The Fire Dancer Read online

  Rainey warned me how dangerous this combination could be, but I didn’t listen. I was getting my own show.

  Vampires and a girl who liked to play with fire was an explosive concept on so many levels. Only one of the vampires dared to get to close to me, and he didn’t know when to stop. His hands, his mouth, all over me. Inside me. Ignoring my cries.

  That was the first time I fully ignited.

  Still, Lucille expected us to fight her battle with our weapons drawn. But things didn’t go according to plan. Rainey couldn’t see vampires in her visions, and I refused to work with the band after Noah attacked me.

  When the concept ‘failed,’ of course the blame was placed on me. Fire Dancer still played across the street at The Riviera, just a rock band now, using my name the way Noah Dalle used me. Every time I saw their name on the marquee, I was brought back to that night all over again. Another reason to come and go through the back door of Circus Circus.

  Le Cirque Macabre was the closest Lucille could get me to the vampires after that. My manager negotiated a pretty sweet deal for me to perform there. Always the businessman, he saw it as ‘diversification.’ I saw it as him taking ten percent of my paycheck for doing absolutely nothing. Once word got out that I burst into flames five nights a week and twice on Saturdays, the mostly empty theater slowly started to fill.

  “I know. I’m sorry I even brought it up.” Rainey turned over the key in the ignition, she always had to drive home after the show; I was too spent. “I wish you could go back in time and make that bastard burn.”

  “I can never go back to that night.” Even if I could convince myself to relive that night, I couldn’t change vampire history. I rolled down the window, I needed all the hot desert air I could get. The wind hit me in the face as Rainey pulled out of the parking lot. “It hurts too much.” I left Noah with scars, too. But he did another thing he shouldn’t have. He survived.

  Bastard.

  “It would be so much easier if I could just See vamps.” She sighed. “I’m worried Cash is going to hurt you.”

  “Like everyone else does?” I wished I hadn’t said anything to her. But I never kept a secret from her before, especially one like this. “If Cash tries to do what Noah did, I’ll burn him,” I said quietly. Sparks dripped from my skin every time I thought of Noah.

  Rainey waited for me to get out of the car and held her hand out to me when I met up with her. I kissed her on the lips because there was nothing I needed more tonight than to feel safe.

  One of our neighbors wolf whistled, hanging over his balcony with a cigarette dangling from his fingers. “Hey ladies,” he called out. “Any time you want to come over, just say the word.”

  “We’d love to come over. We’ll be there when Hell freezes over.” Rainey smiled sweetly and gave him the finger on our way into the apartment. She always told people off in the most adorable way.

  Lucille was still awake when we got home, sitting in front of the TV like she did every night, watching one of her beloved Elvis movies. As long as I could remember, she’d been a grandmotherly figure, and Las Vegas didn’t suit her. She came here out of duty, and tonight, I was going to find out exactly what that meant. If I was going to get her attention, Elvis was going to have to leave the building.

  “I was watching that.” She rose in her seat and narrowed her eyes at me as I slapped the remote against my free hand.

  “It’s Blue Hawaii. You know how it ends.” I sat down beside Lucille on the couch. “I need to talk to you.”

  Rainey came out of the kitchen, a glass of iced tea in each hand. She stopped in the middle of the living room before she got caught in the line of fire. Literally. We fireproofed the apartment, because like I said before, shit happens, and my family had to be careful.

  “Holly, what are you doing? You know better than to mess with Elvis,” she whispered to me. I shook my head, but didn’t take my eyes off Lucille.

  “I had a visitor tonight after the show,” I said. Lucille raised an eyebrow. “He says I need him. Why would I need anyone, Lucille?” Especially a vampire, who I’d been brought here to work against.

  “Who was it?” Lucille barked. She wasn’t human, so she rarely showed emotion. Unless I shut off Blue Hawaii. She claimed to be a witch, and even though she never showed any special powers, I believed her. For all the wrong reasons.

  “Cash Logan.”

  Lucille blinked rapidly, opening her mouth several times to speak, but closing it without a word. Interesting. “You can’t trust any vampires. Especially that one,” she finally said, a slow, satisfied smile spreading over her face. She wanted Cash, and now she had him.

  “You say that every time, about all the vampires. The city is full of them, and now I want to know why.” A flame dripped from my skin like a teardrop. I caught it between my fingers, manipulating it before I closed my other hand over it to extinguish it. “Why are you so hell-bent on keeping the vampires down? They don’t care about us at all.”

  “Cash Logan is a lunatic who was committed to Bethlem Mental Hospital. He organized a rebellion against the staff, and when he and his followers,” she scoffed at the word, “escaped, he formed Cirque du Terreur. Your mother—”

  “What about my mother?” I interrupted her. All Lucille had ever told Rainey and I about our parents was that they couldn’t take care of us. If she knew where my mother was all along and never told me, I’d never forgive her.

  Blood rushed to Lucille’s face. Cash Logan’s arrival meant she was losing control over me, I figured that out pretty quick. She hadn’t planned on that. “She tried to help him, and she paid dearly for it.”

  My body warmed with frustration. I was so tired of her secrets. My hands blackened my clothes. That was why I never bought anything full price. “You knew all along what happened to her? Are you going to tell me, or should I ask Cash?”

  Chapter Three

  “Your mother thought she could save him.” Lucille’s tone was incredulous, her eyes dark pebbles that didn’t reflect any light. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if she’d be better off defeating the vampires or becoming one of them. “Foolish woman. Thought she could save the world. That’s how she wound up in such a predicament.”

  “What are you talking about?” I threw my hands up in the air. Rainey snickered, tea in hand. She didn’t have the guts to take on Lucille, but she loved it when I did. “I’m tired of these riddles, Lucille. Either you know the answer or you don’t.”

  “Cash Logan destroyed your mother,” Lucille said calmly. “But you survived.”

  Silence.

  “That’s the answer?” I asked, because all I had was more questions.

  “Yes.” Lucille was satisfied with her explanation. “Not the one you wanted?”

  “You didn’t tell me anything,” I said through gritted teeth. Rainey figured out a way not to let Lucille get the best of her anymore, but she wasn’t being used in the same way I was.

  “I told you everything,” she said quietly. “Now put my movie back on before I miss the end.”

  I dropped the remote on the tray beside Lucille before turning on my heel and storming into the bedroom. Rainey followed me, handing me a glass of the lettuce tea she made especially for me, sweetened with honey. I needed it to replace the nutrients my body burned after every performance, and it helped regulate my body temperature. We had to scramble to figure out ways to keep us all safe. Keeping the flames under control was exhausting. Without Rainey, I probably would have burned the city down by now.

  “Tell me about what you’ve seen of my mother again,” I asked Rainey as I undressed. After I ignited, clothing suffocated me, so I could hardly wait to get home each night. The air conditioner was always on full blast, the cool air helping us all. “Maybe if we put it all together it will make sense.”

  I crawled up beside her on the pillows, staying over the covers, and Rainey lay under them, absent-mindedly playing with my hair. I didn’t have to look at her to know her eyes had glassed
over, visions playing out in front of her like she could reach out and touch them. It took her a long time to control that. To separate the visions from reality. I had yet to learn that trick. “Every time I’ve seen her, she’s wrapped in flames,” she said softly. “She looks a lot like you, but I know it’s not you. There’s a crowd, and they’re cheering.”

  “Are you sure?” For some people, that would be alarming. But that described my typical weeknight. There was no actual science to what Rainey Saw, or at least no one had laid down the rules yet. I trusted her to tell me the truth.

  “Yeah. It’s not Le Cirque. The people there, they’re very poor, and ragged. She’s tied to something.”

  “Still sounds an awful lot like work.”

  Rainey shook her head, shuddering. “She couldn’t handle the flames like you can.” She sat up quickly and ran her hands along her thighs. “I think she was burned at the stake.”

  “Do you think she was a witch?” So many of the little girls who played with me in my time travels suffered that fate. Once they told their families about me, they weren’t allowed to see me anymore. They had to be taken from me and brought back to God. Many of them insisted on playing with fire, my fire, and invited me back. Lucille insisted it was all in my head, but I felt the heat of the fire on my face. Sometimes I’d be asked to light the pyre as punishment. Their screams still ripped me in two. “It would make sense.”

  “Maybe,” Rainey said as she bowed her head down. I reached over to rub the back of her neck. She cooed as my fingers worked her tense muscles. Every night during the show, she set up a booth in the lobby of Le Cirque and read fortunes. Like my memories of the little girls burning at the stake, some things couldn’t be unseen. It took a lot out of her. “Anyone can practice as a witch, though. So many people were sacrificed out of fear. It doesn’t give us any more answers. I can’t tell if she was mortal, but she had a terrible death.”

  One I would hopefully never suffer.

  “True witches are chosen. They can bend and alter fate.” Kind of like Rainey and I could. Others tried to force their powers, and that’s where they failed. We always assumed it could be the answer, but Lucille had given us very little guidance. We were creatures better kept than coddled. “It would explain a lot.”

  “I don’t See Cash, so I can’t tell what he wants with you. If Lucille is telling us the truth,” which was always debatable, “we still don’t know why he would have destroyed your mother, or why Lucille brought us here to battle with Talis de Rancourt.”

  I fell back against the pillows. Because if witches and vampires had some long-time feud, it didn’t explain why no one had tried to get Rainey and me on their side. If we were witches, they’d either want to work with us or destroy us. So that didn’t make any sense.

  “What else?” I knew our window was closing. Seeing took a lot of Rainey’s energy. What she did with the customers at Le Cirque was nothing for her compared to this. Real Sight taxed her. “Tell me something about her.”

  She squeezed my hand; it always helped her see if she had access to one of the person’s possessions. “She always saw the best in people, even when they were at their worst.” Her words weakened. “She had...something to hide. But she loved you very much.”

  I loved her too, even though she gave me away. “Do you think we can find her?”

  “As long as she isn’t a vampire,” Rainey chuckled. “We’ll keep trying until we do.”

  “I’m going to have to talk to Cash. They’re connected, somehow.” My body shook at the thought of it. But I stayed cool. It had to be a sign. “I need to know.”

  “Holly.” Rainey lay back down beside me. “He said he needs you for something. If there’s something going on between the vamps and Lucille, they’ll put you in the middle, and the only one who will lose is you.”

  She sounded awfully sure of herself. “I thought you couldn’t See vampires.”

  “I can’t.” She nestled her head on my shoulder and sighed. She’d be asleep in minutes. “But I see enough crappy examples of human nature every night to know how this is going to end.”

  “We aren’t human. And I don’t want to be afraid anymore.” Maybe Cash Logan’s arrival wasn’t such a bad thing after all. “If Cash is the one who can fix that, it’s a risk I have to take.”

  Chapter Four

  I felt a closeness to Cash I’d never felt for another person before. Not Rainey, not Bette, certainly not Lucille. Maybe that’s why I welcomed him back. When I sucked down the flame from the baton at the next night’s performance, I only saw one face when everything began to glow. His.

  He sat at one of the tables by the stage, the ones that the tourists paid a fortune for. A look of lazy bemusement had spread across his face while I performed my routine, climbing up the pole and sliding down, leaving a trail of flame in my wake. He actually seemed proud of me.

  This time, he didn’t surprise me when he greeted me in my dressing room, spinning my discarded top hat on his finger.

  “Am I a witch?” I asked him as soon as he closed the door. He gave me time to settle after the show. I’d just come out of the shower, and I met his gaze in the reflection of the mirror as I wiped the leftover soot from my skin and hair. Many people speculated I dyed my waist-length hair red and wore gold contacts as part of my act, but they were wrong. That’s just the way I came. “And leave the light off. My eyes are still sensitive.”

  Cash’s laugh was throaty, deep, and warm. It came easily to him, laughter. He tipped his head back and let himself enjoy it. “Is that what you think you are?” he asked.

  I titled my chin up, and pulled my robe tightly around my body. “Is that what my mother was?”

  Another chuckle. “Why do you think I would know that?” Cash considered my top hat before putting it on his own head.

  Turning away from the mirror to face him, I thought maybe he’d take me more seriously. But I already shown my hand. I had no answers. For him, this was playtime. Whether he needed anything from me or not, he knew he had what I’d been so desperately seeking my whole life. I blinked when he turned on the light. The gold in his hazel eyes sparkled, and something about them was too familiar. I knew those eyes, but again, I didn’t know why. Back to the mirror. “Lucille said you knew her.” And destroyed her. I left that part out. Cash thought he was here for a comedy show, and he had the wrong theater.

  “You can’t trust Lucille. I’m sure that’s not news,” Cash scolded me, but then asked softly, “How old are you, Holly?”

  Panic rose from the pit of my stomach, electric shocks numbing my limbs. It was such a simple question. “I don’t know,” I whispered, leaning against my dressing table and bowing my head. “I feel like I’ve lived forever.”

  Cash rose from the chair, my top hat still on his head and stood behind me, so close I shivered. He moved my hair away from my neck, his cold fingers brushing my skin, and placed it over my right shoulder. Our gazes locked in the mirror.

  “Do you remember being a little girl?” His breath tickled my bare neck.

  I nodded. The timeline didn’t make any sense, I could place myself anywhere in time, at any age, and I could mold and shape history. I had no proof of this, because when I snapped out of it, as Lucille called it, everything was recorded as it always was. Only I knew it was different. Rainey understood, but she couldn’t explain how it happened.

  “How long have you been like this?” His gaze ran the length of my robe, and he didn’t have to clarify what he meant.

  As far as everyone knew, I was twenty-four. “Decades. I think.” The concept of time simply made me dizzy.

  Cash nodded; my answer didn’t surprise him. “You were born north of London in 1781, in a village called Moorfields.” My knees buckled, and if I didn’t clutch the table, I would have fallen. Even though I knew it wasn’t going to be something nice and neat like twenty-five years ago in Memphis, actually having the answer blew my mind.

  “I remember things that happened befo
re that.” I couldn’t face him. “And I think I remember you.”

  “Do you?” Cash ran his fingers lightly along my hair, never touching my body. At first, I was terrified we’d burst into flames. We fireproofed my dressing room, but Cash wouldn’t survive. This information was just the tip of the iceberg. I needed him to stay alive. “What do you remember?” he asked.

  Images jumbled in my brain as if someone spun a wheel. I saw Cash, bound, bloody, and burned, surrounded by laughing onlookers. His hair was shorter, and it was a different time, but I knew him. His eyes. No matter what humiliation was bestowed upon him, they remained proud. “Chaos.”

  His silky laugh almost convinced me I was wrong. No one could actually survive the state I pictured Cash in, his skin purple from abuse, weak from starvation, and still have a sense of humor. But those eyes.

  “That’s about right.” He moved closer to me, my robe pressed against my skin.

  I couldn’t let him distract me. “But why do I remember things that happened before that? Like I was there. Is that even possible?”

  “If you experienced it, then you made it possible, Holly.” His words were soft, and like time, they made me dizzy. “You’re a Bleed.”

  My eyes snapped open. “A what?”

  “You’re a Bleed. You age much more slowly than mortals, and your immortality extends in all directions. Forward, backward, and sideways if it’s possible.”

  I had to turn and face him. Rainey would knock on the door any time now, and I needed to wrap this up before she came. She warned me stay away from Cash. We’d been fighting too much lately already. I hated it. “How many of us are there?”

  “You mean how many of you are there.” Someone knocked on the door. I forced my eyes away from Cash, and he stepped back. The knock repeated, more forceful this time. Rainey would be able to sense I wasn’t alone, even if she couldn’t See Cash. “You might be the only one.”