“Then I spend another year in New York, in an apartment someone else is paying for, which would mean I wouldn’t have to take back my job at the bar,” I said. “I could follow up with the people I helped while I was there before, and this time I could do it without trying to juggle work, dancing, and the cryptid community. This could be really good for me, Mom, and for the cryptids of Manhattan.”
“And you’d be back in the spotlight,” said Antimony. “Can’t forget about that.” She sounded remarkably bitter. I didn’t know how to respond.
I didn’t have to. Mom did it for me. “Antimony, don’t attack your sister. Verity has a point: she hasn’t properly retired her Valerie Pryor identity. Is there any way you could turn them down without them making a big deal about it?”
“Not really,” I said. “Adrian is the producer and the head judge, and I was one of his favorites. If I don’t come back, he’s going to say something about it on the air.”
“Which makes people wonder why you’d refuse something like this,” said Mom. “I think doing the show might be the best way to handle the situation. If you win, you can go back to New York for a year, and get the hidebehinds to help you arrange a murder.”
“Mom,” I protested, without any real heat. She was right, on both counts: I hadn’t properly retired Valerie. I’d just abandoned her, like a shirt that didn’t fit right. And if I wasn’t going to be Valerie, I needed to get rid of Valerie. I needed to kill her off.
“I don’t believe this,” muttered Antimony, before asking more loudly, “Why can’t she have her alter ego murdered now, instead of after the show? There’s no need for her to risk exposure like this. Or did you forget what happened in New York? She broke cover! Sarah could have died!”
“That was an unforeseeable situation,” said Dad. “Your sister did nothing wrong. She took the steps she had available to her, and she did her best to keep from exposing the family to danger. As for Sarah . . . your cousin is an adult. She made her own choices, and we have to respect them.”
“She only made those choices because Verity got caught,” countered Antimony.
“I didn’t get caught on the dance floor,” I said. “I got caught because I was working. I was doing my job. I wasn’t Valerie when the Covenant figured out who I was. There’s never been any connection between my dance career and my identity.”
Dominic, who once successfully tracked me to a tango competition, said nothing. I was grateful for that. I would have hated to make myself a widow.
“Your sister’s appearance on Dance or Die didn’t cause any rumors about the Price family being alive in North America, but it did make her acceptance into the Manhattan cryptid community easier,” said Dad. “We’re still rebuilding our family’s reputation after all the time we spent in the Covenant. I think this is a good thing.”
Antimony shook her head. “Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.” She turned and stormed toward the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Mom called.
“To get my backpack,” she called back. “I’m going to Artie’s.” Then she was gone, pounding up the stairs with such force that it was impossible to keep talking to her unless we wanted to start screaming.
I turned fully back to the table, pushed my waffle out of the way, and allowed myself to slump forward until my forehead hit the wood. “I remember being so excited to have a baby sister,” I complained, voice only slightly muffled.
“She feels left out sometimes,” said Mom. “It’s like when you were all little, and you and Alex would play games she couldn’t keep up with.”
“Mom.” I sat up. “She dug pit traps for us when we played hide and seek. Pit traps. Sometimes she put spikes in them, because she thought that made them look better. We could have been killed.”
“But you weren’t, and now you’re better prepared for pit traps in the future,” said Mom. “She’s still figuring out who she wants to be when she grows up, that’s all. Sometimes she gets jealous because you seem to know who you are.”
That was an overly simplified version of a fight I’d been having with my sister for years. I decided to let it go. Bringing Antimony further into this was just going to complicate things, and I didn’t want to complicate things. Technically, I was an adult, and didn’t need my parents to approve of what I did with my life. At the same time, going on television did represent a risk of exposure, however small, and they deserved to have input, even if I was going to ignore any input that didn’t come down to “you should go.”
“You should go,” said Dad. “I know you’ve mostly managed to get the dancing out of your system, and that’s wonderful, but I also know you’re never going to get it completely out. You need to do this, so you can be sure you made the right choice for you.”
I stared at him. I’d been hoping for grudging approval, not full-out support. “What?”
“Your mother and I were delighted when you said you were done trying to be a dancer,” said Dad. “But you made that choice while under duress. You’d been seriously wounded, and Sarah was very ill. Decisions we make when we’re that stressed aren’t always the best ones for us. We want to know that you made the right call. So go back on the show. Dance for a live audience one more time, and let the voters decide whether you belong in cryptozoology or dance.”
“Thank you, Daddy,” I said, blinking back tears.
Dad smiled. “Don’t thank me. I remember how many bruises you came home with last time. I might as well be shipping you off to boot camp so you can think about what you’ve done. Now eat your waffle. You’re going to need the calories.”
He was right. I laughed, and ate, and tasted nothing, because my mind was already far away, in a mirrored room, listening to the choreographers bark instructions.
I was going back on the show.
First, though, I was going to have to get Valerie’s life back in order. All my dance costumes and wigs had been packed up for the trip from New York to Oregon, and were still in their boxes in the storage shed out back. (We had a garage. We just didn’t use it to store boxes, since we needed a place to park. We couldn’t use the attic, either, as the Aeslin mice had a tendency to co-opt whatever was put into their space, and the barn was where we did the taxidermy. After years of crap building up in closets, spare rooms, and everyplace else that it was possible to wedge a shoebox, Dad had finally thrown up his hands and bought a prefab shed from the nearest hardware store. After the hot tub, it was definitely the smartest thing he’d ever invested in.)
Dominic watched me wade through boxes. He was smart enough not to get too close, since he didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. “How many costumes do you need to bring?”
“Most of the dances are choreographed, which means I’ll be dressed by the folks in wardrobe,” I said, pulling a strip of bedazzled fabric out of a box. It was barely wider than a scarf, and ended with a foot of long white fringe. “What do you think of this one?”
“I think it looks like a handkerchief with delusions of grandeur,” said Dominic.
“Great, put it in the ‘take’ pile.” I tossed the dress to Dominic. “I’ll be expected to do solos as often as the producers want to shove them in, and this is a new format: I could be dancing solo every night, if they feel like being vicious. I need costumes for when I dance solo, and having something eye-catching is a good way to drum up a few extra votes. Besides, it’s not like my costumes take up much room.” Competition Latin ballroom outfits tended to be more rumor than reality, to steal a phrase from my grandmother. There were big poofy feather dresses, sure, but they were few and far between, and mostly unnecessary in the styles I preferred.
“That’s true enough,” said Dominic. “When we watched the videos of your last run on the show, I was amazed some of those costumes had made it past the censors.”
“They cover the salient bits,” I said, brightening as I saw my wig box. I waded de
eper into the pile. “We’ll need to fly to Los Angeles. Or at least, I’ll need to fly, since the producers will send me a ticket, and I don’t think you want to make that drive by yourself. If we go a little early, we can get you set up someplace near the cast housing. This will let us give your new photo ID a test run.” A new identity had been part of my wedding gift to him, as well as a necessary component of bringing him home to meet the parents. If he hadn’t been able to pass basic background checks, he would never have been allowed in the house. “Do you have a credit card for someone who isn’t Dominic De Luca?”
Dominic shook his head. “No,” he admitted. “There hasn’t been a need since I’ve been here, and I didn’t want to list this as my address.”
I resisted the urge to groan. We should have been working on this weeks ago, as a matter of common sense, and it had taken reality television—which was literally the opposite of “common sense”—to make us get started. “Okay, we’ll add that to the list of things to take to Artie. He should be able to whip together something good enough for emergencies, even if it’s not good enough to be permanent. We’ll get him to fake another ID for you in the process, something burnable. Decide what I’ll be calling you. Make sure it’s something you can answer to. I recommend something that starts with ‘D,’ since it’ll be easier for you to recognize as your name.”
“Is that why you go by ‘Valerie’?”
“Yup,” I said, hoisting the wig box and wading back toward him. “Similar enough to ‘Verity’ that it catches my attention across a crowded room; dissimilar enough that people aren’t likely to connect the two. Same goes for my last name. ‘Price’ for me, ‘Pryor’ for her.”
“You know, there are people in the Covenant convinced that if your family survived, they did so by being intensely cunning, unbelievably clever, and making bargains with one or more demons,” said Dominic. “I’m reasonably sure no one’s ever said ‘why don’t we look under a simple mnemonic?’”
“Simple means you have fewer moving pieces that can break; there’s nothing wrong with simple.” I dropped the wig box next to him and knelt to begin examining its contents. “And we’ve never made any deals with demons. A few deals with my Aunt Mary the crossroads ghost, but she always recommends against it, and for the most part, we listen. She knows what she’s talking about.”
“Once again, I have to ask: how many dead aunts do you have?” asked Dominic, a note of desperation creeping into his voice.
I glanced up from the wigs and grinned. “Just the two. Aunt Rose, who you met in New Orleans and may or may not see in the foreseeable future, and Aunt Mary, who we’ll see again at Christmas. She always brings fruitcake from this old lady she knows in Denver who actually bakes fruitcake you can eat without breaking your teeth, it’s amazing.” This said, I looked back to the box. “Hmm.”
“Hmm?” echoed Dominic.
“Yeah. Hmm.” Valerie Pryor was a redhead. It was a decision based half on vanity—I always wanted red hair when I was a kid, and I was never allowed to dye it, since that would have made me stand out too much—and half on practicality, because again, red hair stood out. Between the costumes and the hair, few people remembered much about “Valerie’s” face. They came away with an impression of color and semi-nudity, and didn’t really look at things like the shape of my cheekbones.
Unfortunately, while my costumes had fared reasonably well during the move, my wigs were outdated and disheveled after their time in the box. It would look odd if I showed up on television with the exact same hairstyle I’d had three years ago, and if I tried to rehab the wigs, there was a chance I’d wind up damaging them.
“Is that real human hair?” asked Dominic, sounding somewhere between amazed and appalled.
“Yup. Expensive, but you’re not going to find anything that looks more realistic, or does a better job of fooling tracking spells. I buy them from a wig shop in Salem. It’s run by a very sweet harpy and her daughter. They have feathers in their hair, and pulling them out would hurt like hell, since living feathers have blood vessels in them. They make wigs instead. They do a good business among the gorgon community and with other cryptids who have reasons to hide their scalps.” I was already running the numbers in my head on how many wigs I could afford. Dad would probably give me the money if I asked, since he’d approved this mission, and it would be nice to have something styled in a braid or updo, just to make the rumbas easier.
“I see,” said Dominic. He paused, and then said, “When we met, I thought your dancing was frivolous. I suppose I still do, on some level. Your work is more important than the dance floor.”
I glanced up, raising an eyebrow. He shook his head; he wasn’t done.
“But your joy when you dance . . . it’s radiant. The preparation, the work, the thought you put into every element of the presentation . . . this isn’t frivolous. It may not be what I recognize as important, but that doesn’t mean it’s worthless. I’m glad you’re going to do this reunion show. I think that, as your husband, I owe it to myself to take more time to watch you dance.”
“That sort of thing gets you kissed, Mister,” I said, before standing and doing just that. Dominic looped his arms around my waist and pulled me close. He’d always been an excellent kisser, from the time that I first put my lips on his in an alley in New York, but time and comfort had elevated him to an Olympic level. If there had been a gold medal for kissing, I would have given it to him hands-down.
When I finally pulled away, my cheeks were hot and felt like they were as red as my wigs. “Okay, handsome,” I said. “Let’s go call Artie about getting you that credit card and fake ID. We’re going to Hollywood.”
Four
“Chin up, shoulders back, trigger finger ready. Now go out there, my darling girl, and prove that you’re the one.”
—Enid Healy
The lobby of the Crier Theater in Hollywood, California, six weeks later
THE AIR INSIDE THE LOBBY was at least five degrees cooler than the air outside. It felt more like my native Portland than like Hollywood, land of sunscreen, tanning beds, and movie stars with thousand-dollar skin. I shoved my sunglasses into my oversized dance bag, blinking rapidly to adjust to the switch from outdoor bright to indoor dim. Everyone around me was doing the same thing, which gave me an excuse to hang back from the crowd and get a feel for the situation.
The building was familiar, of course: this was where we’d done my original season of Dance or Die. Holding our final rehearsals on the actual performance stage used for live shows made it easier for us to get comfortable with routines that we barely had time to learn, which cut down on injuries. Cutting down on injuries lowered the show’s insurance rates, so everybody won. Besides, the theater was huge. There was plenty of practice space, and the plumbing almost never decided to back up and flood the bathrooms. Almost. Stepping into the Crier Theater was like coming home.
Dominic was a different but equally familiar presence behind me, although his blond-tipped hair and studiously “I am in a boy band, ask me about our new single” attire made him less familiar when I actually looked at him. Dominic De Luca wasn’t the kind of guy Valerie Pryor would have looked at twice, much less gotten involved with. David Laflin, on the other hand, had all Dominic’s natural hotness, combined with a much more modern sense of style. He was believable as part of her image. That was what mattered here. Image. Reality was boring if it didn’t have a layer of sequins on top.
“Remember,” I murmured. “If someone asks you a question you can’t answer, just laugh and either look in a mirror or look at me.”
“I am to be your boy toy,” he said. He sounded amused. That was good. I couldn’t have done this if he hadn’t been willing to play along.
Six weeks seemed like a long time when I’d agreed to do the show. Six weeks hadn’t been nearly long enough. Not when I needed to have my costumes altered, wigs made, and get a whole new iden
tity set up for Dominic—a big task under any circumstances, and one that was made bigger by the fact that some of Valerie’s paperwork was out-of-date. We’d managed to finish everything just under the wire, and now here I was, a week out from our first show, about to become reacquainted with the people I’d once thought of as my natural peers.
I wasn’t ready. And that didn’t matter, because I’d been spotted. A black-haired blur rocketed through the crowd toward me. I braced for impact, hoping Dominic would recognize this as the opposite of an attack. We didn’t have an easy way for me to warn him without drawing attention to myself or looking unfriendly, and then it was too late, as a slim African-American woman in yoga pants and a beaded red halter top slammed into me, rocking me back several inches as she slung her arms around my neck.
“Val!” she squealed. “Oh my gosh Val you’re here I heard from Anders who heard from Lo that you’d dropped out of your last two competitions and then the producers were having trouble finding you and I was so afraid you weren’t going to come but here you are! You’re actually here!”
“I’m actually here,” I confirmed, giving Lyra a quick hug before attempting to extricate myself from her embrace. “I had a bad fall during training, and bruised my tailbone. Nothing permanent, it didn’t need surgery or anything, but it was pretty messed up for a while, and I had to miss some competitions. I wasn’t getting any traction, so I figured I’d come home to California and think about my options.”
Lyra let go, stepping back enough to beam brilliantly in my direction. It was like staring into a searchlight. “This is some option, huh?”
“And how,” I agreed. I half-turned, opening my posture as I gestured to Dominic. “Lyra, I’d like you to meet my boyfriend, David. David, I’d like you to meet Lyra, my season’s dancer of choice.”