Angelique Rising (4 page)

             
The music increased, like it was hiding something, a building undercurrent that was promising immanent detonation.

             
Wyatt looked in anguish at the flashing images of Angelique racing along the rafter toward the orchestra. He went to stand up, no way,
no fucking way in the godamned
universe
was he going to allow that woman to run around up there and fall and break her fool neck. But his uncle's hand grabbed him, yanked him back down, and he continued to watch in uneasy apprehension, his fists clenched.

             
The detonation came, the music blasted open like a reverberating tidal wave and the lights that fired on were for a split second blinding. Dancers covered the floor, the men dressed in tight costumes of black sequins, the women in pastel gowns of flowing layers. Lifts appeared scooping up half the dancers, swirling them above the audience while those that remained below with Lexa began what looked like a dance war with them.

             
Elevated above them all, Angelique danced, she
flew
along the rafter, mirroring the dancers below on the Lifts, spinning, twirling, her costume streaming about her combined with her voice creating a turbulent storm of jaw-dropping radiance. She made two circuits before jumping back onto a Lift, a Lift that looked like it just went insane with her.

             
Suddenly it appeared that her foothold had broken, both her legs were flying loose, her arms gripping the metal rod slipping, she was sliding down as the Lift twisted so extremely one of her hands was flung off. People below covered their mouths, some their eyes, a few women screamed, and one man knew he shouldn't have cancelled his appointment with the urologist. Angelique's voice became desperate, Lexa's voice below, agonized.

             
...once I was chained...

             
Lexa and Angelique were singing together now, as if their sheer blasted volume could somehow attain them absolution. New lights seared on, lasers attacking each other; twinkling blue-white lights crawled sharply all about the rafter as its columns filled with colored lights melting into each other. A glittering silver fog began spewing out of the columns cascading down to the seating area's walkways and rolling heavily out onto the dance floor engulfing Lexa and the gyrating dancers.

             
Wyatt T. Cochran was horror-struck, he, like everyone else in the audience, didn't know where to keep his eyes --on the twirling dancers on the Lifts right above him, on the dancers on the dance floor being swallowed by the ungodly fog, or on Angelique, highest above them all and about to be thrown to her death.

             
As the music reached its crescendo Angelique was indeed thrown off, but another Lift appeared magically through the laser beams lunging to her, she caught it and it hurled her back onto the rafter. All of the dancers were singing now, a boisterous heavenly cacophony of sound assaulting the audience with a torrent of sensory overload.

             
...that's what it'll take now, to stop ME!

             
Silence. Everything just froze.

             
Gradually the mesmerized audience rose, sounding like a jet plane testing its engines.

             
"Stay in your seats!" the announcer's voice admonished them. "Please stay in your seats until all performers are down."

             
The dancers on the floor, their lungs gulping air and their faces dripping, scrambled to the area immediately in front of the orchestra, Lexa following, assuming her place in the front middle. Above, the Lifts became merely mechanical rods with performers attached, blending and forming the airborne dancers into one straight assembly-line lowering them back down to the floor one at a time where stagehands dressed all in black rushed out to unhook each of them as they landed.

             
The audience had reseated itself but was going wild. The blaring applause was earsplitting. And then all the performers were down --except one.

             
Angelique stood on the rafter in spotlight above and behind the orchestra. The Lifts re-assembled into a kind of staircase before her, over the orchestra, down to Lexa and the other performers. But the Lifts were suspended in mid-air three feet apart from each other.

             
The audience took a collective breath as they realized what Angelique was about to do, leap off the rafter and run down the Lifts to the floor below; if she misjudged and missed only one she would plunge to the ground.

             
Angelique hurdled down in one glorious flash of white, joined Lexa, and as the audience went into near pandemonium the Company, together, gave one long deep bow.

             
And all Angelique could think was
I'm getting the hell outta here.

             
She'd seen the expression on Wyatt's face during the show, especially during the finale. He was, to say the least, not pleased.

             
And she was its star.

             
Crap oh crap
she thought.

             
All of the lights blinked off for five point five seconds plunging everyone into total darkness. Then they came back on and the Company again bowed. Everyone except one.

             
Angelique had felt the threat physically and she knew how to high tail it. By the time Wyatt T. Cochran realized she was no longer there she was already barreling out onto the sidewalk headed for the 10:20 bus, the last city bus of the evening.

*****

              He was freakin' furious. Boilingly past mad. And for some reason all of his anger was directed at
her.

             
HOW DID SHE KNOW THAT SONG?

             
And how, he raged inwardly, did she know he could sing it? He had never sung for anyone, anywhere, anytime,
ever
. And why the
fuck
had she risked her life like that? He wanted to
strangle
her.

             
It had been a dumbfounded and almost mowed down waiter who'd told Wyatt she'd steamed off on foot, streaking away up to the sidewalk, which was the reason Wyatt was in his car cruising block by city block searching for her. He wanted
answers.

             
The rain had begun, a few sparse but thick drops were plopping against his windshield.

             
And there she was! She was seated slumped at a bus stop bench in that white gown of hers, her shoulders bare in the rain. He smashed the brakes down, skidded to a halt, his door flew open and he strode purposefully toward her.

             
"Get in," he commanded.

             
She was floored. It was
him
. Shit.

             
"I said
get in
.
"

             
He reached her, yanked her to her feet and pulled her toward the car's passenger door he flung open.

             
"I'm waiting for the bus," was all she managed to stammer. She was being kidnapped and she was totally stumped on what to say.

             
He pushed her into the passenger seat pressing down the top of her head in police fashion.

             
"I'm--"

             
He bent down, shoved her legs into the car, then grabbed the uncooperative layers of her skirts and flipped them up onto her lap. He leaned in over her and she held her breath, he was pressing himself to her. Withdrawing, he slammed the door shut (she screeched) and she realized she'd been belted in. He strode with quick determination around the front of his car, got in, and she recovered herself, knew she needed to exit
tout suite
but with her fumbling fingers was unable to get the seatbelt lock to unclick and he was pulling away from the curb.

             
"Name
,
"
he barked at her like she was some kind of street hooligan.

             
She wasn't so sure she wanted him to know her name.

             
"Angelique," she mumbled, flustered.

             
"Angelique
what?"

             
"Reising. Angelique Reising. Why are you so grouchy?"

             
"Are you kidding me? You almost
killed
yourself up there! And how did you know that song?"

             
"Your song? You sing that song."

             
"I've
never
sung that song --or anything else-- where anyone could hear me. Now
how did you know it?"

             
Darn, she'd just assumed. His voice was so captivating, the song so beguiling, she'd assumed he sang it for people.

             
"I heard you at the university. Seven years ago."

             
"Impossible. I sang alone in a soundproofed rehearsal room."

             
Oh
God
this was going to be embarrassing she grimaced.

             
"I... I was there. Under the stage platform." Her voice sounded so small.

             
"You were hiding under the stage platform?" he asked incredulously. "Why?"

             
They were at the embarrassing part.

             
"I... was only thirteen. I was a runaway. I'd been staying at a shelter but I'd had to leave [Father Wadzniak had found her, she'd had to leap from a second story window] and I needed a place to hide out. I'd already scoped out the university, found that hidey hole. I lived there for three days."

             
"No way," he said in obvious skepticism.

             
"I wasn't trying to embarrass you tonight, I was trying to repay you."

             
"Repay me? For what?"

             
She sighed. She so didn't want to get into it.

             
"It was a pretty low point in my life. I was alone, I was cold, hungry, hiding out under that stage in the dirt and dust and then you walked in. And you started singing that song. I looked out at you through the vent slots. You made me feel like..."

             
She couldn't say it. Like maybe there
were
things in the world that were worth sticking around for.

             
"Where were your parents?"

             
"Dead." Like, early last century.

             
His face was softening.

             
"Where do you live? I'll take you home."

             
She wasn't so sure she wanted him to know where she lived either.

             
"On the river, down past the hospital."

             
He sucked in his breath in exasperation.

             
"
Where
, exactly?"

             
"Just a houseboat. Called the
Sunflower
." Damn, why'd she tell him that?

             
Before he could respond a buzzer sounded.

             
"Hello," he snapped.

             
"It's Johnson, sir. I just wanted to tell you... if you wanted to say goodbye," the voice choked, "it should probably be now."

             
Wyatt's entire demeanor fell.

             
"Okay," he said, his voice tormented.

             
"Soon," the man's voice half-sobbed, "really soon."

             
All Wyatt could manage was a leaden nod but Angelique saw his thumb flick something on the steering wheel.

             
"What's the matter?" she asked without thinking.

             
His face hardened.

             
"My assistant's son. Leukemia."

             
"I'm sorry."

             
"I'll drop you off then get to the hospital."

             
"He said 'soon.' Go there first, I can wait." Why was she saying this? She knew why. It was he who in her despair had gently sung her to sleep. And now it was
his
face the despair was on. She still owed him.