Voodoo Queens of New Orleans - Vol. II | In Progress

Chapter Twenty-Three: Keep Your Head Down (Extended)

LISA

I was woken up in the middle of the night with a jolt.

"Wake up!" a female voice whispered into my ear, her tone filled with haste. "Wake up!"

It was Kira, nudging me out of my sleep. She was kneeling before me in a plain green dress, different from the white attire I was used to seeing her in.

"Kira?" I gathered my bearings, feeling my heart sink into my chest. "Kira, what's going on?"

"You have to come with me. Something's happened."

"What happened?"

"I can't tell you here," she said. "You'll find out soon enough. Just come with me."

She tried to grab my hand, but I pulled away. "Who sent you? Sajida? She's back from Houma?"

"No." Kira's voice fell into an even softer whisper. "Trust me, you're safe."

"Trust you? I can't trust anyone right now," I told her honestly.

"You have to come with me, Lisa. You have to."

The tone of her voice was different from the look on her face. If my eyes were closed, I would have thought that Kira was in a panic. But the amusement evident in her eyes made me think otherwise; like there was a secret she wanted badly to tell me.

The Gatekeeper was waiting for me in one of the boats, tall and looming, silent not just out of courtesy for the other people sleeping, but because that was his nature. But regardless of him being mute, people started waking up around me, wondering what was going on; it seemed like whenever something was amiss, it always involved me.

I put on my sandals and followed Kira out of my sleeping space, quickly into the small boat that was waiting for us. There were no sacks placed upon our heads; I knew something was very different this time around. Did someone hear me and Saadia speaking the night before at the ceremony and snitch? Are The Coterie dead? Sajida? I had no idea. And I didn't want to speculate anymore.

When we were situated in the boat, the Gatekeeper pulled away from the small dock and out into the bayou, where dark rain clouds hung heavy in the sky. A few cracks of thunder echoed in the air, doing little to disrupt the melodies of the swamp's creatures. And even though the air was warm, I felt a chill course through me.

The Gatekeeper navigated the murky waters until we finally made it to a dock that I had never seen with my own eyes. He helped us both off, and Kira quickly led me down the dirt path with a lantern in her right hand, warmly illuminating the darkness. But soon, she didn't need her light to guide us - the bright lights coming from a huge white mansion told us enough of where we needed to be. I sucked in a sharp breath and slowed my pace when I saw Maison Blanche.

"What the fuck is this?" I hissed at her, but before Kira could answer me, the backdoor to the house opened. Mary walked out of the house to meet us, her stride swift and urgent. The last time I had seen Mary was when I had first arrived here. She and another vampire had cured my ailments and patched up my wounds from the car accident. She said she knew me from a time before, but I didn't know what to believe then. I still didn't, as I watched Mary approach us with wide eyes that were brighter than Kira's lantern.

"This way," Mary said to us. And as we followed Mary into Maison Blanche, the silence hit me - the silence and the absence of people. There were no patrons here, no guests or anything. The energy was off; something dreadful had happened. Maison Blanche was one of the most popular vampire brothels in the entire South, and not a single person was around.

It was when Mary closed the back door behind us that I could hear the screams. It sounded as if someone was being brutally murdered; I heard pain, anger, grief. It was a woman's voice; it was the only sound in the entire house.