Owls in the Vortex

THE CYBER WITCHES: PART FOUR

As Lilith helped Edalyn get her faculties together, she looked at Eda's dislocated arm: while she wasn't the least bit squeamish, seeing it did make her uncomfortable though. The discomfort was made worse when she decided to pop it back into place, just thinking about it made her shoulder hurt and reminded her of the one time when she had dislocated her shoulder during a grugby game and thought it a good idea to reset it mid-game, oh boy did that hurt like the devil.

"Are you sure you want to do this Edalyn, you do know there is a chance that you'd only make it worse?"

"Chance, schmance Lily. I'd like to be able to use both my arms when dealing with the Cybermen," Edalyn said just before she reset her shoulder, the act of doing so made her wince: how she was not shouting every obscenity known to Witchkind from the top of her lungs was beyond her. "Much better, handling magic and explosives is so much easier with two hands instead of just one, wouldn't you agree?"

Lilith shot her sister a look of concern, the fact that she was able to crack jokes like that after what was very much a near-death experience was a definite worry. She didn't get the time to address this concern, as the moment Edalyn got full function back in her arm she had recalled her palisman and began to make her way up to the surface to recover the gear they had brought, but not before making a grim joke about any loud noises being the gelignite going off. As she waited for her sister to come back down with the gear, she heard four or five sets of feet marching, coming their way no doubt. Quickly, she warned her sister before finding a place to hide in a hole in the wall to her right.

The hole was a tight entrance, but she managed to squeeze herself through, luckily enough the other side of the wall was slightly less cramped, affording her the luxury to turn and shimmy out of sight. While hidden, she heard the marching stop and then two bizarre-sounding voices. They were flat and monotone, but there was an odd buzz to their voices as if the larynxes had been removed and replaced with some sort of device.

"Cyber-witch located, Cyber-witch izz deztroyed. Commence inveztigation of the perimeter."

The marching became divided as these presumed new Cybermen began an area sweep. One of them sounded like they were approaching her hiding spot, to ensure she didn't get spotted easily, Lilith placed her hand over her mouth and slowed her breathing. The Cyberman's investigation only lasted a handful of minutes at most but felt like it lasted forever, and was probably one of the most unnerving moments in her life. The static buzz of its voice was close enough to her ears that it caused her fight-or-flight instinct to go into a frenzy as it sent shivers and chills down her sides and spine.

As the perimeter search went on, Lilith became more and more worried almost half an hour had passed, and she continued to hear the marching feet of the Cybermen. Worst-case scenarios began to play in her head: what if Edalyn came back now, what if they checked her hiding hole again, what if they knew where she was and were waiting for her to slip up and reveal herself? The scenarios kept playing again and again in her head, but one scenario happened that she didn't account for, the sound of Coven scouts climbing down into the sewers hit Lilith like a ton of bricks. She heard them confronting and threatening to apprehend the Cybermen, only to be followed by the sound of an absolute blood bath. Screams of dying coven scouts and discharges of the Cybermen's weapons flooded the air, Lilith struggled to not let out a single sound as she heard the horrifying cacophony of death that flooded the air.

When the noise died down, she heard the leader of this pack of Cybermen speak, they ordered one of them to investigate the surface. No longer able to bare standing hidden and idle, Lilith rushed to go through the hole, only to be met by a Cyberman pointing their weapon in her face.

When Eda got up to the surface, she was met by six coven scouts all ready to apprehend her. If it weren't for the sack that was literally full of what could be considered contraband she had placed near the manhole, she would be surprised. After all, one does not simply leave a sack full of lock picks, explosives and Gold dust and not get suspicious looks.