WitchLove (26 page)

Luckily that scream didn’t come and a short while later I heard footsteps running up the porch steps. Two women burst into the hallway shouting.

‘Jess, where are you?’ Franny shouted.

‘Illuminate,’ my aunt said.

But the lights wouldn’t work so instead Aunt Sarah created a glowing orb of light which hovered above their heads as they pounded towards me. Simultaneously, the priestess suddenly appeared from the kitchen with the two men and another woman behind her, their faces blank, their eyes crazy. Franny’s hand went out, her lips moving frantically as she fought the Voodoo magic imprisoning me.

The priestess too was chanting and Sarah’s glowing orb was extinguished; its energy sucked away and absorbed by the Voodoo queen, who shone slightly as she soaked it up.

‘Why, thank you. Here, I’ll return the favour,’ she screamed at us and she too thrust her hands out at the witches, energy flowing out of them, red hot and straight at Franny.

Franny couldn’t protect herself because her energy was already directed at fighting my knives. I saw the fire ball coming at her and knew I couldn’t wait a single second more. With my vampire sight I saw everything happen like split second video stills. I dropped my orb. The knives shot forward. The fireball sped towards us both. Franny’s spell finally worked and the knives dropped to the floor. I darted forward, knocking Franny to the floor, covering us both with my own orb and praying that Aunt Sarah was doing the same thing.

Aunt Sarah did one better; she performed a mirror spell and sent the fireball flying back down the hall, over our heads towards its screaming mistress, who successfully reabsorbed the shimmering ball of death and grinned maniacally.

‘Kill them,’ she screamed at her brainwashed army who poured past her, towards us, armed with more long, gleaming knives.

Franny scrambled to her feet and Aunt Sarah raced forward to meet us.

‘Jess, we need to get out of here. There’s too much black magic, and Susannah is in a bad way,’ she said, grabbing my face and staring hard at the fused skin between my chin and nose.

I felt the tingles racing through her fingers as she tried to kill the Voodoo spell, but we ran out of time and with an apologetic shake of head she dropped her hands.

I wanted to say that we had orbs. That they couldn’t harm us. That we needed to find Brittany, but of course I couldn’t. All I could do was wave my hands in the air, trying to indicate towards the kitchen and then pointing through the floor to the cellar. My mumbles grew louder as I became more frustrated watching Franny shake her head back at me, and then I caught Aunt Sarah’s terrified expression as a strange thing began to happen; all of our orbs began to flicker and fade around us. I glanced over to the priestess who was chanting, her face contorted, her pupils dilated to such an extreme that the green was barely visible around the two huge spheres of black.

‘She’s an energy sponge. She can soak up any spells we create and use them against us. She’s absorbing our orbs. Run!’ my aunt yelled, turning and fleeing towards the open door.

I hesitated, torn between finding Brit and following my aunt’s orders, when suddenly a hand clamped round the still featureless lower half of my face, the other hand holding a knife to my neck. I couldn’t have that; I had to keep my head! With both hands I reached up and grabbed the woman’s wrist with the hand holding the knife, and I twisted as hard as I could, whilst simultaneously jabbing behind me into her ribs with my elbow. Unfortunately for her, she hadn’t reckoned on my added strength and even
I
winced as I heard her wrist snap and her ribs fracture. She screamed and collapsed on the floor wailing. I turned to find Franny and Aunt Sarah in the gloom and as they opened the door, the moonlight illuminated them as they too screamed and fled back into the house, followed by several zombies in varying states of decomposition.

We grouped together and with a flash of insight I remembered the knives on the floor. I reached down and groped around in the dark until I found them. I swiftly handed them out, arming Franny and Aunt Sarah with one each and keeping two for myself. Franny tried firing a last spell at the approaching zombies, but it too was sucked up into the bottomless vacuum that was the cackling Voodoo queen. With five zombies on one side of us and two hexed human men and a Voodoo queen now advancing towards us on the other side, this was a battle we were ill-prepared for.

Chapter Twenty

Reckoning the zombies would be an easier target than the Voodoo queen, I leapt over my aunt and darted into their path, swinging my knives in front of me and slashing a path towards the door. A dirty, clammy hand grabbed my arm as I moved, another slimy hand pulled at my hair, whilst yet another grabbed hold of my leg. I was surrounded, but I had more strength than them. I slashed and stabbed, jumped and kicked; heard bones crack and zombies moan… but they carried on. They kept on coming. I stabbed at a zombie who leapt on me, slicing my knife across his neck, leaving a wide, gaping cavity. Nothing but green gloop oozed out and his body carried on fighting, his mouth wide, teeth bared. I tried to scream, but my mouth remained welded together.

‘Jess? Jess?’ Daniel was here. ‘What the hell?’

But there was no time for a chat and the hallway swiftly became a heaving mass of flying bodies. Blood sprayed and screams rent the air as we were suddenly joined by three more vampires, leaping over the zombies and into the battle. Together we fought, threw and ripped the reanimated bodies apart, flinging them with inhuman strength back through the door, and knocking new zombie additions over like skittles, as they too attempted to join the fight.

The human puppets were fighting for all they were worth, their priestess untouched, chanting her spells as hell broke out all around. Just as we had cleared the path of zombies, a heavy mist began to crawl through the hallway, until it became impossible to tell who was friend or foe.

‘Get the witches out of here,’ Daniel shouted.

‘Jess, you need to come with us,’ my aunt yelled, as she and Franny headed down the now cleared path towards the door, which was now hanging from its hinges.

I shook my head vigorously and pointed down the corridor towards the kitchen.

‘Let’s get you outside. I need to remove this hex for you. Let the vampires find Brittany,’ Franny said, her arm gently guiding me towards the door.

I pulled back and looked for Daniel, who was fighting off another zombie.

‘Go Jess. We have it under control,’ said a voice I half-recognised next to me.

I swung round and found myself facing Seth, the vampire elder from the Council. My eyes went wide with shock and he smiled quickly.

‘Go! What use is a vampire without a mouth, hey?’ he nudged me forward and still I looked for Daniel.

Jess, go, damn it. I’ll find her. I promise.
His voice was there. It reassured me.

‘Come on,’ Franny said, running after my aunt who was just leaving the house.

They had left Susannah hidden under the dense vegetation opposite the house, a protective orb encasing her unconscious body, like Sleeping Beauty in a coma. Her raven black hair flowed out, spreading across the moss, her skin deathly pale. There were ugly, dark bruises around her neck and arms, and deep gouges searing across her cheeks. Her clothes had been ripped to shreds and a vicious bite mark was still seeping blood from her arm. I ran to her and fell to the ground by her side, jumping when a group of five angels stepped forward out of the treeline, their swords glittering.

‘It’s okay, she’s my niece,’ my aunt said, as the angels backed off and disappeared into the shadows once more.

I wanted to ask so many questions; it was so frustrating. I tore at my face again and Franny knelt down by my side.

‘Susannah will be okay, don’t worry,’ Franny said, before turning to me. ‘The angels brought the vampires through the ley lines… but their energy levels are too depleted to fight. They were protecting Susannah. We’ll just change the dressings and then I’ll get onto this hex of yours.’

I watched as my aunt leaned over her daughter. Pulling various herbs sachets out of my backpack she proceeded to swap the fresh herb dressings for the used ones she had already packed into the open wounds. Susannah moaned quietly and stirred whilst my aunt worked. Franny moved away from me, and drawing a handful of clear crystals out of my bag, she went to work placing them around the unconscious girl. Together the women chanted, sitting on opposite sides of Susannah, holding hands and pouring their energy into healing her wounds. A white glow emanated from the crystals as the trajectory of their light flooded out and curved over the girl to join with the next, forming a criss-crossing aura of healing light, illuminating my cousin’s face, as the colour returned to her cheeks.

After several minutes the witches paused and nodded.

‘She’ll be fine now, let her sleep,’ Franny said.

My aunt nodded and a tear rolled down her cheek, to be swiftly wiped away.

‘Right, let’s sort you out,’ she said, smiling through her anguish and leaving her daughter’s side to sit next to me.

They both tried, they tried everything they knew, but nothing worked. They cleansed me, they used herbs, they tried a black candle to draw away the negative energy; they tried salt and magic chanting… nothing helped. I thought back to the last time I was here, to the hex I witnessed being performed in the cellar and that’s when it dawned on me.

‘Mm..moll…’ I tried telling them. A doll, the priestess must have a doll. Susannah had decided that we hadn’t managed to break Brittany’s hex because they had used a Voodoo doll, maybe she had one for me. I had to find it. The witches looked at me, they didn’t have a clue what I was mumbling. I tried gesticulating, desperately trying to draw the image of a doll, but they didn’t get it.

I tried contacting Daniel. The vampires were not back, still in the house fighting the Voodoo queen and her human slaves.

Are you in the cellar yet?
I asked Daniel, trying to feel for him, find out where he was.

No
, came his answer.
She has spelled the doorway. Even Seth cannot break it down. We are fighting the last human now, and she has disappeared.

It was no use. I was going to have to find a way in. Brittany could be dying. I jumped up and shot across the driveway, my aunt’s pleas to stay back dying on the wind. If the Voodoo queen had sealed the door shut, I would try the windows. I ran round the back of the house, thankful to see there were no more zombies left to hinder me. I found the back cellar window and studied it; it was small but I reckoned on being able to wriggle through. I wasted no time and kicked it, watching as the glass sprayed out in all directions. Using my boot, I then gave it several more kicks round the edges, displacing as much glass as I could, leaving the frame as free as possible, which I then grabbed hold of and pulled with all my might.

Under the extra pressure the frame gave way and the rotting wood splintered beneath my fingers. With a groan and a creak the entire thing collapsed and fell away from the foundations of the house, leaving a much bigger crawl space. I was in. I wriggled through feet first and leapt down into the gloomy cellar, looking around me.

Unlike last time the florescent strip light was not working, but the black candles were all lit, casting a dull, spooky light which illuminated my friend’s prone body. She’d been tied onto a wooden bed base, with restraints around both ankles and one wrist. The other arm was tied out at a right angle from her body, so that her sliced wrist hung over the edge of the bed, her blood steadily dripping into a container below. I darted forward and ripped the restraints from her arm, lifting it up in the air and holding the edges of her skin together, to stem the bleeding.

Holding her arm up with one hand I used my other to rip the remaining restraints apart and stroked her forehead. I couldn’t even talk to her.

‘Mmmn mmn,’ I mumbled. She didn’t wake.

I frantically scoured the room, looking for the dolls I knew must be there and heard the pounding on the cellar door above me abruptly stop.

We’re coming round the back for you. The humans have been dealt with, the queen is still missing.
Daniel’s voice said in my head.

‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ the sinister female called from the shadows by the altar.

I jerked back, surprised, pulling Brittany’s lifeless body with me, picking her up and cradling her in my arms.

Brittany’s grandmother, the Voodoo queen was staring at us, holding two cloth dolls in her hand. I recognised the first as the one they had made with Brittany’s hair, but the other was a new one. Green eyes had been drawn on it, and round its neck was the pendant Luke had given me. Holding Brittany tightly against my chest I felt my bare neck. How had she got that? I only took it off occasionally when I had a bath, as the leather thong became all stretched and soaked up the water. I must have forgotten to put it back on. I stared back at the dolls. Unlike Brittany’s, which had a mouth and nose drawn on, mine had a gaping hole roughly sewn together with thick black thread, the stiches spanning the entire lower half of the dolls head.

‘I wonder what will happen if I burn them. Shall we see?’ she said, holding my doll closer to one of the candles.

No!
the words screamed in my head, as I moved forward and the woman inched back.

‘Careful now, if you drop the girl and come for me, she’ll die. She’s living off her last drop of blood. If you let that arm fall, you kill her.’

Once again she held the doll near the flame, so that the arm began to blacken.

Ahhhhh!
In my head I was screaming, shrieking so loudly the world could hear my pain, but I held onto Brittany and glared at the witch, as she removed the doll and cackled. I didn’t know if it would work, but I projected an orb around us and waited while the witch this time placed my doll’s leg over the naked flame.

It didn’t work. The pain became too much, and I knew I would fail to hold onto my friend any second, as the fight instinct took over. My fangs protruded painfully from my gums, slicing into my sealed lips, bidding me to drop Brittany and leap forward to break the woman’s neck, but before I could move, the wooden wall surrounding the broken window space behind me splintered and an unholy cry filled the place.