The music thumped through the arena.

The women flew.

And from the center of the stage, a man appeared, rising on a small circular platform no more than five feet across, rising up into the center of the flame.

As he ascended, his costume began to flow past the edge of the circle for several feet until the bottom edge suddenly burst into flame. Cries went up from all around the audience, but the central performer merely turned in a circle and the flames stayed burning just at the hem of the garment.

“Welcome,” the man called out.

“Casimir,” Fiona said.

“I am Rimizac, your host for tonight.” He spread his arms wide. “Welcome to Dark Spectacle.”

The applause resounded through the vast length of the theater. Even though Fiona knew she was seeing and hearing Casimir, she was amazed by what she saw and applauded with everyone else.

The women flying in the red flame-like tornado around him now began to depart as seamlessly as they had come, one by one, flying back down the ramp at amazing speed into the cave.

The music subsided then drifted into the most exquisite and strange melancholy tone, very impressionistic. Casimir held his arms wide; the flames at the hem of his robe exploded then turned to large white puffs of smoke that drifted into the air. “Bring the sacrificial lamb to me,” he called out. “Bring her to me.”

He extended both his hands in the direction of the cave’s mouth.

Two enormous men, bodies gleaming and oiled and wearing only loincloths, were in full-mount. Their wings were identical and almost pure white, very large, magnificent. Between them they held aloft a woman whose costume was nothing more than a few streamers of a green mesh fabric. She was otherwise naked.

“She’s naked,” Fiona said aloud. She was stunned.

Her legs thrashed in the air as the two men flew her in the direction of Casimir.

“Her wings are not mounted,” Jean-Pierre added.

Fiona clung to his arm. She didn’t like where this was headed.

The two men flew the woman to Casimir and dumped her at his feet on the platform. The woman either was unconscious now or pretended to be. She rolled to the side and fell limply off the small raised circular platform.

Many women screamed at the sight of what would mean certain death.

But Casimir extended a hand down in her direction and just as she would have struck the circular stage, she stopped in midair. Slowly, through the force of his power, he drew her back toward him in a feat of pure levitation that she knew did not exist on Second Earth.

“How is he doing that?”

Jean-Pierre leaned close. “Remember that he is an Upper ascender. You and I know that, but no doubt most everyone here will believe he is using ropes or some other trick. He is believed to be a magician.”

Slowly the woman rose, on her back, her legs splayed wide open, a few wisps of the green gauzy fabric barely disguising her nakedness.

The music shifted and what had been somewhat mystical now turned very heavy, more about wild drums and timpani than melody.

As the woman breached the side of the platform, Casimir leaped off, which sent another cry rising from the audience, but he merely floated in the air. At the same time, he shed what was the voluminous cloak so that it fell in a heap to the stage below.

He wore just a loincloth as he approached the floating woman. He moved between her legs, and if Fiona hadn’t been embarrassed by the obviously sexual nature of the theatrics she would have been astounded by the levitation alone.

At the same moment, the drums and timpani grew louder, and developed a driving rhythm. From somewhere guttural grunts emerged, probably offstage.

He bent over the woman, pushing her head to one side. He appeared to sink his fangs, which brought the woman to life as she slipped her legs around his buttocks. Casimir’s hips began to move.

Fiona wanted to look away, but probably like everyone else she was mesmerized by the audacity of the act. Just as she was about to shade her eyes, several winged men emerged from the cave, also in loincloths, bodies glistening, nine men in all, with long hair that flowed behind them. Hundreds of trained swans flew behind the men in close formation.

She had only heard of the trained birds that were used during spectacle. The lights shining on them were red. The men were their trainers and took up patterns that brought squadrons of the swans flying in intricate circles up and around the copulating image of Casimir and the woman.

At the same time, an enormous flood of red confetti descended from the tall ceiling so that the couple was soon completely disguised by the flocks of birds in flight and the red rain of confetti.

The music still pounded the wild rhythms. Whether they were actually engaged in the act, Fiona would probably never know. She didn’t want to know.

But the rain of confetti stopped and the birds and their trainers began widening their patterns until they were making large circles well over much of the audience then finally they headed back to the cave.

The music slowed then halted as the last of the swans disappeared.

In the center, Casimir and the woman were simply gone, probably folded somewhere.

The effect, however, was astonishing. The small round platform that Casimir had occupied was now covered in red confetti and descended slowly to the large circular stage, also covered in red so that by the time the smaller platform reentered the stage, the whole effect was like looking at a lake of blood.

Suddenly, a body fell from the distance of the ceiling, the woman again, in the same strange pose.

Just as she would have struck the lake of blood, Casimir appeared and caught her in his arms.

The applause was thunderous. He kissed her, which seemed to revive her. Even Fiona couldn’t help but put her hands together. In terms of drama, the whole thing was amazing. And for this small moment, she was enchanted.

Santiago leaned forward. “Jean-Pierre, I think that’s Crace’s widow, you know, Julianna.”

“I think you are right, mon ami. Yes, it is her. I did not know she had become a performer, but then I suppose as the wife of a High Administrator one could call her role a performance—and she did excel at that. She was very well connected in the greater Chicago Territory. She always had the most beautiful brea—that is, a lovely figure.”

Fiona shook her head but couldn’t help extending her vision as well, something she was certain most of the vampires in the building were doing. The woman’s breasts, barely covered by the gauze, were indeed pretty great, and as Casimir turned them both in a circle, she thrust her chest forward. She lifted her arm and vanished.

As the show progressed, Fiona understood one thing: Casimir was a true showman. How unfortunate he had aligned himself with Greaves. If all this time he had been the force behind Dark Spectacle, why on earth, any dimension, did he need to forge an alliance with the devil incarnate?

Since Casimir was very old, maybe he’d simply grown bored with life. She said as much to Jean-Pierre.

“It happens, chérie, especially for those rogue vampires who no longer inhabit the dimensions for which they are suited. Casimir is a Fourth ascender, which means that the scope of his powers probably makes his life on either Mortal Earth or Second rather dull.”

Fiona tried to imagine living for even several hundred years, never mind thousands of years. She thought of Endelle, and her complete disregard for propriety, for appropriateness of conduct in just about every situation. The woman was the leader of all Second Earth and wore mini skirts made out of boar’s hide, for God’s sake.

Maybe that’s what happened over time: boredom, indifference.

Then she wondered if she would even have the luxury of finding out what tomorrow would be like, never mind a thousand years.

She glanced at Jean-Pierre’s profile. She sat beside one of the most powerful men on Second Earth, a Warrior of the Blood. This sort of proximity alone put her life in jeopardy, just as her own extraordinary emerging powers put her at risk.

Would she even have years to grow jaded like Endelle or a complete hedonist like Casimir?

For some reason, still looking at Jean-Pierre, at his handsome profile, at the lips that rose in two kissable points, at the sheer strength of the set of his jaw and the way he held his head high, his gaze moving back and forth over the audience, the central stage, the dark cave, her chest seemed to collapse as emotion, unexpected, swamped her. She loved him. She loved him.

Her heart beat erratically, leaping around. Of course she knew she loved him, but right now what she felt seemed much, much greater, a living thing inside her swirling as the swans had swirled in circles, rising up and up.

She squeezed his arm, which brought his gaze to hers. Even though the orchestra had begun a powerful symphony, something like Beethoven, perhaps, Jean-Pierre leaned down and kissed her. It was not a simple kiss. No, he kissed her as though he understood the cry of her heart for him, his lips a pressure that kept increasing. She pushed back and parted her lips. That he pierced her mouth sent all those familiar sensations flowing through her, erupting so suddenly that she let him hear her body’s response as a soft moan through his head, I’m coming.

So he used his tongue and worked her in that way only he could, drawing out the sudden physical response so peculiar to her, that she could orgasm with just a kiss. Tears brimmed in her eyes.

Maybe it was Dark Spectacle. Maybe it was the music, or the moment, or the knowledge that death lived off her right shoulder ready to swing the scythe, or maybe it was just Jean-Pierre in a gorgeous tux, but as he drew back from her and smiled that tender smile of his, she sent, Je t’aime. I love you, so very much. You have my heart.

His expression changed, his ocean eyes narrowing, his cheeks drawing in, his breath a sigh. Je t’aime, aussi, he sent. You have my heart as well, ma chérie.

But something began to change. His eyelashes batted as if in slow motion. He spoke as he turned back to the music. “The … music … is … Beethoven’s…” The last word was so low and so garbled she could make no sense of it. Then he simply froze.

She didn’t know what was happening. She turned to glance down the long curved row of boxes. No one blinked, spoke, or moved in any perceptible manner.