“Quit whining,” said Opal. “You drew from him, didn’t you?”
He laughed and squeezed her shoulder. “A little. He can’t supply the quality of energy I get from either of you. So, Lauren, a kiss as thanks?”
“Must I? I’m tired, too.”
“I see I have not sufficiently impressed you with my awesome majesty,” Phrixos said, but it was hard to tell whether he was joking. “In any case, my internal self grows restless, so I’ll say good night. Opal.” He bent and pressed his lips to hers, and she let him, because no matter how tired she was, she was glad he had solved Lauren’s problem, even if only temporarily. When his lips touched hers, though, he jerked back, and she realized Flint’s shield of fire was still working, bless the boy for giving her weird energy that didn’t get used up. She thought her lips free of the shield and reached for Phrixos, pulled him down and kissed him, sending him some of the extra power she had collected during the day.
He moaned with delight and drew more, but just when she was going to struggle and stop him, the draw halted; his taste changed, and so did his posture. She was kissing Corvus, who held her closer, then finally raised his head and looked around. “What a nice way to wake up,” he said. The green glow in his eyes had dimmed but not extinguished. “What are we doing now?”
“Solving Lauren’s stalker problem, at least for the moment.”
“Oh?”
“Let’s get food,” she said, and they headed back to the lot by the supermarket/soundstage where Hitch had left the Lincoln. On the drive to the IHOP, Opal brought Corvus up to speed on the Dark God’s new name, Phrixos’s behavior on the set with the girls, and his confrontation with Norman.
“He wanted to kill him?” Corvus asked as Opal parked on the edge of the IHOP lot.
“He didn’t exactly say that,” said Opal.
“But he implied it,” Lauren said.
“Do you think he could?” Corvus asked. He held the restaurant door for them as they went in.
Tonight a different waitress seated them, a small, young brunette with black-framed glasses, a narrow smile, and a mouthful of chewing gum. “Hi, Erin. Jenny off tonight?” Corvus asked.
“Yeah.” The girl glanced down at her nametag, as though confirming her name was Erin. “You guys in the movie?”
“Sure,” said Corvus.
“Cool. This table all right?” She showed them to a table for four, not the corner booth they’d been in the last two nights.
“Sure.”
Opal hesitated to look around, wondering whether she would see someone she knew and get drawn into someone else’s drama. She had plenty of her own. She hadn’t seen any of the cast or crew’s rental cars in the lot, but that didn’t necessarily mean no one was here. It was a short walk from the crew hotel to the IHOP.
She saw only strangers. She sat facing the door, and Corvus seated himself beside her, Lauren on his other side. After the waitress asked them about beverages and went to get them, Corvus leaned forward, inspiring the women to lean forward, too. “Do you think he could kill someone?” he repeated.
“We don’t know enough about him,” said Lauren.
“This morning one of the town old-timers told me a story about a monster who used to haunt Lapis during the fifties,” Opal said, then remembered she had mentioned this to both of them that morning. “He was called the Last of the Lost, and he stole young girls. Nobody ever found any bodies though. Plus, it’s one of those stories you tell tourists to make your town more interesting. But what if there’s some truth to it?”
“Did you ask him?”
“Yeah. He only answers questions when he feels like it.”
“We need you to be more active,” Lauren said. “Be our spy. Pay attention to what he’s thinking. Were you awake at all today?”
“I was asleep again the whole day,” he said. “I kissed Opal in the morning, and then I woke up kissing her in the evening. Nice, but odd.”
“Your eyes are still glowing,” Opal said, “so I think Phrixos is still awake. Can you tell?”
“What?” He sat back, stared beyond her, then looked up at the ceiling. He put his hands on his cheeks, touched his lips. He held his palm in front of his eyes and stared, as though looking for a reflection of the glow. Frowning, he lowered his hand.
Opal dug a mirror compact out of her bag and presented it to him. “Take a look.”
He stared into the little mirror, blinked at his own green-enhanced eyes. “You left the contacts in.”
“Didn’t use them today.”
“That’s eerie,” said Lauren. “I never noticed.”
“I think you’re blending now, Corr, and you should stop pretending you’re not. Phrixos, are you present?”
Corvus frowned. He looked so like himself and so unlike Phrixos she felt like backing down, but she changed her mind. They needed to know who they were talking with.
“I don’t feel like he’s here,” said Corvus at last. “Still, there’s the evidence of my eyes. Maybe we should talk about something else. Lauren, how did your day go?”
The waitress came and took their order, and then Lauren talked about the fight scene she had shot with Blaise that day. “Neil yelled at both of us equally. The writers were there, and he made them rewrite a piece of the scene so Blaise lost a couple of lines. They both seemed kind of irritable.”
“I wonder what’s going on,” said Opal. “Tonight, I’ll try a glass against the wall to see if I can hear them better. Trouble in paradise?”
“They have my corruption scene scheduled for tomorrow afternoon if you guys can finish up with the kids on time,” Lauren said, “which, considering how things are going so far, seems likely. Did you look at the pages?”
“I did,” said Corvus.
“It’s mostly the same as it was before, but we have one set of rewritten lines,” Lauren said. “I asked Travis to do it, because there was a jawbreaker line in there. I think your line’s the same, though.”
“Yes. ‘What do you really want?’ ” he quoted, in Phrixos’s voice, thrilling, deep, and compelling.
“I want to be discovered by you movie people, get a role in the film, and then run away with you to Hollywood,” said Erin the waitress as she set salads down in front of them. “Oh, God. Did I say that out loud?” She flushed and darted away.
“Interesting,” said Corvus, looking after her. “I have the power to cloud women’s minds. Moo hoo hahahah!”
Opal thumped his arm with her fist. “Don’t laugh about it, big guy. What if it’s true?”
He smiled the big goofy smile she considered pure Corvus, light dancing in his eyes, then sobered when she didn’t smile back. “I pledge to use my powers for good.”
“That’s nice,” said Lauren, “but I don’t think it stops the other guy from using them for whatever he wants. What do you think he really wants?”
Corvus stared at his salad, his brow furrowed. He stroked a spiral pattern on his forehead with the first two fingers of his right hand. Finally he shook his head. When he looked up, his eyes had no extra light in them. “There’s something there, but I can’t get hold of it. It’s red, though.”
11
Before she drove them back to Lapis for the night, Opal stepped outside with her phone and called the family again. Her mother answered, peevish at the late hour. “There wasn’t a single other time you could try us?” she demanded.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
“Yes, well, all right. Tobias considered your case and threw some auguries and said it’s serious, but he can’t leave until tomorrow. He’ll fly to Portland and find some way to get where you are. He got Gypsum to MapQuest it for him. Expect him tomorrow night. You’ll have to leave word with security.”
“Did he get a cell phone yet?”
“He refuses to carry something on his person that concentrates signals from the ether,” said her mother. “You’ll just have to let him find you.”
“If you see him before he leaves, please
tell him thank you for me.”
“I will.” Her voice softened. “Opal, call anytime if the need is great. Call if you need reinforcements. We’ll find some way to work it out.”
“Thanks, Mom.” She had to hang up before she started crying. For years she’d been handling her own problems. She felt silly going to the family for help when she wasn’t even sure it was real trouble. It surely felt good to know someone else was concerned, though.
In the restaurant, Corvus was paying the bill again, smiling at Erin, who blushed while waiting for credit card approval.
“We ran through our scenes for tomorrow while you were outside,” said Lauren. “Any satisfaction from your phone?”
“My uncle’s coming tomorrow night.”
“Brujo?”
“Sí.”
“Bueno.”
“Your abuela?” Opal asked.
Lauren shook her head. “She’s sending me some charms to protect me, but she doesn’t feel well enough to travel.”
Opal drove them back to Lapis and let Lauren off at the house where she was staying, then parked the Lincoln in the guarded lot by the soundstage and walked Corvus back to the B&B. She lingered on the sidewalk in front of the building, and he stood beside her. Together they stared up at the front of the Victorian building with its tooled gingerbread eaves and strange bits sticking out where modern houses were smooth. The house was pale in the streetlight, with darker trim. No lights shone inside; lace curtains draped the lower floor’s windows like an arrested fall of flour, hiding the interior.
“You coming up?” Corvus asked in a low rumble. He stood near her but didn’t touch her.
Tonight the house didn’t purr, but she still had the sense that something coiled inside it, and that the front door was a mouth that would swallow her and Corvus. She gripped his hand, and his fingers closed gently around hers. When she looked up, she saw green glow in his eyes. “Once we go in, we can get out again, right?” she said.
“You’re safe with me,” he said, using his Dark God voice.
“I don’t believe that at all.” Yet somehow she felt reassured.
He laughed and released her hand. “Stay the night or don’t, my dear; it’s your choice.”
She had left her toiletries bag in his room after her shower that morning, unsure of anything, though it wasn’t exactly a lifelong commitment. The hotel where most of her things were gave her fresh shampoo, soap, and conditioner every day in tiny plastic bottles, and she could always get a toothbrush and toothpaste from a nearby 7-Eleven, or even the front desk.
She glanced up at his face, saw the rueful smile that always captivated her, the faint tilt to the eyebrows indicating a person waiting for an answer. The glow was gone again.
“I’d like to,” she said.
His hand rested on her shoulder, then, the heat of it welcoming and welcome, and they walked up the flagstone path together. He let her into the house. This time they got all the way to his room without rousing the director or anyone else.
“Wait here,” he whispered at the threshold, then crossed the dark room and turned on the bedside light. He nodded and she came in and eased the door shut, locked it. The atmosphere was different in the room tonight; the light lower, and no sense of tiredness or settling for comfort.
Corvus picked up the alarm clock and set it, placed it on the bedside table again, then only looked at her, most of him in silhouette with the lamp almost behind him. She stepped away from the door without speaking. Her breath quickened as she kicked off her shoes, dropped her messenger bag on the couch, and went to him. His huge hands were gentle and deft, the knuckles brushing her breasts as he unbuttoned her shirt. She worked his belt free of its buckle. Only their breaths sounded in the room, ragged and harsh, along with the small thuds of discarded garments dropping to the floor.
Everything that followed had its own logic and rhythm. She ended up drowsing across him afterward, riding the rise and fall of his chest, one of his hands resting on the small of her back. He pulled the covers up over them and was gone into sleep like a candle snuffed out.
The alarm woke them far too early, while the sky was still dark. Corvus groaned, a sound and a vibration against her cheek. She lay soaking in his warmth, comfort, and scent, until he finally rumbled, “Opal? I think we better get going,” and she remembered where and who she was.
They shared the shower and brushed teeth beside each other, dressed out in the open space of his room. She was on her third day with this set of clothes; they stank. She glanced at Corvus to make sure his back was turned, then ran her clothes through a Refreshing Spell, and stroked pale green into the shirt.
“We don’t have time to go anywhere but here for breakfast,” Corvus said, and she checked her watch. Almost four fifteen A.M., and they had to be in the Makeup trailer at the location by five. “Bessie sets out coffee and toast and cereal and juice. Sometimes more, if she’s feeling perky. Neil or George will have told her we’re getting up early today.”
“Okay.”
Neil and Blaise were in the dining room when they arrived. None of them spoke. Neil had a plateful of scrambled eggs and sausages, things Corvus hadn’t mentioned in his menu report, and Blaise had a big mug of coffee and a piece of dry toast.
Opal got coffee and a buttered English muffin from an array of food on the sideboard. She sat at the table to slather the muffin with blackberry jam. Corvus got a huge bowl of oatmeal into which he dumped raisins, milk, and syrup. “Sleep well?” he asked Neil.
“Well enough,” said Neil. “You?”
“Yeah. Blaise, you’re on hold today, right?”
Blaise shrugged. “Yes, but I’m going to the location with you anyway. I want to watch you seduce my sister.”
Opal glanced at Neil to see if he had any objections, but he was absorbed in his breakfast.
An old woman with silver hair, a softly wrinkled face, and a cushiony, comfortable-looking shape clothed in a red plaid dress and a white apron came through the swinging door from the back of the house, bearing a plate of crisp bacon, which she set down in the center of the table. “My, my,” she said, looking from Blaise to Opal with a smile. “More company. You ladies care for anything you don’t see here?”
“No,” said Blaise.
“The bacon looks great,” Opal said. This must be Bessie Gates, the woman Mrs. Partridge said she didn’t get along with. Opal wondered if now was a good time to ask about ancient history, but before she could frame her question, the woman turned to Corvus.
“Master?” Bessie said.
He paused, a spoon loaded with oatmeal on its way to his mouth, and cocked his head at Bessie. “Ma’am?”
“What may I feed you?” There was silk in her voice, Opal thought, spider silk or something else, something worshipful and seductive and a little sticky.
The house was watching and listening to them.
“I’m happy with oatmeal and bacon,” said Corvus, his voice at its most gentle.
The woman smiled, bobbed her head, tucked her hands into her apron pockets, and headed toward the door back to the kitchen.
Neil looked grumpy. No one had called him master or asked what he wanted.
“Ma’am?” Opal said.
Bessie paused with her shoulder against the swinging door. She turned reluctantly. “Miss?”
“I was wondering if you could tell us about the Last of the Lost?”
Bessie laughed. “Where’d you hear that old wives’ tale? From an old wife, I’ll wager! Who was it? That tattletale busybody, Myrna Partridge?”
“She did say some girls disappeared in the fifties and were never seen again.”
“It makes a good story, doesn’t it?”
“Do you know what happened to them?”
“Well, now.” Bessie came back into the room and stood beside the table, looming over Opal, her hands still hidden in her pockets. She seemed taller than she had before. Her eyes were hungry. “Sometimes a woman has to get away from a place,�
� she said. “There was just no help for her there. I think it’s likely those girls hiked over to the highway and hitched a ride up to Portland. I know it seems like we’re at the back of beyond here, but even back then, the big city wasn’t so far away. Who knew what happened to any of them once they left?”
“You don’t think they went to the forest to join the Last of the Lost?”
Bessie laughed again. “There is no Last of the Lost.” She strode toward the door. “He’s not lost, and he’s not last anymore,” she muttered, with a glance at Corvus before she disappeared.
Opal looked at Corvus, too. He was shoveling oatmeal into his mouth; it took him a couple of seconds to notice her regard. When he did, he raised an eyebrow.
“Maybe she’d answer if you asked the questions,” Opal said.
“What are the questions?” asked Corvus.
“There are no more bloody questions,” said Neil, “Only timing, and you need to shove off if you’re going to make your call.”
Hitch drove Blaise, Opal, and Corvus to the location. Blaise didn’t say anything snide on the way.
The Makeup trailer, Cast trailer, Craft Services trailer, generator, camera truck, all the equipment had been moved to the location during the night. The morning was misty but not drizzling, a relief to everyone. Gemma and Bettina weren’t in Makeup yet; their call was for eight A.M. Transportation had started the Makeup trailer’s generator and turned on the heat already, but Rod and Magenta hadn’t come to open up the trailer, since they didn’t have to arrive until Gemma and Bettina did. Opal turned on the lights as Corvus and Blaise settled into chairs. She unlocked the cupboard where she stored the prosthetics and set up for work. Blaise lounged in one of the chairs, opened a copy of Harper’s and effectively vanished, but Opal, conscious of her presence, didn’t talk with Corvus. There was nothing she wanted to say to him where anybody else could hear.
She wondered if she wanted to do a postmortem on their first actual night together anyway. Maybe she should just let it lie.
Fall of Light Page 16
