Another One Bites the Dust (17 page)

Hey, Cole’s not a bad juggler. Bowling pins, rings, a couple of cans of tennis balls. Didn’t know he had it in him. What? Is he done already? Holy crap, it’s my turn!

Bergman switched from general lighting to a single spot and pumped up the music. I swishy swished onto the stage. The crowd greeted me with loud, prolonged applause. Now that I could no longer hide behind the curtain and obsess, I felt better. After all, I wore three tons of makeup, most of Cassandra’s traveling jewelry, and six layers of skirting, under which I’d strapped my leg holster and a sweet little .38 I usually reserved for pants-free occasions. My gold sequined top erred on the skimpy side, but rows of flat golden discs had been sewn to it so it looked less like a sports bra and more like a lets-play-banker costume. Long, sheer black sleeves covered my arms, and black lace fingerless gloves disguised the bandages on my hands.

And those posed the real challenge. The hands are an integral part of the belly dance and do a lot to make you look graceful. Despite being under the influence of painkillers, they hurt like hell to hold correctly. But concentrating on that really helped me ignore the fact that Chien-Lung had indeed shown up and sat front and center, where he smiled and bobbed his head in time with the music. He wore another traditional Chinese robe, this one black embroidered with red dragons. I caught his eye once, and immediately felt grateful he had to keep his hands stuffed in those oversized sleeves. Otherwise he probably would’ve been waving dollar bills around like the best man at a bachelor party.

Lung’s lady sidekick, who sat to his right, didn’t seem too thrilled with his interest in the belly dancer either. She kept nudging him with her elbow, until finally he leaned over and said something to the vamp to his left and they both shared a quiet laugh. I thought I recognized the new vamp as one who’d waited out the fight the night before to see who’d win.

On the other side of the aisle, the Xia clan seemed to be enjoying their night out together. Mom sat straight and proper, hands in her lap, but her eyes had shone extra bright when Cole took the stage. Xia Lai stood on his dad’s muscular legs, bouncing in time with the music.

Before I knew it the first song had ended. The next one was much faster. Harder, yes, but more fun too. About halfway through the crowd started to clap in time, which inspired me to try moves I hadn’t attempted in years despite the very real possibility that I might be too sore to move in the morning. I must’ve pulled it off, because they cheered at the end.

Now I remembered why I’d always been the first one to arrive at my dance lessons and the last to leave. Forget tattoos. Done correctly and received with an open heart, belly dancing is true body art. And my audience was ideal. Besides Lung and his pal, who I pointedly ignored, it was mostly families. No wolf whistles. No whooping and hollering. Just lots of clapping in time as I moved them through the music, telling them a story they understood at the gut, where rhythm speaks its universal language.
Okay
, I admitted, as I bowed to yet another round of avid applause,
this is a freaking blast
.

The last song had barely begun before Vayl began to sing along from the back of the tent. I didn’t even know the thing had words, and I sure hadn’t expected him to turn it into a group performance. But there he was, walking toward me down the center of the aisle, singing Romanian in his husky baritone.

Definitely a love song,
I decided as I turned and swung my hips at him. I looked over my shoulder. His smile was definitely predatory. I gave him a little torso roll and he rewarded me with a look of such piercing hunger I nearly jumped on him. How we maintained a PG rating through the rest of that song I will never know. But the thunderous applause at the end told me it was big fun.

I strutted off the stage, waving and blowing kisses to my new fans. Which was undoubtedly why, as soon as I made it past the backstage curtain, I ran straight into a support pole. I damn near brought the whole house down. Literally. I held the pole very still and tried not to think of what would happen if we couldn’t lure Lung into a one-on-one because the Assistant Assassin ran her head into a steel rod.

A sound to my right caught my attention. It was very subtle, landing somewhere between a quiet snort and a faint gurgle. I took a short hike outside the tent and found Cole rolling on the ground.

“Are you all right?” I rushed to him, trying to hold him still so I could see the site of his injury. Then I got a look at his face. “Are you
laughing
?”

“Oh my God, you should’ve seen your face!” He was trying to hold it in so the audience wouldn’t be distracted from Vayl’s singing. But the laughter kept slipping out the edges of his mouth.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” I demanded.

“Than to watch a gorgeous woman belly dance? We are talking about
me
, right?”

“So it was good?”

“I sure couldn’t figure out why you were freaking out about the whole thing. Until the pole incident, of course. Good thing nobody saw you but me.”

“I saw her.” Cassandra came up beside us, laughing so hard her shoulders were shaking.

“Oh for—isn’t it your turn?” I glared at her.

“Yes, and I was dreading it so badly I threw up three times. But now I feel better.” Her smile was as warm as a hug. “Thank you.”

“Hey, anytime I can entertain you with my humiliation, I feel I’ve done my job. What the hell is it with me lately?” I wondered aloud. “I can’t seem to make it through a single day without running into or falling over something. And I was a college athlete!”

Cassandra regarded me soberly. “The universe requires balance, Jasmine. Your powers as a Sensitive have increased, have they not?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Perhaps your recent spate of awkward incidents is the price you are required to pay for that boost.”

“Well, if it’s true, that sucks.”

She nodded, clearly distracted by other, more important considerations. “Will you”—Cassandra licked her lips as her eyes darted toward the tent, as if she could see Lung through two layers of canvas and a black curtain—“when the time comes, you will stay close by, won’t you?”

“Is in the room close enough?”

“Oh, really? I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that.”

“It was Vayl’s idea. When we give away the free reading, we toss in a private belly dance too. That puts me right beside you the whole time he’s there.” There was a moment of silence from inside the tent, followed by a healthy round of applause. Then Vayl began his final song. “We know from talking to Yetta Simms that Lung loves the escargot. So we’ll offer him a tray of delicacies and hope he’s in the mood to indulge himself.” Cassandra already knew this stuff, but I needed to keep her thinking, thus the review. If her analytical mind let go, she was going to freeze like a math whiz at a spelling bee.

“And if he won’t eat it?” she asked.

“We’ll figure some other way to get him to swallow the pill. Maybe stuff it in his vitamins or something. That comes later— maybe. For now, encourage him to eat. Eat with him even, but stay away from the snails.”

She nodded, looking fairly calm until your eyes dropped to her hands. Her long slender fingers kept twining in and around one another like newborn snakes.

“Hey, Cassandra,” said Cole, “I meant to tell you. Your boyfriend’s in the audience.” He said it as if we’d teleported back to junior high, and he suspected she’d just contracted a terminal case of the cooties.

“My . . . what?”

Cole went into his superhero pose, legs spread, hands on hips, chin directed squarely at the sky, and sang, “Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, SWAT man!”

“Oh, God!” Cassandra clutched at me, her fingernails digging into my arms.
Ow!
“Jasmine! The vision!”

I hid the dread that twisted my insides at the realization that everybody in her divination had now reached his or her appointed place. “Don’t worry, Cassandra. When I see the snake, I promise I’ll shoot it before it strikes.”

“I’ll be there too,” Cole assured her.

I watched Cassandra, wondering how she’d manage to keep it together with her head full of death and her future depending on a rookie assassin, a woman with more stitches than sense, a distracted vampire, and a paranoid engineer. But I guess I already knew. She would because she had to. That’s always how people like us end up getting through hells like this.

The applause built to a crescendo and then faded as Vayl began to introduce our main event. Cole held the back tent flap aside for Cassandra and she stepped into the staging area, gracefully avoiding the pole that had nearly concussed me minutes earlier. She took a couple of deep breaths. “How do I look?” she asked.

She’d pulled her braids back and tied them with a vivid-blue scarf. Her matching skirt was embroidered with black sequined flowers. Her black sleeveless top provided the perfect backdrop for one of the pieces of jewelry she hadn’t lent me—a gold choker that started just under her ears and ended slightly above her collarbones. “Very Egyptian queen,” I said.

She nodded and smiled, but the pleasure never reached her eyes.

Vayl swept the backdrop curtain aside. The applause pulled her forward.

Cole asked, “Is she going to be okay?”

“I think so. But SWAT man’s presence is not a good sign. He dies in her vision too.”

“It must suck to be psychic.” Under his breath, Cole added, “We have company.”

I heard it then, a soft step accompanied by the squeal of a pumped-up baby. Xia Ge’s husband stepped around the corner of the tent. He carried Lai, whose resemblance to his dad was remarkable considering the difference in their ages and emotional states. Lai obviously thought walking with Dad was the be all, end all of great times. He bounced his butt against his dad’s forearm and patted him repeatedly on his broad chest and shoulders, as if Lai was a one baby band and Dad his instrument.

Dad, on the other hand, looked like he wanted to cry. It wasn’t the face he’d worn inside the tent, but then his family and manager had been around. I felt an instant connection to him. It sucked having to hide intense fears from the world. I gave him a warm smile and bowed.

“Hi. I’m Lucille, and this is Cole.”

He bowed too, which Lai thought they should do twenty more times. He communicated this by lunging forward so Dad had to catch him and pull him upright again. He kept it up the whole time we talked.

“I am Xia Shao,” said Dad. “My wife, Ge, tell me you save Lai’s life. I thank you.” He bowed deeply.

“It’s our pleasure,” Cole said.

When he straightened, Shao said, “Ge telling me you very nice people.
Good
people.” He stared hard at us, as if his eyes alone had the power to reveal any evil tendencies we might be hiding. In the end he shrugged helplessly. “She
know
people. I trust her. She say I should talk to you.”

“She’s very sweet,” I replied. “A good mother.” I shook my head in amazement. “So patient.”

He cracked a smile. “Usually.” We watched Lai do some more waist bends before Shao continued. “I work—” he jerked his head toward the amazing acrobat arena. “Many friends there.” He shrugged. “You travel together, work together, you become close.”

Cole and I nodded.

“I have friends . . .” Shao looked away, his eyes scrunching at the edges as he struggled to hold back tears. “They disappear. Their clothes, equipment, all still in trailers, but no friends. They not coming to show tonight.” Now he looked at us, trying to communicate how bizarre he regarded this behavior to be. “Something is terrible wrong.”

In my mind I saw the men who had attacked Lung, still dripping from their swim from shore, and agreed with Shao that something was terrible wrong.

Now that Shao had said the hard part, the words came much faster and tougher to understand as his accent also increased. “I believe Chien-Lung have something to do with this. You know?” He pointed a thumb toward the tent. “Front row?”

We nodded. Boy, did we ever know.

“Lung own that boat.” He pointed to the
Constance Malloy
. “He bringing all Chinese crew to run it, but they stuck in Chicago.” He tried to find the word, couldn’t, and showed us instead, his free hand starting above his head, lowering slowly as he wiggled his fingers.

“Snowstorm?” guessed Cole. Shao pointed at him and nodded.

Aha!
Now I understood how we’d lucked into the catering gig. I’d thought it out of character for Lung to allow strangers aboard his yacht. But with his staff snowbound in Chicago and a big shindig in the works, he’d had no other choice.

Shao went on. “My brother, Xia Wu, is part of crew. I fear what will happen when he arrive. I fear he disappear too.”

“What makes you think he’ll be in particular danger?” asked Cole.

Shao looked over both his shoulders and behind us. He leaned forward, giving Lai access to the huge buttons on Cole’s vest. He grabbed one and tried to put it in his mouth as Shao whispered, “Wu in army. So was my friends. Very shhh.” He held a finger to his lips to emphasize the secrecy.

Huh. So the People’s Liberation Army wants Chien-Lung dead. Well, I don’t suppose you can plan a coup without rumors flying into the wrong ears.
Wu, undoubtedly, was supposed to help overthrow Lung last night, but his flight delay had kept him out of the fighting.