The Elementals : The Dawn of Darkness

Chapter 16 - Just One Big Happy Reunion!

The walk down to the train yard was unpleasant to put it bluntly. Unpleasant, awkward, tense and altogether not a very fun trip, even if it was only for a few minutes. Shadow's rage was still rolling off him like waves on the shore and the occasional pulse of darkness flashed between his fingers giving me a minor heart attack every time I saw one and causing me to back up a few paces next to Sheira who was making sure there was at least a ten-foot clearance zone between herself and out favourite little bomb (And while he's technically already gone off the key word here is "Aftershock"), before continuing to walk.

It reminded me of one of those school trips from hell. You don't know what's going to be there when you get there and in the mean time you've got to sit on a bus smelling of cheesy feet while the person behind you decides to practise for their karate blackbelt by trying to kick your seat in and the person in front of you is throwing a tantrum because their homemade slingshot was confiscated after hitting little Tommy Parkinson in the eye with a gumball. Ah...all in faded days.

Though seriously, being on this journey with these two was turning into hell on earth. On this last week we had been attacked on more than one occasion, we had been ambushed, tricked, captured, nearly barbecued (Twice in my case) and to make things even better we couldn't go five minutes without bickering like a bunch of children. Shadow would turn hostile if we blinked at him wrong, Sheira would get snappy and irritated if we argued and while I'm certainly no saint and my Chandler Bing like ability for comebacks was getting on everyone's nerves, at least I was trying to keep everyone on track. Although I have to admit it sometimes felt like I was in the colosseum fighting two grizzly bears with a wooden stick. Wasn't doing much good.

But we had strategy, well part of it. A little bit of a plan...Let's say twenty percent of a plan and call it an idea...Fine, ten. We had a train to catch and although we had no idea where it was going we knew it was at least going somewhere. Either way, however it turned out it was going to be the biggest I told you so in the history of mankind, Shadow if it went right, Sheira if it went wrong, and let's face it, its probably going to go very, very wrong. Oh well, you don't know if you don't try, even if it ends up with you being horribly murdered and your body being thrown into a ditch.

Sigh...Be an elemental they said, it'll be fun they said.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, we'd finally reached the huge wooden and wire walls of the train yard. The whole thing looked like it was rotting, the wood wearing away, the wire rusting to powered as the whole thing was torn down piece by piece by pure age. What was left of the trains stood silently, empty and warping into twisted metal from time, slow reclaiming what was left to die. A whole yard, filled with British history, left to rust.

"Is there a way in?" I asked, eyeing up the wall. It was too high to climb and what looked like it had once been a service door was buckled and broken, unusable unless someone had the Hulk in one of their pockets.

"Over here!" Sheira called out her torch beam was pointed at a hole in the wire fence. She crouched down and examined the wire as Shadow and joined her. "It's a clean break which means its been cut, quite recently too, the ends still look clean. Someone came prepared."

"Ladies and gentlemen, Sheirlock Holmes."

Sheira raised a disapproving eyebrow, "not the time Watson. Now get your ass through there."

I crawled flat on my belly through the gap, hoped up on the other side and held the chain a little higher for Shadow and did a quick three sixty of the space around me. The whole place was unnervingly quiet, and not like library quiet where you know people are there and they have to be silent. This was where you couldn't know if you were truly alone or surrounded by thousands of people. I'd always hated hide and seek.