He turned in that felt-you-looking sort of way, and I darted my eyes away. A few other students were there, all in their standard uniform—girls in gray leggings and tunics, boys in black denim and wool sweaters. I became acutely aware of the wedgie my damp cotton granny briefs had deposited between my sandy cheeks. I forced myself to stand tall and ignore it, but I felt like a moron.
I scanned the dance studio for a familiar face. And find one I did. I felt my face explode into a smile, because pretty much one of the only things that could make a special seminar in decorum palatable was my friend Yasuo.
“Yo.” He gave me a huge grin, apparently as happy as I was that we were in this together.
I made a beeline straight for him, and he scanned my clothes, cocking his head in amusement. “What’s with the outfit, Blondie?”
I crossed my arms in front of my chest, feeling exposed standing there in my shorts and sweatshirt. “Alcántara pulled me from Tracer Otto’s gym class.”
Yasuo raised a brow.
“Don’t ask.” I stole a surreptitious glance at the other students. “Don’t get me wrong—I am totally thrilled that I’m not in this alone, but what’s everyone doing here?”
“Remedial dance.” He showed off an impromptu—and awkward—box step, and I saw immediately why he had to put in extra time on the dance floor.
I smiled. “Yas can fight, but he can’t dance?”
“Oh baby, Yas can dance. He just don’t do…”
“Ballroom?”
“Yeah. That one.” He extended his arms, combining a fluid wave with a little step-step slide. “And they won’t let me pop and lock for extra credit.”
“Go figure.” I shook my head and had to admit he looked pretty awesome—like a chiseled, tall, and taut Japanese pop star. I gave him a playfully snarky smile. “So, do the smooth moves come naturally, or is hip-hop part of the Los Angeles public school curriculum?”
“Oh, Blondie, this is all one hundred percent natural, Yasuo Ito vampire mojo. All the better to wow the ladies.”
“Yasuo Ito vampire Trainee mojo,” I corrected him. Like the girls aspiring to become Watchers, a bunch of teenaged guys on this island were training to become vampires. The vampiric process was kept pretty secret from us Acari, but it seemed to me that a lot of the guys didn’t survive it. And though Yas wouldn’t give me any clues, every once in a while I could sense his anxiety about the whole thing. “Seems to me you’re still a long way from vampiredom.”
He raised his hands in surrender. “Ouch.”
I sensed a shift in the energy around me, as if class was getting ready to start, and I stifled a giggle, whispering, “Yeah, because you’re so sensitive.”
“Attention.” Dagursson stood at the front of the studio, clapping his bizarrely long, bony hands. His eyes swept the room, pausing on me for the merest second. If I knew Master Dag, he’d hate the sight of cotton, particularly damp, sandy cotton.
I shuddered, and Yas leaned down to whisper in my ear. “Dude looks like the Crypt Keeper’s ugly cousin.”
I concealed a smile, glad he was there to share my pain. “Sucks that the whole vampire-mirror-reflection thing is a myth.” The mirrored walls at the front of the room made it seem as if there were ten thousand Master Dagurssons standing before us.
“You will each choose a partner,” Dagursson said.
Yas and I simultaneously stepped closer to each other’s side. Make that beyond glad he was there.
“Today we shall perfect the Viennese waltz.”
We simultaneously took one step apart, and at the look of horror on my friend’s face, I had to choke back a laugh, which unfortunately ended up sounding more like a snort.
“Viennese waltz?” I glanced up at Yasuo. He was so tall, and I was so not. “How, exactly, is that supposed to work? You’re too big.”
He put a hand to his heart. “I never knew you cared.”
I gave him a piercing look. “Shut up. It wasn’t supposed to be a compliment.”
“Get into position.” Dagursson’s voice bounded off the walls.
Yas and I obediently faced each other. He shook his head regretfully, taking my right hand in his left. “D., you slay me.”
“I think I know who slays you, and it ain’t me.” I’d seen how close he and Emma had gotten by the end of last semester, leaning closer than necessary to talk and catching each other’s eyes in little private jokes.
His right hand gripped my waist hard. “Stop right there, baby girl.”
The music cut out, and we shut up in the sudden silence, waiting as Dagursson fiddled with his iPod. The sight was so weird, my mouth smiled, but my brows frowned. Apparently vamps liked cool tech toys, too—though, for all I knew, it was the iPod that’d been confiscated from me last semester. They’d never consider letting us have any gadgets, and they kept the computer lab under lock and key.
The music started, and some standard-issue Strauss piped into the room.
Ugh. Not on my iPod.
“Listen carefully.” Dagursson began to clap those freaky hands again, beating in time. “One-two-three, one-two-three. Do you hear the triple beat? Gentlemen, you’ll step with your left foot on the first beat. Ready?” He zipped back to the beginning of the song, shouting, “Four, five, six…”
Yas stumbled on the very first step, and it took a moment for us to find our rhythm. “I feel like the freaking sugarplum fairy,” he grumbled.
“That’s ballet, not ballroom.” Yas took too big a side step and earned a snarly look from me when I tripped on his foot. “That you’re almost a foot taller than me doesn’t help.”
Yas waggled his eyebrows. “Not my fault I’m such a fabulous specimen.”
“Spare me.” I really was losing patience, and it wasn’t just because of Yasuo. I wondered whether I’d be able to dance with any partner, or if I was just that lame. Was that why Alcántara insisted I take this class? Not because of our mission, but because he’d somehow found out I sucked so royally?
But then I remembered that last weird exchange of ours. He’d told me to believe I was beautiful. That the key to dancing well was believing my own elegance, my own grace.
I concentrated hard, and we danced in silence for a time, Yas mouthing the words One-two-three, one-two-three as he did a fairly clumsy job of a box step. “So why do we need to know how to dance, anyway?” he finally asked. But talking messed up his rhythm, and we both had to do a quickstep back into time with the music.
I shrugged in answer, which seemed to throw Yasuo off again, and so I snickered. “Maybe we’ll have vampire prom.”
He shot me an appalled look. “What is this, Twilight?”
“How should I know? I’m still getting over supposedly needing this for my mission.”
“Maybe you’ll have to dance with Alcántara,” he teased.
The prospect gave me the chills. “Don’t even say it. Seriously, Yas. Literally, don’t say it. Last time Emma mentioned his name, he appeared.”
“One-two-three,” he whispered, then added distractedly, “Hey, the guy saved you from gym class.”
I guessed he had a point. “Yeah, and that creepy Herr Otto.”
“Tell me about it,” Yas said. “He’s the dude who brought me in, you know.”
My brows shot up. “Seriously?”
Yasuo had lost his mind when he saw his Yakuza father kill his mother. And then he’d lost his options when he turned around and killed his father. But I hadn’t realized Tracer Otto was the one who’d found and retrieved him, and somehow I had a hard time picturing Otto trawling Hollywood Boulevard for prospective students.
I was about to comment, when I noticed Yas was doing strange things with his mouth as he concentrated. I shoved a little space between us. “What are you doing?”
He gave me a blank look, and so I mimicked the look of his tongue pulsing beneath his closed lips.
“Ohhh,” he said with a grin, and then he bared his teeth, wiggling his canines with his tongue. “I’m gettin’ my fangs, Blondie.”
“Eeesh.” The sight of it took me aback. I’d never known how the vampires got their fangs, and here was the explanation right in front of me. The canine teeth became loose and fell out; then shiny new fangs grew in their place—we’d been administered regular doses of vampire blood since arrival, and it looked like this was one of the side effects for the boys. “Crazy. Wonder if the tooth fairy will come for you?”
We shared a smile that froze as we realized Dagursson stood at our shoulders. “It is my turn to dance with Acari Drew.”
Yas gave my hand a quick squeeze, then with a respectful bow of his head, stepped back to let Dagursson cut in.
I tried to clear my face of expression, because I had a big picture of what happened to Acari who displayed revulsion in the face of vampire greatness. But instead of thinking about the ritual of the dance, I was concentrating too hard on looking calm, steeling myself for the moment his skin would touch mine, and so when Dagursson took one big side step, I didn’t think; I just instinctively mirrored his action.
His beady eyes narrowed to slits. “No, Acari Drew. This is the time at which a man bows to his partner. I step like so”—he swept his hand, repeating the elegant side step—“and you curtsy.”
I did my best curtsy, feeling like a total moron. Dagursson made an indistinguishable mmph sound, which I assumed wasn’t complimentary.
He stepped closer and took me in his arms, and the proximity so freaked me out, I had to look away. To my surprise he praised me. “Very prettily done, Acari. Partners do not gaze into each other’s eyes. A lady should tilt her chin up”—he pinched my chin between his bony finger and thumb to adjust my head—“up, up, up. Look over my shoulder.”
He scowled at my hand resting on his upper arm. “That is all wrong. Your fingers are like little sausages. Extend them.” I stretched my fingers out as long as they could go, listening to him drone on, “You are small. Compactly made. You must try to elongate your body as much as possible.”