Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Chapter 53

"Morning babes, you been asleep for like two days."

I realise I've been sitting up, staring without seeing, for some time now. I can feel my own drool evaporating off my right cheek, smell ancient stale beer mixed with my own sweat, I've been sleeping on this upholstered bench seating. I try to pick all the crud out of my eyes and grasp at something resembling a thought.

"Where's Alice?"

"You'll fit right in then. Everybody round here asking that."

She chuckles. I look around. It's some kind of bar. I'm in a Siren Safe House. Guess that much. It's noisy, I hear voices everywhere from the rooms around this one and below.

"We're in a big old pub. Loads of shuttered pubs in London. Alice likes using them."

"Are you her coven sister?"

"No, just another ex." She chuckles.

I take her in then, a skinny woman, tattoos and piercings. I guess she's closer to thirty than twenty. Shaved head, real classic punk. Old school cyber arm from the left elbow down. She's cooking on some kind of tiny gas stove. I guess she's been assigned to babysit me.

Strange to notice, that they can turn it off, the Siren power. She seems nice, but not overpoweringly seductive. She's not doing the 'thing' that most Sirens seem to do without thinking.

Then the kiss comes back to me. And I feel my cheeks darken. And a little tingle of delight in my spine. Do I have... a real girlfriend? No, shut up Ursula. Don't be ridiculous. Don't be needy.

"Can I go and see Alice?"

She looks at me sadly, but smiling too.

"My name's Ama."

I feel like an asshole.

"Nice to meet you Anna, thanks for keeping an eye on me. I was dying out there before you guys took me in."

"I'll take you to Alice soon. But you might want to wash yourself first love."

She makes me eat something first. Shows me where the bathroom is.

Then I think, as my stomach sinks, I'm being childish. Alice probably has a lot of fans. And she hated me five seconds ago. Didn't she? Or does she only hate me at school? And is everyone in this building one of her exes?

As we explore the building looking for Alice, it's like being at a party. I Imagine. I never went to many in New York, and they were always full of middle-aged people.

And I wonder out loud, "Why is that the Sirens seem to be living when the Weavers only ever hide?"

"Sirens are proud of what we are. Weavers are ashamed." Ama replies.

"So how come you never get busted?"

"That's a more complicated question than it seems right now. but it is something to do with critical mass."

"What's that?"

"They don't want to storm a witches' rave, because there's too many of us. Would take too much resources, too much risk. And anyway, they hate the Weavers more than us. The Weavers follow the old terrorist playbook, cells of three, no connection to one another. Urban guerrillas."

I catch sight of myself in the mirror behind the bar. I look like a stick of wood in a garden of flowers.

"Do you think Alice likes me?"

"Kid, you're intriguing for sure but you're what, how old?"

"I'm 13."

"Alice is seventeen, and round here they grow up fast. I mean you ain't no street kid. Maybe that's why you caught her eye."