Celebromancy

by Michael R. Underwood

  The corner of Danny’s hard-set mouth twitched into a half-smile, and he took a step back and started toward Jane’s table.

  Ree scanned the room again, then took a sidestep and pressed on the bar to open the door. She left it open a crack, waiting to listen for conspicuous sounds like guns cocking, creatures snarling, or something equally terrifying.

  Not hearing anything particularly scary, she leaned out the door and looked into the alley herself.

  The alley outside Infinity was clean, well kept, with a Dumpster ten paces down to one side, allowing patrons to step out for a smoke without inhaling yet another kind of deadly fume.

  Ree stepped out, scanning down the side of the alley to the street in the distance. It might have been the strobe light on the club walls, but she thought she saw a form disappear around the corner.

  Did they give me the slip? she wondered. With skills honed by years of Taekwondo, Ree took one step in pursuit while simultaneously pushing a Don’t get locked out rock between the club door and its frame.

  She hurried a few steps toward the mouth of the alley, but her eyes quickly found something far more pressing.

  Atop one of the plastic recycling bins leaning against the opposite building hunched something that looked like a panther crossed with a dragonfly. It had iridescent black-and-green scales, honeycomb eyes, and big, big claws at the ends of muscled feline forelimbs.

  Where the fuck did you come from? Ree asked in her mind. You sure as hell don’t look like the thing I saw by the door.

  Ree pulled her knife out and flipped it open. She circled out and around, trying to get the far wall at her back.

  The panther-fly tracked her movement, shimmering wings flapping every few moments the same way a person might blink.

  “If you promise not to hurt anyone, I might just let you leave. What do you say to that?” Ree asked.

  In response, the creature’s wings unfurled, and it lifted off the ground, hovering forward. The creature’s forelimbs spread, as if getting ready to gather her up and rip her head off. Or maybe to give her a hug.

  She wasn’t betting on the hug part.

  Ree shrugged her jacket off, wrapping it around her left arm, then took the knife in her right hand. A couple layers might not stop those claws, but they couldn’t hurt.

  What is it doing here?

  Ree had learned that there was a baseline level of weird in Pearson, and that sometimes, creatures were just around. They lived on the fringes, in alleys and sewers and hidden away in parks. They seemed to mostly prey on smaller animals, but sometimes they went for bigger game. Lucky me.

  The panther-fly zipped forward, slashing with one paw. Ree ducked under the shot, lifting her jacket-padded arm as a shield and aiming for the creature’s elbow with her knife. She felt the blade tear through flesh, and rushed forward at the diagonal to get under the beast and avoid any retaliatory claw raking. She lashed out again as she turned, guessing on a shot at the creature’s thorax-abdomen-ish area.

  She missed, then took another step back and looked up, seeing the creature turn in place like a helicopter. It swiped down at her, so Ree faded back and dodged out of the way of the cuts. When the creature hovered forward, Ree spun the knife around and slammed it into the back of the panther-fly’s left paw.

  The creature shrieked with a tinny voice, rearing back and flailing. Ree pulled the knife out of its paw and stood back as the creature flew upward. Ree checked the nearby terrain (trash bags, Dumpster, fire escape) and saw that she couldn’t chase the thing down without ridiculous effort, and watched as the wounded creature climbed into the sky, wavering in the air but eventually passing out of sight.

  “Huh, weird.” Ree checked the alley, wishing that real-life random encounters yielded loot the way they did in RPGs. She did her best to flick the sticky blood off of her knife, then walked out to the mouth of the alley to see if someone was standing around with magical puppeteer strings or the like.

  What she did see was that the line to get into Infinity had at least tripled, but she couldn’t see anyone who projected suspicious, so she headed back into the alley, unfolding her jacket to put it back on and return to club mode.

  Note to self: Always bring plastic baggies for monster-goop control. Hand sanitizer as well. Also: Figure out way to bring all of these things along without a purse. Jackets only go so far. See if Grognard can special order a portable hole.

  Ree pulled the door open again and rolled the rock back out of the way. She caught a whiff of crisp-scented air, narrowed her eyes at the stray strobe lights, and stepped back inside.

  Jane was waiting, perhaps even a little anxiously, when Ree made it back to her seat. The star brightened upon seeing her and lifted a full glass in greeting.

  “Sorry, had to freshen up,” Ree offered by way of explanation.

  Off to one side, she saw Danny at his table. He must have covered for me, Ree thought. She gave him a slight nod of thanks, again trying for that martial-artists-communicate-volumes-with-simple-motions thing from movies. Mostly she hoped she didn’t look dumb.

  “Let’s get back to enjoying the evening. You owe me another dance for leaving me hanging when they played Florence + the Machine.”

  Aw, damn. “Khan! Done and done.” Ree jingled the glass, clinking the ice. “But if I have much more of this, the only dance I’m going to be doing is with the porcelain throne.”

  Jane stood and took Ree’s hand, sending a not-at-all-unpleasant shiver down Ree’s neck. “Dance first, then. I can nurse you back to health after I’ve had my way on the dance floor.”

  Twist my arm, why don’t you. Ree walked with Jane to the center of the club. Jane worked her way through the crowd, dealing with a few touchy fans and one pushy drunkard who threw some choice curse words her way before the club’s security pulled him off the floor.

  The crowd parted, and Jane dominated the center of the floor. The star moved with even more energy than before, taking bounding jumps as she fused punk-y moshing with more classic rocking out. Ree had done her fair share of dancing off her demons, but Jane was putting Ree’s old Goth days to shame, jumping, spinning, and grooving with intensity for one, two, three songs straight. And she wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Instead, she was practically glowing, her own light layering over the strobes and spotlights of the club.

  Jane had her own audience, dozens of club-goers staring at any given moment, all feeding the star’s power.

  Ree caught a glimpse of Danny at the edge of the floor. He looked worried. But not crowd-of-potential-threats worried. Really worried.

  Ree started back toward Danny, but Jane caught her by the arm.

  “Where are you going?” Jane asked, pushing her voice to be heard over the din.

  Ree looked to Danny again, who had clammed up, back to normal ready mode.

  Step down the Red Alert. It’s fine. Live life a little, Batgirl, she told herself.

  As if on cue, the DJ put on “Airships” by VNV Nation.

  That’s what I’m talking about.

  Ree dove headfirst into the dance, shutting out the world and submitting to the music. She flowed with the synth, adapting the flowing techniques of tai chi into the dance, her feet moving slowly as she gathered energy. Jane caught Ree’s change in attitude immediately, ramping up even more and directing her attention at the writer, showing her off to the crowd, giving her room. They owned the floor for eight minutes and eighteen seconds of mainlined catharsis.

  When the song ended, they quit the floor without a word, still in sync.

  There were ice waters waiting at their table when they returned, though Ree didn’t know if those were due to Lacey’s thoughtfulness or Danny’s protectiveness. Ree pounded the water and then collapsed into the chair, happily beat.

  “All right, I’m calling it so I can go out on a high note,” Ree said to a still-glowi
ng Jane. She shimmered with sweat, wearing it proudly. She was, frustratingly, one of the women who looked hotter when they sweated.

  Damned if I don’t want to drag her home with me right fucking now, Ree thought, most of her wishing to just jump into the roaring river of her desire.

  “Will you at least be a lady and escort me home?” Jane asked, mischief in her eyes.

  Ooh, boy, she thought, considering all of the reasons why doing so would be professionally dangerous.

  What the hell? The rest of her responded, carrying the vote.

  Ree extended a hand to Jane and said, “But of course, milady.”

  • • •

  Ree hoped that Jane had tipped the cabbie big-time for his discretion. Because . . . damn. Scandalized didn’t start to describe what went down on the cab ride.

  They’d spent the whole trip wrapped around each other, limbs intertwined in a lascivious Gordian knot that was only partially untied when they climbed out of the cab and stumbled their way to Jane’s trailer, a four-legged smoochmoeba.

  Jane closed the door of the trailer and Ree came up for air, disentangling herself for a moment to catch her breath.

  Are we really doing this? She flailed mentally, grasping for the smart thing to do while wrestling her libido.

  She’d had her hook-ups during college, and they were fun, but they weren’t remotely responsible. She’d grown up since then, or at least tried to tell herself that she had.

  “Are you sure you want to do this? We’ve had a lot of vodka,” she said to Jane, who had kicked off her shoes and was curling her toes in the trailer’s plush carpet.

  Jane took two long, only slightly wobbly steps back to Ree. She breathed in, focusing. “We have, and I’m sure. Are you?”

  Ree paused, the pleasant cloudiness of inebriation receding. Well, am I? There would be consequences, but there were always consequences. Jane was gorgeous, she was kind, and she was, according to all the tabloids, a total badass in bed.

  What about Drake? a voice asked. She and Drake had been on tiptoes around each other for months, and the things left unsaid could fill a novel. But he hadn’t made a move, even a charmingly overstated grand gesture or an understated request to call on her at her apartment, aka The Shithole.

  “I am,” Ree said, and Jane smiled. The star turned toward the bedroom and exaggerated her gait, drawing attention to the movement of her hips; she looked at Ree over her shoulder in a manner more pronounced than Bugs Bunny in drag beguiling Elmer Fudd.

  Hummina.

  Ree drop-kicked caution out the window, then followed Jane to her bed. There, they shed layers in rapid succession: tops, bras, skirts, and more.

  The world fell away, leaving only Ree, Jane, and the ecstatic joy of discovery.

  • • •

  Hours later, Ree woke to the sound of screaming.

  Chapter Six

  Tinseltown Throwdown

  A new flame for Jane Konrad? Star seen partying downtown with Awakenings screenwriter Ree Reyes. Ity.bty/3gw0aj

  —@WTFStars, 03:17, May 24, 2012

  Hawt! I’d love to get in that lez sandwhch. MT @WTFStars Star seen partying downtown. Ity.bty/3gw0aj

  —@ZachAttk96, 03:19, May 24, 2012

  @WTFStars She’s obv. in no condition to be working. @RealJaneK Sort yr shit out before U fuck this girl’s life up 2.

  —@MaddowsWife, 03:18, May 24, 2012

  Ree shot up in bed. She looked around in the moonlight-gray room, going from sleeping-off-the-drunk to wide awake in a millisecond. Pawing her way around the nightstand, she found her glasses and put them on the double. Her farther-away-than-her-nose-vision enabled, Ree searched the room for whatever it was that would cause someone to be screaming bloody murder.

  Something hit her on the hip, and Ree saw Jane flailing in her sleep, looking like she was trying to wrestle someone who wasn’t there, full-on night-terror-style.

  Ree reached out and shook Jane’s shoulder, shouting, “Jane! Wake up! It’s just a dream!” Jane seemed to turn at her voice but continued fighting with the invisible terror.

  And then something hit Ree in the shoulder and knocked her off the bed. Something that wasn’t Jane.

  Ree’s voice and world wobbled as she conceded the point. “Not a dream! Definitely not a dream!”

  A light turned on from the front room of the trailer, and then the bedroom door burst open, showing Danny, lit from behind, wearing boxers and a sleeveless shirt.

  “Jane?” Danny called, holding a shotgun in one hand.

  Ree righted herself, tried to ignore the fact that she was naked in a room of at least two (three?) people, only one of whom she’d intended to see her that way. Instead, she focused on the invisible thing that had just hit her. She narrowed her eyes and tried to see . . . whatever it was. The light from the living room should have been enough to see the attacker, but all she saw was Jane fighting for her life.

  Ree reached down again to find her jacket, pulled out the lightsaber she kept on her always, and lit it. The blade leaped to life, blue light filling the room.

  Fuck secret identities.

  She still couldn’t see Jane’s attacker, so Ree stepped up and sliced horizontally where the creature should have been. The blade skipped off of an invisible nothing like it was a force field.

  “The fuck?” Ree said, spinning the blade around and trying to stab it. The blade bit in, and Ree felt like she was holding a stick dipped in quicksand.

  “Duck!” Danny said from behind her. Ree did so and saw that he was maneuvering for a clear shot. But it didn’t seem like he could see the thing any better than she could.

  Ree squatted on the floor, shaking Jane’s arm.

  “Wake up!” she shouted, but Jane was still locked in a dream, struggling and screaming with her eyes closed.

  Ree cut through where the creature should have been again and felt the blade skip off like it was plated in adamantium.

  The lightsaber wasn’t working. Maybe some good old Hapkido would fare better. She dropped the blade, which extinguished and returned to being a lifeless plastic prop as soon as it left her grip.

  She stayed low.

  “All yours!” Ree said, letting Danny have a shot. The gun went off, almost deafeningly loud inside the trailer. She heard the impacts, but Jane still struggled. Danny fired twice more, but it didn’t seem to do anything.

  “My turn!” Ree said, waving behind her to get Danny to stop. She re-assessed where the thing should be, and dove forward. She slammed into something that was both heavy and insubstantial, like thick gas in a plastic case. Ree felt around for limbs, trying to use her sense of touch to figure out which way to wrench it to inflict damage. She smelled smoke, but not wood smoke. It had a sharp note to it, like burned plastic.

  The thing reared, swinging her around the bedroom like a rag doll as she held on for dear-God-life.

  As she struggled, the 50% miss chances and grappling penalties for invisible opponents rules from various RPGs all made a scary amount of sense.

  Ree pulled on a maybe-arm, trying to catch her feet somewhere to give her more leverage. Danny made a calculated swing that produced a thump sound and stopped in the middle of the air. The invisithing recoiled, and Ree hauled harder, trying to tighten the circle of her move to maximize the effect on the joints. The thing lurched to the side, and Ree broke through the closet door with the invisithing crushing her.

  The air in her lungs quit in a huff, leaving Ree clawing for breath without losing her grip.

  The invisithing broke free of her grasp, and Ree took a vicious right hook on the cheek.

  The pain let her gasp in air, and as soon as she had breath to use, she shouted, “Fucking A!” at the compounding pain. She kicked out at the thing as Danny jumped over the bed with an overhand swing of the bat. The thing caught Danny in the air and knocked him back into
the doorway, then tore down the curtain covering the window in the corner, broke the window, and then, presumably, disappeared out into the alley.

  Ree clambered over to the window, careful to keep her hands off the broken glass but not so careful she didn’t step on it, and stared out into the night, looking for traces of the invisithing.

  She took a half-step back and looked to Danny, who had picked himself off the floor and was at the bedside, hand on Jane’s shoulder.

  The star was awake again, eyes wide as a cartoon character’s, filled with terror.

  “Is it gone?” she asked, breathless.

  “It’s gone,” Ree said as Danny said, “Yes.”

  Ree grabbed an errant sheet and wrapped it around her chest, stepping gingerly off of the shards of glass. Once again, she hoped the decade of callusing from Taekwondo had protected her. She sat on the bed, leaning into Jane. “It’s gone. You’re safe now.”

  Jane turned away from Danny and Ree and vomited on the headboard.

  Yikes.

  Ree looked to Danny and asked softly, “Has this happened before?”

  Danny furrowed his eyebrows. “Of course not.” I smell something extra-fishy here.

  Ree pressed the topic, asking louder, to both of them. “Has something else happened before?”

  Jane leaned into Ree and curled up into a ball, breathing inconsistently and sobbing.

  Fucking hell. Ree’s protective instincts dropped her onto the bed, and she wrapped her arms around the star before she realized what she was doing.

  “We need to take her to the hospital,” Ree said.

  Danny shook his head. “No. She told me not to.”

  The hell? “She told you? She knew this would happen?”

  Ree looked down to the terrified star, the woman who just hours ago had captivated an entire club, who’d had a whole room of fans and reporters eating out of the palm of her hand.

  “What the hell is going on here, Danny?” she asked, point-blank, locking him in her gaze.