Accidental Acquisition by Evangeline Anderson

21

This day was just one long, never ending nightmare, Jillian had decided. She’d been drugged, left in the Dark Market, kidnapped by the disgusting Trollox who’d threatened to rape her and chop off her limbs. Then she’d gone to court where a huge, haunted tree was the judge and had to watch the man she was really beginning to care for get his hand chopped off for her. And now, despite having gone through all that, she was right back where she’d started with a Trollox holding her against her will, while Ripper looked poised to kill Kalis.

This is so unfair—how can he fight with only one hand? she thought wildly, struggling against the three-headed Trollox’s grip. Why don’t the stupid guards come help?

But the ostrich-necked guards just stood there, at the doors of the Master’s compound, watching with their stupid, googly eyes. Maybe their only job was to guard the gate and they didn’t get involved in conflicts. Or maybe they just didn’t give a damn. Jillian didn’t know, but she could tell there was going to be no help from that direction.

None of the stall and booth owners or market customers seemed inclined to help either. The closest stalls were closing down hurriedly, pulling long, flexible metal netting down over their outer perimeters to protect their wares and property.

“Help!” Jillian struggled as Ripper and Kalis squared off, exchanging insults. “Somebody help me—this Trollox won’t let me go!”

But she got no better results than she had when she screamed in the Dark Market. It seemed that nobody was brave enough to go up against a Trollox.

Well, except Kalis, but he only has one hand,she thought desperately. What is he going to do when—

And then the big Kindred began to change.

Jillian watched in disbelief as he began to sprout greenish-gray fur all over his muscular body. At the same time, he seemed to be growing—getting bigger and bigger.

Oh my God, she thought blankly. He’s going to be almost as big as Ripper if he doesn’t stop!

He didn’t stop. The big Kindred grew larger and larger until he towered over the two-headed Trollox by at least two or three feet.

But the change wasn’t just his size or the long, shaggy fur that had sprouted all over his body. His face elongated too, his mouth forming a predator’s jaws that parted showing teeth as long and sharp as steak knives.

Oh my God,Jillian thought, staring up at him. He’s…he looks like some kind of bear! A greenish grey Grizzly bear or something!

Which was pretty much true. Except, the bear-thing that Kalis had become didn’t drop to all fours like a regular Grizzly would. It seemed to be completely bipedal—firmly planted on two feet as it slashed at the surprised Trollox with its paws, tipped in long, sharp, curving talons.

Wait, paws plural? How is that possible? I saw his hand chopped off!

But of course, the fact that the big Kindred now had two hands again—or rather paws—instead of one, wasn’t nearly the strangest thing she was witnessing. Nor was it the most terrifying.

Kalis, as a person was extremely calm and even tempered—at least as far as she had seen during their short acquaintance. But Kalis as a giant green Grizzly bear was anything but calm. In fact, he seemed to be completely losing his shit.

She watched as Ripper swung his cleaver halfheartedly and then began backing away. Just like bullies everywhere, the Trollox was also a coward. Now that he was fighting a monster bigger than him, instead of a Kindred with only one hand, he wanted nothing to do with the altercation he had started.

But Kalis’s beast wasn’t going to let him get away so easily.

The monstrous creature—which must have stood twelve or thirteen feet high—charged forward, roaring so loudly it made Jillian’s eardrums bulge. She wanted to clap her hands over her ears, but the three-headed Trollox still had hold of her, so she couldn’t.

The ground seemed to tremble as the beast ran at Ripper. A stall across from her had stacks of heavy gourds piled on top of each other—they all fell down and splattered greenish-purple guts and pink seeds across the ground. Another stall owner made a grab for a delicate glass vase filled with some kind of bright blue liquor. But when he caught a look at the savage snarl on the beast’s face, he went pale and backed away, heedless as the vase toppled over, shattering and spilling its contents everywhere.

Jillian watched in awe and shock as the beast reached out with one huge paw and batted Ripper’s red-eyed head right off his shoulders. It was a seemingly casual move—the beast didn’t appear to put much effort into it. But a moment later, the head went rolling in the dust, its red eyes still opening and closing in apparent astonishment.

“Our head! Our second-best head!” Ripper’s yellow-eyed head howled. Beside it, the stump of the red-eyed head was pumping black, tarry goo which seemed to be the Trollox version of blood.

Kalis’s beast made no answer—probably because it couldn’t talk with that mouthful of steak knives, Jillian thought numbly. It simply charged forward again and caught the fleeing Trollox as Ripper tried to run. Lifting the struggling male in both paws, it leaned over, spread its jaws, and bit the yellow-eyed head off as neatly as a man might bite the end off a carrot.

It didn’t eat the head, though, Jillian saw, (because she couldn’t look away, even though she desperately wanted to.) Instead it spit out the yellow-eyed head and dropped the still-twitching carcass of the Trollox to the dirty ground where it lay there, leaking black tar onto the dusty road.

Then it turned towards Jillian.