Voodoo’s pale blue eyes shifted from us to his grandmother before he stood. Kira gave him a questioning look, and he gently squeezed the nape of her neck in reassurance.
“We will need Ghost, Sabre, and Phoenix as well,” Voodoo’s grandmother instructed. Her gaze hit Venom in silent request, and he nodded. The men she requested stood without question. Though Phoenix and Sabre had no clue what they were needed for, their actions were a testament to their loyalty.
Appetite gone, I scraped my food in the trash and left the plate in the sink. Jasmine did the same, and we were again trudging through the cold to Voodoo’s temple, this time with a small entourage.
Madame Laveaux motioned us to take out seats as we had before. “Please remove your gloves,” she said to me. Immediately, I complied.
A fire crackled in wood-burning stove in the corner. With the exception of a small lamp, candles lit the room.
With steady hands she set a bottle before each of us. Then she set two small silver cups next to the bottles. It might have been a trick of the flickering candlelight, but the contents of the bottles seemed to swirl and move. It was dark but with a lighter, almost marbleized appearance.
My heart hammered against my ribcage, and a buzzing rang in my ears.
She whispered things we couldn’t decipher as she lifted the bottle in front of me and poured it into the cup. Next, she repeated the motion with Jasmine’s.
“You must drink at the same time,” she instructed, and I didn’t question it. Everything about the ritual seemed surreal and odd, but that was the story of my life.
As one, we reached for the cup in front of us. The metal was oddly warm against my fingertips. We lifted them to our lips, then with a reassuring nod from Madame Laveaux, we tipped them back and swallowed.
The liquid was thick, hot, and vile. I gagged but managed to swallow.
At first, I didn’t think it worked, and I opened my mouth to say so. But before I could utter a word, everything I looked at seemed to warp and distort. The faces of my brothers and Madame Laveaux seemed to twist and contort like they were liquid that had been stirred. Heat unlike anything I’d ever experienced burned in the pit of my stomach before it slowly consumed me like a slow burning fire.
A gasp next to me had my head slowly swiveling to look at Jasmine. Her face was white as a sheet, and her eyes were unfocused. Sweat beaded on her face, and I watched as it ran down her neck. The same warm trickle slid down my temple to drip off my chin.
I thought I heard Angel shout.
The murmur of voices rippled around us, but I couldn’t focus, and the actual spoken words eluded me. It was the most bizarre trip I’d ever been on. Pressure squeezed my head, and my eyes burned as if hot pokers were being driven through them.
Words escaped me, though I tried to make my lips move. My arms were weighted, and I was unable to move them when I saw her waver. Before she hit the floor, Ghost caught her. Through it all, I was paralyzed—unable to lift a finger to help her.
My body began to feel like it was being ripped apart, molecule by molecule.
What happened after that, I couldn’t say, because the room began to spin faster and faster until all the colors blended together and the blackness swallowed me.
Images and a kaleidoscope of colors morphed and circled before they began to come in focus. Blinking away what seemed like sand in my eyes, I slowly shifted my gaze to search the room. I found I was lying on a thick fur pallet on the floor of Voodoo’s temple. Candles flickered, casting eerie shadows on the surfaces of the room.
The small building had no windows, so it was unclear how much time had passed. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.
With difficulty, I rolled my head to the side to see Jasmine laid out next to me. Her eyes were closed, and panic rolled through me, as I was sure she was dead.
Willing my body to move, I tried to lift my arm. That’s when I realized I was holding her hand.
No gloves.
Bare skin.
Fingers twined.
And in my head was blessed silence. No images bombarding my mind. No sounds drowning me.
My heart began to race.
“Jazz,” I croaked in a raspy, coarse voice. Still she didn’t move, and I damn near hyperventilated. What if the reason I was getting nothing from her was because she was dead? Pain like nothing I’d experienced through Madame Laveaux’s ritual, or at any time in my life, ripped through my chest at the thought.
“Jasmine,” I pleaded. “Baby, wake up.”
A painful tingling spread through my body when I tried to move, much like when a limb falls asleep and the circulation is returning. As if waking from a thousand-year nap, my body gradually came to life. Yet, I was weak as a newborn colt.