Read Caged View (An Urban Fantasy Collection of Short Stories) (Habitat .5 Series) Page 4

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  Fifteen minutes later, I charged past the wooden sign and soared over The Castle’s front steps.

  Those same hookers from earlier jumped up from their chairs and shrieked. One dove off the edge of the porch.

  I crashed head first into the door. Wood exploded around my body as splinters from the door fell to the red carpet. The front room was empty.

  My head ached, but I shook it off and galloped through the house, tracking Joe’s scent.

  He’d been pimping my mom for years and supplying her with any drug she ever wanted. I knew his scent like I would’ve known a relative’s, if I had any of them.

  The old carpet tore under my claws. Hookers peeked out of their rooms.

  “Get Joe!” a female yelled behind me.

  Yes. Go get him.

  I caught the Vamp’s odor. It smelled like burnt fish.

  I banged against the hallway’s walls, growling and knocking over red and black chairs.

  Men scampered out of bedrooms, darting away from my jaws as I snapped at their feet. Hot saliva dripped from my fangs in thick tendrils. None of the clients shifted into their animal forms or tried to stop me. They probably had wives and were scared they would be caught in the middle of a brothel brawl and exposed on the nine o’clock news. Regardless, they ran out of the house barefoot, tripping over unbuttoned pants and holding their clothes.

  My tail slammed against the windows in the middle of the hallway and shattered the glass.

  Where are you, Joe?

  The burnt fish odor stopped at the last bedroom door. I crashed into it, splintering more wood. It scratched against my fur.

  I stalked around the bed, sniffing for him.

  The bed rose in the air.

  Joe yelled something in a foreign language. I jumped back as the mattresses and box springs crashed into the wall.

  Joe advanced toward me, baring fangs and black claws.

  I snapped at the Vamp, scratching dead flesh. It healed as Joe twisted in mid-air and landed five feet across the room.

  “You’re here about your mom, huh?” Joe’s blue eyes changed to crimson red. “I didn’t want to do it, but it was the third time she stole from me. I had to make her an example before others did—”

  I snarled so loudly, my head vibrated with the force. Fire pushed out of my nostrils. I was seething. The taste of rage dripped from my fangs.

  “Look, she told me to tell you she loved you.” He raised his hands in front of him. “Shift back and calm down. This was between her and me.”

  I leaped for him, pouncing on him with extended claws. He fell back, and I took that moment to clasp onto his crotch, tearing it off and spitting it out.

  Blood burst from the ragged hole, gushing down his jeans.

  Joe’s loud screams thundered throughout the room as he grasped with his hands for what was no longer there.

  He dropped to the ground.

  I opened my jaws and dug my fangs into his chest. The taut flesh battled against my teeth as I ripped him apart.

  Joe boxed my ears, but I never released him.

  My mom’s face flashed in my head: golden eyes, olive skin, and long wavy hair that fell beyond her waist.

  You’ll die tonight, Joe.

  His blood seeped into my mouth as I tore his heart out. It beat against my tongue.

  Without hesitation, I pierced it with my fangs, watching Joe’s body go still. Black lines crept along his body, transforming his skin into a gray and black husk. His mouth was open. His eyes focused on something far away and distant. Rotting flesh replaced the burnt fish scent immediately.

  I dropped the heart into his mouth and spit the Vampire’s blood out next to him.

  “Hey! Someone called the Habitat Police. You better hurry!” The Mixbreed that had talked to La La and me earlier stood in the doorway. “Take the back door and run.”

  Reality hit me.

  I’d taken a life. I did it in the most horrific way possible and had still felt no relief or peace, just an overwhelming sense of injustice and grief.

  Gazing at the dead Vampire before me, I blinked.

  His blood dripped into my eye.

  I took a life and my mom was still gone. Those two truths together pushed me over the edge. I drifted into my core, giving the cheetah full control of our body. My mind twisted and then sank into a safer place where only silence rested.

  Take us home, I said.

  I collapsed into darkness, a kind of nothingness that existed within me. A hushed gloom soothed me like a warm blanket on a cold evening. My eyes were shut tight, picturing my mom and thinking of everything that we’d left unsaid.

  I do love you, Mom.

  I’d quit telling her that I loved her years ago, even when she would hold me to her and kiss my forehead brand, begging me to say it.

  Now it’s too late.

  I balled up into the fetal position and thought of the times when there were no drugs in her life or home, just the warmth of her skin and the smell of her hair as she read to me and kissed me goodnight.