The Killing Dance is the sixth in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series of horror/mystery novels by Laurell K. Hamilton

Plot summary

The Killing Dance takes place in May, about a month and a half after Bloody Bones and like the previous novels, The Killing Dance begins with a potential job for Anita in her role as an Animators, Inc. employee. In this case, Anita and Jean-Claude are in Anita's office meeting with Sabin, a master vampire, and with Dominic Dumare, Sabin's human servant. Sabin and Dumare explain that Sabin, in order to please a mortal lover, promised to abstain from feeding on the blood of live humans. As a result, he has developed a condition in which his body is irreversibly rotting away, and is beginning to lose control of his powers. Dumare, a necromancer, believes that if he and Anita join their abilities and his experience, they may be able to cure Sabin, and Anita agrees to help if possible. Jean-Claude and Anita ponder the parallels between Sabin's relationship with his unnamed mortal love and their own romantic relationship, and Anita leaves for a date with her other boyfriend, Richard. (Although Jean-Claude, a vampire, is in the process of consolidating his leadership of the city, Richard is locked in an ongoing struggle for leadership of the werewolves of the city with their current Ulfric, Marcus, primarily because Richard, unlike Jean-Claude, is not willing to kill in order to assume or maintain power.)

Anita and Richard go to a dinner party at Anita's friend Catherine's house. There, they meet one of Jean-Claude's vampires, Robert, and his wife, Monica. Monica announces that she is pregnant, which Anita had previously thought impossible for a vampire of Robert's age. Monica is also very friendly with Anita, notwithstanding her assistance in the plot to hyponize Catherine and blackmail Anita in Guilty Pleasures. Anita wonders if Jean-Claude deliberately planned for Robert to attend the party to spy on her and Richard. She and Richard are forced to leave the party early after she receives a call from Edward. Edward, one of the world's premier assassins and a sort of friend of Anita's, tells Anita that he has received a proposed contract to kill Anita. He has refused, but wants her to get home and begin making plans to protect herself while he investigates the identity of the person putting out the contract on her life.