Page 82 of The Paranormal Investigation Bureau
“Sorry, I had to get out of there before Marsden got any ideas about including me in that rehearsal. I’m getting pretty tired of his shit.”
“He still might… he knows where you are. Bellatrix wouldn’t have asked for extra rehearsals. The first time I danced a lead with her, we weren’t connecting at all, and at the time, I thought that was why lifting her was so difficult. I asked for extra rehearsals, but she shot them down. Marsden knew. He tried to talk her into it, but she insisted she wasn’t the problem. He sided with her. She just did her own thing, and I acted my ass off. The audience and critics didn’t even notice and loved it.”
“It was probably a role she excelled in. She’s never going to be able to play Damita the way he wants. I don’t see what Marsden gets from this whole situation. It’s a beautiful ballet, but if whatever plot they’ve worked up to end this curse fails, people are going to die! There are other old ballets he could bring out. It’s not like he can publicize the bloody history if we pull this off.”
“No, he can’t,” I said. “Santiago wasn’t arrested the first time because he was cursed. I’m sure the Paranormal Investigation Bureau has opinions about him skulking aroundThe Pand attempting this ballet again and again.”
“This is my first case, Nicolai. I’m pretty sure the only reason they hired me was because I told them about what happened with my feet, and that I remained dedicated to ballet after that. They knew at my interview they were going to need a ballet dancer for this. I’m entirely too green to be going undercover out of state. I should be dealing with standard hauntings, maybe some cursed objects. Kaine told me about his work, though.
“Santiago never should have been allowed to leave the bureau where he was making his statement. He should have been moved somewhere safe, and had a team of witches working on that curse. Instead, I think he traded Unseelie secrets to an ambitious agent and promised to go to Canada and disappear. You’re right, though. If the bureau found out he’s been here this entire time, killing people, he’d be moved to a cell. If he can’t die, they would surely have locked him up while they figured something out.”
I would have hated that. I didn’t go the criminal route like the rest of my family, but I felt the same way about prison as they did. You never wanted to end up there, and if you did, you'd better hope your stay was short. It had to be horrible to die in there. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live in a concrete cell, with limited time in the sun, all the while knowing there was no end date. No getting out, and you couldn’t die.
Now hold up one second, that doesn’t mean I felt sorry for him. He could very well be living it up in paradise and not killing anyone right now.
“We’ll find him,” I said.
“Was your cousin watching her last night?”
“He had no way of knowing where she went. None of us did. He went to her apartment, broke in, and installed some spyware on her computer. He was watching and waiting for her to get home. He said she got home at midnight and was looking shifty. She checked her email and went to bed.”
“I wish we had known where she went.”
“She purchased something. She was holding a large handbag way too tightly for there not to be something important inside. Muggings aren’t common in her neighborhood.”
Beyla flipped on her back and started stretching her hamstrings. My hamstrings needed some attention, too. I did the same thing and enjoyed the feeling as they loosened up.
“I doubt it was cocaine. There are people in my family who sell to people like Bellatrix. People like her aren’t the type to go looking for fixes on street corners or in dark corners of clubs. They have people on speed dial, with fake names on their cell phones, and those people come to them and deliver to their door. So Bellatrix probably had someone before Julian.”
Beyla snorted.
“For all we know, Julian only started selling because of her.”
Beyla had limited exposure to Julian before he was arrested, but the rest of us had been dancing with him for four years.
“No, Julian was terrible even before Bellatrix adopted him. She didn’t notice him until he tried to steal Bevan’s boyfriend. Bellatrix hates gay men, because her gifts don’t work on them. She nodded towards Julian for devastating Bevan, and that was probably when he brought up that he had access to cocaine. The rest is history.”
“Bellatrix doesn’t strike me as the type to make late-night purchases like that. She probably buys everything at expensive shops, you know, the kind where they tolerate her treating the staff like garbage as long as she spends money.”
That part scared me. Whatever she purchased might not be meant for Beyla. I knew Beyla had threatened her and wanted her gone, but a lot of her rage lately had been focused on Madame Lucinda. She’d attacked her twice and gotten banned from class, in front of the entire company.
I already knew she wouldn’t be caught dead taking classes with teenagers at the academy. There were plenty of fantastic dance classes all over New York, but Bellatrix thought they were all terrible. I went with Merlin and Bevan to take them sometimes, and she gave us shit about it before Merlin and I started getting leads.
Bellatrix thought every single dance class in the whole of New York City was full of talentless hacks that couldn’t make it in a real dance company. She was completely wrong about that. Yeah, there were plenty of classes geared towards recreational dancers, but they were also full of various company members, students, Broadway dancers, or professional dancers who made their living in the entertainment industry.
She might not know who they were, but they all knew her. Almost all of them had season tickets to our shows. Bellatrix was cunning when it came to dealing with fans and the press. She let just enough slip that meant she gained, and kept, a reputation for being a diva, but not enough to lose support. The company never said anything because she was Marsden’s lover and he could ruin their career over it.
She wouldn’t be able to hide her disdain if she took one of those classes. People would notice. She’d lose fans, and they’d start talking. She didn’t like them, but she needed them to like her. She definitely wouldn’t risk pissing them off.
“I really think she’s planning something bad for Madame Lucinda. She wants you gone, too, but she’s not going to take getting banned from class lying down. Especially since she’s not going to set foot in any other dance class in New York.”
“I’m guessing that’s why they’re both in the studio this early. It has nothing to do with early rehearsals. She’s not going to do anything in front of him. Marsden has sided with Madame Lucinda every time she’s kicked Bellatrix and Ivory out of class. He knows we all witnessed her attacking Madame Lucinda twice. He might need her for this plot, but he needs the entire company to pull off this ballet, and they are all fed up with her shit.”
“At any rate, I don’t care what she’s wearing around her neck. If none of us are close enough to stop her, you zap her ass with magic.”
“Fuck barre politics, Nicolai. We aren’t baby ballerinas who haven’t earned our pointe shoes yet. If she manages to worm her way back into class, we need to be close enough to body slam that bitch.”
I seriously think I was falling in love with this witch.
