First, though, I was going to have to get Valerie’s life back in order. All my dance costumes and wigs had been packed up for the trip from New York to Oregon, and were still in their boxes in the storage shed out back. (We had a garage. We just didn’t use it to store boxes, since we needed a place to park. We couldn’t use the attic, either, as the Aeslin mice had a tendency to co-opt whatever was put into their space, and the barn was where we did the taxidermy. After years of crap building up in closets, spare rooms, and everyplace else that it was possible to wedge a shoebox, Dad had finally thrown up his hands and bought a prefab shed from the nearest hardware store. After the hot tub, it was definitely the smartest thing he’d ever invested in.)
Dominic watched me wade through boxes. He was smart enough not to get too close, since he didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. “How many costumes do you need to bring?”
“Most of the dances are choreographed, which means I’ll be dressed by the folks in wardrobe,” I said, pulling a strip of bedazzled fabric out of a box. It was barely wider than a scarf, and ended with a foot of long white fringe. “What do you think of this one?”
“I think it looks like a handkerchief with delusions of grandeur,” said Dominic.
“Great, put it in the ‘take’ pile.” I tossed the dress to Dominic. “I’ll be expected to do solos as often as the producers want to shove them in, and this is a new format: I could be dancing solo every night, if they feel like being vicious. I need costumes for when I dance solo, and having something eye-catching is a good way to drum up a few extra votes. Besides, it’s not like my costumes take up much room.” Competition Latin ballroom outfits tended to be more rumor than reality, to steal a phrase from my grandmother. There were big poofy feather dresses, sure, but they were few and far between, and mostly unnecessary in the styles I preferred.
“That’s true enough,” said Dominic. “When we watched the videos of your last run on the show, I was amazed some of those costumes had made it past the censors.”
“They cover the salient bits,” I said, brightening as I saw my wig box. I waded deeper into the pile. “We’ll need to fly to Los Angeles. Or at least, I’ll need to fly, since the producers will send me a ticket, and I don’t think you want to make that drive by yourself. If we go a little early, we can get you set up someplace near the cast housing. This will let us give your new photo ID a test run.” A new identity had been part of my wedding gift to him, as well as a necessary component of bringing him home to meet the parents. If he hadn’t been able to pass basic background checks, he would never have been allowed in the house. “Do you have a credit card for someone who isn’t Dominic De Luca?”
Dominic shook his head. “No,” he admitted. “There hasn’t been a need since I’ve been here, and I didn’t want to list this as my address.”
I resisted the urge to groan. We should have been working on this weeks ago, as a matter of common sense, and it had taken reality television—which was literally the opposite of “common sense”—to make us get started. “Okay, we’ll add that to the list of things to take to Artie. He should be able to whip together something good enough for emergencies, even if it’s not good enough to be permanent. We’ll get him to fake another ID for you in the process, something burnable. Decide what I’ll be calling you. Make sure it’s something you can answer to. I recommend something that starts with ‘D,’ since it’ll be easier for you to recognize as your name.”
“Is that why you go by ‘Valerie’?”
“Yup,” I said, hoisting the wig box and wading back toward him. “Similar enough to ‘Verity’ that it catches my attention across a crowded room; dissimilar enough that people aren’t likely to connect the two. Same goes for my last name. ‘Price’ for me, ‘Pryor’ for her.”
“You know, there are people in the Covenant convinced that if your family survived, they did so by being intensely cunning, unbelievably clever, and making bargains with one or more demons,” said Dominic. “I’m reasonably sure no one’s ever said ‘why don’t we look under a simple mnemonic?’”
“Simple means you have fewer moving pieces that can break; there’s nothing wrong with simple.” I dropped the wig box next to him and knelt to begin examining its contents. “And we’ve never made any deals with demons. A few deals with my Aunt Mary the crossroads ghost, but she always recommends against it, and for the most part, we listen. She knows what she’s talking about.”