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I sprinted through the dark alleyways of the Mulberry Estate, clutching my shoulder and feeling blood ooze down my arm and drip from my fingertips. The whole limb felt nearly completely lame. My breath rattled in my ears in short, panicked gasps. The sirens were getting louder. I needed to get back to the rooftops but my steps were slowing, and I felt light-headed. What the hell had just happened? I remembered gunshots and that cat. I hadn't even realised I'd been shot until I started running and felt the blood flow. Pain had come next, rapidly turning into shock. I'd almost been killed. I could feel blood congealing on my neck, and my head throbbed with sharp agony. I had to get off the streets. If the police caught me now it would be all over.
I ran around the corner and slipped in a puddle. My equilibrium was already going, and that sent me tumbling into a pile of trash. I groaned and tried to right myself. I put down my right hand and it almost buckled under me, sharp jolts of pain ran across my body emanating from my injured shoulder. The pain was almost too much to bear. I gritted my teeth and snarled in fury, which didn't help my head. The corners of my vision began to darken. This wasn't good. I couldn't pass out here with all this gear on me, not to mention a bag full of drugs, and pockets stuffed with obvious dirty money. Even if the police were incompetent, finding me with a gunshot wound only a few hundred metres from a shooting, they would be able to put two and two together.
I stumbled to my feet, lurched to one side, and slumped into the alley wall. I had to keep moving. But it was no good. My legs shook under my weight. I pulled up my balaclava, desperately trying to suck air into my body and clear my head. I felt like I was going to be sick again. I retched, and thin bile splattered across the cobbles. I wiped my mouth and leaned against the wall for support.
"Hello?" a cautious voice called out from behind me.
I yanked my balaclava back down over my face and turned around, my hand instinctively going to the handle of Grandad's bat. A homeless man stood at the mouth of the alley, peeking cautiously around the corner at me. He was big, at least six and a half feet tall, broad with sloped shoulders and a head that was almost as big as my chest. He was dressed in rags and had a large blue blanket wrapped around himself, with a red woolly hat on his head. He was pushing a shopping cart loaded with scrap and other bits.
"Are you alright?" he asked me.
He had quite a gentle way of talking, his words slow and carefully considered, as if it took a tremendous amount of thought for him to put them together.
"Stay back," I said to him, holding up my hand.
But as I did, I took my weight back onto my quivering legs and stumbled. The sudden change in equilibrium sent my head spinning again, and darkness clawed into my vision.
"Stay back," I murmured again.
The next thing I knew was darkness.
*
I awoke to the sound of squeaking and felt the tremble of metal underneath me. I blinked heavily and realised I was in a shopping cart. I tried to speak, but my throat was so dry and raw it came out as just a gargle. We were moving quickly, much quicker than I thought a shopping trolley could move. I had no idea where I was/ It was somewhere close by though. Judging by the colour of the buildings, we were still on the Mulberry Estate, and I could still hear police sirens. There were more of them now; it sounded like half the Metropolitan police force was descending upon the area.
"What... what's going on?" I managed to croak out.
"Don't you worry, buddy," the homeless man's friendly voice came from behind me. "Sherbert's gonna take you home with him. Don't you worry.”
That made me worry more. The cart stopped outside what looked to be some sort of container. As my eyes refocused and I looked clearer, I realized it wasn't a container; it seemed to be an entrance into one of the old abandoned buildings in the Mulberry Estate, with a sheet of corrugated metal for a door. The homeless man ambled around, gripped the large panel of corrugated metal, and lifted it as if it weighed nothing. He came back, grabbed the trolley and dragged me with it into the darkness.
"Wait," I croaked, trying to get out of the trolley.
My limbs wouldn't respond. My arm hurt so badly that just moving sent shockwaves through me. The homeless man pulled me inside, then turned and placed the heavy sheets of metal back across the door. In the darkness, I heard him shambling about. There was a sudden flare of light. He lit four candles and set them about. I blinked and looked at my surroundings.
I was in a small room. It looked like it had no access to the rest of the building; perhaps the door had been blocked up. The room was barely big enough for the shopping trolley and the homeless man. I could see a few possessions neatly put around and a pile of rags on the floor that looked like his bed. Was this his hovel his home? The man turned around and gave me a simple and sweet smile.
"Let me help you out there, buddy," he said to me, and before I could protest, he'd scooped me up like a small child out of a pushchair.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
He was surprisingly gentle, careful not to jostle me unnecessarily or touch my injured shoulder. He set me down on the pile of rags, which was perhaps the only comfortable spot in the entire room. He then pushed his trolley to one side and sat down on his haunches in front of me. I swallowed and watched him warily, willing energy into my Zap Knucks in case I had to fight and wondering if I could take down the big lug with one punch.
"You're him, aren't you?" the man asked me.
Half his face was bathed in shadows, but I got a better look at him now. He was in his forties perhaps, with rusty stubble growing in, heavy bags under his eyes, thick lips, and a strong chin, and he had friendly eyes. There was something about them that made me feel like he wasn't a threat. They were too simple to be dangerous. He pulled his hat off his head and scratched his balding scalp.
"You're him, aren't you?" he repeated.
"Who?" I replied warily.
"Him," the man said emphatically. "The Gutter Mage.”
"The what?" I said.
"You've been taking on the Syndicate, right? You're the one that's been running around robbing all these hooligans and kicking their butts?”
I looked at him again. What had he called me? The Gutter Mage?
“The Gutter Mage?” I repeated.
"Yeah, that's what we call you, us street people, we've seen you. We've seen you do magic. Most people don't believe in magic, but Sherbert has always believed in magic. Has to be something we can't explain out here," he said, shifting around on his heels. "And you're from the gutter like us, so someone started calling you the Gutter Mage, and it caught on, I guess. Only us street folk really; nobody else thinks you’re real, but we've seen you.”
He then smiled broadly at me, and I noticed he was missing two teeth on either side of his mouth. I nodded slowly.
"Yeah, that's me."
The man grinned and then laughed and clapped his hands together.
"I knew it, I knew it! See, Sherbert's no fool, no matter what they say. I knew it." He did a happy little jig while on his heels and laughed like a seal.
"Your name's Sherbert?" I asked, and he nodded.
"That's right, me name's Sherbert because I'm sweet and bad for yer teeth," he then gave another honking laugh like a seal. "Sorry for chucking you in the trolley," he said after a moment. "I didn't think it was right to leave you on the cobbles, not with the coppers coming.”
"Thanks," I replied, grimacing as more pain lanced through my body.
"That looks really bad," he said. "Let Sherbert have a look at it."
He came towards me, and I flinched instinctively. Then I saw his face drop, and he shuffled away from me.
"I won't hurt you, honest," he said, sounding like a little kid, and again, there was just something so earnest in his eyes that I felt it would be rude not to trust him.
I relented and offered him my injured arm slowly. He helped me peel away my leather jacket, and that's when I saw the full extent of the injury and what happened. When I shot my Grapple Cord at the gun, like a fool I had yanked it into the line of my own body. As it went off, it hit me straight across the shoulder, grazing a deep trench in the muscle. The bullet went straight through and had carved a bloody path, that was bleeding freely. Sherbet clucked and shook his head before scampering over to a small metal filing cabinet that I assumed had been there from whatever business had existed in this place before. He rifled through it and took out some bandages, then a small metal tin and a bottle. He came back to me and held them up like a kid at show and tell.
"Now, I gotta be honest, Mister Gutter Mage," Sherbert said. "Sherbert's no doctor, but I have been on these cobbles long enough to know that wounds like that shouldn't stay like that.”
I nodded in agreement.
"I don't know much about stitching, if I'm honest, but I can clean it for you and I can wrap it up because otherwise it's gonna get infected, and the whole thing's gonna fall off. I've seen it happen before, I've seen it."
I looked suspiciously at the bottle. He held it up and showed me it was a bottle of some sort of alcohol that I didn't recognise.
"Now, Sherbert's not a liar," Sherbert began. "This is really gonna sting, Mr. Mage, but you just sit there, buddy. You let Sherbert look after it. Don't you worry."
I eyed the bottle again and looked at Sherbert, nodding my head slowly.
"Good, good, good, good, good," Sherbert said.
He unscrewed the bottle with his teeth, unrolled some of the bandage, tore it off, and wiped as much of the blood from the wound as he could. He looked at the bottle and then offered it to me. I shook my head and he nodded his head in return.
“Trust me Mr. Mage, you’re gonna want it.” He offered the bottle again and after a moment of hesitation I took it. I blew out a breath and swigged. It was absolutely foul. I had only drunk a couple times in my life, usually around Christmas when Grandad would give me a small measure of rum or port. This was nothing like that. It went down like battery acid. I wheezed.
“One more,” Sherbert said, tilting the bottle up and forcing me to drink again.
He waited another minute or two to allow the coughing to pass. Already I felt the edges of the pain beginning to blunt. I blinked wetly and looked at him. He grinned and took a swig from the bottle himself.
"Alright, sorry about this," Sherbet said before pouring the bottle onto my wound.
I screamed in pain. I wish I could tell you I was brave and I gritted my teeth like they do in the films, but I screamed. I screamed loud enough to rattle the metal door. The pain was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. It was sharp and intense. It felt like it swallowed my entire consciousness, and in those few seconds, I would have done anything to stop that pain. Sherbert winced at my screaming and then tutted gently, cleaning the wound before wrapping it in a bandage.
"There we are, sorry about that," Sherbert said, patting my hand gently. "Gotta keep wounds like that clean, Mister Mage, otherwise you'll be in serious bother. Although, could you regrow it?" he asked me, and it seemed like a genuine question.
I was still reeling from the pain, taking quick, sharp breaths, so I just shook my head, and Sherbert shrugged. He then took a couple of steps back from me and sat on the ground with the bottle and pulled his knees up to his chest.
My head spun and I felt like I was going to be sick again. I looked at my shoulder and raised my arm. That was a bad idea. My head swum and I slumped over, blacking out again.
“Mr Mage?”
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