Reserved for the Cat (18 page)

It was a relief to think about something besides magic, to concentrate entirely on her dance. It was very odd to think that a few weeks ago, she would have been perfectly happy to find herself
not
dancing! This was real, solid, something she had known all her life, something she understood. Magic, she did not understand. How could a cat talk? How could there be little creatures like the Brownie living right under everyone’s noses?

Dancing was better. But—there was something lacking even with her dancing.

But she needed something more. She needed—

“Mademoiselle,” the instructor began, breaking her out of her reverie. “This looks very fine in this room. But to judge whether or not it will serve on the stage, you must take it
on
the stage. And to judge whether or not it pleases an audience, you must take it before an audience.”

She thought about that for a moment, and realized what it was that she had been feeling the lack of.

An audience. She had not, until that moment, realized just how much she had missed that aspect of dancing. The audience! Not just potential suitors, but all of them, from the little girls at their first ballet to the old balletomanes. She wanted to hear applause, feel their presence, drink in their attention.

It was very strange . . . when she had danced the
Sylphide,
she had not even considered the audience, and yet now, that applause had been like a drug. And she wanted more of it.

“I quite agree with you, Monsieur,” she said with a nod. “I will speak with the director. There is no reason why I should not start performing. Same time tomorrow, then?”

He nodded. “I fear my mornings will be filled with teaching people who have perfect figures and an imperfect sense of where to put their feet or how to execute a few steps. In other words, I will be instructing the chorus.”

“Very good, Monsieur,” she replied—the old man bowed to her, and took his leave. The pianist began packing her music away, and Ninette retired to the little changing room just off the rehearsal room. She changed into her street clothing, and went straight to Nigel’s office.

He looked up as she tapped on the doorframe, for the door itself was open. “Mademoiselle?” he said, looking worried. “That Italian chap not to your liking? I’ll find you another teacher if you must—”

“No,” she said swiftly. “No, he is excellent!” She took a deep breath. “However, I grow uneasy that you support me and I do nothing.”

Nigel laughed. “You are in rehearsal. You are earning your salary—”

She shook her head. “I have never performed before an English audience. I need to see what they are like. Now is the time to try some of my dances, to see if they respond to me. Sir, I would like to perform in your show. Not the one we are creating. This ‘music hall’ that you are presenting.”

The look of surprise on his face made her smile.

“If you’re certain,” he said, finally, “I’m sure we can fit a dance or two in.”

“I am certain,” she said, firmly. “And Monsieur Ciccolini believes this is a good idea too.”

“In that case, I would be the last person to argue,” Nigel replied, giving in with good grace. “We’ll start you next week, on the new playbill.”

She smiled and thanked him. The conviction that this was exactly what she needed remained with her all the way back to her flat.

N
INA Tchereslavsky regarded the dead old man in her bed with a remote regret. Regret, because he had, after all, offered so little sustenance, and now she would have to find another admirer with a great deal of money, but it was tempered with the knowledge that she really did look very chic in black. It was a great pity, but he had to be devoured. He had been getting restless, eyes beginning to rove—which was how she had gotten him in the first place. But Nina left nothing for any other female creature, human or otherwise, when she was finished with a man. That little pale-haired girl in the back of the chorus would just have to go hunting elsewhere.

So farewell to Herr Klaus Obervelten, the farm-tractor tycoon.

But it would not do for him to be found here.

With a twist of her mind, she summoned a herd of the kobolds that were as much slaves to the power she granted them as they were her allies. Being very much part of the material world, they came scampering through her open bedroom window rather than manifesting in any other way.

“Take that to its home,” she said, pointing a languid finger at the corpse and wrapping her silk-velvet robe more tightly around herself. “Put it in its bed.” With another twist of her mind, she showed them where her benefactor’s home was, and where his bedroom was in that house. Without a word, the little mob of kobolds had hoisted the body onto their backs, and a moment later, were scampering out the window with it. They would go over the rooftops, of course; it was night, and the sun wouldn’t hurt their eyes. It certainly would not do for a policeman to see a dead, rather naked body being carried through the streets by things invisible to his eyes.

That would be unfortunate.

Nina closed the window and stretched. That was that, sadly. No more presents, and the heirs would likely very soon cut off the monthly rental payments for this very expensive flat.

No matter. She had enough to live on for a while until she found another so-called “protector.” It would not take long. The magic and energy she took from her old men was sufficient to allow her to keep this form as it was when she had devoured it and moved into the girl’s life. She looked not quite twenty, in that ageless way of ballerinas everywhere.

She had chosen her victims very carefully, not at all at random. The original Nina had been well on the way to becoming a great dancer, and had attracted a great many followers at the point where the creature that became her had taken her, but few of them had been the sort that would have done her any good. She was forever attracting starving poets, who would write wonderful things about her, but did not pay the rent on a nice flat. She had been very wild, and rather wanton, and threw herself away on these beautiful, but impecunious fellows. Evidently she had not taken the lesson of
La Boheme
to heart; she had doted on
La Dame Aux Camellias
instead. Her talent for dancing and her fine body had been wasted on her silly little soul.

The creature had swiftly changed all that. It had been easy. She simply assumed the form of one of her own victims, who had been an exceedingly beautiful young man, and Nina had happily let the creature seduce her. Once in her bed, it was only a moment until Nina was absorbed and the creature became Nina.

She had spent all the rest of that night getting used to the dancer’s body and memories. In class the next day, she had been clumsy at first, occasioning some giggles from the other girls, but she joked and laughed herself about “a little too much champagne” and they all put it off to a hangover. But the creature had a great deal of practice in mastering forms, and by mid-afternoon she was actually dancing better than the original. This was not as hard as it might seem. For one thing, she was able to concentrate as Nina had not been. For another, her body did not tire or hurt as Nina’s had. The beautiful movements of ballet, the creature now knew, were performed more or less in pain. Well, the creature did not generally experience that sort of pain; as long as she could drain others to heal or sustain herself, she would not ever suffer, either.

By the evening’s performance, in which Nina was a soloist, the creature was ready. Backstage, all the beautiful but impecunious boys found themselves relegated to the back of the crowd, as Nina concentrated on the old and rich and not at all beautiful. By morning, Nina was wearing a fur coat, a diamond bracelet, and was about to be installed in a fine little flat complete with maid. Her benefactor had been an aging count, well used to keeping pretty little ballerinas, and if he had a taste for cruelty, well, he did not last long enough to indulge himself in it too much. The next man, a highly successful wine merchant, was easier to deal with, and just as generous.

For some reason, dancers attracted old men. Some much older than the ones that pursued opera divas. This was exactly as the creature that had taken the dancer’s form and place liked it. Old men were prone to dying from a thousand and one causes, and Nina’s benefactors were all very old men, and she was discreet. Most of the time, unless the old gentleman himself wished to flaunt her, as Herr Klaus had, no one knew there was a liaison. As for the ones who paraded her like a trophy, no one thought twice about it when Nina lost a few lovers in such a fashion, since not a single death was directly connected with her. Herr Klaus would be found in his own bed, with no indication that he had been with her last night. Nina’s servants, who were rendered blind and deaf when she chose, could not have told anyone otherwise even if they wanted to.

Perhaps she should go to the Bohemian quarter and find herself a starving artist or tortured poet. Or two. Or three. And it was a very good thing that she was leaving to dance elsewhere; she could take another old man or two there without the rumors of the previous ones following her. She would choose ones who needed to be discreet; that way no one would be the wiser when she consumed them.

The creature had taken the forms and shapes of many beings over the years; an elemental creature of earth, it had first been conjured and inexpertly bound some three hundred years ago by an Earth Master who relied on instinct rather than learning, and whose self-confidence was nothing short of hubris. He was the first human that the creature had devoured; up until then, it had confined itself to lesser Elemental beings and animals. But once she had absorbed the magician . . . that was when things began to change.

Her talent, which had caused the magician to try to bind her in the first place, was that not only could she kill anything by absorbing its essence, she could then imitate it flawlessly afterwards. So once she discovered that, having absorbed her erstwhile captor, she was able to stay on the Material Plane, there was no turning back for her. She had taken on the form of that foolish Elemental magician for quite some time before his life bored her, and when she was ready to move on, it hadn’t taken a lot of effort to find someone else to be.

The creature—the first mage had called her a “Troll”—went back to bed. When the body was found, which it would be soon since the sky to the east was getting brighter, “Nina” needed to be in her bed, alone. She might not be
sans peur et sans reproche,
at least in the eyes of the world, but having him die in her bed might excite the suspicions of the wretched police. There were Elemental Mages everywhere They could, and would, banish her back to her previous existence. Or worse . . .

She wrapped the silk sheets around herself and settled into the lovely, soft bed. It had been a good day when Nina Tchereslavsky decided she was going to use magic to get the attention of a certain beautiful young poet who was not interested in her. The current Nina judged that this was a very foolish thing to do; not only would most love spells not have worked on someone who was devoted to someone else, there had been a dozen equally beautiful young men clamoring for her. As for the dancer, she had been prepared to throw her entire life away on a succession of these beautiful young men, none of whom would have done her a particle of good, had any money, or ever likely would have any money.

Whereas the creature that had taken her place had made her great. A much, much better use of the gifts that had been given her.

With these thoughts in mind, Nina drifted back off to sleep, fully expecting to be awakened by the maid bewailing the death of the old man.

Instead, she was awakened by the maid bewailing nothing, only bringing her the morning pastry and chocolate, and an envelope, a letter from the impresario of the theater in Salzburg at which she was expected to perform. She frowned at it before opening it. She really hoped he was not canceling her engagement. She needed to move away from Hungary altogether; too many men had died around her, and this last one might start some talk. Germany, that was far enough. She would be discreet. It wasn’t hard to be discreet when you knew what to look for.

Provided this impresario wasn’t having second thoughts.

But instead, what fell out was a note and a newspaper clipping.

I trust this note will reach you where you should be,
the note read,
because you cannot perform in my theater and one in England at the same time.

Swiftly she caught up the little cut-out bit of paper. It wasn’t much, only a note that Nina Tchereslavsky was performing at some music hall in Blackpool and that she was to be the star of an upcoming and very ambitious project by the owner of that theater.

At first, Nina did not grasp what this meant.

Then she flew into a rage.

When at last her initial anger was expended, the bedroom was virtually destroyed. The furniture was in splinters, the bedclothes and curtains in rags. The servants knew better than to approach her in this mood; she likely would have killed them.