Born Into Flames Read online

  “What’s wrong, new girl doesn’t like all the fun?” Cammie was about to make another comment, when she noticed the woman’s mask was tilted down toward her chest. “You know, just because you’re wearing a mask doesn’t mean I can’t tell you’re checking me out.”

  “Enough!” Robin said, her right sword twitching.

  Cammie cocked her head in a try me sort of way, and then realization dawned. “Is… is there something going on between the two of you?”

  “No,” Valerie said, finally turning to glare at her. “And you’re starting to make me wish we’d just left you here to die.”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, I was on my way to taking down the entire crew on my own.”

  “Will you put a damn shirt on so we can walk in there and kill us some pirates?”

  Cammie took a step back, not used to Valerie raising her voice like that. “Yeah, I imagine Royland is waiting anxiously.”

  “He is.” Valerie looked between Robin and Cammie, then said, “Do we have a problem?” When neither replied, Valerie said, “Good,” and then kicked in the door to the control room.

  Cammie cursed, stowed the dress and hat behind the corner in hopes that the wind would leave them be, and followed Robin in after Valerie. She immediately wished she had at least put a shirt on, because in the cabin were twin boys who looked to be no older than fourteen, an older girl in a pretty, white dress, and the man who she assumed was the captain. He held a crossbow out, aimed at them, but instead of a normal crossbow bolt, the contraption looked like a bronze-grenade at the end of a stick.

  “Step any closer and we all die,” the captain said.

  “Cover your eyes,” the girl mumbled to the boys, leading Cammie to assume she was their older sister. The girl held her hand to her mouth, as if sure she was about to die for opening it.

  “Nothing wrong with seeing a pair of amazing tits,” Cammie said, stepping forward and baring her claws. “At least they got something before they died.”

  “We got lots of somethings,” one of the boys said, his eyes nowhere near reaching up to her face, “if that’s what somethings means.”

  Cammie paused, glanced over at the sweating captain, and said, “I like this one. He can live.”

  The others went pale, but Robin said, “They all live.” She took off her mask then and gave Valerie a glance that said she was serious as hell. She turned to Cammie. “Will you put some clothes on and shut up?”

  Cammie blinked, caught off guard, first by the comment, and second at the realization that this girl was barely a woman at all. Her dark hair was pulled into a pony tail behind her, but was fairly short, and her high cheekbones and pale skin gave her a very young, traditional vampire look.

  “Robin, that’s my friend you’re talking to, so be nice.” Valerie glanced over her shoulder and said, “And Cammie, go put some fucking clothes on.”

  The up-to-now silent boy gasped, and she turned back to him. “You can’t be serious. You’re pirate kids and you gasp at swearing?”

  “For your information,” the girl said, pulling at her brother to keep him close, her eyes wide with fright, “We weren’t pirate kids, not until a few days ago, anyway.”

  Cammie wanted to hear this, but out of respect for Valerie, glanced around and found a pirate captain’s hat, which she used to cover her chest.

  “Explain,” she said.

  Valerie and Robin waited, but the girl looked too terrified to say another word, so the captain stepped forward.

  “You may not remember me….” he started, but suddenly Valerie gasped and said, “Captain Bronson?”

  He nodded, eyes staring at her cautiously.

  “But… but you went back to Europe,” she continued. “To your family, to… Oh, shit. You never went back, did you?”

  He shook his head. “I wanted to, more than anything. But after losing our cargo, and then a couple of big runs I tried to make fell through, and one guy didn’t pay up, well… this is where they threw me. When they learned I could captain ships and blimps, I found my place, and they didn’t kill me. Always wondered if they would, but they never did.”

  “And then…?”

  “They came looking for me.” He sniffled, looking at his children with such adoration, Cammie wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen that look in someone’s eyes. “I’m a piece of shit—sorry kids, but it’s true—for leaving them. I thought I could make enough to return and provide for them, but once I was here, the pirates wouldn’t let me leave.”

  “I don’t understand,” Robin said. “The pirates, they let you keep your children?”

  He nodded. “I was bringing them back to The Isle of the Prince, promised that if I could leave my kids with a friend there, I’d take these jackholes on the biggest score run of their lives.”

  “Old Manhattan,” Valerie said, knowingly. “You told them you knew its ins and outs.”

  “You got that part right, but what you ain’t got is the part about my plan to run once we hit the Isle of the Prince. No matter what, we’d be done with this place.”

  Robin held up a hand. “You’re still not connecting the dots, mister. See, thing is, you just said these three kids found you. How the hell do I process that? Found you here…?”

  “And you said they were in Europe,” Valerie interjected. “If I remember correctly.”

  He nodded, but his daughter was the one who answered. “Mom passed away, we had nowhere else to go. Took us six months before we found him.”

  “Holy shit,” Cammie said.

  “Language, please,” Captain Bronson said, earning him a snarl, but when Valerie glanced Cammie’s way, she backed down. Apparently they knew each other, and she didn’t yet know to what degree. Hell, it was possible she was more loyal to this guy than to Cammie.

  “Fine, language,” Cammie turned to the kids. “I gotta know, how’d you survive out here? How’d you make the trip? How…?” She took a whiff, then groaned. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before. Which one of you?”

  They all looked at each other, then looked to the ground, all but the one who had gasped at swearing.

  “Seriously?” she asked.

  In response, his eyes glowed yellow and he showed sharp, wolf teeth.

  “Weres can’t partially transform,” Robin said, confusion creasing her brow. “Everyone knows that.”

  “It’s rare,” Cammie said, repeating the partial transformation to prove her point. “I’ve only ever met one other who could do it, and he’s standing right in front of us.”

  “But… he’s… how come they’re not, I mean you’re not all Weres then.”

  Captain Bronson shrugged. “As far as I knew, their mother wasn’t—”

  “She was, Dad,” the boy said. “She showed me, after she realized what I was.”

  “To be clear,” the other boy said, raising his hand. “You’re not going to try and kill us?”

  “Try?” Valerie asked with a chuckle. “Honey, if we tried, you’d be dead.”

  He shrugged. “My brother has taken on worse than you.”

  This time, Valerie had to laugh out loud. “I doubt there is such a thing as worse than us, at least not in this part of the world, right now.”

  “You didn’t answer the question,” he reminded her.

  Valerie turned to Cammie and Robin with a raised eyebrow. “Thoughts? Should we kill them?”

  Robin rolled her eyes. “Ignore them,” she said to the kid. “They’re playing, but the answer’s a solid no. We’re not the type to run around killing without reason, or enslaving people… or abandoning people.”

  “So what do you have in mind?” the sister asked.

  “We’re going to help you,” Valerie said, kneeling next to them. “I trust your father, and maybe I shouldn’t trust kids nowadays, but I do.”

  “We’re not kids,” the girl said. “They’re fourteen, and I’m sixteen.”

  “Good for you.”

  “We have a destination in mind th
en?” Cammie asked. “This Isle of the Prince? Because, as fun as this is, I want to put on my new clothes and go over to the other blimp. Royland’s probably pretty damn curious about what happened, and as anxious as I am to be together again.”

  “Is that a sexual reference?” the non-Were boy asked.

  “Someone give this kid a private bathroom for fifteen minutes.” She turned and left them to it, then found her newly acquired pirate clothes. It took a moment to figure out how to put them on, but then she was dressed and placed the hat upon her head.

  She felt good, and knew for a fact that she looked damn good.

  Royland better damn well say so.

  At the blimp’s edge, she waved over to the control room and a moment later saw the blimp veer their way.

  “Whoa, whoa!” she said as the other blimp nearly collided with theirs, the two balloons barely scraping against each other. A bit more and there could have been a major disaster.

  “Sorry!” Royland called out, appearing in the shadowed portion of the doorway to the control room on the opposite ship. “Still getting used to this.”

  “Hold her steady!” Cammie shouted, and prepared to jump.

  “Cammie!” Valerie called out, jogging over. “Be careful, you hear me?”

  “We’ll follow close,” Cammie said. “What’s the destination?”

  “This island they speak of. Follow the coast northwest, and you can’t miss it, or so I’m told. But you also can’t miss us.”

  “Gotcha.” Cammie prepared to jump again, then said, “And if we can’t figure out how to land that thing?”

  “You join us here, but… why not just do it now anyway? Abandon the other blimp.”

  Cammie smiled. “Because I’m thinking Royland and I need a bit of alone time to celebrate our joyous reunion.”

  “I don’t need the details,” Valerie said with a grin. “Just make him shout loud enough for us to hear over here, and we’ll know you did it right.”

  “I’ve never done it any other way,” Cammie said, and then she ran, turquoise dress trailing behind her, and jumped. For a moment, nothing but air was beneath her, then a sight of hills and valleys. Then her feet hit the far deck and she rolled with a thud, slamming her head up against the control panel.

  “I’d come out and help,” Royland said, “but this whole dying in the sunlight business puts a damper on that.”

  “You stay right there.” Cammie pushed herself up, leaning on the wall for support, and then said, “We’re going to make up for a bit of lost time.”

  “You mean… that little, tiny bit of time just now?”

  “Yeah, but I believe in interest. Large amounts of it.” With a wide smile, and feeling sexy as hell in her new outfit, she sauntered in after him. The door hadn’t even closed behind her yet when she had begun pulling his clothes off.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  New York

  Sandra led Diego and Garcia along an attractive walkway with small trees growing on one side that had been transplanted from what was once Central Park, and a small stream flowing gently down the other.

  “The city has moved light-years ahead toward improvement,” Diego explained to their guest. “When we arrived, people lived in fear. Medical supplies were in short supply, and the city was divided into factions that were fighting turf wars.”

  “And now?”

  “Valerie cleaned it up,” Sandra said.

  “Valerie, Sandra, Colonel Donnoly, and all the rest,” Diego corrected her. “The people willing to make a change have started stepping forward, and some have even set up neighborhood watches.”

  “And you’re talking all of this in, what? Half a year?” Garcia whistled. “Not bad.”

  “Less, actually.”

  “What?”

  Diego smiled. “Less. More like a couple months.”

  “How the hell… Ah, right, Valerie.”

  With a finger held up, Diego again said, “And Sandra, Colonel Donnoly, me—”

  “Yes, we get the idea,” Sandra said with a laugh. “Thanks, dear.”

  “And these factions, they’re gone completely?” Garcia asked.

  Diego shrugged. “It’s hard to say for sure. They haven’t shown their faces, but it’s such a short amount of time.”

  “We’ll have to watch out for that,” he said. “The worst kind of war one can fight is from within.”

  “Trust me,” Sandra interjected, “we’ve had more than our fair share of internal war. If there’s a higher power, I’d say they owe us a break.”

  “But you’ve seen what lies between here and Chicago, right?” Garcia took the steps to the dirt path below, ears perking at shouting in the distance—the shouting of men and women training. “It ain’t pretty out there.”

  “I’m just glad we don’t have to clean it up all by ourselves,” Sandra replied. “Remind me to send TH a box of chocolates, would you?”

  “Sure thing,” Garcia said with a wink.

  They crested a hill and came to the point in the park where they could look out over the vampires and Weres training. They had finished hand-to-hand now, and some were traversing an obstacle course they had made just a week earlier, while others were moving to the vacated buildings nearby to practice insurgent strategies.

  “This ain’t bad,” Garcia said with a huge grin, tucking his thumbs into his belt loops. “A bit sloppy over there,” he pointed to the way some of the Weres were moving into the building, “leaving themselves open like that. But overall, I’d say we have some mighty-fine clay to work with.”

  “Well, let’s get you in there then, and introduce you to the guys,” Sandra said.

  Diego shook his head, biting his lip.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t you think we should check in with Donnoly first?” Diego asked. “I mean, I know he’s not in charge of this, per se, but he is charged with internal security. Bringing in someone from the outside and just letting him in like this…”

  “You don’t trust me?” Garcia asked. “No, I get it. For all you know, I might have been kicked out for something horrible. I could’ve come here with this story, only to do something horrible again.”

  “Did you?” Sandra asked.

  He shook his head. “Of course not, but I get his concern.”

  Sandra gave Diego a reproachful look. “He did help us take down the CEOs.”

  “And I’m a super nice guy.”

  “Right. And he’s a super nice guy.”

  Diego pursed his lips, unsure.

  “Honestly, I’m in no rush,” Garcia said. “You take me to meet this Donnoly character, and I can get cleaned up. Then we have a nice chat about how best to make this happen. TH was specific on us needing to partner, but didn’t want to force you all into anything you weren’t comfortable with.”

  “Works for me.” Diego shrugged. “But only because we had croissants together.”

  “The key to all great partnerships.” Garcia rubbed his belly. “Good thing there aren’t more of those in my part of the world, or I’d have a hard time on those obstacle courses.”

  “You can do them?”

  He shook his head. “Not exactly. In fact, I don’t think I ever have. But real combat? You bet your boots I can do that.”

  Diego glanced down at his boots, an old black pair with yellow laces.

  “How about I bet you another round of croissants that you can’t do the course as fast as me.”

  “Right now?”

  Diego nodded.

  “Accepted,” Garcia said, and took off at a jog.

  Diego hesitated, glancing back at Sandra, then smiled and said, “Sorry, dear, I can’t let him win.”

  “Just go,” she said, waving him off, and she started trekking down the hill as he took off in a jog.

  Boys.

  She laughed, realizing she’d probably be running over there right now, too, if not for the baby growing inside of her. As she walked to catch up with them, she had a thought that troubled her. H
ow many babies had she seen in the city? The answer was a simple one. Zero. None.

  Just another confirmation that the events that had brought about the Great Collapse had also affected people’s ability to reproduce.

  The thought made her both appreciative of her current situation, and deeply concerned for the survival of the human race.

  With the amount of violence, how long could the world survive if humanity continued to grow at such a low rate as she imagined must be the case?

  Reaching the edge of the training ground, she sat on a fallen tree and watched Diego and Garcia making their way through the obstacle course. Diego was clearly faster, but when he stopped to taunt the soldier, Garcia tackled him, put him in an arm-bar, and then laughed before running to get a head start on the wall ahead of them.

  Sandra chuckled to herself as Diego stood, brushed himself off, and gestured angrily at him, clearly saying something but too far off for her to hear.

  “Suck it up and kick his butt, honey!” she shouted, waving him on.

  A pod pulled up between her and the course at that moment. The early sunlight glinted off of the window, causing her to have to look away to avoid the glare, but when she looked again, she saw Presley and Esmerelda step out, followed by Colonel Donnoly. The hell were the three of them doing together, she wondered, though she didn’t have to stretch her mind far too figure it out—especially when Presley gave him a playful cup of the sac that she thought no one else could see.

  To his credit, he brushed her hand away and glanced around, nervously. He was the commander of the police, so had to keep it professional.

  His eyes came to rest on her sitting there, and he smiled, his cheeks flushing red enough to be visible from where she sat.

  “The troops pulling through?” he asked as he approached.

  She stood and he waved her to stay seated, but she said, “No, I need to keep moving. Gotta stay in shape for when this whole thing happens.” She rubbed her belly and grinned. “The troops are looking good, and I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Is that abnormal?”

  She laughed. “I mean exceptionally glad. See that man there?” She pointed to Garcia.