Discount Armageddon Read online

  (People always think I’m kidding when I say things like that. They used to think I was kidding when I said the same things about the Tooth Fairy, but I can provide proof of that one, thanks to Great-Great-Grandpa’s fondness for taxidermy and the family policy against throwing away anything that might prove useful. It’s amazing how quickly a stuffed and mounted specimen can shut a person up.)

  According to the clock on the wall, it was approaching nine-thirty in the morning, which meant we’d been in the hall for somewhere around two and a half hours. According to the goose bumps on my arms, it was about two and a half hours past time to turn up the damn heat. It was possible that they had the stage lights turned so high that it made sense to turn the rest of the hall into an icebox, but if that was the case, they needed to get me on the stage before I froze solid.

  It didn’t help that my dress was the sort of thing Grandma Baker called “more rumor than reality.” It consisted mostly of beaded fringe attached to a layer of cotton broadcloth to give the whole thing structure. The laces up the back were entirely for show, and to create the illusion of the dress being more complicated than it actually was. The real fasteners ran up the front, hidden under layers of fringe. I’d had it specially made. Most dancers do—having a costume that fits right can mean the difference between first and second place when the scores are close enough—but most dancers aren’t trying to fit weaponry under an outfit that would make a hooker blush. I had a pistol strapped on at the small of my back, and a knife so high on my left thigh that drawing it would require an act of indecent exposure. My genuine human-hair wig was pulled into a chignon and pinned with “decorative” hair sticks carved from blessed cherrywood, soaked in holy water for three months, and tipped in silver. There’s no such thing as being too careful.

  “Hey, Valerie,” said a man I vaguely recognized as part of the local dance crowd. He was pushing his way through the crowd to get to the men’s room. From the number pinned to his jacket, I guessed that his group was the one just vacating the stage.

  “Hey,” I said, trusting his haste to keep him from noticing that I hadn’t said his name.

  He didn’t notice. “Later,” he said, and shoved past me, vanishing through the men’s room door. I pushed away from the wall, heading for the other side of the lobby. The last thing I needed was to get cornered and grilled on why I didn’t remember a piece of prime local beefcake like the one that just passed me. That’s one of the unanticipated dangers of trying to live a double life: I don’t have the mental storage space to keep track of every cryptid in the Greater Manhattan Metro Area and remember every member of the New York dance community. Maybe if I had Sarah’s particular set of skills, but maybe not even then.

  The fact that I have to keep the two identities as separate as possible doesn’t help. Verity Price has never won a dance competition. She’s never even entered one. Valerie Pryor, on the other hand, has done very well for herself, thank you very much. According to her credentials, she placed respectably in several local dance events, studied under some excellent teachers, and caught the nation’s attention when she appeared on Dance or Die, spending most of the season as a legitimate front-runner for the grand prize.

  I’d probably hate her if she wasn’t my secret identity. As it is, I’m just plain jealous.

  And if I ever prove I can make it in the world of competitive dance, I’m going to have to become her all the time. There’s no way a Price can risk herself on the public stage. It would be an invitation to assassination. So for right now, I can use that as a justification for never bothering to remember the names of most of the dancers I deal with: they don’t remember mine. The fact that they’ve never had the chance to learn it is academic.

  “Now calling group seventeen to the main stage,” boomed the intercom, sounding surprisingly free of static. The hall might be cold, but it was better-maintained than most of the places willing to host entry-level competitions. “First dance will commence in five minutes.”

  I straightened, reaching up to check my wig in a gesture designed to look like I was just checking my hair. All the pins were still in place. “Let’s dance,” I said quietly to myself, and started for the doors to the main stage.

  Explaining the rules of professional ballroom dancing would take the better part of a week, and probably wouldn’t help once I got to the difference between professional and amateur dancing, the way steps are ranked, and who pays what fees to enter a competition. Here’s what you really need to know:

  There are two major schools of competitive ballroom dance. International is the standard for most of the world, and focuses on crispness, precision, and the formality of the steps. There are International dancers from the United States, but they aren’t regarded very highly by the rest of the world, largely due to the existence of American ballroom. American is looser, showier, and a lot more fun to watch on television. Most of what you’ll see in movies and on reality-based dance shows is American ballroom. International is gorgeous if you know what’s going into those tight, precise steps and twirls. American, on the other hand, doesn’t require you to have any actual understanding of ballroom dance. It just wants you to stay awake.

  Once you get past the whole International-vs.-American divide, you run into the second major division within the ballroom world: the smooth styles vs. the Latin dance forms. In International dance, the smooth styles are the slow waltz, the tango, the Viennese waltz, the slow foxtrot, and the quickstep, while the Latin styles are the cha-cha, the samba, the rumba, the Paso Doble, and the jive. In American dance, the smooth styles are the waltz, the tango, the foxtrot, and the Viennese waltz, while the Latin styles are the cha-cha, the rumba, the bolero, and East Coast Swing.

  Confused yet? Now, just to up the ante a bit, please note that “Argentine tango” is nowhere on either of those lists. The Argentine tango is a horse of a different color, belonging to neither International nor American ballroom, and refusing to fit neatly into any specific style designation. The Argentine tango isn’t here to play nicely with the other children. The Argentine tango is here to seduce your women, spill things on your rug, and sneak out your bedroom window in the middle of the night. It’s the unabashed tomcat of dances, consisting primarily of swagger and sex, and it’s a hell of a lot of fun. Which is why you’ll find dancers from every side of the fence showing up for the competitions, wearing painted-on pants and lingerie disguised as dresses, all of them ready to get their freak on. Under carefully controlled and rigorously judged conditions, that is.

  The Argentine tango. Because, sometimes, dirty dancing comes with rules.

  Group seventeen consisted of ten couples. All twenty of us were dancing at the professional level; only four were paid partners, which is a remarkably low number for a group our size. According to the posted rosters, we’d all checked in by eight o’clock in the morning. I hadn’t seen more than five of the people I’d be dancing with, and I’d only seen my partner once, across the crowded lobby. He’d been deep in conversation with his boyfriend at the time, and I’d decided not to bother them. If we weren’t prepared by the time we paid our registration fees, we were already screwed.

  (At least this was one of the more affordable competitions; buy-in had only been two hundred dollars for professionals, nonrefundable under any circumstances, including death. Only the top three couples would be getting cash prizes, but the top twenty would be going on to the regional division competition. That’s all I was hoping for. A regional would give me something to justify taking more time to practice, even if more practice meant having less time to worry about what the hell might be making the city’s cryptid population go bye-bye.)

  The hall where we’d be going through our paces was a beautiful combination of “overly shadowed” and “overly bright.” Desk lights lit the workspaces of the individual judges and floodlights lit the stage, while the tiers of frozen spectators weren’t really lit at all. I used to find the silence from the audience creepy. The people who show up to w
atch competition ballroom dancing are sort of like the people who show up to watch really high-stakes tennis: completely silent, never gasping, applauding, or giving any sign that they’re not all dead. I’ve never understood the appeal. There’s a vast attraction to being the one on the floor, and watching televised dance competitions can be a lot of fun, if there’s booze involved. But sitting around playing wax dummy for hours on end? What’s the point?

  I scanned the crowd of dancers for James as we made our way onto the floor. When I’d seen him earlier, he was wearing the standard-issue skintight pants, and a deep green shirt chosen to match my dress and complement the apparent color of my hair. (Of the three professional partners I’d worked with before coming to New York, James was the only one who’d ever realized I wasn’t a natural redhead. That wasn’t a problem for either of us, since I was the only partner he’d worked with who realized he wasn’t a natural human. Chupacabra may not be good for the livestock, but damn, those guys can dance.)

  “Positions, please,” said one of the judges. His amplified voice boomed through the speakers, making it impossible to tell which of the shadowy figures was speaking. Couples began pairing off all around me, and there was still no sign of James. I was starting to worry. Couples enter as couples, and there are no substitutions allowed once the event program has been printed. There definitely aren’t any substitutions allowed after you’re on the floor.

  The other nine couples had fallen into ready position, leaving me all-too-visibly alone in the middle of the floor. I barely managed to keep from wincing as the speakers clicked on again.

  “Number one hundred eighty-four, please join your partner.”

  I scanned the floor again, looking for James. If I didn’t find him in the next few seconds, I’d be disqualified by default. I couldn’t afford to lose the entry fee. More importantly, I couldn’t afford to lose the shot at the regional competition. I needed that title.

  Still no James. I took a step backward, anticipating the instruction to leave the floor, and stopped as my shoulders bumped up against a man’s chest. “James,” I sighed, utterly relieved. My arms automatically raised to form the proper frame as I turned.

  “If you like,” Dominic replied, catching my right hand and pulling me into a tango stance. I gaped at him, but there was no time to argue. The music was already starting. Instinct was the only thing that saved me, relaxing my shoulders as my back straightened, pulling me into the correct posture.

  With no more fanfare than that, the dance began.

  The Argentine tango isn’t as devoted to creating a frame between dancers as most of the structured forms; it’s hard to look like you’re ironing the wrinkles out of the front of your dress with your partner’s chest if you’re going to be all fussy about keeping the appropriate distance. Dominic was doing a passable standard tango, and I let him be the one to hold the structure of the dance, sliding closer in what would hopefully look like a practiced dance step as I hissed in his ear, “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you,” he replied, and pushed me into a half-turn before yanking me back. He definitely wasn’t going to win me any points in technical style if he kept flinging me around like that. At least he looked the part, in skintight black jeans that were probably reinforced with Kevlar linings, a button-up red silk shirt, and a black half-duster that had to be murder in the heat, but allowed him to cut a dramatic silhouette, as well as hiding a hell of a lot more weapons than my own frothy confection of a costume. It was a step up from his generic monster-hunter trench coat. “This seemed like the best way to catch up.”

  “You could have called,” I snapped. A little too loudly—one of the neighboring couples glanced in our direction, forcing me to move in even closer as I stage-whispered, “You had my number. Now where the hell is my partner?”

  “The ‘gentleman’ with whom you were prepared to perform this parody of dance is currently indisposed.” The way he stressed the word “gentleman” made it clear he knew James wasn’t human.

  I jerked back and stared at him, barely stopping the motion from turning graceless. “Did you kill my partner?” My voice came out steady and calm. That was due to the fact that my mind was otherwise occupied with trying to figure out how quickly I could get to my concealed weapons.

  “Kill? No. I assumed it would upset you, and endanger our working relationship.” Dominic looked down his nose at me. No small task while we were spinning around the dance floor. “He’ll wake up in an hour or so.”

  There was no possible way to salvage the competition. Even bribing the judges and claiming James had suffered some sort of unexpected medical emergency (one which happened to mysteriously clear up in time for us to join the final group) wouldn’t do it after I’d shown up on the floor with another man. It was going to look like we’d tried to pull a bait and switch. Worst of all, it hadn’t even resulted in my appearing with a better partner. Dominic was a decent tango dancer—that was clear from his posture and footwork—but he’d just as clearly never danced the Argentine tango in his life. He stepped mechanically through his paces while I flung myself around him, trying to pretend we were doing the same dance. It might have passed muster in a social situation, but here? It was suicide.

  “You could have called,” I hissed again. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “That I should refuse the discussion of serious business matters over an unsecured phone line? I’m sure I don’t know, but I hope it’s never corrected.”

  “That’s it,” I snarled. I pulled back and mimicked the beginning of a partner-assisted spin before shouting in mock-pain and dropping down to clutch at my left ankle. Looks were cast in our direction by the other dancers, some sympathetic, some openly and maliciously pleased. One less couple in the competition meant one step closer to victory. Cold math, but as Sarah was so fond of telling me, numbers don’t lie. Everything else does, but numbers? Never.

  Dominic stared at me, actually looking concerned as he stooped to kneel on the floor. “Have you twisted it? Those shoes you’re wearing—”

  “Are appropriate for the occasion,” I hissed. “Now help me out of here.”

  Taking help, even fake help, from a member of the Covenant rankled, but it was necessary if I wanted my “injury” to seem realistic. Leaning heavily on the arm he offered for support, I limped out of the tango competition with my head held high and entirely real tears shining in my eyes.

  So much for making it to Regionals.

  The nature of my disguise meant I couldn’t go from Valerie to Verity in the dance hall bathroom. I limped my way back to the coat check, where I reclaimed my duffel bag and coat. Dominic trailed behind me, looking puzzled. His look of puzzlement grew deeper when I stomped out of the dance hall, limp fading with every step I took away from the doors.

  “You were faking?” he demanded.

  “You couldn’t pick up a damn phone?”

  “How could you be faking?”

  “You thought coldcocking my partner and stuffing him—where did you stuff him?”

  Dominic glanced away. “A storage closet.”

  “Right. You thought coldcocking my partner and stuffing him into a storage closet before crashing my dance competition was less risky than picking up a damn phone and saying, ‘hey, want to talk to you about all the dead stuff in the city’? You’re crazy!” I started walking faster. “Certifiably crazy. And you owe me a refund on my entry fee, in addition to the five hundred for keeping my shirt on last night.”

  “My apologies if I thought the threat we may be facing was more important than your little diversions.”

  Something inside of me snapped. I’d put up with sidelong looks and subtly disapproving comments from my family for years. Getting outright disdain from a member of the Covenant of St. George was the last straw. I wheeled on him, jabbing a finger straight at the center of his chest. “Look, asshole, dancing is not a ‘little diversion.’ It’s my life, you got that? You had no right to track me down like thi
s, and you really had no right to intrude. You don’t approve of my life? Well, screw you. At least I have one.”

  He blinked at me, nonplussed. “I—”

  “Save it and come with me.”

  “What?” His expression turned wary. Not a bad call on his part. I was just about angry enough to shove his body into the nearest dumpster and take my chances on some concerned citizen finding him before the local ghouls did.

  “You’ve fucked up my day, you’ve fucked up my chance to qualify for the next big competition, and you may have fucked up my cover. You’re not getting out of here without telling me what you came here to tell me. Now come on.”

  I was starting to realize that the last of the items on that list was the one that represented the real danger. He’d blown my cover. A member of the Covenant knew that Valerie Pryor was actually Verity Price in insufficiently concealing clothing. Depending on what happened next, he might not have disqualified me from a single competition; he might well have disqualified me from my entire career.

  It was a horrific thing to even think about, but if Dominic De Luca wanted to, he could make certain I’d never dance professionally again. I didn’t want to kill him. It was looking increasingly likely that I wasn’t going to have a choice.

  I’ll give Dominic this, even if I didn’t want to give him anything else: he followed me without complaint, despite the havoc the heat outside had to be wreaking on his overly heavy attire. I marched him down the street, around a corner, and through the back door of a greasy spoon that stank like a hundred years of deep-fried dinners. He hesitated when he saw the kitchen, and I grabbed his jacket sleeve, dragging him deeper in. The fry cook on duty was a hulking shape in dirty whites, his back to us as he chopped some unidentifiable cut of meat into smaller and smaller chunks.