Wildfire Gospel (Habitat) (16 page)

“So then some of you have fire power?”

He leaned away, but said nothing else.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Once your image was broadcasted on TV, hope came to many. There’s a human reporter who has been writing daily blogs on you.”

“A blog about me? About what? Who is this human?”

“The name doesn’t come to my mind, but regardless, it seems you fight for the underdogs because your soul is still pure.”

“No.” I thought of the many who’d died by my hands. “I fight for the underdog because I am an underdog.”

“Fight for my people.”

“How?”

“Let me take you to the portal.” He winked. “Let’s see if what the Vampires think is true. That certain strains of Fairy DNA act as a barrier to human security. Sakura would want us to come and get her once the beast is gone so that she can take you, but I say let’s stay see for ourselves and then figure out what we decide to tell her.”

I gazed off into the distance. It seemed the longer I remained down in this Vampire world the more all friendships and relations seemed blurred and construed.
How can people live like this, constantly having to remain steps ahead of people’s plans, while making sure not to get a knife stabbed deep into the center of their backs?
Sakura hoped to align with me behind Dante’s back as she revealed possible truths—Dante trying to keep me down here, his working with Rebels, and the fact that he’d offered my services to her as if he could control me. Now, Keo desired a partnership with me with the hopes of MFE freeing the Dragonshifters, a group I didn’t even know existed until now. They hadn’t been in any of the species books from school. Granted, those books tended to focus on only the groups in Santeria. Either way, Keo hoped for a MFE and Dragonshifters’ alliance and I had no idea what he assumed I could do for them.

All of these thoughts could have been dissected, pulled out, and analyzed further, if not for the fact that I was high as a kite on demon fire. All I really yearned to do was lay on the ground and touch myself between my legs.

Oh well. I’ll have to wing it.

“So we go to the portal to see if I can slip over into the Shinto Habitat?” I asked.

“Yes.” He walked off toward the direction that the tiger had charged from.

I followed and stumbled a little. My skin prickled. I still felt a bit light-headed. “How far is the portal?”

“Not far at all. We can get there and back in enough time to not seem suspicious in front of Sakura.” He extended his hand to me.

I waved him a way. “I’m fine.”

I didn’t think I should touch him while I was so horny.

For several seconds, we walked forward through the magical place. With the fire beast gone, many things appeared around the forest—little bugs with blue lights clinging to their bottoms buzzed by, a pack of animals that looked like tiny striped horses trotted past, two small kids even played farther off in front of a house. Red lanterns with white Japanese characters dangled in their hands as they ran in a big circle over and over, chasing each other. They must’ve been five or maybe even six, definitely younger than Ben’s age. Yet the realization hit me that I wasn’t above ground. This was Vampire land, which meant those kids were probably older than me, bloodsuckers, and had drained many more people than I’d ever considered killing.

“Does the Shinto Habitat have an age limit for turning humans into Vamps?” I asked right when we turned onto a path outlined by those weird little houses that looked more like they were made out of thin shades of paper versus wood. “Like those kids back there. They had to be turned when they were really young.”

“There’s no age limit in Japan, but there’s always a price tag. Turning a child is expensive here. To have Vamp children in a family is to reveal to all that they’re extremely wealthy. It’s also an expression of power. Turned kids are ten times stronger than adults. Young blood of any kind is thick with pure magic.”

Music drifted from the houses, sounding like nothing I’d ever heard before. I tried to guess the instruments. Flutes maybe with some weird high stringed guitar and foreign vocals that accompanied the flute instead of dominated the song like in most popular ones in Santeria. Laughter came later.

“Why isn’t everybody at the Feeding?” I asked.

“Not all of the Endo Family attended the Feeding tonight. The Shinto Vampires don’t believe they descended from the Sisters.”

“What do they believe?”

“That Vampires are a Fairy experiment gone wrong. Some sort of product from an obsessed Fairy who desperately yearned to bring his Human love back to life. The story goes that she died by his hands after he wrongly accused her of cheating. When he discovered it was all a mistake, he spent years trying to bring her back, only for her to return with this hunger for blood and an inability to be in the sun.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t care how they came to this planet.” A glow came from behind his glasses. We turned into a darkened path between two houses. “I only dream of their extinction.”

“I figured you would hate Fairies more than Vampires.”

“No. I don’t hate Fairies. It was a war between us. I was there centuries ago. Fairies were given a weapon and used it. However, the Vampires have done nothing but be sick little opportunists. They saw us as weak and soared down to persecute us. They enslaved when they could have united or aligned with us.”

We continued between the two houses. In Santeria, this would’ve been an alley blanketed in night, but here it seemed like a typical shaded path until I noticed the grass and dirt transform to white tile. The sides of the houses turned to solid white wall. Ceiling lights appeared above our heads.

“The portal is up here.”

I looked at him while we increased our pace. “There’s no one guarding the portal?”

“No. The Feeding is happening. It’s a big night for celebration, besides portals are barely guarded. Only that particular family member can go in and out of the portal so why would they really need precautions? Are you starting to see your very dangerous reality if you can pass through?”

“Dangerous?”

“If you can pass the portal, then they’ll get your blood and regenerate it.”

I stopped walking.

“When Dante found that trace of Fairy blood in the Mixbreed that allowed Vampires to pass through into other families’ living spaces, they gave him the factory. From his experiments he invented a pill that allowed them to enter each other’s areas.” A door materialized in front of us coated in white Japanese symbols. Keo turned to me. “He’d found it in a little Mixbreed girl, barely ten years old. They drained that Mixbreed like she was cattle. They had her in some small room next to all of Dante’s other experiments. I went with Sakura to see this, when the Endo and Bottelli family first aligned. I watched him cut skin off one side of her face to use as samples for whatever he needed. He keeps a bunch of species there to test on them.”

He kept me there too.

When I woke up and went out to the hallway, all those creatures with bloodied lines on one side of the face, stared back at me from glass windows. Had he been planning on testing me?
Of course.
There was no way he just happened to have a room that sprayed cold water and mist. He’d been planning to put me in that room for a while. So many questions entered my head. How long had he been planning? When did he think he was going to get me? Had he always planned to grab me at the ball? It was too much of a coincidence that he happened to have access to a needle filled with something to put me to sleep. Plus, if Zulu hadn’t snuck into his compound and killed so many of his family, would he have released me?

“They kept the poor girl hanging from hooks. A tube stuck in her mouth to feed her. Another tube inside to get her waste and hundreds of tiny little tubes sank in every vein taking her blood.”

I swallowed. “And you think that was the plan for me?”

“That’s what I gathered. Sakura was shocked to see you standing and moving around, tonight. She phoned to let me know it was a change of plans for the evening.”

“What was the original plan?”

“I was supposed to go into the Bottelli compound during the Feeding. Pick you up with the help of some of his people, take you to the Endo compound, and carry you through the portal. You were never supposed to be awake. Dante even delivered some weird suit that encased you in water. You were supposed to have it on.”

But then Zulu showed up and changed the game.

“What’s going on in that beautiful little head of yours?” Keo placed his hand on the doorknob.

“A whole lot. But one thing I’m wondering is what you want from me. You’ve given me a whole lot of information, more than Sakura and Dante put together. I get that you want MFE and your Dragonshifters aligned, but how can we help you all?”

“Let’s save you from the Vampires first.” He opened the door. Tiny flakes of ice rained in. “Does it snow we’re you’re from?”

I shook my head. My mouth dropped open. A snow-covered alley way greeted my eyes. Piles of the white stuff were everywhere. The sight in front of me looked so similar to a Santeria alley with subtle differences. Instead of drying wet clothes hanging from the lines that bridged back and forth from windows and fire escapes in Santeria, lots of white lanterns with Japanese characters hung. A pale sky hovered over the area. A caged ceiling decorated the graying clouds just like ours in Santeria, except glowing signs with flashing bright lights and pictures hung from the barred roof. I squinted to get a closer look at them. They were advertisements.

“So let’s see.” Keo smiled. “The fact that you are so close without being in any pain gives me a lot of hope. Now let’s see if you can step over.”

I breathed in and out. The demon fire inside of me bubbled with heat in my chest. I coughed and orange vapor left my lips, causing Keo to jerk back and wave it away from him. For some reason the reminder of the demon fire within me gave me courage. I stepped over into a cold, murderous wind that made my teeth chatter and my skin itch. Gritting my teeth, I left the Endo compound and walked over into Shinto Habitat. My heart beat fast in my chest. I touched my brand and wondered what would happen. I knew the human government kept tracking devices in all supernaturals’ brands, but I didn’t know if people were constantly monitoring every single brand. I doubted it, but I was sure they watched any supes they deemed a threat to the nation.

I better not make any more TV performances.

Hugging myself, I continued to walk further down the alley, without a tingling sensation on my skin or any physical change that told me it would be unwise to go further.
Okay, Lanore. You’ve got it.
I wouldn’t go too far. Out here in the cold I had no defenses. The air was wet, and with it my skin dried and chilled. It would be impossible to make fire out here. In fact, I took a few seconds to make a spark with my fingers and failed.

But it was hard to focus on how weak I was, when a whole new world surrounded me. All I’d ever known was the graffiti brick walls of Santeria. Scanning the Shinto alley was surreal. The air smelled different. Everything seemed cleaner.

“We better go back.” Excitement lathered Keo’s voice. I had to admit. That same excitement pulsed through my veins.

I can travel through to another habitat!

The possibilities that could come from my blood were limitless. If I could somehow manufacture my blood or even find others with this same effect, we could figure a way to do it for everyone. Together we could go into different habitats and somehow unite and discover ways to get out of the habitat. And if we could travel to different habitats what else could we do? The chances of freedom from the barred ceiling and metal-bricked walls transformed from a small dream to a very huge possibility.

I twisted around and rushed back to Keo and the Endo family living space. “This changes everything.”

“It sure does.”

“Sakura shouldn’t know. Not yet.”

“I agree. She’ll need you to come back here and help with those fire beasts. One comes every seven days. We could always enter alone and experiment some more or at least let you see my habitat, meet more of my people, and teach us what you and MFE have managed to do.”

I paused as he closed the door behind us. “What do you think we did?”

“Scared the magic out of humans, Vampires, and every other Pureblood around the world. You bombed those buildings in Santeria and now all of these organizations are saying words like oppression and what the effects of a caged life can have on the mind.”

“They are?”

“Yes.” He laughed. “You and Zulu’s faces are the symbol of revolution. I guess you’ve been too busy to notice. Anyway, let’s get back and tell Sakura nothing. As far as she knows, we handled the beast and now you’re too weak from sucking it in. That’s usually how I am. I can carry you to make it believable.”

A plan began to form into my head.

“You’ve gone into the Bottelli compound many times before, but do you have access to it?”

“Yes. I can escort you back.”

“Do you know where their portals are?”

“Are you thinking of escaping them?”

“Of course.”

He looked down. “And when will you come back?”

I tapped my foot on the ground and thought about his answer. “Does Sakura have more alliances with any of the Santeria Habitat families?”

“Definitely.”

“Then I would work with another family. She needs me to return to help her with the fire beasts, then she can spend seven days figuring out a way for me to get back to the compound and you. ”

“She’d have a contact for you in a day or two.”

“Then we’ll do it that way, but trust me. This won’t be the last time you see me. I’m excited about entering the Shinto Habitat as well as others.” I extended my hand to his for a shake.

In a blur he seized it, turned my hand palm up, and bit on the curvy meat hard. I shrieked and beat his shoulders with my other hand, trying to get him to stop. The tip of a fang greeted my skin. Pain cut into me. When he released me, my dark blood painted his bottom lip.