The Myths of Twisted Felix Katt (Book 2)

(18) Hell Hounds

A word to the wise ain't necessary - it's the stupid ones that need the advice. - Bill Cosby

I drank from my flask, knowing that everyone around me assumed I had some vile grog and alcoholic concoction in there. It was just water. Girl's gotta stay hydrated if she expects to be able to run for her life later (no guarantee of that but come on, with my luck we all know there will be running and swearing at some point today). That and the water helped me fidget without it being screamingly obvious that I was anxious. We were waiting for Trudy and the other Hounds to find us. It was pretty much inevitable, but I had been expecting doom since the moment the Shuffle hit. That’s how my life usually goes: disaster, Shuffle, emergency, chaos, disaster, sleep. And I get one of those things far less often than I would really like (and just in case you haven’t figured out which one, take a second and look at the list again. Dumbass.) We knew that the Hounds had landed, a quick check of Destiny’s systems had told me that there was something wicked this way coming, but then I had powered down again to get ready.

This was going to be an interesting power play. We had a writ of duty (basically a nice and legal contract to be out here), a Blooded Lady to assume ‘authority’ (just in case Trudy wanted to try and play that game), and we were heavily armed (although discreet too, no point making it obvious). I was trying to cover all the bases of what might happen once the dice was rolled, but even I can’t see the future, just predict it (sadly my eyes sight isn’t that good to see through the veils of time). I was with Van and Rorick in the space before the secondary airlock (the pirate ship still blocked my main access way), and we were playing a round of Hold ‘Em Poker with Jaxom, a sullen Temperance and being thoroughly irritated by each other. Well, actually just being irritated by Temperance. Her face was bruised and swollen, the blood cleaned off (I had even washed my face by this point in time) but there was no way to hide the fact that her nose had been broken and reset. I knew that eventually I’d pay for that abuse against a Blooded, but I still felt like it had been entirely worth it. It satisfied me in some guttural way, and I’m not too proud to admit that.

To add to the whole ambiance of my day, the Shuffle was still making me feel faintly queasy, as my body kept that almost floating sensation going on. Heck, even Van looked green around the gills after an hour of this crap and only Rorick was naturally heavy enough not to tip whenever he shifted positions. The brief (and very loose) plan of attack was simple enough and even hard to screw up. We would allow Trudy and her Hounds to approach (with our electrical system down they would even have to knock!) and then we would bring them into this section of Destiny. The walkways were narrow and far enough apart that she couldn’t swarm in with the dogs of war and I had a half hearted hope that maybe she just wanted to come make my life miserable without just killing me and mine. We would talk (banter, bitch, scream, threaten, negotiate or whatever), calmly state our positions, deal with the situation and then leave each other alone for the rest of our natural lives. Yeah I didn’t buy that either. Chances were she was going to storm in here like doom itself, and make my life uncomfortably exciting for a little bit.

By the time I was about to slit my own throat with the edges of my playing cards out of sheer mind numbing boredom, there was the omen laden thud, thud, thud on the hold door of my secondary airlock. Well, it was time for the three ring circus to start, someone cue the dramatic music.

I looked at Rorick and he lumbered over to the door, intentionally bunching up his muscles so that he looked even more intimidating. I knew how intelligent he was and it always amazed me that others would simply look at his size, gender and the collar around his neck and just assume ‘strong like bull, dumb like fence post’. We often used it to our advantage. Same way people would look at Van and think ‘sweet piece of… you get the idea’.