Rue paused to gather herself before she pushed open the
door marked both Blue Moon Entertainment and Black Moon
Productions. She'd made sure she'd be right on time for her
appointment. Desperation clamped down on her like a vise:
she had to get this job, even if the conditions were
distasteful. Not only would the money make continuing her
university courses possible, the job hours dovetailed with
her classes. Okay, head up, chest out, shoulders square,
big smile, pretty hands, Rue told herself, as her
mother had told her a thousand times.
There were two
men—two vampires, she corrected herself—one dark, one
red-haired, and a woman, a regular human woman, waiting for
her. In the corner, at a barre, a girl with short blond hair
was stretching. The girl might be eighteen, three years
younger than Rue.
The older woman was hard-faced,
expensively dressed, perhaps forty. Her pantsuit had cost
more than three of Rue's outfits, at least the ones that she
wore to classes every day. She thought of those outfits as
costumes: old jeans and loose shirts bought at the thrift
store, sneakers or hiking boots and big glasses with a very
weak prescription. She was concealed in such an ensemble at
this moment, and Rue realized from the woman's face that her
appearance was an unpleasant surprise.
"You must be
Rue?" the older woman asked.
Rue nodded, extended her
hand. "Rue May. Pleased to meet you." Two lies in a row. It
was getting to be second nature—or even (and this was what
scared her most) first nature.
"I'm Sylvia Dayton. I
own Blue Moon Entertainment and Black Moon Productions." She
shook Rue's hand in a firm, brisk way.
"Thank you for
agreeing to see me dance." Rue crammed her apprehension into
a corner of her mind and smiled confidently. She'd endured
the judgments of strangers countless times. "Where do I
change?" She let her gaze skip right over the vampires—her
potential partners, she guessed. At least they were both
taller than her own five foot eight. In the hasty bit of
research she'd done, she'd read that vampires didn't like to
shake hands, so she didn't offer. Surely she was being rude
in not even acknowledging their presence? But Sylvia hadn't
introduced them.
"In there." There were some
louver-doored enclosures on one side of the room, much like
changing rooms in a department store. Rue entered a cubicle.
It was easy to slide out of the oversize clothes and the
battered lace-up boots, a real pleasure to pull on black
tights, a deep plum leotard and fluttering wrap skirt to
give the illusion of a dress while she danced. She sat on a
stool to put on T-strap heels, called character shoes, then
stood to smile experimentally at her reflection in the
mirror. Head up, chest out, shoulders square, big smile,
pretty hands, she repeated silently. Rue took
the clip out of her hair and brushed it until it fell in a
heavy curtain past her shoulder blades. Her hair was one of
her best features. It was a deep, rich brown with an
undertone of auburn. The color almost matched that of her
deep-set, dramatic eyes.
Rue only needed her glasses
to clarify writing on the blackboard, so she popped them
into their case and slipped it into her backpack. She leaned
close to the mirror to inspect her makeup. After years of
staring into her mirror with the confidence of a beautiful
girl, she now examined her face with the uncertainty of a
battered woman. There were pictures in a file at her
lawyer's office, pictures of her face bruised and puffy. Her
nose—well, it looked fine now.
The plastic surgeon
had done a great job.
So had the dentist.
Her
smile faltered, dimmed. She straightened her back again. She
couldn't afford to think about that now. It was show time.
She folded back the door and stepped out.
There was a
moment of silence as the four in the room took in Rue's
transformation. The darker vampire looked gratified; the
red-haired one's expression didn't change. That pleased
Rue.
"You were fooling us," Sylvia said. She had a
deep, raspy voice. "You were in disguise." I'd better
remember that Sylvia Dayton is perceptive, Rue told
herself. "Well, let's try you on the dance floor, since you
definitely pass in the looks department. By the way, it's
Blue Moon you want to try out for, right? Not Black Moon?
You could do very well in a short time with Black Moon, with
your face and body."
It was Blue Moon's ad she'd
answered. "Dancer wanted, must work with vamps, have
experience, social skills," the ad had read. "Salary plus
tips."
"What's the difference?" Rue
asked.
"Black Moon, well, you have to be willing to
have sex in public."
Rue couldn't remember the last
time she'd been shocked, but she was shocked now. "No!" she
said, trying not to sound as horrified as she felt. "And if
this tryout has anything to do with removing my
clothes…"
"No, Blue Moon Entertainment is strictly
for dancing," Sylvia said. She was calm about it. "As the ad
said, you team with a vampire. That's what the people want
these days. Whatever kind of dancing the party calls
for—waltzing, hip-hop. The tango is very popular. People
just want a dance team to form the centerpiece for their
evening, get the party started. They like the vamp to bite
the girl at the end of the exhibition dance."
She'd
known that; it had been in the ad, too. All the material
she'd read had told her it didn't hurt badly, and the loss
of a sip of blood wouldn't affect her. She'd been hurt
worse.
"After you dance as a team, often you're
required to stay for an hour, dancing with the guests,"
Sylvia was saying. "Then you go home. They pay me a fee. I
pay you. Sometimes you get tips. If you agree to anything on
the side and I hear about it, you're fired." It took Rue a
minute to understand what Sylvia meant, and her mouth
compressed. Sylvia continued. "Pretty much the same
arrangement applies for Black Moon, but the entertainment is
different, and the pay is higher. We're thinking of adding
vampire jugglers and a vampire magician—he'll need a
'Beautiful Assistant.'"
It steadied Rue somehow when
she realized that Sylvia was simply being matter-of-fact.
Sex performer, magician's assistant or dancer, Sylvia didn't
care.
"Blue Moon," Rue said firmly.
"Blue Moon
it is," Sylvia said.
The blond girl drifted over to
stand by Sylvia. She had small hazel eyes and a full mouth
that was meant to smile. She wasn't smiling
now.
While Sylvia searched through a stack of CD
cases, the blonde stepped up to Rue's side. She whispered,
"Don't look directly in their eyes. They can snag you that
way, if they want to, turn your will to their wishes. Don't
worry unless their fangs run all the way out. They're
excited then."
Startled, Rue used her lowest voice to
say, "Thanks!" But now she was even more nervous, and she
had to wonder if perhaps that hadn't been the girl's
intention.
Having picked a CD, Sylvia tapped the arm
of one of the vampires. "Thompson, you first."
The
dark-haired taller vampire, who was wearing biking shorts
and a ragged, sleeveless T-shirt, came to stand in front of
Rue. He was very handsome, very exotic, with golden skin and
smooth short hair. Rue guessed he was of Eurasian heritage;
there was a hint of a slant to his dark eyes. He smiled down
at her. But there was something in his look she didn't
trust, and she always paid attention to that feeling… at
least, now she did. After a quick scan of his face, she kept
her eyes focused on his collarbone.
Rue had never
touched a vampire. Where she came from, a smallish town in
Tennessee, you never saw anything so exotic. If you wanted
to see a vampire (just like if you wanted to go to the zoo),
you had to visit the city. The idea of touching a dead
person made Rue queasy. She would have been happy to turn on
her heel and walk right out of the room, but that option
wasn't open. Her savings had run out. Her rent was due. Her
phone bill was imminent. She had no insurance.
She
heard her mother's voice in her head, reminding her, "Put
some steel in that spine, honey." Good advice. Too bad her
mother hadn't followed it herself.
Sylvia popped the
disk in the CD player, and Rue put one hand on Thompson's
shoulder, extended the other in his grasp. His hands were
cool and dry. This partner would never have sweaty palms.
She tried to suppress her shiver. You don't have to like
a guy to dance with him, she advised herself. The music
was an almost generic dance tune. They began with a simple
two-step, then a box step. The music accelerated into swing,
progressed to jitterbug.
Rue found she could almost
forget her partner was a vampire. Thompson could really
dance. And he was so strong! He could lift her with ease,
swing her, toss her over his head, roll her across his back.
She felt light as a feather. But she hadn't mistaken the
gleam in his eyes. Even while they were dancing, his hands
traveled over more of her body than they should. She'd had
enough experience with men—more than enough experience—to
predict the way their partnership would go, if it began like
this.
The music came to an end. He watched her chest
move up and down from the exercise. He wasn't even winded.
Of course, she reminded herself, Thompson didn't need to
breathe. The vampire bowed to Rue, his eyes dancing over her
body. "A pleasure," he said. To her surprise, his voice
purely American.
She nodded back.
"Excellent,"
Sylvia said. "You two look good together. Thompson, Julie,
you can go now, if you want." The blonde and Thompson didn't
seem to want. They both sat down on the floor, backs to one
of the huge mirrors that lined the room. "Now dance with
Sean O'Rourke, our Irish aristocrat," Sylvia told her. "He
needs a new partner, too." Rue must have looked anxious,
because the older woman laughed and said, "Sean's partner
got engaged and left the city. Thompson's finished med
school and started her residency. Sean?"
The second
vampire stepped forward, and Rue realized he hadn't moved
the whole time she'd been dancing with Thompson. Now he gave
Sylvia a frigid nod and examined Rue as closely as she was
examining him.
Dust could have settled on Sean, he
stood so still. He was shorter than Thompson, but still
perhaps two inches taller than Rue, and his long straight
hair, tied back at the nape of his neck, was bright red. Of
course, Sean was white, white as paper; Thompson's racial
heritage, his naturally golden skin, had made him look a
little more alive.
The Irish vampire's mouth was like
a capital M. The graven downturns made him look a
little spoiled, a little petulant, but it was just the way
his mouth was made. She wondered what he would look like if
he ever smiled. Sean's eyes were blue and clear, and he had
a dusting of freckles across his sharp nose. A vampire with
freckles— that made Rue want to laugh. She ducked her head
to hide her smile as he took his stance in front of
her.
"I am amusing?" he asked, so softly she was sure
the other three couldn't hear.
"Not at all," she
said, but she couldn't suppress her smile.
"Have you
ever talked to a vampire?"
"No. Oh, wait, yes, I
have. A beauty contest I was in, I think maybe Miss Rockland
Valley? He was one of the judges."
Of all the ways
Sean the vampire could have responded, he said, "Did you
win?"
She raised her eyes and looked directly into
his. He could not have looked more bored and indifferent. It
was strangely reassuring. "I did," she said.
She
remembered the vampire judge's sardonic smile when she'd
told him her "platform" was governmental tolerance toward
supernatural creatures. And yet she'd never met a
supernatural creature until that moment! What a naive twit
she'd been. But her mother had thought such a topic very
current and sure to attract the judges' attention. National
and state governments had been struggling to regulate
human-vampire relationships since vampires had announced
their existence among humans five years before.
The
Japanese development of a synthetic blood that could satisfy
the nutritional needs of the undead had made such a
revelation possible, and in the past five years, vampires
had worked their way into the mainstream of society in a few
countries. But Rue, despite her platform, had steered clear
of contact with the undead. Her life was troublesome enough
without adding an element as volatile as the undead to the
mix.
"I just don't know much about vampires," she
said apologetically.
Sean's crystalline blue eyes
looked at her quite impersonally. "Then you will learn," he
said calmly. He had a slight Irish accent; "learn" came out
suspiciously like "lairrn."
She focused safely on his
pointed chin. She felt more at ease—even if he was some kind
of royalty, according to Sylvia. He seemed totally
indifferent to her looks. That, in itself, was enough to
relax her muscles.
"Will you dance?" he asked
formally.
"Yes, thank you," she said automatically.
Sylvia started the CD player again. She'd picked a different
disk this time.
They waltzed first, moving so
smoothly that Rue felt she was gliding across the floor
without her feet touching the wood. "Swing next," he
murmured, and her feet did truly leave the floor, her black
skirt fluttering out in an arc, and then she was down again
and dancing.
Rue enjoyed herself more than she had in
years.
When it was over, when she saw that his eyes
were still cool and impersonal, it was easy to turn to
Sylvia and say, "If you decide you want me to work for you,
I'd like to dance with Sean."
The flash of petulance
on Thompson's face startled Rue.
Sylvia looked a bit
surprised, but not displeased. "Great," she said. "It's not
always easy…" Then she stopped, realizing any way she
finished the sentence might be tactless.
Julie was
beaming. "Then I'll dance with Thompson," she said. "I need
a partner, too."
At least I made Julie happy,
Rue thought. Rue's own partner-to-be didn't comment.
Sean looked neither happy nor sad. He took her hand, bowed
over it and let it go. She thought she had felt cold lips
touch her fingers, and she shivered.
"Here's the
drill," Sylvia said briskly. "Here's a contract for you to
sign. Take it home with you and read it. It's really
simple." She handed Rue a one-page document. "You can have
your lawyer check it over, if you want."
Rue couldn't
afford that, but she nodded, hoping her face didn't reflect
her thoughts.
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