The Burning Bush (11 page)

The scent of liquor wafted from her mouth as she said, “I’m Harriet Fife.”

Harriet shook my hand. Calloused fingers scratched my skin, the kind that a person received from hard manual labor.

“I’m Lanore. This is Angel and Cassie. They’re helping me on your daughter’s case.”

“Come in.” Harriet moved to the side, lifting her blue and white flowered house coat. Blue velvet slippers covered her feet. Something black peppered with dust clung to the tips of her shoes. “I’ll make us some coffee. You can sit down. It’ll be just a minute.”

“Oh, that’s okay.” I waved my hand, but Harriet had already disappeared through a bamboo curtain in a doorway off to the right.

“Come on down to The Chakra Crown! Buffet is free for all kids under ten years old,” a man said on the TV. “And Mixbreeds are allowed on Sundays and Mondays!”

I rolled my eyes. Angel and Cassie trailed behind me as I took in the pumpkin carpet stained with dark maroon spots near the door. Plastic encased a milky-white couch. We sat down and the couch creaked under us.

“She has a pot of treranges.” Angel elbowed me in the side and gestured to a clay pot full of orange flowers on the coffee table. Amber light glowed from each triangle-shaped petal.

“You sure those are treranges?” I’d only seen them in pictures and movies.

“Shit. Those are worth a thousand dollars a petal.” Angel attempted to touch them.

“No.” I grabbed her wrists. “You might absorb their power.”

“Shit. You’re right.” Angel jerked back. The flowers temporarily erased memories.

“I can probably touch them, though. They only work if you make the petals into tea,” Angel insisted.

“Not just a tea.” Cassie scooted closer to us. “You can dry the flowers, grind them to a powder, and make a paste. My mom has a few of these in her garden. She’s always smearing the paste on her toast.”

Maybe that was how Zulu’s mother could sleep at night. She used treranges to temporarily take away her guilty conscience. Momentarily, I shook away my hatred for Zulu’s mother and considered the treranges.
Why would Harriet have several thousand dollars’ worth of flowers on her coffee table?
Cassie pulled out her camera and snapped a picture of the flowers.

“Put that up.” I pointed to her purse.

Cassie let out a tiny growl, but obliged me by placing the camera back in her bag. A tiny television rested on an orange shelf. Beeping drifted from its speakers.

“Good Morning, Santeria,” a brunette Earth Witch said, standing in front of piles of rubble. “Authorities are still investigating the Linderman’s Blood Factory bombing.”

Unease dropped to the pit of my stomach. My nerves flared and set my teeth on edge. I twisted my fingers together and spied Angel watching me from the corner of my eye. Two weeks ago, when I’d confessed to her that we were going to bomb the factory, she’d told me to be prepared for the consequences if Zulu and I were caught.

“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time,” she’d said.

To calm myself down, I scanned the framed pictures all over the living room. Photos of a light-brown-skinned man in black and white military uniform dominated the wall.

“Currently, there are no suspects in the bombing, but habitat police are seeking Kegan Burrows for questioning. Burrows, also known as the Prophet of the Wildfire Gospel, has been quoted by witnesses as taking credit for the bombing—”

My attention snapped to the TV screen as I froze in my seat.

“Do you all want sugar and cream with your coffee?” Harriet shouted from the kitchen.

“No coffee for me, ma’am,” Cassie replied. “Thank you.”

“The Wildfire Gospel has been the biggest supporter of the Vampire Age Restriction, which is currently being reviewed at the Supreme Court—”

“A good bit of sugar and no cream for me,” Angel said.

“Many of the Prophet’s rally speeches have criticized the Vampire population’s monopoly of blood exports.”

The news station displayed Prophet Kegan’s mugshot. He was an olive-skinned bald man with tattoos all over his face. I checked his brand—Fire Witch. His eyes glowed burnt orange, as if he’d been casting a spell when the picture was taken. I wondered why Kegan had been arrested.

“Miami Mayor Uly is scheduled to hold a press conference at noon where he will discuss the bombing and the safeguards Miami and Santeria Habitat officials will take to prevent this from happening again. A manhunt is expected for those that are responsible for the bombing.”

Angel nudged my shoulder and whispered, “Sugar or cream?”

“What?” I jumped.

“Harriet wants to know how you take your coffee.”

“Oh, sorry!” I wiped away the beads of sweat that had formed along my forehead. “Sugar and cream would be great.”

I would have preferred some hot sauce also poured in, maybe some liquor on the side, and a joint, but I didn’t want to push my luck.

Had Zulu and I covered our footsteps?
Maybe not.
A screw-up like Rivera knew we were responsible immediately, but then he’d been tracking us for a month.
Could the authorities do a widespread tracking of every Supes’ brand on the night of the bombing? Maybe not. If they could, Zulu and I would have already been captured. Right?

“Are you okay?” Angel asked.

“Sure.”

“You’re tapping your hands against your leg like you’re trying out for a rock band,” Angel pointed out.

“I’m fine.” I glanced back at the TV.

“Everyone is wondering: Will the Remembrance Day Masquerade Ball be canceled?”

“That’s awful,” Cassie muttered, shaking her head.

I turned to her. “The bombing?”

“Oh, no.” Cassie tucked some of her long blond strands behind her ear. “It will be so horrible if they postpone the Masquerade Ball. My mom’s going to finally let me go. Guess who I’m going to be?”

The screen went black. All three of us turned toward the bamboo curtain, where Harriet stood with the remote control.

“Sorry.” Harriet placed the remote on a white and orange striped end table. “I don’t have cable so it’s just the three local channels, and all they’re doing is reporting this bombing.”

“No problem,” I said.

Three pairs of Pixies flew through the bamboo curtains. Each pair held a large cup of coffee, and their shoulders seemed to be straining under the cups’ weight. Their skin and wings resembled the shade of ripe tangerines. They had to be purebred Pixies from a pet store. The more the wings’ and skin’s colors matched, the higher the pedigree.

I jumped up to grab my coffee and relieve them from a few of their duties. “How did you train them to do this?”

Harriet sat down in a chair that was in the shape and color of a carrot. The back was green. The bottom curved out to a seat, but had ridges going around it. “My daughter taught the Pixies that. It didn’t take Onyx long either. Maybe three weeks, I think.”

I sipped my coffee. It was scalding hot like I loved it but entirely too sweet. Sugar crystals skittered past my tongue as I gulped the syrupy concoction. I gritted my teeth and smiled. “This is excellent.”

Harriet nodded. “What would you like to ask me?”

“Can you tell me about Onyx and the last time you saw her?”

Harriet scratched her head. To my relief, the wig’s placement had been corrected. “Onyx was my only child. Perfect most of her life. An A student. And she drew some of the most amazing pictures.”

I set the coffee down, pulled out my notebook from my satchel, and wrote everything down.

“This is one of her drawings.” Harriet pointed to a gigantic charcoal sketch behind us.

I was shocked I hadn’t spotted it before. The sketch was of an enormous butterfly with dotted wings. The beautiful creature took up most of the paper, which was half the size of the wall.

“Butterflies are so cool. I saw one when I was a kid,” Cassie declared. “I think it was yellow and black.”

I’d come close to seeing one when I was eleven, before MeShack dove into the air in cheetah form and ate it.
Furry bastard.
Like birds, butterflies were rare in the caged cities, as if their instincts told them to stay away from monsters.

“Onyx loved butterflies. She liked the idea of little creatures transforming into something else.” Harriet stared off for a minute. “She was so smart.”

“Did Onyx have a boyfriend?” I asked.

Harriet’s face darkened. “That’s where all this trouble started. Males.”

Cassie pulled out her tape recorder. “Mrs. Fife, is it alright if I tape this?”

“It’s okay.” Harriet slowly crossed her legs.

“That won’t be necessary,” I blurted, and scowled at Cassie.

“Oh, it’s no problem. I’ll do anything to . . .” Tears pushed out the corners of Harriet’s eyes and left a watery trail down her cheeks. She wiped them away with the backs of her hands and slammed the cup next to the TV. Coffee splashed out of the rim and onto the carpet, increasing the scent of liquor in the room.

Oooo-kay
 . . . Silence hung around us. I snatched up my coffee and gulped the rest down.

“Is that her father in the pictures?” Angel pointed to some of the photos on the wall.

“Oh, yes.” Harriet jumped up and walked toward the wall, stumbling a little. “This is her father. He served in the Supe-Human Wars when he was fourteen. He was a decorated soldier.”

Decorated soldier meant he’d quickly surrendered to the Human military and had gotten a bunch of meaningless medals from the government.

Harriet touched the photo’s glass with her fingertips. “He died in an accident at Palmer Plant before the place was shut down for safety violations. They had him mixing blood magic potions without silk gloves or even silvered plastic goggles.”

She went silent and continued to stare at the picture. Two quiet minutes passed. I glanced at the girls. They appeared as uncomfortable as I did. Cassie stirred in her seat. The couch’s plastic covering sounded with several creaks that brought Harriet out of her daze.

“Onyx was only seven when he died.” Harriet headed to a tiny table decorated with her daughter’s baby photos. “I’d already been working the night shift at Linderman’s. I had to start cleaning rich Witches’ houses up in Yemaya District. When Onyx got big, she’d take off from school sometimes and help me clean so we could get a little extra money.”

None of this stuff is helpful.
But I couldn’t just interrupt a mourning mother. I scanned the living room walls as Harriet continued to talk.

“And these are pictures of Onyx?” I pointed to the wall on my left near a hallway that appeared to lead to the bedrooms.

“Yes.” Harriet didn’t even look that way. Instead, she headed over to the charcoal drawing of the butterfly and gazed at it. “Those are all of Onyx’s class photos.”

In most of the pictures from kindergarten to maybe her junior year, Onyx wore bright shades of orange or solid white, with a huge smile on her face. Bows even decorated her hair in some of the high school pictures. But the last picture was drastically different from all the others. It must have been her senior year. Black lipstick shaded Onyx’s lips and blended in with her dark complexion. Three tiny silver bulbs pierced her right eyebrow. A silver ring dangled awkwardly from her right nostril. As a Mixie, silver wouldn’t harm her, but Purebloods considered it disrespectful when Mixies wore silver.

You were a rebel, huh?

Onyx’s shoulders were bare, as if she was only wearing a tube top that the camera didn’t capture in the frame. A silver choker wrapped around her neck like a collar with a butterfly carved from black stone. Onyx sported a longish bob on the right side of her face. The left side of her head was completely shaved off. She didn’t smile. Instead, she scowled at the camera. Clearly, something had happened. Someone doesn’t go from bright pumpkin-orange bows to shaving half her hair off without some sort of life change.
What happened?
I glanced at Harriet. She remained transfixed by the charcoal sketch.

“She changed her look toward the end,” Angel muttered.

I cleared my throat.

“Everything changed when she started dating.” Harriet spat out the words with disgust.

“Do you happen to know the boy who she was dating?” I asked, ready to write it down.

“No.” Harriet’s hands clenched into fists. “But he broke my baby’s heart. Made her think she was nothing. Grimy Purebloods.” She spat the words out like garbage was on her tongue.

Cassie’s face tinted to a pale shade of red. She raised her perfectly arched eyebrows and widened her eyes. She probably wasn’t used to Pureblood-bashing.

“So you’re sure Onyx was dating a Pureblood?” I asked.

“Of course.” Harriet faced me.

I waited for her to add something else, but nothing came.

“Why are you sure he was a Pureblood? Do you have any idea what species he was?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” She walked over to her coffee, picked it up, and sipped. “She had friends that I never met. I worked evenings at Linderman’s and usually took someone’s shift on the weekend. I thought she’d been staying in the house, staying out of trouble.”