Abilene said, “I know a witch. I’ll call her. And I’ll make sure you’re armed.”
Thompson began calling the other troupe members to tell them what had happened, and what they could expect tonight.
Layla grabbed up everything she would need, and she and Feodor caught a cab to the Blue Moon studio. They had just enough time to get in a rehearsal before the performance.
A CD of the Andean pipe music was there, and Layla, in leggings and a T shirt, assumed her starting position on the floor. It felt strange and wrong to look up to see Feodor instead of Sean; even more wrong to feel his larger hands on her body in the grips that she’d only practiced with one person. Layla couldn’t make a connection with Feodor: she knew that they were going through the motions correctly, but there was no fire. This duet was nothing without passion.
“We have to do better than this,” Feodor said, his accent more marked. “You have to feel something for me.”
“All right,” Layla said. “Hit me. Or kiss me.”
Feodor chose the kiss. He was taller than Sean, and smelled different, and held her differently. But Feodor could kiss, and he gave it everything he had.
When they broke apart, Layla could see that Feodor was pleased. “Now we can do this,” she said. “Now I feel something.”
She felt like she couldn’t stand Feodor. But he didn’t need to know that. He smiled and gave her a little bow.
Thirty minutes later they were at the auditorium, putting on the plain black stretch outfits for the number. Everyone changed in the same room; there was no modesty among the vampires, and that indifference had come to encompass the human dancers, too. As Layla put on her ballet slippers, she listened to progress reports.
Abilene said, “It was really easy to find a witch who was happy to discover Margo’s current location. Clemence is standing by in the dressing room: woman in her fifties, gray hair, purple sweater.”
“What does Clemence need to do the job?”
“Proximity. That’s what we need, too. We have to lure Margo backstage. I don’t think that will be any problem. She’lI want to show off. Clemence will counteract any spells Margo attempts.”
“In the meantime?” Layla asked.
“Moose went to the DeCordova mansion. He just called. Margo’s limo is pulling out. She’s definitely coming to the theater.”
After a few minutes, the ensemble in the orchestra pit began to play an overture. The dancers huddled together in a cluster, and they all wound their arms together.
“Strength, Layla,” whispered Abilene.
The bright music came to a halt. From the stage, Sylvia gave a little speech about the close ties between love, sex, and the art of dancing. She said, “I guarantee if you don’t see the connection now, you will when this evening is over.” The audience laughed, and settled in to see something unique.
The program began with a waltz. Karl and Megan seemed to float across the stage. Megan, a human, looked beautiful in a full-skirted chiffon gown. Karl, a vampire, was classically handsome in a tux. It was a lovely routine, dreamily romantic. The dancers could practically hear the audience react with a syrupy “Awwww.”
The progression from romantic to sexual crept forward, in keeping with the Valentine theme. Team after team performed, some of six dancers, most of two.
After Abilene and Feodor finished their ballet, Abilene took her bow and made a graceful exit into the wings. She dropped the elegance and seized Layla by the shoulder. “Listen,” Abilene said. “Don’t lose your shit. The bitch brought Sean with her.”
Layla felt as if the ceiling had fallen in on her. “How does he look?” she said.
“Frozen,” Abilene said. “I can’t tell if it’s witchcraft, or if she’s threatened some terrible reprisal if he …” She paused.
“If he gets up and screams, ‘This woman tortured me!’” Thompson said, finishing her thought. “More likely, Margo threatened Layla.”
“Let’s see how that works for her.” Layla hardly recognized her own voice. “She thinks I’m weak. She’ll let me get right up to her. She’ll want to wave Sean in my face. That’s why she brought him.”
Feodor at her side, Layla stood like a statue in the wings. Her new partner was intelligent enough not to speak. Layla’s thoughts were concentrated on rescuing Sean.
She knew it was time for her to let her new nature go free from all restraint. She was no longer human. She had to act like the vampire she’d become. Layla could control her own future, independent of anyone else. It seemed that she had been able to remain tethered to her former life by the insulation of Sean’s care.
Sylvia came to stand beside her. “I heard about Sean.” She looked guilty. “I’m sorry.”
Layla turned her face to Sylvia. “I’ll get him back in time,” she said.
“In time?” Sylvia was clearly taken aback; this was not the reaction she’d anticipated from Layla LeMay.
Yes. In the next thirty minutes. “I understand he has another job offer?” Layla said conversationally, and Sylvia flinched.
“I didn’t realize that you didn’t know all about it,” she said.
“Sean and I haven’t really discussed it.” Layla’s voice was eerily calm.
“He has a chance to open his own dance school in San Francisco,” Sylvia said. “An old friend of mine asked me for a recommendation. And since the, ah, honeymoon year, with you and Sean … was almost over, he was thinking about taking the job as a contingency plan. If you two found you couldn’t …”
“Yes.” Layla couldn’t bear for Sylvia to falter on.
At the moment, the dance was imperative. It would be the first time Sean had seen her from the audience, she realized with a jolt. She glanced in the backstage mirror. She did not look grieved, furious, or in limbo. Her face was under control. She was ready to dance.
Feodor took her hand. “Remember, you can’t look out. Do not falter, woman. If you spook Margo, she’ll take him away.”
“Yes,” she said. Head up, chest out, shoulders square, big smile, pretty hands.
On the darkened stage, they took their positions.
When the spotlight came on, Layla lay on the floor clinging to Feodor’s leg, her back to the audience. Face forward, Feodor was looking down at her with unmistakable possessiveness. For a long moment, the auditorium fell silent, and the piping music started its breathy sound. Then Feodor reached down to pull Layla up and in one smooth movement she was on her feet and turned. Their faces were side by side, the glacially handsome Russian and the beautiful American. The audience gasped audibly.
Layla moved from Feodor’s waist to his shoulders and then she was up in the air, Feodor effortlessly lifting her to sail in the air, and all the while she was reminding herself not to look out. She wound around Feodor in the performance of her life. She never took her eyes from him, and his never strayed from her.
The message of the duet was entirely different with Feodor as her partner. Her body said, “I can’t let you go, though I want to,” rather than “I will never let you go.”
When they took their bow, the applause was tumultuous. Under other circumstances, Layla would have felt proud. But as she smiled and acknowledged the audience, she looked at Sean. Seeing him wiped away every emotion other than pain. He was sitting by Margo, dressed in a suit and tie. His face was blank, and his shoulders sagged.
With a supreme effort, Layla kept smiling, and she did not release Feodor’s hand. If she had wondered whether she had enough guts to get Sean back, she doubted no longer.
Once she and Feodor were in the wings, she waited at a gap in the curtains to see what Margo would do. “Feel secure enough, bitch?” Layla whispered. “I am such a wimp, I can’t hurt you, right? I betrayed Sean tonight. I danced with someone else! You want to bring him back here so you can parade him in front of me. And Feodor.”
Layla barely registered meeting Clemence, though she did see that Clemence approached her very slowly and carefully. But Layla could fee
l the witch’s power. “Do anything to her you can,” she said.
Clemence nodded calmly. She looked like anyone’s grandmother, in a fuzzy home-knit sweater. “I look forward to it,” she said. “Her teacher is cursed among us.”
“I am going to kill her,” Layla said.
Clemence nodded again. Then she melted into the background. Like magic, Layla thought, feeling a smile pull her lips up.
“Abilene,” she said, “can you bring me my jacket?”
“Here,” Abilene said. She was still wearing her tutu, and she looked fragile and doll-like. She had Layla’s jacket, a cheap denim one, over her arm. Layla slid into it carefully. She didn’t want to cut herself with the stiletto Abilene had taped inside.
It was lucky she’d been quick, because some of the patrons took advantage of their privileged status to come backstage to congratulate the dancers. Layla, standing side by side with Feodor, gave each one a brilliant smile and said, “Thanks so much!” over and over.
After an interminable wait, Margo de Cordova finally appeared, Sean in tow. Layla felt Sean’s presence before she saw him. He looked … stretched tight. When his eyes met hers she read hopelessness. He shook his head in answer to Margo’s tug on his arm. He clearly didn’t want Margo to approach Layla.
But Layla had been sure she wouldn’t need to make a move, and she was right. Margo began making her way inexorably closer, Sean in tow behind her along with the bodyguard—Don Brewer, Christoph had said—who looked bored.
Layla made herself very involved with small talk with Feodor, while the other troupe members began to herd visitors—and the human dancers—back to the dressing rooms. Karl, still in his tux, leered seductively at a middle-aged patron. She looked delighted and willingly followed him back into the wings—out of sight, out of hearing. Well done.
Margo was wearing a small fortune in diamonds and a satisfied look. Don Brewer scanned the area around Layla and Feodor. He didn’t seem to be worried about a bunch of dancers, even when Feodor drifted to one side of him, and Thompson to the other.
Abilene was talking animatedly to Moose, who had just walked in with Phil and Rick, other Black Moon employees. Rick held Phil’s hand, and Layla could tell that Phil was on edge. His young face had an ancient expression; in his eyes, she could read all the terrible episodes of his life.
“Sean!” Phil said. Layla had seldom heard Phil speak before, and she was surprised at his light voice.
Margo halfway turned, startled but not alarmed, and she did nothing but smile when Phil put his arm around Sean. But when Phil started to lead Sean away, Margo said, “Young man, Sean stays with me tonight.”
Everyone was in position. Sylvia was way in the background, and the other patrons were gone.
Layla took a step forward, willing bloody tears to stain her cheeks. “Please let Sean go,” she pleaded pathetically, and Margo’s face showed both satisfaction and contempt.
“Sean is with me for now,” Margo said. “I suppose a new vampire like you is just too insipid for his tastes. Sean, what do you say?” Margo laughed.
Sean tried to speak, but he could not. He looked desperate. That had to be an enchantment, or maybe just Margo’s goblin mind-bending. Layla hoped Clemence could counteract it, but at the moment her priority was to move Sean away from his position at Margo’s side.
“But I need him,” Layla whined, her hands clasped together, and moved closer. Margo didn’t seem to fear her at all, and permitted it. Layla looked over Margo’s shoulder at Feodor and Thompson, who were flanking Don Brewer. She nodded almost imperceptibly.
The bodyguard caught the signal and took alarm. Then he glanced from side to side, realizing he was boxed in. It was too late.
Everything happened then: Layla yanked the stiletto from under her jacket, Thompson and Feodor both seized Don’s arms, and Phil grabbed Sean and threw him away from the fray, flinging him over to Moose. Margo had time to look livid and to raise her left hand—which gave Layla a perfect target. She slid the stiletto into Margo’s heart, her surging strength sliding the blade between Margo’s bones as easily as if her flesh had been butter.
Margo looked absolutely astonished in the few seconds before the light went out of her eyes.
Layla smiled.
Before the body could bleed substantially, Layla caught it and held it up, using Margo’s evening shawl to absorb the blood. In the next instant, Abilene scooped up Margo’s feet. They carried the body over to a dusty width of canvas, part of a long-dismantled set. Within a minute they’d flipped the sides over Margo’s body, and Don, seeing his employer was dead, quit struggling. As soon as Feodor and Thompson released him, the bodyguard simply shrugged and walked away.
Feodor and Thompson looked at her questioningly. Should he be released?
Layla wasn’t sure if Don had participated in Sean’s captivity or not … but he had bribed the men who abducted Sean. In a second she bounded forward, landing high on his back, wrapping his arms to his sides with her strong legs. Layla twisted Don’s head until she pulled it off. It wasn’t easy as the vampire movies made it seem, and it was quite messy.
But she felt even better after she’d done it, which was strange and interesting.
She tossed the head into the bundle with Margo. It would go to ash soon, anyway.
All this had taken less than three minutes. Sylvia was standing with her mouth open; no sound was emerging.
Layla said, “Sean and I accept the job offer in San Francisco.” After a long moment, Sylvia nodded. She leaned against the wall. Her legs were unsteady.
Sean looked almost as rocky. He was standing supported between Phil and Moose.
Layla said, “Phil, I’ve got him. Thanks so much. You too, Moose.” Phil stepped away, a faint smile on his face, and melted into the darkness of backstage with Rick. Abilene leaped onto Moose, who caught her easily. “You are my sweet honey child,” she said. He grinned in reply, and carried her back to the dressing room.
Layla gripped Sean’s upper arms, to be sure he stayed upright. He sagged against her.
“Can you talk?” she asked.
He shook his head violently.
“Okay, honey. Okay. You’ll be all right.”
But Sean seemed agitated, and though he didn’t push Layla away, he didn’t seem as happy, or relieved, as she’d imagined he would.
“He’s bespelled,” said Clemence. The gray-haired witch seemed quite pleased at the outcome of the evening. “Margo died before she could remove it.”
“You think you could have told me that before I killed her?” Layla, still pumped up, had to restrain her impulse to deal out more violence.
“Margo wouldn’t have done it,” the witch said, shrugging. “But I’ll start work. May take me a few tries.” She retreated to a quiet corner, and then began to mutter and move her hands around.
Thompson and Feodor carried Margo’s wrapped body away from the stage area and down the stairs, directly out the back door to the Blue Moon van. Don the bodyguard had crumbled to ashes. Sylvia, who appeared to be a little steadier, got a dustpan and broom to dispose of him and went in search of a trash can.
Layla didn’t care what became of either of the remains. She trusted Thompson and Feodor to dispose of Margo in a safe place.
The building, so full an hour before, had emptied with incredible speed. Through the heavy curtains, Layla could hear the cleaners moving around the auditorium. “Goodbye,” Clemence called. “It may take a little time, but he should speak again tonight. If not, take two aspirins and call me … well, in the evening.”
Layla was alone with Sean, and he was still propped up against her. She felt she could stand there all night, him leaning on her. She could feel that he was growing stronger.
The moment finally came when Sean was able to step back from her, to look into Layla’s eyes.
“While you can’t interrupt me,” she said, “I’m going to tell you a few new rules.”
He raised his eyebrows.
Sean nodded emphatically.
“Now,” Layla said. “We’re going to leave Rhodes, okay? You’re going to accept the job offer. And I am going with you. And we will not split up.”
When Sean began to cry, she did, too.
Layla had never seen him weep. His short time in Margo’s hands must have awakened some terrible memories. But Layla steeled herself and finished what she had to say. “Listen. If you ever, ever disrespect me again, I will take your head off. You know I can do it. Sean, you made me, but I’m not your baby. Don’t keep things from me. Don’t imagine I can’t survive without you. Now, do you understand all that? Because you can go to San Francisco all by yourself if you don’t.” She felt her ferocity rise again, and the process felt smoother and stronger. Sean could feel it too. He nodded emphatically.
Layla’s anger seeped away as she looked into Sean’s face. “I’d kill her all over again,” she whispered.
Outside the back door, Margo’s limousine and driver waited.
Sean glanced at the car, back at Layla, a question in his eyes.
“I’m not telling the driver he doesn’t need to wait,” Layla said. She shrugged. “Sooner or later, it’ll come to him. Wait. Is he the one who drove you over to Margo’s? After they took you?”
Sean nodded.
Layla knocked on the chauffeur’s window. Startled, he opened the door and said, “Can I help you?”
For the first time, she used her glamor. Looking directly into his eyes, she freed herself to take his will. “You drive back to the nearest police station,” she told him. “You’re terribly afraid you may have done something awful to Margo after you picked her up from the theater.”
The man stared at her, dazed. “I will,” he said.
Layla broke eye contact and strode back to the sidewalk where Sean was waiting. She felt strong, she felt capable, she felt like she would never live a passive life again.
“I have a new mantra,” she told Sean, as they walked down the cold street.
Dancers in the Dark and Layla Steps Up Page 14
