The Demoner Series: The Trails

Chapter Fifteen - A Waste Of Time

  "What do you want to talk about?" I ask the girl impatiently. She takes her dozenth examination at the deserted lane before her, making sure that no one is nearby.

  "Coast's clear. That's a good sign," she sigh before turning to the muggy passage and turning back once more. It has been five minutes since we've been there and she has not given anything away about what she wants to discuss.

  I make a constant tap on the floor, my heels pivoting my foot. Every beat echo through the pathway as the heart of my feet meets the mucky mud.

"For the sixteenth time, what do you want to talk about?" I ask, leaning on a wall with my arms folded. The soggy soil below me seems to have me mired into the wringing-wet Earth.

Trying to solve the problem, I take an inverted timber box and sit on it, not minding of the fungi rooted in it.

  "For the sixteenth time, just keep quiet," she replies, her voice in a sharp whisper. I roll my eyes the sixteenth times in the past five minutes.

This is taking too long, I think to myself. In an attempt to keep myself occupied, I scrutinise the moisten alley.

The inspection was disappointing. There are rotting banana skins lying around, accompanied with some apple cores. There's clusters of ants crawling around the decomposing viand, competed with lizards and flies. The sheer sight of it gets me sick in the stomach. My stomach attempts to tie a knot to keep my breakfast stored in it.

A stench of decay made its way into my nose. My olfactory system immediately sense it and sending an urgent neural signal to my brain. Without a delay, my stomach appears to shrink in disgust, the oesophageal sphincter trying hard to keep it shut from regurgitation.

  Finally, she stops looking through the mouth of the path and moving to the end of it where I begin to show reactions to my observation. I had hidden Starubius in the inverted box, the little dragon breathing quietly and making minimal sound.

Ew, where's this place? Starubius says telepathically. Mentally, I can sense what Starubius is doing as if we were connected in our mind. He has caught sight of a lizard, the green and slimy amphibian crawling towards it. Fearing of an attack, the red demon takes a step backwards, and another, followed by numerous number of strides until the side of the case.

What's that? Starubius asks, begging me for help. As soon as he asks about the shrimp-sized lizard, it digs a hole in the ground, making its way into the soil.

I don't know, I answer, closing my eyes in concentration, I can't see what you see.

  Taking another box to sit on, the teenage girl makes an unwomanly cough, catching my attention. "May I confirm you're a violet Demoner and never been trained before?" she asks, overlapping one leg over the other.

  Woah woah woah, for the past five minutes you've been keeping me here and assuming that I'm a violet and untrained Demoner. Now then you want to confirm the fact, I think to myself, my thoughts dripping with sarcasm.

  "Yes," I reply, keeping my sentence short. She sigh in disappointment as she register the fact that I'm irritated.

  "Look, I'm sorry that I took so long," she apologises, earning a snort from me. "But it is confidential," she continues, earning an eye roll from me. Wisely, she decides to ignore the reactions.

"Talk away then," I say, giving her a chance to talk.

Making a good use of the chance, she begin to talk. "Are you able to use a spell even before you came here?" She interrogated, receiving a nod from me.