Dance in the Dark (33 page)

Johnnie latched onto that, kicking himself for not asking sooner how
exactly
they had met. He really was losing his touch—if, he thought morosely, he had ever had a touch at all. "What precisely is it you do, where you work?"

Rita smiled. "I play piano. Most of it is the silly stuff you always hear at resorts and other such places. At night, I back up the singer. But before the show starts, and late in the evening, I am permitted to do as I like for the most part. It was during one of those late hours that he walked in." Her smile softened with memory. "I saw him well before he saw me; I was just finishing up a silly little piece I like to play, before I moved into the
Fantasie-Impromptu
. When I finished, I looked up and saw him watching me. Right there beside the stage; I half thought he was going to jump up
on
the stage. But he only asked if I would play him
Music Box Dancer
, and then he asked if he could buy me a drink."

"Mm," Johnnie said, "and you have been putting up with him for twenty years? I am duly impressed."

"He is not half so tense with me," Rita mused, then grimaced, suddenly looking afraid. "I worry now that maybe he never meant for me to be here—it may be that I am the one he is most angry at when he comes out of the curse—"

Johnnie laid a hand on her shoulder, reassuring her gently, "My lady, I sincerely doubt that. If he wanted to marry you, and was going to ask father about it, then he planned on bringing you here. I promise you that when he comes out of the curse, the first thing he will do is throw a tantrum. Then he will attempt to murder Ekaterina. Then he will round on me, simply because he will not be able to tolerate you came to me for help."

Rita rolled her eyes, and muttered, "He had better be too busy with me for all that nonsense."

"But, it is very interesting—and good for us—that you play," Johnnie went on. "I should have asked before, because of course Ellie would never settle for less than a lady who plays as well as he." Johnnie took her hand, and tucked it into the crook of his arm, then turned to lead her back to the ballroom. "I think, my lady, that when the time is right and you play—that will be all we need to break the curse. But I do not want to upset the balance too much before we know what we are dealing with."

"Of course," Rita replied, but before she could say anything further, Phil and Zach came spilling out of the ballroom, and from the looks on their faces, they had some interesting news to share.

"She could be a necromancer," Phil announced as they reached Johnnie and Rita. "Phoenix—"

Johnnie startled at that name. "You know Phoenix—never mind. Not now. What did you learn?"

Phil smiled briefly, then said, "Phoenix said he had heard rumors lately of a rogue necromancer, but he doesn't take pupils, and neither does Ceadda. He also got in touch with some necromancers he knows in the UK, but no luck there either."

"Ekaterina's family lived in Italy for half a century," Johnnie said grimly. "She could have learned it then, and no one there would breathe a word. She would have been rather young for a necromancer, though, especially one of the skill it would seem she could be." He frowned thoughtfully.

Zach added, "Her parents mentioned Italy, how much they all loved it and were loathe to return home for her father to properly take up the mantle of Dracula. They said Ekaterina especially was livid over their departure. But, out of nowhere, she suddenly loved it here. Her mother said it was like she hated it one day, adored it the next. They were relieved, and did not ask questions. I cannot tell you how many times they told me she is 'mercurial, but a good girl'."

"If they are party to all of this, then they are damned fine actors. Myself, I suspect they are merely severely strained parents who are almost too grateful whenever she is happy, and do not know her even half as well as they think, and they admit their daughter makes no real sense to them. Though, who knows, at that. They knew enough to know she was almost universally hated by her sisters. Really, though, that is no surprise. More than half the women in that Society are pretentious little snots."

The back of Johnnie's neck prickled. "You do not mean the Princess Society, do you?"

"Yeah," Zach said. "Our false bride was hated by a good number of her sisters."

Johnnie closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, and quoted, "The female of the species is more deadly than the male."

"What does that mean?" Rita asked.

"That we've got trouble," Phil said. "It cannot be coincidence that we wound up with twelve dead Princesses and she is a secret necromancer hated by all of them. Why did I not see that connection before?"

"You did not have access to her parents, and they would not have spoken to you of the matter, anyway," Zach replied. "We did not know to look there."

Phil shook her head. "I don't even see what my case has to do with this mess, though. What in the world is the connection?"

"Dreaming men are haunted men," Johnnie said softly, then turned to Rita and said, "My dear, I think it is time you played something for us." Break the curse and at least that problem would be solved. If she saw they were on to her, perhaps she would retreat—or at least she would be revealed, and they could face her head on. He glanced at Phil and Zach, "I think we had best resort to drastic measures. If she is this sly, there is no telling what else she can and will do. Best to have done, and face her now, and hopefully in doing so gain ourselves some sort of advantage."

"I still would like to know what she is really after, between the dead girls and all this nonsense," Phil said.

"Me," Johnnie said. "I believe she is after me." He strode off, back into the ballroom, ignoring Phil and Zach as they called after him.

In the ballroom, he looked around for his father. Spotting him standing near the buffet tables, Johnnie strode across the room to join him. "I think that Rita can finally break the curse," he said. "She is going to do it now. But we believe Ekaterina to be a necromancer—and I am completely convinced she is behind the murders of those twelve women from the Society."

Ontoniel's expression did not change, and he only nodded in reply, but Johnnie knew he was silently communicating with the various guards and other personnel scattered around his manor. "Despite your falling out," he said quietly, "I do rather wish your Enforcer was still about."

Johnnie did not reply, but he could not help but think
me too
. He hated himself for it, but there was no help for it. He turned his head slightly as music filled the air, watching Rita at the baby grand piano that Elam would normally kill
anyone
for daring to touch.

He recognized what she was playing only because he had learned by age eleven that not to know what Elam was playing was tantamount to death. Currently, Rita was playing Liszt's Liebestraume Notturno No. 3. It was, Johnnie knew, one of Elam's favorite pieces.

Someday, he would have to tell Elam that Rita looked better sitting at a piano than he did. The thought made him smirk—but then reminded him abruptly of what Elam had said to him only moments ago. Johnnie swallowed, and resolved to focus on the matter at hand.

But he really just wanted the entire damned affair over so he could return to the Bremen—

Could he return to the Bremen, he wondered suddenly, gut clenching. That had been Bergrin's stomping ground first, had it not? It would not be fair for Johnnie to take it from him—but he did not want to go home, either.

Later, he thought desperately. He would have to deal with all of it later. Johnnie looked around the ballroom, at all the people whispering in admiration, eyes on Rita before sliding to Elam—everyone present knew his obsession, and his possessiveness, when it came to his pianos.

Elam still sat at the table where Johnnie had left him, but he was paying no attention to the fiancée trying to get his attention. Instead, his gaze was riveted on Rita. He pulled irritably away from Ekaterina when she gripped his arm, then impatiently stood up when she tried to speak again. He continued to watch Rita, clearly enthralled.

There was also a growing confusion on his face. Like a man not entirely awake, he slowly crossed the room to the small stage where the piano rested. Rita paid him no mind, merely focused on the music, clearly pouring everything she had into the playing.

As the last strains of music finally faded away, Elam's voice, soft and unsteady, said softly, "Ree?"

Rita looked up, tears streaming down her face, and said, "Have you finally remembered me, you great big jerk?"

"Ree—" Elam surged up onto the stage and yanked her from the bench, holding her tightly. "Oh god, Ree. I'm so—"

The words were abruptly cut off, as Elam and Rita dropped unconscious, crashing into the bench, the piano, before finally landing in an awkward heap on the floor. The sound of thumping, breaking glass and crashing chairs created a cacophony throughout the ballroom as all around Johnnie, everyone collapsed.

"Father!" he said in a panic, as Ontoniel fell right next to him. He dropped to his knees, examining Ontoniel frantically. "Father!" He looked around at everyone else, then sneezed hard. Magic. His eyes watered from the smell of it—he had never smelled magic so potent, like something sweet had cooked too long and burned.

The sounds of heels clicking on wood drew him, and he looked up, unsurprised to see Ekaterina standing there, as cold and hard as ice. Slowly he rose to his feet. "What did you do to them?"

"The Princess shall not die, but fall into a deep sleep for a hundred years," Ekaterina replied, then laughed in a way that made Johnnie want to take several steps back. "Except, you did not fall asleep, did you, Beauty? Still wide awake, doomed never to dream when it should be your fate to walk freely in dreams. Your bitch mother saw to preventing that, though, didn't she? She told me that right before Sariah made a snack of her jugular."

"Shut up!" Johnnie snarled, balling his hands into fists to still their trembling—though whether it was from fear or anger, he did not know. "Why—why the fuck are you doing this? How did you do this? Wake them up!"

"No," Ekaterina said. "I tried to warn you off, but you did not listen."

"Warn—twelve," he realized. "When you mentioned
twelve
women, you were trying to warn me off."

Ekaterina laughed in that chilling way again. "As usual, little Johnnie Goodnight does not listen to those wiser than him, too busy thinking he knows everything because he's read a lot of books. How smart do you feel now, little Johnnie?"

"Why?" Johnnie asked, fighting despair. They were all so still—his father, his brother, Phil, Zach. They could have been dead, and if they slept too long, there might be no pulling them back out of the dream plane.

"Because I want something that only you can bring to me," Ekaterina said. "I have tried to obtain it myself while waiting until I could get access to you again … but the quest has proven to be extremely difficult on both counts. Did you know, dear Johnnie, that I wanted to put the love spell on you first?"

"What?" Johnnie asked.

"Except there was one already on you, and to judge by the look of it, the spell must have been cast when you were a child. I sense Ontoniel had some noble purpose there, knowing that idiot—but it worked, because I could not cast one on you. So I had to settle for your brother instead, and that only after pushing my parents for years to negotiate my betrothal to Elam." She fell silent, obviously fuming over old memories.

Johnnie's mind spun. A love spell? Cast on him? Since he was a child? But …

But that would explain why at only nine he had been hopelessly in love with his brother. What in the hell had they been thinking?

What the fuck did it matter now?

Johnnie tried to get a hold of himself, but he was already ragged from his fallout with Bergrin—

He closed his eyes and swallowed, missing Bergrin so much right then it was a physical ache, a weight upon his chest that made breathing almost impossible. He had messed everything up, had done not one single thing right, and now his family and friends were going to die, or worse, sleep forever and lose themselves in dreams.

"You want the object my father made?" he finally asked. "No one even knows what it is—and even if I knew where in dreams to find it, I cannot go get it. I am completely spelled against ever entering the dream plane."

"Then I suggest you find a way to break the spell," Ekaterina said. "Let me explain everything to you, so that we understand one another perfectly. I want that object. I was prepared to handle the matter quietly, until you chose to poke your nose into matters too far. Your behavior has forced me to play my hand, and resort to extreme measure. This entire house has been set with the Sleeping Beauty curse. Anyone who enters the house will fall victim to it. If you try to find and tamper with the spell key, they will be lost in dreams forever. You will go into the dream plane and bring back the object your father made."

"But I do not know—"

Ekaterina laughed. "How sad, that not a one of you truly appreciates the accidental brilliance of your stupid father. An impossible relic lies in dreams, just waiting for you to take it, and you don't even know what it is."