Chapter Three: And the Danger Appeareth!
'Warm… mmm, snuggly… smells nice… hug it, squeeze it, smell it, look at it… soft, yummy, humanized-'
"DONKEY!" Puss half screeched in fear, upon discovering where he was and what the 'snuggly' thing was. Suddenly it didn't seem so snuggly. "Donkey!"
The named animal didn't even flinch, and held Puss tighter, continuing to wander his dreamland.
Annoyed, Puss assessed the situation while poking Donkey absentmindedly. The rain had obviously stopped sometime during the night, because the ground was partially dry, and the sky, if not completely clear, had very few clouds. He could hear the horse shifting restlessly, and deduced that it had probably eaten everything within its reach by now.
'How long have we been like this?'
The sun was more towards the eastern horizon than it was to the height of the sky. Huh. 'Must be around eight.'
"Donkey," Puss said more quietly. "Donkey, please let me go. Donkey. Hsst."
"Mfgrble shmellnicsheshleepnow," was his only reply.
Puss growled and lunged out of Donkey's arms, hitting the hard dirt floor and producing a soft oomph that finally managed to wake the sleeping ass.
'I scream in his ear, I poke him repeatedly, I shove away from him, and a quiet noise is what wakes him up?'
"Puss?"
"No, it's Shrek," Puss said sarcastically.
"Shrek! Oh hey, buddy! What're you doing-" Finally Donkey opened his eyes, and saw that he was talking to a non-present ogre.
"Damn, Puss, that wasn't very nice!"
"Whoever said I was nice? Assassins aren't supposed to be nice, Donkey."
The named animal hmphed and picked himself up while straightening his clothing and looking around.
"What time is it?"
"About eight."
"Oh. I knew that. I knew that, so stop laughin' at me."
"Um, that wasn't me laughing." Puss listened, and could hear laughing coming from nearby, perhaps in the clearing with them.
"Really? Then who was it?"
"'Twas I," a croaky voice rasped. Donkey and Puss stared as two figures appeared out of the shadows and into the dim light under a thickly-shaded tree.
One was a large woman that looked like a really ugly old bat, with gray hair and a short piglike snout, and squinting eyes. Her companion was a rather bizarre creature that stood five feet high on powerful hind legs. It had a large head, with big, slanted eyes and six-inch spikes running all the way down its back. It had large frontal paws armed with five lethal looking razors, connected to its body with muscled forearms. The thing's eyes glowed a sickening yellow, with black slitted pupils, and Puss knew, both instinctively and mythically, what it was.
"And you are?" Donkey asked rudely.
"I am the Black Annis," the woman grated out.
"I have heard of you," Puss said. "You eat children and lambs."
"Children and lambs! Oh no! Puss, don't let her eat me!" Donkey cried, cowering behind the cat.
"Donkey, are you a lamb?" Puss asked, disgustedly.
Donkey looked at his hands. "Well, no."
"Are you a child? Physically?"
"No," Donkey replied, after giving himself a once-over.
"Then what do you have to worry about?"
"Well, we don't know what he eats!" and the mule pointed to the not-wolf thing half-hidden by the shadows.
"Where do you think she got it?" Puss muttered to his friend.
"I- I don't know, but it looks hungry and like it wantstoeatus!" Donkey screamed as it lunged at them.
As Puss knocked them both out of the way, he thought quickly.
"Donkey, you get the horse, and I'll distract the lady and her boyfriend."
"'E is no' my man!" The hag called angrily, and flounced off into the shadows, leaving them with the other monster to deal with.
Puss threw a rock at the lone monster, hitting it squarely on the head, angering it, but ensuring that its attention was focused solely on him. It roared, and charged him. He deftly rolled out of the way and glanced at Donkey. The not-human was swiftly untying the horse and fastening the saddlebags.
"Hurry up!" Puss shouted at him, as the thing charged him again.
Suddenly he heard Donkey's voice rising over the roar of the monster. "Puss, catch!" A small dagger came flying through the air and he caught it with ease. Not his usual rapier, but close enough. He started hacking at the monster, but to no avail. It was too fast for him to get close enough to score it, and he didn't want to try, not with those claws and teeth.
Just as he was ready to make a final blow and try to run for it with Donkey, who was watching anxiously from the edge of the clearing, an arrow thudded into the monster's shoulder. It screamed, and backed away from Puss. Its crazed red eyes spotted Donkey, and it started to run at him.
The humanoid's eyes widened, and he started to spur the horse as the monster got closer.
In anguish, Puss knew they could never get moving in time. He heard a faint "Noooooooo!" that he finally recognized as coming from his own throat as the monster neared Donkey. He couldn't make it- but maybe….
Puss flipped the dagger around and held it by its point. Judging very quickly, he calculated the distance of the monster and the weight of the dagger. He threw- and the dagger thudded home in the monster's back. It uttered a startled whimper, and a second blade thudded into the side of its neck.
'Okay, that was not mine,' he thought, startled. A third dagger joined the other two in the monster's side, and it dropped to the ground, eyes glazing and breath freezing in its throat. It was dead. A whoop came out of the forest, but he hardly noticed it, running to check on Donkey.
The ass was okay, merely startled, nervy, and quite frightened, but it took quite a bit of reassuring for Donkey to calm the horse down. Puss took the time to distract himself with checking on the Chupacabra.
Indeed, it was a Chupacabra, one of the beasts that supposedly haunted the rainforests, and attacked animals of the bovine and fowl types, sucking them completely dry of blood before taking its leave. In a way, it was vampiric, but this thing was in a class all its own.
La Chupacabra could jump very far with those hind legs, and could probably kill a man with one swipe of its blade-tipped front paws. Not to say that it hadn't; it most likely had, but Puss just hadn't had the luck to hear about it.
When he was crouched in front of the monster, examining one of its paws and discovering that the claws were retractable, there was an audible rustle in the bushes. He looked up and yanked the daggers out of La Chupacabra's neck; he might need them. Poising one to throw in his left hand, sticking the third at the ready in his belt, and holding the third in his right, he warily scanned the treeline. Nothing. He glanced at Donkey, and almost screamed when something tapped his shoulder. Rapidly, he spun around, on his heels and confronted the new menace behind him- a pair of legs. To his immense surprise, the intruder seemed to be a young man, a bit younger than Puss, but a lot taller. Honest brown eyes stared down at him, through light brown bangs. The lad had shortish hair, on which was perched a brown mushroom hat. The rest of his clothing seemed to be cobbled together; a brown patched vest, over a dirty white shirt, and on his legs were dark brown leather breeches. He had sturdy boots, and a long sheath with multiple throwing knives was strapped across his chest.
The man immediately offered Puss a hand to help him up, which he cautiously accepted with the hand that wasn't ready to throw a knife.
"Who- who are you?" he asked the new arrival.
"Jack," the man answered simply.
"Jack… do you have a last name?"
"No, only a title." The man seemed a little reluctant to give it, but Puss pressed on.
"Jack- of, the, from, what?"
"I'm known as Jack the Giant Killer," Jack unenthusiastically answered.
"So why aren't you off killing giants?"
"There was only the one, and his wife, so then I came here to try my hand at other things. Like stalking monsters that attack people."
'A-hah! So it does attack humans!' Puss thought, a little bit off topic.
"Did someone hire you?" he asked.
"Listen, what's with the third degree?" The lad asked heatedly. "All I need to do is chop the thing's head off, and bring it back to the guy that hired me."
"Si, si. May I just take a few of the spines off of its back?"
"Will you return my daggers?"
They stared at each other, and Puss grudgingly removed the dagger from his belt, and handed it and its mate back to Jack.
"Thanks." Jack proceeded to cut off some of the spines, and handed them to Puss. In return, Puss assisted with the gruesome business to removing the Chupacabra's head. It didn't squirt, but it was rather messy, and being almost obsessive about cleanliness, Puss strived to not get blood or bodily fluids on himself. All in all, it was a rather disgusting deal.