* * *
Dusk approached. The black and yellow habbie vehicle rolled out of its parking space at the same time it had every day this week.
I jumped out of my seat.
“Wait.” Ray raised his hand out. “At least until the habbies turn the corner.”
I slid the van door open anyway, stepped out, and peered around to see that the streets were empty. Nona hopped out after me. Ray remained in the van, as planned.
Humid air clung to my skin. Even though the summer sun had disappeared from the sky, the habitat ceiling’s bars still retained the horrid heat. The bars wouldn’t cool down until late in the evening. Sweat leaked out of my underarms, soaking the thick jean jacket as I headed toward Tango.
I’m going to stuff this blistering jacket up Ray’s anal cavity when I’m done.
Tango stood on the corner, talking to his usual entourage, three Mixies that had been tagging along with him since we were all young and growing up in the orphanage. Brick, Alt, and Curry were their names. They never truly harmed anybody—except they didn’t stop Tango from selling drugs.
I won’t hurt them unless I have to.
“I mean her ass was this big.” Tango extended his hands far out to his sides.
Two little boys walked up to him, maybe ten years old or less, with brunette cornrows. The tallest one held money in his hand.
Nona rushed toward them, shooed them away, and searched around for any other kids. Her job was to clear the streets of any young witnesses.
“Tango, how you doing, man?” I flashed him a smile.
He slowly turned around. If he’d been smiling, it was definitely gone now. His thin lips were formed into a straight line. His hands shook as he placed them in his pockets.
Brick and Alt looked at me and ran.
Smart guys.
Curry remained sitting on the ground, drawing a circle with a stick. He seemed unsure of what was going on. His eyes went from me to Tango and then back to me.
“Zulu did you come to sing a song?” Curry asked. “I love kites.”
The rumor on the streets was that Curry’s mom had worked at Mason’s plant when she was pregnant with him. It was a plant that casted high-level spells and toxic potions that pregnant women weren’t supposed to be exposed to. Apparently, Curry was the top example for why people should follow magic-safety rules.
“Run away, Curry,” I ordered and kept my focus on Tango to make sure he didn’t escape.
Curry just gawked at me. “You think I should run?”
I glanced over my shoulder and noticed Nona herding several kids around the corner.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “You should definitely leave.”
Curry jumped up and jogged away, tripping over his ankles and falling every few feet.
Tango raised his hands in front of his chest. “Look, Zulu. I wasn’t even selling around here.”
“I’ve been watching you for the past five hours.” I stepped toward him.
He backed up and looked at the empty parking spot where the habbies had been located. His lips moved, as if saying a chant, and then he disappeared into thin air like he’d never been there to begin with.
I laughed.
He was using fairy glamour to hide himself. I could smell the familiar sweet fragrance of fairy magic as it sparked. It was like strolling into a candy store.
“Not a good idea, Tango!” I yelled.
Purebloods always assumed Mixbreeds had no power, that they could just do whatever and not suffer the consequences from us.
No one knew what I was mixed with, and I wanted to keep it that way.
So instead of shifting completely, I changed my eyes to black and chanted, “Once was hidden. Now is seen.”
Tango’s fairy glamour immediately dropped. He must have bought a cheap cloaking spell from some desperate Fairy. His image came into my view as he sprinted down the street, looking over his shoulder and laughing, confident that he’d escaped.
Once he turned the corner, I raced after him.
The cool thing about Oya District is that each alleyway ran parallel with its nine major roads and provided great short cuts for chasing after your local drug dealer.
I dashed to the alleyway next to the Dollar Store, searched around for witnesses, and leaped thirty feet into the air, gliding to the other end within seconds.
A rush of wind blew past me, raising my dreadlock bun high above my head. The back of my jacket rose with the current of air. I dropped to the ground, causing the alley’s dust to rise around my boots.
A one-legged, red Pixie screeched and hopped under a dumpster.
I burst out of the alleyway, turned the corner, and spotted Tango racing across Hurricane Road. Cars honked. One hit him. He smashed onto a sports car’s red hood face first, denting the metal.
The car screeched to a stop. He fell into the street, rolled up, and did a sort of one-leg-at-a-time stumble onto the sidewalk.
“Hey, Tango! You alright, man? Need any help?” I asked.
He glanced back and yelped. Shock plastered across his face.
That’s right. I see you.
I snaked around two cars that had stopped to watch Tango run off. It took me ten seconds to get to the sidewalk.
Tango ran, spitting blood onto the ground. He glanced over his shoulder, spotted me, and screamed again.
I roared.
Just a few more feet.
I mentally called on my power, gritting my teeth at the pain. It felt like icicles stabbing at my temples and stinging everywhere they hit with an agonizing twinge. The freezing sensation spread down my body, trickling to my hands. Each slam of my feet against the pavement felt like I was stomping barefoot through broken glass.
I roared in misery.
Tango looked back and crashed into a trashcan.
Now, barely twenty feet away, I reached out for his beast, sensing it hiding near his core.
Come here, little wolfy.
His beast, a black-furred wolf, peeked back at me in distress. The wolf’s transparent head stuck out of Tango’s back, not used to being seen or felt by anyone but Tango. He turned his furry muzzle from side to side.
Here I am, little wolf.
The beast’s eyes snapped to mine. He barked at my presence.
No one could hear him but Tango and me.
Tango frantically looked around for some sort of escape.
I threw out a mental lasso. No other Supernaturals, except Fairies and Trolls, could see it. To any onlooking Fairy that had shifted his eyes, my lasso resembled a clear liquid rope with silver dots swimming in it.
To any other supernatural, I was just wagging my hand around.
The lasso hooked onto the wolf’s neck. The wolf yapped for a while, and then surrendered.
I heaved the rope toward me.
The translucent beast fell out of Tango’s back and crashed into the pavement with a hard smack. Tango collapsed to the ground, screaming, his body riding spasms of pain.
His noise startled the old Troll sitting on the bench and knitting a maroon bone-holder.
“Sorry for the disturbance, ma’am,” I said to the Troll.
She stopped moving her knitting needles. “It’s okay.”
The fear in her eyes told me it wasn’t.
The wolf lay behind Tango, tangled in my lasso.
I jogged toward them, out of breath and drained from using my power. I could only take the beast out for a few seconds, which always gave me an advantage when I fought Shifters.
By the time I got to them, the beast had chomped the lasso into bits, charged toward Tango, and hopped back inside his body.
Tango shot up to a sitting position, gasping on a new-found breath.
I moseyed on over, whistling a song of doom. My sharp claws sliced out of my fingertips.
“How the fuck did you do that?” Tango hit his chest and touched his head as if unsure he was still alive. “What are you?”
“Ask your god Shango.” I tore into
his chest with my claws, ripping away flesh and slinging his intestines onto the stony sidewalk. Tango’s lifeless body crashed back into the pavement. I dug my claws deeper into his chest. Blood pooled around my hands while I searched for his heart.
The Troll returned to knitting as she watched.
An Elf on his bike spotted me digging through Tango’s chest, lost control of his handles, and collided into a poison berry bush.
A bronze sports car crashed into a large truck. Both drivers gaped at me. Others saw the drivers and checked to see what they were gaping at.
And that’s when Supernaturals all over Hurricane Road started to scream.
“Got it,” I announced against the racket.
I retracted my claws. The muscle beat in my hands. I ripped it out and stood up, holding it over my head. Dark scarlet slime streamed down my arm.
The horde of spectators silenced.
All traffic had ceased. Supes froze in their spots with open mouths, staring at me and holding their belongings to their stomachs or chests.
“Enough with the drugs in Mixbreeds’ neighborhoods!” I waved the heart around. “Spread the word! If you sell drugs to Mixbreeds, then Zulu’s coming for you!”
I leaned down and wrote a sentence on the sidewalk with Tango’s heart, squeezing the blood out of it to get more ink. When I finished, I threw the useless organ over the park’s gate.
A woman jumped to the side.
My sentence read, Don’t do drugs!
Three beeps sounded, and then a horn blared. Ray’s white van pulled up on the sidewalk, quickly separating the crowd. Anger spread across his face as he violently motioned for me to get in, hitting his elbow by accident on the steering wheel. He cursed.
Nona arrived at my side.
“You a Drama King, Zulu.” She laughed and hopped in the van.
“Gob-dobbin sculanch!” Ray cursed in Fey, an ancient Fairy language.
I climbed in.
“Scramp sculanch! Blux sculanch!”
“I don’t even know what you’re saying,” I said.
“Every damn thing I asked you not to do, you did it!” He drove us off. “You don’t motherpounding listen! Not even since you were a boy!”
I glanced out of the window, smiling and thinking of tonight. Excitement sparked within me.
“I just wanted to make sure everybody got the message this time,” I explained.
“They didn’t even hear what you said!” Ray continued. “You scared the shit out of them, wagging a bloody heart around!”