Dance of Fire

by Yelena Black

  It wasn’t even nine by the time Vanessa had got back to find her room empty. She was relieved not to have to deal with Svetya, but on the other hand, her roommate was probably off somewhere trying to seduce Justin.

  Vanessa was still mad at Justin for trying to control her. And surely he was still mad at her – she hadn’t been particularly nice to him. Though nice had never been a quality that either of them had looked for in the other. After all, when she’d first met him hadn’t Vanessa thought that Justin was an arrogant jerk? And hadn’t he thought the same of her? She’d thought that was what Justin had liked about her, that she wasn’t like the other girls, that she was harder, stronger and maybe a little more dangerous.

  I offer you my heart.

  Vanessa shivered, throwing off the comforter and untangling her legs from the bedsheets. Her dream, that white-haired man, the others . . . The demon wanted her – she was the only person who had managed to host it and survive – and when anyone else tried to summon it, it murdered them. She had to sever her connection to this thing. She knew she should tell Enzo, but what about the demon’s offer to lead her to Mar­garet? What if Enzo’s friends in the Lyric Elite banished the demon before she found her sister? For now, she’d just have to continue dancing with it until she got what she wanted.

  Vanessa slid out of bed and opened her laptop, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the light from the screen. Chatswyrth, she typed. The crest on the man’s coat. Why did the name sound familiar?

  Immediately Google responded with a page of links – all for the Chatswyrth Arts Academy, which had apparently closed in the nineties after an explosion had burned out the entire ground floor and destroyed much of the main building. Among its faculty had been two long-ago winners of the Royal Court competition.

  She clicked on a map. The school had been in London too, closer to the city centre. Somewhere inside it, maybe, was the Ars Demonica.

  ‘Gotcha,’ Vanessa whispered.

  Justin’s room was almost exactly below Vanessa’s, its tarnished brass 213 nailed to the centre of the door.

  Vanessa stood in the quiet hallway and wondered whether she should knock.

  She didn’t want to ask Justin for help. There was a good chance he would turn her away after what she’d said to him, and besides, it was four thirty in the morning. He would ­definitely still be asleep.

  But she couldn’t do this alone.

  Vanessa fixed her ponytail and tugged on the sleeves of her navy cable-knit sweater. She’d thrown on a pair of jeans and the only sneakers she’d brought with her, the scuffed-up, white New Balances she’d worn on the plane.

  She pressed her ear to the door and, when she heard nothing, gently tried the knob, surprised to find it unlocked.

  Inside, she could see the outline of two beds, each with a person curled beneath the covers. On one side of the room she recognised Geo’s red hair and pale forehead, his arm dangling over the side as he let out a thunderous snore.

  Vanessa tiptoed to the other bed.

  In the dim moonlight she made out the contours of Justin’s body under the comforter, his messy hair strewn about his face, and his lips, murmuring something: ‘Vanessa.’

  Was he dreaming about her? She stepped back, feeling guilty. What if he woke up and was still mad at her? Quickly, before she changed her mind, she touched his arm and whispered, ‘Justin.’

  No response.

  She gently shook his arm and repeated, ‘Justin. Wake up.’

  For a moment he was completely still – then his eyes snapped open. ‘Who’s there?’ he began, when Vanessa pressed her fingers to his lips.

  ‘Shh!’ she said. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Vanessa?’ he said, his voice soft.

  Across the room, Geo mumbled something.

  Justin sat up and rubbed his eyes. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I had a dream,’ she whispered.

  He yawned. ‘You came down here to tell me about a dream? What time is it?’

  His voice was creaky from sleep; his muscles strained against his white cotton T-shirt as he pushed off the covers. Unable to help herself, she gazed at his bare arms, wondering what it would feel like if he were to wrap those arms around her right now. To slip beneath the covers and curl up beside him in the bed and forget everything she’d just seen in her dream.

  ‘It’s a little past four thirty,’ Vanessa whispered.

  ‘I was having a dream too,’ he said in his deep baritone. She could smell the thick scent of sleep clinging to him, could see the soft prickle of stubble along his jaw. ‘It was about you,’ he said, his eyes roaming over her. ‘And now –’

  A voice made him freeze. On the other side of the room, Geo muttered in his sleep. They waited until he turned on his side and let out another long snore.

  ‘Get dressed,’ Vanessa said finally. ‘I’ll tell you everything outside.’

  ‘Now?’ Justin said. ‘Can’t it wait?’

  She shook her head. ‘Mine was more than just a dream, Justin. It was a nightmare. Or a vision.’ She paused. ‘About the demon. It’s in London.’

  ‘OK,’ Justin said, snapping awake. ‘That got my attention.’

  They barely looked at each other as she led him down the stairwell and into the dimly lit entrance hall. There, in front of the wall of old portraits, Vanessa told him about what she thought were glimpses through the demon’s eyes, about the latest vision and Chatswyrth, about the book that could banish the demon. ‘If we can get that,’ she finished, ‘maybe we can get rid of it.’ Though even she had to admit that seemed nearly impossible. Every time her mind drifted back to that awful scene, all she could think of was how the man’s face collapsed as the demon inhabited him, the way his eyes seemed to glow with a life not his own.

  She turned and scanned the wall of portraits. ‘There,’ she said, jabbing her finger at a group photograph from the early seventies. In the centre was a young man with perfect posture, his long hair braided and pulled over his shoulder. Along the bottom edge of the picture, the winners of that season’s ­competition were listed: Richard Waite, Chatswyrth Arts Academy. ‘That was the man in my dream. Or vision. ­Whatever you want to call it.’

  ‘Nice hair,’ Justin said, leaning in to look at the picture. ‘But go back a second. You’ve had visions like this before? Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I thought maybe they were only dreams,’ Vanessa said. ‘I’m telling you now, aren’t I?’

  ‘I don’t know why,’ Justin said, clearly still hurt from their fight. He was fully awake now; his earlier sweet, groggy, gentle expression had all but faded away. ‘I’m not your dad and I’m definitely not your boyfriend, remember? Why come to me for help now?’

  Vanessa winced. ‘I’m sorry I said that, Justin. It was hurtful. It’s just . . . it’s hard. I don’t know what I feel any more.’

  ‘It’s hard for me too.’ He reached out and touched her hand. ‘I like you, Vanessa.’

  ‘I like you too,’ she said, and once the words were out of her mouth she knew they were true. ‘But what this demon is doing to people is horrible.’ She withdrew her hand from his. ‘It sees into me somehow, and I see into it. Like it’s part of me. Until I know it’s gone, I’m scared of hurting you.’

  He nodded and said, ‘OK. I’ll just park my heart until – what? Are you OK?’

  Vanessa leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. ‘Like I told you, it pulled out someone’s heart and . . . offered it to me.’

  Justin pulled her into his arms and hugged her, hard. ‘Right now, this is bigger than us,’ he said softly. ‘Whatever else is going on, we’re still friends, right?’

  ‘Right.’ Vanessa nodded against his shoulder.

  Justin yawned. ‘We have about four hours until the start of the competition. We’d best get moving.’

  As their cab wound its way through the streets, Vanessa wondered what they would find in the old Chatswyrth building if that was where the old man had killed that bo
y – or if that had even really happened. She watched through the windscreen as a ring of lights appeared over the skyline. ‘What’s that?’ she asked the driver.

  ‘That’s the London Eye,’ he said. ‘A honking big Ferris wheel that was part of the big millennium celebration. Actually not all that far from the address you gave me.’

  A few minutes later, the driver parked in front of an old brick building, its walls tagged with graffiti, its few uncovered windows cracked or missing. A chain-link fence surrounded it, with no trespassing signs every few feet. Chatswyrth Arts Academy.

  ‘Can’t fathom what two American kids want at this address at this time of the morning,’ the driver said.

  ‘A friend lives nearby,’ Vanessa said, handing him a wad of bills as she and Justin got out of the cab. ‘Thank you.’

  The night was cold, but she’d been running on so much adrenalin that she hadn’t truly felt the chill until now. She shivered.

  On an upper floor of the derelict building, Vanessa could just make out a faint flickering of orange flames dancing off the pane of an open window. ‘There,’ she said, pointing.

  Justin followed her gaze. ‘Are you sure you want to go in there?’ he said. The collar of his peacoat was flipped up, his scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. ‘If the demon is still there –’

  ‘I don’t want to turn back,’ Vanessa said, walking towards a gap in the fence. ‘Not when we’re this close.’

  ‘Maybe we should have called Enzo,’ Justin said. ‘He could’ve . . .’

  But Vanessa had already pushed through the fence and into the yard. Justin followed her.

  The two of them carefully picked their way over the broken pavement, which was overgrown with weeds and littered with trash and shards of glass. Something stirred in the shadows and ran off.

  Justin yelped. ‘Sorry!’ he whispered. ‘I think that was a cat. I hope it was a cat.’

  The front door was boarded up, a big x drawn across the wood with spray paint, as if the whole place had been condemned. Vanessa rattled the plywood, then shoved the door open with her shoulder.

  ‘Whoa,’ Justin muttered. ‘Intense.’

  Vanessa shrugged. ‘Seems like something they’d do on Law and Order: SVU.’ Then she stepped into the building, Justin close at her heels.

  ‘Hold on,’ Justin said. Vanessa could hear him fumbling in his pocket, and then there was light. ‘Voilà, the flashlight app,’ he said, holding up his iPhone.

  Cautiously they moved forward through an entry hall, the ceiling dripping with rusty water, the floor tiles cracked and covered in puddles.

  Down a corridor was a vast room lined with wooden benches, a drained swimming pool at its centre, filled with garbage. Wrinkling her nose at the smell, Vanessa followed Justin along the side of the room.

  Justin wrapped his hand around hers and swept the light from his phone across the room. ‘There’s a stairwell,’ he whispered, and she saw a mildewed old exit sign.

  The two of them mounted the stairs hand in hand, avoiding missing steps and mounds of trash. At the top, they emerged into a hallway.

  A faint light flickered beneath a door at the far end.

  Justin paused, his palm against Vanessa’s. Around them the building groaned and creaked. ‘I think it’s safe,’ he whispered. ‘Careful now.’ Together they walked quietly down the hall to the closed door. Justin reached out and rested his hand on the tarnished metal knob. ‘Ready?’

  She nodded, and Justin pushed it open.

  Vanessa braced herself for something awful – for the man or one of his students to attack them, or even for the demon to rush at her, to press her mouth open and force tendrils of fire deep within her. Your kiss will bring me home, my love . . .

  But inside, all was still.

  Justin tried the light switch by the door, but nothing happened. ‘Thought it was worth a try,’ he said, shrugging. He raised his phone higher and let out a low whistle at the sight before them.

  It was an old lecture hall, tidier than the rest of the building, as if someone had been keeping it clean. The illumination came from a small fire burning in a trash can by the far wall.

  In a charred circle at the centre of the room lay four ­heat-blackened bodies in poses that suggested agony – arms shielding their faces, legs knotted together.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Justin whispered. ‘You’ve been dreaming about this?’

  ‘Not this exactly,’ Vanessa said, wondering what had happened here after she’d woken up. In the centre of the burned bodies stood a man’s figure, his body arched as if in pain, arms outflung, his skin and clothes entirely grey, as if he had been cast in cement. His features were contorted in an agonised expression. She gazed around the room, paralysed with fear, wondering if the demon was lurking somewhere beyond the cold concrete.

  Justin inched forward. ‘This is the guy? Looks like a statue.’ He reached out and touched the man’s shoulder.

  The figure seemed to shiver, then disintegrated into a pile of ash. Justin jumped back, waving the dust from his face. ‘Gross!’

  ‘That used to be a person,’ Vanessa said, feeling a wave of nausea.

  ‘Do you think the demon is still here?’ Justin asked.

  Vanessa closed her eyes and tried to sense any hint of its presence, but there was nothing. ‘I don’t feel it,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t feel it? You can feel when it’s nearby? How long has this been going on?’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ she said. ‘Let’s just find the Ars Demonica and get out of here.’ She scanned the floor, trying to avoid the inert bodies, until her eyes rested on the spot where she had seen the book in her dream.

  It wasn’t there.

  ‘It’s gone,’ she said. But who could have taken it? The only survivor had been – ‘The demon,’ she whispered. ‘But he couldn’t have taken it.’ She looked to Justin. ‘Right?’

  ‘I have no clue.’ Justin shook his head. ‘If that guy was the host, it doesn’t look like the demon got all that far using his body.’ He leaned in, and then whispered so quietly she could barely hear it, ‘Someone else is here.’

  Then he whipped around and kicked, his leg slicing through the air so quickly that it was a blur, connecting with something: a figure that crumpled to the ground at Vanessa’s feet.

  Before she could look down, she felt an arm wrap around her neck.

  Chapter Twelve

  Vanessa tried to free herself, but the person behind her was too large, too strong.

  A strangely familiar voice sounded. ‘What’d you go and do that for?’

  The figure at their feet rolled away and stood up, Justin’s light reflecting off her face. Round, full cheeks dotted with a single freckle just below her left eye: Nicola Fratelli. She shook the dust out of her thick brown hair. A red mark on her forehead revealed where Justin’s foot had connected.

  The arm around Vanessa’s neck slid away. ‘Is that any way to welcome old friends?’ a voice said from behind her.

  ‘Nicholas?’ Vanessa said, turning. She wrapped him in a hug, her arms barely reaching around him. ‘You idiots!’ His chest was hot and sweaty against her cheek, but it didn’t matter. Just knowing he and his twin sister were here, that she and Justin weren’t alone, made everything more bearable. ‘What are you guys doing here?’ Then it dawned on her. ‘Are you part of the Lyric Elite now?’

  Nicholas and Nicola Fratelli were seniors at NYBA and friends of Justin’s. They’d been the ones who’d tried to contact the Lyric Elite to stop Josef and Hilda, which eventually resulted in Enzo showing up at NYBA – though too late to do much of anything. The Fratellis joked around a lot, but they were deadly serious about fighting the dark dancers.

  Nicholas exchanged a look with his sister. ‘The Lyric Elite?’ he said. ‘Never mind them.’

  Vanessa frowned. ‘So . . . they didn’t want you as members?’

  ‘Apparently,’ Nicholas continued, ‘we aren’t good enough dancers for them. Or so that Enzo g
uy told us –’

  ‘When did you meet him?’ Vanessa asked.

  ‘When he was at NYBA, remember?’ Nicholas, like his twin, wore a black long-sleeved T-shirt and black jeans. Even his sneakers were black. ‘We asked to audition for the Lyric Elite.’ He let out a sigh. ‘But he never even let us try out. He blamed us for the mess at school, which is ridiculous.’

  ‘They only wanted you, Vanessa. And pretty boy here.’ Nicola flicked her wrist towards Justin. ‘You, we understand. After all, you were possessed by a demon. No one else who’s alive shares a connection to it. But Justin?’ She turned to him. ‘What’s so special about you?’

  Vanessa studied Justin, the light from his phone casting his face in shadow. There were so many things about Justin that she didn’t know. Their conversations always focused on ­Vanessa – on her problems and her goals. How incredibly selfish.

  Nicholas rolled his eyes. ‘Never mind that for now,’ he said. ‘We’ve got news.’

  ‘Big news,’ Nicola chimed in. ‘Zep is here.’

  ‘We know,’ Vanessa said. ‘We’ve already seen him.’

  ‘What?’ the twins said nearly in unison, looking shocked. They turned to Justin, who nodded in confirmation.

  ‘You’ve seen him?’ Nicola said.

  ‘Once,’ Justin said. ‘I chased after him but couldn’t keep up.’

  Twice, Vanessa wanted to say, thinking about Zep’s message to her in the snow. But she still hadn’t told Justin about that, and now – in front of the Fratellis – didn’t seem like the right time to bring it up.

  Nicola continued, ‘We think there are some shady dancers like Josef in the Royal Court Company. We think that’s why Zep is here. He’s working with them.’

  ‘Or trying to,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘That’s what I was thinking too,’ Justin said, though that was news to Vanessa.

  ‘Or,’ Vanessa suggested, ‘he’s here for the same reason we’re all here tonight: the demon.’

  ‘So,’ Nicola said, tracing a question mark into the soot on the floor with the toe of her shoe, ‘that’s why you came here – the demon?’ She didn’t seem fazed by the twisted, blackened bodies in front of them. ‘You guys must have a pretty tight competition schedule. Don’t tell us you were just out for a 5 a.m. stroll.’