Hollowpox The Hunt for Morrigan Crow - Jessica Townsend Page 0,106

and Morrigan joined Lam on the bottom step. She had a basket of funny-looking herbs and plants from their witchery workshop and was clutching it tight to her chest, looking uneasy.

‘It’s them again,’ she said, nodding down the drive.

A tinny, mechanical squeal made everyone wince and cover their ears, followed by a familiar strident voice ringing out across the campus.

‘WE DEMAND ANSWERS,’ boomed Laurent St James, and the protestors roared their agreement. It seemed the Concerned Citizens of Nevermoor Party had gained a few more members since Morrigan last saw them. ‘WE DEMAND THE TRUTH. WE DEMAND THAT THE WUNDROUS SOCIETY STOP PROTECTING MURDERERS AND VIOLENT ATTACKERS!’

The crowd cheered so loudly for this that the megaphone squealed again.

‘What “murderers” are we protecting?’ huffed a senior scholar leaning against a pillar. ‘The baboonwun drowned in the Juro! What exactly are we protecting him from?’

‘THESE PEOPLE, THE SOCIETY’S SO-CALLED HIGH COUNCIL OF ELDERS, REFUSE TO PROTECT NORMAL, HARD-WORKING CITIZENS.’

Word had evidently spread through Proudfoot House; more scholars began to trickle out into the grounds. Thaddea and Anah had snaked through the gathering crowd to join them.

‘Why isn’t anyone defending the High Council?’ asked Thaddea. She rolled up her sleeves as if preparing for a fight. ‘We should all be down there.’

‘Yeah, we should,’ Morrigan agreed. She hated seeing the three Elders standing alone against an enormous, angry crowd, even if there was a locked gate between them. Ordinarily she’d be most worried for tiny, ancient Elder Quinn … but in this particular situation, she had her eye on Elder Saga. What would happen to him if the Concerned Citizens breached the gates? She remembered how quickly the guests at the Sunset Gala had turned on Fenestra.

‘We were down there,’ said Cadence. ‘A few of us. Lam and I were coming out of the Whinging Woods when it all kicked off.’

‘Couldn’t you have just … y’know. Mesmerised the lot of ’em?’ asked Thaddea. ‘Done your funny voice thing, told everyone to pack it in and go home?’

Cadence rolled her eyes. ‘My “funny voice thing” doesn’t really scale up, Thaddea. I can’t just tell a whole crowd of people what to do, it doesn’t work like that. Anyway, Elder Quinn ordered everyone back up here to Proudfoot House.’

‘They don’t want it to turn into a stand-off,’ Lam explained in a slightly muffled voice, because she was chewing fretfully on her bottom lip. Her fingers had turned white where they were clutching the basket. ‘They’re trying to calm things down.’

‘Not doing a very good job though, are they?’ said Thaddea. ‘Listen to them, they’re getting worse.’

‘THE MURDEROUS JACKALWUN MUST BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE!’ bellowed St James, to resounding cheers. ‘WE DEMAND SHE BE QUESTIONED BY THE POLICE AT ONCE.’

‘Good luck getting her to talk,’ said Anah quietly. The others looked at her. She was still in her hospital uniform and her eyes were red-rimmed as if she’d been crying, or was just about to. ‘Good luck getting any of them to say a word, ever again.’

‘What jackalwun?’ asked Morrigan.

Anah sniffled. ‘It happened this morning. A jackalwun attacked an old man at a doctor’s office. He died at the scene, and she … she’s here, of course. In the hospital.’ She wiped her nose on her sleeve. Thaddea put an arm around her shoulders.

‘One of ours, two of theirs,’ said someone nearby, and Morrigan peeked over her shoulder to see a boy from Unit 918 – a catwun Minor, almost entirely human but for his fine whiskers and little pink nose.

‘What do you mean?’ his friend asked him.

‘The death toll,’ the catwun clarified gloomily. ‘It’s uneven now. One Wunimal, two humans. Now they think they have the moral high ground, don’t they?’

Morrigan heard Sofia’s voice in her head. We’re all on the same side.

Those words sounded even more hollow than they had before.

‘We know you are frightened!’ shouted Elder Quinn. Her voice was brittle, but it carried. ‘We know you want answers. But it is not useful or kind to think of the affected Wunimals as villains, as murderers. They are ill. They are the victims of a dreadful disease—’

‘We know who the real victims are!’ cried a woman clutching the iron bars of the gate. She was being propped up by people on either side. ‘My Robbie was only twenty-five years old! Had his whole life ahead of him.’ She shook the gate angrily. ‘Where’s the justice for my boy?’

Morrigan felt her heart sink. Robbie. That must have been the young man who’d been killed