptoms were what we’d just seen Anais display.”
Dragging a hand over his face, as though to wipe away the ghastly memory, he continued, “I found out later, from a powerful friend who was also a secret practitioner of witchcraft that the princess had been consumed by the white magick trapped inside of her. You see, all things have good and evil to them. Today this principle is more commonly referred to as the ying-yang.”
Comprehension dawned on the faces on the non-witches, just as he’d hoped it would. The intricacies of magick were very hard to describe to those who did not live the craft.
Rose interrupted the tale, “So the white magick, when trapped inside her, began to separate from her.”
Conall interjected to further clarify. “All magick needs to be honed and nurtured by the one gifted with it. Through practice and learning, they grow, mature and become integrated into one. To bind magick is to not only stop the person from using it but often an act of punishment for evil deeds done. Binding magick is not done lightly. Depending on the power of the witch it can easily progress from uncomfortable punishment to cruel torture. The stronger the magick that is bound, the more dire the consequences are for the witch.”
“So, Anais has the main honcho version o
f magick and is now going through the mother of all tortures?” V’s question reflected their unspoken fear. When Conall nodded, she swore like a swamp rat.
Sylvain tipped his head in acknowledgment, “It’s that serious. My friend informed me that the magick bound inside the princess slowly ate at her from the inside in its attempt to seek an escape, to seek light. It first devoured her physically and then her soul. I also found out that it is the same friend who had bound her magick with the dark kind. He’d been the mastermind behind the plan to take over the kingdom and instrumental in the attempts to wipe out the craft under the guise of religion. He hoped to be one of the few with noted power left in the land. Needless to say, I made sure that he died a death as close to the horror that he’d inflicted on that poor innocent girl.”
Conall sat down amidst his sisters and cast his gaze over the intrigued, motley group that constituted Anais’ friends and family. He pointed at the unnaturally still body of the woman he’d spent hours loving not so long ago. “If what Sylvain says is true and I have no reason to doubt his experience or his thinking, then Anais is the descendent of Claire. Before our births,” he waved at his siblings, “two generations before, the union between triplet witches was broken. One of the babies, Claire, was kidnapped and not seen since. We never knew what happened to her. It was the time of the witch vampire war and it was presumed that she’d been killed as many witches were slaughtered for sport by their vampire enemies. From Anais’ existence, it seems as if Claire had survived long enough to birth a child or children and that Anais is descendent from her. It is the only explanation because all other within the royal bloodline can be accounted for, even the princess that Sylvain spoke of.”
“So dark magick’s been used to bind my baby’s powers?” Miss Suzette’s eyes were red-rimmed from crying and the distress seeing what her baby, Anais, was going through. “Someone has gotten past me and harmed my baby?”
“Yes. We don’t know who or how but I recognize the scent. It is very powerful and well masked with vampire magick. Anais’ own turning has been aiding in its disguise.” Sylvain laid a hand on Anais’ heart in the middle of the circle, where she lay still, naked and as pale as death. “I can sense it. You will too,” he nodded at the witches in the room. “Think of the different magicks inside of her as layers and it will be easier to identify. Up until now, you’ve been looking for a magick and have hit a brick wall every time because what you were really dealing with was multiple magicks intertwined and battling within her, disguising each other.”
“That makes sense,” Ida acknowledged, flopping next to Fianna on the edge of the circle, “whenever we thought we’d identified the source of the binding as light, when we went to unravel it, it came up as dark and vice versa.”
“So what do we do?” Conall asked of his friend, anxiety written all over him. “You’re the only one that has come across this type of situation before.”
“We need to peel back the layer of vampire magick to reveal the others, much like peeling an onion. When we have it exposed, we need to channel our combined magickal energy to Anais’ magickal core and help her fight the binding. It is the only way and therein lays the risk. Only she can fight it. On top of all of that, we have to do it now or risk losing her anyway when her white magick next attacks the binding. We’ve only managed to stall the attack on her but it won’t hold indefinitely. If the imprisoned magick does not find liberation, it will consume her from the inside out in self-preservation. Conall is correct, with Anais not having had any training, let alone acknowledgment of her powers, the magick sees itself as a separate entity in an unwelcoming vessel.”
A grim smile curved Sylvain’s lips, “Good thing I was so traumatized by the princess’s death that I memorized the counter-spell from the tome of the witch just before I killed him. I’d hoped never to have to use it but now I’m glad I tucked that bit of information away.”
Chapter 14
They split up into task teams. The witches were gathered in the slave quarters going over the spell that Sylvain had committed to heart. Occasional obscenities were expelled by Conall as they worked through the challenges brought by doing a spell cast from medieval Europe in modern New Orleans. Miss Suzette was amongst the witches as was Raulf, insisting that their own magick, bayou-born, could provide further input into a solution. The witches agreed with their thinking, adding that they were to contribute towards the channeling of good magickal energy to Anais during the unbinding.
“This is the first time I’ve truly felt that being a vampire sucks.” Marie grumbled, pink streaks stained her cheeks where tears had fallen mere moments ago as she watched her friend battle for her life. “I get that they say that the dark vampire magick may negate the good magick or be drawn into the dark magick that binds her but I can’t help but wish that we could do more than just errands.”
“Don’t see it that way. What we’re doing is needed and it frees them,” V flicked her head in the direction of the witches, “to figure out how to approach the spell. From what Sylvain said, time is critical and in this way, we do help. But you’re right. It does suck. I wish we could do more too. I wish that it was as simple as a vampire turning. If it was, we could give her some blood and she’d heal.”
“Well, why don’t we?” Sophie’s question drew raised and questioning stares from her friends. She responded to their tacit skepticism, waving an arm towards the slave quarters where the witches were gathered in spell dichotomy. “They are powerful witches and obviously have Anais’s best interests at heart. For that I’ll be eternally grateful, regardless of the outcome. We, however, have something they don’t. We have her love and she has ours. V, you mentioned blood and you’re onto something there. We share her blood and she ours. That is a connection that nothing can alter. Witch magick is old and strong but vampire blood is just as old and powerful and I’m willing to bet that the love we share, the blood we share, is stronger than any witch dark, white or royal magick.”
Marie nodded, “I agree about our blood link but what if we’re wrong? I couldn’t live knowing that we contributed to her death. I’m not ready to see her ghost flitting around the plantation. Knowing Anais, she’d stick around once she’s gone to watch over us. I love the dead, y’all know that but I’m not lovin’ the idea of seeing her flit around with our ghosts here.”
“We’re not going to lose her. There’re too many of us here that will fight for her to live. We can’t lose her.” Sophie wrapped Marie in her arms consolingly. “Didn’t Sylvain say that light and dark exists in all?” Sophie’s question was rhetoric, so she continued, “Then that must be true for us too. If you look at how we live, we live good, honest lives. We don’t hunt or kill our sources of blood. We live by the vampire laws as well as the laws of this country and we give back to the humans we share this land with.”
“I see where you’re going with this and I support the sentiment.” V’s dark head bobbed up and down vigorously in agreement. “How’d we do that?”
Sophie already had an answer; her lips curved knowingly in anticipation of their task ahead, “We don’t have to do anything. We already have that good in us. It’s in our bond of friendship, family and blood.”
It was time to wrap this up. Sophie looked at each of her sisters, allowing her to feel the pride and love for them as individuals and a unit. Gently she gathered it and sent it back to them, her mouth curving wide in appreciation as it hit them and catching her drift, they sent love back. They continued to send the energy of their love to each other until there was an ever-moving circle of positive emotions twirling around them, moving back and forth through their connection as they fed light into each other.
Marie was the first one to break the connection. She felt the first ray of hope in days and whooped in delight. Jumping into the air, she grabbed an astonished Rose and smacked an enormous kiss on her cheek. Flushed with excitement, she announced, “I think that says we’re ready ladies. Now, let’s get these errands out of the way so t
hat the real work can start! We’re the vampire women of Papillion and we stick together! Let’s go kick some magick ass!”
Perhaps it was hysteria born of concern, perhaps born of hope. No matter the source, the vampiresses completed their tasks with renewed speed and then set forth to inform the witches of how things would be done on their plantation.
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Anais lay on the hard, uncomfortable floor of the old slave quarters. Despite the warmth of the summer’s night on the plantation, it felt like she was locked in a meat refrigerator. Her outer-body, as she’d come to think of it, felt covered in thick, impenetrable ice. Inside, beneath the skin was a different matter. Every inch felt like it was burning as though fire ran through her veins instead of vampire blood. The pain was excruciating as though a fire-heated knife was being run along her flesh and bone, searing a charcoal path as it moved through her body, over and over again. She let out a scream as she felt it move through her intestines. It was a scream no one heard. Her body seemed to be divided into two distinct parts; the one that was going up in flames on the inside and the other nothing more than an ice-cold, numb shell; external perfection hiding internal deterioration.
She’d heard everything that had occurred since Sylvain thought they’d contained her demise. Sylvain’s horror story about the princess scared her. If the pain leading up to death was as intense as she felt, the pain increasing before it was enough to make her wish the ability to beg that they’d decapitate her and save her from that torturous misery. The witches seemed out of their depth despite their immense power. She listened to them now, noting the logic in their debates and deliberations as they decided on their magickal strategy. That didn’t placate her either. There was no logic to what was happening to her. They’d given up on traditional unbinding spells and rituals and seemed to lean heavily on the hope that they’d connect with her so that she could break the binding. Anais didn’t see how she would find the energy to fight when it was so much more alluring to let go and end it all.