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His brow furrows, but he shakes his head, at last giving in.
“Fine. You start in the morning.”
ChapterTen
I walk downthe alley that Dugald told me to go to, carefully picking my way through the cast-off debris. Overflowing dumpsters sit against crumbling brick walls. The air reeks with the stench of rotting food and God knows what else. I accidently kick a bag. Flies swarm into the air and the odor turns my stomach. I retch, rushing ahead to try and escape.
This is the worst. I am not dressed for this.
The strip of sky visible between the close buildings is overcast and threatens rain. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. If it does rain, it might help to suppress the god-awful odor, but then I’d also be wet. I hate being wet.
“Hello?”
My voice echoes off the brick walls and steel rear doors of the shops. Sounds are muted by the piles of garbage. The hair on my arms and back of my neck rise to stand on end. This is crazy. I have never, in all my life, come into an alley like this. Mostly because I’m not stupid. This is where you go if you’re looking for trouble.
Beside me a broken pallet shifts, and I jump, yelping. I land with my back to the wall and fists raised for protection. My heart is thumping in my throat. I strain my ears, alert for any threat, but I don’t hear any other sound.
Across the alley the pallet shifts once more, slipping further down the wall it is leaning on. I force the lump that might or might not be my heart down by working my mouth until there is enough moisture and room to speak.
“Hello?”
“What are you looking at?”
The voice is in my ear. Instincts crash in my head as I try to faint, leap, run, and attack all at once. Instead of doing anything, I stand frozen, wide-eyed like some badly written scream queen in a horror movie, unable to move.
A hulking homeless man is standing beside me, staring at the same pallet I was expecting something to emerge from. I don’t know how he got so close without my noticing. He’s big, bulky, with a tattered green coat over layers of shirts and a threadbare sweater. Pants that are covered with layers of muck and filth making their make and original color impossible to discern. He’s wearing worn combat boots that are years away from their last shine.
He has a long, thick, wiry beard that is mostly shades of gray to white but is also filled with crumbs, specks of mud. When I see something move in it, I gag. He has a ratty beany on his head, but wild strands of long hair protrude out from underneath it in every possible direction.
His face is worn and wrinkled. He has a large, almost bulbous, red veined nose, chapped lips, and yellow teeth, but his eyes capture my attention. His eyes are warm, deep, a rich shade of green that reminds me of the rolling hills of the Highlands after a fresh rain. Those eyes are beautiful. He’s not looking at me though, crossing his arms over his chest as he leans back, not taking his gaze off the pallet.
“Something there, eh?” he asks, darting his eyes towards me for only a bare moment as if he too is afraid he’ll miss the emergence of whatever it is.
“Uh, are you,” I clear my throat, blink, then take a breath as I try to gather my wits which apparently blasted apart when he startled me. “Are you the trainer?”
“The trainer,” he says, shaking his head and snorting.
He turns his head, coughs a deep rattling sound, then hawks and spits. My stomach flips in disgust. He shakes his head and rolls his eyes. The broken pallet shifts, jerking both of our attention back.
In some way I can’t put my finger on, he reminds me of the witch I met in the Fae Lands. There’s more to him than it seems, but it’s a sense. An idea that sticks in my head while we stand, side-by-side, staring at a broken pallet and waiting for something to happen.
“The Druid?” I ask.
“Better,” he says. “Seeing as I haven’t agreed to train you.”
“What?” Surprise jerks my attention to him. “You haven’t agreed? Isn’t that the entire point of this?”
“Point of what?” he asks, his attention still on the pallet. “Oh, here we go, look, look, look.”
He pulls on my arm and twists me until I’m looking. I can’t ignore how nasty his yellowed fingernails are, coated in layers of dirt that would send my manicurist screaming in horror. The pallet shifts once more, then there is a soft meow.
“Oh no, it’s a cat,” I exclaim, running to the pallet.
I grab the broken wood and pull it away from the wall. When I look down behind it a pair of amber backlit eyes stare up. Using both hands I do a walk, drag motion to get the pallet, which is much heavier than I expected, away from the wall and save the cat which bounds out the moment its free.
The cat lands lightly on a mound of trash bags, turning to look at me and the Druid. It’s a silvery gray color with long hair that is full of mats. It stares imperiously at the two of us, then sits down and cleans its paw as if we’re being dismissed.
“You’re right.”
