SG: Innocent Bystander #6 -- Ringing Belles 2/2

[Whitney Taylor]

Continued from Part 1


"I see you found something!" Miss Direction gushed as she burst into the room.


"I did," Miss Trial confirmed. "It's at the bottom of the river. You might could fish it out since we know where it was dropped." She had looked on edge all morning, and hadn't relaxed despite her recent accomplishment.


"And the girl? May I practice on her?"


"You may not!" snapped Miss Rule. "You have had quite enough practice already. And may I add that your eagerness is quite unseemly." Heaven was testing her with these children. Perhaps that was why her mind was trying to distract her with memories of earlier, better days, flooding her vision with scenes from her idyllic childhood in this place when she tried to focus her attention on the girl's stubborn will. What she ought to do, when she had a moment, was relax on the porch and watch the men work. She turned to Miss Trial. "You seem on edge. Is your talent giving you trouble? Don't bite your lip, dear, just tell me what you feel."


"I feel like there's something out there, but when I go look for it, it's like it slips away somehow. Like it's right on the edges of my range."


"Now why did you not mention this first thing?" Miss Rule exclaimed, just as the fourth member of their coterie skipped daintily in. "Miss Fortune, what good timing. Miss Trial was just explaining to us why she would neglect to inform us of a possible incursion."


"What did you do, Louise?" Miss Fortune asked obediently.


"What didn't you do, more like?" chimed in Miss Direction.


"It was so faint, I thought I might have imagined..."


"You thought! You will drive me to hysterics. I have told you that your gift is a sacred trust and you must trust it as being sacred."


"Who do you think it is?" Miss Direction's eyes were shining with eager excitement. Unseemly. But now was not the time for a scolding.


"I don't know, but I aim to find out. Go out riding with some of the boys and see if you can't get the direction of this intruder. Take--" she stopped because she saw Miss Trial's eyes go suddenly wide.


 "Miss Rule!" She wailed. "I got 'em! There's a whole lot, too!"


"Calm down and tell me. What direction?"


"From the road! There's a tank, or some kind of Mecha... and some are flanking, trying to sneak up through the maze, I think."


Miss Rule snapped orders to a waiting Robert, who bowed and moved quickly away. "Miss Fortune! Go out on the porch and make sure any artillery fire goes afield. I won't have this house damaged. What are they after, Louise? The machine? The girl?"


"I..." the telepath furrowed her brow in concentration. "There are so many, and they're all thinking about different things! They're so funny, almost like animals--"


"Catgirls! I could handle a band of those in my sleep!" laughed Miss Direction, and she was out of the room before Miss Rule could even give the order.


*****


Maow crept around the thorny wall of bushes ahead of Numnum, scouting out the area ahead of the larger catgirl. Their route was the longest, but in Maow's reckoning, the most secure. Some comrades had gone into the flowery thicket, thinking to get through faster, and more rode with MmmmmrrRRRREEEEOOOOOORRR'hhhhhhhhh, their war machine. Maow wanted to be certain. She hunted different prey than they did. Mine! My human. She had chosen to follow the unmouse, believing her to be the key to locating the coveted key machine. Perhaps she finally had. That was what Maow had told the others, anyway.


In the distance, MmmmmrrRRRREEEEOOOOOORRR'hhhhhhhhh began to fire. Maow hurried, almost around the wall now. Those laser cannons could set fire to the wooden house they had spied upon from afar. They could burn Mina, and the machine, if they were not careful.


But when she finally rounded the corner of the rose bush wall, Maow could see the house clearly. The blasts of laser fire were going astray! They were firing warning shots, Maow decided, as distraction, to allow her and her companions to get to the house unnoticed.


*****


Miss Fortune stood on the second floor's porch, sipping a refreshing peach iced tea. She gazed through opera glasses out at the big pink tank coming cool as you please, right up the front drive, and caressed the layers of probability she could see forming around it. Now they had an error targeting, now an error in overcompensation, now they had insufficient power for their laser to reach the house and now--whoops!--that one hit a bird.


*****


Distraction was much needed, as there was nothing but featureless lawn now between the house and Maow and her orange companion, Numnum.


"Too much waste," rumbled Numnum, dismayed, "ought to be rewilded."


"Later," Maow promised, to mitigate a potentially fatal distraction, "We mmmmust capture it first." Motioning Numnum back to the cover of the shrub wall, Maow adjusted the sight on her helmet, zooming in on the house.


It was large and white and there were two levels of porch in the front. On the second floor porch stood a woman in a peach dress, another in deep purple, looking straight out towards the approaching MmmmmrrRRRREEEEOOOOOORRR'hhhhhhhhh. Maow guessed that this woman belonged to one of the scents she had detected on the air last night. She wished she knew more about these enemies, but there had been no time to spy. There were men, too, coming out from the house and lining up on both levels. They had some kind of long firearms; potentially a problem. The house stood on its own, with only a few scraps of shrubs and flowers around it. There was another building to the side. It was closer than the main house, so they could smell the heavy animal scent coming from it.


"Therrrre," said Maow, pointing, "we run for the beast hut. Now!"


They were not quite halfway across the green when suddenly, as a unit, the men outside the house turned, raised their rifles, and fired.


*****


E'hn broke through the last wall of thorns, more enraged for the scratches she had endured. Maow had been right, taking those twisting paths had been a mistake, the promise of stealth and cover a mere trap to draw one into endless identical corridors. Was she a rat, to scurry in such a place? So she had broken through the walls.


Before her she saw an array of uniform-clad men, each doing something complicated to a gun he carried. One of them, quicker than the others, gave a shout, pointing his weapon at her.


"Settle down, Robert. I'd like to talk to this one." A woman in a dark purple dress spoke from up on the balcony. E'hn snarled wordlessly. "Now what on earth was that for? For a being like yourself, who claims to be aligned with the suffragette movement, you certainly are eager enough to get your claws out for us. And just because I represent a more traditional version of femininity!"


E'hn stopped her advance, confused. "That.. that isnnn't..."


"Your disregard for the feminine is downright patriarchal. You came here, not even knowing what we had in mind. Why, just because I and my companions do not take up the sword ourselves, does not make us less worthy than those who can perform the masculine arts! One might draw the conclusion that you just cannot stand to see a girlboss winning!"


"Nnnnno!" E'hn's head spun. Could this woman be telling the truth? What if it was only internalized misogyny that made her challenge her fellow female?


"E'hn! Fight her!" Her compatriot, Murr, had emerged from the bushes using the gap E'hn herself had made. Now the black and silver armored catgirl stood beside her, defiant.


"I--I cannnnnnnot! We must support all women!"


"Then I wwwwwill!" Murr leaped forwards. Her graceful attack was intercepted in midair as E'hn tackled her to the ground. Soon the two were rolling on the ground, hissing at each other.


Miss Direction giggled.


*****


Miss Rule peered through the lace curtain as she felt Louise telepathically relay her command to fire. She watched with satisfaction as the two armored figures running on all fours staggered and fell, turning to irritation as the bigger one popped back up, threw its companion over its shoulder, and made a beeline for the stable, apparently unhurt. The men would never reload before they reached cover. She admitted to herself that the Enfield, classic and storied firearm though it might be, was perhaps unsuitable for modern warfare after all. Minie balls did not seem to be doing the job against this newfangled armor people wore these days. There was just no respect for history. "Miss Trial, will you please get in touch with Miss Direction and tell her--"


But Louise's eyes were wide with panic all of a sudden. "Miss Rule! There's something else creeping around here, and it ain't no cat. And it's angry!"


*****


A hole in the ground, a few minutes earlier...



{Put all your angels on the edge

Keep all the roses, I'm not dead

I left a thorn under your bed

I'm never gone

Go tell the world I'm still around

I didn't fly I'm coming down}


Mina lay on hard wet stone with her eyes closed, waiting for her inner ear to figure out which way was down again. If the song was a hallucination, at least it was a pleasant one. She focused on it for a moment, then dared to open her eyes.


{You are the wind, the only sound

Whisper to my heart

When hope is torn apart

And no one can save you}


The last note lingered, throbbing eerily through the air. She didn't see the singer, but there did only seem to be one floor and a couple of walls. Cautiously, she sat up. She was in a limestone hole the length of a small swimming pool. It must flood all the time. Perhaps it had once been a cistern. A grate at the near end showed a fragment of blue sky. "Hello?" she called up.


Silence. But only in Mina's cell. In the stillness, she could hear things happening outside. "Hey!" She stood up to grab the bars of the grate. As she suspected, it was locked.


"Captured again?" The words came from a blank wall. She yelped, jumping back as a previously undifferentiated section of limestone detached itself and stepped forward, flowing into the shape of a classical statue, though more tastefully draped. Its sympathetic face looked strangely familiar, although she couldn't make it out fully in the dim light. "Poor thing! Have they hurt you very much?"


Mina shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself. "They scrambled my brain a bit, but I think I'm alright for now. At least they gave me a good breakfast first... Who are you? And what's going on outside?"


"Oh, yes! My name is Elemental, but you can call me Elly." The statue bowed deeply, smiling a friendly smile. "This place is being attacked by a platoon of catgirls for some reason."


"The catgirls!" Maow. "One of them has a crush on me, I think..."


"Really?!?" Elemental leaned forward, eager. "Do you like her back?"


"She seems nice, but I can't shake the feeling she always wants something from me. I'm still trying to figure out where I-- Hold on! We just met! This is no time for gossip!"


"It's the perfect time. I've been caught before, you know," the stone figure said. "A mage, of course. I was careless while investigating his laboratory, and a binding circle went off like a trap. I had to wait ages before he came back..."


A mage, of course. "Sounds awful." Cold suspicion started to seep into her guts. Mages, and ghostly singing. Was that where she had encountered this... Person? Creature? She wanted to keep backing away, but there was only darkness behind her, and the back of the cistern. Nowhere to run, and her stomach sank with deeper certainty the longer Elemental spoke.


"When the mage got back and discovered his binding circle activated, he tried to find out what he'd gotten hold of. He commanded me to take physical form, which I already had done, air being a physical substance after all. Then he commanded me to tell him who and what I was. Which I did. It wasn't my fault his ears couldn't hear the pitch of my voice as I answered him. You've got to be as slippery as you can, see? Look for advantage even in a pile of sand. If nothing else, it will keep you occupied. In the end, he decided there must have been a flaw in his spell that made it activate at a bug or something. He dissolved it and I was free to go. Good for him that he did, too. If I'd needed to be rescued, I would have had to kill him out of sheer embarrassment."


"I'm surprised you didn't anyway. Like you did poor Ed Hinkle!" Mina burst out, tears coming to her eyes. Foolish, but she couldn't bring herself to play nice after this morning. "Why is a murderous nightmare creature telling me its life story...?"


The statue's head cocked to the side. "That bloody murder stuff really bothers you, doesn't it? Normally I'm much more discreet. Quick and painless, and no one even knows I've been there. But Hinkle was a special case. He had to know why he was going to die."


Was that why Elemental was being so talkative? The expression she saw on the stone face was still serene, however. "And me?" she whispered, "Why am I going to die?" She made herself keep eye contact, not wanting to cower in fear; but only the statue's lips moved, turning down in irritation.


"What a stupid question! How the devil should I know? If I had to guess, it would be because you stuck your nose into too many places it wasn't wanted, or did some foolishness you thought would--you thought..." Elemental trailed off, took in Mina's expression, and then began to laugh. "You really thought! You *are* clueless, aren't you, Mina!" And as she continued to watch, dumbstruck, the statue began to erode, the fingers dissolving first, then the arms and face, until all that was left was a pile of rough sand and a fading, sharp-edged laugh.


Mina stared at the sand blankly for a moment. Then the sound of gunshots outside finally convinced her that if she was not going to be killed by Elemental, she stood a good chance of being killed by something else. Fortunately, this stimulated her brain back into action. Look for advantage even in a pile of sand. She knelt and touched the new sand hesitantly, brushing away a few grains. They scattered with a faint patter, like ordinary grit. Then she went at it more urgently, scooping handfuls to the side until the faint light from the grate gleamed silver on an uncovered key.


*****


In the interior of the MmmmmrrRRRREEEEOOOOOORRR'hhhhhhhhh, Minyang was near rabid. "Whhhhhhhhhhen did you last clean the treads!" she spat at A'a'a'a'a, who was cowering with her ears back, but one paw raised to show extended claws.


"Yyyyyyyyyyyesssssssssssssssssssterday only! Your behavior is becoming toxic!" hissed the smaller cat. "I don't have to put up with it!" And with a single bound, she was halfway up the ladder to the hatch.


"Laser power down to five percent! We arrrrrre being sabotaged!" Anaanan announced.


"Let usss deploy paws! We will wwwalk up there and swat them!"


"I have trrrrrrrrried! Deployment error! I told you, sabotage!"


Minyang snarled an untranslatable curse. "We must engage with our owwwwn claws, then!"


*****


Miss Rule had Louise by the shoulders, and was trying to get some sense out of her by means of a vigorous shaking.


"It's coming!" cried the telepath.


"I *know*, you *said*!" Miss Rule snapped. "Tell me where it is coming *from*, or I will box your ears!"


"It keeps moving, it's so fast! It went around and around and no one saw it! Now it's--" Her eyes got so wide Miss Rule was afraid they would pop right out of her skull and make a dreadful mess. "Miss Fortune! Miss Direction!" She screamed. "Watch out!"


*****


Miss Fortune saw the possibility of the tank putting its cute little paws on the ground and running around like a giant kitty, and with some regret she cut it off. With most of the offensive systems now disabled, she could now concentrate on finding a way to destroy the tank without an explosion that would wreck the whole plantation. But as she studied it through her opera glasses, she saw them start to emerge already. First a little calico, then two more, one in green armor and one in yellow. Miss Fortune realized that she ought to have flooded the  crew compartment with toxic reactor gas two or three minutes ago for maximum tactical advantage. "Whoopsie!"


"What's 'whoopsie' for?" demanded Miss Direction in alarm. Miss Fortune turned to her to explain that she couldn't concentrate on everything all the time, and it was poor manners to expect her to, as Miss Rule would certainly agree. Then both of them jumped as Miss Trial screamed at the top of her brainpower directly into their heads. Miss Fortune looked around, seeing nothing, then turned to ask Miss Direction if she had spotted anything. She was just in time to get the full spectacle of her accomplice flipping over the rails, skirts flying. A loud but brief shriek reassured her that this stunt was not deliberate on Miss Direction's part an instant before she found her own self propelled over the railing with just enough time before hitting the ground to tweak things so she landed on something soft.


"More railing kills. I seem to be making a habit..." Elemental said. She turned towards the door, great claws growing out of her fingertips.


*****


Miss Trial stared at the porch door, trembling, as the girls outside shrieked. "Miss Rule, we need to go right now!"


"You stay right there, Miss Trial. Do you have such little faith in my power? Tell me when it enters the room, and I will take care of the rest."


There was no need for Miss Trial to tell her anything. The porch door swung open, and a hideous, white skeletal creature stood in the doorway. It had a blank, featureless panel for a face, but the claws were what you noticed first. The telepath swallowed her scream, backing away.


"I would offer you a seat, but you already seem to have taken advantage," Miss Rule said cooly. Once she said it, Louise could make out the slats and paint job of one of the deck chairs that had been scattered about the porch, at least where they had not been repurposed into unpleasant spikes.


"I'll put it back when I'm done with it." The skeleton promised. The voice was surprising, woody and melodious, like a flute. It--she?-- stepped into the room, cocking its head to examine the pair, but did not attack immediately. The wood of its "face" shifted and cracked, producing an approximation of human features.


"Will you really? I'm glad to see you have some manners. Perhaps we can reason with each other like civilized beings."


It was a struggle to monitor this conversation and the battle outside simultaneously. Miss Fortune and Miss Direction were both unconscious, and the men were too busy fending off the renewed attacks of catgirls to check on them. There were more cats elsewhere on the grounds, but she only kept the lightest of touches on them to make sure they were not attacking the house directly. The pressure of Miss Rule's power, exerted on the creature was a blinding distraction that was starting to make her head hurt. She focused through it, on the skeleton itself...


"All right. Let's talk about Savannah."


Its mind was slippery, as if coated in oil, which was why she had not been able to track it at a distance. And strange. That had made it frightening, even more than the humanoid felines. There was none of the background noise of physical needs and processes that had made human and animal minds confusing before she learned how to filter it. There were other forms of sensation, exotic and alien...


"Oh? What about Savannah? I don't believe I have any operations there. Perhaps you want to propose something?"


She was here for emotion, not sensation. The creature was not immune to Miss Rule's compulsion...


"I'd like to propose that you stay out of it. As a gesture of good faith, why don't you agree to give up that machine you have that you've been planning to use to brainwash an army to restart the Civil War?"


It was not immune, but it *was* powerfully resistant. She sensed no innate psychic power, so she delved deeper...


"Why, I don't believe I understand what you're saying. I can avoid one city, of course, but I don't have any such machine. I wouldn't even know where to get such a thing! We rely on traditional methods here, you may have noticed."


...and beneath the cordial shield of the conscious mind was rage, not the kind of brightly burning rage that led men to duels in the old days, but rage that could smolder forever before flaring up--and it seemed to be directed at none other than Miss Rule. The monster was drawing on this inexhaustible reservoir, effortlessly keeping the psychic enchantment at bay.


//Miss Rule! She's playing with you! //


The pressure of the psychic assault increased tenfold as Miss Rule caught the telepathic warning shout, and Louise had to throw up her shields to protect her own mind. It was for naught, though.


"It was a fun game, and I'm supposed to exercise my psychic resistance skills..." The monster stepped forward, and Miss Rule backed away. "But I see playtime's over now."


"Why? We're not trying to hurt anyone! We just want to restore a time when order and decency and culture reigned supreme."


"And people knew their place, I'm sure. Why indeed!" The intruder laughed eerily.  Then the singing started, sweet and sharp with malice.


{Dear sister, let's celebrate

what is ours by day and by night}


The huge claws made a swipe, which the woman dodged, using a telekinetic leap to get to the other side of the room, in front of a large dresser.


{Stylishly and fearlessly,

we control what is wrong and right}


The wooden figure took a couple of steps, then paused, claws outstretched, but then was blown backwards, colliding with a wall with a smash of breaking wood, then clattering to the ground. The psychic tyrant stood awaiting its next move, her feet set in a most unladylike battle stance. Louise, huddling terrified in the corner, might have warned her, but her mind was still shielded in self-protection.


{So be kind

If you come for us,

we'll cut you a smile}


The clawed hand formed from the wood of the dresser faster than Louise could form a scream. It reached out from behind and swiped savagely across her mentor's face. Louise was screaming then, but it was a scream of terror rather than warning, since Miss Rule was already collapsing, her face a bloody ruin.


*****


"Tell mmmme what you see!" gasped Maow. Most of the bullets had hit their armor and bounced off, but one had ricocheted unluckily and gone through her shoulder where there was a gap to allow movement. She felt no pain yet, and they had found cloth in the animal building they sheltered at with which to bind the wound. The blood worried her, though, so she remained still while Numnum stood to peer out a small window.


"Two colorful women fell from the balcony. Murr and Eh'n are therrrrrre... they are being fired upon! Now they are among the warrrrrrriors. There is blood. Forgive us, comrade. You are not our prey today." The last to one of the large, noisy animals who inhabited their current shelter. They did not seem to like the cats very much. "I believe these creatures to be slaves, Maow. We should set them free."


*****


Mina emerged cautiously from the old cistern into the light of day, not wanting to catch a bullet with her head. She saw the main house, some distance away. The second thing of interest she saw were two of the Roberts, buried chest deep in the ground.


"Robert!" she exclaimed "And Robert! You're the ones who brought me out here."


"That's right, miss." said the blond, mustachioed Robert.


"Can you get back in the cistern, please? Miss Rule will be upset if she finds you out." The brown skinned Robert asked.


"I think Miss Rule has got other problems." Mina winced as another barrage of gunfire went off.


"And we aren't there to help her!"


"Er... do you want to be?"


The Roberts exchanged glances, unable to believe the obtuseness of this newcomer. "She's Miss Rule!"


"The wisest and most beautiful woman in the world!"


"Really?" Mina remembered the way she had felt under the woman's influence. "Does she let you see your families?"


"We don't have families."


"My family is dead."


"Mine disowned me back when I was gay."


"We had nothing when Miss Rule found us!"


"It mmmmakes sense," a new voice rumbled. "The isolated would, mmmm, be easy prey."


Mina whirled around to face a suit of grass green armor. "Minyang!"


*****


"Now what do I make of you?" the broken form slumped against the wall reanimated, twisting its neck until the faceplate looked in Louise's direction. "You're new to this, aren't you, Miss *Trial*?"


She stood frozen in her corner, staring at her mentor's unmoving body. She should go to her, but the monster...


"Maybe I should let you walk away, lesson learned? But what have you learned?" The wooden parts fused back together with a nauseating series of popping noises, rising and becoming a skeleton again, and the creature began to walk towards her.


Cautiously, she let her shields down, reaching out. Miss Rule was alive, still. In shock. But she needed medical attention, soon, as did the others. Some of the men were down, too, and...


"I don't mind if what you learned is not to mess with us. Savannah is off limits to the likes of you." It was in front of her now, and one sharp-clawed hand reached out to grasp her chin. So close, she could see more clearly. And when it touched her, her sense of its mind clarified just a little. Desperately she sifted through successive layers of rage, curiosity, ferocious joy and current earworms for anything that might save her. The assassin did not hate her as much as it had hated Miss Rule, and that helped, just enough to grasp a single image. Oblivious, it continued: "But maybe you think you've learned a thirst for revenge..."


"We've lost. I know. We won't try to challenge you again." She forced the words past her lips, adding silently, yet.


"You're not going to beg, are you? That part is so tedious."


"No." I know. "You're going to do what you want. But if you let me go, I can end this battle before anyone else has to get hurt. We can keep this out of the news. Our servants, our pet alligator Mint Julep, that girl we captured, even those catgirls don't have to die in this," She waved her hand, indicating the chaos of the world at large. A few gunshots went off, well-timed. The creature released her, its mind going blurry again, but she knew what had turned it.


"Your face and her throat, the next time. Tell her." The wooden body crunched back into an approximation of a chair, and Miss Trial was issuing orders by mindcraft before she even felt the wraith leave the room.


*****


"Yes, I have fffffound you, unmouse. Now to kill these two, and thennnn you will tell us--"


"Why are you killing them? They can't fight back."


"Yes, why would you kill us? Unless you're jealous of our position serving the greatest, most noble--"


"Would be a mercy. Listen to this drrrrivel." Minyang waved long metal claw extensions at the Roberts, who showed enough residual self-preservation instinct to shut up.


"You could--I can't believe I'm suggesting this--you could take them to your re-education camp and, oh, I don't know, what's even the point of a re-education camp if you can't--" Mina paused. She had been around Maow enough by this point to identify some of the hallmarks of feline embarrassment when expressed by a humanoid body. "You do have a re-education camp, right? I definitely remember you mentioning one."


"Were *going* to mmmmmmmmmmake one......"


"Oh." This should be a relief, but other matters were more urgent. "Then you definitely can't kill them!"


"Brrrrrrr!" Minyang shook her head violently, as if she'd just sniffed up a noseful of dust, "Not sure that follows..."


"If you have to kill them, it will be your fault! Because you didn't know how to save them instead." The feline commando merely stared at her blankly so she continued, "Like a personal failing, for not being good enough at helping people?"


One claw raised. "If we save more people later..."


"Theoretical future people? Ha!"


"What do you mmmmean with this 'ha'? We came for you, unmouse!"


"You didn't help me escape, though. I haven't seen you actually save anyone, in fact. You just threaten to eat people, and sometimes actually do it."


"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Point. Perrrrrrhaps these two are better alive..."


"Who else would warn you about Mint Julep?" Robert chimed in.


"What?!" The two women had been too involved in their discussion to notice the approach of a six foot long alligator, and they sprang away in unison, the feline gracefully, the primate falling upon her behind. The scaly beast paused as it reached the group, swinging its head slowly from one side to the other as it appraised them. If it went for either of the two men, there would be no way to get them out in time. But Mint Julep must not have been hungry, for it merely continued on its course after a moment, ignoring Minyang's hiss as she scrambled out of its way, heading for a dirt road that curved back to outbuildings behind the house.


Minyang had just enough time to notice that she had not heard gunshots in a while when her ears perked up, detecting a loud rumbling engine before human ears got the chance. An enormous pickup truck with flatbed attached came careening from one of the outbuildings. It screeched to a stop in front of the alligator, who lumbered up the flatbed ramp.


Mina looked into the truck, taking advantage of the few moments it took for Mint Julep to climb aboard. Her eyes met those of the young brunette who had called herself Miss Trial.


"They're evacuating," said Robert. "If you don't interfere and don't go near the house, you can have whatever you find on the rest of the property."


When Mina looked at him, his face was strangely blank. "What about you?" Then the truck was on its way, curving around to the front of the house, trailer ramp banging, with the gator clinging on for dear life. Minyang snarled, and began to chase, and Mina had no time to wait for an answer.


As she approached the house, falling farther and farther behind the cat commando, a cacophony of animal noises made itself heard over her own gasping breath. She saw the men on the porch, whose rifles must have been producing the gunfire. Some of them were lifting injured women, recognizable by their brilliant colored dresses, onto the bed of the truck, which had stopped in front of the house. Others aimed their weapons to hold back several angry catgirls, who, apparently unwilling to test their armor against the antique guns, simply screamed incoherently at their enemies. There were other, fainter animal noises too...


"Get theEEEEEEhhm!" howled Minyang, hurtling at full tilt toward the truck. One of the men turned and fired at her, and she fell over. Mina tripped and fell on her own, then made the most of her own clumsiness, laying flat. She raised her head to check on Minyang but the furious furry woman had sprung back up, seemingly unharmed, to surge forward again.


As several Roberts carried the last body from the house--Miss Rule by the color of her dress, but her face!-- and the cat warriors circled inward, trying to move too fast to target, a new sound came: hoofbeats. "Go, large siblinnngs! Be free!" A shout came. Mina wondered if she was going to have to choose between being shot or being trampled... But surely the horses would not run towards gunfire and feline screams? Better stay down. And then she was surrounded by the horde of giant beasts, stamping and snorting. There couldn't have been more than five or six, but Mina was too stunned to count and there might as well have been a stampede of thousands. Then it was over. She whimpered, a little.


"Mmmminnnna..."  The voice sounded weary. Mina turned over slowly, not sure that her body was still entirely there. An immense gold-armored cat woman looked down on her, placidly. On the ginger's back, reaching out a bloody, black fingered hand, was Maow.


Dozens of yards away, amid the noise of startled horses and angry cats and guns, the truck roared to life and away.



*****


Song credits: Tarja Turunen "I Walk Alone"

Volbeat "Cheapside Sloggers"


WILL THE HORSES ENJOY THEIR FREEDOM ON THE OPEN PLAINS OF UPPER FLORIDA?


WILL MAOW HAVE TO GO TO THE VET?


WHY WAS? A MURDEROUS NIGHTMARE CREATURE TELLING MINA ITS LIFE STORY?


WILL THE AUTHOR EVER DEIGN TO PUT IN TEASER QUESTIONS AGAIN?


FIND OUT ONLY ON THE SUPERGUY LIST!



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.eyrie.org/pipermail/superguy/attachments/20220828/4e4788ac/attachment-0001.htm>