Wildfire Gospel (Habitat) (13 page)

I sighed. “No killing anybody.”

“No. Not that. The Prime has been itching to play with the Sisters ever since we first saw them flying in the air.”

I grinned as much as I could with swollen lips. “Then let him.”

“I will. Let’s just hope he doesn’t decide to eat one. I don’t like the idea of having those creatures in my stomach.”

“I’m more worried that he’ll bore them with philosophy.”

“My beast
is
a bookish one.” He pushed his fangs from his lips. His skin darkened to black as his pants ripped. A minty fragrance swarmed around us. I breathed his power in and felt my swollen lips lowering back to normal. Zulu’s massive leathery wings rose higher and higher and then spread out behind him. His claws ripped through his fingertips. The hem in his pants ripped as they fit the Prime’s wider waist. The seam on the pants’ sides tore while Zulu’s already big thighs enlarged and bulged. But it wasn’t until his pupils transformed from sparkling dark blue and gold to black that I knew for sure the Prime had taken over. “Lanore, finally he lets me free to have some fun. I get bored in his core. I should be out more, playing and reading.”

“We’ll have to change that and get you some time out of his body.”

“Good. Tell him so. He’ll listen to you.” He leaned my way and landed a peck on my cheek.

“Be good.”

He licked his lips. “They smell yummy and they’re so big, surely a limb or two won’t be missed.”

“I’m serious.”

“If I’m really good, promise me that you’ll let me do what Zulu did to you in the blood sucker’s bath tub.”

My mouth dropped open. “What do you mean exactly?”

“Never mind. Zulu is threatening me in my head.” The Prime spread his wings out and jumped in the air. “Let’s give these ugly harlots some entertainment.”

“Prime, no.”

He hovered over me. “I won’t kill anyone.”

The Prime rose in the air at an insane speed. Even with my puffy view, I could see him soaring over us all.

“This is fine entertainment. You will be allowed to feed longer than the others tonight, Dante of the Bottelli Family!” Jru cackled and flapped her wings to reach the Prime. Her pace was sluggish. There was no way she would catch up with him. The other Sisters rose too. The Prime zipped by them, stirring up their snaky hair and causing all of them to chuckle. For some odd reason, it made me jealous to see these sick creatures so enamored with him. Surely they were no competition against me when it came to Zulu’s love, but a pang of jealousy hit my chest just the same.

I don’t like sharing him. Maybe I should burn one. Oh goodness. I sound like a Shapeshifter.

“Let’s go.” Sakura tugged at my arm. “You’re looking better.”

I touched my face. My eyes had gone down enough that I could open them wider with no problems. I swallowed and although my throat burned, it didn’t hurt as much.

“Will you be okay to walk to my portal?”

With the Prime semi-in-charge and those crazy Sisters flying around him, I didn’t want to be gone too long. “Yes. I’m feeling better already.”

“Good. Then let’s go before anyone notices we’ve been gone too long.” She guided me away from the feeding area.

Lanore

Sakura and I walked for a while in silence, veering off on a different path then the one that I traveled earlier. Dante had warned me to keep my conversation with her down to minimum as possible. I found doing what Dante said only assisted him in his goals not mine.

“So you’re from the Shinto Habitat?” I wondered how much I could get from her.

“I was born and raised there.”

“Born?”

“I began as a human outside of the walls. My family sold me to the Endo family within the Shinto Habitat to serve them during childhood and make me into a Vampire at the beginning of adulthood.”

Shocked, I turned to her. “So Japan allows Vamps to buy Human babies.”

“Our laws are relaxed when it comes to Vampires and human relations. My government understands how great of an impact our species has had on mankind. Therefore, there isn’t a limit of how many humans can be made into Vampires as with the United States. Most Japanese that apply to be converted get accepted. It is why we have the largest Vampire population within the compound.”

I’d read news reports that the Converted process in the US lasted two years, from the moment a human filled out the paper work and took the mental health examination to actual approval to enter a particular habitat and be made into a Vampire. The application fee rose to thirty-five thousand dollars. The process was big business for the government. Congress committees formed to regulate it. Banks provided loans with high interests to cover the fees. Lawyers flooded the capitol to argue for various lobbyists on either site of the Conversion process debate. There were even cases of forged approvals, under the table deals by corporations trying to sneak people into habitats to learn magic secrets, and even religious leaders’ holding press conferences on whether the government was killing souls with each approval of a person into vampirism.

With all of that involved, new committees were created to decrease the Vamp population. Converted process procedures tightened up and decreased the approval rate to less than five percent of all applications. There’d been an epidemic of people moving to other countries and beginning the Converted process overseas. Next came the Age Restriction law, Congress created it to limit Vamps’ ages to a hundred years old. The Supreme Court was presently reviewing the case. There wasn’t any ruling on whether the law would be considered constitutional or not. I’d been following it in the lower courts for years. The average life expectancy rate for humans was eighty years old. Vamps averaged two hundred years old. I doubted humans would be sympathetic to the Vamp’s cause. With Dante being over a hundred years, he would be one of the first ones to go.

Making my life very simple.

“Dante seems to think you’ll be the one to step over the portal.” Sakura guided me forward. “He’s been arguing his theory about how magic species would eventually evolve into one that could surpass human security. He’s tried and failed with many creatures, doing his tests here and there. By this time, my enthusiasm for his theory has died down. I don’t think it will ever come true.”

Ever come true? He’s been trying this before. This is what he was doing on the poor Mermaid and Troll as well as all the other creatures down in his glass jails.

“How long has he been talking about this theory?”

A wrinkle formed under her full moon brand. “For many years now. We’ve tested several Purebloods. Only a few Fairies could enter my compound, nothing more. None could even step near my portal.”

“So not everyone can enter a family’s compound?”

“No. Only the people in the same habitat can enter each other’s compounds and only the family member can use the portals.”

I nodded, remembering what Dante had said earlier. Doors lined the rocky walls to my right. Signs were nailed to them with symbols at the center.

“We should come to my compound soon.” In no time, she stopped us at a solid black door with white Japanese characters written on a tan sign. “I must say. Your command of the English language is by far better than the others from the Santeria Habitat Dante has had me test the portal with.”

“Really?” I did my best to maintain a straight face without giving a shocked look to this new knowledge that she’d dropped into my lap. “How bad did they speak?”

“Oh, they were such an odd bunch.” Sakura grinned, but I got the feeling that warmth didn’t drift behind that expression. She held the same look one would have, when figuring out what game piece to play. “They were Shapeshifters of some sorts. I only knew this because they kept this half shifted form the whole time, and every other word was a ‘me this’ and ‘me that.
’”

Rebels.

“Interesting.” I shrugged with a fake bored expression. “I don’t spend time around Purebloods in my habitat, so maybe it’s a Shifter thing.”

Or more like a Rebel thing. Dante had Rebels down here.

“Could be.” She winked, slid an ivory key out of her pocket, put it in the keyhole, and opened the door. That Jasmine fragrance flowed out. It was such a welcome after the onslaught of brimstone earlier.

“How long ago were those weird sounding Shifters down here?” I wasn’t sure if she would tell me the truth, but regardless I would be interested to hear her answer.

“On and off for five years now. I believe the last Shifter he brought my way was six months ago. They all kept that crazy speech.” She stopped in the doorway. “Why do you ask?”

She knows what she’s doing.

“Just wondering.” I didn’t know how, but she knew it was important I understand Dante worked with the Rebels in some capacity.

One of the main reasons Zulu aligned with the Rebels was because they agreed with us on two things: habitat supernaturals deserved more rights and Vamps enslavement of Mixbreeds was wrong. At no time, did the Rebels tell us they ever dealt with Vamps. In fact, Nona and her followers made it a point of wanting to kill all Vamps. Yet, here Sakura told me that Dante has supplied many Rebels to see if they could pass through the portals. Additionally, Dante had professed this innocence in being shocked that Zulu could even go through his portal. It was as if on the spot Dante came up with the idea that supernaturals could transfer through portals at all.

He’s been playing us the whole time.

My head spun in circles. In one moment, Dante was an enemy, then an ally, to only possibly be my number one enemy again. My body heated. I was ready to torture him with flames until I got the truth. All this time I’d assumed Dante worked with the Rebels and had spies inside of MFE, but at the Masquerade Ball he claimed his innocence and provided reasonable logic.

But he couldn’t have been telling the truth if he had Rebels down here. Or was that the only extent of Dante and the Rebels relationship? Or even worse, is Sakura lying? Is she aware of Dante and my fragile alliance and willing to poke at it enough until it breaks?

There were several things that I knew to be true. If Rebels had actually been underground with Dante, then he was aligned with Mother Earth because Rebels wouldn’t make any move without Nona ordering them to do it and Nona wouldn’t have let Rebels down here without the approval from Mother Earth.

“What’s on your mind?” Sakura twisted around with a smooth elegance as she held some of her robe in her hand as to not have the beautiful fabric wrap around her ankles and trip her. “Are you worried about being harmed in any way? I’ll assure you that if you cannot enter my compound you will only feel an initial stinging. Just back up. If you try again however, you’re brand will heat to the point that your brain feels like it is boiling. So if I were you, I wouldn’t try it a second time.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not scared of a little heat.” I stepped into her compound with no problem.

The right corner of her mouth lifted for a few seconds. “You’ve passed the first test. Now let’s see if you can go through the portal.”

“Have many passed the first test?”

“Most of Dante’s test people do. Part of his theory, which I’m sure you know, is that supernatural blood is the key to our ability to all obtain freedom. For years he’s played with his tubes of blood, testing and practicing. It wasn’t until he discovered traces of Fairy blood in one of the Vamp-owned and then manipulated those traces to weaken many of the human security precautions down here, that we all believed him. Before then, our families could never congregate with other habitat families. To even come near them guaranteed seizures. There were no huge square or get-together like feedings. He gave us the ability to all unite.”

“How did he manage to stop the seizures from happening?”

“The pills he designed from the Mixbreed’s blood. Once we took them it let us all enter other compounds. The Sisters gave him his own family and a lab to create more. Eventually he learned to develop other things.”

In other words blood drugs like Hemo Drop that him and other Vamp families trafficked in and out of Santeria. That’s how the drugs have been going to other habitats. I figured the humans did it.

Sakura got in front of me. “Do you wonder why I tell you this?”

“I do.”

“I’ve heard many things about you, and enjoyed your performance on television a few days ago. I believe an alliance between Endo and MFE would be most appreciated for the Shinto Habitat.”

I’m not sure I’ll be aligning with any more Vamps. I’m more thinking about killing all of you.

“I’ll have to discuss this with my partner, but I’m interested in this alliance.”

“Good. I needed to make that clear, being that it seems your connection with Dante seems to be on shaky ground.”

“While it is shaky, I’m sure we’ll come to a common agreement soon.”

He won’t be able to disagree when he’s dead.

She walked off and I followed her. Unlike Dante’s compound, there was a feel of peace that transcended throughout the space. Lit candles covered almost every surface. On the floor were soft white rugs with green thread woven into elaborate designs.

Two short men with half-moon brands in their forehead flanked the door on the far end.
What type of Shapeshifters are they?
Sunglasses hid their eyes. They wore black suits and white shirts. The one on the left had a short buzz cut. The one on the right’s black hair hung to his shoulders. The men bowed when we approached and then something weird happened. They sniffed the air together and blurred to me, touching my dreadlocks and smelling my skin. I tensed, but didn’t move away. Living with a Were-cheetah taught me to never make too many abrupt movements when catching an unknown Shifter’s attention. Who knew what they changed into?

“Taki! Keo! Enough.” Sakura pushed them away. Light glowed behind their glasses. The shorthaired one yipped. It was so weird to hear from him. They dragged themselves back to the door they’d been guarding. The longhaired shifter spoke in Japanese.

“Speak in English, when Miss Vesta is around.” Sakura got in the middle of me and them. “I want her to understand that the Endo Family and all of its workers hold no secrets and play no games. Why did you react that way?”

They remained quiet.

“Keo?”

The longhaired one lifted the right side of his lip, exposing a long red fang among white teeth. He stared at me. “She smells like fire. I like it.”

“Regardless, you are not to approach her like that again.”

“But why does she smell—”

“She is our friend. It is her choosing if she wants to divulge information about herself later.”

“Yes, Sakura.” He directed his attention from me to her. “There has been another delivery.”

Sakura replied in Japanese.

Well I guess the family does hold some secrets.

I wished I could see through Keo’s glasses. People wearing sunglasses around me ranked high on my list of things that annoyed me. I always felt strange like they were watching and analyzing my face.

“Is there a problem?” I asked once they stopped talking.

Sakura paused for a few seconds and then cleared her throat. “It is nothing that concerns you right now. Although I would like you to assist me with this problem one day, now is not the time. It’s a situation that only I must deal with for today.”

Interesting.

“We will have to let you test my portal on another day.”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back down here again. Now is the best time.”

“I was told something else by Dante.” She faced me. “That your visit with us was permanent.”

I figured he would try to keep us down here. I wonder if he even has Mother Earth’s apartment being watched or not. For all I know Mother Earth and him are working together. How stupid I’ve been.

I formed my lips into a smile and brightened my eyes, which gave me an orange view. She needed to see the fire within my eyelids to understand that my next words were no joke. “If you care about anybody down here, you’ll want to keep them away from Dante’s vicinity. If he tries to keep me or my partner down here, things will get hot and lots of blood will spray.”