Fall of Light (5 page)

Lauren set aside her magazine without looking and studied him. Her eyes widened.

Corvus smiled at her, his look strangely tender. The energy in the air feathered against Opal's skin, unspoken messages involving warmth and desire, persuasion and invitation. She fell under the spell herself, and wondered if Lauren had any defenses against it, or wanted any.

She couldn't let Corvus and Lauren make out now; it might mess up the makeup. “Wait until after your scene,” Opal said, her voice cross.

“What?” Corvus's voice was deep and Dark Godly, but startled.

“Oy,” said Lauren, and shook herself. “Yeah. Focus, Laur,” she muttered.

“I need to put one last piece on the back of your neck,” Opal said to Corvus.

“Right.” He dropped to his knees on the floor and leaned forward, braced his arms on the seat of his chair. She applied the last piece of the prosthesis, almost certain not to be seen, but still necessary.

When she had finished, Opal thumbed a button on her walkie and switched to Wardrobe frequency. “Betty? This is Opal. The Dark God is ready for wardrobe.”

Corvus stood, his back still tan and human-colored below the darker brown, green, and gold of his neck and the black of his hair.

“Okay, Opal, good. You're early. Kelsi's in the trailer. I'll tell her to come to you. They're still filming scene nine on the stage, but what the heck.”

“How close are they to done?” Scene nine was supposed to wrap by four, when Corvus and Lauren were due on the set. Opal checked her watch. They were still an hour early.

“Aldridge is throwing a hissy fit about rounded vowels,” Betty whispered. “Millie has the wrong accent.”

“Great.”

“He might finish this scene on time, though. Better be here.”

“We will.” Opal signed off. “Kelsi's bringing the robe here.”

Lauren stood. She was already dressed in her costume for this scene, flat black kung fu shoes, jeans with wear-whitened knees, and a chocolate brown blouse that buttoned all the way to her throat. Her street makeup was minimal, subdued, almost not there. In her first confrontation with the Dark God as an adult, she was restrained, self-protective, making no attempt to look good. Her childhood encounter with the Dark God had driven her character underground, hiding from herself and the world. She would shift over the course of the film, and so would her costume, hair, and makeup.

Kelsi knocked. Opal let her in. “Hey, big guy,” Kelsi said. Corvus stooped, and Kelsi settled the robe around his shoulders, adjusted its folds, mated the hidden snaps to each other, and fastened the upside-down star at his throat. Covus lifted the hood. His horns tented the material.

Opal grabbed her set makeup kit and went to the door. “Wait,” she said. She closed her eyes and tuned in to the air. She had already checked for spies in the trailer, and now she pushed her senses farther out. Was Erika lying in ambush again? It occurred to Opal that the pictures the publicist had taken the day before were now inaccurate, but maybe Erika didn't know that yet. It would be better if no one knew, but she wasn't sure how to manage that.

No one waited outside, so Opal opened the door and led Corvus down the steps. His hand on her shoulder was warm again, but he squeezed her and let go at the base of the stairs. “I don't know what it is,” he said, “but I can see better today. Thanks for your help.”

The construction crew had built a mock-up of the forest altar on the soundstage inside the old supermarket, so they didn't have far to go.

This shoot had a bigger budget than most of the other movies Opal had worked on. She felt a brief pang for previous pictures, when, as chief makeup assistant, she had had more to do, helping out with makeup for everybody from the stars to the extras. Even though she loved Corvus, it was a pain being attached to one person; everybody else got variety in their work.

The crew had been out in the forest all day shooting a flashback to Serena's earlier life, when she had participated in the demonic rituals of her mother's coven in the forest, summoning the Dark God. Splices of Corvus's image from the previous day's filming would be cut in later. Gemma Goodwin, a fourteen-year-old child actor, was playing ten-year-old Serena.

People were already complaining about Aldridge in corners during meal breaks, though Opal thought he had been businesslike on the set yesterday. People said he was a stickler for getting done on time, whether it was quality work or not, and he had a reputation for reducing people to tears by yelling at them. It was part of his theory about getting the best performance out of an actor: break them down completely until he could build them back in the form he desired. Corvus wasn't his first choice for monster. Aldridge had a protégé he had wanted to use, but the studio executives had overruled him.

They crossed the parking lot toward the abandoned supermarket. Under a canopy tent that made the old parking lot look like a garden party, the stand-ins smoked or drowsed or played computer games at a picnic table. The red light over the door to the building was off; no filming was happening at the moment. They passed a security guard on their way into the chilly building, then headed over to the clutter that wasn't one of the sets, a hanging clothing rack, stacks of flats full of bottled water, masses of Medusa wires coiling across the floor and dangling from the ceiling, and all the canvas chairs with actors', producers', and directors' names on them. The director's, assistant director's, and producer's chairs huddled on a platform a short distance from the cast's chairs.

Opal and Corvus went to Corvus's specially constructed chair. She helped him settle into it and got him the novel he was reading, complete with its own book light; the waiting area was indifferently lighted. A few of the other actors were there, sipping water; Rod and Magenta perched in chairs with absent actors' names on them.

Opal went back outside to the Craft Services trailer to fetch a couple of the butterscotch protein shakes for Corvus, then returned and wandered over to the Props department monitor, a small black-and-white TV that showed the view through whichever camera was hot on the set. The camera was focused on a table topped with a doily, with a lamp sitting on it. The light was made from an old brass carriage lamp. Opal hugged herself. She had forgotten how cold they kept it on the soundstage to offset the melting heat of the lights.

“Fascinating, isn't it?” said a stocky older man, his hair solid, grease-tamed gray, his face set in a wide smile like a frog's.

“What's going on?”

“Wait for it, wait for it,” he said. Someone put a small, carved wooden box beside the lamp, angled it sideways, held a Polaroid next to it and moved it again. “Excitement unlimited!”

“That's the magic box?” Opal asked. The script mentioned a magic box, left by the dead mother at the bed-and-breakfast, discovered by the two daughters when they returned after an absence of years. The box held the key to unlocking the daughters' magical natures. It was made of some varnished wood, and the figures carved into it were geometric rather than representational. Inlaid diamonds of mother-of-pearl gleamed under the light.

“That's the magic box. You like? Say, who are you, anyway?”

She held out her hand, and he shook it. “Opal LaZelle. Special effects makeup.” She hitched a shoulder toward Corvus.

“Joe Lazarus, prop master.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

A bell rang. “Roll sound,” called someone. “Rolling,” called someone else. “Roll camera.” “Rolling.” A clapperboard showing production, scene, take, roll, date, sound, director, and cameraman came into view on their screen. Someone bumped it. It pulled out of frame. “Action!”

Opal stood beside Joe and watched as a slender hand moved into the shot, rested on the box a moment, then slipped it out of frame. Blaise Penny, as Caitlyn Lost, the younger sister, was stealing the box.

“Cut,” cried a voice. Two bells rang.

“Sixth time he's done that one,” Joe muttered. “Is it over yet?”

“And print! Break, everybody. Ready set two for scene nineteen!” one voice called, and a second voice echoed it. Activity surged around another part of the soundstage, and the sound of hammering and an electric saw.

“Better scoot,” said Joe. He headed into the storm of activity around the forest altar set.

Opal went back to the gathering of canvas-backed chairs. Corvus's oversized chair had accompanied him from
Dead Loss
. While he was on the set, Opal curled up in his chair, but now she settled into the chair assigned to Blaise. Blaise wasn't going to be in the scene with Corvus and Lauren, so she would probably quit for the day. If not, Opal would move. This might be a good time to take a set temperature, see how Blaise treated the help. Lauren was friendly, which was good to know.

“Stand-ins,” yelled someone. Corvus's stand-in, Fred, and Lauren's stand-in headed for the set, a tall man in a black robe and a compact woman in brown blouse and jeans.

“How you doing?” Opal asked Corvus, who sprawled in his chair, his hood low over his face, his altered hands sticking out the ends of his black sleeves, the leafy fingers curled under into loose fists. The novel she had brought him earlier lay closed on his lap.

“Strangely,” Corvus murmured. “Did you give me posthypnotic suggestions to help me find the character? I don't know that I signed on for that.”

“No,” said Opal. “Honestly, Corr. I didn't even know I was hypnotizing you. I didn't tell you to do anything.”

“I'll vouch,” said Lauren, lazily. “I was watching the whole time she did you. She didn't tell you anything.”

“I'm not exactly myself, here,” he said.

“Who are you?” asked Opal.

One of the great hands clamped over her wrist. “I think you know,” said a low voice from under Corvus's hood. His mouth, the only visible part of his original face, smiled slowly. “You are my handmaiden, are you not? The facilitator who brought me this more-than-perfect vessel? You will be rewarded.” The voice had dropped to a whisper.

Opal twisted her arm, tried to free it from the vise of his fingers. He gripped her more tightly.

“Hey, big guy. Save your energy for the shooting,” Lauren said.

“Corvus,” Opal whispered.

He released her, then ran his clawed fingertips gently down her arm, ended with them resting on her knuckles. “I don't wish to frighten you,” he said. “Yet.”

“Could you
be
any more creepy?” Lauren asked. “Leave the handmaiden alone, will you?”

“What?” Corvus asked in his normal voice.

“You're getting eerie, Corvus. Stop it. At least until we're acting.”

“I'm eerie?” He sounded surprised.

“Opal, come sit by me,” Lauren said. “Could you check my eyelashes?”

Opal left the chair beside Corvus and moved to the one on the far side of Lauren. It was Dirk Baptiste's chair—he played the mysteriously ambiguous sheriff in the film, and Opal hadn't met him yet. His only scene with Corvus happened during the climax, which wasn't scheduled to be filmed for a week.

Opal leaned to look at Lauren's eyelashes.

Lauren winked.

“Thanks,” Opal whispered.

“I've got some questions for you later,” murmured Lauren. “For now, could you take a quick look at my makeup?”

“No, she cannot,” said Rodrigo, beside them suddenly. “That is not her job. It is mine.”

“Sorry,” said Lauren. “
You
check my eyelashes, then.”

Rod put a Set2Go kit labeled “Caitlyn” in his black duffel and took out one labeled “Serena.” He leaned close and peered at Lauren's face. “Close your eyes,” he murmured. She did, and he blew across her eyelids. A loose lash lifted, drifted. “As for the rest, let's wait until they call for last looks. Everything looks pretty good for the moment.”

“Scene nineteen. Ten-minute warning,” called one of the assistant directors over by the forest altar set.

Opal got to her feet and grabbed her own kit, a small wheeled suitcase. Special effects makeup called for a lot more equipment than street makeup. She returned to Corvus, wondering who would meet her there. She fished one of the protein shakes out of her bag. “You hungry?” she asked.

“Not really, but I'll drink. It might be a while before I get another chance.” He sounded normal again, no more creepy whispering.

Opal popped the top of the can and slid a straw in, held it up where Corvus could easily sip. He steadied her hand with his own, but didn't close his hand on her again; he drank from the straw. She watched his mouth to see if the makeup survived its encounter with the straw. His mouth looked different, and real. The straw didn't disrupt it at all.

“Here we go, people,” called the A.D. “Stand by for blocking rehearsal.”

Corvus pushed Opal's hand away gently. He and Lauren rose and headed for the set. Opal set the half-finished drink on a nearby table, grabbed her kit, and followed, with Rod.

The stand-ins moved off the set. The boom operator adjusted a microphone to give Corvus more headroom.