by Lila Dubois
The air temperature had dropped and Oren was now watching the scene through the mist of his own breath.
Her hair whipped to the side and he caught a glimpse of her ears, which now had a distinct Vulcan point. He blew out a long breath of steam. With Maeve, it probably wasn’t Vulcan ancestry that gave her pointed ears. Last night he’d done a quick Internet search on banshees. Apparently some literature said they were descended from the fairies of Ireland.
Maeve turned her head to the side slightly and he got a better look at her face. Her eyes were open and so blue they seemed to glow. They were flicking side to side, as if she were speed-reading, and yet that flickering gaze seemed to be looking into middle space.
Remembering what she’d explained to him, both about what she could do and about particle physics, Oren realized that she was looking into Catherine’s past and future, that she was now connected to the world in a timeless, endless way Oren would never know.
Maeve’s eyes closed. The temperature rose and her hair fell against her back. The previously neat locks were now tangled and messy.
Catherine opened her eyes and looked up at Maeve. Whatever she saw did not reassure her, because she leapt to her feet and backed up against the wall.
“Wh-what just happened?”
No one answered.
Oren could feel Cali and Margo staring at Maeve.
“Holy fuck.” Cali’s words broke the silence, and alleviated much of the tension.
“Okay, now I know why the guys are scared of her,” Margo added.
“She’s…she’s a monster?” Catherine squeaked. “I thought she was sleeping with Henry!”
“Henry is one of my Clans-men and like a brother to me,” Maeve said. Her voice had lost some of that hypnotic quality. She took a step and nearly stumbled.
Without thinking, Oren jumped up and grabbed her. It was only as her body pressed to his that his brain registered a protest—she was dangerous to touch. But she wasn’t. She was fascinating.
He helped her to the couch where she sat down. Margo edged discretely away.
“Is anyone going to tell me what just happened?” Catherine demanded.
“Maeve can see people’s pasts,” Margo said. From the hesitation between the words, Oren could tell she was picking them carefully. “She’s here to help us figure out who did this.”
“She can read my mind?”
“No.” Maeve shook her head and Oren put his arm around her shoulders. “I can look into your past.”
“What, how?”
“Don’t ask,” Oren warned her. “At least you weren’t in your car. Maeve ambushed me. I almost had an accident.”
Catherine’s gaze swung to him. “They did this to you?”
“I was suspect numero uno until Maeve told them I didn’t do it.”
Catherine’s gaze swung to Maeve. Everyone else followed her lead, looking to Maeve for a verdict.
“I do not see it in her past and, like Oren, her good futures depend on the success of the movie.”
“Future? You can see my future?” Catherine dropped down into a chair. “Oh my God.”
“There is no single future,” Maeve said.
Oren saw Margo wince and guessed that Margo had not wanted Catherine to know that Maeve could look into people’s futures.
“But…you could see what will happen to me.”
“Yes.”
“Well, what did you see?” Catherine’s eyes were bright, intense.
“I will not tell you.” Maeve pulled her hair over her shoulder, looked at the tangled mess and sighed.
“Why not? Do I die?”
“Everyone dies, but I won’t tell you because that wouldn’t be fun.”
“Fun?”
“But you should go to the doctor.”
“Now? What’s wrong with me?”
“Not now, but regularly. I’m fairly sure humans have early detection systems for…” Maeve’s voice trailed off and she shrugged.
“For what? What’s wrong with me?” Catherine took a few steps, as if she were going to shake the information from Maeve.
“Catherine,” Oren warned, holding his hand up to stop her.
Catherine knocked his hand away and grabbed the seated Maeve. At her touch, Maeve’s attention shot to Catherine.
“Tell me!”
Maeve rose to her feet and took hold of Catherine’s wrists. The other woman’s eyes went wide before a terrified scream burst from her. She tried to jerk back, but Maeve didn’t let go. The fingers wrapping Catherine’s wrists had once again lengthened and developed claws.
“Maeve, you’re hurting her,” Oren said in a low voice. He was tense with the need to jump up and separate them, and behind him he could hear Margo calling for help.
“I know.”
“Are you going to stop?”
“When she learns.”
Catherine’s eyes were open, her gaze fixed on the ceiling.
“Learns what?”
“To fear me.”
With that, Maeve let go. Catherine fell to the floor, her wrists hitting with a thunk. There were patches of white banding her wrists and as Oren watched, they started to flush pink.
“You burned her…with ice.” Oren was now sure that he hadn’t imagined the cold air that sometimes whirled around her.
“I have an…affinity to water.”
“Water-bending…” Cali muttered.
Maeve looked over her shoulder at Oren. “It would be much crueler to touch her with steam.” Their gazes met, and he’d never been as aware as he was in that moment of how different they were.
“Will she recover?”
“Of course.” Maeve bent down and grabbed Catherine’s hand. The other woman tried to pull away, but Maeve persisted and pulled her up by her feet. Maeve smiled and Catherine could only blink.
“You’re fine.” Maeve patted her shoulder. “And you will be fine.”
The door to the trailer burst open and Michael stood there. For a moment, Oren thought he could see a faint glow around Michael.
“Is everyone still alive?”
Maeve rolled her eyes. “Yes.”
Michael’s attention shifted to Catherine. “You okay, Catherine?”
“I…think so.”
“Come on, let’s go get some tea.” He held out his hand, but Catherine balked. Nodding, he stepped back and held open the door. “I won’t touch you.”
As Catherine left with Michael, Oren heard him tell her, “Maeve is scary as fuck and we’ve all had our asses kicked by her at one point.”
Maeve turned to Cali. “Who is next?”
Oren ran shaking hands over his head.
She was a banshee.
She’d told him what she was, and the fact that she came from the same place as the guys was a clear indicator that she wasn’t human, but until now he’d had a hard time really understanding that. Intellectually, he could process the information, but emotionally he’d categorized her as quirky-hot girl who seemed a little deranged at times.
But she wasn’t a girl—she was a very powerful being who was connected to the universe. She was a player, whereas he was just a pawn.
“Next is Lance.”
“Lance?” Oren looked up. “But he’s a guy.”
“And gay as Elton John’s sunglasses. I’ve heard him refer to himself as a lady.”
Oren nodded. That made sense, and if he’d been thinking clearly last night, he would have thought of that too. The blogger had said “she” and it had stuck.
Lena, who had been keeping Lance occupied, walked him over. As she was about to leave, Margo asked her, “Have you been able to find Nell?”
“Not yet.”
Oren stayed. Knowing that he had been the first suspect and that he too had been touched by Maeve had calmed Catherine. It might work the same way with Lance.
After a quick flash of anger, quickly controlled, Lance had submitted easily. He’d been surprised when Maeve asked him to hold out his hand,
but he hadn’t resisted. When it was done, a shaking Lance had dropped into a chair. He hadn’t said anything for a long time.
Worried, Oren had jumped in to fill the silence and explained that Maeve could see his past and his future, and from that she’d be able to tell them if he’d been the one to leak the photos.
Lance had been more interested in Maeve than his future. “So there are female monsters?”
“Of course, but we are outnumbered by males.”
“So if there are women monsters, why are the hotties outside dating them?” He jerked his finger at Margo.
“They are novel,” Maeve said bluntly while Margo gave her a death stare.
Lena had come in then. “Everything okay?”
“Oh fine, Lance is just asking why our fiancées are dating crappy humans when they could be dating cool female monsters.”
“That’s is not what I said. Well, not exactly…”
“I told them it’s because you’re a novelty.” Maeve said matter of factly to Lena.
“Excuse me?” Lena’s right eyebrow rose half an inch.
Maeve shrugged. “And because the few females are so protected by their families that it’s dangerous to even approach them.”
“Did you just call us easy?” Margo looked ready to kill.
“Easier, yes.” Maeve was unimpressed with Margo’s anger.
“Could we get back to the point of this?” Oren resisted the urge to whack them upside the head so they’d pay attention. “Is Lance the one who leaked the pictures?”
“Of course not,” Maeve said. They all looked at her. “He’d already be dead if he had.”
They all took a moment to absorb that.
Jane stuck her head in. “I’m still looking for Nell.” Her gaze darted to Lance and then she looked at Lena.
“He’s clean,” Margo said. “And Maeve is one scary motherfucker. Also, she says the guys are only with us because we’re a novelty and because monster girls are hard to get, whereas we’re easy.”
“Will you let it go?” Lena asked, exasperated.
Oren leaned back and took it all in. They were blocking the door, so he couldn’t go anywhere anyway. Cali picked up her script, flipping through it, apparently uninterested in the conversation. Oren had to admire her focus.
To his surprise, Maeve came and sat by him, resting her hand on his knee even as she replied to Margo.
“Well, if they were with their own kind, they would be able to have sex in their true forms.”
“What are you talking about?” Margo tossed her hair. “We have sex with them when they are monsters.”
All eyes turned to Margo.
Lance whistled. Actors had no privacy anyway, and because they’d been constantly changing not just clothes but their oversized bodies, everyone on set had gotten a good view of them naked.
It had certainly been enough to give Oren an inferiority complex.
Margo looked at Lena, then at Jane. “But…but…you have sex with them in that body too, right?”
Jane bit her lip. Lena shook her head, then choked out, “Of course not, it would be like fucking a baseball bat!”
Margo hissed out a breath. “I’m going to fucking kill Runako.”
Margo stormed out, followed by Jane, Lena and Cali.
Lance laughed. “I love this job.” He got up to leave, nodding at Maeve. “Thank you for clearing my name.”
“Lance,” she said.
He turned back.
“No one’s future is set. All I see are possibilities.”
Oren wondered what she was doing, and Lance stiffened.
“In the ones where you’re happiest, I see the man. The one who looks like Runako’s human form.”
Lance let out a choked laugh, then pressed his fingers to his chest, over his heart. “Is he happy?”
“Yes, and so are your children.”
Lance let out another laugh. “I knew I’d lose that argument if we stayed together. Thank you, really. I was going to end it, I thought…” Lance shook his head again. “I thought he was too good for me, that being with me would hold him back.”
Maeve smiled gently as Lance opened the trailer door. He paused, then looked over his shoulder. “I wasn’t going to say anything, because, honestly, I didn’t want to be responsible if something happened, but Nell has been acting weird. I thought I saw her sneaking into Henry and Seling’s trailers.”
Oren’s stomach sank. They hadn’t been able to find Nell, and Oren had a bad feeling that it wasn’t a coincidence.
“Thanks for telling us,” Maeve said.
“Thank you,” Lance said, “for making sure I didn’t make a terrible mistake.”
The door closed behind him.
Oren put his hand on Maeve’s, where it rested on his knee. “That was kind of you.”
“I should not.” Maeve sighed and leaned back. “But in all the futures without the man, he dies in less than ten years.”
“Jesus.” Oren shook his head.
“In some from the human disease AIDS, in many he kills himself. The man he loves will save him, and I’m not sure, as it was so far in the future it was hard to see, but one of the children they adopt and raise will cure that same human disease.”
Oren blinked as the magnitude of what she said sunk in. If Lance had broken up with his boyfriend, he’d be dead in five years, and if that happened they’d never adopt the kid who’d find the cure to AIDS.
“I was thinking about you last night,” Oren said.
Maeve turned to face him. “What were you thinking?”
“I thought that it must be very depressing, doing what you do. You see all the sadness and hurt in people’s lives, know what bad things will happen to them, but…”
Maeve said nothing, but the way her eyes searched his face made him think she was taking what he was about to say very seriously.
“But what you see is really hope, isn’t it? For all the bad, you see the hope too.”
She smiled. It lit up her face, made her eyes sparkle. Oren wanted to grab her and kiss her. He didn’t care that she was so different, so Other. He wanted her.
“Both my people and yours are on the brink of disaster or annihilation, every day. And yet I see futures full of joy. That does give me hope.”
Oren couldn’t help himself. He touched a lock of her hair, then her cheek. She gasped and he pulled his hand back.
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t stop.”
Oren carefully cupped her cheek.
“I’m too old for you.”
“How old are you?”
“Forty-three.”
Maeve rolled her eyes. “I’m far older than that.”
“No, you’re not.” She couldn’t be more than twenty-five.
“My breed have long, long lives. I am almost three times as old as you.”
Oren let that sink in. She was over one hundred years old.
“I’m too old for you,” she said, with a flash of uncertainty in her voice.
Oren shrugged. “I’ve dated women older.”
She threw back her head and laughed, and Oren joined her.
There was a clatter outside, followed by cursing, and someone dropped something. This wasn’t the time or the place for this discussion, or anything that might come from it.
“Maeve?”
“Yes?”
“Would you like to go to dinner tonight?”
Her eyes sparkled. “Yes, I would.”
Oren wandered through the set, checking out restaurants on his phone.
He was going on a date.
He hadn’t been in a date in a while and was short on ideas for restaurants. He checked places in Hollywood, which wouldn’t be too far from the condo where she was staying, and then, just for fun, checked places further north, closer to him.
He’d be lying if he said he didn’t hope tonight ended up in sex.
He heard Cali and headed towards her, planning to ask for some advice. As he rounded the corner
, he saw that she was working with Akta and Henry.
“Henry, I’m not really getting anything from you. This is an emotional moment. You’ve just flown halfway across L.A., hoping to find the woman you love, not sure if she’s still alive. You almost expect her to be dead, and when you realize she’s not, when you see her alive and unhurt…”
Cali motioned and Henry bowed his head and folded his wings, getting into character.
Akta was sitting on the ground a few feet away, in a pantomime of the scene, where she’d be tied to one of the steel supports in the construction site.
Henry took a few steps back. His fingers curled, talons glistening in the light. As a monster, he had blue skin and wings, which made him damned near impossible to spot when he was flying.
But when he was angry…
His skin started to change color. Like ink spreading in a bowl of water, his skin turned black, his wings red. It was terrifying.
He snarled, white fangs seeming to glow against his black skin.
With a jerk, he ran for Akta. He threw himself to the ground in front of her, curling his wings around her as he looked over his shoulder, scanning for her kidnapper.
“Pull one wing back,” Cali said, eyes darting over the scene to assess what the camera would need.
Henry folded it back, giving Oren, Cali and later the camera a glimpse of Akta protected by his body.
Akta tipped her face up to him. Tears glittered on her lashes. “You found me.”
“I will always—” Henry raised his hand to touch her face.
He froze, his hand inches from her. As Oren watched, his skin faded from black back to blue.
“Henry…” Cali’s voice was low, urgent. “Stay in the moment, you’ve found her, but there’s still a threat, the people who did this will pay.”
“I can’t.” He pushed to his feet and walked away, leaving Akta sitting on the ground.
Oren backed up. Cali had her hands full. He’d have to find restaurant tips somewhere else.
But as he walked away, he was worried. Henry and Akta’s relationship was the core of the story. He’d seen a few of their scenes come through already, but the dialogue-heavy emotional ones weren’t scheduled until the end. They were front-loading location and action shots in an effort to get the movie made before they caught the attention of the industry. Once the action scenes were done, they could use sound stages and green screen to do emotional scenes with whatever blurry background was closest.
