“Dammit,” I snarl.
My speech didn’t go well.
The creature lunges toward us, and I dodge out of its path at the very last minute. I shove the table toward it just as the creature slams into the marble top, sending me flying before Islam down onto my back, but I use the momentum to roll up onto my feet.
“You’re doing better than I imagined,” the man says as he gives me a little clap from the sidelines.
The creature freezes when it hears the noise and must decide that it hates praise because it whips around and starts stalking toward him.
That wipes the smile right off the man’s handsome face. “No, no, now. I brought you a champion of the highest caliber to sate your bloodlust,” he declares.
“Did you?Did you?” I hiss. “You snatched up the first person you saw and flung me at the monster!”
“It is a peasant’s duty to fight for their god.”
“Ah, right. ‘My precious god,’ I will pray to you to save my ass,” I say, turning around and running toward the building while I struggle to pull out the pendant that’s on a chain around my neck. “We should have stayed home today, Kit.”
Kit agrees.
Something is batted at me, and I narrowly dodge it by falling right on my face. Kit is thrown off my shoulder and rolls a significant distance from me.
The world seems to shutter around me as I try to catch my bearings.
This is not ideal. This is not ideal at all.
I suddenly see the creature coming from directly behind me, and I try to twist, but I’m disoriented which gives the creature time to slam into me, driving me to the ground.
Swiftly, I jerk my pendant out and press my thumb against the third notch before I feel magic rush through my whole body. Just as I lift my hand, the monster’s head hits my chest then rolls off me.
Kit scurries onto the scene while the man dusts his hands off and looks down at me before grimacing, likely because it lookslike I’ve just been dunked in a blood bath or like I’ve just been to the prom in Stephen King’sCarrie.
“If you could do thatthe whole time, why did you throw me out first?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Details are for the weak,” he decides.
“What does that mean?” I snap. “I just wanted mozzarella.Mozzarella!”
He cocks his head. “This lust you have for your lover Mozzarella is really something beautiful.I hope I can love someone as much as you love Mozzarella someday.”
I just stand up, fully prepared to walk to the subway station looking like the main character in a horror movie. Who am I kidding; I was the side character that got offed in the second act.
Of course,nowImani and Vinny and half the department come jogging out. Now that we’ve nearly been murdered, consumed, and shit out by a giant beast.
Chapter Two
Riley
“What the hell happened?” Imani asks.
“What tongue does this woman speak?” the man asks in his language.
“English.”
“The sound of it… is quite grating on my ears. Teach her our tongue.”
“I’m using magic to talk to you.Everyonehere speaks English.”
“I will banish this language and insist that anyone who doesn’t speak Shaarunen will be sacrificed on the spot.”
