Fall of Light (2 page)

“Hang on,” said a shadow against the afternoon sun in the doorway at their end of the trailer.

Opal's back stiffened. Erika Dennis.

The film's publicist swept in in a cloud of musky perfume and lifted one of her cameras from the interlaced straps of them around her neck. “First transformation,” she said. “Gotta document it for the DVD.”

“No,” said Corvus. His voice held so much menace Opal would have run if it were directed at her.

Erika was oblivious, or maybe just strong-willed. “Yes.” She aimed the video camera at Corvus's face and pressed the record button. “It's in your contract.”

“No.”

“Erika, get out,” Opal said. She hadn't started making Corvus into the Dark God yet. They had done all the prep work during preproduction—studied the script, the story-boards, the costumer's concept of the character. They'd talked to the art director, exchanged sketches. She and Corvus had discussed what Corvus wanted to bring to the role, and what he hoped Opal would do to augment it. They had made Corvus's life-mask, the armature on which Opal built her monster. He had built the character inside himself. She felt it rising in him now as she prepared for his transformation.

She didn't think Corvus had magical abilities—he'd never exhibited anything overt—but something about the chemistry of interaction in the trailer charged the air. Opal felt a surge under her skin, her own power readying for a fight. It frightened her. She never had this kind of fight away from her gifted family. People said there were others with powers out in the world, but Opal hadn't yet met many.

Rodrigo took Erika by the shoulders and pushed her out of the trailer. “Not this time,” he said. “Film it some other day and say it's the first time. This time they need to focus. Get out of our workspace, Ere. You're upsetting the talent.” He closed the door in her face.

The scent and feel of threat faded.

Rodrigo said, “It probably
is
in your contract, Corvus. She'll have to film it sometime.”

“It's not in my contract.” Corvus had his eyes closed. “I specifically struck that clause. I always do. I'm going to play monsters all my life. I decided early in my career that I wanted to do it mysteriously. Nobody outside of cast and crew gets to see me transform.”

“Yikes. That raises the stakes for
National Enquirer
opportunists.”

Corvus sighed. “I know. Could you help me, Rodrigo? No cameras in the Makeup trailer.”

“That's already the rule, except for my continuity cameras.”

“Finished work is okay. It's the process I want to guard.”

“You got it. I can't police the area all the time, though. If someone's determined to plant a camera in here and has the tech, I don't know that I can stop them. Cameras can be so small now. You can get spytech at Sharper Image, for God's sake, and this is not a secure shoot; lots of holes.”

“Noted.”

“I'll guard the workspace,” Opal said. She could add a level of awareness every time she entered the trailer, check for hidden things. She was hypersensitive to anything that watched; it would be simple. She opened one of her extra senses and glanced around. “Who put that there?” She moved to the mirror and plucked a suction-cup-backed rubber eye from it. It had been staring down at Corvus.

The back of her neck prickled. No one else should touch her things or invade her space. She had proprietary processes. She realized she needed to set traps.

Rodrigo's eyes widened. “I vaguely remember somebody coming in and sticking that up. They said it was a joke.”

Opal closed her hand into a fist. The eye looked like rubber, but things inside it crunched. She opened her hand again, revealed a crushed mess of machinery. “Man or woman?”

“Male,” said Rodrigo. “Not somebody I know yet, but someone whose presence here didn't surprise me. One of the electricians, I think.” He closed his eyes. “Seal brown hair, olive tan skin, shadowed eyes. Rangy frame. White T-shirt, jeans. Toolbelt with the requisite rolls of tape. I don't think I noticed him before or since, but I don't pay a lot of attention to them.”

“May I see that?” Corvus asked. He held out a hand and Opal dropped the mashed electronics into it. His hand could have closed around both of hers and hidden them completely.

“God. I hate this. I guess we'll need to set watch here, or lock up when we're not in. I better check for others,” said Rodrigo. He went down the trailer, looking everywhere. Opal expanded her awareness the length of the trailer. No sense of any more invading eyes.

Opal shrugged and went to work on Corvus. They sank into collaboration then, all her focus on his face as she applied the adhesive and then attached the different prosthetics that would alter him but leave him with the ability to govern his expressions. His deep, shadowed eyes watched her face most of the time. It was unnerving. Other actors she'd worked with fell asleep while she was applying their prosthetics and makeup, or listened to music with their eyes closed. It made them much easier to deal with.

She didn't notice when others entered or left the trailer, though she was half-conscious of surrounding murmurs, and then, finally, silence.

Corvus sighed.

Opal wanted his head to belong to her, to be the armature for her artwork. She wasn't ready to let him be a person yet.
You are mine,
she thought as she narrowed her eyes and stared into his.
You are calm and receptive. You wait without complaint
. He became very still then, but his gaze never left hers. She worked with adhesive and latex, and after she had applied all the pieces (some of her magic slipped out her fingertips, she couldn't stop herself; but only she would take off the mask, so she should be able to undo it), she painted on the colors. Last of all, she put in his monster contact lenses, glittery metallic green with no whites or pupils except for clear spots in the centers so he could see through them.

At last she stood straight and stretched, her shoulders creaking from her working stoop. She glanced at the clock. Their call time was for 6 P.M., and it was 5:30 now. Not much time to dress him! But he looked perfect, and the costume for his role was simple, an enveloping black robe. In the scene scheduled to film tomorrow, she'd need to put on the upper body and hand appliances, and that would take more time.

She flexed her fingers, stepped back, and studied the overall effect; she had been too lost in the details to notice the whole before.

She was looking at someone new.

Working off images of the Green Man and legends of the Bogeyman, she had crafted someone leafy and scary, overhanging brow, jutting chin, details of oak leaves and maple leaves starting at his nose and raying out across his cheeks, forehead, and chin; his skin was light brown, layered in leaf veins with green highlights and scatterings of powdered gold, intermittent gleams that would catch the firelight of the night filming. The strange eyes almost frightened her as they stared into hers. He looked like something from a dream.

The mouth moved. She jumped.

“Opal,” Corvus murmured.

“Yes?”

“Did you paralyze me? I can't move.”

“Oh. Oops. Sorry, Corr.” She touched her palm to his newly leafy forehead and released him. She didn't remember spelling him still. She could tell she had done it, though; her signature was on the magic. Maybe a thread of something else.

He shook his shoulders, turned his head. “How did you do that?”

“Hypnosis.” One of her stock answers. She usually didn't do things like involuntarily paralyze other people anymore, unless the circumstances were dire. Why had she done it to Corvus?

It had certainly made the work easier.

“I don't like hearing that,” he murmured. “I'm not supposed to be an easy subject. You didn't do this to me on the last picture.”

“No.”

“I guess I must trust you.” He blinked. His eyelids were brown, now, blended with the rest of his face. When had she colored his lids? All she remembered from their session was his unblinking stare.

And the magic that had seeped from her fingertips into his skin . . . She must have done it then, tinted his face the color she wanted.

With his eyes closed, Corvus looked almost like forest floor. Opal shot some Polaroids for continuity, asked him to open his eyes and shot a couple more.

Corvus turned and stared at his reflection in the wall of mirrors beside his seat. “Oh. My.” A hand rose to his mouth, hovered but did not touch. He noticed the hand was normal, held it out, and frowned at it. The facial prosthetics worked well; she could read his expression without trouble.

“You're not going to need the hands in tonight's scene,” she said.

His eyes closed, opened. “You're right. Do you have the mock-up gloves, though? I'd like to put something on. It'll help with the character.”

She opened the drawer that held the hand work and got out the prototype gloves she had made. The real prosthetics were pieces again, finger sheathes, backs and palms of hands, a several-layer process to apply, but she had made the gloves to get the overall look, a template she could cut apart. She held the gloves open and he slid his large hands inside. She had worked from casts of his hands; the gloves fit absolutely.

She had used the leaf pattern and earth colors to craft the gloves, too. The fingernails were long, horny, and dark.

“Lovely,” he murmured, his voice dark, rich, velvety. He gave her a Dark God smile. She swayed, wanting to fall forward into his lap.

“Are you all right?” He pushed up out of the chair, braced her shoulders in his gloved hands, and steadied her.

Opal blinked up into his face, pulled herself together. “I've got to get Wardrobe in here,” she said. Had she laid an Attract Spell on him and not noticed? What was wrong with her? Usually she leashed her powers completely in situations like this.

She sniffed. No smell of an Attract Spell, but there was something at work here, something strange. It must be her, in love with her own creation and how Corvus embodied it. She'd had this problem before, especially at the start of a shoot, before she got tired of all the time it took to create her creatures over and over again. He was just so—perfectly monstrous.

Better ditch this attitude fast.

She picked up the “Ear,” the communications headset that linked her to the rest of the crew, slipped it on, and hooked the battery/control box to her belt. She hated the headset. Its electric energy field messed up her thinking. She wore it as little as possible, but right now she needed it to drop back into the web of everything going on with the film.

She called the head of the teamsters and put in a request for Corvus's driver to be ready soon. Then she switched channels. No local traffic on the Makeup channel. She switched to Wardrobe, clicked the transmit button. “Betty?”

“Who is this?”

“Opal, makeup for Dark God.”

“I'm still at the B&B set. You need something?” The key wardrobe artist sounded gruff and irritated.

“Costume for Dark God. Call time in half an hour.”

“You're one of those last-minute emergency people, huh? Great,” said Betty.

Turf wars,
thought Opal.
Wonderful.

“I'm still needed here,” said Betty, still grumpy. “Pick up Kelsi, my assistant, at the trailer. She'll get you geared up.”

“Is she on this channel?”

“She probably doesn't have her Ear in. She hates it.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Great. More idiots out of the loop. Go to the trailer and tell her I said she should help you. She can confirm if she wants.”

Opal sighed and switched off. “Don't go anywhere,” she told Corvus. “I brought you some water.” She handed him a sports bottle with a straw, something he could sip from without upsetting the prosthetics. “I'll be right back with Wardrobe.” She dashed out of the trailer, locked the door behind her.

In the Wardrobe trailer, Opal introduced herself to Kelsi Martini. Kelsi, her short bobbed hair lime green, her skin pale, her lips painted black, helped Opal track down Corvus's costume. “I'll suit him up,” Kelsi said as she draped the long black robe twice over her arm.

“All right.”

Opal's Ear crackled. Rodrigo's voice said, “What's your status? Ready to head out?”

She pressed the transmit button. “Not dressed yet.”

“We're wrapping with Unit One, but there's been some traffic on another channel about the forest shoot. You should hurry.”

“On it,” she said.

“Can't wait to see what you've done to the big guy,” Kelsi said as they left the trailer. “Sure looked spooky in the story-boards.”

“Yeah, well . . .” Opal unlocked the Makeup trailer.

“What's with the extra security?” Kelsi asked as she entered the trailer.

“We found a hidden camera. Somebody's going tabloid on our asses.”

Kelsi gasped, and Opal turned from locking the door to stare.

The Dark God loomed at the far end of the trailer. He was a large, ominous shadow against the light—all the other makeup stations had been shut down; only Opal's was still lit. His naked upper body looked bull-like, dense with muscles, and the silhouetted shape of his head was odd and wrong, different from her vision of him. Fear thrilled in feathering ripples up Opal's spine.

A sucking sound came from the Dark God's direction. “Got any more water?” Corvus said, his voice higher than usual.

“Gaah,”
said Kelsi. “You scared me, dude!”