Challenged - Skinwalker Book 2

Chapter 10

When the door finally opened, it wasn't Luc that walked through it. Adele had cleaned herself up and the change in appearance was dramatic. Her usual Emo façade had been ditched in the name of exercise, making way for a clean-faced, fairly pretty young girl wearing gym gear and trainers.

"Good choice," she remarked with a gesture towards the music as she casually sidled over to the nearest wall and propped herself up against it.

Sierra was beginning to wonder if the girl was afraid the roof might fall down if she didn't help the walls hold it up from time to time. She smiled warmly at her and used the remote to turn the music down enough for them to talk a little.

"Yeah, I was feeling a bit frustrated this morning and I needed to clear my head," she replied conversationally.

Adele smiled back and watched Sierra quietly for a while as she chased the last ball around the table.

"You are from South Africa, no?"

Sierra nodded.

"Your accent is not exactly like I have heard in the movies..." Adele noted.

The last ball found its way to the corner pocket and Sierra laid the cues across the table and looked at Adele with warmth.

"Not, not exactly. Our culture is very mixed and my accent is very hard to define, so most movie people use something closer to an Afrikaans accent because it's easier to pick out the phonetic differences."

Adele nodded her understanding. "I see. It is because yours sounds almost like you have no accent - like the words have been washed clean of their place of origin."

Sierra laughed. "Yeah. Its probably more of a case of there being so many tiny little influences that none of them are easy to pick out, so instead it sounds like there's nothing there. Most people think I'm British at first, but we don't sound quite like that either."

A little smile eased over Adele's mouth in response to that observation. She was clearly an intuitive, intelligent young lady. Sierra wondered what had caused her to fly the Emo flag so strongly, but she sensed it may be a subject better left to another time. She switched off the music, pulled on her gloves and headed towards the door.

"Training is supposed to start in ten minutes. Would you mind showing me the way?"

Adele looked pleased with the request. She nodded, stood and headed out the door with Sierra following on behind her.

They passed through the great hall and down the stairs towards the courtyard entrance, but instead of following the passage at the bottom of the staircase, they circled back to the side of it where Adele opened a door that was fairly well hidden in the shadows. It opened onto a short passage, the light at the end of it shining down to illuminate the way. Ancient torches still hung off the walls, but it looked like it had been centuries since they'd seen any use.

When they emerged at the end of the channel, Sierra realised that they were in the broken down core of the OldCastle. The part she'd explored in tiger form had merely been a superficial wing to this ancient heart of the building. Large parts of the roof were still in tact and the hallways seemed to extend forever. They skirted past a very large, very clear body of water. It appeared to have pooled in a large cavity in the floor, some sort of prior destruction that had happened in the past. It was fed through a sizable hole high up in the ceiling above them. The two eventually joined the group of people that had gathered against the far wall. About a minute later, Devon and Luc filed in behind them.

Sierra was so close to everyone that the electric hum around her was virtually palpable, making her skin crawl with excitement.

"Right, looks like we're all here - on time - so lets start with a little warm up," Kalko remarked. He was sweaty and looked like he'd already been working out for some time before they'd arrived.