by Lila Dubois
Instead, she said, “Thanks, Oren. Where should Henry pick up Maeve?”
“Uh, well, we’re at dinner right now.”
Lena raised her eyebrows. “Okay, well, text me when you’re ready—”
“Maybe Henry should meet us here.”
For the first time, Lena heard an edge in his voice. “Oren, is everything okay?”
“Maeve is, uh, angry, and she’s a little…”
Lena had a horrible vision of Maeve turning into whatever it was she turned into in the middle of the restaurant. “I’ll have Henry head over now.”
There was a little sigh. Lena couldn’t decide if Oren was disappointed or relieved. “I hope he has a big car.”
“Why?”
“Maeve and I went shopping.”
Lena opened her mouth, closed it, then said, “Someday, when everything isn’t so tense, you need to tell me all about your day.”
Oren laughed.
They ended the call and a moment later, Oren texted her the address of the restaurant. She sent it on, along with a warning, to Henry. He’d learned to drive, as had Luke and Michael, though none of them had licenses because they didn’t have the paperwork—Social Security numbers, birth certificates—needed to get them.
With that done, she stared at what she’d written down. Anger and worry were bitter flavors on the back of her tongue. Nell and Catherine. She still had trouble accepting any of this.
After going through her notes, Lena reluctantly put pen to paper and added Lance to the list. She’d heard him refer to himself a lady in that way only gay men could pull off, and he was the next best suspect.
With her list of three, she picked up the phone and started calling her friends. When Margo answered, she blew out a breath and braced herself to pass on the news.
“They got something.”
Chapter Ten
Cali and Seling
The half-built skyscraper was bathed in the early light of dawn. The waking sunlight filtered through the tattered plastic sheets that bisected the otherwise bare floor of the building. The concrete was streaked with long, dark shadows cast by the massive steel supports that ringed the outer edges of the building and marched in neat rows across the empty space, supporting the equally empty floor above.
Wearing a black leather jacket, Seling walked to the edge, boots thumping. A gun dangled casually from his right hand.
A patch of shadow moved. Great cobalt wings unfolded and white fangs glittered in the morning light.
“Change,” Runako snarled. “You shame us by remaining in human form. And why do you have a human weapon?”
Seling shrugged. “I like the weapon. We should have them.”
“We don’t need them.”
“No, we don’t.” Seling set the gun down and started stripping. “But it makes killing humans faster and easier.”
“Did you find him?”
“No, but I found his woman.”
“He will come for her.” Runako turned away and walked to the edge.
Seling paused, hands on his waist, ready to push down his pants. “Do we have to kill her?”
“She knows what she should not.”
“But she—”
Runako whirled and roared, his arms out at his sides, talons glistening. “You have been too long among the humans. You forget our laws. Consorting with humans is treason. If you forget why we’ve followed the traitor to this god-forsaken city, then I will kill you myself.”
“No, Lord.” Seling dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “I do not forget.”
Runako stared at him for a moment, then grunted. “Tonight you’ll fetch the woman and bring her here. When the traitor arrives, I will take care of him.”
The sunlight bathed Runako, casting his shadow across the floor and leaving Seling in shade.
Cali tossed off her headset. “Cut.” Runako and Seling both turned to her. She stepped over the camera tracks as she made her way to them. “Seling, that was great, I really felt the conflict. Hold on to that, we’re going to do reaction shots.”
Their gazes met and Seling nodded. There was a momentary spark, a quick flash of desire. Cali ignored it, as well as the vague tug of regret and sadness. There was no place for her personal life and emotions in this moment. What she needed was to keep Seling in character and get reaction shots—film of his face at various points in the scene.
He pulled his shirt and jacket back on. Cody, one of the assistant directors, stepped up and ushered Seling to where they’d start the reaction shots, back on the other side of the empty construction floor. Cali and Darryl were going to work on getting some artistic shots of Runako in the dawn light. At first she’d resisted the scenes that were meant to take place with them in the daylight, wanting to keep them in the darkness when they were in their real bodies. After all, Batman never went running around in the daylight.
But Jane had started throwing a screenwriter tantrum, insisting that Cali follow the script. Her instincts had been dead on. The monsters were particularly scary in the daylight, where there were no shadows to hide how very different they were.
“Runako, awesome. You are, as always, fucking terrifying.” Cali grinned at him.
“Thank you.”
“We want to try some stuff.”
“What do you need?”
Cali had him stand on the edge of the building. They were really only on the second story, though camera angles would make it seem like they were tens of stories up. They quickly set up the shot and then filmed the sunrise as seen through the membrane of his blue wing.
Once she was sure the shot was working, Cali glanced over her shoulder. Seling was now kneeling, shirtless, with an expression of mingled fear and regret on his face.
Funny, that was exactly how she felt.
Yawning, Seling wandered over to craft services. His call time had been three a.m. due to the dawn shooting, and now he was dragging.
As he approached, he saw Henry, Runako and Luke, all in their true forms. They were too tall to stand under the tent, and Luke had one wing up to create shade. Michael—human—was passing them cups and plates.
“What’s up?” Seling said as he approached. They looked up, but no one responded—they were all looking at something behind him.
“You’re upset. Why?”
Seling yelped and turned around. A pretty human woman with black hair was standing only inches from him. She wore big sunglasses and a short dress with shoes that tied around her ankles.
“Uh…” Seling had no idea who she was.
She tipped her head to the side. “It’s the human woman Cali you’re upset about.”
Seling took a big step back. “Uh, Luke?”
“Give me your hand.” The woman held out her hand, palm up, fingers reaching for him. The gesture was familiar, and with a snap Seling realized who he was looking at.
“Holy crap! Maeve?”
She looked human. Maeve, unless she became the banshee, always had a human body, but she never looked human. She was scary in a way that talons and teeth would never be. Her power, her ferocity, could make the rest of them look like fuzzy bunnies.
But now she really looked human. She wore stylish human clothes and her long hair was combed and pinned to the back of her head in a big bun.
He whirled to the other males and pointed over his shoulder at Maeve.
Michael shook his head. “I know. Frightening, isn’t it?”
“What’s frightening?” Maeve asked.
They all looked anywhere but her. Seling slid under the tent and asked for coffee from the wide-eyed craft services worker, who handed over a cup without really looking at him. When he tried to walk away, she seemed to snap from her stupor.
“You need to eat.” She handed him a plate with a sandwich.
“No, I’m fine—”
“Eat.” The human woman added things to his plate until it was piled six-inches high with food. She nodded, apparently satisfied, then went back into her truck, muttering, “Th
ey’re so big. They need food. More food.”
Befuddled, Seling turned around. “Human women are…”
“We know.” Michael carefully patted his shoulder.
Seling took a sip of his coffee, then set it down and picked up the cookie off his plate. After a few bites, he realized what Maeve being on set meant.
“Oren did it?” he asked. “Are we all safe now?”
“Oren did not do it,” Maeve said.
“Oh, so you’re here to…”
“We have suspects.” Maeve seemed to enjoy the word. “I will touch them.”
Seling was relieved that Oren, who he liked, wasn’t the person responsible for the photos. Then again, there was no one on the set he didn’t like, no one he wanted to see blamed for this.
“Who do you suspect? How do you know?”
A look passed between the others, and then Michael’s eyes flicked to the food truck behind Seling.
Before they could move someplace more quiet, one of the talent wranglers approached them.
“Mr. Henry, you’re needed on set for rehearsal.”
“You can call me Henry, Jessica.”
The talent wrangler stared at him, cool and professional. “Thank you, Mr. Henry.”
Maeve watched them as they walked away. “She is irritated with him—why don’t we suspect her?’
“The talent wranglers are irritated with all of us,” Luke assured Maeve. “It’s their job to make sure we know what we’re doing and get there on time.”
“A thankless task,” Maeve said on a laugh. “Very well, Seling, come and I will tell you.”
Tokakai appeared. “Luke, Joanna wants you to look at the throne room set.”
“I’ll go change.”
“Margo has a driver waiting to take you to the location.” When Luke was gone, Tokaki turned to Maeve. “Catherine is in the editing trailer with Oren.”
Maeve stiffened and the air around her seemed to shimmer with power. Now all resemblance to a human was gone. She still looked human, but the power and danger that radiated from her were pure monster.
Catherine was a suspect? Seling remembered his meeting with her yesterday, wondered if he should tell them about it. Before he could say anything, Michael took off with Maeve and Runako, and Tokaki wandered away to practice some fighting moves.
Seling morosely ate another cookie. He’d hoped to get some advice from them about Cali. He had no idea what he was supposed to do now. But if they were close to finding out who had leaked the photos, then there were more important things for all of them—including him—to be doing.
He headed towards a part of the set that they’d section off for special effects. The majority of the tools were back at Pete’s warehouse, but because they’d be on this set for so long they’d brought over a variety of tools and equipment so they wouldn’t have to travel back and forth. Pete had found him between takes that morning and asked him to stop by and give his “expert opinion” on the flames they’d use in the epic battle scene they’d start filming tonight.
In the scene, Endo comes to rescue Padma, who Seling himself had kidnapped, only to find out that it was a trap laid by Runako, who was hunting Henry so he could take him back to their “empire” where he would answer for his crimes.
It was also the scene where Seling died.
Before Padma shot him—not realizing he’d had a change of heart and was trying to help her—Seling would breathe enough fire to rupture a gas line. He still wasn’t sure what a gas line was, but apparently it would involve Henry and Runako battling through sheets of fire before they took to the air.
He was looking at his shoes as he turned the corner around a truck and didn’t see Nell. He ran smack in to the location coordinator, who stumbled back, clutching her clipboard to her chest.
“You!” she said.
Seling blinked in surprise, then remembered that he’d seen her yesterday. “Hey, Nell, were you looking for me?”
“What? No.” She smoothed down the papers on her clipboard. Then she looked up. “Actually, I have a question.”
“Uh, sure.”
“The woman, the one who came with Henry, is she…one of you? Is she seeing Henry?”
Maeve was staying with him and Henry at the condo. Seling had been in bed by the time they came in last night and gone before they got up, but it made sense that she would have come to set with Henry.
However, as far as Seling knew, they hadn’t told anyone who, or what, she was.
“She’s just a friend.”
“But she’s human.”
Seling shrugged, not surprised that Nell would ask—he’d heard other people whispering questions—but he was not about to tell anyone the truth.
A shudder wracked Nell, and she looked like she was going to be sick.
“Are you okay?” Seling asked. He reached out a hand to touch her, but she stumbled back.
“I just need to go home.”
Seling flagged down a passing PA and asked him to get Nell to her car.
“I hope you feel better,” he called out as the PA led Nell away.
Putting the encounter out of his mind, he headed for Pete. Hopefully, they’d get to blow things up, set them on fire and smash them. All those these were much easier to understand, and less dangerous, than human women.
Chapter Eleven
Oren and Maeve
Oren nodded as he listened to Catherine. At any other time he’d be interested in what she was saying, but he was too tense thinking about what was about to happen to really focus.
“You all think that because they’re really monsters that we won’t need any visual effects, but that’s not right. Visual effects shouldn’t be some…”—Catherine’s hands waved in the air—“…Band-Aid. It’s an opportunity to take something amazing and make it unbelievable.”
“We want it to be believable,” Oren said, struggling to pretend he was paying attention.
“You’re not listening. Yes, when Runako jumps off the building and starts flying, it’s amazing, but…what if he jumped as a human and then changed, midair? It’s not possible—I asked him—but if I make skins of them and then did the jump on green screen, I could render the midair change.”
Oren was now really listening. She had a point. He had a feeling that she was pushing this because she felt threatened by the fact that the monsters were real, and that for this movie VFX was being treated like the cleanup crew rather than the creative powerhouse it normally was.
The door opened and Margo, Maeve and Cali entered.
“Cali, listen to this idea Catherine has,” he said, “I really think we need to up the VFX budget.”
“Oren.” Margo gave him a tight smile.
“Uh, sorry.”
Catherine was sitting beside him in front of his editing bay, which was dark since they’d locked down the footage. He squeezed her hand. “I’ll leave you alone.”
“You can stay.” Maeve smiled at him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Margo raise a brow at that. Oren released Catherine’s hand and moved to one of the benches on the far side of the trailer, so he was behind Maeve.
Last night at dinner, Maeve had been…
He didn’t know what she’d been.
Her seething anger hadn’t dissipated, even as they ate, and he’d had the feeling that she’d been having trouble controlling herself. He’d shivered through dinner, and while he was sure it was because he’d been sitting under an AC vent or something like that, he could have sworn that he saw the water in her glass turn to ice each time she touched it.
Henry had arrived and once he’d assured Maeve that they were all okay, she’d seemed to calm down. When Henry took her to his car, Oren had to bite back the offer to let her stay with him. Maeve was beautiful, interesting, but she was also wild and Oren wasn’t sure he’d know what to do if she lost control of herself.
“What’s going on?” Catherine asked.
The tension in the trailer notched up, a
nd Oren clenched his hands into fists.
“Catherine.” Cali’s voice was cool, almost formal. “We think you’re the one who leaked those photos.”
“What? I didn’t do that. I wouldn’t do that.” She scanned their faces, even craning her neck to look at Oren. “Who said I did?”
“We’ve been investigating,” Margo added.
“You investigated me? I’m the one who’s been going through the computers, trying to see who accessed the footage.” Catherine shot to her feet. “What evidence do you have that I did it?”
No one said anything.
“Nothing, you have nothing, because I didn’t do it.”
“We want that to be true,” Margo’s voice was low, and Oren remembered that she’d been the one to bring Catherine on. “But we need to know for sure.”
“I object, because you should trust me.” Catherine, who was half Asian with dark hair and eyes, was vibrating with anger. Her cheeks were flushed. “But fine, what do you want? Access to my email? Phone records?”
“There’s no need to be angry.” Maeve spoke, and everyone went quiet. Her voice was musical and soft. Oren found himself nodding. There was no need to be angry, everything would be fine.
“Take my hand,” Maeve said. “If you take my hand, I will tell them the truth, they will know that you are innocent. Just take my hand.”
Oren found himself half out of his seat before her words really registered. Maeve’s voice was hypnotic. Both Margo and Cali were reaching out toward her. Oren grabbed their shoulders and pulled them back. He forced them to sit with him, leaving only Catherine and Maeve standing.
Catherine opened her mouth, as if she would say something, but then closed it. She nodded very slowly, then raised her hand and took two steps forward, bridging the distance between herself and Maeve.
Her fingers hesitated before they touched Maeve’s and Oren wondered if some buried instinct was telling her to run.
Their fingers touched. Catherine gasped and dropped to her knees, right hand still held in Maeve’s left.
Oren spared a glance for Catherine, but his attention was held by Maeve.
Her hair fell from the tame bun, and started to whip around in a wind that he couldn’t feel. Though he could only see her in profile, Oren still had a good view of the changes that came over her. Maeve’s fingers lengthened and her trim nails grew until they were claws. The skin on her face grew taught and pulled in, making her features stand out in harsh angles and planes.
