Chapter 8

Petra the Sultry Negotiator

 

With the streets so cramped, the lampposts lit the stone wall up to the second of several too many floors. Lit up every brightly painted streak of wavy exotic fruit or twisty heart or other weird human fetish thingy. Windows shuttered as if the human’s insides could shut out the invasion of crazed darklings.

Even with the blood splattered on the lower walls. Turning the lovely decorations gruesome. The stinky gore scattered on the streets. The corpses below her legs and elsewhere.

Petra could still smell the bitter fear of the humans crowding, trembling within the buildings.

Even if it took some effort. Had her blood been boiling hot like her wild cousins, she would of never noticed it.

Not with the screams of the dying in the distant echoing as loud as if her snarling wild cousins. Their howls and other racket from slaughtering humans could of come from the next block down.

Only the scents on the humid breeze warned her they were several blocks away.

Not that they would show her much more mercy than humans. Enslave her rather than kill her. Kill her like the two human gutted corpses under her legs. Their bodies already cooling down. The smell of death coming from them.

But the bodies protected her fur from the blood congealing on the rough cobble. The jagged stones were bad enough on her delicate foot paws. Sitting on these kinds of streets without any blanket was hard at the best of times.

Terrible anytime else.

Still, tricking three wolves into thinking she had purrened herself to them – her luck would only go so far. A blue-grey tigress was considered rare but desirable among her wild cousins. Thought of as lovely airheads who, whenever they tried to be clever, failed all the time.

So those wolves merely smirked. Their sardine sour scents suggesting they thought Petra had been tricked into purrening herself to those louts so clear.

And so wrong.

The giant dark-skinned Champion that had towered over her – with his square face and pulsing brawn – oddly smelled of sweet candy mercy and sympathy than only of blood and coppery bloodlust. His navy coat and slacks splattered with plenty of blood and gore too. None thick enough to cover completely cover the scents of his comrades – a drunk young women and an even more drunk young man.

His sword was covered with blood and gore too. From her wild cousins, from the stink of it. Rumor had those blades were sharp enough to cut anything except their sheaths.

A rumor she managed to test a few times by borrowing a blade or two. Nice for trimming hair, fur, and claws if you were careful enough.

But even Petra was too smart to hold onto them too long. No Paladins didn't exactly like when any non-Paladins held one of their precious blades.

The blades all still fetched good coin though.

But when the blond human girl descended from the sky. A peached color girl in red sultry straps waving their long ends in a wind that didn't exist. Flapping wings of serpentine backbone out of her back. Coiling and wavering. With a side of straight flexing, sharp ribs. That cherry and vanilla stink gnawed the nose. That white smirk … worse than any lusty wolf.

A vandread as beautifully built as any tigress from the pelt farms. Even Petra herself. A tigress from a well-bred bloodline worth many, many coins for even a single kitten before she blossomed into her mature sex toy self.

And the overwhelming sense of dread weighed Petra down. Like iron chains chilled icy.

All Petra could say what it was “Vandread.”

The Champion didn't catch the meaning. Despite her eyes glued to the most dangerous of undead creatures landing behind him. His brave heart must of deflected the vandread's inherit terrifying presence.

Not until a snake bone wing slammed into his back.

Flung him into a wall.

The crack sent hackles everywhere on her body on end.

The vandread even spoke. Yet Petra pounding heart drowned out her sensitive ears.

Petra merely held her hands up. Palm out. Small claws out but certainly not threatening.

Those puffy red lips of the vandread pouted at her.

But its blue eye seemed to smile. Enjoy a lowly tigress' suffering.

Enough for its snake wings to arch up.

Point right at Petra.

Sharp ends aimed right at the lone poor lycan.

Ready to spear her dead.

They shot forward.

Petra froze.

Heart stopping.

Knowing her scream would soon join those of the dying. The dead.

A scream that erupted from her lungs before they struck her.

“Wait!” screeched Petra, “I've got info! Lots of it!”

But the wings didn't stop.

Until the Champion smashed into their side. Knocking them aside. Mere feet from their fatal target.

Petra's coin-maker chest.

The tigress gasped. Panted. The pounding in her ears too loud, too quick to hear anything else.

The thick bloodlust in his scent, tempered by sweet candy compassion … maybe Petra would offer him a little romance … if he wanted it. A protective lover with the right connections – not exactly a bad thing.

Especially if she had borrowed something whose prior owner now insisted she return sooner than never.

The Champion lunged at the vandread. Dodging another swing of her bone wings.

Loping it off midway.

The vandread's scowl … enough to freeze Petra's blood over several times. Its wing already began to regenerate quickly. The old wing flopping violently on the cobble.

Wiggling loudly toward the Champion.

While he charged the last distance to the blond undead.

She leapt back. Losing an arm.

Giving her a moment to strike. Both wings spearing his back.

But missing.

Instead her midsection was sliced through. Her upper torso cocking awkwardly.

Then he cut her wings off.

Yet all regenerating quick. Yanking anything back together. Nothing falling off.

And the vandread grabbed his sword hand. Locked it in place midair. Above her head.

When those red strapped all arched toward the Champion.

About to stab his vitals everywhere.

And the very sight seemed to stab Petra's own vitals.

“Wait!” screamed Petra, “He knows Ash La Pushka! Kill him and –”

The vandread halted instantly.

Her eyes spearing Petra.

“Ash La Pushka?” the vandread said, “Here? Really? Lie and your worse than dead, cat.”

“Yeah,” said Petra, “He's the target, right? Then –”

But the vandread suddenly stabbed the Champion with her straps.

Just as he sucker-punched her jaw with an upper cut.

Cracking the undead's neck so bad it slammed against her back.

Then bounced back up unharmed.

And she flung the big brawny man up, far above Petra. A loud crack, splitters of wood flying everywhere, as Petra's only savior smashed through a shutter so violently no human could hope to survive.

Not even a wolf at full strength could make it. Not without so many broken and fractured bones, so much internal bleeding, that it would die soon afterwards.

Forget a tigress.

Even the legendary Ivy Reap.

Yet fiery acid burned through Petra's veins. Despite only a smug smile on her lips. Her body relaxing.

But the vandread merely chuckled.

Then huffed.

Her cherry vanilla scent so thick Petra could barely stop herself from gagging. It was enough to make the tigress never touch another cherry or vanilla drink again.

So matter how sweet or creamy.

“He's nearby,” said Petra, “So better hurry. Before he runs off. Gets killed.”

But the vandread merely narrowed her eyes. Strutting closer.

Her sensual gait, despite bare feet on jagged cobble, swayed her hips and chest too properly. As if it were bred solidly into her. Even more than Petra's own bloodline.

Yet not a hint of cat ears or tail on the girl.

Just bones wings arched toward Petra. Pointed tips aimed at her.

Drying the tigress' throat.

A taste of milk vodka … a single lick even before she died horribly…

Double or death, as the highest stakes gamblers said at the Gin and Goblin.

Well, before they lost. Big time. Died a worse death than most. All to win a prize no one ever won yet.

“His scent – wow,” said Petra, “I never smelled someone so drunk. I nearly passed out just smelling it secondhand off that Champion guy. No way that Ash guy is going to survive long. Not with my wild cousins going wild, killing every human they can slice their claws through.”

A gasp. The vandread froze her strut.

“I see,” she said. Her voice as icy as it was sultry.

“Then I better get to him first,” she said, “But if I don't find him … well, there are worse deaths than losing an unpayable bet at the Gin and Goblin.”

That wicked smirk. The sharp reference.

Apparently, this vandread knew more of Petra's past than she let on.

“Duke BloodTalon,” said the vandread, “He'll never forgets a debt unpaid. And pays better than any to find thieves like you, little cat. So if you lied …”

The vandread chuckled. The screams of the dying only making it crisper.

But Petra huffed. Smirked.

“No worries,” she said, “I never return stuff sooner than never.”

Even if her insides were chilled solid with bitter fear.

Even as the vandread launched herself into the air.

Vanished into the dark sky.