Chaos Choreography (39 page)

Someone was going to get eliminated. Someone was going to get attacked. It was on me to stop it from going any further.

“Valerie, Anders, you have no idea how disappointed I was when last week's show put the two of you in the bottom,” said Adrian gravely. He leaned forward, looking between us. “But after seeing this, I have to say you deserved to be there. The fact that you
could
have been dancing like this, and chose not to, is disgraceful. You should be ashamed of yourselves, and you should be aware that if you make it through this week's eliminations, I'm going to expect much, much more from you. I always thought the two of you were brilliant dancers. Now I know that you are artists, and I will not allow you to return to your previous ways. Do we have an understanding?”

“Yes, Adrian,” said Anders and I dutifully.

Adrian suddenly grinned. “Then I can forgive you.
You were both brilliant tonight. Be proud of yourselves. America is going to remember why they loved you in the first place.”

Brenna hugged us both before going into her spiel about voting and keeping us on the air. I mugged and grinned for the cameras, but I wasn't really listening. Somewhere in this theater there was someone who wanted me hurt, and I had no way of knowing who it was.

Anders took my hand when we were dismissed, and we ran offstage together. I was starting to think that things were going to be okay between us when we passed the dividing line between “public” and “backstage,” and he dropped my hand like it had burnt him.

“You made me look like an idiot out there,” he spat, whipping around to hit me with the full force of his glare. “All that praise? Was for you finally getting your head out of your ass. Thanks a fucking lot, Valerie.”

“What did you want me to do?” I demanded. “I couldn't phone it in. Not with elimination on the line. What the hell do you want from me? First you wanted me to dance like my life depended on it, and now you're mad because I did! Make up your mind.”

“Elimination is only on the line because
you
couldn't bring your A-game before you screwed everything up!” Anders shook his head. “I hope you get eliminated anyway. I want a new partner.”

He turned and stalked away, leaving me to stare after him.

There was a soft knocking to my left. I turned. Pax and Lyra were behind me, matching looks of concern and confusion on their faces. I sighed.

“Anders isn't happy with being in the bottom,” I said.

“You think?” asked Lyra. “We watched you on the monitors. You were amazing.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You up next?”

She nodded, a nervous smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. I realized with a pang that I might have made her situation a lot more difficult. I'd already decided I was going to have to walk away from this life again—and
this time, it would have to stick. I couldn't be Valerie and Verity; one of me had to give, and when you got right down to it, I liked Verity more. She had a family. She had a husband she loved, and who loved her in return. She had a colony of talking mice that would remember her forever. She had everything, and Valerie only had the dance floor. It wasn't a hard choice to make . . . but Lyra didn't have it.

Lyra was real. Lyra belonged here. And by dancing as well as I had, I'd put her in even more danger of elimination.

“You're going to be amazing,” I said, putting every ounce of conviction I could into the words. “You always are, I mean. There's a reason you beat me the first time, and you're probably going to beat me again.”

“You really think so?” she asked. There was a pleading note in her voice that seemed almost alien when stacked against her usual unshakeable confidence.

“I absolutely do,” I said. “You're one of the best dancers I've ever met. You can dance rings around anyone who thinks they can beat you. Now get out there and show America how much they screwed up last week.”

“You're a good friend, Valerie,” said Lyra. She stepped forward, hugged me, and then was gone, letting Pax pull her toward the stage.

I watched them pass through the curtain that kept stage and backstage separate. I'd have to hurry if I wanted to get to the monitors in time to see them dance. I didn't move.

A light scuff from behind me alerted me to the person approaching. I didn't turn. Dancers walk softly, but they don't walk
that
softly. I was about to meet either an ally or an enemy, and either way, I was staying where I was.

“Hey,” said Alice. “The halls below are deserted. No one's gone in or out.”

“They wouldn't need to before they had a sacrifice,” I said, finally turning to look at her.

My grandmother was in her usual gear—tank top, khaki shorts, boots that looked like they could wade
through rivers of acid without being seriously damaged—and the moth-eaten tattoos on her arm and shoulder just drove home how much trouble we were in. Her arsenal of unusual weapons was all but depleted.

“I know,” she said. “How long before the end of the show?”

“About an hour.”

She nodded. “All right. Let's see if we can get through it alive.”

“Everything's better with a little extra boom.”

—Alice Healy

The Crier Theater, about an hour later

W
E STOOD IN A RAGGED LINE
across the stage, me between Lo and Lyra, each clinging to one of my hands with the bone-crushing strength of people who had everything to lose. Our heads were bowed, eyes half-closed against the glare of the stage lights and the tension in the air. Even the audience seemed to be holding its collective breath as we waited to hear from the judges. We'd changed back into the costumes we'd worn for our solos, putting our most iconic finery on display. The stage lights were hot, but I was freezing in my sequins and fringe.

“Well, Adrian? Have the judges come to a decision?” Brenna's voice was as warm and professional as always, but I could hear the quiver underneath her carefully rehearsed question. If I got eliminated tonight—if I died—I would be taking the hopes of her entire Nest to the grave with me.

“We have. Valerie, step forward.”

Heart hammering in my chest, I let go of Lo and Lyra and moved into position, lifting my head high. I would not cry. I would not flinch. I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction. Instead, I was going to prepare for the fight of my life.

“Tonight you danced the way we've always known you could: with grace, power, and
passion
. You've been a remarkable, consistent technician from the beginning, but there have been times when it seemed as if technique was all you had. If you remain on the program after tonight, we're going to expect this level of performance every week—and so is America. Honestly, we can't be sure you have the stamina to deliver on our expectations. Valerie, step back.”

I stepped back.

“Lyra, step forward.”

The whites of her eyes were showing all the way around her irises as she stepped into position. Adrian's face softened.

“The judges have discussed this, and I'm afraid we're unanimous, darling. You've always been one of our favorites. You are an incredibly skilled, accurate, daring dancer, and your journey through this season ends tonight. It's been a pleasure having you, but Lyra, you have been eliminated.”

Lyra's eyes began to fill with tears, glittering like diamonds in the stage lights.

“Valerie and Lo, you are safe for another week and may leave the stage.”

Adrian's voice sounded tinny and distant, filtered through the ringing in my ears. On automatic, I moved to hug Lyra. She wrapped her arms around me and clung as tightly as a limpet. She wasn't crying yet, but it was coming; those tears were going to fall.

“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,” I whispered.

Lyra didn't say anything. She just nodded, and let me go.

Lo was there, waiting to grab my hand and pull me from the stage before we could get in trouble for lingering too long and screwing up the schedule. Together, we walked down the stairs to the space in front of the judges' podium, joining the rest of the safe dancers. Lo pulled her hand out of mine and threw her arms around her partner, Will, who gathered her close.

My partner wasn't there to gather me close, even if
he'd been willing to consider it—or I'd been willing to let him. Anders was still on stage, waiting to hear his fate proclaimed by the implacable force of the judging panel. I turned to watch, lacing my fingers together and tucking my joined hands up under my chin, where I could take some small comfort from the pressure.

“Well, Adrian?” said Brenna. “We still have three dancers in danger here. Can you let us know who else will be leaving?”

“Anders, step forward,” said Adrian, and my heart soared. If I'd danced well enough to save myself, maybe I'd danced well enough to save us both. I'd follow Lyra, catch whoever had been killing dancers, and then bow out of the competition, leaving an open field for my friends to exploit. Maybe they'd even let her come back.

“Anders, you danced beautifully tonight, but I'm afraid it wasn't enough to justify your remaining in this competition, and you will be leaving us.”

“Troy and Ivan, you are safe, and can leave the stage,” said Brenna. “Anders—”

“Shut up!” Anders whirled on her, suddenly scowling, brows drawing toward his nose and mouth twisting into a sneer. Brenna took a half-step backward, looking as stunned as I felt. “You stupid bitch, shut up! You always liked Valerie! You probably told the judges to save her! But what, you couldn't be bothered to save me at the same time?”

“Anders, calm down,” said Adrian. “We know you're upset, but that's no call for that sort of language.”

“Yeah, because we're live on the air,” murmured Malena. She had appeared at my elbow, working her way through the crowd of stunned and staring dancers. Her eyes were fixed, like everyone else's, on the stage. “Swearing gets us big FCC fines, and too much could get us put on a tape delay. Not good. Not the sort of thing that makes the sponsors happy. Did you hit him in the head backstage or something? Boy's having some sort of meltdown.”

“Chernobyl is a go,” I whispered, turning back to the stage.

Anders switched the target of his rage from Brenna to Adrian, glaring daggers at the head judge. “I'm a better dancer than either of those assholes you just saved and you know it. You're trying to cover your asses because you don't want a tapper to win—you don't want
me
to win. Good thing it doesn't matter, huh? This show is
nothing
. You people are
nothing
.”

“Anders—” began Adrian.

“Shut
up
, Dad!” shouted Anders.

Silence descended over the theater, broken a split second later by Lindy's hushed exclamation of, “Holy shit.”

Anders wasn't finished. “You know, I let you convince me to pretend we weren't related, because it ‘wouldn't be fair' if people knew I was your kid. No one would believe I was as good as I am, even though they'd see me dancing with their own eyes. You didn't stick around to raise me, but you stuck your dick in my mom once, so I guess that means there's no way I could have gotten here on my own merits. Right? I let you ignore me and talk down to me and treat me like garbage, and for what? So you can eliminate me when we're right on the edge of getting everything we ever wanted? I was going to save your show once I had unspeakable power, you asshole. Your ratings have been sliding for the last two years. I was going to
make
you. But now you're going to die with the rest.”

“Adrian, is this true?” demanded Brenna. “Is he really your son?”

“Way to focus on the scandal and not the implication of mass murder,” I said. I didn't have a gun. My dress was too skimpy to conceal one, and the tango had required me to kick my legs around too much for me to have strapped anything big enough to matter to my legs. I reached behind myself and drew one of the throwing knives from under my bra.

Malena looked at me with a mixture of disbelief and amazement. “Do you go
anywhere
unarmed?”

“The bathroom sometimes, if I know I'm on a secure property,” I said. The knife was small enough to conceal
in the palm of my hand. I held it there, tense and waiting for the moment when I'd need to let it go.

“Fuck you,” snarled Anders. He grabbed Lyra, who'd been standing in stunned silence throughout his outburst. She squeaked as he jerked her against his chest. “Fuck you all.”

“That is quite enough,” snapped Adrian. “You will stop that, right now. You will be silent, and you will get off of my stage. I am ashamed to call you my son. I
refuse
to call you my son. You're never going to work in this town again.”

“Wow, Dad, way to embrace the cliché.” Anders slid a hand between Lyra and his chest. The gesture was surprisingly familiar. I knew it. Why did I know it? Why—

He pulled his hand back into the open. He was holding a knife, a wickedly curved thing that looked like it had been designed for use in a butcher's shop.

Oh. That was why.

“Didn't have to go this way,” said Anders, and jerked the knife across Lyra's throat in a hard arc, severing her jugular and carotid veins in one continuous motion. Blood sprayed everywhere, splattering the stage. Lyra jerked like she'd been shocked, her hands going to the wound. There was nothing she could have done: the blood was coming too fast, and she couldn't possibly stop it. She didn't even have the chance to scream.

I screamed for her. I was already moving, my heels finding little purchase on the blood-slick stairs to the stage as I thundered toward Anders. My knife flew straight and true, catching him in the wrist. He swore and dropped his own knife. It landed in a pool of Lyra's blood.

Lyra fell a heartbeat later.

She hit the stage like a sack of wet cement, limbs splayed and open eyes staring at the ceiling. Anders jerked my knife out of his wrist and dropped to his knees next to her, rolling her onto her stomach before dragging his hands through her blood. He started painting symbols on her back, smearing the careful makeup provided
by our costumers. Lyra would
hate
that. She hated looking anything less than perfect.

“He's our cultist!” shouted a voice, and I turned to see Alice running from the wings, onto the stage.

But there are cameras here,
I thought dazedly. She'd be caught on film. If this was going out live, the Covenant would see her—and while they might believe she was dead and buried, there was no way they didn't have her picture in their files. She was virtually Covenant Public Enemy Number One, thanks to what she'd done to my grandfather. The Covenant didn't look kindly on traitors. They looked even less kindly on those who led their people astray. And none of that mattered, because we had lives to save.

Alice was running. I was running. She had a gun in her hand, a complicated, old-fashioned pistol. I was still trying to draw a second knife from under the tight nylon strap of my dress.

Then the center of the stage exploded, and we had bigger things to worry about than a few cameras.

The snake that came bursting into the light was something like a king cobra, something like a python, and something like a SyFy Channel Saturday night special. Its head was the size of an SUV and its body was sized to match, flowing out of the hole it had created in a seemingly endless river of scales and heavy musculature. The stage lights glinted off its side, making its reality all-too-concrete. This was real. This was happening.

Alice and I had both pulled to a stop as soon as the wood began to splinter, recognizing that we were charging straight into something a little too big for us to handle without a plan. Its body was between us now, blocking easy access. That wasn't good.

“Aw, shit,” I said. “He finished the ritual.” Lyra's death had been the tipping point.

The first screams from the audience sounded almost hesitant, like the screamers were afraid this was a hoax and didn't want to be the only ones who fell for it. The snake kept coming, until its terrible head brushed the
ceiling. Then it turned, tongue flickering, and looked at the people behind it.

“Holy
shit
,” said Adrian.

The snake opened its mouth and hissed. It was a sound from the dawn of time, one that hit my simian hindbrain like a jolt of electricity, reminding me that I was something snakes might enjoy eating, if they were large enough.
This
snake could swallow a Guernsey cow if it wanted to. Eating me would be no big deal.

Lindy's scream was high and shrill, and would have been ear-piercing even without the microphone to amplify it. As it was, I could feel it all the way down to my bones. I wasn't the only one. The snake's head whipped around, homing in on the source of the irritation. Then it struck.

I caught a glimpse of its teeth as it shot past me, enough to know that they were long and sharp and far too plentiful. It moved like a freight train, mouth closing around Lindy and cutting her off in mid-shriek. The rest of the audience picked up the slack, screaming and rising from their seats as they stampeded for the doors. Most of the audience, anyway. The blonde women who'd been scattered through their ranks remained where they were, going so still that it felt like a joke to think anyone could mistake them for mammals. Nothing hot and fast could ever be that still.

“Thought snakes didn't have ears,” said Malena. She was at my elbow again. I glanced at her long enough to see that she was in her human form before focusing my attention back on the snake.

“They don't,” I said tightly. Anders was laughing and capering around Lyra's body, the hole in his wrist apparently forgotten. He was one of our snake cultists, absolutely. But he hadn't acted alone. I
knew
he hadn't acted alone. “The vibrations from the noise must have been enough to catch its attention, and that was all it took.”

Poor Lindy. She hadn't been my biggest fan, but she'd deserved better.