I knocked harder. “Sasha? It’s me, Cameo.”
Rich leaned my way. “I can’t believe you left Wiz with a vamp.”
“I didn’t have many choices. It’s not like I can lift him.”
The dumpster’s black plastic top rose. Sasha peeked over the rim.
“It took you long enough.” She rose higher. “Where’s the blood?”
“It’s being delivered to my room.” I got on the tip of my toes to check on Wiz. “How is he doing?”
Sasha slung an unconscious Wiz over h
er shoulder and climbed out with the fluidity that only a vampire could possess. “He hasn’t moved, but those snake things are still stirring under his skin.”
“Snake things?” Rich walked over as Sasha lifted Wiz like a ragdoll and turned him around.
I shook my head. “Rich you don’t want to—”
“Holy Shango!” Rich jerked several feet back. The wormlike lines pushed against Wiz’s skin.
Sasha turned to me. “Am I carrying him to your apartment, too?”
“I’m definitely not carrying him.” Rich widened his eyes until they looked like they would pop out of his skull. “This is the craziest mess I’ve ever seen. How long have these things been inside him?”
“His body started doing that around six months ago.” I bit my lip. “I asked him about them, but he refused to talk about it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Rich’s voice screeched at the end of the sentence.
“He asked me not to tell anybody.”
“So you just listened?”
“Would you focus on the current problem?” I headed out of the alley and gestured for Sasha to follow. She trailed behind me with Wiz on her shoulder.
“This isn’t good.” Rich rushed his pace until he was on my side. His fingers trembled. He gazed back at Wiz then rubbed his face with his hands and shivered. “This isn’t good.”
“You already said that.”
“Why are you so calm about it?” He raised his voice as we rounded the corner. The parade continued in the street. More people littered the sidewalks.
“Like I said, it’s been going on for six months. I’ve been freaking out since it started. But now I’m thinking about some crazy guy with scales on his face threatening Wiz and me.” I halted at the opening of the alley and touched Rich’s arm. “Take off your shirt so we can cover Wiz’s head. Crazier things are seen around the city, but we probably shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves.”
“Ya think?” Rich said with sarcasm and pulled off his shirt. “I’ve seen some wacky stuff but this beats it all. It looks like
there’s a web of snakes slithering under his skin!”
A
n elderly couple gave us a concerned look as they walked by hand in hand.
“Lower your voice.” P
ain thumped along my forehead brand and spread toward my temples. I’m going to pass out soon. I needed to hurry.
“Lower your voice she says,” Rich muttered and placed his shirt over Wiz’s head. The moonlight shined on his muscular chest and highlighted his huge arms.
Well, if anyone is looking our way, hopefully Rich’s chocolate sculpted body will be a distraction.
We rushed out of the alley. Sasha kept my pace
while she carried Wiz. Rich remained on my other side. The streetlights hit the ripples of muscle around his waist.
Goodness.
If the situation had not been so urgent, I might have swooned. Instead, I snapped my concentration to Sasha. Once we arrived at an intersection flooded with dancing drunks and partying teens, I checked to make sure Wiz’s face was still hidden.
“Wow! How much did he drink?” A girl laughed and pointed at Wiz’s limp body.
“He may have a problem.”
No one said anything until we were a block away from her.
“Where do you live?” Sasha adjusted Wiz’s position on her shoulder.
“Aztec
Hotel.”
She cringed. Horror streaked her almond face. “The one-hour hotel?’
I laughed inside.
A homeless vamp
who probably sleeps in the sewers during the day is looking down on my place?
“Yes
, the one-hour hotel,” I repeated. “It’s all I can afford.”
I made a decent amount of money, but my budget was tight in anticipation of when the jobs would stop coming in.
After running away from home and Wiz finding me, we began working jobs a few months later. I copied lots of different people’s images. A few people wanted me to mimic them and then go take a urine test for a job they were applying for. I assumed they had been doing drugs and didn’t want to lose the job due to the test results being positive for drug usage. Other copy jobs involved me sitting in for a test. For a work assignment like that Wiz made sure the person ordered the job from us three months in advance of the test date so I could study. Up until now, I’d received high scores for all of the examinations I completed. Word began to spread all over the city about Wiz’s copy spell and how it could do many impossible things—talk, walk, perform any tasks, etc.
As the word spread, the
weirdoes came out and asked for jobs too. Once, a guy requested a copy spell of his dead wife. I’d shown up at his house to discover him naked and ready to make love. I ran out of there. That’s when Wiz started escorting me on every job and purchased the limo. Another guy had lost money in a deal with a vampire cartel from Yemaya district. He ordered a copy spell from Wiz where I was supposed to go to the cartel’s nightclub as him, enter the boss’s office upstairs, and let them know that he’d lost the money. Nonetheless, Wiz and I had fought our way out there that night and refused any more jobs that dealt with the cartel. Apparently, losing their money meant dying immediately.
Wiz’s attitude about our jobs shifted to a heightened level of anxiety. He
double-checked everything as much as he could and forced me to move into my own room away from Haven. He figured that the more people who saw us in each other's company would start to put two and two together, and come to the theory that I was possibly the copy spell. I found a room in Aztec Hotel the next day. Wiz hated the location and pled with me to find another place, but I refused. Mom didn’t like Shango district and avoided entering the poor areas of it as much as possible. I found that to be the best reason to stay there.
“My room is on the fourth floor where all the long-termers stay
,” I said to Sasha. “Don’t worry, it’s clean and safe.”
“Not that you’ll be there for a long time, vamp.”
Rich dug his hands into his pockets. “If Wiz wakes up and sees you, he’ll kill you.”
“I warned her.” I nudged him.
“When do you think he’ll wake up?” Rich asked.
“I’m not sure.” A cold sliver of fear slipped up my spine. “Since these worm things arrived, it’s been taking him longer and longer to wake up.”
Rich stopped walking. I continued with Sasha, not willing to go into what was probably gnawing at Rich’s thoughts.
One day Wiz may never wake up.
Chapter 6
Drug dealers loitered outside of Caged View
Apartments across the street.
“Hey, Cameo,” one of the guys said. “You rolling with a crew tonight, huh?”
“Yep.” I didn’t even check to see who was talking to me as I hurried Rich and Sasha forward.
Orange lingerie decorated the hookers that pranced back and forth in front of Aztec Ho
tel. Most were vamps, the rest mixbreeds. They wore the color orange in respect for Shango the god of fire since we were all in his district. I kept a good distance from them. Prostitutes with respectable pure bloodlines, like shifters and witches, worked in wealthier districts. Any of the hookers in Shango were considered scum and they acted like it—stealing from people whenever they could, heckling at anyone who walked by, and at times providing sexual services right out in the street in front of anybody.
We climbed the outer stairs. The rusty metal screeched under our weight.
“Eww.” Sasha stared at her hand. “What’s this sticky stuff on the handrails?”
“One could only imagine.” Rich grinned.
“I have no idea.” I held out my hands on the side. “The maid only cleans weekly and she doesn’t do anything on the outside.”
A chubby dwarf couple argued on the second flight about some money that the husband thought he had placed under the
ir mattress. On the fourth flight, a bum slept in the corner and hugged an empty bottle. The odor of urine radiated from his dingy clothes. I held my nose as we all stepped over him and traveled up to my room.
My lips curled into a smile.
Finally, I’m home.
Today was the worst day of my life. Wiz was unconscious. My future safety was unsure. Mom killed herself, and even though she’d cursed, terrorized, and beat me when I lived with her, I missed Mom in my own way. But, the thought of entering my room sent warmth to my center and soothed some of the day’s stress. I had somewhere to hide and cry, to think of dark times with Mom and scream at the gods in rage. And to keep Wiz safe—a person who seemed to accept me fully, scales and all.
Home sweet home.
We entered the enclosed hallway. A blue light blinked on and off. Fin leaned against my door. She bobbed her bald head to the beat that came out of the headphones plugged in her ears. We approached her. She looked at us and yanked the plugs out. A racket of bass and guitar poured out into the hallway.
Goodness what volume does she have that on?
She gazed at Rich’s bare and sculpted chest. A red tint spread across her
pale face. “Where’s your shirt?”
“What have I told you about blasting that music in your ear when you’re by yourself?” Rich replied. “Anybody could have attacked and raped you.”
“I saw you all.” She chewed gum and blew a purple bubble.
“No you didn’t.” Rich popped the bubble with his finger. Fin muttered a curse under her breath.
“Leave her alone.” I dug in my pocket for my key, found it, and opened the door. Four glass vases of fresh daisies rested on my two-person table. I gasped.
Wiz must’ve done this.
The flowers weren’t there when I left this morning. He was the only one besides me with a key. Three boxes sat on the floor next to the table.
That must be my stuff from Mom’s house.
I stood in the doorway like a statue.
I
can’t deal with that now. I’ll have to do that later.
“Can we come in?” Sasha asked. “Your boyfriend’s heavy.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” I stepped to the side. “Take him to my bedroom. It’s the yellow door across from us. You can lay him on my bed.”
Sasha followed my orders.
Fin bopped in and collapsed on my plaid loveseat. Besides the wooden table and two chairs, the ripped loveseat was the only other thing I could fit into the room. My landlord, a demon named Tax, called my place the presidential suite due to the bedroom and bathroom being closed in from the sitting area. Behind my small table, a sink within a counter and an old prehistoric microwave on top of the counter served as my kitchen. Wiz built shelves across from the loveseat and propped an old flat screen on there.
“Who bought all these flowers?” Fin asked.
“I think it was Wiz,” I said.
Fin and Rich exchanged glances.
“You get cable, yet?” Rich slumped down next to Fin, snatched the remote control from between the couch’s folds, and turned the TV on.
“No cable, just the basic channels.” I faced Fin. “Where’s the blood?”
“In the cooler under your table. Cat blood was the best I could get.” She pointed in that direction. “You need a fridge in here. Hopefully, the blood didn’t go bad.”
I headed to the white cooler and halted. “Hold up. I didn’t see you carry this in.”
“I broke in earlier,” Fin shrugged, “so I could bring the cooler inside. And then I figured you might get all mad that I let myself in. So I fixed your lock back to the way it was and hung out in the hallway.”
“
All while blasting music in your ears.” Rich flipped through a few channels and stopped on one of the human music channels. “Oh god, I love watching humans dance. It’s the craziest thing.”
Primal, a popular shapeshifter rapper, came on the screen and rapped,
“You like it when I shift it, baby. Say it! You like it when I shift it.”
“Rich
, please turn that down. The witch next door is always calling my landlord and complaining.” I kneeled down and tugged the cooler to me, right as Sasha returned. “And Fin, do not break into my room again. That’s like the third time this month.”
“
Dude, your locks suck.” Fin bobbed her head.
“In the habitats, we shift it!”
Primal rapped.
“All over the world, we shift it!”
“
And you totally need a bar on the door too and a security spell.” Fin tapped her foot. “It’s not like you have anything to steal though, but anybody can bust in here.”
“And rape you,” Rich added.
“Shut up, Rich!” Fin and I said in unison.
Sasha came back into the sitting area and made herself comfortable in one of my chairs.
“I put your voodoo man on the bed.”
“It’s not dark magic.” I yawned and pushed the cooler over to her. “Here’s your blood. You can drink it here
if you want. It’s up to you.”
I figured someone would try to snatch the blood from her outside.
Sasha’s fangs peeked from the top lips as she smiled. “Thank you so much. You have no idea—”
I held my hand up to stop her
from saying anything else. “No worries. You can crash here if you need somewhere to sleep during the day, tomorrow.”
“What?” Sasha placed her hand on her chest. “Are you serious?”
“You better be joking.” Rich muted the TV. “You don’t even know her. Plus, she has fangs.”
“My blood is nasty to vamps and besides she carried Wiz across town and kept him safe.” I pulled off the cooler’s lid and stood up. “I’m taking a shower and going to bed. Are you two crashing here
, tonight?”
Rich untied his boots
, pulled out a rubber band, and placed his long braids into a ponytail. “Of course, someone will have to stop Wiz from killing Sonya.”
“My name is Sasha.” She took off her shoe
s and sank her fangs into the Ziploc bag full of dark red liquid. Slurping ensued, I flinched at the noise.
“So gross,” Fin blurted out.
“Now you’re hanging with vamps, Cameo? Gross.”
“Yes it is.”
Rich nodded his head.
“Both of you be nice to Sasha and shut up.” I yawned and stretched my arms while Sasha ignored them both and drink her blood.
Rich slung off his boots, exposed holey socks, and propped his big legs on Fin. “Rub my toes. They ache.”
“Just because you outrank me doesn’t mean I have to massage your feet.” Fin shoved his legs away.
“Actually it does.” Rich placed them back.
“I swear I’m going to slice you from ear to ear soon as you go to sleep.” Fin groaned and crossed her arms around her chest.
“Both of you please stop fighting.” I yawned again and stumbled into my bedroom. Exhaustion covered me like a blanket. My eyes burned and drooped a little. I switched on my bedroom light. Wiz’s head lay on my pillow. The worm lines disappeared for now, but I knew they would continue to return until he woke up. His chest rose and fell. Other than that he didn’t stir—no finger movement or wiggling toes.
Not a good sign at all.
Sasha wrapped him in my black and white polka dot comforter. She’d placed his sneakers on top of the
nightstand next to the bed, which held my most prized comics. Faded green wallpaper coated my bedroom walls. Dark green carpet covered my floor. Black sticky stains scattered across it in some areas. My battered dresser stood next to the bathroom entrance.
On the other side of
my dresser was a large wooden board littered with cut out faces and body parts from magazines. I’d been trying to create the perfect female image through studying glamour articles and fashion journals. It wasn’t too difficult. Every time I spotted a pattern of a pretty face or body, I cut them out, taped them on my board, and wrote a few notes. Magazines tended to use the same types of models with similar looks and body frames. I’d learned that deep-set eyes seemed to be a favorite where the eyes were wide and deep within the socket and the eyelids featured a row of thick eyelashes. An upturned nose with a gentle curve beat all other kinds of noses. Full lips and high cheekbones won. And my poster went on and on with more of my research—body measurements of popular actresses, eye colors that appeared more often than others, average heights, and weights.
I’ll have to add
that chick’s hair type from the job earlier. She had perfect hair, nothing like my white bushel.
Fin and Rich never asked me about my chart. Rich just stared at the images of breasts and behinds. Fin drew mustaches above the lips of enchanting faces when I wasn’t looking.
Wiz hated the board and considered it a waste of my time.
Of course he would.
He already possessed the perfect image. Beautiful people never wondered how to define beauty. Instead they pondered other things in their wonderful little frames. Good looks gave more to people than they deserved. It made them rich, accepted, loved, appreciated, and rewarded not for doing kindness, but for being an eye-pleasing decoration in a shabby existence, a rainbow after the storm, something else to look at when the person couldn’t look in the mirror at themselves.
I
will be gorgeous one day.
That was what the chart was all about, finding the ideal image, defining what it truly meant to be beautiful. Once I discovered the ideal look from forming all of the best parts of captivating people into one person, then I would change my body, hair, and face into the image and never return to my old self.
A smack sounded from the living room.
“Ouch
.” Rich laughed. “Was that necessary?”
“I want to look at Santeria Live,” Fin whined. “Give me the remote.”
“Give me a foot massage,” Rich replied.
“Get some sleep,” I called back. “We have a long day
, tomorrow.”
“What do you mean
we
?” Fin asked from the living room.
“Someone needs to stay here and watch Wiz and Sasha. They’ll both be vulnerable during the day.” I pulled my sneakers off. My vision blurred. I blinked my eyes twice, but the images still resulted in distortions.
I won’t be able to make it to the shower tonight, but at least I got Wiz home.
“Why do I have to do it?” Fin whined.
“Because. . .” I swayed and bumped into my nightstand. My Captain Habitat lamp and comics crashed to the floor.
“Whoa. Are you okay?” Rich
asked.
“Uh. . .” I crashed to the ground and hit the rough carpet. Pain licked at the side of my face. My body ran numb. I lost my ability to move everything, even my lips, but I could still see a little as I floated within myself. Footsteps thundered my way. Holey and dirt grimed socks arrived right in front of my face. The material stunk of foulness.
Note to self: Beg Rich to wash his socks.
“Cameo?” Rich’s hands wrapped around my waist. Another set of fingers seized my feet. I figured it was Sasha since Fin didn’t have a lot of strength. My body rose in the air and then
I was placed on the bed right next to Wiz.
“Is she okay?” Fin asked
from the doorway.
“Wiz told me once that Cameo gets dizzy sometimes and passes out. I’m supposed to watch over her when she does.”
They didn’t know that I could shift into other images or that the transformation took away my energy. All they knew was that I had green eyes with black slits, pale white skin coated in clear scales, and that I could control those scales by flicking them around or sucking them into myself, so that only the skin shown. In fact, only two people in the entire habitat had known I could shift into images, Wiz and Mom.