Chapter Thirty-One: The Commanders

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Happy Thursday! 

Welcome to another update. Thanks for stopping by and supporting my work. I hope you're all enjoying yourselves so far. 

We haven't had an AZA point of view chapter in a while, so I understand if the timeline of events is getting a bit confusing. I have placed a very brief recap of the last AZA chapter to catch you up on where we're at with her below. 

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AZA RECAP

In our last chapter with Aza, she is in conversation with Alize in her study while the Coterie is holding a prayer for Lisa and the other missing girls down below in the courtyard. They were gearing up to see The Great Oracle Sinah later that night with Abraham and Hezekiah per Samedi's instructions after they cleansed the spirit of Sephtis the gargoyle in His holy flame. In the middle of their conversation, there is a call from Louise, the Head Sorceress of The Grove, who claims it is urgent. At The Grove, Louise explains that upon visiting The Great Oracle that morning, she found Sinah's house in shambles and her missing. Frantic, they all join together to activate a tracking spell that Louise had put in Sinah's headband. It is there that they track Sinah's coordinates on Abraham's territory. 

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MISS  AZA 

Louise took us to The Great Oracle Sinah's house to investigate. Alize brought Esther, I brought Ben with me.

My last conversation with my brother wasn't a pleasant one. He'd said some things, I threw some things in return. He pinched a nerve with the talk of Hezekiah he'd dealt on me. The words were still loud in my mind--finding our daddy in that man. 

He never trusted Hezekiah, even when our Mama and him had grown a close bond. I was always fascinated with his likes and thought Ben was being closed-minded. Now there I was, knocking on the doors of Root House with my tail between my legs, admitting the likelihood of being wrong about Hezekiah. 

'Cause if The Great Oracle Sinah was on Abraham's territory, there was no doubt in my mind that Hezekiah knew about it. 

There was that old blue house with the one little porch light, standing in the middle of a clearing surrounding by trees off the 90. The windows were gone; blown out, the glass spread out on the porch and on the grass. My gut wanted to chalk it up to the storm the night before, but I was no fool. I looked over at Ben, who was wading through the mud. His eyes took in the damage, and they were bringing him elsewhere, I knew they were. He knew what it was like to be at the whim of a vampire attack. In fact, all of us (save for Esther) had our close dealings. It was something that stuck with you like a welted scar. When Ben met my eyes, I turned them away; I hated when he was right. 

"You think Abraham would have the nerve to do something like this?" Louise asked, her face flushed the same color as her hair. A breeze rolled in, warm and wet with earth. With it came whispers of Spirit that was too low for me to translate. 

"He got the nerve," Alize said lowly. I hadn't noticed how different she been looking as of late--not here or there; suspended in some other place. A shell of a woman. 

What was she hiding under that shell? A pain and defeat I didn't want to peek into. 

Slowly, we went up the front porch steps. Esther huddled close to me, confused as to why Madam Dumont called her to follow us here to this wreck. A clairvoyant she was--novice, timid, but gifted and practicing everyday since Lisa had first gone missing. And we were desperate; lost. Out of favor with our loa, it seemed. 

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