Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Chapter 32

It's like I'm not fully back inside my own body. I'm observing myself flexing all my muscles, tensing till my blood vessels start to burst, screaming into Mel's smothering palm.

And everywhere around me is a glitched-out mixed-up version of the Weaver Queen's office, hanging on in digital scraps and noise, to the vision of the real apartment we are in tonight.

I'm Gap drunk. They warned me about this, coming out hot.

Vash and Ty are running around the room, throwing things into bags, moving almost silently, frantic.

Mel whispers into my ear, slow and calm, she's rocking me back and forth.

"Grey goose and gander."

And I can feel the words go to the base of my spine, feel them pushing all the way up to the base of my skull, my eyes roll back in my head.

"Carry the good king's daughter."

And I'm like a half-drowned thing, lying on a beach gasping for air.

"Over the one strand river."

Somehow, I know that river. And I see myself, clinging on to an enormous goose flying over a silver river. The panic fades. My muscles relax.

Then I'm back.

"The wolf is at the door. Be cold little sister, we need speed, not haste." Mel is quiet. Controlled.

I understand in an instant. We're being hunted again.

She hands me a bag and makes for the door.

We're in a large, uber-stylish loft apartment. Exposed brick, converted industrial space, somewhere in the East End of London. I know we're only an hour away from Grandma's house out in the Western suburbs of the city, less than that to the prison ship on the Thames where my sisters will be heading in the back of a Hunter's cart, terrified and cold. I try to calculate their route.

"Mel, where are we heading?"

She shoots me a look, finger to lips. Beckons me to follow.

"Mel, I have to get to my sisters, now, they're being taken to the ship."

"Do not speak unless you have to. We aren't going to make it out of this building if you can't shut your pie hole for the next ten minutes."

It feels like a slap in the face. I'm too shocked to respond. Ty touches my arm and I shake him away, feel a tremor in my legs.

But I follow, we sneak along the hallway to the top of a high, metal, spiral staircase leading way down to what was once a factory floor, now a vast open plan living space artfully zoned by some once hip interior designer. Probably the height of London fashions some twenty years ago, now thick with dust and cobwebs. The concrete flooring is decorated by hundreds of desiccated pigeon corpses.

Mel freezes, we all freeze. She points. Footprints in the dust. Seven trails. They're in here, but we can't see them. Mel runs a gossamer strand of something across the top of the stairs.

We move quickly, quietly back up and away into the upper floor. We weave across the apartment ducking low from vintage furniture piece to vintage furniture piece.

We get to the elevator, a panel next to it, and a retina scanner. Vash mutters something, her eyes change subtly, she looks into the scanner and the panel pops open.

"Mel, we have to find my sisters, they're just kids Mel."

She doesn't even respond. Vash physically pulls me to the floor, where her and Ty are crouching. Ty is breathing slowly, running his finger up and down the finger of his other hand. Vash is staring at me, like a cat staring at a mouse.