I STAYED PUT FOR A COUNT OF TEN, watching to see if Clint would come back. He didn’t. I turned and bolted for the wings, heading for where I’d left Malena and the others.
The show had been over for long enough that the halls were deserted: even the technicians, janitors, and countless production assistants who could usually be counted on to lurk in unexpected places were gone, leaving me free to run. I sped up, grabbing a corner with my left hand in order to slingshot myself around it, only to stop dead as my momentum carried me straight into Dominic’s chest. He was close enough to my height that my head hit him in the throat, and he staggered backward, closing his arms around me in an effort to stabilize himself.
I didn’t pull away, even though every instinct I had said not to let myself be trapped. Instead, I leaned to the side, and we hit the wall with a thud that resounded all the way through my spine.
“What the hell, Ve—” Dominic caught himself before he blurted out my real name. He frowned instead, and demanded, “Where were you? We’ve been looking everywhere!”
“Didn’t look on the stage,” I said, and ducked out of his arms, stepping backward. “Where is everyone else?”
“Trying to find our eliminated contestants,” he said. “Pax thought they were with Malena. Malena thought they were with you. Alice thought they were with anyone but her.”
“So we’ve lost them.” Which meant that they were probably dead. I swallowed the urge to stomp my foot, and simply asked, “How the hell did we lose them?”
“Leanne left the girls’ changing room to use the restroom, and didn’t come back; Mac never made it to the changing room at all,” said Dominic. “Perhaps more interesting is the question of why no one finds this strange.”
That stopped me. “What?”
“Pax asked Troy—the other male dancer from Mac’s season, who you would think might feel some camaraderie or responsibility for the man—where Mac was. Troy looked confused and reminded Pax that Mac had been eliminated.” Dominic’s expression was grim. “I know the dance world can be cutthroat and cruel, but you’ve always led me to believe there was slightly more compassion in it.”
“There usually is,” I said. Sarah’s brand of telepathy wasn’t the only way of changing people’s minds. There were compulsions, illusions, all manner of charms that could be cooked up by your local witch or Letiche—and in a city like Burbank, where everything was available for the right price, finding someone who’d cook you a charm without asking questions wasn’t hard. Assuming their pet magic-users hadn’t done it themselves. “We need to find the others.”
“We split up to look for the missing contestants.”
“I get that, and it was a smart move given the information available at the time, but I’m telling you we need to find the others.” I shook my head, feeling the bobby pins holding my wig in place dig into my scalp. “Something’s making people not care about the disappearances. Do we want to risk Pax or Malena going missing, knowing that nobody’s going to give a shit?”
Dominic’s eyes widened. Then he nodded. “This way,” he said, and turned to run.
He was only a few inches taller than me, but that was enough to give him a longer stride. That was a good thing, since otherwise there was no way he’d have ever been able to keep up with me. Dominic was in good shape. He trained hard and worked harder. I was a dancer and a fighter whose only chance of survival was rooted in speed, and I’d been training nonstop for the past three weeks. Really, the only surprise was that I was less than ten feet ahead of him by the time I hit the last corner between us and the hallway leading to the basement.
Alice and Pax were there, standing in front of the open door. Alice had a pistol in her hand, holding it low against her hip, as if that would keep her from getting in trouble if theater security came around the corner and saw her with the gun. I slid to a stop and looked up at the same time. Malena was anchored to the wall some twelve feet up, her feet bent at an inhuman angle.
“Where have you been?” demanded Alice. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“Dominic said the same thing, and I don’t think you have,” I said. “I was on the stage with Clint. Half the hallways in this place would have led you straight there. I think someone’s messing with us. Malena!”
“What?” The voice drifted down from above, not accompanied by the chupacabra. She was in hunting mode. It would take her a while to shake that off.
That was good. I needed her in hunting mode. “Go to the top of the wall and start looking for anything that seems like it doesn’t belong there. Dried flowers or herbs or stones.”
“What?” Now she just sounded confused.
Alice, on the other hand, looked horrified. “Memory charms.”
“Or confusion charms,” I said. I looked up again. Malena hadn’t moved. “Come on. We need this if we’re going to find them.”