Queen of the Night Time World

by Kristen Strassel

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Rainey didn’t fail. That was the problem. Gabriel had given her what he considered to be an impossible task—to keep this Realm on the up and up, and she did it. As I took my spot at the top of the staircase and let the applause and adoration wash over me, I wondered if she’d really been sent to save us.

  Or if she was supposed to stoke the waiting flames of destruction and deliver me, The Fire Dancer, straight into the bowels of evil. But instead, she fell in love with me.

  What could I say? I made evil look good.

  “Holly! Holly! Holly!”

  I put my feathered hand to my mouth and blew them a kiss. The theater erupted, and I finally believed love could truly conquer all. And after I smashed this performance, I’d use that knowledge to get Rainey back.

  And wake up Blade. Please, let him be awake. I did not want to go back to my hotel room and find a corpse in my bed.

  Tristan’s guitar solo pierced the cheers, and the crowd quieted. I descended the stairs. The moves were minimal, since wearing a twenty-five-pound headdress and wearing six-inch heels was a challenge on its own. It was mostly covering me with my wings and revealing a little more, inch by inch.

  I slipped on one of the steps. I managed to catch myself before I fell, but I missed a beat. The audience shared my gasp and cheered as I righted myself. Plastering a smile on my face as I regained my composure, I took the next step gingerly. I couldn’t let them see how mad I was at myself. Whether my bosses wanted it or not, I demanded perfection from myself and there was no excuse for my slip-up. It didn’t matter what was happening in my personal life, which was one of the reasons I liked to keep that separate from the show. I didn’t want anyone who paid three bills for admission to make excuses for a sub-par performance because I was dealing with shit outside the theater.

  But now I understood why people put it all out there. No one faulted Tristan for fucking up. They chalked it up to a hard night of partying and would pat him on the back if they could get anywhere near him. Maybe there was something to it.

  No, I’d never rely on excuses. It was lazy and dangerous and invited bigger problems, like fallen angels engineering the apocalypse just outside the theater.

  I must’ve cracked a heel, because I wobbled when I stood at the front of the stage with my arms spread wide. This would be the worst possible time to fall. All I had to do to get through this number was introduce the band as they came out. Piece of cake. Once Tristan and Ryder took the stage, no one would notice I walked with a limp.

  “What the fuck was that?” But my two-person cheering section on the side of the stage did.

  I met Rachel’s sneer with defiance of my own. I was not in the mood for her shit tonight, especially when we spent last night coming up with a plan to work together. Good thing I got supplies for Plan B while I was at it.

  “My heel broke.”

  “Don’t let it happen again,” Callie said, then turned to Rachel to giggle like two mean girls.

  I kicked the fucking things off and left them by the side of the stage. I couldn’t bend over to pick them up with my headdress on. It was a good thing I didn’t fall. I would’ve never gotten up. My heart was still pounding when I got back to my dressing room and I steadied myself against the closed door, a move I usually saved for after I ignited. The incident was starting to feel less like an accident when put in a box with all the other things that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

  A production assistant knocked on the door. I hadn’t realized how much time had passed, and I wasn’t ready for the next number. It wasn’t like they could go on without me.

  “Have Tristan play a solo or something. I’ll be out in a second.” I slammed the door shut.

  The audience didn’t mind the extra Tristan time, and they welcomed me back. This was my happy place, where I was the center of the universe, doing what I loved. I grabbed the lyra and ran around in a circle to get it going. It lifted before I was ready and I struggled to pull my body onto it. One false move this time and I could wind up ten rows back in the crowd. Something was up tonight, and I’d play the rest of this routine safe. No hanging from my knee or spinning around one-handed high above the theater. I’d sit on the circle and stretch and pose. Cameras trained on me so the crowd could get up close and personal with my every move. But there wasn’t much I had to do to impress when I was only wearing a thong and pasties.

  It might have been enough for them, but I was getting bored. The gaffes could’ve been coincidences, and nothing bad had happened since I got on the lyra. It wasn’t me. Straddling the metal, I positioned myself for a summersault. As soon as the music spend up, I made my move.

  Momentum carried me through the rotations, and I had to let myself relax. My body had to be like water to curve around the bar at that speed. The plan was to pull myself back into sitting position and wave and blow some kisses, but I ran out of gas mid-spin and got stuck hanging from the lyra by my extended, burning arms. Not flame-burning—at least that would’ve been cool. Just limp noodle, tired arms.

  I hid my face in the silks until the embarrassment faded. My arms were like rubber, and as I arched my back halfway up the fabric, I swore I could see disappointment spreading like wildfire in the audience. One face falling at a time. My soundtrack was particularly beautiful tonight, like Tristan was fighting his own demons. I wished I could talk to him without the fear of having our secrets used against us. I mourned the loss of a friend I never had.

  I had to get to the top, and then everything would get easier. Corpse or no corpse, I was going straight to bed when I was done tonight. I needed to heal.

  The next part of the routine was a split, and then a twist, so my leg was in the fabric. I spread myself out like I was flying. The crowd loved it, and this was the start of the real routine. The twists and turns and everything that made working in the silks amazing. I let myself slide down the fabric, into another split, and dreaded having to climb back up so I could nail the roll. I grabbed as much of the fabric as I could, trying to save myself a move or two, and something felt off. I looked back at Tristan, to give him a heads up that there was a problem, but he had his head tipped back and his eyes closed. Totally lost in the music. I could slide down the silks and be done with it, but my ankle was wrapped in the fabric and I didn’t want to deal with the backlash if I bowed out of my performance.

  So I gave the silks another good tug.

  I didn’t have time to prepare myself for them to come crashing down.

  I’D ALMOST DIED DURING a show over at Cirque Macabre. It was right after Rachel neutralized my powers. She was busy helping The Mistress kill Cash when it happened. Instead of igniting in the supernatural way, she left me as vulnerable as a human. Rainey and I had broken up over something stupid, me being selfish or whatever, but she knew. She came back to me and nursed me back to health from ash and soot. If it weren’t for her kindness, her attentiveness, and her unconditional love, I would’ve never recovered.

  She knew when I needed her. I liked to think, even under the mania of pain, I’d do the same for her. I was doing the same for her. Only problem was I failed.

  A little piece of me that was trapped in the searing hot blackness hoped the movement around me belonged to her. Muffled voices were impossible to make out. I had the jars and potions in my bag... Shit, no, I’d left them in the room.

  “Doll, can you hear me?” Someone, who I presumed was Lennon, ran her hand over my forehead. Trapped in my own body like a cell, it took everything I had to open my eyes and groan.

  “She’s awake,” Lennon said. Sounds were amplified as people rushed over. The light hurt my eyes, and I couldn’t keep them open long enough to tell where I was. But I did see Rachel, Callie, Tristan, and our guitar player Ryder, frowning at me. No Rainey.

  “Hey, don’t try to talk.” Tristan’s voice was melodic and offered as much comfort as I was going to get from this crowd. “You had a bad fall out of the silks and hit the piano on
the way down.”

  That got my attention and I didn’t care how much it hurt, I opened my eyes to study his expression. He winked at me, like he knew it would make me feel a little better. But it didn’t make any sense. My silks were in the middle of the stage and Tristan played off to the side. Unless I’d swung wildly and jumped, there was no way I could fall on the piano.

  “You broke some bones, and you’ll be badly bruised. We’re watching for signs of concussion.” Callie smiled weakly at me. “But you’re part vampire, so you should heal pretty quickly. Or so we hope.”

  Lennon waved her off. “Don’t say that to her. She needs to rest.”

  “We should bring her up to her room,” Rachel said. I assumed I was still in the theater. I blinked rapidly, because it was all I could manage, and I tried to pick my head up to see where I was but the pain was worse than the time I really caught on fire. Everyone scrambled and protested and I gave up. I’d waste whatever energy I had left to find the camera crew and tell them to fuck off. We’d probably pass them on the way to my room, however I was going to get there. They’d carry me on a stretcher to be safe—if I knew The Mistress, she wasn’t taking any chances of getting sued. I just wanted my bed.

  Oh, shit. Last I knew Blade was dead to the world between my sheets. “No.”

  “No what, doll?” Lennon still had her hand on my forehead.

  I had to get everyone out of the room so I could tell her why they couldn’t bring me up there. I might have been making assumptions that Callie and Rachel would care enough to personally tuck me into bed.

  “Doctor.” It took everything I had to talk.

  “You want to see the doctor?” she asked. I tried to nod, but gasped from the pain.

  The others backed away. The light changed, and a door opened. Lennon leaned in to kiss me.

  “Stay,” I whispered.

  “Okay.”

  Once everyone else left us, she pulled up a chair beside me. “I’ve never been so scared in my life when you fell. You were like a rag doll, bouncing off Tristan’s piano. I shouldn’t be telling you this, you’re probably still in a ton of pain and I think I’m in shock. I can’t lose you.”

  I wanted to smile at her.

  She sniffled. ‘I’ve seen some shit in my life, Holly. You have, too. But nothing affected me as much as that. I’d do anything to trade places with you, and if you weren’t okay...” She bit her lip, which for once wasn’t painted red. Her makeup was gone, cried off, her face blotchy and puffy. I’d never seen her barefaced before, and had I been fully lucid, I’d swear she looked exactly the same as the time I travelled to Bethlem; the night I found my parents.

  “...I think you’re right about our relationship. Honestly, I believed you all along and I was too afraid to admit that I possibly could’ve been more than human before I turned. But I’ve had dreams all my life that I was a mother, that my baby was ripped away from me at birth. And they always ended in fire. They never made sense until I met you.”

  Holy. Shit. I had to be hallucinating.

  She let out a sharp laugh. “I’m being selfish telling you this now, aren’t I? You probably aren’t totally with it. But it couldn’t wait any longer, doll. You need to know that you’re not alone. That I’m here with you and I love you.”

  The pain faded. “I love you, too,” I whispered.

  “Shh, you need to use your energy for healing, not making me feel better. And I know you do.” She ran her hand over my hair. “Once you’re feeling better, I’ll do everything I can to help you get Rainey back.”

  She kept her hand on my head, that rhythmic motion flooding me with everything I’d been missing from my life for the last two-hundred plus years. She kept talking, but it wasn’t making a lot of sense anymore. Just things about doctors and how beautiful I was and how everything was going to be okay.

  Out of all the vampires, Lennon had the most positive energy. She was my light. The one that had been inside of me, that attracted Rainey to me. It wasn’t the darkness. It was my light. And I had Lennon to thank for it.

  The door opened again, and I screamed.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Fucking Gabriel was standing in my dressing room like he owned the place.

  I screamed until I was hoarse, which didn’t take long. I didn’t care about the pain. He’d caused me much more than what I was experiencing right now. Physical pain was temporary. Emotional pain left scars that didn’t go away.

  “Doll, stop! The doctor is here to see you.” Lennon put her hand on my shoulder, guiding me back down to whatever I’d been laying on. I hadn’t realized I bolted upright when he walked into the room.

  “He’s not a doctor.” Wait a minute. “You know who Gabriel is.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “The guy from Embrace? That’s not him. This is the doctor that examined you.”

  She didn’t use a name. Either I was hallucinating or Gabriel was throwing a spell to disguise himself to everyone but me. As far as I was concerned, he was there in all his Viking-looking glory. Long, sandy hair flowing free, a beard, and clothes like he’d just stepped off a battlefield.

  Or onto one.

  The black spots that formed in my vision had nothing to do with broken bones.

  “You called for me?” he said, and I went back to screaming at the sound of his deep, gravelly voice. At some point in his existence, Gabriel had a pack-a-day habit.

  “She hit her head.” Lennon frowned at me. “Yes, she called for you.”

  “No, I did not. Get him out of here.”

  “Holly, this is the doctor. You wanted to see the doctor.” Lennon spoke loudly, with her face over mine like she didn’t think I was lucid. I hoped she was right.

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you an immediate family member?”

  No. Oh, hell no. A thousand times no. He was not kicking her out. I reached for Lennon’s arm, hissing through the pain. “Don’t leave me.”

  “I won’t.” She smiled at me, and through the pain and the fear, I could appreciate that I finally had the thing I’d wanted my whole life—the care of my mother. Things were getting good, and I had no plans of ending the world now. But it didn’t last, as she glanced at Gabriel. “Whatever you have to say to Holly, you can say in front of me.”

  I noticed she didn’t say why. It was fine, baby steps.

  “She’s my fucking mother.” I grimaced through another flash of pain. “And a far better parent than you’ll ever be.”

  Lennon gripped my arm, but let go when I grimaced. “Holly, stop it. You’re confusing this man with someone else. Here’s here to help you.”

  He had the audacity to sit at the edge of the stretcher I was on.

  “You’re both right. Holly knows who I am, and I’m here to help you.” His finger was on my mouth before I could muster up another scream. He moved faster than a vampire. The contact sent a vibration through my veins that my body couldn’t handle in this state. But I wouldn’t give into the pain. To beat it, I had to turn it into my armor.

  I wouldn’t relax. That would be like submission, and after taking a walk through Gabriel’s world, I had a feeling he’d like that way too much. I never thought Blade’s obsession with dominance would come in handy in any other facet of my life, but I learned more from him than I had any other vampire. I wouldn’t let Gabriel think he had any advantage over me, even if my body and possibly my brain were broken.

  “What I gave you tonight was a taste of your own medicine,” he said. Great, here came the riddles. “Two vampires arrived in my Realm unannounced last night with the intention of taking power from it. From me. I do not tolerate stealing.”

  I shook his finger away from my lips, wondering how much of this Lennon was actually seeing. She sat next to me like a statue.

  He’d rendered her powerless. And I was truly alone.

  “What does that have to do with me?” I asked.

  “They came in your name. To do your work.”

  If it was Rachel and
Callie, how the hell did they get in without me? When Tristan said Gabriel planned to take over this Realm all along it hadn’t been a secret. It was a warning. But he’d been too late.

  “Liars.” The last part came out as a hiss.

  “No one can lie to me, Holly. Remember, I’m the one who judges good and evil—”

  “You’re not God.”

  “And neither are you. I only allow certain virtues in my Realm and relegate the trash to this hellhole.”

  “You let me in.” Which blew that theory to bits.

  “Yes, I did. I’ve given you a very specific mission, Holly. Do you understand what you’re supposed to do?”

  He wanted me to set this Realm on fire. Destroy anyone he found undesirable. That was why he took Rainey away, because she wouldn’t do it. He thought she was the only thing keeping me out of the evil muck, that Rainey dragged me into the light and I couldn’t stay good on my own. He was wrong.

  “Yes, I do.” And it was the last thing he wanted. My mission was crystal clear—free Rainey from his filthy grasp and save us all. I had to do it. And now, I was broken, and weak, and at such a disadvantage. I needed time to heal, and time was a luxury I couldn’t take advantage of.

  “Good girl,” he said. “Tonight was an important first step. Now you understand what it means to be powerless. You don’t understand what you were meant to do, so I will show you the way. The Realm will right itself while you heal. When your health returns, you’ll see that it’s best to complete your mission.”

  I managed as much of a smile as I could. “Yes, I will.” And this bastard would be sorry.

  “I’ll give you something for the pain, and you’ll be on bed rest until you heal. Production will wait for an all-clear from me when you’re ready to return to the show.” He had the audacity to lean over and kiss my cheek. “You haven’t seen the last of me, Holly.”

  “No!” I screamed the word over and over. Gabriel turned himself into a snake oil salesman and somehow given himself control over my livelihood. The show. All the good energy in Las Vegas. We’d swirl the bowl on the outer rings of Hell until we fell in.