The Fire Dancer

by Kristen Strassel

  It took everything I had to keep my mouth shut. Then it occurred to me he might be right.

  “You’re the monster!” Lana ran from the room, leaving her cart and the mess behind. She didn’t see me in the middle of the hallway, and I held my hands up to break her fall as she tripped. If I caused her to have a miscarriage, I was in more trouble than I could handle.

  “I will always watch over you, Lana.” Cash hobbled to the door, calling after her. “But there’s nothing I can do to save that child.”

  “Thank you,” she said to me softly, ignoring Cash, but jumped back when she got a good look at me. I may have been naked like many of the other prisoners, but I wasn’t wasted away. My body was practically a machine from performing every night, my skin in perfect condition, curving over my muscles. I smelled like pomegranate body wash and I had all my teeth.

  I couldn’t breathe as she looked into her own eyes.

  “My stars,” she whispered as she rubbed a lock of my damp hair between her fingers. “You’re beautiful.”

  “Thank you.” I couldn’t believe I managed to speak. I had the thing I wanted more than anything else in the world—my mother’s attention. All my dreams had come true.

  Lana jumped back when she heard my voice, my American accent that shouldn’t exist yet. I reached for her. I wanted to hug her so badly. To finally have her hold me. She was probably just about my age, but her face was lined with hardship. Her eyes would forever haunt me every time I looked at them in my own face.

  “So are you,” I added. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

  Before I touched her, she swatted my hand away. “Go back to Hell, you wicked child.” She pushed away from me and hurried down the hall.

  I crumpled in a heap on the filthy floor. When I woke up, I was in my own bed, but there were two awful things that happened that night that could never be changed—my mother rejected me, and Cash Logan was my father.

  Chapter Twelve

  “What is this, a high school play?” one of the dancers asked in disgust as we formed a mob around the new cast listing of Le Cirque Macabre. Stephen had hung it on his office door. Grumbles and gasps escaped from the lips of performers as they found their names on the list. Or not. I made the cut, as many others in this crowd, but it didn’t feel like a victory.

  Not that I was feeling much of anything today. I floated in this weird plane, not sure which side to hop off on to land in reality. What I saw last night was definitely a nightmare, but I still wasn’t sure if I time traveled or not.

  With Rainey not taking my phone calls, I had no one to talk to about what had happened. Blade would have listened, but it was much too raw, too intimate to tell him about, even after what we shared last night.

  Lost. That’s all I was.

  I needed to get ready for the show, but instead I walked past my dressing room and knocked on the door at the end of the hall. I wasn’t sure if I’d go through with it, or if my knock was loud enough to be heard. In my haze, I forgot I was dealing with vampire senses, and Cash managed to startle me when he opened the door.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” He stepped aside to let me enter. Quickly his amusement was replaced with concern, making whatever I saw this morning skew that much closer to the truth.

  Practically collapsing into one of his oversized velvet chairs, I buried my face in my hands. Seeing Cash, being alone with him, was too overwhelming. It brought me right back to the hospital. He sat on the edge of the couch, as close as he could get without touching me.

  “What happened to you?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” I slid my fingers down my face just enough so I could see him. “How did she die?”

  He squinted. “How did who die?”

  “My mother.” My voice cracked on the word, my heart still raw from rejection.

  “Why would I know that?” Cash Logan had the best poker face in Las Vegas.

  “Because I saw her with you, in that hospital.”

  He raised an eyebrow, relaxing back into the couch. “You realize you sound like a lunatic right now.”

  I shot out of the chair in a rage. I slammed my fists against my thighs. “No, I don’t. I saw her there, with you. She had a salve that made the blisters on your face not hurt anymore and helped them heal. She told you she was pregnant, and you wanted her to choose you over...me.”

  Cash’s mouth dropped slowly, like he couldn’t believe that anyone could actually shock him. His nod was so small I barely registered it, but when I realized he gave me a confirmation, I dropped to my knees in front of him and sobbed. I expected to him to mock me or refute my claim, but instead Cash slid to the floor beside me, his strong hand stroking my back.

  “I’ve loved two women in my life,” he said quietly after he let me cry until I exhausted myself. I had to be careful to keep the fire inside me. “One didn’t want me, and vowed to destroy me. Talis had me committed to Bethlem. But it wasn’t the hospital that almost did me in. It was your mother. Talis led me to the one thing in the world I couldn’t have.”

  My muscles quivered as I sat up. Cash’s hand was still on my back, and he pulled me into his chest. I needed this. I wondered if after all these years it was a relief for him to admit what he was to me. I’d ask him about that later, but first, I wanted to know about my mother. “Tell me about her.”

  “You look just like her, but you already know that.” Cash’s fingers moved softly against my arm as he spoke. Never would I have been able to predict he’d be the one person in the world willing to offer me comfort. “Lana could see right through people, down to their souls. She knew what made them good, why they were alive. That was one of her powers. And she had many. She understood the world in a way that was too sophisticated for the time that she lived in. That was her weakness.”

  He cleared his throat. I wondered how long it had been since he last talked about her. “Your mother knew that everyone committed to that hospital wasn’t crazy. It was a different time, and people were sent to Bethlem because they simply weren’t wanted, because they didn’t behave as society expected them to, or they couldn’t contribute in a meaningful way. There weren’t protections in place like there are today, and once you were inside that building, there was no telling what would happen to you. The good people of the city came to see us because they considered us their entertainment. They threw things at us, tortured us, and laughed at our pain. It was a very dangerous place, especially for a woman. You should have never gone back there, Holly. There’s no telling what could have happened to you.”

  I tipped my head up and tried to smile. “Don’t you think it’s a little late for you to start laying ground rules for me?”

  There was something in his eyes I never saw before, and the empty feeling that had gnawed at me forever began to disappear. “I’ve been watching over you your whole life. That will never change.”

  I clutched him tighter, too overwhelmed to speak. They were the same words he said to Lana.

  “Anyway, what people thought didn’t deter Lana. She knew there were a lot of people in Bethlem that could benefit from the kind of help she was able to provide. She understood how to put herbs, spices, and other elements together and make them greater than the sum of their parts. Her hands and words had healing powers. Many of us who still had our faculties about us would debate about what she was, a witch, a goddess, or a lunatic. But for me, she could only be one thing. My savior.”

  “What could she do?” I was afraid to interrupt him. If he stopped, the story could break into pieces, never to be put together in the same way again.

  “Bethlem had no rules. I didn’t have to hide what I was, because no one would believe anyone who said I drank their blood. I put many of the worst suffering out of their misery. But there were few places to hide from the light in the hospital, and in time, it was me who ultimately suffered. My skin began to melt away from my bones, but my body couldn’t die. Other patients, delirious with hunger, saw one thing when
they looked at me. Meat. They ripped the hanging skin right off me, leaving me blistered and oozing in the sunshine. Lana put a stop to it. She did her best to feed as many patients as she could. Lunacy is a symptom of starvation, and she helped us right our bodies. Our minds were a bigger challenge. Medicine, even in the crude form that existed then, was in short supply at the hospital, but Lana had her own remedies. And unlike the things available at the hospital, they actually worked. She could only use them with the patients she trusted, or else she’d be accused of witchcraft. But what she was able to do with her hands is what saved me.” Cash closed his eyes, a low moan vibrating in his throat.

  “Do I really want to hear this?” I chuckled.

  “Probably not, so I’ll give you the censored version.” His cheek lifted in a smile against my hair. “It wasn’t just her salves and ointments that healed my skin, it was her touch that truly put me back together. But to survive, I needed to grow stronger. I needed to feed from her.”

  I gasped, but he kept talking. “She had no reason to be afraid, it was the only way I had to return some of the unimaginable kindness she showed me. Blood exchange with a vampire is an erotic experience that humans can’t experience anywhere else.” I shuddered, I was right; I did not want to hear about my parents having sex. “Usually, humans become addicted to vampire blood. But your mother wasn’t human, and instead, I became addicted to her. She knew we couldn’t be together, not in London. And she left me there.”

  His recount didn’t exactly line up with what I saw, but that was to be expected. I knew there were three sides to every story. “Was she punished?”

  Cash answered sadly. “In a perfect world, your mother would’ve spent the rest of her life with me. It would have been a very long life, and she’d be sitting here with us now. But compassion was her weakness, because others saw it as insanity. When she told her family and the townspeople about me and some of the other patients who were unjustly committed, they thought it was she who was sick. That’s why she ran. There was only one way to drive that kind of disease from the body and soul in those days.”

  “They burned her.” My voice was flat.

  “No.” Cash’s voice cracked. “You did.”

  I could hardly breathe. “What?”

  “She burst into flames in childbirth,” Cash continued, matter of fact, like this was even possible. “You committed murder as you took your first breath. Impressive, if I do say so myself. Everyone was convinced they’d seen the devil with their own eyes, but refused to talk about it. They wrapped you in blankets to smother the flames, then forgotten about in the chaos of trying to save Lana. Once Lucille was alone in the rubble of what had been the home she shared with her daughter, she heard you crying. She should have left you to die, but the only thing more evil than a child capable of murdering her mother is a mother who wants revenge for a murdered child.”

  That explained everything. Why Lucille wanted me to destroy myself. Why she could never love me. Well, almost everything. I lay against his chest, tears rolling down my cheeks, too stunned to speak. Cash rubbed my arm, doing his best to make the chill go away. It never would.

  “Why didn’t she just let me die?” I finally managed.

  “Lucille, in her time, was a very influential and powerful creature. She had psychic powers and could manipulate the metaphysical world. As she aged, she lost the sight in her third eye. She became blind to it, and her powers atrophied. Or, as she claims, they were stolen.”

  “What type of things had she been able to do?” Lucille never guided Rainey or me with our powers. She let us think they were something to be ashamed of. We always knew she had more information than she had ever been willing to provide. I’d been frustrated with her since I realized she was holding out on us. Rainey’s gifts were clearer, and she didn’t need as much guidance as I did.

  Things made so much sense now.

  She never told me she was my grandmother. Maybe because then she would have had to tell me about my mother. The only way she liked me was ignorant.

  “She could manipulate time, much like you could. On many occasions, she tried to go back in time and keep your mother from me. But it didn’t work.”

  Finally, something I inherited from her. Or, as she claimed, stolen. Another reason she wanted to see me crumble. “She couldn’t control anything with vampires.”

  Cash nodded. “No. And she hated it. She made sure I knew about you. I kept an eye on her, and on you, through the years, and she could never figure out your power with fire. There’s no explanation for where it came from. Lana didn’t have it, and neither did Lucille. You are much more powerful than she could ever be, because you have the blood of two supernatural beings.”

  Out of all of that, I only heard one thing. “You kept an eye on me?”

  “I did.” His eyes were like pure topaz, glittering with an emotion I wasn’t familiar with. “I knew eventually, you’d come into your own. And I was going to make damn sure I lived to see it.”

  Cash had been in my life for exactly one month, and I’d been alive for two hundred and thirty-three years. I wasn’t convinced I’d been his reason to live. “Then why didn’t you ever come for me?”

  He tipped his head back and sighed. “Because I destroyed your mother’s life. I didn’t need to destroy yours, too.”

  Interesting. “Sounds like that’s a one-woman job.” I wasn’t ready to let go of Cash yet. He was the only thing keeping me from a freefall.

  “Holly.” He took my chin in his hand. “You will not apologize for something that happened two hundred and thirty-three years ago, something you couldn’t control. You need to embrace your powers. Don’t be ashamed of them.”

  I jerked away from him. “Right, because you need me to train Blade.” I was tired of being used and lied to. “All I can train him to be is a killer.”

  Cash laughed. “He’ll take care of that on his own. The two of you need to learn to harness your abilities and thrive. People flock to power.”

  “Not murderers. They’ll lock us up.” Just like he’d feared for my mother.

  “Blade is leader.” Cash stiffened as he raised his voice. “You need to stop being afraid. You’ve been held back. So what. It’s how you move on from it that gives you character.”

  “I’m tired of being afraid.” I sat up, drying my cheeks with the back of my hands and smoothing my hair. “Lucille wanted me afraid.” Of the world, of people, of myself.

  “Well, I don’t.” Cash stood up, leaving me in a heap on the floor. “I’ll make sure you thrive.”

  I rose, my legs shaky from the evening. “Is that why you’re here?”

  “I told you why I was here.” He chuckled again. So much for all those fatherly instincts. Easy come, easy go. “I came for Blade.”

  “Of course.” The empty space in my chest began to throb again. I wished he would have lied.

  Cash hooked his finger under my chin, forcing me to look in his eyes. “No one can make all the bad things go away, Holly.”

  My bottom lip trembled again.

  “I’ve always watched over you,” he said.

  I nodded. It was the closest I was ever going to get to him telling me he cared about me. Like he said, no one could make all the bad things go away.

  “You need to get ready for tonight,” Cash whispered as he leaned forward, pressing his lips against my hair. “No matter what, the show must go on.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Once the new cast was in place, Cash wasted no time piecing the show together. Now known as Cash Logan’s Cirque Macabre, we were ready for the soft open of the show’s relaunch within weeks.

  Cliques and cast division were among the first additions to the show. The veterans looked at the new blood with suspicion and resentment. The new performers were equal parts cocky and wary. Before Cash, they’d been willing to help each other out, but those feelings of camaraderie had been relegated to the good old days.

  “How’s your routine coming, Holly?”
Cash agreed with me that something more old school Vegas would be a good fit for the new show, and I’d been working with Bette to incorporate as many classic elements to my dance as I could. The new costume designers were even trying to make a headdress for me that would ignite.

  “I’m ready.” I lied. I was having a hard time balancing on my turns, and a harder time remembering the new steps. Missing Rainey was throwing my life off kilter. When I wasn’t rehearsing, I spent every spare minute with Cash that I could since I went to Bethlem. Our lives had taken completely different paths after my mother left him, so he couldn’t fill in that much about my past that I didn’t already know. The family I’d known had shattered, and Cash didn’t fill the space in the same way as Rainey and Lucille had. It was different, but I had to stop fearing the unknown, if for no other reason than it would piss Lucille off. There was a big world out there, and I wanted to set it all on fire. I had to embrace the future the same way I had the past. I had the power to change them both.

  And I had a feeling Cash liked having me around. “I finally nailed the last transition,” I added, hoping with two thousand people watching me, I could actually pull it off.

  “You’ll be a marquee performer. I’m keeping you as the last act before the intermission.” I practically glowed. Cash could read my mind, he had to know how much I loved the adoration of the crowd. “After that, it’s just me on stage.”

  “Of course. It’s all about you.” I rolled my eyes and laughed, tossing the proof of the new program at him. A stock shot of him on stage filming his old TV show, photoshopped to look like it was taken at Circus Circus graced the cover. I’d been moved to the back cover. That caused a lot of controversy. The new cast and the old cast may not agree on much of anything, but they united in their suspicion of my relationship with Cash. It grossed me out that they all thought I was sleeping with him, but I’d rather they think that than know the truth. Otherwise, being singled out didn’t bother me. I never made many friends here. “Are you going to tell me anything about your act?”