Wildfire Gospel (Habitat) (2 page)

Lanore

Angel and I stood in a small room somewhere deep within the Bottelli family’s sleeping grounds. Icy mist hovered around us. Copper pipes zigzagged across the ceiling. A few drops trickled down. Dante had just turned the water off after I woke up naked, wet, and dressed in cold metal chains. He’d been prepared to keep me in this wet room that weakened my fire, but for how long did he plan? Months? Weeks? Days? Hours? Either way, it was smart of him to keep me drenched. His actions at the Masquerade Ball—kidnapping me and his guards killing MeShack—shoved him to the top of my list for people most likely to die from my fire.

Dante and four of his Vamps stayed in the hallway.

“Why do you want to kill Dante now, Lanore?”
Angel’s voice sounded clear in my head.

Her eyes gleamed from blue to orange, and then flickered to a copper color. She stepped my way. The bottom of her black robe dragged against the floor and soaked up some of the water. Dread stirred within me. She was Angel, but she didn’t look like her. It was still hard to get used to the changes—the scent of frankincense drifting from her skin, the missing brand, the lack of hair and teeth, and all this new power she possessed. She’d showed me that she could disappear into blinding white light and then reappear several feet away.

“Shouldn’t we work with Dante until we don’t need him?”
She talked in my mind with ease as if she’d been doing it all her life.

I adjusted the black raincoat on my shoulders.
“Because of him, MeShack is dead.”

“He is? Are you sure?”
Angel leaned her bald head to the side with concern etched on her face.
“Touch the back of your neck. Is his claim still there?”

MeShack’s claim.
I sighed. Just a kid himself, MeShack had bit me behind my neck while we watched cartoons. He marked me like adult Shifters did when making their petitions for matehood. Naturally at nine years old I thought it was just a fun little game, but as we grew up, he stubbornly continued with the same assertion. The mark remained all those years, just a faint scar with a tiny hump.

“How do you know about the claim, Angel?”

“I’m bald with crazy eyes and no forehead brand. I know shit!”
Her voice bounced around my skull.
“Just touch your damn neck, so we can decide if we’re going to kill Dante or not.”

My fingers itched to touch it now. My heart hesitated with fear. The mark represented the last bit of hope. Long ago, I’d read that the mark would only leave when the beast took the claim back or when the Shifter died. Perhaps I could go on never touching it and dreaming that somewhere in this caged city MeShack walked around, alive and happy.

Angel’s eyes transformed to silver just like the Palero’s always did.
“Check, Lanore!”

I lifted my hand to my neck and slid my finger against smooth skin. There was no bump. No claim. At first, I battled with the thoughts that played in my head—MeShack’s hazel eyes, his voice when he sang, his scent, the strength in his arms as he held me, and then finally the hurt in his feline eyes as the Vampire’s blade met his body.

“Lanore?” Angel stepped closer to me.

“The bump is gone.”

Angel closed her eyes, reached her hands out to me, and pulled me into an embrace. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I rested my face on her shoulder, but didn’t hug her back. My arms hung limp on my body.
So many people have died in these past days. No more. There won’t be anymore.
Tears filled my eyes, spilled over, and streamed down my face. “I told you.”

Angel tightened her grip. “Yes. You did.”

“I’m going to kill Dante.”
I hoped she caught my thought.
“If I killed him long ago, Cassie and MeShack would be alive.”

Angel leaned away. Various colors skittered across her pupils as if they were mood rings and couldn’t decide what mood she was in.
“We can’t kill him now, but we can do it later.”

“Why not?” I asked.

The ground quaked. I fell back and crashed onto the wet floor. Water splashed. Pain spread over my back. Angel rushed over, seized my arm, and helped me up. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” I shook water off my hands as best as I could. I needed my hands dry to burn the shit out of Dante. “What was that? You think it was another bomb in the habitat?”

Worry creased over Angel’s face. She gazed at the door where Dante rushed in. “No. It was not a bomb.”

The ground vibrated under me. I stumbled back again, losing my balance. A roar sounded far away and throbbed through the walls. The whole foundation around me pulsed with rage and swelled with the pounding of primal fury. Only one person roared like that.

Zulu.

“Where is he?” I would mourn MeShack later, in the moment when I could crawl into a dark corner, cover myself with blankets, and weep. There was no time for it now. Not when fury laced my man’s voice. “Dante you better not be hurting him!”

“Hurting
him
?” Dante hissed from the hallway. “He’s killed half of my guards.”

“Good.” I headed out of the room and glanced in the direction of where the noise came from, only to see a long corridor of glass—ceiling, walls, and floor. On most of the space, dirt formed on the other side of the surrounding glass. Yet, in many sections of the glass were rooms like you would find at a zoo or museum, the type filled with unusual animals that people visited with their families on the weekend to observe it in its territory.

“Where are we?” I stepped further down the hallway and squinted my eyes to get a better look of what were in some of these huge display cases. Dante gestured to his men to put their water guns down. In the first transparent room clear blue water filled the whole space. Green plants stuck in the ground and wavered back in forth as a mermaid swam by. I couldn’t make out her face. Gold scales decorated her tail. Her hair flowed in waves of gold and streaked with crimson red strands. She swam near the glass. A haze of red liquid swirled after her. She flicked it away with her tail and turned to the glass.

I jumped back. “What did you do to her?”

On the right side of her face revealed beauty, a gold eye and pale skin. A pattern of scars lay in straight lines on the other side as if someone had taken their time and with precision cut into her flesh.

“She is a part of my research.”

“You’re a monster.” I looked at the display case across from the mermaid’s. A naked female troll sat Indian style at the center of the room, gnawing on a yellow root that dripped milky white liquid at the tip. Bumps covered her brown skin. She looked like the average size of a typical female Troll, around six feet tall, huge arms, and two bulbous bellies divided by bone. I’d only seen adult Troll females in books. Once they became pregnant their cycle lasted two years. When they delivered the baby, the infant remained in the woman’s pouch for another two years. This one held a baby in each belly. Every few seconds they peeked out of the slitted opening and giggled at the other. Just like the mermaid, the mother and her two children had a pattern of cut lines on the right side of their faces.

“What are you doing to her and those kids?”

“If you desire the grand tour, you’ll have to wait until we have time.”

“I’m not interested.” I couldn’t look into any more glass cells, not while I was this weak and unable to free them. It would only make me feel guilty and knock me off my game.

“So is this some sort of lab?” I scanned the area for a way to escape when I needed it. It was like a tunnel carved within earth. I guessed we were somewhere deep underground, even lower than the old burial tunnels that habitat supe ancestors built long ago.

We can’t be under the Santeria Habitat or in Miami.

Underground construction was odd. Swampland made up most of Florida. Supes discovered methods to incorporate basements in their homes through spacing enchantments and portals that lead to other places. MeShack’s fraternity house was a good example. The door to the basement served as a portal. Once a person stepped over the copper lining of the doorway, they entered an area rented to them by Witches. The Council owned several spacing rentals that people used for basements, wine cellars, etc.

Maybe this place was a spacing rental like MeShack’s frat basement.

“Where are we?” I faced Dante. “What city or state?”

“That’s the number one question Vampires have been asking since we’ve been down here.”

Light bulbs trailed in a center line on the ceiling and illuminated the area. But still my chest constricted as if someone wrapped their hands around my throat and squeezed. I wasn’t claustrophobic, but being underground made me reconsider the possibility. The sliced up supes in glass prisons didn’t help either.

“It takes time to get used to.” Dante captured my attention again.

“What takes time, your torturing people or being underground?”

“It isn’t torture. Officials in and out of Santeria have approved every test.”

“Where is Zulu?” I asked.

“Remember. Don’t kill Dante!”
Angel’s voice grazed against my mind.

I cringed and glanced over my shoulder. “Don’t worry. My body is still wet and I have no idea where I will escape if I did.”

“Don’t worry about what?” Dante asked. “If you did what?”

“She thinks I’m going to try to kill you.”

Dante gestured to his guards. I smirked at the pitiful vamps with their plastic guns full of water. I could take all the guards with no problem, but Dante was the one I was worried about in a fight. The other Vamps all met Dante in size and height with the same chestnut-brown curls, but none could compare to the head leader of the Bottelli Family. I don’t know why, but I sensed great power from him unlike the others. Plus, enough violent history swung back and forth between us, that I would never second-guess him at any moment. He always guessed my moves and remained several steps ahead of my plans, outmaneuvering me at any given opportunity.

At the ball he claimed to not be involved with Mother Earth or the rebels as well as never intending to bomb the condo. Apparently, he’d only wanted to set Zulu’s living room on fire. Seconds later on a phone call with Detective Rivera, he told me that the human government knew about the Yemaya bombing all along, which forced me to realize that there were other players on this sick game board.

The only problem is, I have no idea if Dante and I are on the same side.

“My life line should be the last thing on your mind right now.” His pale-green eyes sparkled in the hallway light. A black scar in the shape of a cross covered his left eye, began at his forehead, and ended at his cheek. “It would be wise not to kill me, Lanore.”

“I’ve been labeled many things in my life; wise isn’t one of them.” I looked down at my raincoat and turned back to Dante. “I need clothes, sneakers, and Zulu.”

“And should I wait for you to say please?” he asked through clenched teeth. Some of his fangs peeked out from under his top lip.

I stepped so close only a few inches laid between us. His vamps positioned the points of their water guns at my head. I almost melted their guns just to prove a point.

Not now. Later.

“I should’ve killed you.” I looked him up and down. His expensive cologne suffocated me. “From the very beginning, Zulu wanted to tear your head off. Each time, I said no, let’s find another way. Violence isn’t the answer …”

The ground trembled under our feet as Zulu roared.

“Now what were you saying?” Dante crossed his arms over his chest and displayed a bored look. “It was something like, threat, regret, demand, and more pathetic threats. Meanwhile, I think we should direct our focus to the black winged maniac that’s ripping the hearts out of all of my family!”

“Where’s Zulu?”

“Don’t worry. I plan to take you to him immediately. Get her the clothes from earlier.” Dante turned to the Vamp farthest away. The lackey came over and handed me a clear bag. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

“You mean recover from the drug you injected in me.”

“I prefer wake up. When I took you at the ball, I hadn’t figured on Zulu tracking us.”

“Had you figured on kidnapping me?”

“Am I truly that much of a mastermind?”

“Maybe. You just happened to have some crap in a needle that immobilized and knocked me out. Is that really how you roll when you go to a ball? You just keep stuff in your pockets to put women to sleep?”

“Focus on the problem at hand.”

“Which one? There are currently several problems happening right now.”

“I need Zulu captured.”

“So you can kill him, too?”

“Too?”

“You also killed my … MeShack.”

His lip quivered. “The Were-cheetah?”

“Yes.”

He held his hand out as if to say stop. “That was never my intention. The Vampire that wielded the sword didn’t belong to me. No one carries a sword in my family. We can’t find him in other families. My men were only trying to protect me. There would have been no reason to hurt anyone in your party. Believe me. I—”