Thoughts chased each other through my head in a dizzying funnel of possibility as I tried to take in everything I was seeing and hearing at once.
If they could truly limit Lenore to “minor” vocal influence, why would they need to warn her not to take things too far?
And if we were to be allowed in and out of the kitchen, would we have access to knives, meat mallets and other potential weapons? Would having weapons even matter, if we could be paralyzed with the press of a button?
Even if I could disable a guard and take his remote, at best I’d have seconds to figure out how to work it. And if I somehow managed to escape not just the room, but the building, then the grounds, I’d be abandoning everyone I cared about in the entire world. I’d have no other choice.
Would escape be worth an on-the-run existence that would only last for however long it took them to track my collar? Which I had no idea how to remove.
Would my friends be punished for my escape?
The coordinator glanced at his clipboard again, and the movement refocused my attention. “Mr. Lansing has requested the ‘hypnotist’ package, so about halfway through the evening, Lenore will pick a couple of volunteers from the party and bring them up onstage. The crowd will shout out things they want to see their friends do, and she will make it happen.” He turned directly to her for the next part. “Just whisper in their ears and do your thing. Most of the requests are stupid, and they’ve put down a huge security deposit, so it doesn’t really matter what they mess up. As for the rest of you...”
The coordinator turned to those of us who wouldn’t be singing, and I got the impression that the instructions were specifically aimed at Zyanya and me, because the others had presumably done this many times. “You’ll be carrying trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres. No one expects you to be good at it, and we have professional servers who’ll make sure everyone’s fed and liquored up. All you really have to do is balance your tray and look exotic. Stay in the center of things. Make sure all your freaky features are visible. They’re going to want to see claws and teeth. They’ll want to touch feathers and scales. Let them. There will be security all over the place, and if the customers try to get more than they’ve paid for, the handlers will take care of it.”
More than they’ve paid for.My skin crawled at the thought.
The coordinator gave us a quick lecture on the Savage Spectacle’s serving procedures and showed us how to balance a semifull tray with one hand. Then he made us practice with trays of water-filled plastic stemmed glasses. I sloshed three times in a span of five minutes—even in my normal human life, I’d never waited tables—which got me demoted to hors d’oeuvres, along with Zyanya, because those were harder to spill.
While we practiced, the professional servers came in and out of a set of swinging doors on the left every few minutes as they set things up in the next room.
An identical set of doors on the opposite side of the kitchen presumably led to another room on our right, but nothing was going on in there.
About an hour after our engagement briefing, the coordinator disappeared into the party room and the quiet buzz of activity in the kitchen became a tense bustle. Music poured from the other side of the swinging doors. I glanced at the huge clock high on one wall and saw that it was five minutes until 9:00 p.m. The party was about to start.
A minute later, the swinging door opened again, and this time a man in dark slacks and a green button-down shirt followed the coordinator into the kitchen. His gaze slid over thousands of dollars’ worth of top-shelf alcohol and gourmet appetizers as if they were everyday fare, and I realized that he was not a Spectacle employee.
“Mr. Lansing, these are the cryptids we’ve prepared for your party. We have Belinda, an echidna, and a female werewolf named Clarisse.” The coordinator gestured to the first women in our row.
“Echidna? Isn’t that a snake woman?” Lansing lifted Belinda’s chin as he studied the painted scales trailing down both sides of her face. “Where’s her tail?”
“She doesn’t have one in this form.”
“But she’ll shift later?”
The coordinator nodded. “If that’s what you’d like.”
Lansing grunted. “The freakier the better. What are these two?”
“Zyanya is a cheetah shifter. Notice her eyes and her teeth.” The coordinator grabbed her chin and tilted her head up. “She’s a gorgeous specimen.”
Lansing’s gaze lingered on Zyanya long enough to make me nervous.
“And her?” The client stopped in front of me. “Is this the siren?”
“No, Lenore is our siren, and she’s ready to lend a unique aura to your party.” The pair of men moved past me.
“I look forward to hearing her,” Lansing said. “Are we ready to go?”
“Yes. Let’s go show your guests in.” The coordinator escorted Lansing out of the kitchen.
Minutes later, voices rang out from behind the swinging doors. The guests had arrived, and they sounded as excited as I was horrified.
The coordinator stepped back into the kitchen and glanced at each of us in turn, evidently looking for flaws in the presentation. “Everybody ready?”
No one answered.
“You four each take a tray, and Lenore, you’ll follow them into the room, then head for the stage. They’re all set up for you.” When no one moved, he waved his arm impatiently. “Let’s go!”
