The light-headedness continued to plague me, and my breathing was now coming quickly, in short gasps, as my heartbeat continued to increase. I felt my eyes close of their own volition.
“You can still change your mind, ma minette,” I heard Drake’s voice in my head and, from the breathiness of his words, I had to imagine he was experiencing something similar to what I was.
“No, I’m not changing my mind,” I responded adamantly.
“Repeat after me: Enter me through the blood of my offering,” Christopher continued, eyeing me speculatively as if he wasn’t sure if I could handle whatever was happening to me.
“Enter me through the blood of my offering, Drake,” I said in my mind.
“Ma minette,” his voice sounded strained but exhilarated. I could feel the numbness of my fingers slowly giving way to a tingling sensation. “I can taste your life! ” I could hear the smile on his voice.
“Enter me through the blood of my offering, Drake,” I repeated.
I arched forward at the same time that I yelled out as feelings of an incredible wind beat through me. It was as if the wind blasted against my face and then traveled through my fingers into my being, spreading into all the corners of my body, bonding with me, filling me until I was brimming with something that was almost impossible to explain. It felt like energy suddenly buzzing through me, only the feeling wasn’t at all uncomfortable, just new, different.
“Peyton!” I heard Christopher’s voice but was only barely aware of it. “Peyton!” he called out again and then smacked my cheek to get my attention.
I opened my eyes and thrust myself forward, panting as I tried to catch my breath. Once I could see clearly and once my heart stopped pounding, I sat up and took stock of my surroundings. Christopher was just staring at me while Lovie did the same from the far side of the room.
“Did it work?” Christopher finally whispered to me, his eyes wide.
“Ma minette,” Drake’s voice sounded in my head. “Being inside you is pure bliss.”
I glanced up at Christopher as I tried to will my pounding heart to regulate. I ran my hand across my perspiring forehead. “It worked.”
16
I was suddenly bombarded with thoughts and images and memories that weren’t my own. I grasped my head and clamped my eyes shut tightly at the same time that Christopher reached down and gripped my shoulder.
“You must control the flow of his thoughts, Peyton,” he said in a firm voice. “You must be able to regulate his thoughts.”
I glanced up at Christopher and frowned, part of me thinking I was seeing him for the first time. I had a feeling that part of me was Drake. “How do I do that?” I demanded.
Lovie stood up and approached us, stepping over the powder circle as she reached for my hand. I glanced up into her kind face and took a deep breath. “Yers is the more powerful spirit as yer body belongs ta you,” she said tenderly. “If you want ta silence him, ta shut him out, you simply think those exact words. Whatever you want from him, envision it an’ so shall it be.”
I nodded and then took another deep breath, thinking to myself and apparently to Drake, “I need to shut you out for a moment, Drake, until I can gain control of myself again.”
As soon as I thought the words, the buzzing flow of energy seemed to die down within me and all the foreign images, thoughts, and memories that had been bombarding me simply stopped until I was left with only the quiet splendor of my own thoughts.
“Did that work?” Lovie asked.
I just nodded, feeling Christopher’s eyes on me. “Just remember that whatever you want or need from Drake, you just ask him for it,” he said. “It’s very important that you don’t allow his will to overtake yours. That’s when people lose their minds.”
“Nice of you to tell me this now,” I grumbled, feeling suddenly exhausted.
Lovie laughed and took both of my hands in hers, squeezing them gently as if to remind me that everything was going to be okay. “You need ta sleep now, Peyton,” she said in her bell-like cadence. “Yer body has been taxed, which means you will need plenty ta eat an’ drink. Even though you might not realize it, you’ve been through an enormous experience so it’s best ta imagine yer body is wounded an’ needs time an’ nourishment ta rehabilitate itself.”
Christopher nodded as he retrieved one of his bags and started repacking the items on the table. “And Drake will push you to allow him to experience this new world he’s seeing for the first time in a long time. You must remember to go at your own pace. He’s tasting life again and will not want to pause in his quest for new experiences, but you must keep in mind your own needs and do not allow him to push you.”
I just nodded and suddenly felt just as tired as Lovie warned me I would be. But before I took their advice and went in search of my bed, there was one question that still remained unanswered. “What about the entity?” I started, my voice coming out fatigued. “Is the entity still in my house?”
Lovie didn’t respond but glanced over at Christopher, who folded the tablecloth and put it away. Then he started folding the table’s legs into itself. He looked at me and his expression was one of distraction. “Yes, the entity is still here. We have not yet performed the exorcism.”
I swallowed hard. “But…”
“It will not be able to hurt you because your psychic defenses have been buttressed by Drake’s spirit,” Christopher continued as he carried the now folded card table to the wall on the opposite side of the room and began folding the chairs into themselves to make for easier carrying.
“Okay,” I started, not exactly thrilled with the fact that there was still a highly malevolent and powerful force in my house. “When can you perform the exorcism?”
Christopher sighed as if he was annoyed with me. “Both Lovie and I require at least a couple of days to rebuild our psychic defenses. Just as your body requires sleep and nutrition to heal its psychic wall, so will ours. If we attempted the exorcism now, the entity would be far too strong for us and the results could be disastrous.”
“So should I…,” I started.
“We will contact you as soon as we feel we are ready ta return,” Lovie said in a kind voice before Christopher could blast me with another of his less than friendly statements.
Christopher glanced at Lovie and pointed to the table he held under one arm and the two chairs he held under the other. “Are you able to get the rest, Lovie?” he asked as he motioned to the two bags and the box, which sat unattended in the corner of the room.
She simply nodded as Christopher started for the door but, thinking better of it, paused and turned back to face me. “You’ll be getting our bill in the mail.”
Lovie offered me an apologetic smile as she followed Christopher out of the double doors and I turned to the task of getting some sleep.
I think I managed to get about an hour of sleep…maybe. Even though I couldn’t hear Drake’s voice in my head, presumably because I’d forced it out, there was a general restlessness inside of me that hinted to the fact that he was excited and wanted to be out and about exploring.
After tossing and turning for the last however long, I finally gave up and, sitting up in my bed, rubbed my eyes as I stifled a yawn and glanced at the clock. It was eight in the morning, which meant that either I’d slept longer than I imagined or the possession ritual had taken a really long time to perform.