by Dana Fredsti
Some mornings, there just wasn’t enough coffee in the world to make it easy to rise and shine. I heaved a deep, shuddering sigh and splashed some cold water on my flushed face, taking a quick peek in the mirror to see how bad I looked. A little red in and around the eyes, and my long mane of dark-brown hair needed a brush in the worst possible way. Taking a few more minutes, I tamed my hair into a Dutch braid that fell past my butt, smoothed the fragile skin under my eyes with some cream, and ran a Burt’s Bees tinted balm over my lips. It’d do.
My mother’s amulet—yeah, that one—rested a few inches below the hollow of my neck, the gold metal gleaming dully against my skin. For all I knew the ancient sigils stood for “Eat my shorts, demonspawn!” Whatever, it had been Mom’s, it was now mine, and it worked.
Taking a deep breath, I headed back down the hall toward the kitchen. I stopped short of the door when I heard Sean say, “How is Lee doing on the falls?”
“Better,” Seth replied. “Much better. Up to forty feet without hesitation. Maybe we should consider bringing her in on Spasm, give her a chance to ease back in.”
Holy shit, did I just hear Seth advocating to use me on a film? Hope my ancestress had some winter clothing to keep her warm in her prison in hell, because it just froze over.
“Now, Seth, you know that’s not practical right now.”
“Yeah, but—”
The floor creaked as I shifted my weight. Seth stopped mid-sentence. Rats. I went into the kitchen, poured myself more coffee and sat at the table. I didn’t bother to pretend I hadn’t been eavesdropping.
“Do you not want me on your films because you’re afraid I’m a monster magnet and people could get hurt? Because if that’s the case I guess I understand, but it would be really nice if you’d just tell me.”
“That’s just—”
Sean held up a hand, cutting off his son’s predictable insult. “It’s a fair question, Seth, and a thoughtful one.” He ran the same hand through his hair, then dropped it to the table to retrieve his coffee cup. “There will always be the risk of one of Lilith’s children seeking you out if they’re close enough to sense you, but the chance of another one showing up on a film you’re working on?” He shook his head. “Not likely.”
“Then what’s the deal?” I tried to keep the frustration out of my voice. I really did. The fact that it was an epic fail was not for lack of effort on my part. “If even Seth thinks I’m ready to work again, why the hell won’t you put me back on a film?”
“Look, hon,” Sean said patiently, “considering the double whammy of trauma you had, first with the accident and then what happened on Pale Dreamer, it seemed prudent to keep you away from the work until you could get your head back in the game.” He reached out to put a hand over mine, something I used to find comforting. Calming, even. Now it felt more like a cursory “there, there” gesture. “You’ve been taking work that’s in your comfort zone, and you’ve been doing a good job. That’s a great start.”
“So how long will it take before you decide I’ve weathered all the trauma?” And how come you get to decide this and not me? I added silently.
Sean and Seth exchanged a quick glance. They did that a lot these days.
“Guess I’d like to see how you keep your head next time you take on a demon.”
“And what, exactly, should I be doing to find one?” I will not blow up. My frustration felt increasingly like lava bubbling deep inside a seemingly dormant volcano—just because I had a lid on it didn’t mean it still couldn’t go off at any time. “I mean, we haven’t talked about this at all since you guys dropped the ‘worst family tree ever’ bomb on me.”
“Well, Lee, you haven’t brought it up either,” Sean said gently.
He had a point. I’d tried to ignore it and get on with my life. Except the whole getting on with my life thing was happening with the speed of a lazy glacier.
“Okay, fair enough. So let’s talk about it now. If this is something I’m supposed to do, maybe I should be more proactive about it. You said yourself they’re not likely to show up on a film set. Should I put out ads in the paper? Print business cards that read ‘I’m here to kill your monster’?”
“There’s no telling how many are out there or how often you’ll run across them. With your mom…” Sean rubbed a hand across his brow, as if to smooth away his nearly non-existent wrinkles. “When Lila first found out her destiny, she searched for demons, kept an eye on the papers. Watched the news. Listened to radio shows. Keeping an eye and an ear out for anything that might be out of the ordinary. People gone missing. Cattle mysteriously slaughtered. Small towns and villages where urban legends originated. She and your dad loved to travel, so they’d choose their destinations accordingly. When two years went by without any sign of one of Lilith’s spawn, they decided it was safe to have a child. You.”
“She stopped looking,” I guessed.
“She did. And then another homicidal demon turned up again and your mother realized it wasn’t over, and never would be. She and your father decided to run.”
“And they were bushwhacked.”
“Yes.”
Which led me to the big question. “How do I find the demon that killed them so I can go all Inigo Montoya on its ass?”
“That’s something we need to—”
Whatever else Sean might have said was lost in the sound of a very loud engine as a car roared up the drive leading to the carport out front. Brakes screeched in harmony with the sound of tires skidding on pavement. There was a brief silence, broken by the slam of car doors and then the sound of the front door bursting open. Heavy footsteps thudded on the tiled floor.
“Holy shit, that was fucking perfect,” a familiar voice crowed in complete self- satisfaction.
“Yeah, not too bad,” came the laconic reply. “Hey, I smell bacon!”
The footsteps headed our way and two men built like WWF wrestlers on steroids clomped into the kitchen. Joe “Drift” McKenzie and Jim “Tater” Tott. Both sported close-cropped beards and mustaches and wore workout gear, including athletic shoes that could double as small kayaks. The two weren’t related, but looked like they should be. Drift had some cave troll in his family tree and while Tater didn’t talk about his supe heritage, I was pretty sure it included something big and scary. Both of them could take hits and falls that would break the average stuntman without more than a bruise or two to show for it.
I smiled despite the frustration of conversation interruptus. Two of the longest-standing members of the KSC, Drift and Tater are on my shortlist of favorites. Drift is one of the best stunt drivers in the business and Tater, a former Army Ranger, thrives on anything as long as it’s dangerous. Somewhere between uncles and big brothers, they’d taught me a lot of the ropes when I’d started training. More recently, they’d helped me keep my sanity and sense of humor through the long months of rehab, and watching stunt players less talented get jobs that should have been mine.
“You guys are early,” I commented as Drift ruffled my hair with a hand of the size of a dinner plate on his way to the stovetop to see if there was any food up for grabs. He had a brown paper grocery bag tucked under one muscular arm.
“Figured one of these two would be cooking up grub before the morning session starts.”
Planting a kiss on the top of my head, Tater hugged me with one arm while his hand did a sneaky-snake maneuver towards my last piece of bacon. I successfully snagged it from under his questing fingers and popped it in my mouth. We had played this game before.
“What makes you think you two are going to get any?” Sean eyeballed the two meal crashers with a mock-stern look.
Drift promptly pulled a case of Stella Artois out of the grocery bag and deposited it on the counter.
Sean gave a satisfied nod. “Okay, then. I think there’s still some eggs on the stove.”
“Is there more bacon?” Tater asked, poking his head in the fridge while Drift grabbed clean plates and coffee mugs from the cup
board and popped a couple pieces of bread in the toaster. A triumphant hoot signaled the successful discovery of more bacon.
“I’ll just fry this up,” he said, with a sideways glance in Seth’s direction.
“No, you don’t.” Pushing back his chair, Seth grabbed the bacon and growled, “No one touches my cast-iron but me.”
Drift and Tater exchanged satisfied smiles behind Seth’s back as he fried up more bacon and made fresh coffee. They had played this game before too, and always won. Seth was a much easier mark than me.
* * *
Tater and I started the morning training session by introducing the newbies to basic broadsword, while a couple of the more advanced students got to practice sword and shield. My way of training newbies in swordplay is to teach them the parries and target areas along with basic footwork and safe distancing first. Nothing fancy. After they show that they can handle a broadsword without whacking their partners on the extremities or, even worse, the head, I move them onto more complicated weaponry where there’s pointwork involved. The goal is to get them to do the moves safely and realistically, making a fight appear scary with a minimum of risk. It is not always successful.
Take Jada, for instance. She’s perfectly safe as a fight partner, but there’s absolutely no fire, no realism. She thinks if she yells or grunts every time she cuts, thrusts, or throws a punch, it’ll make it look real. It doesn’t. The smattering of air elemental in her DNA that makes her excel at aerial stunts doesn’t do a damn thing for her fighting skills. Not that she’d agree with my assessment. We don’t play well together.
Jada and I are similar physical types. Long dark hair. Strong, regular features. Skin that tans easily. My eyes are a blueish violet whereas hers are hazel. I also have more of a melting-pot appearance and can pretty much pass for any ethnicity. Still, Jada is at least two sizes smaller than me, and we’ve been up for the same job more than once. Until my accident, I usually got the work, even the wirework and falls. Not because of nepotism, but because I’m better than she is. And I don’t just say this because I think Jada is a bitch.
Although she totally is.
I mean, first thing she said when she showed up for the afternoon session? “Lee, are you gonna be able to come back and work on Spasm with the rest of us?” Her oh-so-faux concerned tone told me she already knew the answer was “no.”
Giving her a friendly smile, I replied, “Nah, but it’ll be okay. Sean can make do with you until I’m ready to come back to work.”
“Well, that’ll be a while, won’t it?” Jada returned my smile with a saccharine-sweet one of her own. “Because I guess you still can’t get past the twenty-foot falls, right?”
I looked at her. “You really haven’t been paying attention, have you?”
Then I used the pissed-off adrenaline to climb to the sixty-foot mark of the practice tower and throw myself off without hesitation, stepping into the void and doing a slow forward flip until—
Whomp.
I landed dead center of the airbag on my back, eyes shut, a huge grin on my face as I heard Drift give a loud celebratory whoop.
“Good job, Lee.”
No way.
My eyes flew open to see Seth standing next to the airbag. I scanned the sky for four horsemen because Seth praising me is one of the signs of the coming apocalypse. Nothing up there but a few clouds and a red-tail hawk. He extended his hand to help me up off the airbag. I took it gingerly, half-expecting a buzzer to go off and shock me. But nothing happened other than him pulling me to my feet. Oh, and Jada stomping off in the other direction, which was almost as satisfying as Seth’s reaction.
“So… that was okay?” Jeez, could I sound any needier?
“I’m proud of you,” he said simply. “You owned that.”
Before I had a chance to find out if I was going to thank him or burst into tears, Drift picked me up and twirled me around like I was made of straw, hooting and hollering in glee the entire time.
“Holy shit, Lee, that was awesome!”
“It sure was,” Tater chimed in, giving me a hug as Drift set me back on my feet.
I smiled, and not just because Jada looked like she’d bitten into the world’s bitterest lemon.
Maybe it was time to be proactive and go see my agent.
Hell, if I could impress Seth, I could do anything.
CHAPTER FOUR
Monday late morning I sat across from Faustina Corbin on the other side of a big dark wood desk, at Mana Talent Agency in Beverly Grove. It may not have had the more popular Beverly Hills zip code attached to its address, but MTA was still the agency for supes in the entertainment business. Sure, there were other agencies that handled supernatural clients, but none of them had the same clout or reputation as MTA—probably because none of them were owned and run by a former Dacian goddess of the harvest.
The name of the agency—Mana, originally spelled “manna”—was pretty much an in-joke. Faustina once told me the backstory. Manna by itself is neither good nor bad, kind of like the Force. It’s also, quite literally, the food of the gods. When the cosmos was created out of chaos, those gods and Titans who came into being the first million or so years lived on it. When they discovered every mortal who believed in them, who offered worship and sacrifice, increased their manna and thus their power, they fought over it, using their worshipers as pawns. They sent them on quests to feed the glory of their chosen deity. Some of the gods still crave the raw power they used to have. Some reinvented themselves. Changed their names to fit whatever mythos people believed in. Some are real bastards. Yahweh comes to mind.
Today Faustina wore a simple cream-colored suit that hugged bounteous curves and a slender waist. Her glossy dark hair was drawn back in a ballerina bun. A few wrinkles on her forehead and the barest hint of crow’s feet gave her just enough character without making her look old. I wondered if it was something only ex-goddesses could get away with.
Given my non-supe status, I’d wondered at first why Faustina wanted me as a client. I’d assumed it was because I was good at my job and that I accepted the supernatural element in the world—and in the Industry—without problems or prejudice. After Sean filled me in on my family history, however, I couldn’t help but speculate that the whole “descendent of Lilith” played into her decision as well. Whatever the reason, I considered myself lucky. Except all the luck and clout in the world evidently wasn’t enough to get me work any time soon.
“Basically, what you’re saying is you’ve got nothing for me right now,” I said. “Can you tell me why?” Or, more to the point, will you?
“It’s slow right now, Lee.” Faustina smiled sympathetically, inviting me to agree with her.
“It’s not that slow,” I argued. “I’m not asking for the impossible, but can’t you even get me another piece of schlock like Dragon Druid Mages?” Even to my own ears, I sounded like an ungrateful teenager. Faustina graciously chose to ignore my sullen tone, partly because the door to her office opened and her assistant Tracy appeared bearing two venti-sized Starbucks cups.
“Sorry to interrupt, Miss Corbin, but I have your lattes.” She walked as if she were balancing on a tightrope and spilling a drop would mean death. Faustina inspired this kind of over-the-top devotion in her staff.
“Ah, Tracy! Excellent!” Faustina smiled brightly, the kind of smile that chases clouds and their shadows away. Tracy practically blossomed in front of us, the tired lines in her face smoothing out, brown eyes sparkling with pleasure. She carefully set one of the cups in front of Faustina as if presenting Baby Jesus with myrrh and frankincense, putting mine down with less reverence, but equal care.
I thanked her, and she shot me a quick, “You’re welcome,” before her attention swung back to Faustina—a sunflower shifting to face the sun.
“I’m so sorry about the Nespresso machine.” Tracy wrung her hands apologetically. “They still haven’t sent the replacement hose for the—”
Faustina cut her off with a wave of on
e hand. “Please don’t worry about it, Tracy. We’ll make do with Starbucks for the time being.”
Tracy wilted just a little bit, but another smile from Faustina gave her enough energy to leave the room, shutting the door ever so quietly behind her. My agent waited a few beats before saying, “I wish she’d take more vacation days. A lovely girl, but she really needs to get a life outside of the office. Bless her patience with the lines at Starbucks, though.”
I sipped my own drink, waiting for Faustina’s attention to return to the subject at hand. Before that happened, however, her phone rang. “Well, hell,” she said, throwing me an apologetic glance. “Tracy wouldn’t bother me unless it was important. Do you mind? I promise I’ll just be a few minutes.”
How could I say no to an apologetic goddess? “No worries.”
She punched the blinking line. “Yes, hon? Oh yes, good call. Put her through.” A pause. “Hel-lo, Irina. What can I do for you?” Tucking the phone against one ear and tapping her French manicured nails on the desktop, Faustina listened to a stream of monologue from her caller, giving encouraging “mm hmms” and “I see” at what I was sure were perfectly timed intervals. After a few minutes of this, she finally cut in with, “So you need someone who can ski and has a resistance to frostbite. In their twenties. Not a problem. Jasmine Basnet, quarter Yeti, gorgeous, very athletic, and will have absolutely no trouble shooting a scene while skiing in her skivvies.” Another pause. “I’ll email her résumé and headshot before lunch. Mm hmmm. Ciao.” The receiver went back into its cradle.
