The Poison of Ivy

by Jessica King

  “I know,” Mason said. “But, I mean, I feel like this is what I was meant to do. What are the odds I would graduate after a year’s study on cults if I weren’t somehow supposed to step in here?”

  Wilkins smiled wryly. “You sound like a Kingsmen, almost,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll fit in enough, after all.”

  Mason didn’t think this was an insult or a compliment. It was somewhere in between. A fact.

  +++

  Monday, March 13, 2017, 12:15 p.m.

  Shortly after Ivy had met Aline Rousseau, she realized that watching others trying to interact with Aline had become a sort of favorite pastime of hers. It’d been amusing back when they were working together more closely, and she now missed it more than she’d thought.

  Mason was staring slack-jawed at the sprite-like star. She smiled her usual dazzling smile at him, and Ivy bit her upper lip. The camera crew were on shaky legs, never having actually filmed a real star before, and they roved around her at all different angles, desperate for closeups. Ivy could tell Lindsey was trying to keep herself from requesting they move to new, more picturesque locations than the library where Katie Moore worked. Emily, Aline’s manager, had come along. She didn’t think the woman would ever say it aloud, but after Aline’s near-death, she figured that Emily was uneasy when it came to Aline hanging around Ivy and Vince.

  When they’d asked the nearest librarian to speak to Katie Moore, a kind-looking old man, who was clearly confused by the cameras, smiled at Aline in a way that showed he felt the general magnetism of Aline’s presence. But, if she looked familiar to him, he didn’t show it at all. Katie Moore was some assistant to the media director of the library, and she’d be out in a “jiffy,” the old man had said. Ivy wasn’t sure how Mason planned to frame this, but she and Vince had promised their assistance in his plan.

  Katie was a tall, fashionable young woman, and she stopped dead in her tracks as soon as she saw Aline, her face becoming distorted in confusion. They certainly did look out of place in a library—two LAPD detectives, a movie star, an agent who was snapping into a telephone, and a camera crew. In fact, Mason was the only one who looked like he even belonged anywhere near the building. But it wasn’t Katie that gasped; it was Aline.

  She gave a vague gesture toward Katie. “This is what I was talking about!” Aline said. “The high-waisted capri thing is so in right now.”

  Emily looked up from her phone at Katie, her face remaining unimpressed by the whole ordeal. “You’re too short for that look, Aline. It’ll make you look too wide on camera.”

  All ninety-five pounds of Aline huffed, and Ivy couldn’t imagine the actress looking anything even remotely similar to “wide” at any point in any item of clothing. “I know,” Aline said, rolling her eyes. She shook her head at Katie as if Emily would not have her way in the end and Aline would certainly be buying the exact outfit Katie had on. “But I really do love it. Not too spicy but definitely attractive.”

  Previously, Ivy had not been aware that clothes could be spicy, but she supposed that she understood what Aline meant all the same.

  “Aline Rousseau?” Katie finally said, breaking her silence. She tucked her hair behind both of her ears, which were already bearing the load of heavily-rimmed glasses.

  “And you have a middle part! Ugh, my face is not symmetrical enough for that,” Aline said. She beamed up at Katie, who had started to walk toward her hesitantly. “I’m Aline!” she said, stating the obvious and closing the gap between the two of them, though Katie certainly had to do more of the work in the hug, having to hold an awkward squat to get down to the tiny actress’ level. “Lovely to meet you!”

  The girl nodded as though she agreed but couldn’t manage to get the words out.

  “I’m Mason.” Mason was also shorter than Katie, which sort of threw things off perspective-wise to Ivy, who had officially categorized Mason in the “tall person” category. She almost wanted to tell Vince to go stand next to Katie to see how he would fair.

  “Katie,” the girl said, shaking his hand.

  “I have something like a favor to ask you,” he said, “that I think will end up being mutually beneficial.”

  “How so?” she asked.

  “In that, you are being hunted, and I can get that to stop,” he said.

  Katie blinked once. A long, confusing blink during which her eyebrows nearly touched the high ceilings of the library. Mason told them he planned to be direct, but Ivy hadn’t expected him to just open with an I was sent to kill you discussion. But that was most certainly how the conversation went, and within fifteen minutes, a very pale version of Katie had explained to her direct superior that she was going to need an extended leave of absence without contact for some time. Her boss clearly liked her, despite the reasonable amount of skepticism on her face.

  Perhaps this was why she and Vince were here. In the civilian world, policemen were a Band-Aid when it came to “not wanting to explain.” Ivy simply said that Katie’s temporary absence was critical to a case in which she was uninvolved, but nevertheless had been drawn into, and Katie’s boss said they’d manage with the interns until Katie could come back to work.

  So that was that.

  Back at Katie’s apartment, there was a rather long phone discussion with her parents, who were concerned when their daughter told them they would need to pretend as though their daughter was dead to them because a group of witch-hunters was after her. Ivy thought her parents were still confused by the time they hung up, but Mason had less than thirty-six hours before Katie was reassigned, so time was of the essence. The lesson in death had begun.

  “So, we’re going to have you die from a stab wound because it’d be really hard to get the timing right on a one-take with no angle changes with a gunshot. Since we have to film from his cellphone, and he won’t be holding it, we’ve got to do it in one, believable scene,” Lindsey said, pointing to where she suggested Mason should leave the cellphone to record Katie’s death.

  Katie was in a sports bra, looking quite ill already, which Ivy figured would be helpful. One of Lindsey’s crew was taping a bag of fake blood over her heart.

  Vince poked Ivy’s arm, and she looked down. He was picking through a box Mason had brought with him.

  “They make kits you can buy for Kingsmen,” Mason had said in the car.

  Ivy suddenly felt ill herself when she saw the stack of Kingsmen cards. So many of them in one place, waiting to be left with bodies made her too feel like vomiting.

  +++

  Monday, March 13, 2017, 1:38 p.m.

  “So, this is a trick knife,” Aline said, pretending to stab herself in the chest. It didn’t matter many how many times one might use a trick knife; she felt that regular spike of adrenaline and could see it in the people around her as they fought through the involuntary pause a body went through when the eyes saw a dagger plunged into flesh.

  It was helpful to actors, when they had to do stabbing scenes, that natural moment of “What have I done?” made things much more believable.

  “You’re already good at this!” Aline said, noting Katie’s alarmed eyes. She pulled the hilt of the knife away from herself, the retractable blade screeching. “I’m just going to try it slowly on you so we can see how the angle looks, okay?”

  Katie nodded, and Aline slowly pressed the point of the blade into Katie’s chest near the blood bag until it looked like the entire blade was in her body. She pulled back slowly. “Could you see the retraction, Lindsey?” Aline asked, turning behind her.

  “Nope! You won’t be able to see the knife for almost the entire movement, that’s what we’re looking for!” Lindsey said. She was standing behind where they planned to leave Mason’s phone for the recording, and she flashed them a thumbs up. The man holding the boom mic accidentally allowed it to dip and sway, and a young man covered in backpacks and extension cords attempted to untie himself from an unfortunate knot. The picture of it gave her a sudden surge of nostalgia for her own film class
es back in France.

  “Perfect!” Aline said.

  “I-I’m not much of an actress?” Katie said it like a question.

  “Look, I’ll never admit to it in front of a camera,” Aline said, lowering her voice secret-low, “but acting is super easy.”

  Katie’s lips curled at the edges, which was what Aline was after.

  “But dying isn’t just a flop on the floor, you know?” she said. “You’ve got to—” she plunged the pretend knife into her heart and staggered back “—pretend like you think you’re gonna make it!” She raised her voice, and her eyes went wide. She stared at Katie like the other woman had stabbed her and let her feet start to drag.

  “Then you feel your blood pressure drop, and you try to come to terms with the fact that you are dying. You are leaving everyone behind that you love. And you have no idea what comes next.” Her knees slackened, and her upper body tilted—she was suddenly aware of the weakness of her body without the blood to hold it up, give it strength.

  Aline told herself she was dying, dying, dying—what was death, really?—No! She couldn’t go like this. She tried to take a staggering breath in, but she could hardly taste the fresh air around the blood in her mouth. No, no, no, no, I—she fell to her knees—a safer fall than from a standing position and collapsed onto her hands in front of her. Is this really it? My mom, Emily, how—

  She let go of every muscle of her body at once, letting herself fall as she may. It was mostly to her right, and she ended up in a sort of fetal position on her side. She let all the breath fall out of her, and she didn’t let her eyes close all the way, just kept a soft focus on the rug in front of her.

  She knew everyone in the room was staring at her. She’d been practicing all sorts of death scenes for as long as she could remember. They were normally in retaliation to her mother’s insistence upon eating vegetables. Her performances were more dramatic for her least favorite vegetables—kale always was a long, drawn-out death filled with pain and agony.

  Vince started clapping and gave a loud “Whoop!” and Lindsey asked her camera guy if he made sure to get that. He had. Aline stood and took a small bow, winking into the camera.

  “So, Mason will then turn off the camera quick—don’t breathe in again until he tells you to, okay?” she said. “And stare at one point, or if you don’t think you can do that, close your eyes entirely,” Aline said.

  Katie nodded, absorbing Aline’s words with wide eyes. Katie, she decided, had the type of eyes that looked like they were eating everything in the room with a voracious appetite—a great characteristic in an actress—and such height! She knew girls who would kill for such height, though she figured she shouldn’t mention that now, considering the circumstances.

  “All of this just for posting about the Prophetess,” Katie said, rolling her misting eyes. Aline considered herself to have a keen eye for the difference between the fake and real tears, and these were real—the type that made the nose turn red first, that made the edges of her lips wobble.

  “Ah,” Aline said, raising her eyebrows. “Stare there,” she said, pointing to the standing lamp that had a bluish glow as opposed to a yellow one. “Blue for calm,” she said. “Light will dry out your eyes.”

  Katie followed Aline’s finger and stared at the lamp. It was a trick Aline had used over and over again for second, third, and tenth takes of a scene when she had to start and stop crying on command. She imagined her tears drying like cement in the sun. Katie swallowed, looking more stable.

  “Why did you post about the Prophetess?” Ivy asked. “Do you practice magic?”

  Katie laughed. “No,” she said. “Not my thing in real life. But the Prophetess seemed so much like the character Estellune.” The crowd around her was clearly not the right one, but something itched at the back of Aline’s brain.

  “The Azure Infinity series?” Aline asked. Her brain gave her vague pictures of black covers with bluish-green lettering and wisps of smoke.

  “Yes!” Katie said, pointing to her. “Estellune is an almighty goddess, but her powers are very …”

  “Witchy?” Ivy asked.

  “Exactly.” Katie nodded. “I mean, the white hair, the black and green, the thigh-high boots—it was like one of my favorite villains pulled straight from the books. Before she showed up for real at Venice beach, I was sort of hoping it might be a media ploy for a movie adaptation. After that, I posted a few more times about her. I thought it was a kinda cool, interactive concert-type thing. I didn’t realize so many people followed her as a … magical mentor?” she asked.

  “And a beauty guru and a fashion icon and a health and wellness enthusiast,” Vince said, listing the woman’s titles off on his fingers.

  “So, she’s just a really great businesswoman,” Katie said, seeming a little deflated.

  Aline leaned into the girl. “You can’t tell anyone, but they are thinking about making those books movies. An actress friend of mine asked her agent about getting her name in for an audition for, ah, it sounds like Lever?” Aline let her cheeks grow pink. “I haven’t read the books yet.”

  “Lovian?” Katie asked, her eyes growing wide. “She’s my favorite character from the fairy tribe lands.”

  “Like I said,” Aline said. “They’re really only in talks; it’d take a huge budget for something like that.”

  Katie looked pleased nonetheless, her eyelashes fluttering as she clearly thought through a series of scenes she’d dreamed of seeing. “I read the books as they came out. They could do so much with them as movies, or even a show—” she stopped herself, pressing her lips together.

  Lindsey clapped her hands together. “All right, are we ready to go?”

  Katie slipped a shirt back on over the fake blood squib, and Mason played with the retractable knife.

  Aline turned to Mason. “So, especially since this is your first kill, and it’s in close range, your adrenaline is going to get rid of all your, ah, fine motor skills,” she said, trying to remember the correct English terms. “I know you’re not really facing the camera, but go through the facial expressions.” She pointed to Katie. “It’ll give you the right predator-prey chemistry.”

  She moved to stand next to Mason. “Since your motions are going to all be big, you’re gonna want to raise up like this.” She moved her body so that she looked as big as she possibly could. She wasn’t large, but she knew how to make it look like she filled a room. “You want to look énorme,” she said, momentarily switching into French. She liked the way it sounded, like it was even larger than “big,” and Mason seemed to understand what she was saying. She stood behind Mason and pinched the dips between his shoulders and neck. “Raise up here, like you’re a bear.”

  Mason complied.

  “And puff up your chest, you want to look big in your torso and shoulders. All you really need to do with your legs is keep them shoulder-width apart.” She kicked a bit at one of his feet, and he moved it farther from his other foot. “And knees bent.” She tapped the back of one of his knees with her trendy running shoe.

  Mason hunched until he looked rather ogre-like, which Aline found to be acceptable.

  Aline told them to improvise the conversation they would have before. She’d simply done some basic blocking for them so it would look natural, but she figured trying to get them to memorize lines before filming would be a mistake.

  Mason came to stand next to his propped-up phone. He would have to start the filming.

  “Start the conversation a bit before you start rolling,” Aline said, her voice quiet and calm next to his shoulder. She’d told him not to try to think about what he was going to say before he started filming, which was sort of like telling someone not to yawn after discussing the action for several minutes. Nearly impossible.

  “So, did you—” he pressed the button to record, “—play any sports, like, in high school or anything?”

  Katie was out of frame, as Aline had suggested, to start the scene. She poured them each a
glass of wine. “Lacrosse,” Katie said. She walked into the frame and put the glasses on the table—not a trace of nervousness. “My dad really wanted me to play basketball like he did, but I never quite got the knack of it. I’d want to be a guard too, and there was no way that would happen.” She gestured to her tall figure.

  Mason laughed, the knife now in his hand, and hanging at his side.

  Katie took a few steps, ensuring she was in the frame. “I hope you like white wine. I’m—” She pointed to the knife in Mason’s hand. “Is that from my set?” Her eyes had gone wide, taking in every detail of Mason. She’d picked a great question, in Aline’s opinion.

  She found that the most believable before-death dialogue wasn’t filled with entirely intelligible questions. Perhaps, when someone truly was about to be murdered, people really did ask, Are you going to kill me? But she found it to be an old hat onscreen.

  “I brought my own, actually,” Mason said. “Had to make sure you didn’t enchant your own knives.”

  Katie’s eyes narrowed. “Enchant them?”

  “I know you’re a witch, Katie,” he said. “A Prophetess follower, as you all call yourselves.”

  Katie shook her head and took a step back, right into her wall. She opened her mouth to say something, anything. But Mason was already headed for her. He seemed to grow twice his size as he raised his hackles and puffed out his chest. He gripped the knife with a savage grip, and Katie tried to scream, but all she could manage to do was lift her hands in a universal No!

  Mason charged forward, plunging the knife into her heart. The squib worked even more beautifully than Aline had hoped. It’d been a while since she’d dealt with the more homemade style of production, but the fake blood spread slowly at first. From the angle of the camera, she could only see just a bit of the red seeping out around the blood. Mason yanked his hand away—too fast for the camera to catch the split second that there was a knife without a full blade—and the blood on Katie’s shirt spread faster, faster.