The Burning Bush (10 page)

“I’m sorry. Maybe we can do it next week.” I stepped over to her and seized my book from her purse.

“This means everything to me.” Cassie’s blue eyes shifted to gold. Her round pupils transformed to vertical slits.
Tiger eyes.

“I bought an outfit, this new pocketbook. I told everybody about this,” Cassie whined.

Groaning, I pulled my black Mixbreeds for Equality shirt over my head and snatched up a rubber band to put my hair in a ponytail. “Today may be dangerous. I’m checking a murder out.”

“Oh! Oh!” Cassie jumped up and down. Black-and-orange-striped fur appeared on her face. “I have to go. There is no way I’m not coming. It would kill Sierra Thompson if I did a better feature than her.”

“You’re shifting,” I said.

Cassie paused and covered her mouth in embarrassment. The fur disappeared. Her eyes went back to blue.

“Let’s take her. Fuck Sierra whoever.” Angel opened my drawer, stirred its contents, and dragged out a red shirt.

I glared at Angel. “Would you stop cursing around her.”

“It’s no big deal. And I’ll stay out of trouble,” Cassie promised. “Zulu said he would have Rebels following us anyway.”

I whipped my head around to face her and paused in the middle of stuffing all of Rivera’s files into my denim satchel. “When did he say that?”

“An hour ago,” Cassie mumbled, possibly sensing she’d gotten her brother in trouble.

So he promises me he’ll back off and then has Rebels watching me anyway?

“FYI, I have your scent now so I’ll just track you,” Cassie said.

“You’re as stubborn as your brother,” I declared.

“Worse, because I always get my way.” Cassie started hopping up and down again. “Oh! Oh!”

I waved my hands. “What? And please stop.”

“I could give you cool tidbits about my brother. Things no one knows.” Cassie stuck her lipstick-pink lips out in a pathetic pout as she ceased jumping. “Do you know his real name?”

I finished packing the files into my satchel. “It doesn’t matter.”

I’ll be calling him son of a Mixed bitch tonight!

“What is it?” Angel flung the bloody towel in the corner. “If this is good, I’ll give you permission to tag along. Lanore doesn’t run this operation. I’m really the boss.”

I snorted. Last night, Angel had promised to be my backup for the day as I investigated Onyx’s and Shelly’s murders. Currently, her skin was a sickly gray. Even though it was a warm fall day in Miami, Angel took out my fuzzy, purple coat from the closet.

“You’re cold, huh?” I asked, smirking.

“I’m fine.” Angel put the jacket on. Her lips quivered as she zipped the coat up.

“You can’t absorb anymore powers,” I said in a low voice so Cassie wouldn’t hear us.

Angel lifted the top right side of her lip into a sneer. “You’re not my mom.”

Of course not. She left you in a dumpster when you were a baby. I actually care.

“Whatever.” I fingered the two cords on my arm, noticed I was doing it, and ceased the nervous habit.

Angel glanced at Cassie. “So let’s see if you can earn your ticket to hang with us. What’s Zulu’s real name?”

Although Angel and I headed to my door as if we were going to leave her, my ears perked up for Cassie’s answer.

Cassie trailed behind. “Zeigfried Romulus Meinhart.”

I covered my mouth, stifled a giggle, and almost tripped over my own feet.

“She earned her ticket.” Angel hooted with laughter as she raised the purple-furred collar up around her chin. “Come on, Lanore. Let her come.”

“Fine,” I said. “The Rebels will be guarding us anyway. But I’m warning you, little tiger, when it gets dangerous, you have to leave.”

“No problemo.” A wide smile spread across Cassie’s face as she began snapping her fingers. “I’m a real professional when I do articles.”

Alrighty.

Mother Earth entered my doorway before we could leave my room. The Shifter stood at just about four feet. Her wrinkled brown skin was the color of potatoes. She had a tangerine-colored shawl wrapped around her shoulders and wore a sky-blue dress. Her thick, gray dreadlocks draped her body and fell to the floor like an additional shawl.

I gritted my teeth. Today was looking to be an awful day.
I might as well climb back into my bed and hide under the blankets.

“Hello, Mother Earth,” I said.

“I’m just here to congratulate you and Zulu.” Stinking of rancid cooking oil and marijuana, Mother Earth wrapped her fat arms around me.

I kept my arms to my sides, cringing internally. My skin itched as if tiny bugs crawled all over me. I didn’t know why, but Mother Earth and I had just never hit it off. We were constantly bickering at meetings, each bitching to Zulu about the other.

“This bomb is only the beginning.” Mother Earth released me, patting my shoulder.

I edged away. “Actually, it’s not the beginning. It’s the last time, like we all agreed. No more bombs, remember? Cassie, could you wait for me out in the hallway?”

I doubted Cassie knew about Zulu’s involvement in the bombing. Angel guided her out of my room.

“Well, Nona agreed that this bomb would be the last time, but the Rebels said no such thing.” Mother Earth wrapped her shawl tighter to her as if she were only a cold grandmother and not a sociopathic Shifter.

“Nona is the leader—”

“You just be a good girl and tell Zulu to meet with me when he has time.” She grinned. It appeared foreign on her face and sent shivers up my spine.

“And if I don’t?” Throwing a fake smile on my face, I increased the heat in my body. I was taller and younger than she was, but I didn’t know what animal she changed into. I didn’t think it was a cute bunny.

“Lanore, we’re friends. Remember that.”

Snorting, I headed out, leaving her in my bedroom. “We’re not friends if you try to talk him into another bombing.”

The three of us approached the home of Onyx’s mother. Her name was Harriet Fife, and she rented a two-bedroom apartment that sat over a garage.

“So I’m Zulu’s first girlfriend?” I asked Cassie.

“Yeah,” Cassie said. “He moved around to different foster homes, so he never really had a chance to focus on girls.”

We walked by the landlord’s neatly kept lawn and wide house. Rows of siding the color of eggplant ran across the main house and matched the paint on the garage and the apartment above it. Harriet lived in Oya District. It had been themed after the goddess Oya, who loved purple and was said to be the spirit of change, transition, and chaos.

Various shades of purple paint, from violet to mauve, coated the houses in this neighborhood. The streets were deserted this Tuesday morning. Everybody must have been at work or school, which told me that middle- to working-class people lived here. In a poor area like where my old apartment was in Shango District, a constant parade of hookers, dealers, jobless Mixies, and neglected kids strolled the block. The rich areas of Yemaya District always seemed to have Supes jogging or lounging on their porches as if they were under no real work schedule.

Cassie, Angel, and I headed up the driveway’s entrance to a staircase that led to Harriet’s apartment. A black puddle sat at the bottom of the staircase. Next to it was a liter of motor oil.

“Be careful you don’t slip in this oil patch.” I hopped over it.

“I didn’t know Zulu grew up in foster homes like me.” Angel jumped over the oil puddle, landing on the first step with a plop. “Why didn’t he live with you, Cassie?”

We had to use the garage wall to maintain our balance as we climbed the staircase. There wasn’t a banister, just three wooden posts and no handrail. Sharp nails stuck out of the posts.

“My mom wouldn’t let Zulu stay with us.” Cassie’s lips pressed into a straight line as she climbed the stairs. “He could only visit us on the weekends.”

“So he aged out of the system?” Angel’s face scrunched up in disgust.

“Huh?” Cassie asked.

“Did Zulu stay in foster homes until he was eighteen?” I clarified. Cassie nodded. The sound of a television floated out to us as we continued up the steep stairs.

“But that doesn’t make sense. Why couldn’t he stay at your house?” Angel asked.

“Let’s not talk about that,” I interjected, sure that Cassie didn’t want to explain her mother’s hatred for her own son.

Zulu’s mother was a Were-tiger who had not been prepared for the results of combining her Shifter blood with his father’s Fairy blood. Fairy magic followed no rule of logic. Instead of Zulu being a regular Mixbreed, he turned out to be a Shifter that transformed into a dangerous Fairy creature—a Prime. As a baby, he’d ripped his way out of his mother’s womb, almost killing her. Her rapid healing abilities had been all that saved her.

As a child, Zulu had no control of his Prime form. He would bite his mother while she nursed him. He ate a classmate on his first day in kindergarten. His mother ended up abandoning Zulu and divorcing his father.

Zulu’s father spent the rest of his life searching for a way his son could control his shifts. He had discovered the spell responsible for the multicolored cords of magic woven into Zulu’s arms and the jeweled wings on his back. The magic allowed Zulu to choose when he shifted and when he did not. But the energy required to seal the spell was high, and Zulu’s father gave his own life and magic to bind the magical cords to Zulu’s skin.

“Why would Zulu be in foster care? I mean, you look like you come from a family with a little money,” Angel said.

“My dad’s Mayor Price,” Cassie mumbled.

“The mayor of the habitat? That’s some Were-bullshit,” Angel exclaimed. “So your mom is Fiona Price? The chick that is always talking about Mixbreeds being evil abominations?”

I cleared my throat, attempting to get Angel’s attention as she shook her head, stopping at the top of the stairs. She was still wearing my purple winter coat. I felt hot just looking at her. Angel’s skin had grayed even more. Every few seconds she coughed blood into a napkin. At the moment, she was towing around several bloody napkins in my coat pocket.

“My mom doesn’t hate all Mixbreeds.” Cassie’s shoulders slumped as she met us at the top.

“Of course not.” I nodded.

“Yeah, I bet she likes your maid,” Angel laughed.

“Stop that,” I whispered to Angel. “By the way, how are you feeling right now? Do you want to just go back to the shop and rest?”

“The answer is still the same. No.” Angel stuck her tongue out at me and turned to Cassie. “So your mother left him in the system?”

Stroking the ends of the cords on my arm, I wished Angel would just leave the whole topic alone with Cassie.

“I think he stayed in some nice foster homes,” Cassie offered, still not looking at Angel or me.

“There are no nice ones. Trust me.” Angel tapped her chest. “They always clean up when visitors come. Once the social workers are gone, it’s a different story. Abuse, rape, starving—”

“Well, anyway, new topic.” I grimaced, faced Angel, and mouthed the words “be quiet.” There was no need to make Cassie feel guilty for her mother’s actions.

“So . . . the stairs are dangerous,” I said, changing the topic. “I wonder what happened to the handrail.”

“I’m never having kids,” Angel declared.

“And may we all thank the gods for that.” I knocked on the front door.

“Yes?” a woman asked on the other side of the door.

“Hello. My name is Lanore Vesta. Detective Rivera—”

“Oh, just a minute,” the woman said before I could finish.

“So this is official habitat police business?” Cassie asked. I turned Cassie’s way and noticed her holding a silver stick in her hand. A blue light beeped on and off at the top of the stick.

How did she grab that so quickly? I have to keep my eye on her.
“Do not record this! And definitely don’t put anything about the habbies, or this girl’s death, in your article.” I pointed to the recorder. “And put that away.”

The door’s locks clicked from inside. I counted one, two, three, four clicks in all, and then the scrape of a chain. The door opened, revealing a woman with rich ebony skin that made the silver X brand on her forehead stand out in stark contrast. A brunette, curly wig balanced haphazardly on the side of her head, a ripped hair stocking and natural gray hair peeked out from under it. The need to right the wig hit me like a hard-to-scratch itch, but I kept my hands to my sides, knowing it would embarrass her.