Chameleon (10 page)

Destiny stood up and crossed her arms around her bosom.
“Maybe is not an answer, Wizzy. What am I supposed to do sit around and wait for you to decide to spend time with me?”

“Then no
I won’t be around tonight.” Wiz picked up his own sandwich.

“Oh really?
Then when you call me next time, maybe I’ll be saying
no
also.” She stomped off.

“Thanks for pissing off the waitress
, Wiz. Now we’ll have spit in our drinks.” Rich picked off all his peppers and placed them in a pile on his plate. “So you’re not interested in Fin?”

“No.” I returned to eating, even though Wiz and Destiny’s exchange had taken away some of my appetite.

How could Wiz mess around with Destiny? She’s so not his type. All girly and stuck up.

“I don’t believe you
, Stan.” Rich raised his sandwich to his mouth. “I think you’re into Fin. I think you’re trying to push up on her.”

Oh goddess.

“I’m not interested in Fin. In fact I like Cameo.” I shrugged. Wiz laughed and ate his own food. “I’m pretty much in love with her. We’ve been dating.”

“No. You aren’t,
” Rich said. “Because if you were trying to push up on Cameo, Wiz would cut your intestines out.”

“Ick.” I scrunched up my nose. “I’m trying to eat, and by the way Wiz could care less who Cameo is dating.”

“Were-bull crap,” Rich muttered.

“Let’s end this topic.” Wiz glared at Rich.

“So Wizzy, you’re messing with Destiny now? Really?” I took another bite. Wiz’s eyes brightened at the word Wizzy, but he continued to savor his sandwich and ignore me.

“What’s wrong with Destiny? She’s stacked.” Rich did crude gestures with his hands and formed imaginary breasts.

“She’s not really Wizzy’s type,” I said.

“Enough with that name.”
Wiz snarled and chomped off another bite.

“It’s not like Wiz is sexing her personality,” Rich joked.
Neither Wiz nor I laughed.

“No one is sexing anybody.” Wiz wiped his mouth with a napkin.

“You haven’t had sex with her?” I asked.

“No.” He targeted me with his eyes.

I pressed my relief back down.

I shouldn’t care
.

Wiz had made it clear two years ago, when I asked him to go to my high school homecoming dance that we would only be friends, nothing more. I’d felt ill when he said it and avoided him the rest of the week. The next time we saw each other, we didn’t discuss
my embarrassing moment. Everything returned back to normal. We did jobs and hung out like buddies, going to the movies and beach together. In fact we did everything together, just him and me. It felt like he was mine. I always had him to myself and he constantly gave me his time whenever I asked. That should have been enough. Hanging out with him, should have satisfied me. But, in the back of my head, during my tiny instances of insanity, I imagined I was his type and that we were more than best friends.

In fact, we were l
overs. Just like in my dreams.

I swallowed. “Are you going to have sex with her?”

“Why do you care?” Rich sucked his teeth.

“I’m just curious.” I raised my eyebrows at Wiz.

“Let’s just finish our lunch.” Wiz took another bite from his sandwich, and that simple avoidance of answering the question broke me into little pieces.

I directed my attention to my sandwich, envisioning the day when I would become the perfect image from my chart. I only had a few more details to finish looking for, things like skin complexion, eye size, dimples or none, scattered freckles or lots. My biggest problem with discovering the ideal image of beauty was that for some people who were deemed gorgeous by the world, others saw them as
average or unattractive. Yet, I wasn’t convinced that there wasn’t a person out there that everyone in the world would see, point, and say, “Now that’s beauty.”

I wasn’t dumb enough to think truly everyone would think the person was captivating, but I could come very close. There were just intricate little details that I had to identify, those tiny things that raised a person over others.

Then it wouldn’t matter who Wiz slept with, and it would be oh so easy to forget all the times Mom called me names.

Chapter 10

Gloomy clouds drifted away to reveal the sun.
Left over rain soaked the pavement as Fin and I stood in an alley and watched the Santeria Habitat Museum across the street. Not many people walked Oshun Boulevard since it had just stopped raining. Only a couple holding a big umbrella strolled on the sidewalk. The only reason why Fin and I were dry was because the wall we both leaned on had a slanted roof that swooped over the alley and covered our heads.

Hanging out in the alley was definitely
not the highlight of my day. It smelled like wet garbage. Trash littered the ground. A few stray pixies scattered past our feet and headed for the dumpsters, no doubt searching for scraps of food. The little guys were barely four inches tall and appeared just like mini humans, but with wings that usually matched the colors of their eyes. These pixies had yellow and green wings with green eyes.

“I hate pixies.” Fin spit at one of them. They squeaked and flew off.

“Why? They’re kind of cute.” I watched them fly away. “When they’re clean.”

“I’m allergic to them. They make my skin break out into boils.” Fin
grimaced.

“Really? That’s interesting. I thought only trolls and dwarfs were allergic to pixies.”

“I have some in my family.” She shrugged.

“Which one, trolls or dwarfs?”

“None of your business.” She winked.

I left her alone. Mixbreeds barely admitted what species they were mixed with. It was our way of keeping our power
to ourselves, if we had any. It gave us a little advantage in a fight and made people think twice before simply attacking us. Besides, I doubted she had any trolls in her family. The women were over six feet tall with bumpy, brown skin and two bulbous bellies that were separated by thick bone. Most of the time female trolls didn’t come outside. Adult female trolls barely came outside. It was easy for them to get pregnant and when they did the pregnancy lasted for two years. Once they delivered the child, the baby remained in a pouch formed by the mother’s bellies. Both stages were supposed to be difficult for the females so they remained inside and took extreme care of themselves during all of the processes.

“You probably have some dwarf in you.” I winked at her.

“None of your business.” She kicked a can at another pixie that scurried by. This one was all white with black wings and eyes.

I returned to monitoring the museum.
It was a big building and boasted at least four levels. Bricks done in all of the district’s colors made up the structure—orange, purple, blue, and green. Each color spread across the museum in equal amounts as if the builders didn’t want to show favoritism to any one of the districts or their gods.

A
mountainous marble statue stood right in front of the glass door entrance. It was Santeria’s four popular gods gazing at the museum, each district had been named after them. Muscles adored Shango the god of fire. He had a crimson red ax slung over his shoulder. A purple gown of coiled wind draped Oya the goddess of lightening. Yemaya the goddess of all waters was depicted as a lovely mermaid with blue hair flowing to the ground. Gleaming turquoise shells formed Yemaya’s tail. Eleggua the god of fortune and misfortune as well as the deity of roads, stood in front and at the center of two sidewalk paths that lead into the museum. A red and black joker hat propped on top of Eleggua’s head. A long wooden staff rested in his hand. His other hand pointed to the front entrance.

“You think that suit will be enough?”
Fin blew a rainbow bubble with her gum. She must have been chomping on several gumballs all day until they combined into one gob of disgusting stickiness.

“I’ll be fine.” I adjusted my black jacket
and smoothed down my pants. The suit was three times my size just in case I needed to shift into someone who was bigger than me.

“I don’t think you’re going to fool anybody by just wearing a suit.” Fin sucked in her bubble.
She had no idea that I would be changing into another person’s image. All she thought was that I would use the suit as my only disguise.

“Just worry about your part of the job.”
I popped a few sour bombs in my mouth. Sugar coated each bomb. As soon as they touched my tongue they exploded into a goo of cherry syrup. Pop. Pop. I flinched as the two bombs burst in my mouth at the same time and blanketed my tongue with goo. Pop. The last one detonated and drowned my mouth with even more syrup.

“I can do more you know?”
Fin leaned on the brick wall.

“Just do your part.”

“Yeah, but it’s nothing.” She blew a large bubble that almost hid her face before it burst. “All I do is grab a chick’s badge and strand of hair. I can do more. I’m almost a lieutenant in my tribe. I’ve paid my dues.”

“Trust me when I say this, getting the strand of hair is an extremely important part of our task today.
”

“Why?”

“It just is.”

“It just is,” Fin mocked me in a lighter voice and rolled her eyes.
“You’re worst than Wiz with secrets.”

I hit her
side with my elbow. “Take that back. I’m not that bad.”

“
You’re definitely that bad.”

The Museum’s glass door
s opened. A young red head with a wing brand on her forehead walked out.
Fairy.
She slipped on black sunglasses and slung her green pocket book’s strap on her shoulder. I studied her body—slim, close to my height and size.

She’ll do.

I pointed to her. “I need you to grab her badge and a little strand of her hair. The red head.”

“Okay.”
Fin left the alley, waited for a rickety old truck to pass by as country music poured from it, and crossed the street. I focused on Fin’s fingers. Kids said she had the fastest hands in Haven. I’d never witnessed her grab anything so this time I made a serious effort to watch. Curiosity pushed me to guard my eyes from the sun to get a better view.

Whistling,
Fin headed toward the woman, placed her hands to the side, and knocked into her. One second, the badge stuck to the woman’s jacket. The next instance it disappeared. Fin mumbled something, probably
sorry
, and then jogged back across the street. I looked around. No one noticed anything, not even the red headed lady as she wrenched out her phone and placed it next to her ear. I didn’t see anything in Fin’s hands and hoped she’d actually snatched everything.

Fin
stood next to me and leaned back on the building. “Now what?”

“Did you get
the badge and strand of hair?”

“Check your pockets
on that ugly suit jacket.” She blew another bubble.

I dug my hands into my pockets and discovered the badge and a strand of
red hair. “You’re such a show off.”

“You’re so jealous.” She chomped on her gum. “So what else do I do?”

“Stay out here. If I don’t come out in forty minutes go get Wiz.”

“
We don’t need Wiz. If I don’t see you in forty minutes, I’m coming in blasting.” She yanked out the handle of a pistol from her pocket.

“What are you doing with that?” I tried to grab it. She ducked out of the way.
I shook my head. “Fin, guns are dangerous.”

“I’m a girl with boobs that lives on the street. It’s more dangerous
for me to sleep on the streets without a gun.”

I sighed. “Sleep in my
hotel room whenever you want. It’s already working out.”

“And what about the younger girls in Haven? Can you fit them all in your room too?”
A mocking expression spread over her face. “I protect them. Unlike another female who sits in her little hotel room like a little princess.”

I grimaced
. She shrugged.

“
Fine, Fin. I’ll figure something out for the other girls so you don’t need a gun and shoot your boobs off.” I headed across the street.

Fin
chuckled. “And after that you can cure all diseases and make Rich less of a prick weed.”

“
I’ll tackle the diseases first,” I called back. “Making Rich less of a prick weed would be impossible.”

In less than two minutes,
I approached the museum and entered it. Two guards lounged in metal chairs next to a spell detector. I slipped the strand of hair in my mouth and did my best to swallow it. The strand was long. I had to roll it into a sort of tiny ball with my tongue, fill my mouth up with enough of my saliva, and swallow it down.

“If they’d kept P. Todd, we would’ve made the playoffs
,”
said the tallest guard. “Now the whole teams were-wolves and were-tigers. We’ll never get a championship with hot headed shapeshifters.”

“
Forget P. Todd. I’m glad they got rid of him. Earth witches can’t throw. We need a quarter back with a good arm.” The other guard nodded at me. “What do you want mixbreed?”

“I have a research paper
on ancient artifacts.” I flashed my high school I.D. Students were free during the week.

He motioned down the hall and turned back to the tall guard. “P. Todd had all those chicks on his mind. Every week he’s in a new scandal.
He was crap on the field.”

I
hurried down the hall and headed straight to the women’s bathroom. It was past the guards’ desk and near the elevator. Eight had brought over the blueprints. I’d given Wiz and Rich the information for the Council Center while I studied the stuff for the museum.

I rushed into the bathroom,
hoped my body had dissolved the hair, and sat on the top of a toilet cover, waiting for my body to process the DNA.

It took five minutes.
I always knew my body was finished when images of the new specimen’s DNA flashed through my mind with ease. The red head sailed through my brain in a rush of movement as if I’d been reading a book about her or staring at her picture. I yanked out the badge and glanced at it to check my mimic’s name.
Trinity Stokes.

I shifted into Trinity. A cool stream of wind passed along my skin.
The right side of my brain throbbed. A mint scent filled the air. My muscles ballooned outward stretching the fabric of my suit and then deflated. My skin changed into a shade darker then my pale tone. My legs grew, bone cracking and reforming. I jumped up off the toilet and rose a half of a foot into the air. As I began to end my transformation, there were three interesting things that surprised me about my new body—my mimic’s breast’s were nonexistent, she had a peculiar musk scent, and even more interesting than the first two was that she possessed a massive penis between her legs that would’ve made even Wiz jealous.

Not that I noticed Wiz’s size.

I cleared my throat and tucked my copy’s long red hair behind pointy ears.

So Trinity was a guy pretending to be a woman.

It wasn’t unusual for me to discover interesting tidbits about a person’s body. Since this Trinity considered himself a female, I would do the same. I lifted up my sleeve. Nine scratch mark lines puckered up on my skin.
She cut herself, maybe.
I checked the other arm. More rows of straight scars coated the whole arm.
She cuts a lot, but doesn’t heal. Weird.
Most pureblooded fairies healed minor wounds. If she liked to cut herself then maybe she used an iron blade, one that fairies wouldn’t heal. I wondered what happened to her that made her want to hurt herself as I left the bathroom in her image and pressed the elevator button.

The blueprints told me that the administrative and operation offices were on the third floor. The goal was to
go on that level, find someone, and ask about the stones. Not my best plan, but the only one I could come up with. The elevator rose. The doors slid open. A chubby woman with a big afro, dark brown skin, and violet eyes towed a large cart of boxes. She wore a pink suit done in plaid print and on her face were hot pink glasses shaped like triangles around her eyes.
She seems like fun.

I rushed over
to her. “Can I help?”

She blinked her violet eyes and wagged her pointy ears. “Are you talking to me
, Trinity?”

“Yes.” I looked around the hallway
to make sure it was only us in the area.

“Trinity, I don’t want any problems.
I’m doing what you told me to do.” She edged back. Beads of sweat instantly formed around her wing brand as if she was scared. Her bottom lip trembled.

So Trinity must be a
bullying wench. And I was actually feeling sorry for her when I saw the cuts on her arm. How messed up it is that she hates herself so much she has to make other people feel bad.

“I just want to help.” I raised my hands. She flinched.

Yep. Trinity was a bully.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to help,” I said.

“That’s it?” the chubby woman asked.

“Well I do have some questions.”
I heard an intake of breath. She grabbed the ends of her pink plaid jacket and twisted it. Pity forced me not to push my plan too much on her. I decided to ask a quick question and then move on to somewhere else.