The Burning Bush (27 page)

“Damn it,” Angel yelled.

“Sorry. It was an accident.”

Angel shook her boots for a while as if that would help get rid of the muddy water.

“Oh my goodness, would you stop?” I asked. “You look great.”

Angel had taken three hours to get ready for this club. She’d told me that before we met, she used to dance at Goldie’s strip club, maybe give a few blow jobs for money, and then rush over to Club X to party and do any drugs she could find. She’d called this place her second home. I was surprised because, since I’d saved Angel from a killer last month, she’d been staying at MFE every night. As far as I figured, Angel never went out unless it was to the movies with Quinn and me.

“They’ll never believe how long I’ve been sober,” Angel said, smoothing down her newly dyed hair. She’d gone from blonde to ginger.

“You’re hair looks awesome. Leave it alone.” I smacked her hands away from her head.
Whoever she wants to impress had better be amazed with her new look, or I’ll have to hurt them.

I myself had never been to Club X even though it was the only Mixie club in Santeria. I was overjoyed when it opened, but I was just so tired of the club scene. I’d tagged along to too many night spots when MeShack’s band was trying to make a name for itself.

The Santeria nightlife scene had been so exciting, but like anything else, after a while it all became old and boring. Every club had a drunken bunch of Shifters brawling or vomiting. Furthermore, there was always a weirdly matched couple humping each other on the dance floor—only to find out once the club’s lights turned on for “closing time” that the person they’d humped was grotesque.

Speaking of humping, I miss Zulu’s arms already.

“So what did Zulu say when you told him you exposed your goodies to MeShack in the dressing room?” Angel asked.

“Didn’t we finish this conversation already?” I spotted the club’s entrance. It sat at the end of a dark alley. A huge, blue fluorescent X hung above the door. No bouncer stood outside. If Angel hadn’t been guiding me down the alley, I probably would have turned around.

“Come on. What did Zulu say?” she asked, quickening her pace.

“He had no problem with it.”

“Yeah, right!” Angel halted in front of me and tilted her head to the side. “What did he really say?”

I sucked my teeth. “Zulu said, and I quote, ‘MeShack can look but if he touches, I get to rip off the hand he used.’ Then I explained that we weren’t committed and that he was acting like a possessive psycho.”

“His response?”

“Zulu just shrugged and said, ‘I am a possessive psycho.’”

“And then you made out, right?”

“Yes,” I mumbled. Warmth swirled between my thighs at the thought of Zulu’s tongue. We would’ve still been on my desk if Angel hadn’t interrupted us and said she could take me to question Onyx’s pimp, Kilo.

“Well, you have a real handle on the situation,” Angel said. “You really made your relationship definitions clear by stuffing your crotch in his mouth.”

“And what would you have done?” I turned my head to her.

She snickered. “I would have had sex with MeShack in the dressing room and had sex with Zulu later. Why make everything so complicated?”

“Clearly, you have no comprehension of Zulu’s or MeShack’s temper.”

Angel and I stepped into Club X, a green light immediately hitting our faces. Smoke assaulted me next. The scent of marijuana mixed with thyme, rosemary, and maybe a little gold lotus lingered in the air.

I blinked, trying to get my eyesight back. The light came from huge lamps that hung from the ceiling. Thousands of Moobees flew inside the lamps’ bulbs, giving the room its green glow. Moobees were a type of Supernatural bug that was born covered in phosphorescent, lime-green slime. No one knew their origins, but they tended to live deep in the soil, underneath mushrooms.

“What do you think so far?” Angel asked, glancing back at me. Her usually pale face was now glimmering green.

“It’s cool.”

“Wait till you see the other rooms. The whole club is built in an X shape with a lounge at each end. Each lounge is themed in a different element. This is the Earth lounge.”

She guided me through a row of several Mixies who sat on emerald pillows spread along the floor. There were no chairs, just the pillows and tiny tables with large hookahs in the center.

“You might even meet RonRica too.” Angel’s face brightened. “Have I told you about her yet?”

You only talk about RonRica every day.
I giggled to myself.

When the club announced its opening, only the
Shango Herald
newspaper published the article. RonRica did a small interview with them, but had refused to answer questions about her personal life, like how she’d gotten the money to open the club, and even refused to give them a picture.

“After you see all the lounges, we’ll come back here and smoke,” Angel insisted. “Then we can see if RonRica is around.”

We turned the corner and came to the center of the X. It was kind of like a small foyer with three more entrances to the other lounges and doors for the bathrooms.

“Don’t forget this is business too,” I reminded her as she grabbed my hand and dragged me into an orange room. “We have to talk to Kilo before we leave.”

A bonfire sat on a set of smoldering dragon stones in the middle of the floor. The stones were translucent orbs full of a fire spell, and they lasted longer than charcoal and wood. The lounge was dimly lit. Only the flames from the dragon stones served as the lighting. They bathed the space in an amber glow. Mixies hung out on pale-yellow pillows, drinking tall tubes of golden liquid.

“You have to check this out real quick. You won’t believe this.” Angel towed me around the bonfire. Heat caressed my legs, soothing me.

We approached the bartender, a tall female Mixie, behind a small bar. She had tiny amber gems glued to her eyelids. An orange wig adorned her head, and a dress resembling flames draped her body.

“I’ll have two Vestas.” Angel leaned on the bar. “With extra heat.”

“Vesta?” I grinned. “Like my last name?”

“Oh yes.” Angel bobbed her head up and down. “You have a drink named after you. Plus, your drink can only be ordered in the Fire room.”

Unease sat at the pit of my stomach, but I laughed it away.
Mixies know I can create fire. That’s not bad. Right?
I liked my fire power to be a secret, so I could do a surprise attack in a fight. Hanging with Zulu and working with MFE had shoved me into the public eye. I’d been forced to use my fire a few times near onlookers.
Maybe people knowing what my power is won’t be such a bad thing.

Angel continued to talk. “In Club X, all the popular Mixies in Santeria have drinks named after them.”

The bartender poured a thick, white liquid into the blender.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Sweet cream.” The bartender avoided my stare. Her fingers shook as she poured honey and then Puerto Rican rum into the cream.

I nodded my head. “I’m loving this drink so far.”

Still holding the button down on the blender, the Mixie bartender smiled from ear to ear. She ducked under the bar and then came up, holding a tiny sprig of lavender.

“Wow. Someone’s been spying on me.” I glanced at Angel. “Did you tell someone here I loved cream and lavender?”

“Nope.” Angel’s eyes scanned the different Mixies in the room. “I’ve asked RonRica several times about the source, and she won’t tell me how they figured out your favorite ingredients.”

The bartender chopped up lavender, filling the air with the herb’s perfumed scent, and dumped the chopped leaves into the blender.

“I’m going to have to meet RonRica and question her myself,” I said. The bartender pulled out a tiny bottle of yellow liquid from under the bar. She dumped the whole thing into the blender. “What’s that?”

“Habanero seed oil,” she said.

“I’m in love.” Saliva filled my mouth as I drooled over the drink’s succulent possibilities.

Angel chuckled, still checking out the scene. “Hey, it looks like you’ll get to meet RonRica sooner than I thought, and she’s bringing over a good friend of ours.”

I turned to see a tall bald woman stroll toward us with Cassie walking awkwardly next to her. I cursed and asked Cassie, “Does your brother know you’re here?”

“Of course not.” Cassie stared at the floor.

“Oh, so then you do know Miss Vesta,” RonRica said to Cassie. Her voice was smooth and sultry. “I thought the little Shifter was lying.”

I glanced RonRica’s way and froze, taking in her horrific image. My breath caught in my throat. I had lost all ability to speak.

“It’s okay,” RonRica smiled. “It’s hard to look at me at first, but after a while, you get used to it.”

I nodded. RonRica wore a strapless, exotic dress made of ostrich feathers woven between crystal beads, but it was her skin that made me sick to my stomach. Hundreds of Vamp bites covered her skin. They were definitely from Vamps because only those bites resembled two big holes with two tiny matching holes above them. RonRica had those bites on her bald head, cheeks, and ears, as well as around her forehead brand and up and down her arms. There was no way of denying the obvious truth in front of my eyes. Many Vamps had feasted on her.

The bartender tapped my shoulder. I jumped and almost shrieked.

“Here’s your Vesta,” she said, smiling from ear to ear. “I’m honored to make it for you.”

“Thank you so much. I’m honored to taste it.” I seized the drink like it was the elixir of life.

“What happened to your skin?” Cassie asked RonRica in a low voice. “Is it a disease?”

Cassie had probably never seen a Vamp bite. Being a wealthy Shifter, she didn’t have to deal with the habitat’s terrors. She could hang out at Shifter country clubs, hunting prey in animal form with all of the other debutant girls.

“Nothing is wrong with her skin,” Angel answered for RonRica. “Those are Vamp bites.”

“All over her body?” Cassie gasped. “Why haven’t they healed?”

Beaming from ear to ear, RonRica held out her left wrist, displaying a silver collar with the letter R dangling from it.

“I’m probably the only surviving Vamp-owned Mixbreed that finished the whole service commitment,” she said. “The few Mixbreeds that sign up for voluntary slavery with the Vamps always think they will get this huge lump sum of money once their contract is completed, but usually they just end up dead.”

“Holy Shango.” Cassie picked up Angel’s Vesta and took a sip.

“Put that down,” I hissed. Cassie risked a gulp and handed it back to Angel.

RonRica’s fingers caressed the silver collar, as if she was seeing it for the first time. “I gave the Ritoni family thirty years of service. My contract stated I would receive three hundred thousand dollars. The Ritoni Vamps expected me to be dead by the end of my contract. When I survived to the last day, they locked me in my slave quarters, and all the top family members fed on me.”

How did she stay alive?

“There were twenty of them,” RonRica said. Her voice was flat, and her eyes distant.

Picturing several Vamps biting on RonRica at once, I swallowed my whole drink in one gulp and glanced over my shoulder at the bar. “I would love another Vesta with a little more rum.”

The bartender nodded.

Cassie covered her mouth. “How did you make it?”

“I ask the goddess Oya that every day.” RonRica smoothed the ostrich feathers on her dress. “I remember leaving my body as the twentieth Vampire began to feed on me, and then I woke up in the morgue the next day. I thought I’d become a Vampire, but I could walk outside, and it was daytime.”

“I have no idea how I would have reacted.” I grabbed my second Vesta and forced myself to sip the sweet and savory spiced liquid.

“I had no family so I went to the only place Mixies could go.” RonRica turned her attention to me. “I headed straight to MFE. Some Fairy named Ray, and of course Zulu, helped me get the money I was owed from the Ritoni family. The bites never healed.”

“Zulu’s my brother.” Cassie beamed with pride. RonRica glanced at Cassie’s brand, studying her face.

“Well . . . Zulu’s my half-brother.” Cassie stepped up to the bar. “I’ll have what she’s having.”

“No, she won’t. She’s still a teenager.” I held my hand up in front of Cassie’s face. “And I told you that you couldn’t come.”

“I thought that was just a helpful suggestion.”

“That sounds like something you would say, Lanore.” Angel giggled. “You’re rubbing off on her.”

I pulled out money to pay, hoping the few bucks I owned covered all three Vestas.

RonRica raised her hands. “That isn’t necessary. You don’t pay for anything when you’re in here. You and Zulu do so much for Mixbreeds. Just keep working for our cause. Without you two, we have nothing.”

I nodded. If my skin had been lighter, she would have seen that I was blushing.

“And Angel, I was worried when I hadn’t seen you for a month, but you really look breathtaking.” RonRica brushed her fingers through Angel’s ginger hair. I may have been imagining things, but I could have sworn Angel shuddered. I peeked at Cassie, and she raised her eyebrows, tossing me back a questioning look.