Fall of Light (8 page)

Corvus got out of the car, his eyes closed. Opal took his hand. “Come,” she whispered. He didn't take much persuading; somehow he was tuned to her already, receptive to suggestion, and that worried her. Maybe it explained the paralysis she had put on him without meaning to earlier.

Early in her dating career, Opal had learned to be wary of where her unconscious talents took her: she had tranced boys without even trying, had not realized that their perfect behavior toward her was the product of her own desires rather than their characters. Her younger brother Jasper was the one who alerted her to what she was doing. He'd asked her if she really needed to spell a guy to get a date. “Jeez, Opal, you can look like their dream girl; how come you need to put them under to get them to go out with you?”

The front door to the bed-and-breakfast was locked. Opal and Corvus stood under the orange porch light while she pondered this.

The house distracted her. The door felt almost as though it were warded. The house, too, put out some nonvisual darkness. With Corvus swaying slightly beside her, Opal studied the face of the house. The front windows were lace-curtained. Dim orange lights glowed behind the two windows to either side of the front door. Opal felt as though the house were watching her.

The script described this house as possessed by a spirit of evil. Maybe Bethany was sensitive. Opal wasn't sure the house was evil, but she thought it was possessed. One of her cousins had a gift of sensing the histories of places. Some houses made him sick; he could tell that people had been murdered in them, or hurt in other ways. Opal had never thought she had that kind of sense.

She flattened her palm on the front door and felt an uneasy shift under her hand. Huh.

Still, she needed to get Corvus to his room.

Corvus had the key on him somewhere, but asking him to find and use it might wake him up. He looked so peaceful. She murmured to the lock. It opened for her. Again she sensed a shift in the house, not like the lurch of an earthquake, more like something stirring under the surface of a street. When she touched the door handle, she felt a slight squirm, as though the metal were the skin of some smooth reptile. Then a low-level rumble, like purring.

Uneasy, she crossed the threshold with Corvus in tow.

In the front hall they had to maneuver between movie equipment; parts of the B&B's downstairs were being used as a set. Corvus moved just as she had told him to, gracefully and stealthily. “Go to your room,” she said. He led her up the stairs, his hand still in hers, and down the hall to one of six doors. She talked to the lock on his room and opened the door, and then the door to the next room down the hall opened. Neil Aldridge leaned out.

“What the hell is going on out here?” he said.

“We just got back from supper. I'm putting him to bed,” Opal answered.

Aldridge glared at her. “No games,” he said. “I need him fresh tomorrow.” He glanced at his watch, shook his head, and retreated into the master bedroom. As he shut the door, Opal heard him say, “The monster is bedding the makeup girl,” and a murmur from someone else, a woman.

Opal sighed and drew Corvus into his room. It looked nice, spacious, brown-walled and ruffly, everything gingham or patterned with tiny flowers and edged with fussy lace. The bed was huge, a good thing; Corvus could fit on it if he lay diagonally from one corner to the other. The weird household spirit, ominous yet welcoming, was present under the surface here, as well. It didn't really feel as though something was ready to pounce or menace. Just as though something was watching. Maybe licking its lips. Opal shuddered and closed the door behind her.

“All right,” she said to Corvus. “Do everything you need to, to put yourself to bed comfortably.”

He went into the bathroom and only partially closed the door. Water ran, and toothbrushing sounds drifted out to her. The sound of a long and abundant piss. The toilet flushed, the water ran again. Good. Even in his sleep, he washed his hands after using the john.

Now was a good time for her to leave. She glanced around the room, wondering if she should do anything else for him before she headed back to her own hotel. Tell him he could wake up when he'd rested or when the alarm went off, she supposed. She went to the bedside table to check the alarm clock. They had to be in Makeup at ten. She had no idea how long it took Corvus to wake up, shower, eat. Should she set the alarm for eight thirty? Nine? Maybe it was time to wake him up and let him run his own life. Then again, that might just confuse him. She set the alarm for eight thirty.

He emerged from the bathroom, naked, eyes closed. He gathered her up and pulled her onto the bed with him. There was a folded quilt at the bottom of the bed, and he tugged it up over them, then settled on his side, his arm tightly around her, snugging her back against his front. He was so large she felt as though she had a warm, breathing mountain behind her. His arm was muscular and heavy. She had seen his upper body before, but now she thought about what else she had just seen when he came out of the bathroom: respectable, but not intimidating. Oddly attractive, like the rest of him. Not at all erect, however.

He sighed into her hair and dropped more deeply into sleep.

She lay in his embrace, her heart bumping, and wondered what to do next. Wake him? Escape by persuading his arm to let go? Stay where she was? The director already thought they were sleeping together, and hadn't told them they couldn't.

This was a bad idea, though. Corvus didn't know what he was doing. Besides, she was still fully clothed, including her shoes, and she was lying on half a squashy sandwich in the pocket of her coat. She hadn't brushed her teeth or gone to the bathroom.

“Let me go,” she murmured to his arm. At first it tightened. “Please let me go,” she whispered, with persuaders, and he sighed again and lifted his arm. She scooted out. “Rest well,” she told him, “and wake when you need to.” She slipped out of the room, got it to relock itself, and then left the house, locking it behind her.

At the hotel ten miles away where the lesser cast and crew were staying, Lauren was waiting in the utilitarian, sterile lobby with her feet up on a coffee table, reading a novel. She put it down as soon as Opal entered. “Did it really take that long to take off his makeup?” she asked.

“What are you doing here?” said Opal. As a lead actor, Lauren had her own private room in someone's house in Lapis. All the principal cast and crew had been quartered close to the locations and soundstage.

“Waiting for you,” Lauren answered.

“Did you get supper? We went to the restaurant and ate.”

“My host family left me a meal. I stopped at the restaurant to look for you, though, on my way here, and you weren't there. Where've you been?”

Opal checked her watch. Two A.M. She needed to get up in about six hours. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“Can I come up to your room? I'd rather not discuss this in public.”

There was no one behind the front desk, and no one else in the lobby. Opal supposed someone might come in at any moment. She looked across the parking lot to the restaurant where she and Corvus had had dinner, which was open twenty-four hours and had lots of glass. Travis and Bethany were still ensconced in the corner booth, arguing about something.

“All right,” Opal said at last, and headed for the elevator. Lauren followed.

Opal switched on the light in her room and glanced around. She spent so little time here she had made no effort to soften it away from its budget motel one-size-almost-fits-people-with-no-expectations. The maid had made the bed. There was a chair at a rudimentary desk, and a television bolted to a wall shelf. She had to pay extra if she wanted the cable turned on. Her per diem would cover it, but she didn't need TV after a day working on the film.

Opal gestured toward the chair. “Please have a seat. I'm sorry. I don't have anything to offer you. There's a pop machine down the hall. . . .”

“I don't need anything,” Lauren said. She took the chair, though.

Opal dropped onto the bed and fished the squashed half sandwich out of her pocket. “What's on your mind?”

“I was wondering if I could hire you for a side job.”

“I think I'd get in trouble with the union if I did that.”

Lauren considered. The corners of her generous mouth stretched into a small frown. “Cash under the table? It's not complicated. Just a simple disguise. Here's what's happening. I got involved with one of my costars on my last film. His name's Norman Davis. What I didn't know going in was he's a nutcase, kind of an obsessive stalker type, and right now he's unemployed. Somebody said they saw him at the supermarket down the road. I'm kind of afraid of him. I wondered if there was something simple I could do to hide myself from his regard. What if he's been savaging things for fun ever since I broke up with him? I don't want to be one of them.”

“Oh,” said Opal.

“Security's tight enough on the shoot to keep him out. I'll talk to the chief about this. But I'd also like to be able to go out and wander around, shop, whatever, without being paranoid all the time. Can you help me?”

“I'm sure Rod—”

Lauren leaned toward Opal, her large dark eyes intent. “I watched you work,” she said.

Opal waited.

“My grandmother's a witch,” said Lauren, “and my sister has a little talent. Not like you.”

Opal straightened. Calm flowed into her. It was a first for her, being discovered by someone she didn't want to know about her talent. Since she had started in the business, she had revealed herself to a few people, but never by mistake. She could take care of an unintended revelation. The family had techniques to deal with outsiders. Opal had mastered persuaders. She hadn't used them much until tonight, with Corvus and the locks, but she knew her own strengths.

“I'll never, ever tell,” said Lauren.

“Even if I don't help you?”

Lauren shook her head. “Your choice. I'll ask Rod for disguise advice if I have to, and Craig. I know a blond wig would change me, and I can walk and act differently. I just thought—”

“How much would you pay me?”

“How much would you want?”

Opal sucked on her bottom lip, rose, and wandered to the dresser. She opened the top drawer and looked at her underwear, shook her head. She opened another drawer. More clothes. What was she expecting? “Money's not much of a motivating factor for me,” she said. She got good pay doing special effects makeup, and she didn't spend much. Her bank balance was almost big enough to buy real estate in California.

“Is there something you'd prefer? I don't have a lot of pull with the Makeup people. It's not like I could get you a promotion.”

“I don't want a promotion. I have the job I want.” Opal wandered into the bathroom and looked at her toiletries. She picked up her hairbrush, then her comb. She set them down again. She had no cosmetics of her own, just soap and shampoo and moisturizer. “Oh,” she said, “I know.” Out in the room again, she went to the closet and opened her suitcase, pulled out a bag of new makeup brushes, her spares. She selected a broad brush, the kind one used to whisk powder onto a face.

“What can I do in return?” Lauren asked.

“You were there when the other person talked to me,” said Opal. She sat on the bed with the brush cupped in her hands. She strengthened its psychic shape so it would be able to hold power, and then she sent power into it.

“The one who talked through Corvus?” Lauren said.

“You understand that there was someone else?”

“I don't know what to think, except that was a lot different from the way he usually talks. But he's such a good actor, he could do a voice and persona like that without any trouble. Was it a joke?”

“He said it was, but I don't believe it. Something worked through him and through me, something I don't know. I'm afraid of it. What you can do for me . . .” She finished imbuing the brush with power and set it on her thigh. “Listen to my fears. I don't have anyone else I can talk to about this right now.”

“I can listen. Of course I can listen,” said Lauren. “Does this mean you trust me?”

“I don't know yet. I'd like to trust you. But how can I?”

“I don't know,” Lauren said. “My
abuela
said she could tell when a person was being straight with her, but my sister, not such a good lie detector. Lots of boys fooled her into thinking they meant everything they said when they were trying to get into her pants. You do any truth detecting?”

“My talents lie in the opposite direction,” Opal said. “Come in the bathroom and let me show you how to use this.”