Dancers in the Dark and Layla Steps Up E-Book

Charlaine Harris

• Herausgeber: JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Layla
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 227

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Author of the books that inspired True Blood on HBO, Midnight, Texas on NBC, and the Aurora Teagarden Mysteries on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries Two to Tango. Featuring characters who also appeared in All Together Dead, this exclusive double issue includes two novellas by #1 bestselling author, Charlaine Harris: Dancers in the Dark, and her brand new novella, Layla Steps Up. In Dancers in the Dark, a young woman on the run from a violent stalker finds protection--and temptation--in the arms of a brooding centuries-old vampire. In Layla Steps Up, a fragile new vampire must finally face and embrace her immortal powers in order to save her maker from an ex-lover with a taste for torture. Blending supernatural suspense and sizzling seduction, the two intertwined stories in this collection will be sure to please fans of Charlaine Harris's #1 New York Times bestselling Sookie Stackhouse vampire series and its HBO television adaptation, True Blood.

Leseprobe

Dancers in the Dark

Copyright © 2004 by Charlaine Harris Schultz

Originally published in the anthology Night's Edge by Harlequin Books in 2004.

Layla Steps Up

Copyright © 2017 by Charlaine Harris, Inc.

Published as an ebook in 2017 by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Tiger Bright Studios

ISBN 978-1-625672-65-0

ALSO BY CHARLAINE HARRIS

GUNNIE ROSE

An Easy Death

A Longer Fall

The Russian Cage

MIDNIGHT, TEXAS

Midnight Crossroad

Day Shift

Night Shift

STANDALONE WORKS

Small Kingdoms and Other Stories*

Dancers in the Dark*

Layla Steps Up*

The Layla Collection: Dancers in the Dark and Layla Steps Up*

Sweet and Deadly*

A Secret Rage*

THE AURORA TEAGARDEN MYSTERIES

Real Murders*

A Bone to Pick*

Three Bedrooms, One Corpse*

The Julius House*

Dead Over Heels*

A Fool and His Honey*

Last Scene Alive

Poppy Done to Death*

All the Little Liars

Sleep Like a Baby

THE SOOKIE STACKHOUSE SERIES

Dead Until Dark

Living Dead in Dallas

Club Dead

Dead to the World

Dead as a Doornail

Definitely Dead

All Together Dead

From Dead to Worse

Dead and Gone

Dead in the Family

Dead Reckoning

Deadlocked

Dead Ever After

A Touch of Dead

The Sookie Stackhouse Companion

After Dead: What Came Next in the World of Sookie Stackhouse

THE LILY BARD MYSTERIES

Shakespeare’s Landlord

Shakespeare’s Champion

Shakespeare’s Christmas

Shakespeare’s Trollop

Shakespeare’s Counselor

THE HARPER CONNELLY SERIES

Grave Sight

Grave Surprise

An Ice Cold Grave

Grave Secret

THE CEMETERY GIRL MYSTERIES, co-written with Christopher Golden

Pretenders

Inheritance

Haunted

ANTHOLOGIES, co-edited with Toni L. P. Kelner

Many Bloody Returns

Wolfsbane and Mistletoe

Death’s Excellent Vacation

Home Improvement: Undead Edition

An Apple for the Creature

Games Creatures Play

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Also by Charlaine Harris

Acknowledgments

Dancers in the Dark

Layla Steps Up

About the Author

Acknowledgments

My thanks to dancers past and present:

Coco Ihle, Larry Roquemore, Jo Dierdorff, Shelley Freydont and the very helpful Molly McBride.

Special thanks go to Doris Ann Norris, reference librarian to the stars, who can look up the inner dimensions of a sarcophagus faster than I can whistle “Dixie.”

Dancers in the Dark

Dancers in the Dark

Chapter One

Rue paused to gather herself before she pushed open the door marked both Blue Moon Entertainment and Black Moon Productions. She’d made sure she’d be right on time for her appointment. Desperation clamped down on her like a vise: she had to get this job, even if the conditions were distasteful. Not only would the money make continuing her university courses possible, the job hours dovetailed with her classes. Okay, head up, chest out, shoulders square, big smile, pretty hands, Rue told herself, as her mother had told her a thousand times.

There were two men—two vampires, she corrected herself—one dark, one red-haired, and a woman, a regular human woman, waiting for her. In the corner, at a barre, a girl with short blond hair was stretching. The girl might be eighteen, three years younger than Rue.

The older woman was hard-faced, expensively dressed, perhaps forty. Her pantsuit had cost more than three of Rue’s outfits, at least the ones that she wore to classes every day. She thought of those outfits as costumes: old jeans and loose shirts bought at the thrift store, sneakers or hiking boots and big glasses with a very weak prescription. She was concealed in such an ensemble at this moment, and Rue realized from the woman’s face that her appearance was an unpleasant surprise.

“You must be Rue?” the older woman asked.

Rue nodded, extended her hand. “Rue May. Pleased to meet you.” Two lies in a row. It was getting to be second nature—or even (and this was what scared her most) first nature.

“I’m Sylvia Dayton. I own Blue Moon Entertainment and Black Moon Productions.” She shook Rue’s hand in a firm, brisk way.

“Thank you for agreeing to see me dance.” Rue crammed her apprehension into a corner of her mind and smiled confidently. She’d endured the judgments of strangers countless times. “Where do I change?” She let her gaze skip right over the vampires—her potential partners, she guessed. At least they were both taller than her own five foot eight. In the hasty bit of research she’d done, she’d read that vampires didn’t like to shake hands, so she didn’t offer. Surely she was being rude in not even acknowledging their presence? But Sylvia hadn’t introduced them.

“In there.” There were some louver-doored enclosures on one side of the room, much like changing rooms in a department store. Rue entered a cubicle. It was easy to slide out of the oversize clothes and the battered lace-up boots, a real pleasure to pull on black tights, a deep plum leotard and fluttering wrap skirt to give the illusion of a dress while she danced. She sat on a stool to put on T-strap heels, called character shoes, then stood to smile experimentally at her reflection in the mirror. Head up, chest out, shoulders square, big smile, pretty hands, she repeated silently. Rue took the clip out of her hair and brushed it until it fell in a heavy curtain past her shoulder blades. Her hair was one of her best features. It was a deep, rich brown with an undertone of auburn. The color almost matched that of her deep-set, dramatic eyes.

Rue only needed her glasses to clarify writing on the blackboard, so she popped them into their case and slipped it into her backpack. She leaned close to the mirror to inspect her makeup. After years of staring into her mirror with the confidence of a beautiful girl, she now examined her face with the uncertainty of a battered woman. There were pictures in a file at her lawyer’s office, pictures of her face bruised and puffy. Her nose—well, it looked fine now.

The plastic surgeon had done a great job.

So had the dentist.

Her smile faltered, dimmed. She straightened her back again. She couldn’t afford to think about that now. It was show time. She folded back the door and stepped out.

There was a moment of silence as the four in the room took in Rue’s transformation. The darker vampire looked gratified; the red-haired one’s expression didn’t change. That pleased Rue.

“You were fooling us,” Sylvia said. She had a deep, raspy voice. “You were in disguise.” I’d better remember that Sylvia Dayton is perceptive, Rue told herself. “Well, let’s try you on the dance floor, since you definitely pass in the looks department. By the way, it’s Blue Moon you want to try out for, right? Not Black Moon? You could do very well in a short time with Black Moon, with your face and body.”

It was Blue Moon’s ad she’d answered. “Dancer wanted, must work with vamps, have experience, social skills,” the ad had read. “Salary plus tips.”

“What’s the difference?” Rue asked.

“Black Moon, well, you have to be willing to have sex in public.”

Rue couldn’t remember the last time she’d been shocked, but she was shocked now. “No!” she said, trying not to sound as horrified as she felt. “And if this tryout has anything to do with removing my clothes…”

“No, Blue Moon Entertainment is strictly for dancing,” Sylvia said. She was calm about it. “As the ad said, you team with a vampire. That’s what the people want these days. Whatever kind of dancing the party calls for—waltzing, hip-hop. The tango is very popular. People just want a dance team to form the centerpiece for their evening, get the party started. They like the vamp to bite the girl at the end of the exhibition dance.”

She’d known that; it had been in the ad, too. All the material she’d read had told her it didn’t hurt badly, and the loss of a sip of blood wouldn’t affect her. She’d been hurt worse.

“After you dance as a team, often you’re required to stay for an hour, dancing with the guests,” Sylvia was saying. “Then you go home. They pay me a fee. I pay you. Sometimes you get tips. If you agree to anything on the side and I hear about it, you’re fired.” It took Rue a minute to understand what Sylvia meant, and her mouth compressed. Sylvia continued. “Pretty much the same arrangement applies for Black Moon, but the entertainment is different, and the pay is higher. We’re thinking of adding vampire jugglers and a vampire magician—he’ll need a ‘Beautiful Assistant.’”

It steadied Rue somehow when she realized that Sylvia was simply being matter-of-fact. Sex performer, magician’s assistant or dancer, Sylvia didn’t care.

“Blue Moon,” Rue said firmly.

“Blue Moon it is,” Sylvia said.

The blond girl drifted over to stand by Sylvia. She had small hazel eyes and a full mouth that was meant to smile. She wasn’t smiling now.

While Sylvia searched through a stack of CD cases, the blonde stepped up to Rue’s side. She whispered, “Don’t look directly in their eyes. They can snag you that way, if they want to, turn your will to their wishes. Don’t worry unless their fangs run all the way out. They’re excited then.”

Startled, Rue used her lowest voice to say, “Thanks!” But now she was even more nervous, and she had to wonder if perhaps that hadn’t been the girl’s intention.

Having picked a CD, Sylvia tapped the arm of one of the vampires. “Thompson, you first.”

The dark-haired taller vampire, who was wearing biking shorts and a ragged, sleeveless T-shirt, came to stand in front of Rue. He was very handsome, very exotic, with golden skin and smooth short hair. Rue guessed he was of Eurasian heritage; there was a hint of a slant to his dark eyes. He smiled down at her. But there was something in his look she didn’t trust, and she always paid attention to that feeling…at least, now she did. After a quick scan of his face, she kept her eyes focused on his collarbone.

Rue had never touched a vampire. Where she came from, a smallish town in Tennessee, you never saw anything so exotic. If you wanted to see a vampire (just like if you wanted to go to the zoo), you had to visit the city. The idea of touching a dead person made Rue queasy. She would have been happy to turn on her heel and walk right out of the room, but that option wasn’t open. Her savings had run out. Her rent was due. Her phone bill was imminent. She had no insurance.

She heard her mother’s voice in her head, reminding her, “Put some steel in that spine, honey.” Good advice. Too bad her mother hadn’t followed it herself.

Sylvia popped the disk in the CD player, and Rue put one hand on Thompson’s shoulder, extended the other in his grasp. His hands were cool and dry. This partner would never have sweaty palms. She tried to suppress her shiver. You don’t have to like a guy to dance with him, she advised herself. The music was an almost generic dance tune. They began with a simple two-step, then a box step. The music accelerated into swing, progressed to jitterbug.

Rue found she could almost forget her partner was a vampire. Thompson could really dance. And he was so strong! He could lift her with ease, swing her, toss her over his head, roll her across his back. She felt light as a feather. But she hadn’t mistaken the gleam in his eyes. Even while they were dancing, his hands traveled over more of her body than they should. She’d had enough experience with men—more than enough experience—to predict the way their partnership would go, if it began like this.

The music came to an end. He watched her chest move up and down from the exercise. He wasn’t even winded. Of course, she reminded herself, Thompson didn’t need to breathe. The vampire bowed to Rue, his eyes dancing over her body. “A pleasure,” he said. To her surprise, his voice purely American.

She nodded back.

“Excellent,” Sylvia said. “You two look good together. Thompson, Julie, you can go now, if you want.” The blonde and Thompson didn’t seem to want. They both sat down on the floor, backs to one of the huge mirrors that lined the room. “Now dance with Sean O’Rourke, our Irish aristocrat,” Sylvia told her. “He needs a new partner, too.” Rue must have looked anxious, because the older woman laughed and said, “Sean’s partner got engaged and left the city. Thompson’s finished med school and started her residency. Sean?”

The second vampire stepped forward, and Rue realized he hadn’t moved the whole time she’d been dancing with Thompson. Now he gave Sylvia a frigid nod and examined Rue as closely as she was examining him.

Dust could have settled on Sean, he stood so still. He was shorter than Thompson, but still perhaps two inches taller than Rue, and his long straight hair, tied back at the nape of his neck, was bright red. Of course, Sean was white, white as paper; Thompson’s racial heritage, his naturally golden skin, had made him look a little more alive.

The Irish vampire’s mouth was like a capital M. The graven downturns made him look a little spoiled, a little petulant, but it was just the way his mouth was made. She wondered what he would look like if he ever smiled. Sean’s eyes were blue and clear, and he had a dusting of freckles across his sharp nose. A vampire with freckles—that made Rue want to laugh. She ducked her head to hide her smile as he took his stance in front of her.

“I am amusing?” he asked, so softly she was sure the other three couldn’t hear.

“Not at all,” she said, but she couldn’t suppress her smile.

“Have you ever talked to a vampire?”

“No. Oh, wait, yes, I have. A beauty contest I was in, I think maybe Miss Rockland Valley? He was one of the judges.”

Of all the ways Sean the vampire could have responded, he said, “Did you win?”

She raised her eyes and looked directly into his. He could not have looked more bored and indifferent. It was strangely reassuring. “I did,” she said.

She remembered the vampire judge’s sardonic smile when she’d told him her “platform” was governmental tolerance toward supernatural creatures. And yet she’d never met a supernatural creature until that moment! What a naive twit she’d been. But her mother had thought such a topic very current and sure to attract the judges’ attention. National and state governments had been struggling to regulate human-vampire relationships since vampires had announced their existence among humans five years before.

The Japanese development of a synthetic blood that could satisfy the nutritional needs of the undead had made such a revelation possible, and in the past five years, vampires had worked their way into the mainstream of society in a few countries. But Rue, despite her platform, had steered clear of contact with the undead. Her life was troublesome enough without adding an element as volatile as the undead to the mix.

“I just don’t know much about vampires,” she said apologetically.

Sean’s crystalline blue eyes looked at her quite impersonally. “Then you will learn,” he said calmly. He had a slight Irish accent; “learn” came out suspiciously like “lairrn.”

She focused safely on his pointed chin. She felt more at ease—even if he was some kind of royalty, according to Sylvia. He seemed totally indifferent to her looks. That, in itself, was enough to relax her muscles.

“Will you dance?” he asked formally.

“Yes, thank you,” she said automatically. Sylvia started the CD player again. She’d picked a different disk this time.

They waltzed first, moving so smoothly that Rue felt she was gliding across the floor without her feet touching the wood. “Swing next,” he murmured, and her feet did truly leave the floor, her black skirt fluttering out in an arc, and then she was down again and dancing.

Rue enjoyed herself more than she had in years.

When it was over, when she saw that his eyes were still cool and impersonal, it was easy to turn to Sylvia and say, “If you decide you want me to work for you, I’d like to dance with Sean.”

The flash of petulance on Thompson’s face startled Rue.

Sylvia looked a bit surprised, but not displeased. “Great,” she said. “It’s not always easy…” Then she stopped, realizing any way she finished the sentence might be tactless.

Julie was beaming. “Then I’ll dance with Thompson,” she said. “I need a partner, too.”

At least I made Julie happy, Rue thought. Rue’s own partner-to-be didn’t comment. Sean looked neither happy nor sad. He took her hand, bowed over it and let it go. She thought she had felt cold lips touch her fingers, and she shivered.

“Here’s the drill,” Sylvia said briskly. “Here’s a contract for you to sign. Take it home with you and read it. It’s really simple.” She handed Rue a one-page document. “You can have your lawyer check it over, if you want.”

Rue couldn’t afford that, but she nodded, hoping her face didn’t reflect her thoughts.

“We have personnel meetings once a month, Blue Moon and Black Moon together,” Sylvia said briskly. “You have to come to those. If you don’t show up for an engagement, and you’re not in the hospital with a broken leg, you’re fired. If you fight with Sean, it better not show in public.”

“What are the meetings for?” Rue asked.

“We need to know one another by sight,” Sylvia said. “And we need to share problems we have with clients. You can avoid a lot of situations if you know who’s going to be trouble.”

It was news to Rue that there could be “trouble.” She crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly feeling cold in the plum leotard. Then she looked down at the contract and saw what she would be paid per appearance. She knew that she’d sign; she’d have the contract in Sylvia’s hands the next day, so she could start work as soon as possible.

But after she’d gotten back to her cheap apartment, which lay in a decidedly unsafe part of Rhodes, Rue did study the contract. Nothing in the simple language was a surprise; everything was as Sylvia had told her. There were a few more rules, covering items like giving notice and maintaining any costumes she borrowed from the company stock, but the contract was basic. It was renewable, if both parties wanted, after a year.

The next morning, Rue bundled up in the brisk midwest spring morning and set out early to the campus so she would have time to detour. There was a mail slot in the door of the old building that housed Blue Moon/Black Moon. Rue poked the folded paper through the slit, feeling profound relief. That night Sylvia called Rue to schedule her first practice session with Sean O’Rourke.

Chapter Two

Wearing cutoff sweatpants and a sleeveless T-shirt, Sean waited in the studio. The new woman wasn’t late yet. She would be on time. She needed the job. He’d followed her home the night she’d auditioned. He’d been cautious all the years he’d been a vampire, and that had kept him alive for more than 275 years. One of his safety measures was making sure to know the people he dealt with, so Sean was determined to learn more about this Rue.

He didn’t know what to think of her. She was poor, obviously. But she’d had years of dance lessons; she’d had good makeup, a good haircut, the good English of privilege. Could she be an undercover operative of some kind? If she were, wouldn’t she have taken the opportunity to work for Black Moon, the only remotely interesting thing about Sylvia’s enterprises? Perhaps she was a rich girl on a perverse adventure.

His first fifty years as a vampire, Sean O’Rourke had done his best to conceal himself in the world of humans. He’d stayed away from others of his kind; when he was with them, the temptation to explore his true nature had grown too strong. Sean had been abandoned by the man who’d made him what he was. He’d had no chance to learn the basic rules of his condition; in his ignorance, he’d killed unfortunates in the slums of Dublin. Gradually, Sean had learned that killing his victims wasn’t necessary. A mouthful of blood could sustain him, if he had it every night. He’d learned to use his vampiric influence to blot out his victims’ memories, and he’d learned to blot out his own emotions almost as successfully.

After fifty years, stronger and colder, he’d begun to risk the company of other vampires. He’d fallen in love a time or two, and it had always ended badly, whether the woman he loved was another vampire or a human.

His new partner, this Rue, was beautiful, one of the most beautiful women he’d seen in centuries. Sean could admire that beauty without being swayed by it. He knew something was wrong with the girl, something hidden inside her. He hadn’t watched people, observed people, all these years without learning to tell when a human was concealing something. Maybe she was an agent for one of the fanatical organizations that had formed to force vampires back into the darkness of the shadows. Maybe she suffered from a drug addiction, or some physical condition she was hoping to hide for as long as possible.

Sean shrugged to himself. He’d speculated far too much about Rue’s possibilities. Whatever her secret was, in time he would learn it. He wasn’t looking forward to the revelation. He wanted to dance with her for a long time; she was light and supple in his arms, and she smelled good, and the swing of her thick mahogany hair made something in his chest ache.

Though he tried to deny it to himself, Sean looked forward to tasting her more than he’d looked forward to anything in decades.

* * * *

The practice room was a larger studio behind the room in which she’d met Sylvia and the others. “Sean/Rue” was scrawled on the sign-up sheet for the six-thirty to eight o’clock time slot. Julie and Thompson would be practicing after them, Rue noticed.

She was nervous about being alone with the vampire. He was waiting for her, just as still and silent as he’d been two nights before. As a precaution, she’d worn a cross around her neck, tucked under the old gray leotard. The black shorts she’d pulled on over the leotard were made out of a shiny synthetic, and she’d brought ballet shoes, tap shoes and the T-strap character shoes she wore for ballroom dancing. She nodded to Sean by way of greeting, and she dumped the shoes out on the floor. “I didn’t know what you’d want,” she explained, all too aware that her voice was uneven.

“Why are the initials different?” he asked. Even his voice sounded dusty, as though it hadn’t been used in years. To her dismay, Rue discovered that she found the slight Irish accent charming.

“What do you mean? Oh, on the shoe bag?” She sounded like an idiot, she thought, and bit her lip. She’d had the shoe bag for so many years, she simply didn’t notice anymore that it was monogrammed.

“What is your real name?”

She risked a glance upward. The brilliant blue eyes were just blue eyes; they were fixed on her at the moment, but he wasn’t trying to rope her in, or whatever it was they did. “It’s a secret,” she said, like a child. She smacked herself on the forehead.

“What is your true name?” He still sounded calm, but it was clear he was going to insist. Actually, Rue didn’t blame him. She met his eyes. She was his partner. He should know.

“I go by Rue L. May. My name is Layla LaRue LeMay. My parents liked the song? You know it?” she asked doubtfully.

“Which version? The original one by Cream, or the slower Eric Clapton solo?”

She smiled, though it was an uncertain smile. “Original,” she said. “In their wilder years, they thought it was cool to name their daughter after a song.” It was hard to believe, now, that her parents had ever had years of not being afraid what people would think, that once they’d been whimsical. She looked down. “Please don’t tell anyone my name.”

“I won’t.” She believed him. “Where do your parents live now?” he asked.

“They’re dead,” she said, and he knew she was lying.

And though he would need to sample her blood to be sure, Sean also suspected that his new partner was living in fear.

* * * *

After they warmed up, that first practice session went fairly well. As long as they both concentrated on the dancing, the conversation was easy. When they touched on anything more personal, it wasn’t.

Sean explained that they were almost never called on to tap dance. “People who hire us want something flashy, or something romantic,” he said. “They want a couple who can tango, or a couple who can do big lifts, for the charity balls. If it’s something like an engagement party or anniversary, they want a sexy, slow dance, always ending with the bite.”

Rue admired how impersonally he said it, as if they were both professionals in this together, like actors rehearsing a scene. In fact, that was exactly appropriate, she decided.

“I’ve never done this,” she said. “The biting thing. Ah, do you always bite the neck?” As if she didn’t care, as if she was quite matter-of-fact about the finale. She was proud of how calm she sounded.

“That’s what the audience likes. They can see it best, and it’s traditional. In real life, of course—if I can use the phrase ‘real life’—we can bite anywhere. The neck and the groin have the big arteries, so they’re preferred. It isn’t fatal. I’ll only take a drop or two. We don’t need much as we get older.”

Rue could feel her face flood with color. This matched what she’d learned from the university’s computers, though she’d felt obliged to have Sean confirm what she’d read. She needed to know all this, but she was embarrassed, just the same. It was like discussing sexual positions, rather than the more comparable eating customs: missionary vs. doggy-style, rather than forks vs. chopsticks.

“Let’s try a tango,” Sean said. Rue put on her character shoes. “Can you wear a higher heel?” her partner asked impersonally.

“Yes, I can dance in something higher, but that would put me too close to your height, don’t you think?”

“I’m not proud,” he said simply. “It’s all in how it looks.”