The Witches of Ravenrook 01

I will have to worry about whether I've killed him later. I'm up and running at the fifth guy who has Bernadette by the leg and is trying to drag her out from under a table. The sixth guy has crawled under the table on the other side and is starting to pry Bernadette's fingers from around the table leg she's clinging to.

Guy number five barely has the time stand before I'm on him. I take his hit to the shoulder to get my hand around the back of his head. I quick-step him the four feet to the table opposite Bernadette and pound the boy's face into the closest plate of food – twice.

The owner of the plate – recall, there are students all over the place either dispassionately watching or simply ignoring the beatings and humiliations that have been going on. Only the freshmen seem suitably horrified, though they don't know who any of the combatants are.

The owner of the food, Vicky Lennox, looks offended – with me! And there was a girl screaming her head off right behind her and she's offended by me spilling her fruit and candied rice all over the table. I'm reacquainting number five into the plate when Vicky puts her hand on the bicep that is attached to the arm slamming the douche.

I release the guy and backhand Vicky to the ground. I'm angry with her but really I just need her out of the way and to be sure she's not going to get on my back when I retrieve Bernadette. I rush to the only person here who is making any sense to me. If I am going to be forced to fight the whole way to the harbor; I am going to have to think of another plan to get us out of here – something more immediate and doable.

"Bernadette," I call out. "Grab my hand," I call out to my gal pal – fuck, maybe my only pal anymore.

"Vandemeyer!" hollers Ms. Janice Richman, our school's swim and yachting coach. I am a bit busy pulling Bernadette out from under the table and to my side. "Vandemeyer, put her down," she thunders next.

"What the hell is this?" I scream back, fueled by a sudden splitting headache. I'm pointing at those two poor freshmen who are only now succeeding in removing the rope that binds them back to back.

"That's not your problem," Richman furiously snaps. My headache graduates to a migraine so fast I think I might be having an aneurism. Bernadette is muttering something...in some language I've never heard before – Albanian maybe. I'm completely powerless to resist Coach Richman from grabbing me; it hurts so badly – then Bernadette says something loudly that sounds like 'dentate', touches me and the pain vanishes.

Coach Richman takes me by the arm.

"Come with me," she commands. Before she can move me, everything becomes crystal clear once more.

"Bitch," boils up from deep within me. Richman has half turned away when my curse causes her head to track back to my face.

I really don't care – again. My fist balls up and I hit her twice, rapidly in the stomach. I am way, way past losing my mind. I'm going to prison, I have no doubt. I shake my arm free from Janice's feeble grip. I grab a handful of her hair and drag her to the two freshmen on the table as tears start streaming down her face from the pain of my hair-pulling.

"Why aren't you angry about this?" I cry out. I'm about to slam her face into the table top when she goes 'Huh...'

"What?" I pull her head up to mine and her eyes are highly dilated and she looks stoned. I give a little 'huh' myself. I catch a flicker to my right – it is Bernadette and she looks like she's donated two too many pints of blood; she's so pale and swaying – barely able to stand. She's also looking over at those six wack-jobs.

I quick-step to her side once more and catch her as she collapses against my chest. A hodgepodge of disjointed visions floods my mind and I can now tell everyone what it feels like to have hot needles jammed into every joint of my body. Holy fucking hell...then the pain is gone. The world swirls and for a second I see looks of utter surprise on the three sets of twin's faces as they look at me.

"Let's get you out of here," I tell Bernadette. The sounds of the rest of the students returning to normal business as if nothing bloody, violent and uncalled for has happened in the past two minutes. Only the freshmen, Georgia and maybe a dozen other upperclassmen give me furtive, frightened glances.

"No, Richard," Bernadette rubs my upper arm, "let us stay and get some breakfast."

"Okay, did you also miss me beating five guys up and gut-punching a teacher?" I blink. Oddly, she looks totally fine now, even somewhat rejuvenated.

"No, but most of the students won't remember exactly what happened," she whispers.

"Excuse me," I growl under my breath. "What is going on? My old friends are with my new enemies and I'm being forced to use physical threats and violence to deal with teachers. Where I come from in Sanity Land, this is nuts. We need to leave this island and tell something about what's going on."

"What would you tell them?" she smiles with a sense of dark tragedy; "your friends are trying to hurt you so that they can kill me, and you don't even know me, really. That is all rhetorical because once we get on the boat I can't protect either of us – not from all six – and they will kill us both."

"You mean those six Kate Moss rejects?" I glare at the six and their court which has swelled to over thirty students now. "Let me go set them straight right then I'll be right back."

"Please don't," she tells me softly. "You can't fight them all, here - in the open. For that matter, do not let them touch you – ever." I'm starting to think that I'm that one in a million who isn't affected by whatever toxin or poison that is rotting the mind of everyone else on the island.

"Tell me what is going on; are they terrorists or is this some bad medical experiment?" I fight for understanding.

"I can't tell you anything that would make sense to you yet," she tells me. "I have not even figured out how we are still alive."

"They should have sent more people," I joke with desperate energy. She gives me a curious look.

"Do you often fight five guys...after the five you beat up for me last night?" she questions. Yes, I'm a raging asshole who constantly beats up anyone who steps on my blue suede shoes.

"I think I've been in five fights since kindergarten but my Dad taught me how to defend myself," I inform her then realize that doesn't explain anything.

"Have you ever kicked anyone half way to the ceiling before?" she keeps going.

"That was new," I admit. "But what does all of this mean?"

"I don't know," she nods. "Had they not been so invested in giving me a long and torturous death, none of this would have happened to you and for that, I apologize."

"You would be dead and that isn't an option for me," I confirm.

"You don't know me at all," she points out. "What if I told you that all this would stop if you let them kill me?"

"Do you deserve death at their hands?" I counter.

"I don't think so but I believe they would disagree," I can see Bernadette think things over. We've walked to a table and sit side by side when she continues. "They would think I deserved death for what was done to them to whit I would counter that they earned their punishments honestly."

"None of what you just said makes sense," I shake my head.

"It is not supposed to," Bernadotte sighs. We eat a few more bite-fills then Bernadotte stiffens and looks over her shoulder. It is the blonde Wonder Twins. I take my butter knife as well as Bernadette's then stand up.

"Don't," Bernadette cautions me. She's not touching me though. I don't 'know' most of the crap going on around me but I'm putting a few things together – I have to play to their delusions.

"Whatever you are doing – stop it," I demand. As far as I know there is a voodoo thing going on here and the Sextet has got poor Bernadette believing they have power over her.

I want to pinch myself because I suddenly feel as if hundreds worms are crawling around in my brain...and dying...I can almost hear their death rattles.

"Please," I plead through clenched teeth. I'm not begging and, if they are smart, they will know it. They don't. I give them five seconds then I hope that either touching their hair doesn't count or that I don't send Bernadette into some kind of psychotic break by touching them.

I introduce Blonde #1's left ear to Blonde #2's right by the simple expedient of pounding their heads together. I feel like my palms and fingers are on fire, but it passes.

"Ow!" they both gasp as they stumble back. Seven more guys and two girls are coming my way from their not so little pack.

"They take five more steps and I'm ramming the handles of these two knives into both your rectums," I seethe to the blondes. Fucking fantastic – the minions stop. If I could see any ear pieces on these chicks, or had I spoken above a seething whisper, or had either blonde said a word, I would be ecstatic. "Bernadette, what's going on here?"

"They have a Sympathetic mental understanding with one another which certain...rituals allow them to expand over...those they have subverted," she informs me.

"They have telepathy?" I shorten the bullshit. "Next time just tell me they have telepathy."

"Not precise but apt," Bernadette agrees. Okay, I'm going to play along with this fantasy environment because though this makes no sense it still makes more sense than anything I can think of.

"You don't understand this situation?" the blonde's go all-freaky girl-like. Oh, it gets better. Each twin looks at their opposite then back at me. The blonde's extend their left hands.

"Hello, I am Paradise/Eden," they greet me. I'm thinking about defusing the situation then I recall Bernadette's warning about touching these – witches. I rap their knuckles instead. I swear to God the metal sparks as the knife-handles hit flesh.

I'm starting to figure something else out and surprise, it makes as much nonsense as everything else. They don't think I can touch them, despite copious evidence to the contrary.

"If I have to touch any of you it will be to punch my hand through your skulls and walk you around like meat puppets," I threaten them. "Are we clear?"

They don't speak and I realize that Bernadette is remarkably silent as well. I know how this fantasy works.

"You have to a count of five before I kill one of you by ripping off your arms and legs then reducing your skull to pulp with one of those," I threaten softly. "5-4-3..."

"They are not really alive Richard," Bernadette breathes heavily. "You can't really kill them; nothing mortal can."

"They also didn't think I could touch them, or hurt them either," I grin evilly at the blondes.

"Point taken," Bernadette contemplates with a certain distant yet serene quality.

"What were they doing to you?" I play along. They have telepathy after all. Dr. Spock will be so pleased – or is that Mr. Spock; I am starting to get them confused.

"They were simply saying hello in the way of our people," Bernadette relates, "which means they were trying to get inside my mind. They caught me off-guard yesterday with my guard down. This was a trap meant to...umm...do things to me."

"What part of them being three sets of twins a la Children of the Damned did you miss?" I joked weakly.

"Richard," Bernadette laughs, "most people can't see what they really look like. They masked their taint from me by design. I can't explain you."