VooDoo Follies (15 page)

Yep, yours truly - and this time it definitely
wasn't my fault!

***

Bless the Cookies

I pulled up to Tina's house with a sick
feeling in my stomach. I was tired of bad news, tired of friends,
even frenemies dying and hanging around as a ghost - unknown soul -
whatever. I was tired of the supernatural. I had to laugh at
myself, a voodoo priestess in training - tired of the paranormal -
it was like the intro to some silly joke, only it wasn't. It was my
life, is my life. I looked up at Tina's house, and it was dark. I
mean dark like no one's home at all, dark. I walked up to the door
anyway and then I heard the screaming. I don't know what I was
thinking, I just ran - into the house where the screaming was
coming from. "TINA?" I was shouting at the top of my lungs. "Tina!
Where are you?" As I ran up the stairs something bumped into and
blurred past me at a ridiculous speed that was impossible to follow
with my eyes. My heart was pounding in my chest, and it hammered
harder as I started running up the steps, taking them two and three
at a time. "TINA?"

"I'm here Seraphine," Tina sounded like she
was choking the words out and when I rounded the corner I could see
why. She was holding her neck, gasping for breath, and something
was dripping between her fingers.

"Blood," I said in an other-worldly voice that
wasn't entirely my own. "Oh my Gods, you're bleeding!" Things
finally began registering in my little mind. My over-worked heart
quit thumping so hard as my mind took over and I rushed to the
bathroom to grab some towels and some peroxide or something. "Do
you have any bandages?" I called from the bathroom.

"Underneath the sink, first aid kit." Tina was
speaking in fragments, and I was beyond worried. I grabbed the
first aid kit and ran back out to her.

"What in the hell happened?" Tina looked
shell-shocked, for lack of a better term. Her eyes were bulging out
of her head, not literally, but they were definitely open wide in
terror. "Tina?" I asked a little more gently. "You have to tell me
what just happened, and what the hell blew past me on the stairs. I
can't help you, unless I know." I busied myself while I waited for
her to respond. I removed her hand from her neck and found a pool
of congealing blood there. I used the gauze and some cleaning
solution that was in the first aid kit to clean it all away so I
could bandage her up. When I got the majority of it washed off the
oddity of the wound struck me. She had two puncture wounds in her
neck. I read a lot. I like fantasy as much as the next teenage
girl, and I've definitely read Twilight. So, here I am looking at
two holes in my friend's neck, thinking back to the thing that flew
past me on the stairs, unbelievably fast, and I think vampire. Then
I literally smacked myself for being so stupid. "Tina, you really
need to tell me what's going on, because my imagination is running
away with me."

"I cast a spell." She finally spoke, but she
still seemed far away in her thoughts.

"Okay, you want to be a little more
specific?"

"I met him at a party last night. I thought...
I..." I was loosing her, she was drifting off into some dark
oblivion, her eyes were doing some wonky dance in her skull now,
and I couldn't think of anything else to do. So, I slapped her. Her
eyes returned to their normal places and she cocked her head
towards me, looking at me for the first time since I arrived. I
continued bandaging her neck. "What was that for?" She
asked.

"You were loosing it and your eyes were going
all wonky."

"Oh."

"Oh? You need to finish telling me what
happened. You met some guy at a party, you cast a spell, and now
here you are with two holes in your neck and me asking a lot of
questions, so fill in the blanks!"

"Seraphine?" Tina looked genuinely shocked to
see me.

"Yeah, Tina."

"Get me some juice or something with sugar,
please. I've lost a lot of blood."

"No, there was only a little."

"He took the rest," she said as she looked
over my shoulder. I turned to look, but there was no one
there.

"Who took the rest?"

"David. He's a..." she didn't seem to want to
finish the sentence, and I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the word I
thought was about to come out of her mouth. I stood and turned
towards the stairs.

"Do you have coke or juice in the fridge?" She
nodded and off I went to go get some for her. While I was there I
also found some cookies and brought those too. When I volunteered
as a helper at the blood drive my mom's work hosted I watched them
give people cookies. I figured it couldn't hurt. I took it all back
up to Tina and helped her get to the bed.

"Maybe I should just call 911 and have an
ambulance come. I mean, we don't know how much blood you
lost."

"No, I will be fine. Thanks for helping me
Seraphine." Tina looked down at the cookies that were now in her
hands. "Sera, could you bless the cookies?"

"Huh?"

"You know, put a blessing of protection on
them or something, so when I eat them I am protected."

"Um, I've never blessed food before, Tina.
I..."

"Please."

"Okay." I thought back on all my classes with
my Auntie Perrine and I remembered her teaching me how to bless a
house to keep evil spirits away. I decided that would work. I
didn't have everything I needed to perform a full out ritual, but I
could work around that. "Do you have any sage, by any
chance?"

"Yeah, top drawer over there in the dresser.
It's in the box."

"Okay," I got up and grabbed the sage and the
lighter that was there with it. I plucked a few sprigs out of the
bunch and lit them, waited for them to catch fire and then gently
blew it out to the point that the sprigs were merely smoldering a
billowing white smoke up into the air. I walked back over to Tina
and her cookies, and began to do the protection chant. I chanted
for the cookies, as I was asked, but I extended my 'blessing' out
to Tina as well. I'm pretty sure she meant for herself to be
protected and not just the cookies. And I wasn't sure if eating
blessed food would be enough in itself. When I was finished I
placed the remainder of the smoldering sage on the saucer by Tina's
bed and let them burn out on their own. "All blessed and
protected."

"Thank you," she whispered and then began
nibbling on her be-spelled cookies. She still looked as though she
were in shock, but I needed answers and it was time she started
supplying them.

"What happened, Tina."

She continued nibbling her cookie and then she
looked at me and sighed. "It was stupid." She looked down at the
rest of the cookies sitting in her lap. "I shouldn't have done it,
but I thought I learned my lesson from messing around with you and
the love spell, and with what happened to Trevor." Sadness swept
across her face. "So, instead of love I performed a lust spell on a
guy I met at a party. I mean he was smokin' hot and I just wanted
to go make out with him a bit, maybe see if it lead to more dates
in the future."

I couldn't help it, I was rolling my eyes. I
had warned her about those kind of spells. I spent most of my
childhood watching my mom fowl things up while dabbling in the
love/lust arts. "Tina," I started.

"I know," she said, and then she put the
remains of her cookie down with the rest. "I wasn't thinking. I
should have known better." She looked up at me now, in all
seriousness. "Remember when you said your magical screw ups lead
you to chasing down zombies in the city?"

"Yeah," I agreed and gulped as I remembered
having to do it.

"You were serious weren't you?" I nodded. "I
never believed in stuff like that. I mean, I'm not even sure I
believed my magic worked. I wanted to, but I never saw results
until you came around." She picked up a different cookie and
nibbled on it a bit, oblivious to the crumbs that fell down into
her lap. I just sat there waiting to hear the rest. "Do you believe
there are other monsters in this world? Ghosts, vampires, who knows
what else?"

"I believe there are ghosts, though I wouldn't
exactly call them monsters. As for vampires, I don't know, Tina. I
mean, I've raised a zombie, I've seen them with my own two eyes.
Vampires, well they always seemed a bit far fetched." I shook a
little as a chill swept through me. "I suppose at this point,
though, I would be ready to believe in just about anything that
showed itself to me."

"The lust spell. It worked, but..." She just
stopped talking mid-sentence and stared off at the black wall in
front of her.

"But what?" I asked gently.

"David is a vampire. I didn't know when I cast
the spell. Seraphine..." fear was plastered all over Tina's face
now. "Seraphine, do you know what vampires lust after?"

"Blood," I said nonchalantly and I laughed a
little as I said it because it just sounded so silly to
me.

"Exactly." Tina grabbed hold of my arm in a
vice-like grip. "Seraphine, vampires don't lust after sex like
people do, they have blood lust. When I cast the spell to enhance
his lust for me..." The horrible truth she was trying to convey hit
me all at once.

"Oh, Tina, no."

"He wants my blood in a wicked bad way." Tina
was shaking violently now. "I tried reversing the spell. It didn't
work. I need your help, before he tries to come back.

"I don't know what I can do, Tina."

"You blessed the cookies." Her voice was far
away and she was back to staring at the black wall. Her eyes were
getting heavy with sleep and I grabbed the can of coke from her
hand just before she let go of it. I tucked the comforter up around
Tina, moved her raven-haired locks out of her face and cleaned up
the cookie mess she had made. Then I pulled out my cell and called
my mom.

"Hey mom, is it okay for me to stay with Tina
tonight? She's having guy trouble and needs a shoulder to cry on."
I paused listening to my mom rant and rave about guy trouble and
how she's had her share, like I didn't already know that. Then
finally, she gave me permission and told me to check in tomorrow
morning. "Yes, ma'am. I love you too." I hung up, grabbed the extra
blanket that was folded across the end of Tina's bed and plunked
myself into her black fuzzy chair. I couldn't leave her alone. I
didn't know what kind of defense I would be against a vampire, but
I thought as long as I was here, maybe he wouldn't show up
again.

***

Talking to the Dead

"Seraphine," I heard a faint voice and felt my
shoulder being touched, but I didn't want to let go of the dream I
was having. Stephen was with me, and he was cupping my face with
his hands, only it wasn't Stephen anymore, now it was Trevor.
"Seraphine!" I was jolted out of my dream by Tina yelping my name
and shaking me awake.

"What?" I jumped up out of the chair so fast
that the kink in my neck didn't register until I felt the pain run
down my back and shoulder like an electric shock. "Oww!" I was
howling in pain now, trying to slowly rotate my neck and shoulders
to work the kink out. Only then did I look around and realize I was
still in Tina's room. "Well, I guess I fell asleep on guard duty."
I said with a shrug, sending another jolt through my neck and right
shoulder.

Tina smiled at me, "It's okay, he didn't come
back." She started folding the blanket I had curled up with last
night and tossed it across the bottom of her already made
bed.

"What time is it?"

"It's 11."

"Are you serious? I slept until 11? My mom is
going to kill me."

"Don't worry," Tina waved my phone at me, "she
already called and I told her we had a late night and that you were
still sleeping. You might want to call her and say hi though. She
sounded skeptical."

"That's my mom." I took the phone from her and
called home, putting it on speaker so Tina could chime in. I had a
feeling my mom didn't believe I had actually stayed there last
night. Once we convinced her that everything was okay and that I
would be home later I hung up and sat back down. "Do you have some
Motrin or something? Sleeping in your chair was not the brightest
idea I have ever had."

"Yeah, I'll run to the bathroom and get it for
you."

I closed my eyes for a minute after she left
and opened them to see Stephen standing at her dresser looking at
the pictures. "She had a crush on you," I told him.

Stephen smiled and turned toward me, "I know.
I just never liked her that way. I always had my eye on someone
else."

"That's exactly what Tina said."

"What did I say?" Tina walked back into the
room and just missed pushing through Stephen's form as she came to
hand me the medicine.

"Oh, nothing. I was just going over in my head
what you told me last night."

"Oh, about Vampire Dave?" Tina looked at me
sheepishly, as if she expected me to no longer believe her. "I know
it sounds weird, but I swear it's all true."

"I believe you, I was here last night -
remember?" I looked up at Stephen who now wore a curious
expression. "Can you fill me in one more time? I just need to
separate what really happened from the crazy dreams I had last
night." Stephen listened as Tina rehashed everything that had taken
place over the past 48 hours. He was shaking his head in disbelief
when Tina's mom called for her.