Celebromancy (9 page)

“Better than being late,” Ree said with a smile, trying to flip from Bad Reporter to Good Reporter as she walked by. Slightly less effective than Bad Cop/Good Cop. The right photo could do more damage than a gun, but people didn’t tend to die because of scandals.

Well, maybe.

Which brought her thoughts back to Jane. Ree promised herself she’d check on the star after her recon, fit that in somewhere between changing, checking in with her dad, eating something resembling food, then heading into work at Grognard’s for the Midnight Market shift.

Ree kept her eyes open as she walked down the pathway heading to the shooting set and the trailers. The production campus for
Blog Wars
was like the one for
Awakenings
, but three times as big and fancy. A brigade of PAs buzzed around like underpaid bees, and she had to resist the urge to stop into the craft services tent, where she swore she could smell potatoes au gratin and roasted lamb.

She was still new to the reality of show biz, but there was no mistaking Rachel MacKenzie’s trailer. It was 50% bigger than Jane’s and had two burly bodyguards standing out front, each so top-heavy with muscle they looked like inverted Weebles.

Ree held up Kelly’s press pass again. “Kelly Dominguez. I’m expected.”

One bodyguard, a big Eastern European–looking guy with stubble-shaved head and a less-shaved beard, stepped forward and said, “Let me see your bag.”

“Paranoid much?” she responded, trying to cover a wave of panic with snark. She had no idea if the magic would cover up the weird props in her bag. That wasn’t discussed in the movies, and Mystique’s
clothes are part of my shapeshifting
had always been a gray area, the kind of thing the films and comics asked people not to think about too much.

Maybe the Doubt would help her, but she wasn’t counting on it. She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone and a microphone. “This is all you need to see, okay? I’m press, not some shady traveler at JFK.”

She tried the withering look again, hoping it’d work on the bodyguards at least enough to get her in the door.

Her pulse quickened as she thought about all the ways that this could go really, terrifically wrong.

The bodyguard met her gaze, checked out the equipment, and then gave her a look up and down, leering obviously.

The other bodyguard piped in, an older black man that had an ex-military look. “Go ahead.”

Ree put her recording equipment away and walked past the bodyguards to open the trailer door and peek inside.

“Kelly Dominguez,
Pearson Patriot
,” she said by way of announcing herself as she stepped into the trailer. It looked a lot like Jane’s trailer, because really, how different could actresses’ trailers look? Rachel’s had more chrome and glass, but there were still some personal touches, lush carpet, posters on the wall of old projects, and a whole wall devoted to pictures of MacKenzie’s daughter. And, of course, her Academy Award, which stood tall on a round table.

A prim, twentysomething blonde woman in slacks and a baby-blue sweater looked down at her clipboard, tapping a pen.

“You’re early.”

Ree tried to disarm the woman with a smile. “If she’s free, might as well be done with it so she can go back to rehearsing, right?”

The young woman, who Ree was tempted to call Emma due to the ice-queen demeanor, narrowed her eyes, then spun on her heels (heels on carpet?) and walked out of sight, presumably to speak with Rachel.

Ree could feel the magic starting to fade in her mind, and her mental ticking clock got just a bit louder.

Okay, magic, hold together. We have to untangle this clusterfrak of a situation.

About two minutes later, Rachel emerged in what Ree took to be her costume for the shoot and full cinema makeup. Ree felt Rachel’s energy before she saw the woman, as she was wrapped in more Celebromantic mojo than Jane’d used even at the height of the previous night’s escapades. Now that she knew what to look and feel for, the magic was obvious. But no less seductive.

Damn
, Ree said inwardly.
That’s some force of personality. Like Impressive x5.

Rachel would stand a couple inches taller than Ree even in her own body, so she towered above Ree-as-Kelly. She had a veritable mane of curly red hair, bright-blue eyes, and skin so perfect you could use it for a color swatch. Celebromancy at work, and from the mojo radiation Ree was getting, it was Grade-A stuff.

Ree wondered just how far the rabbit hole really went. She’d been playing in the deep end of a small pond, but there were many other pools, and Rachel brought her own diving arena with her as she entered the room. Ree wondered if knowing about Celebromancy would help make her resistant to the mega-charm powers, or if the star would be able to wrap her around one perfectly-manicured finger.

“Hello. I have to be on-set in half an hour, so I’m afraid this will need to be quick,” Rachel said.

Ree smiled again. “Of course. Thank you for seeing me early.”
Was she lying about the set call, or had she never intended to see Kelly? Well, the real Kelly.

Rachel took a seat on the couch, comfortable but regal, more than a hint of royal graciousness in the look she gave Ree. Ree didn’t know whether to be more scared because the woman clearly had Big-Leagues levels of magic or less intimidated because she was clearly using some of it to be scary. Ree split the difference and settled on wary, keeping the wall to her back.

Ree spotted a chair opposite MacKenzie’s couch and took a seat, then pulled out the recording equipment, which she’d retrieved from a closet and hadn’t been used since she’d abandoned her webseries. She turned on the recorder and put it on the glass table between her chair and Rachel’s couch.

Ree spoke in full voice to pick up on the bidirectional shotgun mike. “This is Kelly Dominguez for the
Pearson Patriot
, here with the Academy Award–winning star of film and television, Rachel MacKenzie. Thank you for speaking with me today, Rachel.”

Rachel flipped some internal switch, and her voice came out effortlessly warm and generous. “It’s a pleasure, Kelly.”

Ree rolled with it, going into interviewer mode, cribbing from questions she’d gotten herself and the hundreds of interviews she’d read online while the
Awakenings
deal was being solidified.

“First, for people who aren’t familiar with
Blog Wars
, can you tell us a bit about the premise and your character?”

They went back and forth with the basic questions, Rachel answering with calm confidence. She was relaxed, in control, a queen on her throne.

Now for the real stuff.
Ree asked, “In 1993,
Time
magazine proclaimed you America’s Sweetheart, and then again in 2005. What does that mean to you?”

Ree saw a shadow pass over Rachel’s eyes, but it didn’t touch her smile or show in her response. “It’s a great honor. All I can do to show my appreciation to my fans is to keep making good films, mentor and encourage young actresses, and do my best to inspire young women.”

Sure, because taking role after role where her job was to show up, look pretty, and have plot happen around her thanks to the actions of men was being a role model
. Ree bit back her snark, staying on-target.

“But last year in
Time
, Laurence Russell asked, ‘Is Jane Konrad America’s New Sweetheart?’ shortly before her accident and hospitalization. Do you think those events were connected? What’s it like to be held up to that level of public scrutiny?”

Ree caught another hint of something in Rachel’s eyes at that question, and the star took a moment before answering.

“America is a big place, and there are enough fans for everyone. I think Jane hit a bad spell, and she made some choices I wouldn’t have made myself. But I’m very excited to see her on her feet again and back in the game. I just hope that she doesn’t take on too much all at once.”

Ree watched Rachel MacKenzie like a hawk, and even with the mojo-fueled confidence, Ree thought she detected unease in her answer, an artificiality in the star’s well-wishing for Jane. But she wasn’t even remotely objective, and might have been making Lonely Mountains out of wight-less barrows.

As she prepared her follow-up question, Ree felt the magic fading in her mind. With her focus on coming up with questions, she was having a harder time keeping the magic active. She was used to the stress of combat or running while maintaining magic, but this was out of her comfort zone.

There was a momentary fluctuation, like her body skipped a beat as her sense of self hiccupped back into her old body. Ree looked up with a start to see if MacKenzie noticed. The woman had folded her arms and was leaning forward, guarded but confident.

Time to go
, Ree thought.

“Thank you, Ms. MacKenzie, it’s been a pleasure. Best of luck with
Blog Wars
.”

Rachel’s face showed surprise, but her voice was still a clear and pleasant danger. “No, thank
you
, Kelly.”

Was it just her, or was there more emphasis on Not-Her-Name than normal? Ree felt her hold on the magic growing weaker, and she snatched up the microphone, pressing stop on her phone’s recording program.

“Excellent, thanks for your time,” Ree said, stuffing the mike in her bag and heading for the door.

Rachel rose from her couch, moving like a lioness. She took a step forward. “If you have the chance to speak with Jane, do tell her to look out for herself. It can be nasty out there.”

“Yeah, sure thing.” Ree felt taller. Or, more properly, less short. She tromped down the steps and opened the trailer door, nearly charging by the bodyguards and back into the open lane heading out of the shooting area. She felt her center of gravity changing with each step, and felt muscle spasms around her side.

GTFO, girl. Red Geekomancer is about to revert.

She made a beeline for the entrance, hoping there wasn’t some kind of sign-out/waiver/release that the young assistant would challenge her with at the exit while she comically reverted bit by bit, Nutty Professor–style.

Instead, just as the woman registered her again, Ree felt the magical energy slip, and she toggled back to her normal body and clothes, arms tearing the too-small clothes, only to have the clothes then stretch and shift back into her own kick-around-the-house outfit she’d been wearing while watching the film.

Ree nearly fell as her stride length, shoes, and center of balance changed midstride. Ree caught herself on the stand-up metal fencing that served to block off the area and looked up at the woman, whose eyes had gone wide.

“What the hell?” the intern asked.

“Don’t worry, you won’t remember this in a few minutes. These are not the droids you’re looking for.” Ree waved her hand at the woman, trying to find calm in the familiar joke.

Nope, still not working.

She felt like a hundred eyes were on her at once, and knew that she couldn’t count on the Doubt to make them all slide away. Someone would remember her, someone who could call the cops, point her out on a lineup, or at least recognize her from the tabloid pictures. Every production needed to have at least one person who kept up on all of that, right? If she were a producer, she’d put someone on that, at least.

Run now, worry later
, she told herself, finding her footing again. Her real body, with its decades of Taekwondo training and several months of advanced Oh-God-Run-For-Your-Life masterwork, was more than up to the task of fleeing the scene of the impersonation.

“Someone stop her!” cried a female voice as Ree booked it across the street, running against traffic.

Not that Ree was an expert, but people didn’t usually send security to chase someone leaving a film set, especially if they hadn’t stolen anything.
That’s not disconcerting at all.

She dodged around cars as they tried to start accelerating across the crosswalk, and decided to slide over a hood rather than running straight into a car.

The
Dukes of Hazzard
maneuver worked way better when one wasn’t wearing boy shorts. She could practically feel the rash coming on as she hopped off the hood while listening to a soccer mom swear like a sailor from her green Dodge Caravan.

“Sorry!” she shouted to the road in general as she looked over her shoulder, trying to see if anyone had followed her.

Yep. Generic tough guy, probably production security judging by the blazer he’s wearing. Him, I can lose.
Ree looked back ahead of her, plotting a path through the walking crowd and trying to hold the map of the neighborhood in her head.

I could just pull out some cards
, she thought, and registered the idea, putting it off to the side—still in reach, though. It’d be a better test of her skills to get away on her own, but she wasn’t too proud to tear up a Black Dahlia card from the
Netrunner
CCG to make her escape.

Ree tore down the street, dodging among the crowds of people, slowing to avoid knocking over a stroller. She turned to make sure the dad and toddler were fine and to check on her tail. Her tail was making his own way through the crowd, pushing people aside to shouts and complaints. She couldn’t see his eyes thanks to thug standard-issue sunglasses, but he was locked onto her, no mistaking it.

Stay on target . . . actually, don’t. You can bugger off.

Ree took the turn onto Park Drive, and started booking down the street, looking for the alley she swore was around here somewhere. An alley complete with a fire escape that she was betting she could scale faster and more easily than the tough, who was broad-shouldered enough to have to be greased through the gaps in the escape.

People were parting to let her by, but she wasn’t seeing any fire escape.
Where the hell is it?
she asked the city, as if it’d shift around to suit her.

Good idea, a little too late: Pull out Authority comics for Jack Hawksmoor God of Cities powers. Hopefully that won’t require being barefoot.