“Look, we need to work together if we’re going to take care of those three.” She indicated the first three garages. “Especially team number three. The Tigrans in spot one got lucky, and I don’t know what’s up with the weirdos and the giant dog insecond place, but the women with that car... They’re going to win this if we don’t do something now.”
As if she’d summoned them, the door to garage number three started to open.
“Who is it?” Donut asked.
“Womantaurs,” the fox said. “Two womantaurs and their half-mantaur gimp.”
[ 13 ]
The door togarage number two opened. We just gawked.
“Carl, what am I looking at?” Donut asked.
“Uh,” I said.
The female version of these mantaur things were... different than the male version, at least at first glance. The guys were just like a large buff dude with a second torso protruding from the neck area, giving them four arms. The women—at least these two women—had four legs, making them look much more like traditional centaurs, only somehow it looked even more fucked-up. The back half was two legs, a bent-over torso, and then two more legs where a regular person’s arms would have been.
Their backs were arched and rounded, swooping upward instead of down like a horse’s, making their gait seem uncomfortable and unnatural, like a regular person walking on all fours without bending their elbows.
The secondary torsos of both the women were as broad and as muscle-bound as those of their male counterparts. Their top arms bulged under their suits.
The men normally wore little loincloths on the bottom half and then a shirt on the top half, leaving their lower torso bare.
The women were dressed much different. They were both decked out in a sleek white racing suit with a red-and-blue stripe down the center, going all the way up to their necks. All four legs had long, slick black boots that went up past their knees.
“Fucking weird,” I muttered as they stiff-legged toward us.
“Wait until you see the third one,” Chiyome said.
I was starting to suspect my initial impression was actually wrong. The forward, or top, set of legs might actually have been arms, not legs. Arms shoved into boots. That would explain their strange gait and posture.
One womantaur had straight black hair, and the other had a mop of curly red hair.
Both wore cowboy hats. Massive, gleaming white cowboy hats. Both hats had a red-and-blue band around the center, matching their suits.
They paused in the center of the cul-de-sac, examining us, standing in the same place the razor foxes had just performed their dance or whatever. The two women abruptly stood to their full height, arching their backs, which cracked audibly as they stood. When they stood upright, they both left their forward boots on the road, proving my initial impression was indeed incorrect, and they did have a second set of hands like the male versions. Why they’d walk around with boots on their lower hands was beyond me.
The one with black hair was named Genesis, and she was a level 95Lady Mantaur Dominator. The freckle-covered one with the red curly hair was named Rapture. She had the same level and class.
They didnotworship Grull like every other mantaur I’d ever seen. Both worshipped someone named Enyo.
“Howdy,” Genesis said, looking us up and down. “Would you look at that, Rapture?”
She had a Southern-fried American accent. Kentucky, if I had to guess.
Rapture didn’t say anything. She just grunted and then spat out the side of her mouth. A brown glob hit the ground. Chewing tobacco.
“Hello, ladies,” Donut said tentatively. “It looks like we’ll be neighbors for the next few days.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Genesis said. She continued to stare at us up and down. Rapture crossed both sets of arms. It was like they were waiting for us to do or say something.
“Want a beer?” Radoslav asked, pulling one of the peach ones out of his cooler and offering it up. Next to him, Jasha let out another snore and turned over in his chair, causing the open beer on his stomach to finally fall. It hit the driveway and started to roll down toward the street, trailing beer.
Rapture’s arm shot forward, and a lance of metal appeared, shooting from her wrist. A harpoon bolt attached by a thin gleaming cable. The bolt skewered the rolling beer can and retracted, pulling the half-empty can to the upper hand of the womantaur. The harpoon fully retracted back into her wrist, loudly ripping a giant hole in the can. She raised the ruined aluminum can to her nose and sniffed it. She offered it to Genesis, who also sniffed it. She made a sour face.
Donut: THESE LADIES REMIND ME OF YOUR FRIEND BILLY MALONEY’S SISTERS. THE ONES THAT DID THE BODYBUILDING. WHAT DID MISS BEATRICE CALL THEM? THE WALMART SISTERS?
Carl: I remember. And that was a dick thing for Bea to call them.