Chaos Choreography

by Seanan McGuire

  At least I had stayed on the beat and kept my feet moving. Maybe I’d put myself in danger, but Anders should be safe. And maybe if I kept telling myself that, the universe would take pity on me and somehow make it true.

  Brenna called the six dancers in danger back to the center of the stage after the last couple finished. The rest of us moved to stand in the space between the judging platform and the audience, still in our costumes. The nervous energy rolling off the group was palpable. I was struck once again by how simple this had all seemed once, how blissfully removed from the world I’d grown up in. The last time I’d been standing here, I’d been thinking only about winning, proving I was America’s Dancer of Choice, and that I could have a life beyond the one my blood had fated for me.

  Now I was worried about whether two of the people up on that stage were going to survive the night. I was worried about the fact that of the three contestants who knew about the deaths, two of them had their heads on the chopping block. If Malena and Pax were both eliminated, and we didn’t catch the killers before the theater closed for the night, I was going to be the only person left who knew what was going on and had free, unfettered access to the building.

  Brenna and the judges had been speaking while I fretted over the future. Now she turned to them, and said, “Well, Adrian? Please don’t leave us in suspense any longer, my heart can’t take it.” Neither could the dancers who stood beside her, their hands locked together and their faces set in near-matching expressions of grim stoicism. There could be no crying or visible distress: the two who survived tonight’s elimination would need votes to stay on the show, and the public didn’t respond well to the idea that someone was a sore loser, no matter how untrue it was.

  Please, Adrian, I thought. Just get it over with.

  Adrian leaned forward. “Well, Brenna, we’ve discussed it, and our decision tonight is unanimous. The girl who’ll be leaving us tonight is . . . Leanne.”

  Leanne pulled her hands away from the other two, covering her face. Now that she’d lost, she was allowed to show how crushed she was.

  I didn’t really know her. I didn’t know how much of her heartbreak was real, and how much was a careful affectation, designed to appeal to the audience, in case there was a miracle that might get her back on the show. It had happened before. Right now, it didn’t matter, because she’d just been cut, and I grieved for her, even as I was grateful Malena would be staying.

  “All right, Malena and Raisa, you can leave the stage.” Brenna put her arms around Leanne, giving the girl a hug that lasted just long enough for the other two dancers to make it down into the pit. Then Brenna let her go, waving her toward the wings, and walked over to where the three boys in danger waited.

  The same drama played out in slow motion for the second time: the brief critique by the judges, Brenna’s plea that they get it over with, and finally, Adrian’s verdict.

  “Once again, we are unanimous. The boy who will be leaving us tonight is Mac. Thank you so much for your time; your journey ends here.”

  Mac bowed his head, shedding a single manly tear. Brenna embraced him. The closing music began, inviting us all to mob the stage, hug our departing comrades good-bye, and dance for the cameras.

  Pax grabbed me as soon as I came into range, spinning me in until he could murmur in my ear: “What do we do now?”

  “We stay on them,” I replied, and spun out again, this time flinging myself at Malena in what I hoped would look like a friendly hug. The fact that we’d never shown any real affection for each other before didn’t matter: we were originally from different seasons, and could be expected to form new bonds during this one. Anders was glaring at me. I did my best to avoid him as I brought my lips to Malena’s ear.

  “Follow Leanne,” I whispered.

  Malena nodded, and pulled away to dance with Ivan, matching him step for step. The cameras spun around us, capturing every moment, right up until the lights flashed to signal the end of the credits. That was everyone’s cue to get offstage.

  It was my cue to get ready for an ambush.

  The Crier Theater was built to accommodate all sorts of productions, from the recording of Dance or Die to concerts and theater companies. Consequently, the ceilings were unusually high everywhere backstage, to allow for the movement of stage flats and complicated equipment. Moving through that space was like moving through a dream of the theater, unconfined and smelling always, faintly, of sawdust.

  Being a free-runner means I spend my life assessing my surroundings in terms of “how hard would it be to climb that?” Most of all, being a free-runner means I’ve had a long time to figure out the big blind spot that almost all humans share:

  Humans virtually never look up.

  I was among the first off the stage, and the absolute first to hit the women’s changing room. My Jane of the Jungle costume was simple to shuck off and hang on the rack, and it was a matter of seconds to pull on my street clothes. I swapped my stage wig for my usual loose red ponytail, and filled my pockets with knives. By the time the first of my fellow dancers was coming through the door, I was pushing my way out into the hall, murmuring vague phrases about not feeling well. Some of them looked at me sympathetically, but no one tried to stop me. They all knew I hadn’t danced my best tonight.

  As soon as I was alone in the hall, I grabbed the nearest curtain and shinnied up it to the rafters. Once there, I ran along the beams meant to hold our hanging lights to a position above the basement door. I crouched, holding a beam for support, and waited.

  Malena arrived a few minutes later, sauntering casually until she saw she was alone. Then she skittered straight up the wall, stopping when she was roughly on the level with me. She blinked. I raised my free hand in a small wave.

  “All present and accounted for?” I asked.

  “The other seven girls were still getting changed when I left the room, and I don’t smell blood,” she said. “Where’s your grandmother?”

  “I have no idea.” Probably in the basement, if I knew Alice. She was good at staying out of sight when she wanted to, and while we hadn’t planned for this moment in excessive detail—having too many variables meant it was better to wing it and play to our strengths than to get tripped up by a plan that wouldn’t work—she’d want to be where she could break some faces, if it came to that.

  Dominic was outside, and would stay there until someone signaled him to come in. We’d need to find a better way of getting him into the theater if this continued for another week. Please, I thought, don’t let this continue for another week. Please, let us find the people who killed Poppy and Chaz, and stop them, and move on into a world where I could just dance, and not worry about anybody getting murdered. Please.

  There was motion below. Malena and I both went very still, and watched as Pax walked down the hall, looking quickly from side to side. Like the humans, he didn’t look up. That made a certain amount of sense. Ukupani were aquatic in nature. Just being out of the water was disconcerting enough to keep him from looking for an ambush.

  He opened the basement door and stepped inside, disappearing.

  “He didn’t do it, did he?” whispered Malena.

  “No,” I said, with absolute certainty. “If he had, he would never have been stupid enough to involve me.” Ukupani didn’t have a history of worshipping snake cults. I’d needed to explain the concept to him, and Hawaii was too small to have ever sustained anything the size of Titanoboa. Hawaiian terrors tended to come out of the sea. I fully expected that if anyone ever managed to summon Cthulhu or something like that, it would be anybody’s guess whether the squamous terror rose from the waters off Massachusetts or Maui.

  “I still don’t smell blood,” said Malena. She was starting to sound unsure.

  I paused. “Wait. If all three of us are here—I thought you were keeping an eye on Leanne.”

  Malena’s eyes widened. �
�She wasn’t in the dressing room. I thought you were keeping an eye on her.”

  “Shit,” I hissed, and swung around to dangling from the beam I’d been sitting on. From there, it was easy work to grab one of the guide ropes and lower myself, one hand over the other, to the floor. It wasn’t the fastest means of descent, but it prevented rope burns, and that was important to me. I was going to need my hands.

  My feet had barely hit the floor when someone sighed behind me. “Val, Val, Val, do we have to have a talk about the insurance rates and keeping out of the rafters again? I thought we went over this.”

  “Um.” I turned, forcing a sickly smile as Clint walked toward me. He was shaking his head in disapproval. Every encounter I’d ever had with the show’s judges told me to bow my head and look regretful. Every lesson I’d ever had about getting caught climbing somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be told me to turn and run.

  I settled for a compromise, leaning back on my heels and smiling sheepishly. Clint was still dressed for the judging table, and tonight’s bow tie was covered in purple grapes hanging heavy on bright green vines. He looked concerned.

  “I’m serious, Val. You’re a great dancer—usually. What happened tonight? I expected better from you. There was no fire in your performance, and that song demanded fire.” Clint tilted his head. “Is everything okay back at the housing? Are you getting along with the other dancers? You know you’ve always been one of my favorites. I want things to be as comfortable for you as possible.”

  “Everyone’s been great, honest,” I said. “I just climb when I’m stressed, that’s all. I know I didn’t do so good tonight. I didn’t even need you to tell me.”

  Clint nodded. “I could see the knowledge in your eyes when you came over to talk to us. See, that’s part of why you’re one of my favorites. You have a degree of self-awareness that’s unusual in a dancer of your age. You didn’t answer my first question.”

  I paused, reviewing the conversation in my head before deciding to go with the excuse that would best match the rumors he might have already heard. “My sister’s in town, and we don’t talk much.” Referring to my grandmother as my sister was never not going to be weird. “I just let her throw me off my game, that’s all. I’ll work harder next week.”

  “You’d better, or next week could be your last,” said Clint gravely.

  His back was to the basement door. He didn’t see it open, or see Pax’s startled expression when he was confronted with Clint’s unmistakable silhouette.

  Be smart, I thought, while nodding and trying to keep a downtrodden expression firmly in place. “I know. I just have to hope America will show me mercy. If we get something in the ballroom category for next week’s show, I think I can carry Anders through it, and remind people why they let me make it to the finale last time.”

  “Remind them of more than that.” I wasn’t expecting Clint to move when he did. He stepped forward, grabbing my hands before I could shift out of the way, and said seriously, “Remind them how they blew up the message boards when Lyra edged you out for the title. Remind them that they love you, and that they want you to be America’s Dancer of Choice.”

  Years of living with Aeslin mice had given me the odd ability to hear it when someone stressed a word hard enough to capitalize it. I smiled and tugged my hands away from him. “I’m flattered, Clint, but I don’t think we should be having this conversation. If the other dancers start thinking you’re favoring me, it’s going to make rehearsals awfully uncomfortable.”

  “Adrian has his favorites every season. You know he does. Bits of fluff who know how to waggle their asses for his approval. He’s never slept with any of them—Lindy would have his balls if he tried—but that doesn’t change the way he looks at them. He’s undressed them with his eyes a thousand times.” Clint’s expression hardened, mouth thinning into a disapproving line. “He cuts deserving dancers because he wants to keep his favorites as long as he can. Why shouldn’t I come down on the side of the dancers who actually deserve to be here? You’re good, Valerie. I expected you to turn us down because you were setting the competition stage on fire, or starring in some new Broadway extravaganza. What happened after you left us?”

  I remembered who I was, I thought. Aloud, I said, “It’s hard out there for a dancer. I guess I just got overwhelmed.” Which was technically true. I’d been overwhelmed by the discovery of a giant sleeping dragon under New York City, and by the presence of a Covenant field team. I’d been overwhelmed by the effort of doing my job and starting my career at the same time, and when I’d been forced to choose one over the other, I’d chosen the one I couldn’t imagine living without.

  And now I had to do that again. Insulting a judge was a quick way to wind up on the bottom, but I didn’t see where I had a choice if I wanted to find the others.

  “I’m really sorry I was climbing; I just needed to clear my head,” I said, taking another step backward. “I was hoping to catch Leanne before she left to get her things. I’m sorry. Can we talk later, maybe?”

  “I thought I saw her on the stage,” said Clint. He closed the distance between us, taking my arm firmly in his. “I’ll walk you.”

  Shit. There was no way to get out of this: not without blowing my cover, and potentially getting myself tossed out of the theater. “All right,” I said, glancing over my shoulder toward the basement door and hoping that Malena would take the hint.

  This was all on her and Pax now.

  Clint chatted vaguely during the walk back to the empty stage. I don’t think I heard more than one word in three. I was too busy watching the corners of the hall, waiting for something to lunge out at us. If there were any dancers remaining in the building apart from the ones I knew about, our route avoided them; it was just Clint and me, right up until we stepped out onto the echoing vault of the stage.

  It always seemed larger when it was empty, without the bodies of my friends and colleagues to fill it. The big floodlights were off, but the smaller stage lights were still on, preventing accidents among the stagehands and cleanup crews who were doubtless sweeping through the building.

  “Don’t you always feel more alive when you’re on stage?” He finally let me go, taking a few quick steps away before twirling on his heel and offering his hand with a flourish. He was grinning, looking absolutely delighted with himself. “Miss Pryor, may I have this dance?”

  I didn’t have a good way to refuse. I wanted to tell him “no,” to turn and run and find my people—but they were good people. They could do this without me if they had to, and keeping Clint from pursuing me through the theater was as important as getting back to them in a timely fashion. Still, I tried. “I’m not wearing good dancing shoes,” I demurred.

  “So? I’ve seen you dance barefoot and in six-inch spike heels. I think you can manage a basic waltz in sneakers, don’t you?” His hand remained outstretched. “I’m not hitting on you, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m just concerned. You’re not the brilliant dancer I used to know. Something’s eating you. I want it to stop.”

  “Life moves on,” I said, and slid my hand into his. He promptly spun me in, and then back out again, moving slowly enough that I could follow him, yet fast enough to make it clear he trusted my capabilities. It would have been flattering, if I hadn’t been so worried. “I had to stop dancing for a while before the show called. I’m not in the best shape.”

  “Liar,” he said fondly, beginning to waltz me around the stage. Our steps matched like we’d been practicing together for years. I forced my shoulders down, trying not to let my tension show. Ballroom dance is serious business for those who perform on a competitive level, and we’ve all learned how to hide our fear. “You’re in impeccable shape. If fitness were the only thing we judged, you’d be in the top three easily. You might just walk away with the whole show. What’s eating you, Valerie?”

  “Life,” I said, with a very small sh
rug. “It’s been hard. I thought I’d leave here and find this glorious career waiting for me, and instead, I found a lot of failed auditions, some competitions where I didn’t even place, and a revolving door of partners. I never expected it to be easy. I definitely didn’t think it was going to be impossible.”

  “It’s not,” he said. “Why didn’t you call me? I would have arranged some private auditions for you. I can open doors, you know. If you want it, I can make it happen.”

  “What would it cost me?” There was no music, but the waltz was so familiar that neither of us needed it. We didn’t dance around the stage; we glided, and his hand was a hot weight on my waist, not crossing any lines of propriety apart from the ones that had already been left far behind us. There was nothing sexual about it. Clint had never pressured me for anything in that direction. So far as I knew, he’d never pressured any of the dancers. It was just there, reminding me that escape was impossible, that I was the dancer and he was the judge, and if I ran, he would pursue.

  I couldn’t even blame him for that. He thought he was helping. He thought he was keeping me from losing faith and losing focus, when what he was really keeping me from was the chance to save a life.

  Dominic, Alice, get in here, I thought, and wished Sarah were with me. I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to depend on the presence of our resident telepath until she was gone. We wouldn’t even have had to worry about how to get her into the theater. Sarah was a cuckoo. Cuckoos went where they wanted to go, and nobody stopped them. Most of the time, no one even realized they were there. That was what made them so damn dangerous.