Witchcraft (#2 Witchblood Series) (5 page)

‘
Go on Jess. Do the pictures move
for you?’ Franny prompted.

‘
Yes! Oh yes!’ I said, my breath
whooshing out as I grinned across at Eva. ‘I love the book. I feel
a part of the book when I open it - I feel safe. When I said I did
everything I could to get the book back from Susannah, it wasn’t
because of Eva; it was because I wanted to protect the book. The
leaves that twist around the pentagram all dance in a breeze which
ruffles my hair. It didn’t work for Susannah, and she said it
wouldn’t work for Carrigan, and that’s why they wanted me
too.’

Franny nodded and smiled at me. ‘Show
me,’ she said.

‘
Don’t you think we should fix her
arm first?’ Eva asked, with a grin.

Chapter Four

A couple of hours later I was lying on
my bed fighting waves of nausea, as Daniel and Eva stared at me,
obviously perplexed.

‘
I don’t understand why you’re
making such a fuss, Jess,’ Eva said.

‘
Eva, leave her alone. You know
she’s not like us,’ Daniel said, sitting down on the bed next to
me.

‘
Maybe, but she’s still a vampire.
Her arm shouldn’t be hurting, now that we’ve fixed it.’

‘
It’s not hurting anymore, okay?’
I replied, sitting up. ‘I just feel a little woozy. I never did
like the sight of blood. I fainted at school in Bio once, when we
had to dissect a bull’s eyeball,’ I said, a shiver running the
length of my body, making me pull the duvet round in a messy
huddle.

‘
It’s still not normal. Vampires
can’t be squeamish Jess. Here drink this and pull yourself
together,’ she said with a smile.

I took the mug of warm, silky
blood she was offering and began to drink. When I’d been turned a
couple of months back, the blood packs they gave me to drink tasted
quite pleasant, chocolatey almost. Then I tasted Daniel’s
blood…fine, I bit him, but he wanted me to do it, and he tasted
like nothing else. The first time was amazing, but for some reason,
and I’d never told either Daniel or Eva, the second time I drank
from him I’d been violently sick. Since then I’d avoided it, making
excuses, which he clearly wasn’t happy with. So I was back to the
blood packs, which I knew Sebastian, the clan leader, was getting
sick and tired of providing for me. I was going to have to tell
them, but I didn’t know how, and I suspected Eva’s solution would
be to sample some
regular
human blood, the regular way. It was just a matter of time,
and time was running out.

The drink helped and the nausea began to
subside. I looked down at my arm - it looked perfect again. I
shuddered as I remembered how, after the first attempt Eva had made
to fix my arm, and after I had punched her in the face in an effort
to escape the scalpel she was slicing through my skin, she had
employed Franny to bind me with a spell, so I couldn’t move as she
worked.

It had only taken a couple of minutes
for her to slice my newly-healed skin open, re-break the wonky
bone, and push it back into its rightful place, so that it could
heal correctly. But I felt every single second. So much for
vampire’s not feeling pain! It seemed that my half-vampire, witch
blood status had awarded me control over my actions and thoughts,
but had also given me human pain thresholds. Fantastic!

On the upside, I had at least developed
a vampire’s healing ability, and now my arm looked as good as new.
I threw off the duvet and put the mug on the dresser.

‘
Better?’ Daniel asked.

I nodded my head and smiled at him.

‘
Good. Well, now you’re fixed I
think Francesca is hoping to have a chat with you, and take a look
at the book,’ he said. ‘I’ll be downstairs with Eva if you need
us.’

‘
No funny business this time,
okay?’ Eva added, as she followed him out of the door. ‘And hurry
up. I’ve got a new ‘Top Model’ episode we can watch when you’re
done.’

I smiled back and nodded. It was
slightly bewildering when Eva slipped from being an arse-kicking
vampire leader to a girlie best friend, but I was happy when she
did. I looked at the book Eva had returned to me, and placing it
beside me, waited.

‘
May I take a look?’ Franny asked,
sitting opposite me on the edge of the bed.

‘
Sure.’

Franny spent some time staring at the
cover, then again at the front page, but her hair didn’t move, and
she showed no signs of seeing the leaves dancing. She continued to
flick silently through the book until she reached the end, and here
she paused.

‘
Have you studied the back pages,
Jess?’

‘
Um, no, not really. I’ve only had
the book a couple of weeks, and to be honest I don’t understand
most of it.’

She nodded again and shuffled closer to
me on the bed.

‘
Here, look!’ she said as she slid
her nail gently around the inner side of the back cover. What
appeared to be glued was not. The paper easily lifted up, and
underneath was another blank piece of paper.

‘
Reveal,’ she murmured, tracing
her fingers across the page, following invisible lines, in the
shape of a pentagram.

‘
Wow!’ I said under my breath, as
a long list of scribbled names appeared in a column down the page.
The names were all written in different handwriting, simply as if
each person had written their name in the book one after the other.
Some were written very neatly, some seemed scrawled across the
page, and the early ones looked to be scratched on it.

‘
Yes, this is indeed your family
book. Look, here is your mother’s name, Laurie, and your
grandmother’s name above that,’ Franny said, pointing to the last
two names at the bottom of the list.

‘
So my grandmother is called
Sylvie?’ I asked.

‘
She was. She died ten years ago,
which is when Laurie should have taken on the role of High
Priestess, but instead it passed to her sister, your aunt,
Sally.’

‘
So will I have to give her this
book back?’ I asked, dreading the answer.

‘
No, it is yours. As High
Priestess, Sally owns the other family book, which we keep in the
coven. Once you have been initiated into our family, your name will
appear in this book, and it will be yours until you die.... which
could be some time,’ she added with a sudden smile. ‘Now, show me
what you can do.’

‘
I told you, I can’t
do
anything. Well, not unless I’m
angry or scared half to death and then I can move things and blow
the lights. Some powerful witch I turned out to be!’

‘
Now, open the book,’ she said,
handing it to me.

As the book fell into my hands, a sense
of contentment washed over me. I opened the cover and the warm
breeze immediately lifted my fringe, while the leaves began their
merry dance.

‘
I see the book is happy to be
with its rightful owner. I have rarely seen such a powerful energy
display with an uninitiated witch before,’ Franny said.

‘
So when are you going to do the
initiation? What do I have to do?’ I asked.

‘
I have a few things I want you to
practice first, so ‘Top Model’ may have to wait. I obviously want
to initiate you as soon as possible, and whilst Sebastian is being
compliant.’

‘
What do you mean,
compliant?’

‘
Well, let’s just say that it
isn’t necessarily in the vampire clan’s best interests for you to
become a fully-fledged witch, so I was maybe a bit hazy about
certain details,’ she said with a quick grin.

‘
I should tell them.
We
should tell them. What
details?’

‘
No Jessie. I can see, even Daniel
& Eva can see, that you are not happy as a vampire. You don’t
drink enough blood and refuse to feed from humans. Now even
you
know that Sebastian is running
out of patience with you. He will stop buying blood packs soon and
you will be forced to feed, but I think there is another
way.’

‘
Go on,’ I said, knowing she was
right about Sebastian, and Eva too was fast losing
patience.

‘
Obviously we have never done this
before, but I have a feeling, that unlike a normal vampire you
managed to keep hold of your soul, which is why they can’t control
your mind.’ I nodded. What she said made sense and had been
mentioned before.

‘
Well, I think that currently your
soul and the vampire DNA are battling it out. Sometimes you feel
more vampire and sometimes more human, but I suspect that if we
perform the initiation ritual, the witch in you may just win out,’
she said.

‘
So I stop being a vampire
altogether?’ I asked in a whisper.

‘
I honestly don’t know. I
discussed it with Sally, and we’ve never come across it or tried it
before. I doubt there will be
no
vampire left, but we hope that it will strengthen you enough
to live as one of us.’

‘
But Sebastian wants me to stay
here.’

‘
Which is why I haven’t mentioned
it,’ she said, the smile creeping across her face. ‘But wherever
you decide to live is up to
you.
This initiation will just give you more choice.’

‘
Okay, let’s do this. What do you
want me to do?’ I asked.

‘
Good. Most witches have years
before their initiation ceremony, because we perform it on their
fourteenth birthday, and they grow up learning how to ground and
cast spells, but you have tweny-four hours. The most important
thing for you to learn before the initiation is how to ground - how
to draw energy through your chakras - and of course your part in
the ceremony. You can learn about casting spells and using your
powers
after
the ceremony,’
she said.

‘
Here is a good Wiccan handbook,
and even though we are not Wiccan it explains the basics really
well, on how to ground and draw energy from the source,’ she said,
handing me a glossy, modern book of Wicca.

‘
So you’re not Wiccans then?’ I
asked.

‘
No, not really. We are an ancient
coven. Our powers lie in our blood and have been passed down
through centuries, undiluted. But this book makes the rudiments so
easy to understand, that we use it to help our children in their
studies. You will find it much easier to understand than your own
book, because it is written in the modern language which you are
accustomed to.’

‘
Do you want me to read it
all?’

‘
It wouldn’t harm you to do so,
but tonight concentrate especially on chapters two to four. You
also need to practice all the examples they give. You need a full
understanding of both techniques.’

‘
Okay,’ I said.

You also need to find some time to
memorise the ritual for tomorrow. Pass me a book mark and I will
mark the correct page in your Book of Shadows.’

A bookmark? I was a girl who loved
books, but I tended to leave my books open, in a tent-like fashion
to save the page, or even worse, dog-ear them! I had a sneaky
suspicion Franny wouldn’t be too impressed if I did either to my
ancient Book of Shadows, so I cast around until I found an old
‘Grazia’ magazine, ripped a page out, folded it up into a bookmark
shape and handed it over.

‘
Now, here is the ritual you need
to learn. I will leave you for a while, as there is much news I
need to tell Sally. I shall come back later tomorrow and we’ll
perform the initiation at midnight.’

An hour later I sat cross-legged on the
carpet, the Wiccan guide by my side. I was trying to draw energy
from the source up through my root chakra. The problem was, I
wasn’t good at meditation. I’d tried it before, when I’d flirted
with yoga, but it always ended up the same, with me feeling
fidgety, my mind wandering.

Franny had said to learn how to
ground first, but after nothing interesting happened…I mean, I
guess I didn’t have any excess energy to get rid of anyway - I
decided to move on and learn how to receive extra energy. It
sounded more intriguing, and I figured at least then I’d have
something to get rid of and
ground
with
.

So I followed the instructions and sat,
cross-legged on the floor. The book said I’d have more success if I
sat outside on the earth, from which I was going to raise the
energy, but it had started raining and I didn’t fancy getting
soggy. Also, I didn’t think Daniel would be too impressed if I
started doing rituals in the back garden, where I could be spotted
by our student neighbours, who seemed to be at their most active
after 4pm, so the bedroom floor would have to do.

I was trying to imagine a root running
down my spine and plunging into the earth, drawing energy upwards
and sending it down my arms and into my hands. I felt nothing.
Actually I felt ridiculous, and was only thankful that Eva had
stayed downstairs. She would have a field day with this!

Ugh! Get a grip. You
have to do this
, I told myself. I blocked out all
surrounding sound and tried again. Nothing..... and again, and
again, but still nothing. I flicked through the pages of the book
and read a new bit. It was a section about visualising the energy
as a ball in your hands, to imagine it floating in the air, and
then to visualise it floating between your hands faster and faster
like a ping-pong ball. I’d try that.