Wildfire Gospel (Habitat) (34 page)

“Then he should keep MFE’s name out of his lying mouth.”

Dad sighed behind me.

Lanore

Prophet Kegan Burrows wore a long yellow robe as he leaned on his desk. He had a bald head, olive skin tone, and tattoos written all over his face. From where I stood, they looked like squiggly lines, but in the pictures all over the new papers I could see them clearer. He’d had an artist write chants all over his face, ones that favored Shango the god of fire.

Why write all over your face?

A glass wall stood between him and me, so he wasn’t that stupid. Fire melted glass, but it took lots of time, enough for his to escape out of the three doors on his right. His guards flanked the outside part of the wall as if they were an afterthought to him or his first line of defense. There were five Fire Witches.
You may have to watch them die through the glass, if you don’t give me what I want.
As if he heard my thoughts, his eyes glowed burnt orange and I didn’t get why he could do that. Sure, the upright silver triangle brand sat in the middle of his forehead, but there was no fire in his blood. I sensed it in all of his guards, heat running all through their system. When I turned to Kegan, nothing came. No power. Nothing.

“What does he smell like to you?” I whispered to Dad.

“Like a Fire Witch, but he isn’t. Who knows what he is. Let’s get in and out without getting you killed.”

Me killed? Apparently Dad thinks he is the only badass in the room.

Kegan walked around his desk, sat down, and knitted his fingers together. “Miss Vesta, how can I help you this evening?” He had a weird rasp to his voice. “I’m shocked that you came. I thought you would be licking your wounds after your ordeal with the Vampires and then I heard about the Rebels fighting you. That’s a whole lot of conflict for one person in one week.”

“Is that why you decided to take over MFE for me?”

“I offered help when I thought it was needed. I apologize.”

“You don’t run MFE and my organization is not affiliated with you.”

“That is fine.” He tipped his head in agreement. “Do you have anything else to say? That could have been told to me in a card.”

“I don’t send cards these days. I just don’t have the time.” I moved to the glass and knocked on it. “What are you scared of?”

“I heard you don’t play fair.”

“I don’t, but then I’m just a poor little Mixbreed. Why put a glass between us? It’s new right,” I guessed.

“You can make fire. There’s nothing weak about you.”

“But then you can control fire.” I peered in closer so that my nose touched the glass. “Or can you?”

“I’m the prophet. I can do whatever I choose.”

“I wish you chose to bring your ass over here,” I hissed. Graham cursed in the background.

Kegan wagged his index finger from side to side. “Temper. Temper. So much anger. Have you ever considered meditation?”

“Like I said before, I just don’t have the time.” I checked each of the Fire Witches. They kept their hands in their pockets and all wore white shirts and pants. Most Fire Witches carried lighters so they could make fire in an emergency. I returned my attention to Kegan. “So I can make this quick. We’ve already gotten the fact that you have nothing to do with MFE taken care of. Now I need Nona’s information.”

“For what?”

At least he didn’t deny that he knew her, but then how could he since he was on TV with her?

“I have several questions that she can answer.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“Trust me, Kegan. You don’t want any part of the shit that I’m running through these days. It stinks so bad it’ll sear your nostrils. I need an address and I not only need it to be correct, but it has to be right on or I’m going to come back down here.” I pressed the side of my face to the glass’s cool surface. “And when I come, I won’t be dressed to party. I’ll be here to kill you and everyone else anywhere in your area. This club will be molten copper and ash when I’m done with it. And you?” I exhaled. “You’ll be the Prophet of bloody puddles.”

He jumped up from his seat. “Is that how we ask friends for favors?”

“You’re not my friend and I’m not asking you for a favor. How do you contact Nona? Where is she now?”

He signaled to his guards. “Get them out of here, hurt or kill them I don’t care. Just get this trash out of my office.” He pointed to me. “If you had Zulu, then I might listen. I more wondered if the few rumors of him being alive were true. But I know him. He wouldn’t let you come in here by yourself.”

He knew him?

I should have considered that more, but just the mention of his name hurt and pissed me off. “I don’t need Zulu.”

“Yes. You do.” He sat back down.

I blew out a long line of demon fire. It crackled in the air as it extended out of my lips. Kegan tilted his head to the side as if to get a better look. The blue line thickened into the width of a rope, yet it continued to flow out of me, falling to the floor in a stack of circles.

“How much of it did you take, girl?” Graham’s voice came from behind.

I shut off the rest from my mouth, ended the rope, took a hold of it with my hands, and wrapped it around my hand.

“This is a good talent.” Kegan gave me a thumbs up. “You’ll be able to do this at children’s parties once you finally realized that you’re too slow to stomp with the big guys.”

I slashed the air with the end of the rope to get a feel of the hold. It wasn’t meant to grab the nearest guard to me, but I’d forgotten the demon fire had a mind of its own. It soared straight to the Fire Witch’s neck and didn’t whip back like I commanded. Demon fire met the poor guy’s skin. No orgasmic sensations flowed my way, just unease at what I had done. Cracking and sizzling, the rope wrapped around him in a blur of dizzying movement, coiling over and over so fast I let go. He screamed in horror and dropped to the floor, his skin melting right before our eyes.

The other Witches made flames with the lighters now in their hands. The air crackled and popped around us. Graham pushed me behind him and waved his hand. “Don’t.”

Their fire vanished. They raised their hands in the air, bright orange eyes glazing with dread, probably ready for Graham to attack them with fire so they could grab and use it back on him.

“Let’s all calm down,” Graham spoke like he was shooing a little child to sleep. “Lanore wants information. Give it to her and we’ll be on our way. No one else needs to die.”

The fiery rope left the puddle of the guard and soared for Graham’s chest. He grunted again and took a step back, but no one noticed anything unusual but me. The guards were too scared. They glanced down at the puddle of steaming mush, at me, then Graham, and every now and then back at the puddle. Not many people in the habitat ever saw demon fire. It was too hard to make and too pleasurable to just sling away.

I stepped around Graham and went to where I’d been near the glass. “What’s Nona’s address?”

Kegan had already jumped up and stuffed papers into some sort of bag.

“Are you going somewhere?” I asked.

He didn’t even look up. His hands shook and made him drop things as he tried to hurry up and get out of there.

“It’s not a good idea to run off. I’ll find you, and if not you, then there’s always Cora.”

He froze and took his time lifting his head up to meet my angry gaze. “Who?”

Yeah right. You know who that is, even though I have no idea who it is.

But anyone who would let a person like Kegan take over her club, I guessed, would be important to him. Granted, he could just be leasing the property from her, but I didn’t get that feeling. My gut said that there was something more going on between Kegan and Cora. Something I could use.

“I’ve been digging and digging. That’s what I do when I can’t find people I need.” I rested my hands on the glass. “See without Nona’s address, then I’ll just go looking into this Cora Pondo person. You may know this already, but the best thing about living in a caged city is that there really aren’t many places to hide. Take Nona for example. She’ll be hidden for a while, but it’ll be days not weeks or months until I find her. Once I deal with her, then I’m returning to you.”

“Why me?”

“Well, you never helped me out and if you’re not here, then there is always Cora Pondo. I’m pretty excited to check out all of her properties. I won’t be doing this by myself. I’ve got friends to help.”

“Friends?” The papers dropped from his hands.

“You know exactly who I’m talking about.” I hoped so because I didn’t.

“Bottelli.” Kegan closed his eyes and trembled.

Ooo-kay. Bottelli it is.

“That’s right.” I nodded. “Dante has enough people to find Cora and you.”

“If I give you Nona’s location, then you leave Cora, me, and Wildfire Gospel out of this?”

“Of course.” I slid my hand across the glass. “If you move this, I can give you a blood promise.”

“No. I trust you.”

Sure you do.

“I can’t promise that Nona is there. This is just the place she told me to come to if I needed her and couldn’t get in contact.”

“She stays in some crappy apartment building off on the lower end of Shango District called Caged View. Apartment 7D.”

Nona, you fucking genius. My old apartment would be the last place I would look.

“Are we done?” He finished packing.

“Yes.”

He raced out of there without another word, his robe swinging behind him. I turned around to see Graham still ready to battle the Fire Witches.

“You know that we’ll have to kill them?” Graham asked.

“No, we don’t.”

A low whine came from one of the guards.

“They saw the demon fire. It will get back to their Council and then they’ll have a real reason to hunt you.”

“We don’t kill them.”

One gulped down his courage and spoke, “I … we won’t say anything.”

“I can’t take that chance, not when my little girl is involved.” Graham flicked his hands. The door opened. His blood dripped down it.
When did he put his blood on there?
My body pushed out of the room without me telling it to. Dad moved me around like a puppet.

“Graham don’t—”

“It’s back to calling me Graham now?”

I tried to gain control of my body, but my legs kept moving forward and my head didn’t turn. “This is Were-bullshit! You just want their skin! Stop!”

“They do have good skin.”

The door slammed shut behind me and all I could make out was the men’s screams.

MeShack

The full moon meandered through the brightening darkness to let the sun take its place. It hadn’t turned completely light yet. Just radiant shades of purple among the black, but in an hour or so, light blues and gold would layer the barred sky. That was if the storm didn’t show its face. I could still sense it in the air, thickening the space around me. If what I thought was coming, gray would paint the sky, dark depressing grays that blocked out the beauty of the sun and seemed to make the weight of the habitat’s caged ceiling hover lower all over us.

I hope it doesn’t rain.

La La paced back and forth in the back of Graham’s yard. She talked to herself most of the time. When she wasn’t, she smoked joint after joint. The whites of her eyes were now a red tinted mess. She coughed a lot between curses to the sky.

“The smartest thing that boy did was not be outside when she left the club.” Graham pulled the wet skins out of his huge pot and hung them on the clothing line in front of him, one by one. Soapy water ran down the transparent flesh and dripped to the ground.

“You think he left the whole area?” I asked.

“No way. He was up in the sky somewhere. As she screamed out his name and made fireballs, I’m thinking he figured out she knew.”

“Yeah.” I set the shovel down next to the large hole I would be sleeping in for a week. Graham could have separated it all with his hands, but he’d given me this patch of earth now to do what I liked. According to him, it needed my blood, which I’d discovered was a light orange liquid. I poured as much as I could without passing out, raked a lot of it in, and then shoveled a nice size hole. Angel said she would help. She’d lasted for a good two hours. I glanced off in her direction. She snored as she lay spread eagle on the ground.

“Isn’t it funny that I was just telling you about Angels and there we go meeting one tonight.” Graham hung the last fire witches’ flesh up. “Lanore has the craziest luck. Just like her mother she attracts power around her. It was in Lily’s blood. The craziest creatures were drawn to her.”

“Who was the Angel?”

He pointed to Angel. “That one.”

“No, Dad. Her name is Angel.”

A wrinkle appeared near his forehead brand. “That must confuse her a lot.”

“She’s not an Angel.”

“No? I’m sure she is something. She can hold a lot of magic.”

“That doesn’t mean she is one.”

“Doesn’t mean she isn’t.” He shook the water off his hands. “Doesn’t matter really. I haven’t seen an Angel in close to sixty years. I trapped a few. They always got away. You can never keep an Angel trapped for long. They always get away somehow.” He rubbed his beard. “You done over there?”

“Yeah.” I turned the other way. “La La? I’m going in pretty soon.”

Nodding, she finished the heated conversation with herself and marched over to me. The fierce look in her eyes made me cover my crotch. I know it wasn’t me in trouble, but she hadn’t exactly said much to me the whole ride back on the tram. She just kept her gaze to the sky as tears lingered along her eyelids. However, I had to admit she’d been a bit pissed with us all. She wanted to go to Caged View Apartments tonight. Everyone was tired, exhausted, and scared as shit in dealing with her impulsive anger. Add the fact that Graham carried three huge trash bags of corpses with him and it made for a really uneasy ride home.

“So you’re all set?” She checked out all the things I’d put into the hole. “I see you’ve got a flashlight, Shifter nudey magazines, Ziploc bags of fingers and toes which I don’t have the mind-state to address right now and your teddy bear.”

I clenched my teeth. “It’s not a teddy bear. It’s a chew toy for cheetah.”

Not mine.
Cheetah licked his fiery tail.
Yours.

Graham shook his head. “That’s your old teddy bear you slept with when it thunder-stormed outside. Last year when you came to visit, you refused to let me throw that ugly thing away and begged me to keep it safe in your room.”

“For the record, there is a storm coming and
cheetah
is still afraid of thunder.”

Never.
Cheetah swiped at the flaming tail.

La La grinned. “Sure. The teddy is for cheetah.”

She glanced at the drying skins on the line. “I can’t believe you killed them all.”

“You gave me no choice.” Graham lifted the pot up above the fence and poured the water out on the neighbor’s yard. “You got me some good skin too.”

“Luckily you couldn’t get to Kegan or you would have had his skin up there.” She coughed.

“I wouldn’t have touched his skin. It’s too tainted. I could see the disease on it through the glass.”

She scrunched her face in confusion. “What did you think he had?”

“Some sort of Demon infection. It doesn’t matter. You remember the second rule?” The question was to me not her. He’d been giving me a lesson on skin and demon magic all night.

“Once skin goes Demon it doesn’t go back,” I replied.

“Good job.” Graham clapped his hands.

La La threw the joint on the ground and stomped on it. “So let me get this straight. Kegan has Demon skin on him?”

“Not exactly.” Graham yawned and started putting away his scrubbing brushes and oils. “That skin is the worst. Whatever Kegan was at the time, he got infected by a Demon and evolved into something else. Nothing with any power mind you, he can move that flesh around, but for me it won’t do anything. If I skin him, it’ll just be limp flesh.
If
I can even skin him, which I doubt, the infection has hardened that stuff too much for anybody else to wear it.”

She started pacing again. “This isn’t good. Fuck. T-this isn’t good at all. Okay. So the mothers of Vampires were infected by Demons and what about their skin?”

“The what?” Graham slung his stuff into the pot.

“Remember long ago you told me that these human women were all infected by a Demon and then they had babies and their children were Vampires.”

“Yes. The one damn thing the Witches will never forget. You would think that every Demon that walked this earth had an orgy fest with those women on that day.” Graham raised his finger. “One damn Demon has sex with a bunch of horny humans who thought they were a coven of Witches. A bunch of fakes is what they were, summoned a Demon and got laid is what happened. And he gave them all sudaveg, which no one knew would have
that
effect on humans at the time. Now we know of course.”

“Suda … what?” La La asked.

“Sudaveg. It’s what this realm would call a sexually transmitted disease. The dumb ass Demon had it. The human women got it. Their kids did too.”

“Did the Demon get them pregnant?”

“Seriously? Have you not listened to anything I’ve taught you all these years?” He scowled. “Can a Demon make babies with a human?”

“No.”

“Then don’t ask me stupid questions. They probably were pregnant already or got pregnant later. It doesn’t matter. They got a STD and spread it to their kids which became blood suckers.”

I studied La La’s face as she bit her nails. It was what she did when she pondered a particular theory. It was why she never had any nails, which was good, she loved to scratch when she came, and it would’ve hurt. That little thought made me hard, but with my future being a hole in the ground and her being so mad and focused on her broken heart from Zulu, there was no way I had a chance of getting any from her.

“Daddy?”

“Oh, it’s Daddy, now?” Graham shook his head. “Dad when you first saw me in the night club, Graham in the office when you’re pissed off at every male on Earth, and now it’s back to Daddy because you need some advice.”

“Would the women’s skin look like Kegan’s skin?”

“Sure.” He shrugged. “Why not?”

She raked her fingers through her dreadlocks. “So let’s say that one of those women wanted to hide and you’re saying she can do things with her skin right?”

“She can darken or lighten it, make it fat, wrinkled, or slim to her bones.”

“Could she grow hair?”

“No, but there are wigs for that.”

“She could wear a fake forehead brand too,” La La said more to herself than us. “Plus the Palero said she only wore the scent of whoever was around her, so it wouldn’t be a problem with fitting in around other supes.”

“I doubt many of those women survived this long.” Graham waved her thinking away. “They can’t die from much, but their own children. At least that’s what I heard, that a Vampire’s fangs could kill them. Vampires have no soul. They’ll eat their mother right there on the spot if they got a sniff of her. She would have to be a calculating human to last so long.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What are you thinking, La La?”

“That Kegan and Mother Earth are the same person.” She sighed. “The Palero said Mother Earth is one of the infected human women. If the Palero is right, then that fact isn’t disputed. It’s a stretch but it would make sense if Mother Earth had several different faces around the habitat. Wouldn’t you have many identities?”

“Yeah. Especially if I had to hide from Vampires.”

“Mother Earth would need people around her willing to protect her, but how would she be able to do that?” La La paced again. “She would need to develop causes. People will group together for a good cause, especially if it deals with or protects them. Anyone will fight if they feel they need to defend themselves. Mother Earths lived many centuries. She would know how supes work or just a regular group of people. Just reading the history books you see the same type of individuals pop up and create huge social movements, rebel leaders and … prophets.”

“Yeah. People would protect a prophet and a leader.”

“All she would have to do is create an identity and piggy-back a cause. Next thing you know, she is the top person or close enough where people believe she is important to guard and keep safe.”

“Plus, it wouldn’t hurt if the cause is against Vampires,” I offered.

“Yes!” La La clapped. “Then you have two goals being achieved at once. Rebels hated the Vampires. I never knew why. It was clear when I was down in the Vampire compounds that Rebels had worked with the Vampires before or … they could have always been with them. Who knows? Going down that train of thought is only going to scramble my brain. Where was I?”

This is the La La I love.

I smirked. “You were at the fact Rebels hate Vampires.”

“Yes.” She stabbed the air with one finger. “Wildfire Gospel hates Vampires too. According to newspapers, Prophet Burrows was constantly criticizing how Vampires have too much power, too much control over exports. Why? I mean with all that happens in this city no one even cared about Vampires monopolizing exports. Next thing you know people are jumping Wildfire Gospel’s side.”

“So she has two big groups now, one the Rebels, who are easy to convince. All you have to do is point and say, ‘See dem. Dey bad man, yeah. Kill dem, Imprisoners!
’”

La La paused. “That’s pretty scary. You actually sound like a Rebel.”

“I try.”

“So Mother Earth has her army of Rebels. She plays a big enough role where she can steer them in the right direction, but hides in the shadows enough where everyone thinks Nona is the true leader, just in case the Vampires want to attack. Then she’s the Prophet for Wildfire Gospel, spouting out propaganda against the Vampires, yet never really doing anything enough to seem like a threat. When the factory bombing happened, Prophet Burrows claimed it, but no one believed him … or should I say her.”

“Wasn’t it Mother Earth’s idea to blow up the blood factory?”

“Yes. She wanted to blow up more Vamp-owned businesses, but I had had enough.”

“So it was time to get rid of you.”

“Or Zulu.” I twisted my lips. “Or at the very least play MFE against Dante enough to the point that we would be broken. She had to sense that Zulu and I were slipping out of her grasp. I’d already told him no more bombs and he agreed. We weren’t listening to her anymore.”

“No. You never listened. Zulu stopped listening because of you, and if Zulu didn’t, then Nona would feel conflicted.”

“Yeah.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “But I’m still not sure how the bombing of Yemaya worked. Do you remember everything that happened that week?”

“Yeah. Someone killed your Pixies. We figured it was Dante, but didn’t know how he got someone into the warehouse.”

“Mother Earth could have done it with no problem. I’d seen her early that morning with Angel and …” She swallowed. “Cassie. We’d all left to go check on that Burning Bush murder case. Mother Earth could’ve taken my Pixies then.”

“There were also those chess pieces delivered to your office after the Yemaya bombing. She was right outside by the time we came back to MFE.”

“She could’ve done that too.” La La sighed. “Zulu had the money to give to Dante. He sent Nona to do it. Instead, she told them that the Rebels don’t compromise with blood exploiters and killed his men.”

I did my Rebel impression again. “Nona, you go on down to dem blood exploiters. Say we don’t play dem game-game with dem, no.”

“Yeah. Mother Earth could’ve whispered that in Nona’s ear. Dante told me that when Nona killed everyone he sent a message saying that he would bomb Zulu’s condo by midnight if he didn’t get his money. Nona knew the Yemaya bombing was possible, but she’d been close to Zulu for too long. They’d grown up together.”