A Monster and a Gentleman

by Lila Dubois

  It wasn’t much to go on, but Oren was hoping they could stop by the coffee shop and identify the blogger. With nothing to go on except the location, this was a very long shot, but worth a try.

  Maeve caught up to him and put two fingers on his arm. He looked over at her but was too embarrassed to meet her gaze. He was a nasty old recovering addict and she was a young, beautiful and powerful woman. What had he expected her to say when he said he wanted to kiss her? Jump across the armrest and plant one on him?

  That sort of thing only happened in movies.

  “I read the blog, and the person who writes it hangs out here. I have no idea if they’re actually here now.”

  “How will we know it’s them?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Is it a man or a woman?”

  “A woman or a gay man.” Oren slowed his steps as they neared the coffee shop. The shops on this block were all raised a few feet higher than the sidewalk. The outdoor patio was elevated from the sidewalk and fenced in. Though it was late in the day, all the tables were occupied. Most were taken by people with laptops, and there was a power strip stretched across the ground to the center of the patio, with a variety of plugs coming out of it. Oren scanned the patrons, then mounted the steps to the door. There were fewer tables inside. No laptops in here, and as they passed an empty table Oren saw a sign that said there was a twenty-minute time limit on indoor tables. That explained why all the wannabe screenwriters were outside.

  “I don’t think it’s anyone in here,” he whispered to Maeve.

  “No one here has a computer.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Should we go outside?”

  “Yes.”

  Oren nodded to the waiting barista but turned and headed outside. Since there were clearly no free tables, there was no good reason for them to be walking around on the patio. Luckily, everyone was so engrossed in their computer screens that they didn’t notice.

  Maeve’s hands were raised away from her sides, and as they passed each person she lifted a hand closer to them, but didn’t touch them. They made a little circle, trying to be discreet. When they were back where they started, Oren looked at Maeve, who shook her head. There was a frown marring her face.

  Together they went back into the shop. The barista raised a brow.

  Oren went to the counter. “Can I get a large nonfat latte, please?”

  “Do you want a shot of flavor or an extra shot of espresso?”

  “No, thanks. Maeve, do you want something?”

  “I don’t know what this is.”

  “You mean coffee?”

  “Coffee. I’ve heard about coffee.”

  Oren looked at the barista, but he hadn’t even blinked. “Okay, well, maybe something sweet to start you off. She’ll have a small mocha, easy on the java, with whipped.”

  Soon the espresso machine was hissing away, which covered their conversation. “Could you, you know, See, anything?”

  “No. I did not try to touch the Everafter, merely got an idea of what each of them was feeling.”

  “What were they feeling?”

  “Desire. Desire for fame.”

  Oren snorted. “That’s L.A. for you.”

  “For some of them the desire was more aggressive than others.”

  “That’s interesting, and it’s a little alarming that you can tell all that just by being close to someone. I think we should focus on the ones who felt aggressive. If they want to be famous that much, they may risk publishing a story as alarming as ours.”

  “Even if I touch them, I may not be able to tell if they’re who we want, unless receiving the photos was a significant enough to resonate in the Everafter.”

  “That’s okay, you did your part. Now it’s my turn. I just need to get a look at their computer screens. Most of the people out there were checking email or wasting time watching videos. We’re looking for someone who is reading blogs or looking through celebrity photos.”

  “I have a latte for Owen and a mocha for Mary.”

  Oren took their drinks and stuffed a dollar in the tip jar.

  Maeve followed him, frowning at their drinks. “I’m not Mary, and you’re not Owen.”

  “Mary can be your coffee name.” Maeve stared at him. “I’ll explain later.”

  Once outside, they loitered by the door while Maeve pointed out the people she’d felt fame aggression from. There were three guys and one girl. Sadly, that didn’t help, because none of the guys had on shirts that said I’m straight.

  “If you drag them into a cave, I can make them tell us.”

  “Where exactly would you like me to find a cave? And how am I supposed to drag them?”

  “I suppose an alley would do, and you are strong enough.” Maeve squeezed his biceps.

  “Thank you for thinking I’m strong enough to overpower someone and drag them into a cave, but there’s a simpler idea.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You distract them, and I’ll go down on the sidewalk and try and get a look at their screens.”

  “Distract them…”

  “Just go up to them and say hi.”

  “That will be enough?”

  Oren looked her up and down, noting the way the dress clung softly to her curves. “Yep, that will be enough. Start with that guy there.”

  Oren went down the steps to the sidewalk. His chin was just level with most of the tables. He got into position behind a muscled, handsome guy who looked no older than twenty-five. He had on a blue T-shirt and jeans. His longish hair was held back from his face by a pair of expensive sunglasses.

  As Maeve walked toward his table, Oren stood on tiptoe to get a good look at his screen. He was listening to iTunes and checking his email. When Maeve stopped by his table and said hi, he closed his email, revealing that the window behind it was porn, which he also quickly closed.

  Oren shook his head at Maeve.

  She said, “Sorry, wrong person,” then turned towards their next target.

  Oren hurried over, but almost immediately he saw that this wasn’t the person. They actually were writing a screenplay. Maeve didn’t even say hi to him before Oren shook his head.

  The next table over was the lone female among their targets. She was slumped in her chair, wearing a knit beanie and fingerless gloves with shorts and a tank top. She had thick glasses and a messenger bag covered in patches at her feet.

  She was on the side of the patio rather than at the front like the others had been, so it was harder for Oren to get a view of her screen. Maeve looked at him and he did his best to pantomime that he couldn’t see. She frowned for a moment, then seemed to understand.

  Maeve walked over to the woman, pulled out the spare chair and sat down at her table.

  “Excuse me?” Oren could just barely hear the girl’s shocked question. She swiveled her laptop screen away from Maeve but didn’t shut it.

  “Hello.” Maeve said, lifting her cup to her lips. She took a sip, her first, and her eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, that’s tasty.”

  “This is my table.”

  “It is?”

  Oren finally got a glance at her laptop. It was open to the new post screen of a blog website. Holding back his whoop of triumph, he nodded to Maeve before running around to the steps. Oren grabbed an unoccupied chair and pulled it up to the girl’s table.

  “Who, who are you? What are you doing? If you want a table, go find one.”

  “We’re not here about the table.” Maeve’s voice was silky smooth. A cold breeze cut across them and Oren and the girl both shivered.

  “What do you want?”

  “We have some questions about something on your blog,” Oren said.

  “Um, I’m a screenwriter, not a blogger.” Her voice oozed disgust.

  “I saw you working on a new post for Hollywood Heartbeat.”

  “Okay, first, that’s like totally rude. Second, I don’t run Hollywood Heartbeat, my friend does. This is his laptop.”

/>   “Well then, who’s your friend?”

  “I’m so not going to tell you.”

  Maeve narrowed her eyes, watching the girl, then she looked over her shoulder through the shop window…at the barista. “He is.”

  “Shit.” The girl jumped up and ran inside. She leaned on the counter, having a whispered conversation with the guy who’d made their drinks. A moment later he came out from around the counter, untying his apron and hanging it from the espresso machine.

  He sat at the table, gaze skittering nervously between Maeve and Oren. His hair was impeccably cut and he wore a tight black T-shirt.

  Oren gave himself a moment to adjust to this change, then spoke. “We know you run Hollywood Heartbeat.”

  He placed a hand on the closed laptop on the table. “Leave me and my friend alone.”

  “We need to talk to you about something you posted.”

  “My sources are confidential.”

  “You’re a gossip blogger, not a reporter.”

  “It’s still free speech.”

  “Is it?” Maeve’s tone was so cold it almost dripped ice. “You may say whatever you want?” The air around their table was cold, and Oren had to fight the urge to lean away from Maeve. Somehow she was radiating danger.

  “I…I…Which post are you talking about? I could take it down.”

  “The one about the monsters,” Maeve purred.

  “What?”

  Oren shot Maeve a look. “You posted pictures from Calypso Production’s new movie.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “In it, you claim monsters were real.”

  “The lady who gave them to me was the one who came up with all that. I thought being the first to have still from the movie would get me lots of hits, but everyone assumes it’s a publicity stunt.”

  “Publicity stunt?” Oren said. He and Maeve shared a look.

  “Like they did for District 9—pretending it was all real to get some viral stuff going.”

  Oren let out a slow breath. No one was taking the claim seriously. They might be safe. “We need to know who gave you those photos.”

  “I’m not going to tell you.”

  “That movie is locked down tight and whoever sent you those shots is in breach of their NDA.”

  “So it wasn’t a stunt?” The boy’s eyes narrowed.

  Oren sighed and pretended to be tired, when inside he was jumping. “It was just an idea we had, but it hadn’t been approved yet, and the marketing firm didn’t sign off.”

  “Oh.”

  “So tell us who it is.”

  “No.”

  Maeve put her palm down on the tabletop. “Tell us. Now.”

  The air around Maeve shimmered. The nails of the hand she had on the table were lengthening, and when she bared her teeth Oren would have sworn her canines were getting longer. Oren grabbed her wrist and forced her hand off the table. Luckily the guy had pulled out his phone and was looking at it.

  If they weren’t careful, Maeve herself was about to prove that monsters were real, here in this coffee shop.

  Oren held up a palm. “If you tell us who gave it to you and take the post down, I promise that when we do release stills we’ll give them to you three hours before anyone else.”

  “No fake stuff. I don’t want to look stupid because I fell for your cheap marketing trick.”

  “Agreed, no fake stuff.”

  He looked inside, checking to make sure there were no waiting customers, then opened his laptop. “I can’t tell you because I don’t know. They were emailed to me anonymously.”

  “But earlier you said ‘lady.’” Maeve said. She seemed to have herself under control, so Oren let go of the wrist he still held. “You said ‘the lady who gave them to me.’” Oren hadn’t picked up on that and looked at Maeve in admiration. “Tell us the truth.”

  “I did, I don’t know who it is, but her email made me think it was a woman.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Here, I’ll show you.”

  He turned the screen to Maeve and Oren.

  Dear Hollywood Heartbeat,

  I have the news of the century. Attached are pictures of the filming of Calypso Production’s new movie—the secret summer blockbuster. There’s a reason they’re keeping it a secret. The men starring in the movie aren’t really men. They’re actually monsters. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s not. It turns out monsters are real and have been hiding from humans for all these years. They can’t hide for much longer and so they’ve decided to make a movie about coming out, which is really them coming out.

  The world needs to know about this, now. People need to start preparing and realize that there’s evil out there.

  Everyone is talking about how hot the actors are, but these aren’t real handsome men, they’re demons wearing human bodies. Ladies need to be warned to stay away from them.

  The world needs to know that there are monsters who can make themselves look like me. The world needs to know monsters are real.

  Oren sat back, a ball of worry and dread forming in his stomach.

  Maeve’s hands curled into fists. “Evil? Demons?”

  Oren put his hand on her knee under the table.

  “See what I mean? It says ‘women need to be warned.’ That assumes that women are the ones attracted to them—that’s a straight woman talking.”

  “That makes sense,” Oren agreed. “While we’re here, take down the post, please.”

  “Fine.”

  A few clicks later, Oren watched as he deleted it. It wasn’t completely gone from the Internet, but that was a start.

  “Wait. I didn’t even get your names.” He looked between them. “How do I know you’re even with the movie?”

  Oren passed him a card. “And this is Maeve, one of the…producers.”

  “Oh, okay.” He was staring at Oren’s card, as if trying to remember why he knew the name. Oren wanted to be gone before he Googled it.

  “Thank you, and I’ll let the marketing firm know about our arrangement.”

  “Okay.”

  Oren grabbed their drinks and urged Maeve to walk away. Anger was coming off her in waves.

  “Just wait until we get to the car,” he begged her.

  “That letter called us evil. There is more evil in humans than there ever was in my people.”

  “I’m sure that’s true, but let’s just get to the car.” Oren wasn’t sure if he’d imagined the nails and teeth, but if that was going to happen again, he didn’t want to be on the sidewalk.

  He relaxed when they were buckled into their seats. “That was great. Now we know we’re looking for a girl.”

  “And now we know that whoever she is, she doesn’t just want money. She thinks we’re evil.”

  Oren nodded slowly. “This is not good.”

  “When I find her…” Maeve turned to stare out the window, and Oren put the car in gear, not wanting to know exactly what Maeve would do.

  Chapter Nine

  Lena

  Lena jotted down notes and Oren explained what he and the newcomer Maeve had found out. Maeve’s arrival had been a revelation. It was no wonder the guys found human women attractive. Maeve, who was, as far Lena could tell, an authority figure in the Clan, looked as human as Lena herself. She was a cross between a supermodel and the creepy women found in most horror movies. Luke had told her that Maeve didn’t shift the way they did, but that her human form was only what she looked like at rest.

  “Tell me again what the email said.” With one hand Lena wrote down word for word what Oren said, as she held her phone to her ear with the other. “Okay, thanks, we’ll use this information to take a look at who might have done it.” The words were bitter in Lena’s mouth. They trusted every person on the set to keep their secret, and someone had betrayed that trust.

  “I might be able to help,” Oren said.

  “I’m listening.”

  Oren told her his theory—that the images were simply pictures of h
is screens. That meant only someone in the room that day could have done it. Lena’s stomach clenched.

  “You mean they may have taken the pictures while everyone was watching?”

  “We went through that footage multiple times, and after the first time people started going in and out.”

  Oren gave her the list of the people he remembered in the room. Between that, and the wording of the email, Oren had reduced his list to two people—Catherine and Nell.

  Lena’s fingers shook as she wrote down the names. Catherine was quiet and a bit cold, but Lena couldn’t imagine her doing this. Then again, she couldn’t imagine Nell, who was an indie film location scout legendary for her ability to find places that didn’t require extensive permits, emailing photos that would hurt them.

  Lena wanted to tell Oren that he was wrong, that these people who she’d had a hand in picking would never have betrayed them, but she couldn’t. Right now no one was above suspicion.

  “Maeve wants to come to set tomorrow. She says that if she touches them she’ll be able to tell if they did it.”

  Luke hadn’t explained exactly what Maeve was, so she asked, “Is Maeve a mind reader, or a witch?”

  “No. She’s a banshee.”

  Lena whistled.

  “And she can see people’s futures, and their pasts.”

  “Remind me not to shake her hand,” Lena said.

  “She’s intense. It would have been nice to have some warning.”

  Lena winced. Oren had been the most obvious suspect and despite his protests that he was innocent, they’d decided to let Maeve surprise him. All Luke had said was that she’d be able to tell if Oren had done it and wouldn’t hurt him. She bit back the urge to say she was sorry.