71

Chapter 102

"Drop you weapons, put your hands behind your heads!" The voice comes a second later. I'm not holding any weapons, so I quickly slide my hands behind my head, trying to show that I'm not a threat.
Glass does the same. He gives me a sidelong glance, and I can only hope this will work. If not- Well, it's his plan anyways, and I'm already formulating a plan B. Plan B is pretty much: Go all crazy cat girl on anyone standing near me, and if that doesn't work, on to plan C. I don't have a plan C.
"Who are you, and what do you want?!" It's a woman's voice. I spin around, trying to locate it, to pick up the glint of a gun or a knife, hear the rustle of clothing and whisper of a breath. But even with all my senses, I can't find her, and this irks me.
"Who are you?" I shoot back.
"Shaddup and answer the question!" She barked again, this time with a pronounced accent.
"Which do you want me to do!" I call out. Glass glares at me, but I ignore him, because he's not helping much.
"What?!" She calls, and I can hear the confusion.
"Which do you want me to do?" I pronounce each syllable clearly as if talking to someone slow. "Shut up, or answer you?"
I hear a throaty growl of anger, and next thing I know there's a knife at my throat.
"Whoa!" I exclaim involuntarily, not quite sure how I wasn't able to track her movement.
"ON THE GROUND!" She roars, and I flatten myself to the road in a second.
"Now, ANSWER THE FREAKING QUESTION!"
"Um, excuse me," Glass says from somewhere over in not-helping-land. "But I-"
"SHADDUP!" The angry woman screams at him, and I roll over on to my back. "LET THE LADY TALK!"
I hesitate a second while she glares down at me. My first impression is something along the lines of a lioness. Heck, just a lion.
The woman's dark blonde hair is a tangled mass swept back from her face, puffing out behind her ears in a mix of frizzy locks and thin braids with feathers and fangs strung into them. Her eyes are a deep chocolate brown, small in a wide, circular face and flat nose, and her pupils are vertical slits. Her shoulders are wide and heavily muscled, her entire physique reading of the extreme power and control of a wild cat.
"WELL, YOU GONNA TALK, OR DO I HAVE TO WRING IT OUTTA YA!" She screams, baring fierce pointed teeth.
"Uh," I gulp, glancing again over at Glass.
"Whadisit, cat got your tongue?!" She demands. I really hope she realized the irony of that statement.
"Spit it out, already!" She stomps down, and I fear the boot will land on my arm or leg next, so I talk.
"We come in peace!" Is the only thing I can think of to say. This obviously catches her off guard, but she quickly recovers.
"I don care if you's come in peace or nod, cause if you's don answer me, you gonna be leaving in pieces! Now tell me, are there more of you?!"
I briefly consider lying, but then think better of it. If this really does go well, then we'll have to introduce the rest of the group, so we'd best just get it over with sooner than later.
"Yup." I nod casually, and she bends forward further until her face is barely a foot from mine.
"How many?"
"Counting us?" She slaps her forehead in exasperation.
"Yes, of course counting you!"
"Um," I make a big show of counting on my fingers. Me, Coal, Glass, Hour, Bugs, Glade, Shiver, Pops, Joe, and-
"I know a really swell guy you might like." I say abruptly, speaking on thought. She blinks, stunned at my stupidity. "His name is Stomp and you two would get along great."
"SHADDUP, NO ONE ASKED YOU FOR RELATIONSHIP ADVICE!" She screams in my face, then turns angrily to Glass. "HOW MANY IN YOUR PARTY?"
"You two could resolve your anger issues together." I add helpfully. The look on her face is enough.
"Why, you little-"
"Ash! That's enough, thank you!" Glass says forcedly through clenched teeth, then he dusts off his patched pants and offers his hand to Mrs. Stomp.
"There are ten in our party." He says before she can hit him. "The name's Glass, and that's Ash. You are...?"
"General Purr, at your service!" To Glass's evident disgust, she spits in her palm and shakes his hand. His face quite visibly sags. "Now, state your business, and then be off!"
I can't really state my business yet, or the plan will have no chance of succeeding. So I improvise.
"General, huh?" I use my most flattering, fluttery voice, which is kind pathetic. It sounds a lot like a deep throated husky dog trying to be a chihuahua. "That's a pretty high rank, isn't it?"
"Sure is!" She puffs out her chest proudly.
"So, do you command a whole army?"
"Yup, sure do! The finest of Impurities, the defenders of the City. And they're stationed all round this here square all because of yours truly-"
"Thank you, General Purr!" I grin, and face immediately falls.
She lunges at me, but I effortlessly dodge. While she may be much stronger, I'm easily more agile.
"People of the Old City," I call out in my loudest voice. "Show yourselves, or your general will suffer the most painful death at the hands of me and my companion!"
I never even begin think of actually harming Purr, but the Impurities must be gullible, because they immediately emerge from the shadows, appearing like apparitions. Purr sighs and shakes her head.
"Now, drop your weapons!" I call out.
"No-" Purr begins to yelp, but I slap my hand firmly over my mouth, hoping she won't bite it off.
"Drop 'em!" I cry warningly. "Or... Or her mouth comes off!"
Okay, maybe not the best blackmail. Many of the soldiers just glance at each other and shrug, like, 'heck, who wouldn't want that?'
"Alright," I stop to think for a moment. "Drop your weapons, or I'll release her!"
The square is filled with the clattered of guns hitting the road, and I quickly pick one up and toss another to Glass. Gosh, now I'm not quiet sure I want these guys fighting a war with me...
"Dude, you know I was never gonna-Never mind." I shake my head. These guys are hopeless. But, hey, if they've got military training and guns, then they can be my new best friends.
I let go of Purr, who looks kinda like she wants to bite my head off, and I put Glass between us just in case.
"Anyways," I stop and formulate a kind of rushed speech beginning- Who am I kidding, I wing it. "This is the game plan. Invade the City, kill the Rulers, burn the Order. Except it's just a little more complicated than that."
Soldiers of the Old City stare open-mouthed at me. I guess they must be Impure to live here when they could have lives of luxury, but their faces are for the most part hidden by the heavy duty visors of their gray helmets, their bodies covered in gray, city-camo fatigues.
"Our means are kind of limited. Down to, like, ten." I face Purr now, thinking I'd better get to the point or she might eat my head. "We need help. So, in short, you guys up for freeing our, erm, freedom?"
Okay, I'll be the first to admit, it's not exactly the number-one inspirational speech of the year, but I think we've already established the limits of this bunch's intelligence, so they think it's great.
"YEAH!" They shout in one big wave of voices, fist bumping one another and punching the air.
"Let me get this straight," Purr sidles up to me, whispering menacingly, her voice cutting like a knife through the noise. "You want me and my troops to sacrifice everything, our lives here in our glorious city, our safety, our families, everything, to go off on some impossible mission and die at the hands of the Rulers?"
"Yup, pretty much sums it up." I agree, and then I remember I'm supposed to be convincing her. "But we won't die."
She raises an eyebrow. "Girl, I have been in many more battles than you have, I'm sure. I know the odds of a battle when I face one, and can guess the outcome as well as the next soldier. But what we're talking about isn't war. It's suicide."
"Look," I struggle to make her see my way. "The way I see it, this isn't a life. This isn't living." I gesture around me as I speak, waving my arms around to the joyous intelligence-challenged soldiers. "What we, what you have here, that isn't a life. That's survival.
"Now, I know it's a lot to ask. Okay, it's crazy." I admit, holding her gaze. "But isn't it worth it? Isn't it worth dying for a good cause, for a better life for your children, your grandchildren, the world? Why not fight for what you believe in, because if you don't, who will?"
She glares at me without speaking, and I wince, wondering if maybe she actually doesn't have children, or maybe she had children and something happened to them and I just made her hate me by bringing up bad memories. Finally her eyes soften.
"When do you plan to attack?" And I know she's in.
"Oh, um," I frown over at Glass, who's been abducted by a soldier and if currently caught up in an intense game of patty-cake. "Eh... How's tomorrow sound?"
Purr's eyebrows disappear completely into her wild mane of frizzy hair. "Tomorrow!? Do you have any idea of the preparations, the packing, the-the-I-" She stops abruptly, and, quite to my surprise, a feline grin spreads across her face, like how a lion may grin at it's prey before it tears it to pieces.
"I like it."