A Monster and a Gentleman (5 page)

He left, leaving the women still debating. He’d do what they asked and check in on the files, but he was also going to look into this himself. His reputation, and his future, were on the line.
 

Chapter Three

“We’ve been betrayed.” Luke’s words were low and quiet.

They were in a clearing high in the hills of Griffith Park. The park, used by Angelinos for hiking, picnicking and stargazing, had become their retreat. Only a small portion of America’s largest urban wilderness had roads and trails to make it accessible to humans, which meant they were safe—or so they hoped.

They’d adapted to living here, each in their own way and their own time. From Luke, whose love for human culture, particularly movies, was the root of this effort, to Runako, who had once been their greatest opposition.

But while they’d learned to live and move in the human city, it was not built for them, and they’d each found themselves forced to spend more and more of each day in their human forms. There were times when they wanted to wear their own skin, to feel the power of their true bodies.

Times like now.

Luke, Henry, Michael, Runako, Seling and Tokaki were in their true forms, standing or sitting silently in clearing. No one answered Luke’s statement. There was a tension to their silence and stillness, as if each was afraid to express the anger that boiled in them. Afraid what they would do in their anger.

“What do we do?” Seling asked.

“We let the females investigate.” Luke was confident in his beloved, sure she could get to the bottom of this, and if she couldn’t do it herself, she’d know who to hire.

“That will take time. Now it’s just that one website, but in the time it takes them to investigate others may decide to take the blog seriously.” Henry, whose normally pale blue skin had turned black with anger, leaned against a tree.
 

He was a purer black even than Runako, who stood with arms folded, gaze focused on the ground.

“What other options are there?” Tokaki asked in the old language.

“Can’t you read their minds?” Henry asked.

“I’ll try, but humans who are upset and worried are hard to hear.”

“Maybe you’ll overhear someone thinking about it.”

“Yes.” Tokaki nodded his massive head. “I will keep trying, but there is no guarantee I will ever find the person. If they are smart, they will avoid us or be careful to pretend to be on our side.”

They fell silent for a moment. Finally, Luke said, “We knew this was a possibility. We knew what we risked.”

“As it stands, if we back out, we won’t be safe. They have enough video from the movie that the humans would come looking for us.” Michael’s voice was carefully neutral.

“Then our only option is to stop whoever leaked the pictures and to continue with the movie,” Luke said.

“Whoever did this is risking much.” Tokaki’s voice was gravelly coming from between the powerful jaws of his true tiger form. “They must know the personal consequences when we identify them.” There was a moment of silence when they acknowledged that they would kill whoever had betrayed them. “They are hiding rather than coming forward and stating that they dislike and fear us. That worries me.”
 

Runako’s head snapped up. “You think our females are in danger. That whoever did this might lash out at them if they get close to discovering the culprit?”

Tokaki nodded.

Runako’s wings snapped open, “They will not hurt Margo.” He growled, the sound vibrating the air.

Luke took a step, raising his hand. “All our mates are at risk.”

Henry looked away, and Seling seemed thoughtful, though none of the others noticed their reactions to the statement.

“We cannot have them investigate this,” Luke said.

“Agreed,” Runako said.

“We need help. Another human?” Michael asked.

There was a moment of silence while they pondered that. Then Henry said, “No, not another human. This is an attack on us. One of us should investigate.”

“We would be recognized,” Seling pointed out.

“I don’t mean one of us.” Henry motioned the six of them who stood in the clearing. “I mean one of our people.”

“Who...oh.” Luke fell back a step, thinking.

“Who?” Michael looked between them. His eyes widened in realization and he sat down on a fallen log. “Are we sure Tokaki can’t do it?”

“I will do what I can, but you’re right, she would be better.”

“Who are you talking about? Wait, you can’t be serious.” Runako rubbed his head with his palm, wings folding into his back.

“Maeve.” Luke said her name quietly.

“It makes sense,” Henry argued. “Who could figure it out faster than her?”

“You know that human expression ‘bringing a knife to a gun fight’?” Seling shook his head ruefully. “Bringing Maeve is like bringing a nuclear weapon to a knife fight.”

“There are some cons to involving her.” Luke agreed.

There were a few minutes of silence before Henry sighed and said, “So we’re decided?”

One by one, they nodded. They didn’t have other viable choices.

“So who goes to get her and bring her to L.A.?” Michael asked.

Another silence as they looked between each other.

“There’s no need.” The voice was sweet perfection, a mix between husky sexuality and innocence.

The males jerked, heads swiveling as they scanned the trees and sky for the source.

“There’s no need,” the voice repeated. A young woman, naked except for a tangle of black hair that hung to her knees, covering her like a cloak, appeared in the center of the clearing. “I’m already here.”

One by one she met the males’ gazes, and one by one they looked away from her.

Then Maeve, the Seer of the great Clan, threw back her head and laughed, the sound ringing with both joy and madness.

They held the emergency meeting at the training studio. They’d rented out the empty warehouse to use as a gym and training area for the monsters. It had also become storage for the art department, and massive bronze and iron sculptures destined for the fictional throne room loomed in the shadowed corners.
 

It was just shy of ten a.m., but they were close enough to the ocean that the marine layer hung low over the building and the row of high windows didn’t let in much of the silvery light. Every person associated with the production was crowded into the building—well over one hundred people. By the time they were done, that number would have tripled, and the success of the project depended on every one of those three hundred people supporting the cause and adhering to the massive confidentiality agreements they’d signed.

Lena stood on an apple box so the group could see and hear her as she explained what was going on. Heads bowed as people used phones and tablets to pull up the blog. There were murmurs of concern as they saw the photos.

It wasn’t just the monsters who were at risk. If they couldn’t control how the truth was disseminated, everyone attached to the project would be under scrutiny. Most people working on the movie were early in their career—good, but without the credits to get them on bigger jobs. This could end those rising careers and expose everyone to a lot of personal criticism.

The monsters in the movie stood behind Lena like a frightening backdrop. Henry was in his human form to keep from scaring the humans by letting them see his anger in the color of his skin. Luke, Seling and Runako were in their true forms, three massive gargoyle-like monsters with bat wings, their skin ranging from black to red to green. Michael, in his human form, and Tokaki, in his true form, were at the back of the room. Tokaki prowled, his massive head and huge eyes fixing on anyone who fell back or stopped paying attention. The crowd stayed clustered towards the front of the room.
 

“We will be increasing security, though at this time we do not think the footage was stolen.” Lena went quiet, waiting.
 

The first row of the crowd was made up of the above-the-line people, clustered in and among the other Calypso Production owners. Darryl, the director of photography, and Pete Bierbaum, the special effects supervisor, looked pissed, while Vernell—Nell—Neuberger, the locations manager, and casting director Lance Krone looked worried. The second assistant director Javier Amero looked like he would pass out. He’d interned with Cali on an indie film Calypso had done as part of a minorities in film project. Oren put a hand on the young man’s shoulder, a grim look on his face. Catherine was studying the images from the blog on her phone while next to her Hugh Leifer, the special effects makeup manager, scribbled something on his clipboard and passed it to Jo, who read it and nodded.

“If any of you know anything about this, please let talk to me or one of the other Calypso owners. If you think you may have accidentally given information to someone, again, please come forward. If you help us deal with this situation, we won’t pursue breach of contract.”

Lena’s words settled over the crowd. She remained silent for a few moments, letting that sink in. No one stepped forward, but as the silence lingered people started to shift, shuffling their feet and tapping their phones.

Luke flared his wings, the snap of the membrane, like canvas in wind, silenced the room and drew all eyes to Lena.

“We will find out who leaked the photos.” Lena, trim and tailored in a pencil skirt, blouse and heels, scanned the crowd. When she was done, her stern expression shifted to a smile. “Thank you all for coming early, or staying late, for this meeting.”

Luke held out one clawed hand and Lena used it to step down. Henry threw open the doors and the production crew filed out under the watchful eyes of the monsters.
 

Chapter Four

Oren and Maeve

Oren rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. They were done with the night shoots, at least for now, which meant he didn’t have to work a split shift, but he was suffering from the switch to a new schedule. He hadn’t been hungry for the breakfast and lunch craft services had provided, but now at two thirty p.m. he was starving.

He’d done the dailies with Cali in the editing trailer. In this new post-leak world, no one but himself and Cali were allowed to see the footage and his office was locked down tight when he wasn’t there. With the dailies done, he didn’t have to return to the production offices, which meant he could go get food.

Oren turned the key for his battered compact. It sputtered to life and Oren gave it a congratulatory pat. He hated this car. He longed for the sleek BMW he’d been driving at the height of his career.

But he’d bought this car for cash, and even though he’d been earning good money editing commercials and public access TV shows, he kept the crappy car. When he was feeling philosophical, he considered it part of his penance.

Today he cared less about philosophy than he did about a burger. He rolled out of the dirt lot where the crew cars were parked, a few blocks away from the set. Waving at the other crew members getting into their own cars, he drove off.

He was less than a block away when he lost control.
 

Rather than heading towards the freeway, he was taking side streets to get to the nearest In-N-Out. There were other burger places closer by, but he wanted a protein-style cheeseburger with animal-style fries the way a fat kid wanted cake. One minute he was looking at boat lot on his right, fantasizing about eating a burger on a speedboat, the next the wheel jerked out of his hands. His car slid sideways, then started to turn in a massive arc, bringing the back perilously close to the chain-link fence around the boatyard. He stood on the brake and grabbed the wheel, arms straining to regain control.

The car slowed and stopped, still on the little side street, but faced 180 degrees from where he’d started.
 

“What the fuck just happened?” Shaking, Oren put the car in park, opened the door and got out. It wasn’t the car—the engine was still humming. It almost felt like he’d hydroplaned. He stared at his shaking hands, then at the car, then at the road. Though it was warm and sunny, there was a wet patch on the road fifty yards back. Even as he watched, the water started to evaporate. There was no way he’d hydroplaned on that—it wasn’t even standing water.

Oren leaned on the fender and scrubbed his hands through his hair.
 

“You’re the one they suspect.”

He jerked up, head whipping around. On the other side of his car stood a woman. Her pale, round face was lovely, almost painfully so. Long black hair hung in tangled ropes past her waist. For a moment he thought she was naked under all that hair, but then she moved and he saw the skimpy green sundress. He was struck by her appearance. She was lovely, sexy in that little dress, but somehow frightening. Distracted and still shocked by the near accident, he didn’t react as she circled the front of the car.
 

“They do not trust you.” She was less than two feet away when she spoke. Her voice, low and melodious, jerked him from his seeming trance.

“Did I hit you? I’m sorry. Let me call an ambulance.”

“You didn’t hit anything. I made sure of that.”