Present Day.
Sperantia somersaulted as she teleported, head flying over feet in the instant it took her to cross the void of space. She landed clumsily on her paws, claws out, scrabbling over the dark, wooden floorboards. The soft glow of morning light shone through the windows, dragging Sperantia’s heart down into hell.
Day three had begun.
Day five, technically, since she’d woken with that sense of unease – since Croe had taken the children –
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t overwork too much,” Sperantia had replied in her clipped voice, keeping her eyes fixed on the woman.
The cat’s performance wasn’t great, face too hard and body too stiff, but the children weren’t looking at her. Ángela’s attention was avidly occupied by her mother who, fortunately for all of them, was a much better actor than Sperantia was. The little girl’s face lit up like a firework as she leapt out of her seat and began to dash about, grabbing her favourite toys. Sperantia and Croe exchanged final looks before the former turned and marched rigidly out, heading for the study.
…But only three days since Sperantia had started counting. Those first two days were almost irrelevant, practically stress-free compared to the three which followed. She’d mostly spent them camped outside his office, eroding away the floor with constant pacing, snapping at anyone who came near in the wrong moment. Every so often, she’d try to get in again. The office was sealed with a complex magic which Sperantia was too tense to successfully unpick – and, in any case, she didn’t even know if he was still in there. Without their psychic link, it was hard to trace him. Sperantia could sense the presence of divinity, but not identify whose divinity it was.
They’d felt like hell, those two days. They were like a holiday in the Bahamas compared to what came next.
When she’d awoken outside the office door on the third morning, Sperantia had realised she could no longer sense a divine presence on the inside. In desperation, she’d broken down the magical lock with sheer force, nearly torching the interior of the office in the process, to find it devoid of people.
Sickness burned in Sperantia’s stomach. She stood frozen in the warm cabin, her claws digging in to the wooden table of their own accord. The Santiago rolled towards the starboard side, making her muscles tense as she held her position. Blood pounded in her ears.
“Sperantia? Did you hear what I said?” Zed frowned, resting his hands on the table and searching her face. “I said Lorraine and Rhaegar are fine, thanks for asking. I saw them both this morning.”
He paused. Sperantia lowered her head and raised her shoulders as though she was about to vomit.
“Sperantia.” Zed repeated, lowering his head to meet hers. “Sperantia, is Mallos alright?”
Croe had been ascending the steps to the front entrance at the exact moment Sperantia had teleported back into the main hall. The look on the cat’s face must have said it all. Croe had passed the children over to Alvarez and she and Sperantia had divided up places to search between them: Earth, Shaman, distant worlds. All that day and the next, Sperantia had barely slept. She didn’t eat. She hopped planets, brutishly interrogating anyone she came across, scouring under every stone for clues.
Now dawn had risen on the third day after Omniety had finished and Mallos was still missing.
Something had stopped Sperantia, some ten minutes before – something… dreadful. For the last five days, she had expressed stress in sharp tones and a strained face, but had kept a cool head. Don’t think about what could have been, or what might be – keep your focus on the job. Stay calm. Efficient. Losing your head is a waste of everyone’s time.
Eleven minutes ago, Sperantia knew that. But then…
It was like she couldn’t breathe. Her throat constricted, cutting off her oxygen supply. Her heart was thumping so hard that her ribs hurt. She couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t draw breath. The world, reduced to meaningless colours and shapes, trembled and blurred in front of her. The only thought which managed to permeate was, I’m dying. This is what it feels like to die.
It lasted for a little over five minutes and left her lying on the floor of the Mallosian church in Mexico she had been investigating, shaking. A few minutes later, she managed to get herself together enough to teleport to the penthouse in Granada, where Croe was looking for clues.
The sound of her claws clattering on the wooden floorboards brought Croe out. Or perhaps she’d always been there – the world was still coming in and out of focus, blurring every time Sperantia felt a new surge of panic crushing her. She scrambled up onto the leather sofa, not caring about the holes she tore, and crouched down in the corner of it. Her fur stood out on end.
“Three days,” she moaned. Three days, no closer to finding him. “He could be anywhere. He could be–”
Her voice broke.
She dragged herself out of the corner of the sofa and started to pace up it. As she swung around, she caught sight of the woman, standing there. A fresh surge of something else, something which had the power to dampen the panic, tore through Sperantia like a bullet. She gritted her teeth.
“He could be dancing flamenco.” She spat the words out. “In a pit of hungry crocodiles.”
Sperantia
la soledad es un tipo de veneno
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