Hollowpox The Hunt for Morrigan Crow - Jessica Townsend Page 0,82
of you kids listen carefully. I need you to—’
She was interrupted by a piercing scream from Anah. An iridescent green insect the size of a shoebox had broken apart from the pack and was crawling up her leg, up her side, along her shoulder … the screaming intensified as it latched on to her hair, and Anah squeezed her eyes shut, waving her hands helplessly. ‘GET IT OFF ME GET IT OFF ME GET IT OOOFFFFFF!’
THWACK.
Archan seemed to have acted without thinking. He swung a huge book through the air, using its momentum to brush the bug away from Anah, only just missing her head. The bug went sailing away in a bright green arc and then landed hard – SQUISH! – against a high shelf of books. They watched the carcass slide all the way down to the ground, down the rows of coloured spines, leaving a thick, unctuous, foul-smelling trail of greenish-yellow guts that looked rather like a festering wound.
Eyes wide with horror, Arch dropped the book. Francis, meanwhile, leaned over with his hands on his knees and vomited right there in the street.
Roshni was horrified too, but for a completely different reason. She pointed a shaking finger at Arch. ‘Y-you – you just – that’s a book! That’s – that’s vandalism!’
‘Is that the priority right now, Rosh?’ shouted Miss Cheery. She started gathering up her dropped books and handing them out to the scholars. ‘Right, new plan. We’ve got no swatters. No tanks. No bookfighters. So, we’re going to use what we DO have.’ She ducked to avoid a gigantic pink-spotted bug as it swooped low over her head, then took aim at it with a large book called Famous Nevermoorian Impressionists and Their Muses. THWACK! The bug exploded on impact, sending a shower of slime over the whole group, to their great revulsion. ‘Come on, you lot – get swinging.’
Roshni stared at her friend, open-mouthed. ‘Maz. You’re not serious!’
‘Rosh, it’s either this or get eaten by a swarm of bugs.’ She handed her friend An Encyclopaedia of Modern Witchery. ‘Which would you prefer?’
The librarian whimpered. She looked like she was being asked to spit on her grandmother’s grave. She clutched the book to her chest, closed her eyes tight and whispered, ‘Forgive me, Lady Gob-le-Fasse, for what I am about to do.’
And with one perfectly aimed swing, Roshni knocked a black-and-blue striped bug straight out of the air, a rainbow of slime radiating outwards in its wake. Without pausing for breath, the librarian began swinging left and right, a ceaseless barrage that sent dozens of bugs to their deaths within moments. Morrigan could see why she’d been promoted. Roshni was a bug-murdering machine, fierce and unrelenting.
‘Move towards –’ THWACK ‘– the coach!’ she shouted between swings.
And they did – slowly, painstakingly, fighting their way through the creepy-crawling onslaught, the unit made their way together in the direction of the riverglass coach, leaving a trail of dead bugs and slime puddles behind them.
Morrigan pulled Volume Three Hundred and Seven out from under her cloak and took aim at a monstrous purple thing hovering around Cadence’s head, wings humming and pincers snapping. It landed with a satisfying SPLAT on the other side of the road, and she immediately hit another three in quick succession – SPLAT. SPLAT. SPLAT. It was the weirdest and most disgusting thrill she’d ever experienced.
Thaddea and Hawthorne seemed to be enjoying themselves too, though Morrigan couldn’t say the same for the others. Cadence was covered in slime, and Anah couldn’t stop screaming. Francis looked like he was barely in control of his stomach. Lam stood in the centre of the group, hands over her head, while Arch and Mahir hovered around her, doing their best to deflect any bugs that came her way.
‘Roshni!’ Miss Cheery shouted. ‘Look!’
The riverglass coach was gone. Or not gone exactly – it was still there, just buried beneath the enormous heap of insects that had decided to swarm it, so that it now resembled a small, buzzing mountain of glittering iridescence.
They were done for. There was no way they’d be able to fight their way through that lot.
Roshni looked horror-struck, but picked up her radio again, still swinging her encyclopaedia one-handed. ‘CALLING ALL BOOKFIGHTER BRIGADES. DOES ANYONE COPY? COME ON, YOU SLACKERS! ASSISTANCE REQUIRED AT OLD—’
She was drowned out by the sudden blare of sirens, the roar of an engine. Morrigan turned in the direction of the sound, and felt her heart bounce up and down in her chest