The Burning Bush (2 page)

“What the rocky hell is going on?” He rushed to a glass box near his door, broke it open, and pulled out a sheet of paper and bag of herbs.

Crap!
Our spy never told me the factory had extinguishing spells. I had to destroy that paper before the Troll completed the chant. Everyone needed to get out of the facility before they died or got injured. I glanced over my shoulder. Mixies emerged from the restrooms, ambling along as if they didn’t hear the fire alarm. Maybe they figured it was just a practice drill.
Come on. See the fire and get out of here!
I darted to the edge of the room near the staircase and yelled, “Fire! Run!”

Most of the Mixies leaving the bathrooms sprinted to their workstations, grabbed their belongings, and raced to the exit. A few looked back, perhaps wondering who had screamed the warning. Relief flowed through me.

“Wait a minute! You don’t leave until I say you leave,” the Troll shouted, but they were already out of the factory. He glanced down at the paper he was holding and chanted, “Um . . . rush of willow purged with . . . raven’s hair?”

“Fire!” I flung fireballs at his feet. Jumping up and down, he shrieked and dropped the spell’s instructions and herbs. As soon as the paper hit the floor, I directed a few flames to the page.
He can’t finish the spell without the words.

The alarm rings increased.

“Forget this!” The Troll stomped out the flames on his shoes and raced to the exit.

My skin tingled. I rubbed my face, hoping the Fairy glamour still hid me. More employees ran by and acted as if they couldn’t see me. I bobbed around them, so I wouldn’t bump into anybody and give my position away. I raced out of the production area, ran up the stairs, and almost bumped into Nona when I arrived on the second level. She was naked and preparing to shift.

“I think most of the workers left,” I said. “Make sure you check the bathrooms and the break area.”

Nona jerked back and sniffed the air. “Lanore?”

I had forgotten she couldn’t see me with the glamour on.

“Sorry,” I said. “Yes. It’s me. Did you hear everything I just said?”

“Yeah, mon.” Nona dove over the staircase railing like she could fly and shifted in midair to a massive, white pit bull. She dropped and landed on her paws.

“Nice one, Nona.” I would have clapped if we had had time. Unfortunately, I’d been forced to suck up to her whenever possible. When I first met her months ago, I thought she was a Were-wolf and told her so. She didn’t speak to me for a whole week. Apparently Were-dogs considered it an insult to be compared to Were-wolves. I’d been sucking up to her ever since.
Shapeshifters and their egos.

I continued up the staircase. On the third floor, I zipped down a blue-carpeted hallway, passing several framed photographs of high-powered Vamps in suits. Filled with an urge to take as many things as I could regardless of their importance, I pocketed one of the frames and a red pen lying on the floor. The maintenance door stood at the end of the hall. I snatched the door open, hurried in, and spotted Zulu and two Fairies hovering over the bomb.

Zulu’s blond dreadlocks were pulled back into a large ponytail. He wore no shirt, just black army boots, and his signature indigo jeans, which accentuated his perfect abdominal muscles. Multicolored cords were sewn into the ivory skin on his arms. The cords started at his shoulders and went down into a swirly pattern to his wrists.

When I’d first seen them, I thought it was a cool design someone did for him at his tattoo shop. I’d called his arms “rainbow veins.” Eventually, he confessed the cords were a complicated spell to allow him to control his shifting into a dangerous, black Fairy beast called a Prime. As we grew closer, we made love, and during those delicious moments, Zulu claimed me with his Fairy magic without my knowledge or permission.

Now I had two of his cords implanted in my arm. My fingers rubbed against the white cords, so bright against the darkness of my skin.
We’re going to talk about getting rid of this claim tonight.

Zulu stood in a guarded stance, gazing at the bomb, not even looking my way. “Lanore, don’t you think you’re cutting it close?”

“I had to make sure everybody left.” I closed the door behind me.

“That’s Nona’s job,” Zulu snarled. “You promised in and out, then back to me.”

The ceiling light shined on him and the two other Fairies. Zulu standing next to the small bomb-makers made him look like a massive concrete statue.

“I remember what I promised.” I flipped him my middle finger, knowing he couldn’t see me.

Zulu’s head snapped up in my direction. “Well, two more seconds, and I was coming for you.”

“Can you see me?” I assumed I was still covered in Fairy glamour. I glanced at the bomb, then at him, and then back to the bomb.
How much time do we have left?

“I can’t see you, but I can sense you.” Zulu stepped my way, reaching his hand out. I slipped away before he could grab my waist and distract me.

“We can smell you too,” Clay said. He was one of the bomb-makers. He flashed a wide grin that displayed perfect teeth against coffee-colored skin. “You smell like melted sugar over lavender and cream. I’d take a lick if not for—”

“The fact that I would kill you immediately afterward.” Zulu’s dark-blue and gold eyes changed to midnight black in an instant.

Clay responded with a smirk and shifted his green leather jacket on his shoulders. The jacket gave his small frame a bulky appearance, which was probably why he wore it on such a hot and humid night.

“You’re not afraid of a little competition are you?” Clay dusted off his shoulders with his small hand. “I smell your claim on her, but I also get a whiff of the royalty in her blood. The Fairy council allows multiple claims on a high-grade bloodline.”

“I don’t obey the council.” Zulu targeted Clay with dark eyes. “You touch her, I kill you.”

“Maybe we should all concentrate on the bomb in the middle of the room.” I groaned.

Zulu and Clay had been arguing ever since we’d contracted the bomb-makers. It was just one more thing added to our pile of never-ending stress and anxiety as we helped the Rebels attack a powerful Vampire named Dante Bottelli.

Dante had just purchased Linderman’s Blood Factory from a group of Water Witches. The media covered the whole negotiation. Linderman’s controlled seventy-five percent of all blood exports to Human cities. The news correspondents declared the factory’s value to be over $10 million. Every rich entrepreneur in Santeria and the surrounding Human city of Miami had invested money in Linderman’s. This business deal pushed the Bottelli Vampire family to the top of the power pyramid in Santeria, with Dante balancing right on the tip.

Mother Earth, an advisor for the Rebels, had come up with the plan to bomb the factory. Everyone was excited about the idea but Zulu and me.
A bomb?
Sure we wanted to attack Dante. He’d killed numerous Vamp-owned Mixies, people who had given their lives to serve Vampires. He’d released them into a box, locked them in, and let them suffocate. And he did it just to piss off Zulu and me. It worked.
But a bomb?
The whole idea was over the top.

Zulu and I begged and pleaded with Mother Earth and the Rebels to try an alternative plan, one that didn’t involve blowing up a freaking facility. But they fought us. In the end, we knew the Rebels would bomb the factory anyway. They didn’t care about the loss of innocent lives. Anybody that wasn’t with the Rebels was an enemy, so Zulu and I volunteered to head up the entire operation. Our primary goal was to guarantee that the bomb harmed no one.

“We have ten minutes.” Tyson, the other bomb-maker, rubbed his black beard with his only hand. His right arm was completely gone. He had only one working eye. Glass filled the other eye socket. The right half of his dark skin resembled a young Shifter’s chew toy. “Ten minutes.”

“You just announced that a second ago.” Clay strolled my way, his nostrils flaring in and out as he sniffed in my direction. He licked his lips and chuckled. I shook my head. I was pretty sure he had no real interest in me and just enjoyed bothering Zulu.

“Be very careful, Clay,” Zulu warned. He nonchalantly put his hands in his pockets. But I wasn’t fooled by Zulu’s feigned calm. His anxiety, mixed with a twinge of jealousy, traveled through our bond and vibrated the cords in my right arm.

I tiptoed around Clay as he continued to search for me. What he was going to do when he found me I didn’t know, but it was best to keep my distance. People all over my caged city called Zulu the Heart Ripper, and it had nothing to do with romance.

“Almost nine minutes.” Tyson checked the doorway again. “Where’s the Were-dog? She’s late.”

“Her name is Nona,” I corrected. Blue sparks skittered across my flesh, sending a shiver through me. Loud pops sounded from my joints. Everyone looked my way. Cold spread across my body as if someone had dumped a pitcher of freezing water over my head. I inhaled the thick, sweet air of Fairy magic while the glamour evaporated and revealed my image.

“There you are.” Clay headed my way.

Claws pushed out of Zulu’s fingers, ready to dig through Clay’s chest and remove his heart.

“Let’s stay focused, baby.” I wagged my finger at Zulu and tossed him a disapproving look. The claws disappeared.

“If the dog doesn’t come in the next minute, I’m turning the bomb off.” Tyson kneeled down and grabbed yellow plastic pliers with silver tips. Plastic made up all the Fairy’s tools since iron and steel were deadly to his kind. Tyson held the pliers near the bomb’s clamp. Red numbers glowed on the capsule’s clock, decreasing with each second.

“You two okay with my shutting the bomb down?” Tyson asked.

“Yes.” I leaned my head to the side to get a better view. “Nona’s job is to make sure everyone is gone. If she isn’t back, turn it off.”

“I agree.” Zulu edged closer to me until his arm made contact with my skin. “Turn it off if Nona doesn’t show up.”

“Where’s your courage, guys?” Clay spread out his arms to the sides. “You paid a lot for that contraption. Might as well let it go . . . BOOM!”

I jumped. Clay laughed and eased over to his one-armed brother.

“The bomb doesn’t go off unless we signal you,” Zulu said. “Are you sure I can’t kill Clay?”

“Yes,” I said.

Tyson stared at the glowing red numbers. His forehead was wet with sweat. Drops fell down his silver wings brand and ran into his one good eye. He didn’t wipe them away, but continued to focus on the bomb. The pliers clacked together as his fingers shook.

He’s making me nervous.

The door swung open.

“No other heartbeats in this area but ours.” Nona entered the room in half-Human and half-beast form. It was the way the Rebels enjoyed walking around. Short, white fur covered her face and body, except for the black-spotted fur around her eyes. Her upper body was Human. Paws and hind legs served as her bottom half.

“Are you sure there’s no one else inside the factory but us?” I put my hands behind my back to hide their shaking.

“No one here, mon.” Nona observed the bomb, backed up, and stayed in the doorway. “Me soldiers push them Mixbreeds way back.”

I exhaled a loud breath and turned to Zulu.

“What’s Dante’s location?” Zulu asked.

“We’re approaching five minutes,” Tyson informed us.

“The Blood Pimp one block away,” Nona responded as she left without saying goodbye, putting distance between herself and the bomb.
Smart girl.

“Let’s do it.” Zulu seized my hand and guided me toward the one window in the maintenance room.

We’d attached a steel cable to the outside of the window and nailed the other end to Dante’s CEO parking space. Zulu and I were both half-Fairies, but the allergic reaction to steel and iron hadn’t passed down through our DNA. We could handle any metal or mineral that Pureblood Fairies couldn’t touch. We would glide down the cable to greet Dante as he arrived. I would have loved for Zulu to fly us out of there, but it wasn’t an option. He couldn’t reveal his powers to Clay and Tyson. We barely knew them.

“Are you okay?” Zulu asked as we stepped out onto the window ledge. “We can still stop this.”

“No we can’t. If the bombing doesn’t happen now, the Rebels will do this on their own later.” I climbed onto Zulu’s back. He clamped his hands onto the glider’s handle. “And then the whole habitat might be destroyed.”

“Ready?” Zulu’s body stiffened under me.

I shut my eyes and buried my face into his silky blond dreadlocks. His earthy scent of sandalwood calmed me. Warmth radiated from his satin skin. I pressed my breasts below the backs of his shoulders, feeling the rough edges of his jeweled skin through my thin cotton T-shirt. In addition to the cords on Zulu’s arms, the spell to control his shifting also created a jeweled wing pattern on his back. Instead of focusing on the long drop below the window ledge, I opened my eyes and gazed at the diamonds, amethysts, sapphires, and other gems encrusted in his skin.

“Go ahead, baby,” I murmured.

“You should already be gone,” Tyson insisted loudly.