The finished film was shipped to L.A., where the editor cut it together into rough scenes, transferred them to DVDs, and overnighted them back. Only three copies were made; they went to the director, the director of photography, and the producer, to share with subordinates as necessary.
Opal remembered earlier days in moviemaking, when everybody who was interested gathered to watch the processed dailies from the day before. The system had changed; too many actors, seeing their earlier work, wanted to do it over. Big names like Schwarzenegger and Cruise could do that, but none of the actors on this picture had that kind of clout.
She decided to wait until someone mentioned the difference in the Dark God’s looks from shot to shot, if anybody did. They couldn’t be as alert to his face as she was.
“Well?” he asked.
“You look perfect,” she said.
“Of course.”
“Have you always looked like this?”
He turned and studied himself in the wall of mirrors above her built-in makeup cabinet. “Never have I looked like this until now. I admire the design. This is a good face for me, I think; it startles those who see it for the first time, but does not send them away screaming. I want them to sit still for my approach. You are an excellent mask maker.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“So you don’t need to touch me now?”
“Not unless there’s something wrong with the facade.”
“You’d touch me if I lost something vital?” He reached up with his transformed hand and wiggled one of his horns. It was too solid to come loose. He glanced toward Magenta, who suddenly focused intently on painting Lauren’s lips. “Your friend also doesn’t wish to touch me.”
“We’re not running away screaming, but we’ve learned to fear you.”
“I am not doing my work correctly, then. I don’t wish you to fear me, my handmaiden.”
“I’m afraid of people who steal vital energy without asking, or put people into trances with a touch, or cut people without permission, or burn someone with a look because she said something disrespectful. How am I not supposed to be afraid of that?”
“I should give you something in exchange for your energy. I would, if you would let me.” His voice was caressing, low and warm. “I would give you pleasure,” he murmured. “I would give you almost anything in my power, my glorious wellspring of delight.”
“Right now, your cooperation is really sexy,” Opal said. “Do a good job on the picture, and I’ll try to relax about the fact that you’ve displaced someone I love.”
“Do you love me, Opal?” he asked in Corvus’s voice.
“Corr! Are you in there?” She gripped his shoulders and leaned to look in his eyes. The green glow had dimmed, but he was still hidden behind the mask she had put on him that morning.
“Do you mean it?” he asked.
“Yes, I love you.” Now was not the time to explain what kind of love it was, or that it wasn’t exclusive. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t seem to be tracking very well.”
“But you’re not suffering?”
“Suffering? I’ve been asleep, I think. Did I mess up my scenes? I don’t remember doing them. Was I sleepwalking?”
“I don’t think so. Do you realize you’re not alone in your body?”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“You’re possessed by some god-thing. Maybe it’s the Dark God of the script. He’s been acting the part, anyway, maybe as well as you can, with more motivation.”
“I don’t understand,” he said again, and then his eyes changed, and it was the Other staring out at her. “He doesn’t have to understand, if you are good to me,” whispered the Invader. “If you resist, I can help him understand in many unpleasant ways. Shall I let him sleep, or wake him up and make him suffer? The choice is yours.”
Why had she brought up suffering to Corvus? Had she given the Invader ideas? Damn it. “What do you want?”
“Touch me.”
She touched the horn he had wiggled, found that it was still seated well on his forehead and wouldn’t move without—without, perhaps, a bone saw. He reached up and took her hand, brought the palm to his mouth and pressed his lips to it—
Then cried and thrust her hand away, tapped his lips gently with his fingertips. “What did you do?”
“I got some help,” she said.
“Well, dispense with it, unless you want me to do something to your beloved.”
She clenched her fists. She wanted to pound him. How would that serve Corvus? It probably wouldn’t help him. If she had her sister Gypsum’s power to curse things—
“Where the hell are you guys?” yelled one of the assistant directors from the door. “You were due on the set fifteen minutes ago!”
“Give me something,” whispered the Invader as Blaise and Lauren—both fully made up and ready—stood.
Fire, leave me a finger free, Opal thought, and her fire skin retreated from her right index finger. She touched the Invader’s lips with it, and he took it into his mouth, sucked on the first knuckle, and released her. She felt only a little faint this time. He surged to his feet and swept out of the trailer, followed by Opal, Blaise, Lauren, Magenta, and Rodrigo.
Lauren gripped her arm. “Did Corvus really come back?” “You heard that?”
“We were all listening as hard as we could.”
“I don’t know if it was Corvus or a trick. I don’t trust the new guy at all.”
“None of us do,” said Lauren. Blaise, beside her, shook her head. Rod and Magenta had gone on ahead.
“Blaise?” Opal said.
The fair-haired woman stared after Corvus’s tall, black-clad form. “He has a good professional reputation. That’s not the behavior I’m observing. I don’t want him to sabotage the picture. If you can come up with a way to handle this, deal me in.”
“Thanks,” said Opal. She felt a weight settle on her shoulders. They were all worried, and they thought she was the one to deal with the problem. Well, maybe she had given the Invader an opening to Corvus by using the techniques she had used to create his face, so she should fix the problem. She had more magical resources to fight the Invader with than anybody else on set, as far as she knew.
At least everybody was on the same side, or said they were.
Filming resumed with different angles on the same scene. The Invader behaved very well, saying his lines over and over again; he didn’t forget the dialog he had improvised. They had a stunt knife for the part where he sliced open Serena’s arm, and some stage blood for him to lick when they did the new takes, and he seemed okay with that, too. Opal went on the set to do last looks any time they paused long enough to need it, and she never had to work on the Invader’s face. After a while, her tension evaporated.
It was only after filming had finished for the day, around eleven P.M., and the Invader was sitting in his chair in the makeup trailer, that she went back on high alert.
He had taken off the robe and given it to someone from Wardrobe, and he sat there in his black jeans and leafy skin and horny hands, smiling. “What are you going to do with me?” he asked.
“You tell me. Are you going to stay in there all night?”
“Would you like me to?”
“No,” she said, unsure whether a statement of her desire would help or hinder. She wanted Corvus back so much she was going to ask her mother for help, something she couldn’t remember doing since she had reached the age of eight. She didn’t have the tools to force the Invader out by herself. She needed her mother or Tobias. Would either of them be up this late?
“If I come out, you must promise me you will restore me tomorrow,” he said.
If you come out, how can you make me let you back in? she wondered. They had two more weeks of work on location, though, maybe longer, depending on the rewrites Travis and Bethany were doing. Every time she put the face on Corvus, it was another invitation to the Invader.
/> “Make me a promise or I won’t leave,” he said.
She clenched her fists and looked away, down the trailer toward the chairs where Blaise and Lauren sat, Magenta and Rod standing beside them, no one else moving.
She could lie. Make a promise and not keep it.
That went against everything she believed about herself. It had always been vital to her to keep her word when she gave it. She tried not to ever give it if she didn’t mean it, even though she saw people around her break promises all the time.
Still, she could do it. Maybe.
“All right,” she whispered. “I promise.”
7
The Invader heaved a deep sigh and relaxed in the chair, his shoulders slumping and his eyes falling shut. She hadn’t known he was so tense. It was a clue. Possessing another was exhausting. She might be able to use that, or at least take note of it to report to her mother.
She got out her solvents and makeup removers and went to work on Corvus.
He slept through the removal. A production assistant brought in the call sheet and new script pages for the following day early in the process. Opal paused long enough to glance at their start time for the next day. The weather forecast was for rain, so they were filming on the soundstage again. Corvus was supposed to be in the Makeup trailer by ten A.M.
She stuffed the call sheet and the script in her messenger bag and moisturized Corvus’s hands, arms, upper body, and his face, which was empty of the Invader but also of consciousness.
Lauren and Magenta hovered as Opal finished.
“Corr?” Opal whispered, gripping his shoulder.
It took him a long time and some serious shaking to wake up. “What?” he said at last, opening eyes still hidden behind the Dark God’s contact lenses. “What happened? How’d I get back in the trailer?” He glanced toward the clock on the mirror. “Is that A.M. or P.M.?”
“It’s midnight,” said Lauren. “What do you remember about today? Anything?”
He groaned, and said, “This morning. Opal and I were—you said you told me to rest well, and I was a little upset. I don’t like to sleep soundly. It makes me nervous. Have I slept through the whole day?” He gripped Opal’s arm. “Did you hypnotize me into it?”
“No, I didn’t!”
“I’m sorry.” He let her go.
“Corvus, you spent most of the day being someone else,” said Lauren. “Someone incredibly creepy, a lot like the role you play, a manipulator who gets off on other people’s pain.”
“What?”
“The good thing is, he can act,” she continued. “He’s doing you proud. But we’d much rather have you around.”
He looked at his watch, pressed a button to get the date. “It’s November, not April First,” he said. “I don’t like this joke, Lauren.”
“Are you hungry?” Opal asked.
Distracted, he glanced toward his stomach and frowned. “Ravenous. Opal—”
“Come on, big guy. Let’s go get some supper.”
He let her pull him to his feet. He accepted the shirt she handed him. Magenta and Lauren were watching him so intently he turned his back to them and whispered, “What do they want?”
“They want to make sure you’re okay.”
“It’s not just my shoulders or my ass, eh?” He flexed his biceps and glanced back.
“Those, too,” Opal whispered, and smiled.
He put on the shirt and buttoned it to the top button. He set the back of his hand on his forehead. “I’m so tired,” he said.
“Let’s get you to the car. You can nap on the way to the restaurant.” Hitch had left Opal the keys again once Corvus was off the clock. “You’ve got to eat, though, Corvus. I don’t know if you had anything all day aside from a protein shake I forced on you.”
“You were really talking and interacting with me all day?”
“Not you. Someone else in your body.” She snagged the last set of Polaroids she’d taken before she removed his makeup, rubber-banded them together, and stuck them in her messenger bag. The Invader had posed for the Polaroids, showing his teeth, his horns, and the unlikely gleam in his eyes. She would show them to Corvus at the restaurant; maybe that would help bring this home to him.
“This feels like a bad extended jape,” he said. He shook his head. “It’s hard for me to take seriously.”
“It’s outside your experience. Of course it’ll take you a while to get used to it,” Opal said. She remembered the steps she and her family had to take every time they introduced outsiders to who they really were. “You don’t have to believe us, Corr. You do have to decide what to do next.”
He followed her down the trailer stairs, Magenta and Lauren in their wake. Opal pressed the keychain button to unlock the Lincoln, and Magenta and Lauren climbed into the backseat. Corvus stared at them. “You’re coming?”
“We’ve been waiting all day to talk to you,” said Lauren, “and we’re not letting you out of our sight.”
He shrugged massively. “I’m not up to much conversation, I’m afraid,” he said.
“That’s okay. Whatever you’ve got.”
“All right, then.”
Opal held the door so Corvus could climb into the passenger seat, then went around the car and got behind the wheel. She started the car and drove.
“Did you dream?” Lauren asked from the backseat.
“What?” Corvus said.
“While you slept through the day, did you have any dreams? Say, one where you woke up for a second and talked to Opal?”
“Was that not a dream?” he asked. Opal, watching the view out the front window of light blades on a dark road, with tree shadows crowding close, was conscious of Corvus’s regard. His gaze prickled against the skin of her right cheek like sunlight.
“What do you remember?” she asked, without looking toward him.
“Did you tell me you loved me?”
She closed her eyes, then opened them so she could watch the road. “That was really you I was talking to? I wasn’t sure.”
“It wasn’t a dream?”
“No, I really said that.”
“Did you mean it?” He shifted in his seat, turned to peer toward the backseat. “Or should we have this conversation later?”
“They heard everything I said before,” she said. “I meant it, sure. How could I not love you? I don’t like the one who’s been using you, though, and he has me over a barrel now.”
“What do you mean?”
“He only let you out tonight after I promised to help him back inside you tomorrow.”
“You’re the one who put him in me?”
“Not exactly. I put the Dark God’s face on over yours, and he used that, somehow. I don’t know what to do. Do you want to quit the film?”
“No,” he said. “I still have dreams that this’ll be a break-out role for me. I want to act this part.”
“But when I put the face on you, you’re gone—I think.”
“Lauren?” Corvus said.
“You and I and Blaise did scene twenty-three all day today, Corvus. Do you remember any of it?”
“No,” he said.
“Well, you were great, whoever you were, creepy as hell,” said Lauren. “I have to tell you, if you quit now, the whole production will fall apart, and it won’t be doing your career any favors, either. But if it’s a matter of survival, well, you should do whatever you have to.”
“I’m not doing my own acting,” he muttered, “but I’m doing all right. That troubles me. I want to do the work . . . I feel okay now. As soon as you put the face on me, I return to being this other guy?”
“That’s the impression I get,” Opal said. “Magenta and Lauren and I have been speculating about how it works. We have ideas, but no certainties.”
Corvus shook his head. “This is crazy.”
“Yeah,” said Opal. “Just deal with as much of it as you can. Ignore the rest.”
“How’s that going to help us get rid of the Dark
God?” Magenta asked.
“We can’t force Corvus to believe something he’s not ready for,” Opal said, “no matter how urgent it is.”
“How urgent is it?” Corvus asked.
“It’s hard to say. Is he hurting you? You don’t seem to have suffered today, but he says he might hurt you tomorrow unless I do what he says.”
“What he makes her do is let him suck on her like a vampire,” Lauren told Corvus. “Except it’s not blood he takes, but her life force. He did that to me, too, or something like it. I’m not sure what he did to me, but it was horrible.”
“Shit, Lauren, he drank your blood,” said Magenta.
“Didn’t drink it, more like licked it, and then he put a spell on me that turned me into a drooling idiot, worshipping him just like Serena. All the rest of today’s filming! I didn’t come out of it till you stripped off my makeup, Madge. I remember it all, though. I was awake and watching. I just couldn’t come to the surface.”
“You all believe this happened today,” said Corvus.
“We were there, and you weren’t,” said Magenta.
“But I—” He pressed his face into his palms. “I can’t think about this now.”
“Don’t worry, Corr,” said Opal. “We’re almost at the restaurant. Guys, give it a rest. Let him eat.”
“We need a plan,” said Magenta.
Opal said, “The call sheet said we’re filming scene twelve C tomorrow, and I got a stack of new script pages for Corvus. Are you in that scene, Lauren?”
“No. That’s afternoon, Corvus with Gemma and Bettina. It’s a new one about how messed up the sisters get as kids. In the morning, Blaise and I are filming in the B&B. One of our fabulous bitch-fight scenes.”
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