Page 68 of The HalloQueen

I did. But how could I tell them that I’d been attacked by my fuck buddy’s ex-wife who just happened to be a vampire that was completely off her rocker? “Um… I don’t know…”

“For heaven’s sake, Dee, she isn’t going to admit to getting bit by a vampire. Jesus, this is separating, grab me some more leaf powder will you dear?”

My eyes widened and I looked down at my arm, tucked into a sling with surgical wrappings around it, “What? How would you-”

My mom handed her a vial of powder and returned to the top of the bed to hold my hand, “A teenager found you down on the beach, convulsing, bleeding, and cold to the touch. You lost a lot of blood and…yeah, you have a bite on your cephalic vein… someone took a bite and left you for dead.”

“Which doesn’t follow the typical attacks in the area,” Mama muttered, grinding the paste into the little black bowl.

“That bitch bit me?! You guys need to leave, now. You need to-”

Mom shushed me, grabbing my face again, “You’re fine. It’s fine.”

“No, I’m going to turn if she-”

“No, you’re not. You…can’t be turned into an Undead.”

“She’s not Undead, she’s just-”

“Honey, that’s an Undead bite.” My mom moved some of the wrappings to expose a nasty green and purple crescent wound which oozed a gelatinous yellow fluid.

“Then you definitely need to leave - how do you guys even -”

“Here, apply this to the lesion, Dee,” Mama handed the bowl up to her and my Mom sat on the mattress next to me and began gently packing the pesto-looking concoction into the wound.

“Ow, what the fuck! What is that?” I felt my elbow throb, the infection trying to break through the layer of paste.

“It’s comfrey poultice dear, it will help pull the infection from your system. No one should ever leave home without it.”

“Will either of you tell me what the hell is going on?”

They glanced between each other, doing that stupid mother thing where they can talk to each other without talking, and then my mom spoke, “Sybil, I think you should explain this - you can stick to the important details better. I always get distracted by the lore.”

Mama sighed and put the items she was using on the chair behind her before sitting on the other side of my bed. It was a tight fit with the three of us but their presence helped me feel safe, “Guys, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Bels, you can’t be changed to an Undead. No one in our line can.”

“Now that’s not to say you’re invincible, if that kid hadn’t found you you likely could have bled out and died from that injury-”

Mama glared at her, “but, you can’t be changed.”

“What in the actual fuck are you guys talking about?” The monitor next to me showed my heartbeat raising and my mom soothingly ran her hand up and down my leg.

“Sweetie, you come from a blessed line of Green Witches.”

I scoffed, “Sure, and I’ll go to Hogwarts on Tuesday, come on Mom.”

My Mama took a cloth and wiped off the goo, removing a large quantity of vamp slime and reapplying more of the green stuff.

“A very long time ago, our family lived in France, outside of Paris, specifically,” She spoke without feeling, as if reciting a bedtime story that she should have told me before, “Our family lands were becoming unsafe. There was a sudden surge of Undead Vampires and Others in the area, sparking a witch hunt. Now, France was kind of a mess then, so most people associated the violence with the revolution, but it was an easy scapegoat to take. Witches were being blamed for the deaths and disappearances of civilians even though Green Witches did no such thing.” She looked at her wife and chuckled, “Gods can you imagine? Here, mortal, let me smite you with this succulent.”

“Stay on task, darling, it’s why I deferred it to you.”

My eyes widened, they had never even hinted at a knowledge of Others. My moms weren’t even superstitious. I celebrated Halloween every year. I couldn’t keep anything other than my Grandmother’s cactus alive!

“This is to say that a Coalition of Others formed behind the scenes. Witches of every branch as well as representatives from other magical creatures came together to create structure. Consequences. We couldn’t allow a group of rogue vampires to be the death of us all. There needed to be rules. By sheer luck, it was discovered that Green Witch magic was repulsive to the Undead. A common treatment for a vampire bite is that comfrey poultice,” she said nodding at the green stuff on my arm, “and apparently much of the magic that allows us to manipulate the plants also lives in our blood. If an undead bites a Green Witch, our bodies instantly try to push it out, and the venom burns their mouths, which is probably why she fled before she…”

“Wait, why would their own venom kill them- that doesn’t make sense?” I asked.

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