Every King Needs A Queen / Book Three / Daring Spell Series / The Originals

A Ghost Along the Mississippi

  The Strix was still using Davina's life as leverage to make me do the spell to activate the Serratura, a device that could lock anyone away forever. They still had the talisman that Josephine had given me.

I was carrying a singing bowl full of blood to the altar in front of the lycee.

There were sigils painted on my skin in clay, and the altar and various tombs were surrounded in lit white candles. 

I flicked the bowl to make it ring like a bell twice, setting it down on the altar.

Four vampires and Tristan were standing around Davina.

A female witch with a stripe of white in her black hair approached me from behind. 

"I trust this won't take much longer?" Tristan asked. "I'm on a schedule."

I looked at Tristan in annoyance. "Look, man, if you want me to activate your big, bad Serratura, you're gonna have to back up. Give me some space. I do this, and you let me and Davina go, and you give me back talisman."

"Of course," Tristan told me. "That was the deal."

I glared at them, reluctantly turning around, plunging my hands into the bowl of blood, casting the spell to activate the Serratura, pulling out my hands, rubbing my bloody fingers together, bowing my head, allowing the blood to fall onto the medallion shaped weapon. "Reveye ak. Reveye moman ak trape dife. Moman ou se pre. Tann prizonye ou." I flicked my fingers outward. All of the candles on the altar went out at once. I sighed, picking up the Serrature, turning around, handing it to Tristan, giving them a resentful look. "You wanted it, you got it. Give me my talisman and let us go."

Tristan looked at his vampires calmly. "Hold them here."

The guards restrained both me and Davina.

Davina started to struggle angrily. "No, no, no, no, no."

"We may have use for them yet," Tristan told them.

The guards started to pull Davina and me away to another location in the cemetery.

"You really want to mess with a Harvest Girl and a Regent?" Davina asked angrily.

The vamps took us away.

  ~~~  

It was the next morning, and the guards and Tristan's witch were still watching Davina and me.

The witch had my talisman in her hand as a reminder to us not to try to escape. She had long strings of puca shells around her neck and wrists and was wearing a black scarf around her head to accent her black and white hair.

"Hmm, you're an Obi witch, right?" Davina asked. "Older sect, too, with all that show you got going on."

"Do not speak to me," the witch told us angrily.

Davina made a face, mockingly covering her mouth with her hands, but it was clear she was not at all afraid of her.

"You're powerful witches," I told her. "Proud people. And rightly so, from what I understand. You don't usually bow down to anybody." The witch glared at me. I pushed away from the tomb I was leaning against, walking toward her. "Your Ancestors must be turning in their graves right now." I did a little dance to indicate I thought she was a vampire's servant. "Watching you running around here, doing a vampire's business.

"I said do not talk," the witch told me furiously.

Davina shrugged. "We heard you. I just have to know... What does it feel like to be a backstabbing traitor?"