Born Into Flames

by Justin Sloan

  “How many do we need alive to catch the other blimp?” Robin asked.

  “The captain,” Valerie replied. “All we have to do is catch her, not land this balloon.”

  Robin frowned.

  “You do realize they’re pirates?” Valerie asked. “Cutthroats, men and women who steal from us… and enslave people.”

  “Fuck you.” Robin held up one of her bloody swords. “They’re people, and we don’t know their full story.”

  Valerie was about to argue, when she thought back to Jackson and how, when she had met him, he had been on the other side. A lot of people in Old Manhattan had taken their turns on various sides, but that didn’t make them all bad.

  “Dammit,” Valerie said. “Fine, we don’t kill the ones we don’t have to. But if they try to kill us or stand in our way…?”

  “Slice ‘em ear to ear,” Robin said. “Don’t worry about me. All I gotta do is imagine them forcing my parents to do hard labor, and I’m just like you.”

  “Just like me?”

  “A killing machine.” Robin’s eyes went wide at Valerie’s expression. “That bothers you? You’re actually bothered that I see you this way?”

  “I wasn’t always like this.” Valerie turned from Robin, horrified that this was the image she now represented. “Conditions have forced me into this role.”

  “Ladies,” a hiss came from Royland’s direction. He was kneeling now, appearing to have healed quickly. “Maybe this conversation can wait until after we’ve rescued Cammie?”

  “Your broken friend has a point,” Robin said.

  “It’s Royland,” he said, then nodded toward the captain’s tower.

  “Robin,” she said back with a nod.

  “Now that we got that out of the way…” Valerie nodded to Robin, pulling out her sword this time.

  The two ran over to the captain’s cabin, while Royland mumbled something about keeping watch in the back.

  “One of your lovers?” Robin asked with a playful smile.

  Valerie stood at the door that led in, prepared to kick it in. “Oddly, I’ve never been with a vampire,” she said, only pausing long enough to note the intrigued expression on Robin’s face before charging in.

  The door flew open with a bang and, unlike the last time she’d charged into a cabin like this, a line of pirates was waiting. They held their weapons at the ready, and once they had processed what was happening, opened fire with shotguns, rifles, pistols, and some small darts that stung like a bitch.

  Valerie’s first instinct was to throw herself over Robin, but Robin pushed her off and charged even as flesh burst from her as bullets ripped through her body.

  A metal net shot out and almost had her, but she swiped it aside with her swords. The move left her exposed, though, and a pirate pushed in with a metal glove. He caught her in the stomach and, to Valerie’s surprise, Robin collapsed to the floor.

  This wasn’t going to plan at all, so Valerie decided a different approach was in order. As a bullet hit her in the calf and she cursed, she rolled past them so that one of the pirates turned to shoot at her but ended up strafing a couple of his buddies.

  When they collapsed, Valerie had come up behind the others and, in spite of the oh-so-annoying pain tearing through her, commenced with ripping those sons of bitches to shreds with her sword.

  Blood splattered the walls and window. Bodies covered the floor. Only one of them was left—the captain.

  Valerie took a step toward him, about to tell him not to move, when Robin lunged, screaming, blood dripping from holes in her body, and she tore his throat out in one quick motion, sinking her teeth into him to consume his blood.

  The wounds were already starting to heal by the time she dropped his lifeless corpse to the ground.

  Valerie stared in shock, paused to fill up her two empty vials, and then assessed her friend.

  “Are you… feeling better?”

  Robin looked up at her from where she sat on the ground in a puddle of blood. “Why’d you save me?”

  “What?”

  “Back there, at the Black Plague headquarters,” Robin replied. “You could’ve just let me die. You could’ve ended this pain, let it all slip away, and let me rest in peace.”

  “You’d prefer to die and leave your parents as slaves, never knowing what happened to you?”

  “As if they’d rather know I became this?!” Robin stood, shuddered in pain and nearly slipped in the blood that pooled on the floor, then gestured to herself. “I’m a fucking monster!”

  Valerie stepped forward, very conscious of the pain in her leg, and wrapped her arms around the girl. “You’re not a monster, you’re just a woman who will do anything to save her parents. And a woman who’s strong enough to see that through.”

  Robin clutched at Valerie, pulling her close, head on her shoulder, and then looked up. Where Valerie had expected to see tears, Robin’s eyes were hard, committed.

  “You’re right.” Robin pulled back, checking some of the smaller wounds that had healed. “Maybe this isn’t a curse at all. Maybe I’ve been turned into the ultimate weapon, the tool necessary to bring those slavers down.”

  “To bring them justice.” Valerie assured her. “And I’ll be at your side, tearing them all new assholes.”

  “We all will be,” Royland’s voice came from the doorway. “Assuming we save Cammie, that is. Based on what I’m seeing here, I have no idea how that’s possible.”

  “No one here knows how to fly one of these?” Valerie asked.

  “I had a bicycle, once,” Robin offered, with a frown. “Who is this Cammie to you?”

  “Everything,” Royland replied with a nod to the control booth. At the front of the captain’s cabin, a small wall of knobs and buttons sat unoccupied, along with a metal rod sticking up in the middle. “You’re our best bet, it looks like.”

  Robin laughed and then seeing that he wasn’t joking, bit her lip and was at the controls in three painful strides.

  “Can you figure it out?” Valerie asked.

  “Don’t see how I have a choice,” Robin replied. “It’s that, or we’ll never find out where the rest of the pirates are, we’ll never find my parents, and we’ll never be able to re-unite him with his everything.”

  Royland stepped up beside her, but it was clear he had no idea how the controls worked.

  “I watched a captain sail one of these, once,” Valerie offered. “When I first flew over from Old France.”

  She stepped up and moved the stick. Sure enough, they began to veer left.

  “There we go,” Royland said.

  Valerie smiled, then looked for the way to accelerate. “Any ideas here?”

  Royland pressed one button, and the whole ship shuddered. “Not doing that one again.” He was about to press a large, round one when Robin grabbed his hand.

  “Wait…” She pointed at a handle next to numbers one through five, and then moved the handle to the next highest number.

  Sure enough, the blimp lurched forward and then began to pick up speed.

  “I like your new friend,” Royland said to Valerie. “Smart. Resourceful.”

  Robin grunted. “And you don’t seem like the complete jackoff Valerie says a lot of vampires are.”

  “You said that?” Royland asked Valerie.

  “We have a lot of good ones,” Valerie answered. “But it’s mostly true. Imagine how many I’ve killed since I started this quest, and how many more we’ll have to take down before this is over. I don’t know if it’s a case of power corrupting, or if it’s that they believe the legends and that they have to live up to them. Regardless, most vampires are dicks.”

  He chuckled, clutching a wound in his stomach that hadn’t fully healed. “I know I was, before you all came along and saved me from the blood banks.”

  “The blood banks?” Robin asked.

  Valerie nodded, glancing out through the blood-smeared window to see how far off the other blimp was. They were gaining on it.r />
  “When we first took Old Manhattan,” she explained, “the top dogs there were using Weres to hunt vampires, then draining them of their blood and selling it on the black market.”

  “That’s… wow.”

  “It’s supposedly addictive as hell,” Royland interjected. “And keeps its drinkers healthier… maybe younger, but I’m not sure.”

  “And you were one of these vampires?”

  Royland nodded. “Used to be what some circles call a Forsaken. Had my own clan and nosferatu and everything, even a few people who thought we were gods and let us feed on them.”

  Valerie noticed Robin’s eyes narrowing as he talked, so she cut in. “But ever since that day, he’s been one of my most trusted friends. And more than that to Cammie, who would have kicked my ass if we’d left him behind for the sun to get.”

  “Speaking of the sun,” he said, and inched in from the doorway where the sunlight was just now starting to reach forward. He closed the door and leaned against it. “How’re we going to fight them when only you can go out there?”

  Valerie motioned to Robin, and said, “We’re evolving. Well, not actually, but on our trip to Chicago we found Robin and others who had come up with clothing that helps them move in the sun.”

  “Scary as hell,” Robin interjected, pulling her mask on so he could see. “But it works.”

  “But you look like a ninja.” He chuckled. “I mean, it’s kinda funny, right? Ninjas and pirates… What’s next? People are going to start throwing fire from their hands or control the shadows with their minds?”

  Valerie cocked her head, curious. “It’s not so impossible, is it?”

  “What?” He scoffed. “Explain.”

  “Well, that night when I met Michael, it was like… like he was controlling lightning.”

  Royland pursed his lips. “And you can kinda read minds.”

  “You can do what?” Robin said, turning on Valerie now. “How dare you. If you so much as peeked into my—”

  “Whoa, whoa!” Valerie held up her hands to hold off the advancing woman. “No, it’s not exactly like he said. I can sense emotions, in a way. If you’re sad, or maybe if you’re about to attack me. Stuff like that.”

  “And don’t forget about pushing fear,” Royland said.

  “Yes, and that. Thank you, Royland.”

  “I’m familiar with that one,” Robin said with a chuckle.

  Valerie assumed she was thinking back to the fight at Black Plague headquarters, but thought it best not to linger there.

  Instead, she turned her attention back to the other blimp, which they were quickly approaching.

  “Why aren’t they running?” Robin asked.

  “They don’t know we’ve taken over,” Royland replied. “Far as they know, we’re just their fellow pirates who also escaped the chaos below.”

  “Damn. That’s going to come as a shock for them.”

  “Robin and I will make the jump when we’re close enough but…” Valerie started, but then saw movement on the front of the ship, followed by a body flying overboard. “Holy shit.”

  Royland nodded, a broad smile on his face. “That’s my girl, er, don’t tell her I said that.”

  “What is it?” Robin said, trying to get a view but was obstructed by the eye-covers in her mask. They let her see, but it was tough—it had to be, in order to keep the sun out.

  “Looks like it won’t be as much of a rescue mission as a help-her-out mission,” Valerie said, drawing her sword again. “Ready?”

  Robin nodded.

  “Royland, keep her close,” Valerie said, and then the two charged.

  CHAPTER SIX

  On the Air Ships

  The damn metal ropes had cut bad gashes into her flesh, but Cammie hadn’t let that stop her. Any normal person would have given up in the face of such pain, but not her.

  She had struggled against the ropes, pushing and swinging until she had managed to get to the base of them, the part that was cinched together and made of leather, and then her nails had done their job.

  A few minutes of hanging on for dear life as the winds whipped her hair about her face, and then she was climbing up, gripping on for dear life as blood soaked into her shirt. By the time she had reached the side of the ship, her wounds were already healing.

  Her desire for vengeance, however, was in full swing.

  That was why, when she saw a pirate turn with wide, horrified eyes, she leapt without a second thought. He tried to dig his thumbs into the remnants of her wounds, but she was too busy digging her thumbs into his eyes to care. Adrenaline pumped through her body as she tossed him aside, still screaming.

  Good, she thought. They’ll hear it and come running.

  And she was ready for them, now in full wolf form. These dickwads had fucked with the wrong Were. She charged around their attacks, tearing out calves and biting into groins, pulling and spraying blood. The deck grew slick, and she continued the fight.

  One came at her with a makeshift spear and she dodged, only to see that it had some sort of contraption on it that exploded, knocking her to the deck.

  She twisted out of the way as shots rang out, then sprang back up and was at it again. A figure appeared behind her and she turned to attack, but froze—Valerie?

  Sure enough, it was Valerie and a figure dressed in black from head to toe.

  “We got you,” Valerie said, then turned her red, glowing eyes back to the attackers.

  This just went from revenge pissed-off to revenge this-will-be-fun. In the spirit of excitement, Cammie transformed back into a nude woman, having dropped her clothes when transforming the first time.

  It was enough to distract the charging pirates, and was damn funny when one of those pirates had been mid-run, missed a step, slipped in the blood, and went flying overboard.

  “Just keep showing ‘em your bush and we don’t have to fight,” Valerie said with a smirk. “Odd, how it makes them flee though, isn’t it?”

  “Oh shut up,” Cammie said, not even bothering to dress as she tore through the female pirate who hadn’t been distracted and continued to press the attack. “Royland has no complaints.”

  “That man’s addicted to Cammie,” Valerie said with a laugh. “No question about it.”

  “What’s up with the ninja princess?” Cammie asked, tossing the pirate aside and glancing back at the one clad all in black.

  “I prefer Robin,” the ninja lady said, clutching two swords and standing at the ready. “In case you didn’t know, you’re naked.”

  “Yes, the wind is cold as fuck on my nipples, so…” Cammie pursed her lips, motioning toward the group of pirates now forming a semi-circle around them, debating their next move.

  “No bickering, children,” Valerie said, and then she stepped forward into the attack. She brought her sword up in a strike, and the battle was back on… but not for long. Soon, pirates were running and trying to make it for the other blimp, apparently not putting it together that the two newcomers had come from there.

  When only two remained on deck, Cammie turned back to get dressed, letting Valerie and Robin deal with them. She was mad about losing her cowboy hat, and now that she looked down at where her clothes had fallen, she was pissed to see the shirt was covered with blood.

  At first, she debated simply going shirtless, but the wind was damn cold, after all. She glanced around and saw that one of the two survivors was a woman of about her size, wearing a black hat that had some similarities to her old one, with a turquoise feather on it. She wore a dress to match, with what looked like a corset around her waist and frills coming out the back in a way that reminded Cammie of a peacock.

  “Hold on,” Cammie said, covering herself from the wind as she walked back over. She looked the woman pirate up and down, then said, “Are you evil?”

  “What?” the woman hissed, wild eyes darting back and forth between her and Valerie.

  “Are you a bad person? Do you steal? Would you slit our throats whil
e we sleep? You get the gist.”

  The pirate focused her eyes on her and spat out, “I’ll tear out your tongue and gouge out your eyes, you miserable horse’s ass. The hell kind of question is that? I’m a damn pirate, you understand? Lady Death, they call me back in Toro, because I’ll fucking bring the—”

  CRACK. Cammie moved in a quick motion, snapping the woman’s neck so as to avoid blood on her new clothes.

  “What was all that about?” Robin asked, and Cammie wished she could see the woman’s face under that mask to tell if she was asking in the judgmental way it sounded like.

  “Makes me sleep better at night if I know the person I kill would’ve done the same to me,” Cammie replied, and began undressing the woman.

  “And you’re stealing her clothes…”

  Cammie began to slide the dress off the woman, but paused to look at Robin. “It’s probably something we should all consider doing, if we want to do any sort of undercover work. Plus, I think my man will find it sexy as hell.”

  “No doubts there,” Valerie interjected, standing next to the captain’s door. “That said, we still have this to deal with, and it sounds like there’s more than one of them in there. If you’re worried about blood on the new dress.”

  “You like the nude look on me, Val?” Cammie chuckled. “All this time, you coulda just asked.”

  Valerie turned away, actually blushing. This was too much. Cammie stood, holding the dress in one hand, breasts warmed by the orange glow of sunrise.

  “Is there something going on here that I don’t know about?” she asked, stepping toward Valerie while doing her best to conceal a smile. “Because… you know my pack from before was very open to the idea of more than one woman in a man’s bed. I could talk to Royland, see if he’s interested. Can’t see why he wouldn’t be.”

  “Cammie, we’re dealing with something here,” Valerie said, refusing to turn and look at her.

  “I’m sure they’d all like to hear your thoughts on the matter.” Cammie strode forward, licking her lips, when suddenly Robin was in her path.

  “Enough.”