Fall of Light (12 page)

“Sort of.” Opal frowned. “In a more supernatural way, though.”

“What, that old you're-doing-something-commercial-on-top-of-an-Indian-graveyard riff?” asked Magenta. “Who believes
that
shit?”

Opal touched Magenta's reddened cheek.

“Ow!”

“He burned you by looking at you,” said Opal.

“I've seen that happen in hypnotist acts. Okay, not the burned part, but I've read about that. Freaky powers of the human mind, turned against itself. You said it was hypnosis.”

“It might have been, I guess, but I'm exploring other options. You asked what the hell's going on. I think Corvus is possessed.”

“Oh, please!”

“That's my explanation. I can't make you believe it, but there it is. Bethany wrote the script here, where she grew up, surrounded by things she was scared of. Whatever's creepy here got inside her head and helped her write it.”

“What about Travis? He cowrote.”

“Bethany did the first draft while she was staying at the B&B. Travis doctored it. They find a producer and put together a package, and hey! Creepy evil guy gets people right where he wants them so he can use them to further his creepy agenda. I build the mask. Corvus steps into the role. Creepy guy crawls into Corvus, and here we are.”

“That is so lame.”

“I would love,” Opal said, “to be wrong about this.”

Magenta mini-paced. Two steps one way, two steps the other. The sink and the toilet precluded her having room to really pace. “Okay,” she said, “your explanation covers his bad behavior, my cheek. What the
hell
is happening with Lauren?”

“The not-script part. He drank her blood, and now he can control her.”

“Melodrama!”

Opal snorted. “All right. Melodrama. And yet. Can you picture Lauren standing there like an idiot while someone strokes her hair and ruins her look, in the time it takes to set up a different camera angle? She strikes me as much more professional than that.”

“She's his love slave.”

“Since when? She wasn't dopey like that yesterday.”

“Nope.”

“Would she have looked at him twice yesterday?”

“Yes, of course she would, and did. Now, maybe you didn't notice this, because you get so wrapped up in your work, but the whole time you're slapping bits of rubber on Gigantor, Lauren's perched in the next chair, watching, even after the rest of us have left the trailer. You don't call that a crush? Admittedly, you can work magic—”

Magenta halted, turned, stared at Opal with narrowed eyes. “Damn! All that time Rod spied on you, then tried to repeat what you were doing later? He could
never
get it to work, even though he got hold of every ingredient you ever used. He snooped your trash! You mean nobody can replicate your processes because you're
cheating
?”

“What cheating? The whole point is to do something nobody else can do.”

Magenta growled, then paced away and back.

Finally, she said, “Well, the crucial question is, are we going over budget?”

“Creepy evil guy says no. He likes being in the movies.”

“Well, okay,” said Magenta, and two bells rang. “The show must go on.” They left the bathroom and rushed to their equipment.

Blaise, Dark God, and Lauren came off the set and settled into their chairs. Rod was ready with bottles of water for everybody. Opal fished one of the protein shakes out of her suitcase. She presented it on her open palm to the Dark God.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nourishment.” She shook it vigorously, then popped the top. “I think you could probably use this about now.”

He took it, studied it, sipped from it, and frowned. “Tastes vile.” He sipped again. “But I take your meaning. It satisfies a certain hunger.” He drank the rest and handed her the empty can. As soon as she set it down, he took her wrist and tugged her toward him. “I have another hunger,” he said, staring at her lips.

“Please,” she said, conscious of Rod and Blaise and Lauren and Magenta, conscious that she had no interest in another kiss from him. “No.”

He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed them to the back of it. Her shadow self, the one who held her magic, startled and tried to retreat, but he had forged a connection with her earlier, and she didn't know how to break it. He drew a long draft of her magical energy, leaving her wilted and confused. She swayed and sat down beside him.

“Thank you,” he said, his eyes glowing even brighter.

She pressed her hand to the cell phone, a lump in her pocket. She had to call home.

This time, when the actors were called back to the set, Magenta came to her. “What happened? What did he just do?”

“Kind of a vampire thing.” Opal pressed her palm to her forehead. “I don't know if I'll ever get Corvus back.” She dug through her bag for another protein shake, opened and drank it. She checked her watch. They should break for lunch in twenty minutes. She felt better after the shake, but she could tell she was still depleted.

They did a quick last looks after the rehearsal. Opal didn't even touch the Dark God. The A.D. called for silence, and the bell rang.

Rodrigo and Magenta joined Joe at the Props monitor again to watch the filming. Opal stayed where she was. She needed time to think.

He got the drop on me. I've let him have his way too much. I have to fight. I have to fight!
For Corvus, for Lauren, for herself, against whatever plans the Invader had, she had to pull herself together and remember who she was and where she came from.

When she was younger and first came into her power, tired of being the good child, the oldest, the caretaker, the one who put up with shit from her mother and all the younger kids, she had flirted with turning really, really bad. She had explored dark powers her great-uncle had frowned at and warned her against. Maybe that made her more susceptible to the Invader's powers. Maybe it gave her tools. Her magical self had been living so far underground since she left her family's house that she'd practically trained herself to be normal. Time to loosen up and find her secret self again.

First, she needed distance, a shield, so the Invader couldn't just walk up to her and suck her dry.

He's taken my identity inside him, but he gave me his, too
. Their morning kiss had been hours ago, and she'd eaten and drunk since then, but at some point she had swapped spit with the Invader—or Corvus's body—and that should give her some kind of hold over him. She tasted the interior of her mouth, a little sour with the aftertaste of energy drink, and could find no trace of him. She needed to seek with a different sense. She closed her eyes.

Who has entered into my house of self without an invitation?
She saw a room, comfortable, with a desk she could work at, a swivel chair more like a throne than office furniture, shelves along the wall holding all sorts of materials she could use to shape masks, craft colors, make salves, ointments, creams that could dull skin or shine it, draw attention to or divert it from any feature of the human face, pencils and putty, spirit gum and mustache hair, terror and beauty.

Life-masks of previous clients stood on pedestals on a second desk, with bright but diffuse light shining on them, a place where she could create. Books of reference photos stood in staggering stacks along another wall. In a corner was a second chair, broad and adjustable and comfortable, with a red velvet pillow on it for her to hug while she sat and thought. Nearby was a fireplace, clean now, with a ball of green witchfire burning coolly in it.

Above the desk, a wide window that looked out into a sunlit garden.

Her interior office, her safe place where she met her muse for tea.

In the back corner across from her thinking chair stood a tall featureless shadow, a stain on the air. It had a scent of metal and machine oil that didn't belong in her place. She rose from her office chair and turned toward the shadow, but it flickered, only visible from the corners of her eyes; she couldn't look directly at it. It faded from direct gazes.

She needed to know more about him if she were going to defeat him. So a shadow of him had invaded her private place? At least she knew one place to find him.

“Opal.” Rod joggled her shoulder. “You okay?”

“Not really. I'm worried and tired.”

“Oh.”

“Not what you were asking.” She straightened. “What's up?”

“Lunchtime. Betty went on ahead, and reported back on the walkie that it's that rosemary chicken thing again, with the greasy potatoes.”

“Oh, boy!”

“She's not sure if it's leftovers from yesterday, or the only thing they know how to cook. You ready?”

She rose, locked her case. “Cast already went?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn't take my continuity Polaroids.”

“Magenta did it for you. You missed some last looks, too, but he looked fantastic. Didn't need any touch-ups. Magenta checked. Not that she wanted to. She's scared of Corvus now.”

Opal wondered if Magenta had shared Opal's theory of Corvus's possession with Rodrigo. She decided to wait before she broached the subject with him. After they finished shooting for the day, maybe they could meet for dinner and talk about what was going on, and whether there was anything they could do about it. She said, “Well, I owe her, and I know it. I've got to make a call, and then I'll be right there. Thanks for waking me.”

“You're welcome. Say . . .”

She waited for it.

“I thought you got the easy job, but now I see it isn't so. Is your guy on the rag or something?”

“I don't know.”

“Sympathies, anyway. Still looks good, even when he acts nuts.”

She smiled and headed outside. Around back of the building, she got out her cell phone and dialed the number of a house she hadn't lived in for seven years.

“Hey,” said Flint, one of her younger brothers.

“Hey yourself. Mama home?”

“Um, no. She left for the TV station about ten minutes ago.”

Opal checked her watch. “Damn! Uncle Tobias there?”

“Hang on. I'll find out.” There was a clunk as he set the handset down—probably on the kitchen table, Opal thought—and then his footsteps receded. She waited, checked her watch, waited. She should eat. They only had half an hour for lunch. Then again, she'd had that protein shake . . . Presently footsteps approached, and she heard heavy breathing. “Hey,” Flint said, “astonishing as it is, Uncle Tobias is not in his tower. I don't know where he went.”

“Damn! I really need to talk to someone!”

“I'm someone,” said Flint plaintively.

“About dealing with magical possession.”

“Oh. Okay. Not one of my things. Are you possessed?”

“No, my friend is, and the possessor guy is a—well, I need help.”

“Do you want me?”

She smiled and stared into the forest behind the old supermarket. Her younger brother was a screwup. He had trouble getting his powers under control. They were good powers, but nobody understood them—they were different from anyone else's. She loved him dearly, but even she, in her role as second mother, hadn't been able to help him figure out how to make his powers work reliably. “I might. Not just yet, but thanks for the offer.”

“You want someone else? Jasper? Gyp? Beryl?”

“Are they home?”

“No.”

“If I get desperate, I'll call you back,” she said. “Thanks, little brother.”

“Must be serious. You never asked for help before,” he said.

“Never?”

“Not in living memory. Hang on.”

“Flint, I have to go to lunch.”

“Hang on,” he said again. “I'm going to try something.”

“Flint—no, don't—”

He grunted.

Something punched Opal in the stomach so hard she fell down. She dropped the cell phone, and it skittered away. She lay on the damp, packed earth and tried to catch her breath. She could barely hear Flint's voice: “Hey? Did that work? Something happened. Are you okay? Opal? Opal?”

She wondered if she was okay. Why would her little brother send her a body blow? Her stomach felt—hurt, and warm. Warmth spread through her like a liquor afterglow. She closed her eyes and went to her inner office. In the middle of the room, an exercise-ball-sized fireball hovered, glowing orange and red in streaks, sending out arcs of random heat. She held a hand out to it, and a prominence flared up, scorched her fingertips. She tried to pull her hand back, but the light locked onto her. The burn spread up her arm into her shoulder and then—cooled, effervesced, moved through her like water flowing up the stem of a dehydrated plant. More than half the ball burned its way into her and cooled down, refreshing and reinvigorating her in an unfamiliar way. Even after she felt restored, the fireball floated in her office, diminished but lively.

Presently she sat up and reached for the phone, which hadn't stopped squawking.

“Don't do that again,” she said in her big sister voice.

“Oh, God, are you okay?”

“I think so. It hurt me, but then it helped. Thanks for the thought, anyway, little brother. The delivery method needs work. We operate from different places. Your energy needs to be converted before it can turn into my energy.”

“You'll be okay?”

“Yes. After the initial shock, I recognized what it was, and you know, I
do
need energy right now, so this is a help. You need to ask before you do things like that, though, bud. Okay?”