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“Did you feel that?” I asked, freezing in place.
“Yeah,” Rave answered, wiping the water from her face. She pulled moss from the side of her cheek before looking down at Thorn and immediately glared at the opposite side of the skiff.
“What?” If I had fur, my own hackles would be raised as I popped the holster of my Smith and Wesson handgun sitting in my bag. Thankfully, I was ambidextrous and could use my weapon with my left. I wasn’t as good as Walker when it came to firearms, but I could hold my own.
“Thorn said we’re not alone.” She leaned over and slowly dropped the towel, keeping her eyes glued on the same spot as Thorn. She fished around for something in her coat pockets, making enough noise to wake the dead.
“What are you looking for?” I hissed, keeping my words low.
“Honor,” she whined, then growled in frustration, which made her sound more like a stuffed pig than anything resembling words. But I knew what she was talking about. Honor was the name of the bracelet she received as a gift when she was just a baby. According to her parents, she almost died in an accident, but a guardian angel stepped in and, with his intervention, saved her. Of course, it wasn’t a normal bracelet. Not much was known about Demfire, only that it wasn’t found on Earth and it was powerful. In Rave’s case, since it was infused into her bracelet, it allowed her to change it into a weapon of her choice. Luckily, her Demfire-infused bracelet was still in my bag from when I had caught her jacket earlier.
“Chill, I have your Honor,” I mocked.
A shadow passed over my bag just as I reached for it, making me pause and lean back in time before a huge snake landed on us, separating me from the rest.
The snake was so massive that not all of his body could fit on the boat. From the coloring of the blotchy yellowish scales, my guess was it was a ball python. But how was it that big? And what was it doing here? It lunged at Rave, but she dodged its attack barely.
Wait, that wasn’t right. Ball pythons weren’t naturally aggressive. Without another thought, I reached for my gun between my legs, stood up, and fired off two shots into its back. Its head whipped around and hissed, which was out of character for the snake. Before I could take aim again, something tightened around my ankles, making me lose my balance. I slipped back to my seat, dropping my gun in the process, and found the snake’s tail wrapped around my ankles.
Shit. This was more than an average snake. Instead of freaking out like my instincts were screaming at me to do, I took a quick breath and froze. Yep, I’m the badass that freezes when snakes drop on them. Another hiss had me looking back up, and I found Thorn swiping a clawed paw at the snake and Rave swinging the pole around to battle the snake like the avenging angel that she was. I saw my gun peeking out from under the snake’s massive coils around my feet, so I shifted them enough to reach for it.
I fired off a bullet into the bindings around my ankles, and thankfully, they released enough that I stood up and moved toward the action at the front of the boat. Hopefully, I wasn’t going to tip us in the process. Obviously, this snake could take pain and bullets, but I wanted to see if it could handle my adjustments to my toys.
I was a Reaper through and through, but my real passion was weapons and ways to improve them. Ever since I saw Rave’s gift, I was fascinated with the idea of improving and combining weapons where I could.
I pushed the button on the side of my gun and drove the butt of it onto the top of the snake’s skull just as it reached back to strike. The knife that I had manufactured to extend sunk into the skull with an audible crack. With a quick twist and a plop, I pulled out my weapon in time to see the black eyes turn milky white before it hung over the boat’s edge.
“Well, I think it’s dead now,” Rave said, kicking the lifeless body as it started to slip into the water.
The body started to get lighter and change before our eyes, revealing a very naked dead man.
“Holy shit!” I gasped.
“Wow. Yeah, you would think with how big he was, he would be hung like an anaconda when in reality it was a garter snake,” Rave said as she watched his legs slip over and into the murky water.
“Oh my God! Is that all you think about?” I whisper shouted at my best friend.
“Obviously not!” She snorted. “I’m also thinking how lucky my ass is that I’m not in the water right now,” she said and pointed to the opposite bank, where two alligators slipped into the water.
Swallowing back my retort, I nodded and grabbed my towel to clean my weapon. I took it back; this place wasn’t relaxing at all. It was a fucking nightmare.
CHAPTER 7
More Than a Master
Thorn
Rave quickly pushed us away from the feeding frenzy that ensued where the snake shifter had died, turning down the left bend that Kaye instructed.
‘I bet he was a snake because he was a yellow-bellied coward.’ I chuckled to myself. ‘Did you see the size of him? I bet the only thing he could get busy with was a thimble.’
For all of my effort, Rave just rolled her eyes and kept a straight face. How dare she? She knows what I’m giving her is golden. I whipped my tail back and forth aggressively, but I didn’t care if she noticed that I was getting upset. It was a good way to release my anger instead of spiking out like a pufferfish on steroids from Hell. I still couldn’t believe I looked like one of those when I got angry. Just another thing that set me apart from a normal Fossa. I had always compared myself to a porcupine, but apparently, my fur didn’t stick out that far, and I couldn’t launch them at the enemy.
Ha. Wouldn’t that be funny, me running after the enemy, sending three-inch quills hurdling at the screaming lunatic as they waved their hands in the air, wafting their ungodly B.O. about?
Speaking of B.O— ‘Um, Rave… you know you stink, right?’
A growl ripped down the connection before she slowly turned her focus onto me. I blinked rapidly and stuck out my tongue in the way I’d seen those domesticated dogs do, hoping to ease the sting.
