by Kat Cotton
“Nothing is more important than this,” Duke said.
The two of them glared at each other and even though I knew Duke would win, Lilly would be in a bad mood. It hadn’t taken long to work out that’s how things went around here.
“I’ll do it,” I offered. “I’m fine doing it on my own.”
“No, you’re not,” Duke said. “You need two people on it. Otherwise the posters get taped up all crooked and we look like rank amateurs.”
I could totally see his point on that. Crooked posters would look stupid.
“Fine. I’ll do it,” Lilly said. “But you’re totally doing the next poster run.”
I grabbed the roll of posters from Duke and followed Lilly out the door.
“He thinks he’s hot shit but he goes too far,” she said to me.
“I’m sure this won’t take long with us both working together.”
She turned back and smiled at me. “I’ve got a better idea.”
Lilly put her fingers in her mouth and whistled. A couple of schoolboys waiting at the bus stop looked around. Their eyes nearly fell out of their heads when they saw Lilly and, as she sashayed over to them, they both blushed and stared at the ground,
“Hey, boys,” she said. “Wanna make a few bucks?”
They both nodded.
“Run around town and put up these posters for me.”
I ran over. “No. You can’t. That’s wrong.”
Lilly sighed and punched me on the arm. “Oh yeah, it’s totally wrong. I’m a terrible person. The worst.” Then she winked. “I will be checking your work, boys. Make sure you do a good job. Don’t put them up crooked and don’t do a sloppy job.”
“We said we’d do it,” I hissed at her. She couldn’t. We didn’t even know if those boys would actually do the work.
“It’s delegating,” she said. “It’ll be fine.”
Fine for her. My heart raced at the thought of going back on my word.
The schoolboys took the roll of posters and the tape from her. She was really going to let them. I grabbed the posters back off them. We had to do this ourselves.
“Come on, Jayne, pick up your jaw. Those kids will do the work and I’ll take you to my beauty salon for a makeover. If anyone needs a makeover, it’s you. It’s like a community service.”
I stared at the posters in my hands. We’d promised Duke we’d do the poster run and I had to keep my word to him but then I was on the job to find out more about the troupe and there’d be no better way to do that than spending some girlie time with Lilly.
Which was more important? My loyalty to Duke or my loyalty to Larry? Shit, I hated moral dilemmas. But, even if it meant makeovers, I had to take one for the team.
I smiled and handed the posters back to the kids. Lilly started to peel off a few notes but I grabbed her hand.
“Don’t pay them upfront. They’ll dump the posters in the bin and we’ll never see them again.”
One of the kids held his hand out. “If we don’t get the money upfront, there’s no guarantee we’ll ever see you again.”
“Hey, our details are right there on the poster.”
I couldn’t believe the kid was so mistrustful. I hadn’t actually seen the posters but it’d make sense to have our details on them.
Lilly held the money back out. “Take the cash up front and, if you do a good job, when you’re done, I’ll show you my boobs.”
“You did not just say that,” I said to her as we walked off. “They’re schoolboys!”
“Schoolboys are easily bought off with a flash of boobs. I should’ve just offered that and saved the cash. Now move along. This renovation project on you is going to take a lot of time.”
“Maybe we should skip the makeover.” I didn’t think I needed that much done.
“You’re part of Sequins & Daggers now. We can’t have you walking the streets looking like that. It’s bad advertising.”
“What’s so wrong with the way I look?” I asked. Then instantly regretted it. Lilly would have no qualms telling me exactly what.
“You don’t exactly radiate glamour. You look... umm... serviceable. Practical. No makeup, flat shoes, comfy clothes.”
“Yep, I’m pretty happy with that.”
“Really?” She turned to face me. Scrutinize more like. “Really?”
“Yes, really. I mean I’ll wear makeup for the performance but I’d rather be practical when it’s just rehearsal.”
“I just wondered because Duke would pay you much more attention if you looked a little more feminine. Now move along, we’re wasting time.”
I’d suspected that Lilly and Duke were together but, from the way she said that, maybe not. I wasn’t even sure why I cared if the two of them were together. She dropped that on me then walked off. I ran after her.
How the hell did she walk so fast in high heels?
“I don’t care what Duke thinks about me,” I called after her. “Not one bit.”
Over the noise of the traffic around us, I think I heard her snicker.
Three hours of beauty torture later, I wondered why anyone willingly suffered through all this.
“Are we done yet?” I asked Lilly.
I’d hoped that this bonding time at the beauty salon would be a chance to ask about the troupe’s history and maybe get some information about Gretchen, but we’d been dragged to different rooms. I’d had someone torture me with hot wax. Wax in places I’d never even imagined needed waxing.
Then we were in the same room but I’d had some gloop put on my face and it set hard so that I couldn’t move my face. I’d have been better off doing the poster run than this.
“We just need to get our nails done,” Lilly said.
I’d be able to talk to her while we got manicures. That didn’t involve your face at all.
We sat down at the manicure table and I picked out a color. Something beige and plain.
“She’ll have the red,” Lilly said, pointing to the brightest red they had.
“I’m not sure—”
“Don’t be drab.”
I sighed. I could always remove the color if I hated it.
“So, how long have you been doing the burlesque stuff?” I asked her.
“A fair while,” she answered.
Whoa, talk about a vague answer. Vague answers made me suspicious.
“How long have you been doing acrobatics?” she asked.
“A fair while,” I told her.
That’s the problem with asking people questions. They ask you back. And my acrobatic history was not something I ever planned on discussing. I decided to change my approach. Instead of asking her about herself, I’d ask about Duke.
“What about Duke? How long have you known him?”
She winked at me. “I knew you liked him.”
“I don’t...”
Then it struck me that the best way to get information out of her was to play along with the whole Duke infatuation thing. If Lilly wanted to play matchmaker then she’d give up all the information.
I ducked my head so she thought I was being coy.
“We formed Sequins & Daggers together. I guess you could figure out for yourself, I’m the sequins, he’s the daggers. That was about a year ago. Nuno and Gretchen joined not long after.”
I nodded. “And you knew him before that?”
“We’d known each other for a while. We were all part of the same circle of friends.”
The manicurist motioned for me to change hands.
“Ah, at university?”
Lilly laughed. “Do I look like I’ve got book learning? Nope. Just from performing. It’s a small world.”
My heart gave a little jolt. Was she hinting she knew something about me? She had to be. Damn it. I knew this case would turn out badly.
But Lilly stared into the middle distance with a strange smile. Remembering past sex kind of strange. She might not be with Duke now but there’d been some kind of history there.
“What’s
he like?” I asked her.
“Bossy, demanding. You saw what he was like tonight. He’s a perfectionist and that drives me bonkers. I know what I’m doing and my act is fine. But he’s always like it has to be better, it has to be better.”
She really wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. What more could I ask? Is he evil? Is he killing people?
“Is he involved with anyone?”
“Just himself. I’m not sure if there’s room for anyone else. But seriously, we move around so much that we never get tied up with anyone for long.” She sighed. “Well, sometimes tied up but not in a romantic way. There was this one guy when we were doing the South coast circuit last year, assistant to an escape artist. That man knew how to tie knots...”
I tuned out all the talk of her sex life. Lilly definitely was a woman with a history but she wasn’t telling me the history I wanted to hear. This was why I rarely got asked to do undercover work. I wasn’t the type of person who could build camaraderie with others. People didn’t open to me. I guess, being so guarded myself didn’t help.
The manicurist was nearly finished with my nails although she seemed to be more focused on Lilly’s sexploits. Damn it. I still had things I wanted to know. I wanted to ask about Nuno for starters. Lilly talked a lot but she hadn’t really said anything I didn’t already know.
“So, Jayne,” Lilly said. “Are you planning on just doing this performance or are you staying with us long term? Because one of those cold, lonely nights, you might just get lucky.”
I didn’t know the answer myself. Maybe one of these cold, lonely nights, I’d be making an arrest and the three of them would be in jail. I wondered if I’d regret it.
Chapter 12
WHEN I GOT TO THE WAREHOUSE the next day, Duke stared at me for a long time.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
I walked away to check the carabiners on the equipment. You couldn’t be too careful about things like that. When I turned back around, Duke was still watching me. I looked away, that heat flushing through my body again. Damn him. He made things awkward acting like that.
Before we started, Lilly called for us to gather together and go through the new rundown.
“Why did we have a pair of schoolboys showing up here last night looking for you?” Duke asked her.
She shrugged. “No idea.”
On the new rundown, I had three slots where I’d be performing alone. During that time, the others would be doing set up for their own acts. Then the final slot was the knife throwing. We hadn’t rehearsed that. Duke had said there was no point in rehearsing since all I had to do was be tied onto the wheel.
The first two of my slots were simple. The third one I didn’t really understand so Duke showed me some video.
“We want you to do this but with props. Nuno will be juggling and you need to scoop down to replace balls during his routine. It’s going to need pinpoint accuracy with perfect timing.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Lilly said. “We should keep it simple.”
I nodded. An act like that could easily go wrong especially with someone you weren’t used to performing with. I didn’t have that instinctive relationship established with Nuno. I didn’t have any relationship established with Nuno at all.
“Without something impressive, the show isn’t going to win hearts,” Duke said. “The last-minute change in the team isn’t helping our cause in any way so we need to pull out all the stops. We have to be spectacular.”
Lilly yawned. “If you say so.”
“I say so.”
“Umm, I’m not sure I can do that,” I said. Duke couldn’t get this act working just by demanding it.
“We’ll rehearse all week.”
“It’s not something you can just rehearse,” I told him. “It’ll be much easier if I did solo stuff.”
His eyes flashed. He put his hand on my arm. “You can do this.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
He glared at me. Lilly and Nuno dropped their mouths in surprise too. What had gone on there?
He’d done that once before too. Put his hand on me and gave me a command. Larry had mentioned something about other undercover officers being charmed by the troupe. I’d heard about that kind of thing before. People with the power of persuasion, in a preternatural way. I squinted my eyes and appraised Duke. If he had that kind of power it explained a lot.
But, for some reason, that power didn’t work on me. Nothing explained that.
“No point standing around talking. We have to try this out,” Duke said.
I groaned and Lilly rolled her eyes.
As Nuno raised the hoop, I knew I could do this. If I opened myself up, let go of the tight control I kept on my powers, this trick would work but was it worth the risk?
Maybe I could open the door just a little. Not all the way. Not enough to put myself in trouble. Just enough to get the timing right.
I’d never tried anything like that before but surely it was possible. I wanted to get this right and prove that I could do it.
A small trickle of those powers would come in mighty handy if another demon decided to surprise me too.
Once I got on the hoop, Duke threw me a ball and I caught it. I took a deep breath. Below me, Nuno began juggling. Just using balls. I only had to drop down, grab one of the balls from the air and replace it with the one in my hand. Piece of cake. Ha.
I began counting, getting the right rhythm. Once I got that focused in my mind, I hooked my legs over the hoop and swung down. I wanted to get my swings on the hoop timed with Nuno’s throws.
I shut my eyes and tried to draw on my power. Just a little. I imagined a tap slowly being turned on. A trickle of water flowing out. That’s all I needed, just a trickle.
Then I counted... one, two, three, four... on five I grabbed the yellow ball and dropped the red ball from my hand. The problem was that the red ball just dropped.
I swung back up onto the hoop.
“This isn’t going to work,” I said. “The ball isn’t going to go on the same trajectory as the others.”
“You have to make it,” Duke said.
Then he picked up a ball and threw it in the air while Nuno juggled. It flew in one direction then changed course in mid-air, joining the others circling around. How the hell had he done that? It was against the laws of physics.
“That’s not possible,” I said.
“Yet I just did it. You can do it too,” he said.
I snorted. I wasn’t a juggler and this trick was stupid.
On the other side of the warehouse, Lilly practiced her routine. Even without a microphone, her voice was strong and clear. I didn’t have time to watch her but I envied her singing and dancing talent. If I had talent like that, I wouldn’t have to rehearse stupid tricks.
I tried a few more times. Every time the same thing happened. Even if I could get my ball arcing like Nuno’s, I didn’t have time to do that while grabbing one of the other balls. It just wasn’t possible.
“Stop telling yourself it’s impossible,” Duke said. “Open yourself up to the possibility.”
As much as I pictured that slow trickle of water, my powers didn’t kick in. I guess you can’t reject something for years then call it on command. But without them, I could practice this trick my whole life and not get it right.
I swung on the hoop trying to tell myself this was possible. I ignored the pain behind my knees. The skin had rubbed raw there from all this rehearsal. I’d rubbed cream on it and wrapped bandages around my knees but that didn’t give much relief when I had to hang from my knees for so long.
“Okay, go again,” Duke called out.
I plastered on a smile. How long would it take before he gave up on this?
Before I started, I slowed my breathing. Everything had to be in sync. I flipped down, watching and waiting. With every inhale, I told myself this was possible. I could do it.
Nuno began th
rowing the balls in the air again. I counted and waited. The red ball almost fell from my hand. My palms were sweaty and that was the last thing I needed.
I began swinging.
A chill ran through me, like some kind of weird electric jolt. My limbs felt disembodied. My whole reality shifted and the world shimmered.
Nuno kept juggling the balls but those balls moving through the air seemed slower. So slow that it seemed impossible that they could stay in the air. The balls traced a trail of light as though they were carriages on a Ferris wheel. Suddenly what I had to do became clear. It didn’t even seem that difficult.
I reached out and plucked a yellow ball out of the air while at the same time dropping the red ball from my hand into that trail of light. I didn’t have to throw it, I didn’t have to force it to move. All I had to do was sit it in the trail and let the light do its thing. How hadn’t I worked that out before?
As the ball joined the others, I heard Duke clapping below me. Then the room spun and I shut my eyes. It hit me in a rush, all the sounds and the smells. Human smells mixed with something more ethereal. I couldn’t filter it. Sweat and rubber from the balls and the paint on the backdrops and a million other smells lingered in the air. I opened my eyes, hoping that would help but the trail of light I’d seen earlier intensified. Everything had light. Duke glowed and so did Nuno. The room came alight with color and each of those colors meant something if only I could dig deeper. But it overwhelmed me. Pain dug into my temples like pointy fingers. I heaved, a sick feeling swelling up in my belly.
Then everything went black.
Chapter 13
I OPENED MY EYES TO see Duke hovering over me.
“Are you okay?” he asked and lightly slapped my cheek.
“Mmm,” I said and tried to sit up. That made the whole room swim until I flopped back down. The sick feeling remained in my belly but all the scents and lights had gone.
“You did it,” Duke said. “And then you fell. We need to work on the falling part.”
“Or we could just can this trick. It’s not so great and if she’s at risk of falling then it’s not worth it,” Lilly said.