Chapter 1
I wanted to feel their blood on my claws.
The orcs were guarding their hostage, a thirteen year old boy. The poor kid was strapped to a log beside the blazing fire.
I watched them for a few minutes from my perch on a cliff. They always had a pattern to their movement. If I could recognize it, the kid was as good as saved.
It wasn’t easy.
The clearing below me was packed with the ugly buttheads. They took turns sniffing at the boy and wandering into the forest. None of them showed any sign of sleeping or eating.
The orcs were on patrol.
I’d have to take them all out if I was going to finish the mission.
Once I had a plan, I always took a minute to cherish the moment. I was doing what I wanted to do. Sure, it wasn’t a PPD job, but it was the next best thing. I’d wipe these orcs from existence and show the world what I was made of.
I was living the dream.
My whiskers twitched as I let out a small growl, in prep for the roar.
I bent my hind legs and gripped the rock with my front claws.
The closest orc was directly below me.
After one leap and two swipes, he was directly to my left and right and rear.
And a little bit on my paws.
“Weretiger!” an orc yelled.
I roared and knocked him down with my head. He rolled across the dirt and landed near the fire. He grabbed a torch and waved it at me as he backed up on his butt, kicking his legs furiously in the sand.
“Away!” he yelled as his brothers ran at me from every direction.
I grabbed his ankle with my front teeth and shook my head, relishing in the screams of a beast that would take an innocent boy away from his family. I released him and watched as he arced through the night sky, landing on two other kidnappers.
That’s when a spear entered my ass…and, no, that’s not a euphemism. There was literally a spear tip embedded in my left ass cheek. I shook my hindquarters with enough force to dislodge the damn thing.
That didn’t feel much better, but at least it was out.
Then, I turned to the orc who was responsible.
His eyes went wide.
“I’m going to pay for that, aren’t I?” the orc croaked.
I pushed him down with my chest and got a stranglehold on his neck, wrapping my front legs over his shoulders and slicing into his chest with my hind claws.
He didn’t have time to scream.
But his fellow orcs did.
My little display of ruthless cat whims had peeled off half of the bad guys. They ran into the forest. I’d have to be careful that they didn’t go for ranged attacks from cover of darkness, but I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be back.
Three orcs remained.
“Behind you!” the little boy cried.
Four orcs remained.
I crouched just in time to dodge a sword. It whizzed over the tips of my ears and left the wielder off balance. I wasn’t in a good position to attack him so I let out the roar I’d been saving up.
That worked.
He backed up a few steps, which was a stupid idea. That was the exact amount of space I needed to jump on him with all four paws and force him into the fire.
I leapt from his burning body and turned to face the last three of them.
“Who’s next?” I asked.
They didn’t understand me, of course. But I think they got the idea.
The middle orc, a big boo, slammed his sword against his shield and let out a battle cry.
Not too shabby, actually.
It made me wince.
All three of them ran at me.
So, I ran at them.
Their swords angled up over their opposing shoulders. Their shields covered their torsos. I jumped over their heads as they slashed their blades downward in attack.
It was a pretty impressive choreography of sword swinging, if I was being honest. The problem was that they’d only succeeded in slaying a mound of dirt and some daisies.
I found myself standing right in front of my charge. The boy’s little hands were tied behind his back. His feet were bound together. He gave me a big smile. I nodded back.
Then, I turned to growl at the orcs.
“Are you ready to finish this?” I asked.
Again, they couldn’t possibly hear my question, but the two smaller ones were clearly bright enough to calculate they had zero chance against me.
They turned and ran into the forest.
“Cowards!” the alpha orc screamed. He turned back to me, drool falling from his lower lip. Clearly, he was finding this battle a bit intoxicating. Orcs, ya know? “Come, cat,” he sneered. “Let me show you what real orcs are made of.”
We circled the fire, never breaking eye contact.
He swung his sword down and sent burning logs flying in my direction. Shimmering ash clouded my vision for a split second and then he emerged from the haze, sword and shield high.
He slammed both of them down and something hit me. I couldn’t be sure where I was injured because my adrenaline was through the roof, but my movement was suddenly limited.
My rear left leg was my best guess.
Lucky for me, the orc’s bold move also sent him rolling across the dead grass.
I had a split second to attack.
Did I have the strength to leap as fast as I needed to?
“Bethany,” Mike called out.
“Wait, what?” I said, staring at the orc I was about to destroy.
Who was calling…
“Shit,” I growled. “No, Mike, don’t!”
He did.
Mike pulled off my VR headset.
“Damn it, Mike,” I cursed. “What the fuck?”
“Shut up and listen,” he said back, smiling. “You’re going to want to hear this.”
“You know what I want to hear?” I asked him. He backed away from the ferocity in my voice. I don’t think he understood the heat of the moment, but I was about to make sure he got educated. “I want to hear the cries of a weretiger in Poxreth who was about to save the prince from the orcish kidnappers.”
“Oh…” he said.
“A weretiger who just defeated an army and was battling to the death with the alpha.”
“Cool.”
He wasn’t getting it.
So I raised my voice. “A weretiger whose only adventures come when she plays videogames where she gets to play as a weretiger! Is this getting through to you, Mike?”
“Sure, yeah,” he said nodding his head.
“I don’t think it is,” I said.
“No, not really,” he said, now shaking his head.
“I was seconds away from completing that level, asshole.”
“But Bethany, I have great news.”
I slouched. Maybe he had great news. I never got any. Mike was a model, so he could travel all over the place. Chaperoned, sure, but still. Me? No, I didn’t have that ‘model’ quality. I had the look, but not the grace, unless magazines were in need of filming weretigers killing orcs, of course.
“Great news, huh?” I sniffed. “I don’t suppose the news consists of you promising me you’ll never break into my bedroom again?”
No,” he replied with a frown. “Sorry, I can’t promise that.”
I growled. I pictured him as an orc and thought of the seven ways I could maim him.
“What do you want, Mike?” I asked, peeking into the VR headset and seeing Game Over flashing in blood red type across the screen.
He knelt down and put his hands on my knees.
“The Paranormal Police Department is accepting new recruits.”
Chapter 2
Mike had been watching “Dancing with the Demons” when the TV commercial came on. He filled me in on the details as he followed me down the hall toward Director Camp’s office.
“The guy they got for the commercial was kind of…” Mike said before trailing off.
“What?”
“I don’t know,” Mike said as he wove around a group of suited, briefcased bureaucrats. The Zoo was full of them. “Desperate, maybe?”
“Not as desperate as I am to get out of here,” I said, ducking under a troll’s arm as he threw his jacket on.
I slapped the troll on the back and he turned to me with a growl. And then a smile. “Hey, Bethany!” he cried out. “Where you headed, tiger?”
“Topside if everything goes well!” I yelled back.
“Good luck, bitty!”
Big Johnson used to call me his “itty bitty widdle tiger” when I was just a cub. He never stopped because he was still twice my size, even twenty years later.
“You’re going to just tell everyone?” Mike asked with an incredulous look. “That’s a dumb move, itty bitty widdle tiger.”
“One, don’t make fun of Big Johnson’s nickname for me,” I said. “He’s sweet. Unlike some people. Two, I’ll tell everyone because I want it out there. I want the Netherworld to know that I’d rather be anywhere but The Zoo.”
“Come on, Bethany. It’s not so bad. You have everything you want. State of the art, weretiger-friendly gym, with a pool by the way.”
“Monitored by a thousand cameras,” I added.
“A decent-sized grassy area to roam around.”
“Before curfew,” I said.
“That cool VR game you spend hours living in,” Mike said and then quickly added, “More urban fantasy, science fiction, and romance books than most libraries ever catalog; room service twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, including holidays; and the highest security anywhere.”
I stopped and glared at Mike.
“Security?” I asked. “I’m a prisoner, Mike. Don’t roll your eyes at me. We are prisoners.”
“I’m not a prisoner,” he countered.
“Yeah? Can we go to a movie?”
“Why would we want to see a movie? We can barely stand each other these days.”
“No, is the answer, Mike,” I pressed. “We cannot just go see a movie.”
“Sure we can,” he said. I glared at him harder. He crossed his arms and couldn’t make eye contact. “You and me and…others.”
“Babysitters,” I said as I continued my long trek down the hallway.
Everything was so damn big in The Zoo.
“I go to photo shoots all the time, Bethany,” he stated finally.
“That’s because you’re a model, Mike,” I remarked. “Not all of us have the ability to walk down a runway.”
“Catwalk.”
I sighed.
“You know what I mean,” I said with some heat. “The fact is that even you can’t go on one of your photo shoots without an entourage big enough to protect a king.” I shook my head. “You have no privacy. I have no privacy. And while you may think you have freedom because the camera happens to love you…you really don’t.”
We continued in silence for a number of steps.
“We’re the last two weretigers in existence, Bethany, so it makes sense, right?” I could hear the exasperation in his voice.
“That’s not the point,” I said, arriving at Camp’s door and straightening my clothing with my palms.
I took a deep breath and was about to knock.
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