The Zodiac Covens

Chapter 22

THREE YEARS LATER:

"Do you Josette Olivia Saltzman take this woman to be your equal in every fashion, to love, support, and care for her needs as if they're your own?"

"I do."

"And do you Adoni Theodosia Onasis-Corbin  take this woman to be your equal in every fashion,, to lovem support, and care for her needs as if they're your own?"

"I do."

"Then by the power vested in me by whatever decided I was the only one powerful enough to perform this spell, I now pronounce you wives. Now kiss or whatever." Hope rolls her eyes as she pours the water over the binding knot at their crossed wrists.

After Adoni falls away from the kiss she looks at Hope. "Kiss or whatever? Really?"

"It's not like there's anyone else here." Hope reminds her before taking a pointed look around Adoni and Josie's empty apartment.

Adoni rolls her eyes. "Not the point."
"I'ts fine, baby. We have to do it again for everyone else anyway, this was just to get the union ceremony out of the way. We'll renew our vows next year."

Adoni pouts. As Josie checks her phone in the kitchen she punches Hope's shoulder. "I asked you if you were okay with doing this like twenty times."

Hope rolls her eyes again and doesn't respond. Like she had a choice. The merge was just over a year away and Adoni and Josie had been going strong the last three years. What was she supposed to say? Sorry bestie, still in love with your girl, guess she'll have to absorb her twin.

"Are we ready for the resurrection ritual? The Hartford Cemetery should be perfect, right?" Josie asks, as she reenters the room, missing the others' interaction.

They both nod. Not entirely on board to raise ten dead witches but it's important to Josie so neither of them could say no to bringing back the other members of the Zodiac Covens before they meet up with Lizzie and MG for fall break.

"Great," Josie says cheerily. "Then I'm off to bed. Goodnight, wife." She coos, kissing Adoni's lips before all but skipping to their bedroom.

Adoni stares dreamily after her. "That's never going to get old." Noticing Hope's sudden onslaught of painful emotions she flinches, before sending her a regretful smile. "I'm sorry."

Hope waves her away. "We've been through this, and it doesn't even matter now."

"Why don't you go to NoLa after tomorrow, take a break from us. Clear your head a bit. I know how hard this was on you."

Hope just shrugs. "We'll see how tomorrow even goes. There's no guarantee it'll work. That's a lot of dark magic to channel, I mean ten century long dead witches? We'll be lucky to make it out alive."

Adoni shrugs this time. "We've survived more with less."

And she's right. In the last three years the group of three had battled their fair share of shitty situations ranging from rouge witch covens, to vampire sororities on campus, to evil secret societies trying to get them to do their bidding. Maybe this awful feeling in her gut was just having to officiate the wedding of the girl she loves to her best friend. Maybe it's not the spell.

Hope takes a deep breath, before mumbling her goodnight to Adoni and making her way home. She had to shake this feeling before tomorrow or she could put them all in danger.

Being in a cemetery on Halloween was always going to be creepy. Hope didn;t care that she was the tribred. The vail was thin and she could feel the activity of spirits all around them as Josie and Adoni took their places on the ground putting the finishing touches on the spell. Shaking off the last of her nerves Hope joined them.

"We have to say the incantation thirty times total. Three for each member." The siphoner instructs as she crosses wrist and reaches out her hands. "Repeat after me: Epistrepste se mas se Katastasi Aporias"

"Epistrepste se mas se Katastasi Aporias."

By the third set of incantations Josie's eyes rolled into the back of her head, coming out black.

By the sixth hope felt herself grow weak.

By the eighth she was sure she was going to pass out.

At the nineth, Adoni begged Josie to siphon from them.

She watched as Their hands glowed red before she felt her heart stutter to a stop at the tenth set of the incantation.

Adoni and Josie callosping together as Hope's eyes drift shut.

Hope wakes up in Josie's and Adoni's apartment, hunger coursing through her. Everything is too loud, her feelings are too much, and listening to Josie's sobs are only making everything worse. They died. They had to. With this burning thirst engulfing her entire body in flames and her instincts screaming at her to just devour the brunette in the next room, Hope takes a deep breath before vamp speeding out of the apartment. She walks through the street on shaky legs, looking drunk to passers by and quickly gaining the attention of a small group of men. They start to follow her and after the third block her hunger takes over, turning her body down a dark alley.

"You shouldn't be out by yourself on Halloween." One of the men calls from behind her.

Hope feels herself smirk as they draw closer.

"That's when the monsters come out to play."

"I know." Hope giggles as her veins take over. "I'm one of them."

Before the men can react she has two pinned to the wall draining one before turning to the other. She drops them when she;s finishing vamp speeding to the last as he tries to escape down the alley and pulling him back before tearing into his throat and drinking him dry. By the time she;s finished she doesn't feel anything, no remorse, no sense of loss for what a sobbing Josie had to mean, just sated hunger.

She doesn't go back to the apartment. Instead she compels herself a car and makes her way out of town. She didn't realize she was headed for New Orleans until she pulled outside the city limits. She shrugs to herself, might as well, she thought before spending the night feeding on tourists. She's just had her fill of them, dropping the body of a drunk college student who's group of friends thought the cemetery was a good hangout spot when a slow clap sounds from behind her.

"Of course." Adoni's sarcastic tone is evident. "I die, and you get to stop feeling. Lovely, truely, I'm astonished by the irony."

"What are you doing here?" Hope asks as she lazily wipes the blood from her lips.

"You're literally leaning up against my tomb, princess."

Hope raises an eyebrow at her causing Adoni to roll her eyes. "Haunting the sorriest excuse for a Mikaelson I've had to displeasure to see." She spits. "You just left her there. She needed you and you just left."

"I had to feed. Would you have liked me to eat her?"

Adoni rolls her tongue over her teeth, biting back her frustration at Hope's smirk. " You ran."

"You would know." Hope's smirk only grows wider. "Couldn't even finish a spell for her. Some wife you turned out to be."

"You're pathetic. You actually turned it off."

Hope rolls her eyes. "And I've never felt better. I mean aren't you tired? Love, lose, grieve, repeat. It's all so... pedestrian."

"You still don't turn it off. I've felt way more than my fair share of all of those and I never even considered it."

"Don't act like you're better than me, Adoni."

"Who's acting? You just massacred a group of college kids."

"They should've known better." Hope shrugs. "I mean a cemetary, how disrespectful. I could feel  the ancestors rolling in their tombs."

Adoni scoffs. "She'll come after you, you know." She says. "Josie won't give up on you."

"Then I'll just have to make her." Hope offers a sinister smile.