The Vampire and The Voodoo Priestess(On Hold for a Bit)

Chapter 2: Alma Makes a Mistake

        The House was dead silent as Maribelle chanted in her native African tongue. Alma Laveau was not particularly familiar with the language but, she kept her mind at peace and focused like her mother taught her to. The four Priestess’s kept their circle tight with equal spacing, it was said to help harvest their true power, a great technique when practicing such rare magic.

        This was Alma’s first circle gathering as a member of the House of Spades, a coven of the most powerful High Priestess's in St Marble Lee Louisiana. This special group only focused on practicing old magic, or voodoo,  from the roots of Africa. For years the group only consisted of two members, Maribelle and her old friend Lavinia, whose natural gift of hexing helped her evade slavery for years. Decades later Kitty Bones, with an uncanny talent for draft making, joined the duo. Although there were quite the number of practitioners in town, Maribelle, Alma’s mother and leader of the House of Spades, was very selective as to who joined her coven.

        The fact that Alma was the daughter of the great Maribelle had no affect on her opportunity to have the privilege of practicing with remarkable conjurers, in fact, it hindered it. Alma had displayed her gift of foresight since she was a very young child and Maribelle was proud. However, regardless of Alma’s precise predictions, she was not allowed to join until she was nineteen years of age. An age that Maribelle was sure she would prove herself worthy of being apart of her coven. Alma's first task: helping exorcise the spirit of a demon out of a bird.

        Maribelle continued the chant, her voice raising higher until her subject, the bird  inhabited by the vail demon, flapped about in its cage. The blood screeching sound was unlike anything Alma had ever heard. She wanted to open her eyes and see what exactly was happening to the beast. But doing so would completely break her concentration, therefore, ruining whatever progress her mother had achieved from feeding off their energy. She made the mistake of doing that once years ago.

        The bird continued to resist, madly shaking the cage and making whatever racket it could. Again, Alma was tempted to look, just one peek to see what happens when a demon is cast out of a body. But, she dared not to.

        Soon Kitty and Lavinia joined Maribelle in her sacred chant causing cold air to gush in the room. This was suppose to be Alma’s time to speak the language of her ancestors without thought, but somehow she could not.

        The bird’s cries grew louder with every second. It flapped it’s wings desperately trying to get away, all the while, the House, without Alma, shouted their chants in perfect unison. Alma, not being able to tap into that sort of power, remained silent and tried the best she could to focus. She could feel the change of energy coming from the demon possessed bird.

        It was fear.

        ‘Alma, Alma,’ a soft voice pleaded weakly. ‘Alma do not let this happen to me.’

        The tiny hairs in the back of her neck stood up as she wondered if anyone else heard what she had. Animals did not talk, or at least they weren’t suppose to. But this one did and it was speaking directly to her. It was a possibility that her powers evolved and now she was able to communicate with animals, but that would have been highly unlike for a Priestess that only practice Divination.

        ‘Please,’ it whispered.

        Alma was tempted to open her eyes again. With if somehow she could help and make it suffer no more? After all, this was just a sort of exercise to help Alma expand her powers and grow stronger. She witnessed her mother perform many exorcisms on people possessed by the most foulest demons, but she never participated in one, until now. Her mother did the unforgivable by conjuring the evil spirit just for a lesson. This was very dark stuff and if not vanquished properly Alma herself, could be inhabited by the demon and she hoped not to mess it up.