Voodoo Queens of New Orleans - Vol. I | ✓

Chapter 4: And Then There Were Eight

**

I ran faster when I realized what they were, pumping my arms and lunging my legs with a speed I had never achieved before. The trees were blurs; Imani's figure was merely a blur of blue and black running by my side. I sprinted until I could feel my lungs and limbs burning.

"This way!" Imani shouted at me. I followed her without losing momentum; I dropped my bat halfway through.

When we saw the road and the small spec of gray that was my car, we ran faster until we collapsed on the goddamn vehicle. Then we were inside; the memories are patchy and blacked out from that night. Fear made me act sometimes unconsciously and out of instinct and the need to survive. It was like I was out of my body and inside it again, the cycle repeating. The world was spinning and I was sinking deep into its core.

"The seal," panted Imani. "Where's the seal?!"

"They're fucking vampires!" I answered with a sob.

"Help me look for the seal!"

"Fuck the seal! We're fucking leaving!"

I turned the car on and immediately busted a U-turn to speed dangerously down the road. My hands were shaking badly on the wheel, and I was crying like a toddler who had fallen at the playground. It was pathetic, but what else could I do? What else would be the logical reaction to seeing an entire group of people being murdered by 'things' you thought were only created in folklore?

Imani went on about how we needed to find the seal and how important it was that we find the seal. My pedal was to the metal. My only priority was getting the hell out of there. As far as I was concerned, I didn't know what the 'seal' was. I only had one word on my mind: Vampires.

Vampires...Vampires...

Luckily, Imani found the seal without my help, wedged in her car seat. She tucked in into her bra and buckled her seat belt. Her mouth was pressed into a firm line, matching the vacant, hollow look in her eyes. I didn't know what to say because I wanted to say so much.

"They were vampires," I cried to her. "I-I swear they were vampires because they just...I mean, did you see what he did to Tia Valeria?! To all of them? And that man on the cross? Jesus Christ!"

"We need to go to Madam Dumont. Now."

I looked at Imani like she was one of those 'things' herself.

"Are you crazy? No! We go to the police!"

"What are the police going to do?" she asked me irately. "They can't possibly do anything, Lisa!"

"And my mama can?!"

"You do not understand!" Imani yelled at me. Her hands dragged across her face, wiping the sweat she gathered on her palms onto her shirt. "You don't understand anything! Tia Valeria and her entire House are dead, Lisa! Mikael is probably dead by now, too. You think police officers are going to do anything?"

I hated how right she was. See, there was a line between the right, moral thing to do and the logical, sensible thing to do. The right thing to do would be to go to the authorities and tell them that an entire group of voodoo practitioners were just murdered by vampires. But the logical thing to do would be to tell mama first. Since Abraham mentioned the Coterie, Mama had to have known who he was. I found it a tad harder to breathe when that fact hit me; I thought of mama being killed the way Tia Valeria was killed because of her involvement in the Coterie, and I started feeling more powerless and insignificant than I already felt.

"Hey," Imani said to me. "Breathe. Please."

"I'm trying."

"Try harder. Passing out on the wheel while driving this fast is the last thing I need right now."