Pudding’s words ricocheted around the stone windmill like six-pound cannonballs that had been fired inside. Suddenly the cats, who had become quiet at the sight of Gerhard, all went into a panic. They scrambled for whichever exit they could find.
Most of the cats tried to get out through the main exit and were stopped dead in their tracks and driven back inside by the gangsters. A few who had jumped from open windows appeared to have escaped, but the majority of the cats, including most of the recently transformed, just froze or ran aimlessly into one another. Many were knocked over onto their backs, which is unusual when dealing with such surefooted animals as cats.
Even from several yards inside the old windmill, Caterwaul could see that she was right. There would be no running away. The outfit had definitely come, and they had come in force. This time it was a lot more than just Lucius Jr. and two trained gorillas. There were a lot of them out there, and they were closing in to surround the old windmill. Caterwaul could count at least eight just in his field of vision.
“Is there a back way out of here?” Caterwaul asked.
“Yes, but there are probably at least three of them watching it by now,” Pudding answered him. “I wouldn’t risk trying it.”
Caterwaul looked back at Muse. She was practically frozen with fear. He knew if he was going to be able to escape this trap, it would be impossible dragging a terrified cat behind him. He immediately thought of Juan and Feliz.
Staring with utmost seriousness into Pudding’s eyes, he said, “Take your cousin to the back of the windmill where Gerhard is. Juan and his brother are there. They will protect you. Go now!” he ordered.
Muse was shaking with fear. She looked up at Caterwaul with her big blue eyes and stammered, “Please . . . don’t go. Don’t leave me here.”
“I don’t want to! Muse, I swear it! But the Felinos are after me. If I stay here or if I try to take you with me, we’re both going to be caught. You saw what they did to Gerhard. I beat up Lucius Jr. I embarrassed him in front of his family. Can you imagine what they plan to do to me? And they will torture you, too, just for being with me. I won’t have that. I like you, Muse. I like you a lot, and I won’t have you hurt because of me.
“Pudding . . . Get yourselves to safety, now!”
With only a split second’s hesitation, Pudding grabbed Muse by the forepaw and dashed with fear toward the sanctuary of the cushioned room.
Caterwaul didn’t know what to do next. There were Felinos inside the building now, as well as out. The trapped partygoers were scared and showing no signs they were willing to resist. Caterwaul tore wildly up the stairs to the second and then to the third level. There, a number of cats were trying to hide, either by standing motionless or hiding under clumps of hay, fabric, or other sources of cover. Caterwaul tripped over one of the hidden cats who instinctively shot his paw out at him with claws out.
The cat struck him sharply in the left hind leg, and Caterwaul fell over screaming.
“Sorry, man,” whispered the cat from under the hay, which concealed him. “I didn’t mean it. You stepped on me, and I just reacted. Instinct, you know?”
Caterwaul hoped that his outcry did not give him away. He was wrong. Looking down from his position high above the ground, he could see Lucius Jr. pointing up at him and motioning for his men to pursue. Jr. was looking confident today. He had at least twelve soldiers with him inside the windmill. There were probably an equal number stationed outside waiting.
Saliva flew from Lucius’s mouth as he barked orders to his men. His face was marked by a big, stupid grin, and his fat belly shook as he watched the terrified Caterwaul trying to escape.
Everything about this Felino underboss repulsed him. But there was one thing about his appearance in the windmill that particularly angered Caterwaul. There, sitting on the top of Lucius Jr.’s enormously grotesque head, held in place only by the use of a strap, was Gerhard’s sailor’s cap.
Caterwaul was shaking as he climbed, terrified and angry at the same time. He thought he was done for. Surely the Felinos would get him and do all sorts of terrible things to him. And to think he had gotten so close. Well, at least they wouldn’t hurt his beautiful Muse now.
Pudding pulled Muse back into the farthest and darkest corner of the cushioned room, trying to get her cousin out of sight.
“Caterwaul said that you’d keep us safe,” she whispered to the guardian brothers. Juan nodded that he understood and took up a defensive position at the front and left of Gerhard. At the same time, Feliz took up a similar one on the right.
The smaller brother was smiling as he tapped his oversized claws on the stone floor like a piano player practicing his scales. He had incredible dexterity and could snap his claws in or out with blinding speed. Pudding imagined the amount of damage he was capable of inflicting with those razors. Feliz was itching for a good scrap.
Juan scanned the room for pillows with rope tassels on them. He saw three. “Grab those cushions with the ropes attached to them and bring them here,” he spoke quietly to the frightened Pudding. She was scared, but she moved forward to do what he asked. Muse squeezed Pudding’s paw as if to beg her not to move; she was trying desperately not to cry.
“I’ll be right back,” Pudding whispered to her cousin. “Don’t worry; I’m right here with you. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” Once she had gathered the three pillows with the tassels, Juan instructed her to make a slit in the center of the fabric covering each. She then loaded them with four good-sized rocks and slid them down into the corner opposite the tassel.
“Can you lift them?” asked Juan. “The cushions . . . Can you still lift them?”
“Yes . . . I think so,” said Pudding.
“Good. Now here is what I want you to do,” he leaned forward and whispered something in her ear.
“Hey, tough guy,” shouted Lucius Felino Jr. to the fleeing Caterwaul. “Where do you think you’re going, tough guy? The family’s here, and everyone wants to meet you.” He let out a huge, satisfied laugh. “You’re not so tough now, are you?
“Why don’t you crawl on back down here now, so as I can make the introductions . . . you know . . . all formal and proper-like. After all, just because we may be animals doesn’t mean that we gotta act like animals, if you catch my drift.” He was laughing hysterically at his own weak joke.
Caterwaul heard all of this, but kept moving. He knew that Lucius Jr. was only taunting him. He knew they would torture him mercilessly if they caught him. More than likely, he would be killed. He remembered the powder he had taken from the sycamore seedpods. Turning swiftly he removed his pack. The pursuing Felinos were still quite a ways off.
He grabbed the piece of folded up paper he had placed the seeds in and opened it. He had more than enough for one use, but then it would be gone. It’s one and done, he thought. Oh well, now’s as good a time as ever.
He was now positioned on a narrow, wooden ledge between the fourth and fifth level of the windmill. He pressed his body close to the wall, hoping that the Felinos would not see him hiding above them when they reached level four.
About a minute later, they were right below him. There were three of them, and they appeared confused. Their sense of smell indicated that they were close, but they did not know exactly where their quarry was. The one who appeared to be the leader placed his paws on the handrail and raised himself up to signal to his boss below that they had lost him. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Trust me, he’s up there!” shouted Lucius Jr. “Find him. He can’t have just disappeared.”
Caterwaul smiled. As a matter of fact, he could disappear. But that was an ability he dared not use right now. Use of that particular incantation, like most of his more powerful ones, drained a terrible amount of energy from him. If he were to use the spell, he would be useless if they later found him and it came to blows. Besides, he didn’t dare do anything that might leave Muse unprotected.
Two of the Felino bruisers came into view near the cushioned room. Muse saw them, and it looked like she was about to explode with fright. She started whimpering for her cousin and pointing toward the big, muscular cats. Pudding put her finger to her mouth to quiet her cousin, but it was a lot to ask of the terrified cat.
“I see Gerhard over there. Lying on those cushions,” said one of the Felinos to his buddy. “It looks like he’s pretty much out of action from the beating we gave him earlier. I don’t think he’ll present any problems, but go tell the boss that he’s here anyway.”
While the second thug turned and ran back to where Lucius Jr. was, the first one approached the prone Gerhard slowly. Gerhard was unconscious, and his breathing was erratic. The Felino bruiser soon stood directly over his near-lifeless body. The gray foreigner had been seriously hurt. He was only inches from the great and final finish line marking the end of his life.
How easy it would be to snuff out that life, thought the bruiser. He popped out his index claw and held it precariously close to Gerhard’s throat. All it would take is one swipe, he thought.
Suddenly the large Felino’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he went limp. As he fell backward, he tried to stop his fall by grabbing at anything he could. He found nothing, and he toppled. As he looked up, the last thing he saw before blackness was the wide-smiling Feliz shaking a fur-covered paw at him.
Caterwaul waited until all three of the Felinos chasing him were bunched closely together, and then he sprung toward them. As he leaped, he opened the folded paper containing the “itchy powder” from the sycamore pods. The dusty fibers spread out, covering the three Felino thugs below him. As he landed, he took off in the direction of the fifth level.
“There he is. Grab him,” shouted the leader. The three soldier cats barely made it as far as the stairs up to the next landing before they started itching uncontrollably. “What in the world?!” the lead cat shouted as he doubled over and began scratching himself.
All three of the Felino soldiers were affected by the seed fibers. They gnawed and pawed and swiped at their flesh with their open claws, tearing long, red gashes in their skin. It was as if all three of them had fallen simultaneously into a bucketful of fleas. The cries they let out were horrible. Everyone on the ground wondered what awful thing was happening on the fourth level. Suddenly it became clear as one of the incapacitated felines fell flailing to the ground below. He landed on one of his fellow ruffians with a splat.
Then a second cat came tumbling through the air. This time the cat seemed so preoccupied with something on his skin that he had no idea that he was hurtling toward the ground. This time those on the ground were sensible enough to move out of the way, and the cat landed hard. He shrieked in agony, but still he didn’t stop scratching his itchy skin.
“Please don’t throw me over,” the leader of the three cats pleaded. “I promise you I’ll go away . . . you’ll never ever see me again.”
Caterwaul wasn’t fazed. Grabbing the Felino by his fancy collar, he dragged him to the edge of the platform. Looking fiercely at the squirming cat beneath him, Caterwaul snarled, “This is for Gerhard,” and kicked him over the edge. The tomcat screamed, twisting in terror as he fell and landed on his back below.
Now furiously defiant, Caterwaul jumped up onto the top of the handrail and shouted down to Lucius Jr. “Is that all you got, you fat sack of sandbox droppings?”
On the ground below, Lucius Felino Jr. roared. He was foaming at the mouth now, and copious amounts of thick, white drool flew out of it in all directions. “I want him dead! Now!” he screamed to his remaining men. “You hear me?”
Noticing that one of their companions had not returned from his investigation of the unconscious Gerhard, two Felino soldiers went looking for him. As they neared the incapacitated cat, Juan and Feliz sprang at them from the shadows. The cats appeared to be evenly matched, though the fight was fierce. For a while it looked like Feliz might have the advantage over his opponent, but then looks often deceive.
The much larger Felino soldier was tough as they come, and he was more than able to withstand the swipes of even Feliz’s oversized claws. Feliz swung his paws at him repeatedly, but still the Felino kept coming. Finally the big cat was able to knock Feliz over onto his back. It was over. Feliz could feel the larger cat’s paws pressing tightly against his throat as he lost consciousness.
Juan was holding up well against his opponent, but now that Feliz was out of the fight, he knew his time was short. There was no way he could take on both his man and the cat that had just KO’d his brother. Especially since Feliz was acknowledged by most of Harsizzle as the better fighter of the two.
Frightened, Juan flailed out, wildly throwing his paws out in all directions at the same time. He was starting to panic. They had him in a vulnerable position with his back up against one of the pillars separating the cushion room from the rest of the old windmill. They moved toward him from two directions, making sure that he could not get away. At that moment, something large and heavy connected with the face of one of the Felino cats. He cried out for an instant before falling over. The gangster was knocked out cold.
The remaining Felino soldier spun around to see who or what it was that had just crushed his companion’s face. It was Pudding, and she was angry. In her hands she held one of the ropes, which were attached to one of the tasseled pillows. With the rocks inside the pillow it was very heavy, and it was all she could do to keep her balance as she spun it around her body. Following through, she delivered a ferocious uppercut with the pillow, hitting the second thug so hard in his soft belly that it literally lifted the cat off his feet.
She was wild-eyed and full of fury, snarling as she held on tightly to the rope tassel. Juan moved in to calm her down. Her nostrils flared, and she looked back at him with crazed eyes. She was trembling from the sudden adrenaline rush. It looked for a moment like she might lash out at her protector. Then suddenly she was back in control. Sanity returned to the young cat’s eyes.
Pudding was starting to tear up. Never in a million years would she have thought she’d have to do what she did that night. Looking back and seeing that her cousin was still safe, she dropped the pillow and sank to the ground weeping.
Juan motioned to Muse to come over and together the two of them wrapped their arms tightly around a very scared, very brave, chocolate-colored kitty, who just might have saved all of their lives.