“Hey, don’t look at me like I’m the crazy one,” she snapped. “You’re the one walking around with a vorswine like it’s a pet.”
The spitaur’s face grew ashen at her words. “There’s vorswine here?”
“The hell is a vorswine?” I asked, exasperated. “Rebekah’s just a cat!”
The sword froze in front of us; we all skidded to a halt. The kitten in question slowly appeared, head first, from around the corner. Except she was bigger than the last time I saw her. A lot bigger. Her pristine white fur was spotless, which was odd considering the floor was covered in blood. An armored foot peeked into view, and I had the sneaking suspicion that I did not want to see what the rest of the body looked like. The foot twitched before chopped grunts sounded off from the body. Alexis’ voice grew quiet as she spoke. “Cherry, I promise you, that thing is not a cat.”
Rebekah caught sight of us and sat. Her bobcat-sized body vibrated with a delighted purr. Tail swishing, she took in each of us with her beady blue eyes until she fixed her gaze on me. Her head tilted to the side and a deep voice sounded off from somewhere around her.“Too sour.”
A man in a long black cloak came out from a room flipping through a stack of papers. He looked up at Yala and Cyser before frowning. “Hey, what are you lot doing out of your cages?”
Rebekah turned her gaze to him,“Sweet.”
The kitten’s body cracked in half. Spindly black hands shot out of the opening and grabbed the man by the throat. He cried out and clawed at the floor before her jaw unhinged like a snake and bit into his head.
… Nope.
Screaming, we took off running in the other direction. Yala tripped over one of the tavern owner’s legs, nearly taking me out with him. I pulled him to his feet, and we took off after Alexis, deeper into the coliseum.
“The east side of the building is completely shot; we’re going to have to see if we can get out from the west exit.” Alexis called as she led the way.
“What do you mean its shot? Are you telling me there’s more of those things?”
“Well yeah,” she replied. “That’s where the barracks were, so we started off there.”
“You wanted her to do this?” I screeched.
“Look, I knew she was something bad, I just didn’t know she was a damn vorswine. I thought she would just eat them, not turn them into mindless zombies with an appetite for human tartare. Though in my defense, those guards were very,veryrude. And, you know, turns out they were kidnapping demons, anyway. If you think about it, I’m kind of a hero. A vigilante if you will.”
“You just released a vorswine into the city!” Cyser shouted.
“No, she did!” Alexis said, pointing to me. Like a rat. “I just took her to the knights’ barracks.”
The two men looked at me in disbelief.
“I… I thought it was a cat.”
Cyser clenched his fists at his side. His face contorting in an enraged scowl. “You thought it was a—”
Boom.
The wall in front of us exploded, followed by the deafening sound of a dragon’s roar. My stomach sank as a kiboon bee launched at us from outside.
“Run!” Yala cried, He sprinted down the hallway and opened up the door at the end. A horde of zombies greeted him on the other side.
He shut the door.
“Not that way. Other way!” he screamed, charging back toward us. With a speed surprising for his massive frame, the orc leapt up, using the wall to spring himself higher and stabbed his spear through the bee. Thankfully, the bee stayed dead. Unlike the damn zombies.
With a sickening creak, the door burst open and a sea of zombies piled through.
Chapter 20
Dante
“I will not ask you again,” I said. The mage beneath me cried out as I twisted his broken leg. “Where. Is. My. Wife?”
His response came out through broken whimpers. “I told you, I don’t know. You’re the only one those men brought in.”
