Voodoo Queens of New Orleans - Vol. I | ✓

Chapter 52: Wake Up

        
I opened my eyes and recognized my surroundings.

The room was dark, but I knew it was the bedroom Sajida allowed Mikael and I to stay in; I had no idea what day it was.

My head throbbed and I was thirsty. These were the first two sensations that came to mind. I didn't remember the visions from my lave tet the first few moments of me coming into consciousness, which I was thankful for; I wanted at least a minute of sanity.

But once that sanity ended, I was brought back into the harsh reality.

I felt like I couldn't breathe. There were weights on my chest, it seemed. In this dark, sweltering heat, I was bombarded with images during my time with my met tet.

But eventually, all I could see was Abraham, baring his fangs, blood on his mouth. The Vampire Lord who had caused us so much torment was my father, and a part of me refused to believe. Mostly because I didn't know how it could be.

I sat still, letting the heat embrace me, listening to the moans and groans from the bayou, somehow unafraid of the darkness. I sat still and began to cry silently; the tears began to spill down my cheeks. Nothing made sense, yet at the same time, everything started to connect.

Did Aza know? The Coterie? What about Hezekiah?

Hezekiah. When his name came to my mind, I was prompted to sit up. He knew—he must have known; Abraham is his master. This entire time, as he and I began to grow 'close,' he knew that I was Abraham's daughter. He looked into my eyes knowing this.

Sadness was quickly replaced with anger and confusion.

I heard voices coming from the hallway—yelling and arguing. I knew these voices. They belonged to Aza and Mama, but there were other voices, too. Was the entire Coterie here?

I pushed myself off the bed, trying my best to regain my balance. The room was spinning all around me, and even in the dark, I felt like my eyes couldn't process anything around me. There was also a throbbing pain on my tongue like I had bitten it too hard. But I pushed through my headache and continued forward to the door after feeling for my glasses on the bedside table. When I opened it, the voices were immediately amplified.

"Shouldn't she have woken up by now?" I heard Mikael ask, concerned.

"She had a seizure, Mikael. Takes a minute to bounce back from that."

I had a seizure? It must have happened right after I saw the vision of Abraham's Dream; right after everything went black. It explained the bite marks on my tongue and the pain.

I took careful, slow steps down the hall. I still had my white dress on; it was completely dry at this point. Fighting through the fog that had settled in my head, I finally made it to the living room where Sajida and Mikael were talking. Their voices quieted when they saw me come into the space. Mikael looked relieved to see I was awake, but Sajida's face was different. She knew I saw something, and she knew I spoke to someone. She just knew.

"Lisa," Mikael said, approaching me promptly. I had never seen him this worried. "Are you alright? How do you feel?"

"I'm fine," I said, because to detail everything I saw in the "world between" with Marie Laveau would take a toll on my brain again. But Sajida knew I wasn't fine. Sajida, who was also still dressed in white, stared at me with a devious smirk on her face.

"What happened?" I asked them.

"While you were put down to rest, you had a seizure a couple of hours in," Mikael explained to me. "You've been resting for about five hours now."