Chameleon (7 page)

Now only Wiz knows.

“What do we do?” Fin’s voice sounded shaky and distressed.

“Relax. I’ve seen her do this before,” Rich said. “We’ll just keep watching them both through the night.”

“What’s wrong with Wiz?”

“Nothing, Fin.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing to me. In fact, Wiz and Cameo both look messed up.”

“What a weird little couple,” Sasha mumbled.

Someone placed my head on a pillow and covered me with a warm sheet.

Thanks
, I thought as darkness swallowed me whole.

Chapter 7

The next morning, heat rose from Wiz’s skin. His citrus scent captured my senses. I struggled to breath in any other smell, just to get my mind off of him. His face and voice corroded my dreams. I’d woke
n up several times last night, with the cold realization that I’d only been imagining those romantic scenes where he whispered I was beautiful and pressed his lips on mine. 

God
, I’m pathetic.

I kept my eyes closed and stretched my toes under the covers. All of a sudden, Wiz’s rough hands slipped up my shirt and caressed my waist. I froze.
He’s awake?
His heart pounded in my ears. My breathing increased to an unsteady pace. I opened my eyes. Sunlight peered through my bedroom’s blinds, brightening his sleeping face, and painted his eyelashes in a golden hue.

Goddess he’s beautiful, but he’s defiantly not awake.

Wiz’s hands pulled me to him.
What? How did he do that?
I moved the blanket off me to see what was grabbing at my waist. The worms wiggled all over his hands and arms as he dragged me to him.

“No!”
I screamed. Fear trembled through my flesh. I beat at his hands and shoved his arms, but his hold remained clamped onto my hips. The worms pushed up and made a line pattern on his skin. Buzzing sounded from his body. The bed vibrated.

“Rich! Fin!” I beat Wiz’
s arms with closed fists. “Anybody!”

Rich raced in. “Motherpounder!”

The worms retreated as if they had heard Rich’s voice and disappeared into Wiz’s body because of it. A cold shiver stirred within me.

What were they going to do?

“Okay you’re not sleeping next to him again.” Rich dragged me off the bed until we both crashed onto the floor. “How long were his hands holding you?”

“A few minutes
, I think.” I sniffed. Wiz’s all consuming scent no longer drenched the air. I studied his face. His eyelids fluttered and then went still.

“When Wiz comes back we need to talk to him about this,” Rich said. “Those things could be eating his insides. Maybe they are eating their way out of his body.”

I cringed. “Okay stop.”

“What else could they be doing but feeding?” Rich stood up. “Maybe they were trying to eat you.”

Rich stretched out his hand and helped me up. It was in that moment when I realized he wore no clothes.

What the
heck?

“Rich! Oh my goddess.” I covered my eyes with my hands. “Put some freaking pants on. Who stays at somebody’s place and sleeps butt naked?”

He laughed. The sound of footsteps left the room. I peered through my fingers. Only Wiz and I remained.

“Sleeping in the nude is
comfortable,” Rich yelled back.

“It’s barbaric. Did you sleep like that with Fin and Sasha in there?”

“No way! The vamp is under your bed in that blood-sucker-daylight-coma state. Fin just left to tell my sister that she had to do some stuff for me. I also ordered her to get donuts.”

I peeked under my bed. Sasha lay on her back with her face
staring up at the bottom of the bed. Her eyes remained closed. Her body stayed still and unmoving. She looked like a statue. I’d read that some of the older vamps could move a little during the daylight, around an inch every minute. However, the young vampires went straight into slumber during the day with no control of their bodies. I sighed. Sasha lived on the streets with no way to protect herself during the day. That made me feel uneasy. Granted, I didn’t know her, but she’d helped me when I needed her and hadn’t done anything to hurt me.

I’m going to let her stay here
for a little while.
Wiz better not have a problem with that.

“Fin better be back with those donuts soon or I’m going to keep her busy all day,” Rich yelled from the main room.

“You bossing Fin around is so going to come right back to you.” I rose and headed to my bathroom to take a shower. “Get dressed. We have a lot to do, today.”

“What’s the plan?”

Pike and Stacy’s faces flashed in my mind. I didn’t have any strength, but these were one of those instances when I wished I did. An image of me crushing their heads into pieces danced in my head. They participated in setting up Wiz. The cop had said that Stacy’s sister overdosed in B.D.’s club so Pike or Stacy had to know where the club was at since they’d been there. I liked to know where my enemies were, it made me feel better to have an eye on B.D. But how would I get Pike or Stacy to tell me the location? I knew Stacy’s address, but if her parents were back or if the police had said Wiz killed Stacy’s sister, then going to that address wouldn’t be a good idea for me. A vision of the limo hit me.

Oh crap
! The limo! It’s probably scrap metal by now. How could I have been so stupid and not make sure someone grabbed it?

“Cameo?” Rich clapped his hands
and entered the room, wearing his black jeans from last night. Like a typical hot guy reaction, just the sight of his muscular chest improved my foul mood. He grinned. “What’s up? What are we doing today?”

“We’re going to knock around some rich purebloods’ heads.”

“What species?”

“Two teen shifters, a girl and a boy.”

“Awesome.” Rich’s lips lowered into a frown. “Maybe, we should wait for Wiz to wake up.”

“
Maybe, you should grab your balls up and stop being such a weak mixbreed,” Fin said behind him, carrying a box of donuts with her. “Cameo you can take me, instead. I’m not scared of anything.”

“Naw.” I waved her away. “Someone needs to watch Sasha and Wiz. If we’re not here when it’s nighttime ask Sasha to watch Wiz for me. I’ll give her more blood—”

“That you expect me to buy and put on Wiz’s tab?” Fin asked with a sneer.

“Yes.”

She pulled out her tiny notebook and muttered a few curse words.

“I’m not going to beat up shifters.
I’ve got muscles, but they have power. That’s no match.” Rich crossed his arms over his chest. “What is the other option?”

I twisted my lips to the side. “We could go to the library and study
up on what a shadow is.”

“Sounds safer. I’m down.” Rich gave me a thumbs up.

*   *    *

“This is boring.” Rich hit his head against the table
and drummed out an annoying beat. His braids fell to the side of his face and covered him.

“Stop that. We are in a library. Be quiet and quit whining.”
I flipped through the book in front of me called, “History of Magical Stones.” When I did a search of
shadows
fairy stones kept coming up, and not just any type, ones called
shadow stones
. Being that B.D. claimed he was from the fairy realm I figured exploring the fairy stones angle wouldn’t be a bad idea.

“
We’ve been here for hours,” Rich whimpered.

I ignored him and read.

“Most stones possessing any sort of magic can claim their origin back to the fairy realm. When fairies discovered the portal to transport to Earth’s reality, they smuggled many items with them. Stones as well as scepters were the main items smuggled over.”

“Cameo?” Rich waved his hand in front of my face.

“What?” I looked up from the book.

“You find anything?”

“No, and you just asked that same question a minute ago.”

Eight approached our table with a pile of books in his
thin arms. He slammed them next to me and panted. I was shocked he could hold that many. He had a small frame like mine. Wiz had joked once that Eight and I could probably wear the same clothes. I’d punched Wiz in the side for that comment. Eight was a good friend of mine and I didn’t appreciate anyone thinking of him badly.

“There are a few more books on the topic, but these books right here have the greatest
information.” Sweat dotted Eight’s pale face and damped his brunette waves, giving them a slicked back look.

“Whoa
! Thanks.” I slid a few toward me and browsed the pages. “All of these are about shadow stones?”

“Ye
ah.” Eight wiped the sweat off of his forehead and around his earth witch brand. “I did a search for the name. All of these books are either about shadow stones or references them in some way.”

Eight ruffled his
hair as he propped himself in the chair next to me. Rich leaned forward and narrowed his grey eyes at him.

“Stop it,” I whispered
to Rich.

Rich had been tossing mean expressions at Eight since we first stepped into the library. He’d declared that Eight seemed shady and wasn’t to be trusted. I figured it was due to Eight being a pureblooded witch. Mixbreeds like Rich didn’t trust any type of pureblood. But, I’d known Eight for years, way before I’d ever r
un away from home. His mother and father were both librarians at Oya District Library, so he spent most of his childhood strolling rows of books. Now, at eighteen, he began interning here and would start college next fall to major in library science.

I’d met him because I used the library as one of my many hiding spots from my mom. On the weekend I
would hang out there all day and not have to leave until the evening’s closing time. Mostly, I spent those long Saturdays with Eight arguing over which book was better than the other and trying to beat him in the crossword puzzles.

“Do you need me to help read?” Eight
scooted closer to me and scanned the page I was reading.

“Give her some space, man,” Rich said.

Eight and I exchanged weird looks and laughed.

“Rich, why don’t you grab us something to eat,” I offered.

“Wiz wouldn’t want me to leave you here unprotected.” Rich frowned.

“I may be skinny but my brain makes up for my lack of strength.” Eight tapped his head and mock saluted. “I’ll protect our poor damsel from the dangers of
an empty library.”

“Are you making fun of me or something?” Rich asked.

“Just go. I’ll be fine.” I rolled my eyes at Rich. “You know you don’t want to be in here, anyway.”

“Well
, that’s the truth.” Rich shot up from his seat and stretched. “I’m off to Cinnamon’s to get two Papa Shango specials.”

“Great.” I returned to scanning my book.

“There are many historical theories to how shadow stones were created. All mythologies discuss the stones. But, their true history begins with the fourteenth fairy King of the Unseelie Court who desired an efficient method in imprisoning the realm’s criminals.

He found that when a strong creature was locked away, the being used its magic to escape. And so the King s
ought the aid of his queen, who could place a person’s mystic essence into his or her shadow thus robbing the being of all its power.

Once the shadow was filled, the King forged t
he shadow into clear red stone and set it in a locked room until the prisoner served his or her time. At the person’s release, the King seized the shadow from the specific stone and returned it to the now remorseful criminal.”

“Anything in that book that helps?” Eight interrupted my reading.

“I guess. I think this is more believable on the shadow stone’s origin then the other books. This one says it comes from the Fairy realm. The others discussed Roman mythology.”

“Most enchanted items
tend to start off in the fairy realm.” He flipped through a book. “So, how long does your research paper have to be?”

“Twenty pages, double spaced.” I dragged my fingers along each line and searched for the word Earth. I needed to find out how the stone
s came to this realm and where it was last spotted.

“
Fortimer Theosiskopp, a fairy who had committed so many offenses that he’d been imprisoned for life, somehow escaped the fourteenth King’s jail. With another’s aid, he broke into the room of shadow stones, seized several including his, and escaped through a portal to Earth’s reality.”

There was nothing else. The
book turned to discussion on other stones. I looked up to see Eight watching me.

“What?” I asked.

A red tint shaded his face. “Oh, nothing.”

“Is there anything in this pile that is related to the Santeria
Habitat and shadow stones?” I stood up and leaned over the table. “My teacher requires that the research paper deals with Santeria too.”

I heard an intake of breath and turned to him. “Did you just smell me?”

“What?” Eight’s brown eyes widened. “No! That would be weird, right?”

“
Uh. . .yeah.”

“Where are your scales?”

I pushed them out of my skin. “There.”

“Awesome,” he muttered.

“Yep.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s so cool to be coated in scales. I bet all the girls dream about one day waking up in scales.”

I grabbed a book with
the Santeria Habitat’s logo on the cover, a silver caged city with fire bursting out of it. Scanning the index, I spotted s
hadow stones
and went to the identified pages.