Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Chapter 24

"Yeah exactly, want it to be worth it."

"Get the mood right."

"Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb."

"Ring a ring a roses."

"Got no roses this'll have to do."

Giggling. Hysterical giggling.

"You knew this Ursula right?"

"Yeah, oh my god, so up herself."

More giggles.

"Well it won't matter after tonight will it. She'll say her prayers."

"We'll throw her down the stairs."

Finally I get close enough to see them. And just as I do, I nearly throw up.

It's Ty, ginger hair shorn close in a military style, opening his mouth wide while another person, a girl about our age, brown skin and a shock of black curly hair tied back snorts up a mouthful of phlegm and spits it hard into the back of Ty's mouth. Ty staggers back crying silent tears of laughter. I can hear the dogs but they appear not to notice them.

And then Ty runs up and grabs the girl by the head, pulls her mouth open and repeats the process. Only then do I notice the strange cave they have decorated in the heart of this junk mountain. And when I wretch, they snap their heads towards me, gasping both.

"Look a little baby coven sister!" Screams Ty.

"The machines have given us a sister!" Bellows the other.

There is a pentagram painted on the floor in neon pink. The paint glows and writhes, some kind of smart paint. On every available surface, they have painted sigils and symbols, strange words I don't recognise.

"My name is Vashni, Ty you know and you are the infamous Ursula Loveless. Please, call me Vash."

They both bow. Then they help me to my feet. But the weird pink glow of the pentagram uplights their faces, and the exhaustion and the terror and the pain all conspire to make me terrified of them. I feel like I'm being abducted by aliens. I want to turn and run, I try to retreat to the tunnel, but Mel appears, huge and powerful, an impenetrable wall. I shrink inside myself.

"Ursula, we don't have much time. There is a secret school hidden on the internet. The only way for you to get inside is to perform the ritual with your coven sisters. If you do this, the Weavers will protect us. They'll send teams to neutralise the hunt. But they only protect initiates, they won't protect us until we're officially attempting to enrol."

"This is too much, too fast. I can't..."

Again I'm actually shivering in fear. My voice vibrates with it.

"I wish we had more time to explain..."

She reaches out to embrace me but I pull away stumbling into Vash and Ty. I actually scream, just a little. Marketta's photographs in my head.

"You just need to lay on the floor, we'll do the rest."

Cut me apart and sacrifice me to the woman with the disfigured face. Yeah right.

Then I hear quadcopters, and her voice, Marketta's voice echoing over the scrap yard from a dozen flying megaphones.

"Ursula Loveless, do not trust the Weaver Spider. Alert us to your position now. It's not too late. Ursula Loveless, you are in grave danger, we can protect you, we can rehabilitate you. Don't make a decision you will not live to regret."

Mel grabs me by the shoulders and brings her face in close.

"I know you want to be a good girl, work hard, get your grades, look after your sisters and be a big genius, win the science fairs and get a good job, impress your mum and dad. I know. I remember what that felt like, believe it or not.

But the world is topsy turvy now, my love. Sometimes the right thing to do is the wrong thing.

I didn't want to show you this, didn't want to shock you... but look."

She turns her back to me and pulls up her top all the way to the shoulders. It's a tattoo of my mom's face, in the style of a Mexican Virgén de Guadalupe. In the Latin script above and below her face, are the words hicimos los angeles. We made the angels.

"Your mother was a hero to my generation. She made me swear an oath to her, that I would protect you if the hunters ever got to her. I swore that to her. And I'm telling you now, the hunters will experiment on you, they will fry your brain with drugs, they'll leave you a vegetable to rot on that stinking ship in the Thames. But if you come with us, there are people at the Secret School who knew your mother better than I did."

"Ursula you know me, do you honestly think I'm here to kill you?"

I look Ty in the face. Don't think I really know him anymore, but still find it hard to believe he's some kind of killer. Even Vash just looks like another kid.

And Mel saved my ass just now.

But most of all, mom. How could I not follow mom? This must be where she went, into the secret school.

And the dogs are getting louder, and more and more shouting voices and whirling copter blades, and I haven't got time to think anyway, so here we go.

"OK I'm in. What do we do?"

Instantly I hear explosions. Vehicles being shot down. Dogs whelping and whining. Men running. The Weavers are here.

"Open wide." Grins Vash.

###THIS NOVEL IS IN OPEN BETA###

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