Title: Voodoo Child
Authors: Jonathan and Maybewolf
Rating: T
Chapter: One
Spoilers: Everything is fair game.
Summary: Tori Vega has always been the one aspect Jade has always had a hard time dealing with. It's about time she takes matters into her own hands. But the question is just how much?
Disclaimer: Victorious is owned by Dan Schneider, Danwarp, Nick, Viacom
Chapter Title: Where Are You?
Jade's always lived her life like a hurricane. Stained orange and red by the afternoon sun, she billows through her room with the force of an F5. She's single-minded in her determination to unearth one particular item – a book actually. She's certain that confined somewhere in its pages is the answer to all of her problems. Well, her biggest problem at least.
That problem.
It's the one that's always driven her up the wall in convulsions of rage. There have always been inconvenience and disturbances in Jade's life, but this one. This girl - It all comes rushing forward in that one moment. A surge of anger erupts into an ocean of flames in the pit of her stomach. It's the same reaction Jade's always had to that problem, the same reaction she's always had to she who enters every room in a blaze of effervescent grins and greetings for every miscreant in her vicinity.
Vega.
She's cheapened kindness by throwing it into her every sentence. Hacking up an ironic laugh, Jade tells herself no one girl can be that nice. Demanding absolutely nothing in return for sprinkled acts of kindness, it's just – Jade can't find it in herself to believe anyone capable of being so gentle, so fucking friendly. She holds Vega at arms length, at least two continents away, and yet the girl still surges further and further into her life. Just the though of it – of her – sends a chill up Jade's spine.
Jade knows there's something dark festering behind those lips. She's sure of it. From the first day Vega darkened the corridors of Hollywood Arts, she's always been so fucking perfect. Perfection doesn't exist. For a fleeting point in time, Jade had scrawled that label on Beck. She remembers it blowing from his shoulder in the gale of disruption Vega's arrival had caused. Dragging another pile of books into her lap, Jade tosses them aside one by one and bares her teeth at the thought of Vega's charmed life and all the ways it's ruined hers.
Seven.
To some it's a lucky number, but to Jade it's a curse. Lost in the glare of Vega's retarded angel light – or whatever it is – Jade's been passed over for seven lead roles. If you make your own luck, then Vega is a better chemist than Jade would have every thought her capable of. Skirting disaster, Jade's seen her nemesis pull herself out of the worst situations and burst through the other side without a scratch. If ever Vega's perfect existence accidentally winds up nicked, Jade knows it will just wind up stitched with gold. Closing her eyes, Jade is confronted with the image of Vega smiling – as per fucking usual – flickering across her eyelids. The stupid girl is skipping through the halls of Hollywood Arts. The stupid girl is clutching a record contract in one hand, and Beck is hanging off her other shoulder. It's a waking nightmare, and the worst part is it's only a few steps removed from reality. Pushing back to her feet, Jade turns to the mirror on her wall. Bracing herself on the vanity beneath it, Jade studies the figure staring back at her.
It's not her, it can't be.
Staring intently into the mirror, Jade runs her index finger over her cheek. There are deep bags under her eyes, and her skin is stretched tightly over her bones. She's nothing but shadows and flaws. She's tired but sleep evades her, hungry but unable to keen anything down. Jade's sick and she knows it's only been getting worse since Vega traipsed into her life.
It's okay though, really it will be. Jade's infected, but it's fine. She's going to be okay. The vaccine is lying in her room, drowned somewhere in the shadows. It's a whisper, a promise that change lingers just behind the horizon. Jade's lips crease, and for the first time in a long while she smiles. It's not because her last session with Lane was revelatory or anything. The myriad of problems she's been told are floating around inside of her are still there. No, Jade finds herself grinning at the mirror because of a promise.
Salvation is just a page away.
Fleetingly, optimism bleeds into Jade's mood as she thinks of a day in class, a beautiful one where she doesn't have to deal with Vega's 1000 watt outlook on life. The shadows are longer, and there isn't an effervescent girl doing her obnoxious best to blot out all of the world's darkness. Sinking her teeth into her bottom lip, Jade rolls her head back and luxuriates in the images her mind is bringing to life. She stands upright, hands wandering away from the vanity and scraping up her abdomen. Sparks of pleasure follow in her fingers wake, and Jade finds her breaths coming in ragged waves. She lets the sensations soak her for a few stolen moments before her eyelids flutter open. Sucking in a deep breath, Jade extinguishes the flames that had begun to lick her lungs.
Finding herself looking into the mirror again, the optimistic thoughts that had been at the front of Jade's mind begin to recede. The gleam on her mood dulls, and Jade finds her thoughts increasingly centring on the way Tori's swept into her social circle and stolen her crown. In days gone by, Jade had been the one with her name in the lights, the first choice if somebody needed a song co-written. It hadn't been universal acclaim, but the applause had been enough to drown out most of Jade's insecurities. The last clap has long since died, and now all Jade can console herself with is that it's the final act of Vega's idyllic life.
Angels can fall from grace, right?
Even if they can't, Jade tells herself that she'll pluck every feather from Vega's wings until they're threadbare and useless. She'll wrap her arms around Vega and drag her back to earth where things aren't so pretty and the clouds aren't her halo. If Beck's already lost to her, then Jade knows she'll just have to tear him out of the sky as well. The universe will miss two of it's brightest stars, but Jade thinks it might fill the void inside of her if all three of them a lost in the same shadows.
It's all going to be fine, it's all going to be fine.
"You know it's not going to work out."
Jade's blood seizes in her veins, and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Screwing her eyes shut, Jade shakes her head. She recognizes the words for what they are. Temptation, a promise to lead her further away from reality. A swollen moment passes before the siren call becomes too great for Jade to ignore. Her emerald eyes crawl away from the weather book resting on her lap, lured over to the shadow staining her bed.
"He's mine you know, he loves me."
Jade's jaw snaps shut with a click, and she surges forward. She's all wild eyes and flailing limbs as her blood red fingernails cut through the billowing figure. Black tendrils pour through her fingers, and vaguely aware of how insane she probably looks – is – Jade screws her eyes shut. She forces
Black smog pours through her fingers, and Jade jerks her wrist away. With her shoulders rattling, Jade screws her eyes shut. With her eyes shut, Jade thinks of a great many things. She thinks about the way even Vega's shadow haunts her. She thinks of brown hair and bronzed cheekbones. She thinks about her ninety-nine problems and the bitch that is definitely one. She thinks of the love of her life and the way he's drifting, bleeding ever further into the surrounding with every passing day.
Jade had seen the spark between Beck and Vega from the start, even felt it char her skin. Vega been all doe eyes and sickeningly sincere apologies. Beck had been caught up in the glare of everything he'd never seen from Jade. He'd denied it of course; they'd even broken up over it for about three hours. After that, Jade had learnt not to bring it up with any real intention of calmly discussing the matter. With the inside of her chest feeling way too much with broken glass, Jade abandons hunting for thatstupidfuckingbook and crumbles onto her bed.
The sense of defeat crawls over Jade slowly, but no less devastating than a sudden rush. Just because Jade can see the end before it overwhelms her doesn't make another failure any easier to cope with. The rot is just beginning to settle in Jade's gut when she catches sight of a decrepit cover wedge between her mattress and her bedside table.
The Doctrina Christiana
Jade's lips break into a smile, glee carving it's way into her expression. Swinging herself upright, Jade greedily drags the old tome into her clutches. Jade hacks up something like a laugh, although she's long fallen out of touch with happiness, so it mostly sounds like a cough. Skimming her fingers over the cover, Jade can almost feel its power licking at her skin. A shiver runs up her spine, electricity in the form of control. The book creaks as Jade opens the cover, and it's the sound of the scales tipping. Jade's tongue flickers over her lips, moistening them. All of the knowledge resting on her lap, it's intoxicating knowing that the balance of power has shifted in her favour.
Thanks Shapiro.
An ill-fitting and mostly useless part of her social circle, Shapiro had been the one to send The Doctina Christiana tumbling into Jade's possession. With limbs that were all awkward motion and lips locked into a rictus grin, Shapiro had given her the book with a mumbled happy birthday. That had been three weeks ago. The book had laid dormant until Sikowitz had spiralled off into a particularly obscure speech about his time in Haiti.
"The horrible woman that captured me, she had a book of some sort. The Doctrine of Christine or something…" Sikowitz had said somewhere in the middle of his sprawling nonsense.
It had sparked something off inside of Jade. Curiosity had kicked her gears inside of her mind out of autopilot and into action. Cogs beginning to grind, she'd surreptitiously reached into her pocket and fished out her PearPhone to investigate further. She'd go on to uncover a way to jolt Vega from Beck's sights forever. She'd also go on to discover The Doctina Christiana's history was remarkably bleak, words describing whole villages being reduced to ashes, and entire families suspected of possessing it being slaughtered. The further Jade had looked into the books history, the further it's spectre seemed to stretch. Its name had even been mentioned in relation to slave owners in the southern states of America just before the civil war.
Legs folded, Jade shakes the memories loose. She drops her gaze into her lap and gets caught between a grin and a grimace. She's in possession of a book capable of both ruining lives and exorcising her demons if history is to be believed. The room pops with static, and briefly Jade thinks she can hear voices amidst the white noise. It's stupid though, of course it is. Even the sharpest mind can begin to play tricks when confronted with silence. That's what Jade tells herself, but even still, as her eyes run over the words of the first page in The Doctina Christiana, something nags at her. An uneasy feeling claws it's way up her spine, prickling more intently with each nervous shudder of her heart.
"Enjoy the light, it is fleeting. Your darkness is eternal."
That line stops Jade cold. It's the final line on the page, and she's seen it before. Staring down at the words, Jade remembers seeing them flash across her phone during her research at school. She'd stumbled over a handful of firsthand accounts in relation to the Doctrine, each transcript ending with the words that have just burnt their way into her retina. That uneasy feeling – not quite dread or apprehension, but a tangled mess of both – drags itself every higher. It clambers onto her shoulder, lingering atop the ridge of Jade's collarbone for time enough time to make her question whether or not the static is starting to sound like laughter.
Time passes, dragging its heels and cackling all the while.
After all of the build up, it must be said the decision of Jade West blazes into existence in the form of a spark, rather than an inferno. She drags her shoulders up, and lets them clatter back down. She's always teetered at the edge of sinister, so what's another step into the darkness for the sake of holding onto her boyfriend. Steeling herself, Jade begins to read.
Hours fall off the clock as Jade carefully peruses the book. Her grasp on Spanish is tenuous at best, so she's can't race through the pages as fast as she'd like. By the time Jade's eyes land on the section that really interests her, the moon is staring murder through the window. It's reached in and drained her cheeks of their colour.
It's in that moment, all draped in clichés and melancholy when Jade's eyes finally skid over the ritual she's been looking for. The ritual is bleak,
It's within that moment, all clichés and melancholy that Jade's eyes finally skid over a description to the ceremony she's been looking for. The ritual itself is a grim affair, and Jade's stomach lurches in discomfort. A lifetime of horror movies can never prepare one for the horrors lurking at the outer reaches of reality. The worst part? It's not the black cockerel she'll have to slay, or the part of her soul she'll supposedly surrender. It's that Vega will need to be present for the ceremony. Pinching the bridge of her nose, Jade shakes her head and laments how much more complicated her scheme has just become.
Zombifying somebody through Voodoo, who would have thought it was so much work?
TBC in Chapter 2