And those posed the real challenge. The hands are an integral part of the belly dance and do a lot to make you look graceful. Despite being under the influence of painkillers, they hurt like hell to hold correctly. But concentrating on that really helped me ignore the fact that Chien-Lung had indeed shown up and sat front and center, where he smiled and bobbed his head in time with the music. He wore another traditional Chinese robe, this one black embroidered with red dragons. I caught his eye once, and immediately felt grateful he had to keep his hands stuffed in those oversized sleeves. Otherwise he probably would’ve been waving dollar bills around like the best man at a bachelor party.
Lung’s lady sidekick, who sat to his right, didn’t seem too thrilled with his interest in the belly dancer either. She kept nudging him with her elbow, until finally he leaned over and said something to the vamp to his left and they both shared a quiet laugh. I thought I recognized the new vamp as one who’d waited out the fight the night before to see who’d win.
On the other side of the aisle, the Xia clan seemed to be enjoying their night out together. Mom sat straight and proper, hands in her lap, but her eyes had shone extra bright when Cole took the stage. Xia Lai stood on his dad’s muscular legs, bouncing in time with the music.
Before I knew it the first song had ended. The next one was much faster. Harder, yes, but more fun too. About halfway through the crowd started to clap in time, which inspired me to try moves I hadn’t attempted in years despite the very real possibility that I might be too sore to move in the morning. I must’ve pulled it off, because they cheered at the end.
Now I remembered why I’d always been the first one to arrive at my dance lessons and the last to leave. Forget tattoos. Done correctly and received with an open heart, belly dancing is true body art. And my audience was ideal. Besides Lung and his pal, who I pointedly ignored, it was mostly families. No wolf whistles. No whooping and hollering. Just lots of clapping in time as I moved them through the music, telling them a story they understood at the gut, where rhythm speaks its universal language.Okay , I admitted, as I bowed to yet another round of avid applause,this is a freaking blast .
The last song had barely begun before Vayl began to sing along from the back of the tent. I didn’t even know the thing had words, and I sure hadn’t expected him to turn it into a group performance. But there he was, walking toward me down the center of the aisle, singing Romanian in his husky baritone.
Definitely a love song,I decided as I turned and swung my hips at him. I looked over my shoulder. His smile was definitely predatory. I gave him a little torso roll and he rewarded me with a look of such piercing hunger I nearly jumped on him. How we maintained a PG rating through the rest of that song I will never know. But the thunderous applause at the end told me it was big fun.
I strutted off the stage, waving and blowing kisses to my new fans. Which was undoubtedly why, as soon as I made it past the backstage curtain, I ran straight into a support pole. I damn near brought the whole house down. Literally. I held the pole very still and tried not to think of what would happen if we couldn’t lure Lung into a one-on-one because the Assistant Assassin ran her head into a steel rod.
A sound to my right caught my attention. It was very subtle, landing somewhere between a quiet snort and a faint gurgle. I took a short hike outside the tent and found Cole rolling on the ground.
“Are you all right?” I rushed to him, trying to hold him still so I could see the site of his injury. Then I got a look at his face. “Are youlaughing ?”
“Oh my God, you should’ve seen your face!” He was trying to hold it in so the audience wouldn’t be distracted from Vayl’s singing. But the laughter kept slipping out the edges of his mouth.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” I demanded.
“Than to watch a gorgeous woman belly dance? We are talking aboutme , right?”
“So it was good?”
“I sure couldn’t figure out why you were freaking out about the whole thing. Until the pole incident, of course. Good thing nobody saw you but me.”
“I saw her.” Cassandra came up beside us, laughing so hard her shoulders were shaking.
“Oh for—isn’t it your turn?” I glared at her.
“Yes, and I was dreading it so badly I threw up three times. But now I feel better.” Her smile was as warm as a hug. “Thank you.”
“Hey, anytime I can entertain you with my humiliation, I feel I’ve done my job. What the hell is it with me lately?” I wondered aloud. “I can’t seem to make it through a single day without running into or falling over something. And I was a college athlete!”
Cassandra regarded me soberly. “The universe requires balance, Jasmine. Your powers as a Sensitive have increased, have they not?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Perhaps your recent spate of awkward incidents is the price you are required to pay for that boost.”
“Well, if it’s true, that sucks.”
She nodded, clearly distracted by other, more important considerations. “Will you”—Cassandra licked her lips as her eyes darted toward the tent, as if she could see Lung through two layers of canvas and a black curtain—“when the time comes, you will stay close by, won’t you?”
“Is in the room close enough?”
“Oh, really? I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that.”
“It was Vayl’s idea. When we give away the free reading, we toss in a private belly dance too. That puts me right beside you the whole time he’s there.” There was a moment of silence from inside the tent, followed by a healthy round of applause. Then Vayl began his final song. “We know from talking to Yetta Simms that Lung loves the escargot. So we’ll offer him a tray of delicacies and hope he’s in the mood to indulge himself.” Cassandra already knew this stuff, but I needed to keep her thinking, thus the review. If her analytical mind let go, she was going to freeze like a math whiz at a spelling bee.
“And if he won’t eat it?” she asked.
“We’ll figure some other way to get him to swallow the pill. Maybe stuff it in his vitamins or something. That comes later— maybe. For now, encourage him to eat. Eat with him even, but stay away from the snails.”
She nodded, looking fairly calm until your eyes dropped to her hands. Her long slender fingers kept twining in and around one another like newborn snakes.
“Hey, Cassandra,” said Cole, “I meant to tell you. Your boyfriend’s in the audience.” He said it as if we’d teleported back to junior high, and he suspected she’d just contracted a terminal case of the cooties.
“My . . . what?”
Cole went into his superhero pose, legs spread, hands on hips, chin directed squarely at the sky, and sang, “Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, SWAT man!”
“Oh, God!” Cassandra clutched at me, her fingernails digging into my arms.Ow! “Jasmine! The vision!”
I hid the dread that twisted my insides at the realization that everybody in her divination had now reached his or her appointed place. “Don’t worry, Cassandra. When I see the snake, I promise I’ll shoot it before it strikes.”
“I’ll be there too,” Cole assured her.