Seabreeze snarled at the plump, brown kittypet. He backed away slowly, staring up at the patrol of Clan cats. The journeying cats had just arrived in Twoleg Place, and this overfed kittypet was their first obstacle.
"Please! Don't hurt me! What do you want from me?" the kittypet was splayed on the ground, trying to shrink away from the Clan cats.
Tawnymist stepped forward. "Do you know of any cat named Snaketail?" Her voice was definite and demanding.
The tom's eyes grew wide for a split second, then he blinked and shook his head vigorously. "No! I mean, no. I...I don't know what your talking about!"
Windstreak bared his teeth. "If you don't tell us, all cats will be in danger!"he hissed.
The tom's eyes grew wide with fear. "Well....yes...yes, I know Snaketail."
Tawnymist sat on her haunches. "Tell us what he told you."
The patrol of cats all sat back and let the kittypet have room to speak. The fur on their necks bristled with excitement of finding a clue and hatred for Snaketail.
"Well," the tom sat up and licked his front paw. "I am Rufus. Snaketail was wandering through the Twoleg Place one night and I was on the fence. He spotted me and bounded up to me and told me tales of bad, mean cats who will take over the forest if I don't help him. I told him I don't live in the forest, so what would I care? Then...then he said he would..kill me if I didn't help him. That he would kill ALL of us!"
Fallowheart's tail twitched. "Us? You mean there's more of you?"
"Yes," Rufus sighed. "He wanted to make an army of house cats to defeat the evil cats." He looked at the Clan cats. "Wait. You're the cats! You're..the evil cats!" Rufus's eyes grew wide with fear as he looked the foreign cats over.
"No," Windrunner stood up. "He is the bad one. We are trying to stop him."
"Hmmm," Rufus took the information in. "Well..."
Seabreeze growled. "Okay! Okay!" Rufus jumped as the fierce warrior growled at him. "Follow me."
Rufus led the cats to an abandoned Twoleg nest. "In here," Rufus ordered the cats as he slipped inside a broken window. The Clan cats followed him inside.
~~~
Lilymask looked around warily. Twoleg Place was big and daunting and she had just lost the PoplarClan cats. The last time she saw them, they were talking with a plump brown kittypet. Then she caught a songbird on a fence, looked back, and they were gone.
Where could they be? she thought. She HAD to warn them about the horrible danger they were in...