Angel at Dawn (12 page)

Read Angel at Dawn Online

Authors: Emma Holly

Tags: #Ghost stories, #Vampires, #Horror, #Paranormal, #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal romance stories, #Motion picture producers and directors, #Occult fiction, #Ghosts, #Occult & Supernatural, #Love stories

Wade laughed and slapped his shoulder with the flat of his palm. Christian experienced a strange doubling of perceptions. Instead of a hand, a leather gauntlet hit the sleeve of his mail hauberk. No longer gray, sherry brown eyes met his. They looked at him from a younger face—a more serious face, if it came to that. From underneath those half-forgotten features, a new confidence shone.
I know who I am,
it said.
If I don’t judge you, why should you judge me?
Matthaus,
Christian’s brain whispered.
Wade was moving away to speak to the others. He had a word for each, a friendly touch or a smile. He didn’t seem to have the least idea that he was Christian’s slain friend reborn.
If, in truth, he was Matthaus. Christian shook himself. He was getting too emotional, not thinking objectively. Seeing ghosts around every corner was not his goal.
“What time is it?” Nim Wei asked. “Shouldn’t Viv have arrived by now?”
Grace glanced down at her wrist. “Sheesh,” she said. “I forgot to put on my watch.”
“Unheard of!” Philip exclaimed, his manner as flirtatious as Charlie’s. “Of course that means none of us was even one minute late.”
“Nice try,” Nim Wei said with surprisingly little ire for someone used to her subjects jumping at a snap of her white fingers. She began herding the group toward the dining room. “We’ll start without her. Grace can read Mary.”
Wade Matthews took one end of the table, where a reel-to-reel tape recorder sat. Its presence made the read-through seem more official than Christian had anticipated.
“That seat’s empty,” Wade assured him, possibly mistaking his hesitation for bashfulness.
Christian took the chair he’d indicated. A second later, Charlie grabbed the one next to him.
“No,” Nim Wei said when Mace tried to sit across from the pair of them. “You stay on the other end with Bonehead and Growler.”
Grace was helping Wade get his microphone situated, effectively drawing Christian’s eyes from the seating change. Grace’s sweater set was a soft spring green Lana Turner couldn’t have filled out better. Against it, her deep red hair glowed like an autumn maple, and her eyes were as bright as gems. Recognizing that he was staring, Christian wrenched his gaze down to the dark tabletop.
“Wait until you get a load of Vivian Lavelle,” Charlie said under cover of the general noise. “She’s grown up since
The Little Forresters
.”
“I don’t believe I’ve seen that film,” Christian said.
Charlie gawped at him. “Oh, come
on.
The Christmas movie? My dad plays it every year. Trust me, you don’t want to have three older sisters and watch that scene where Viv’s dog dies.”
“Her dog dies?” Christian asked, wondering why this was considered festive.
“
Tears
,” Charlie said. “Shooting in buckets from little Viv’s big brown eyes.”
“And your sisters cry as well, I presume?”
“No,” Charlie laughed. “I do. Every damn time. My sisters never let me hear the end of it.”
He laughed so hard Christian couldn’t help but smile, despite the foreignness of the concept of people letting their emotions run amok like that.
“All right. Settle down,” Nim Wei said. Everyone straightened and shifted their attention to the head of the table, where their director stood in petite Napoleonic glory. Her smile seemed genuine enough, her manner authoritative but not regal. The smiles that turned to her seemed real, too—excited, respectful . . . and not the least fearful. Christian realized he didn’t see her mark on a single neck. Nim Wei hadn’t bitten or thralled her cast. They were following her of their own free will.
Christian sat back with a jolt in his chair. He looked at Grace, whom Nim Wei most definitely had bespelled. Probably assuming he was nervous, she smiled at him reassuringly.
“As some of you know,” Nim Wei began, “movies shoot their scenes out of order. Tonight may be your only chance to get a feel for the story as a whole before we’re done filming. Don’t worry about getting everything perfect. It’s likely there will be script changes, especially if lines don’t read the way we expect. If you stumble, please keep going. This is a read-through, not an audition for the Actors’ Studio. Everybody dig?”
“Yes, Naomi,” the table said in near unison.
I
Was a Teen-Age Vampire
began without dialogue. In a calm and businesslike manner, Grace described the opening sequence. A motorcycle gang, led by Christian’s movie father, roared into the town of Haileyville bent on extortion. The boys provided predictable engine noises as the gang surrounded, attacked, and finally bit a hapless shopkeeper. Grace remained undistracted by the chomping sound Bonehead made, though she did smile slightly. With an inward sigh, Christian added one more male to the list of those interested in her.
“George still isn’t here?” Nim Wei asked, looking around as the scene ended. No one seemed to want to answer.
“Date,” Philip said after a small pause.
Nim Wei’s expression cooled to one Christian found more familiar. “Very well. Growler, you read with Christian now.”
Christian’s heart gave an uncomfortable thump as he realized he was up. His character Joe Pryor’s name was scattered over the next pages. His voice cracked unexpectedly on the second word, but he soon managed to warm up. It was only when he listened to what Growler was doing that he sensed he was in trouble.
Christian could read his lines like a human would. He knew how mortals intonated, could guess where they’d stumble or rush ahead. Growler, however, was achieving something on a different order—and for a character who wasn’t his.
When Growler told his son that attending high school with a bunch of humans was a waste of time, Christian believed every sneer. Growler wasn’t forcing the emotions; he was simply being the role, as naturally as if it were a skin he’d slipped on.
“Go ahead,” Wade encouraged when Christian momentarily fell silent. “You’re doing fine.”
Except he wasn’t. The further they progressed, the more he knew it. These little humans were
good
. They acted from the inside, not the surface. Worst of all, they didn’t seem to be trying. Christian’s stomach began to clench. Any second, someone was going to laugh at him—which wasn’t a situation he should have cared about.
His nerves were coiled so tightly that when the front door burst open, at least a quarter of his muscles twitched.
“
God
,” said a mellifluous female voice from the entryway. “That was
endless.
Someone fetch me a drink.”
Matthew jumped up, suggesting at least one male wasn’t homed in on Grace. “Martini?”
“Please,” responded the newcomer as she sauntered into the dining room, tugging off short black gloves.
She didn’t look old enough to drink. Her face was achingly innocent, with smooth skin poured over cheekbones that were still soft with youth. Her dark eyes were huge and thick-lashed, her mouth pouting with the rosy bow of a five-year-old. Christian had been expecting a blonde in ringlets, but Vivian Lavelle was a wavy-haired, shoulder-length brunette. With a studied negligence that turned a casual gesture dramatic, she tossed her smart black coat onto one of the empty chairs. A curve-skimming knitted dress in hunter green was revealed. From what he could see of her figure, it was as softly rounded as the rest of her.
The term “child-woman” might have been invented for this female.
“I tried to get here on time,” she said to Nim Wei, accepting her drink from Matthew without a word of thanks. “The old fart kept wanting to tell ‘one more story.’ ”
Nim Wei accepted this with a shrug. “You didn’t miss much. Charlie, scoot over and let Viv sit next to Christian.”
Though Viv’s thoughts weren’t the easiest to read, Christian was certain she’d been aware of him all along. Nonetheless, she pretended to be noticing him just then.
“Well, lookie here,” she said, turning slightly to tip her head at him. “We finally meet the cock of the walk. Naomi said you were pretty.”
“Be nice, Viv,” Grace interjected. “Christian is new to this.”
Viv rolled her eyes and flounced into the chair Charlie had vacated. A faint flush stained her cheeks as she sat, so perhaps she wasn’t quite as outrageous as she was trying to appear.
“I enjoyed your work in
The Little Forresters
,” Christian said politely.
“Fuck
The Little Forresters
,” Viv snapped back. Once she saw he was startled, she tossed back her cocktail, grimaced, then bared small white teeth in a sweet and utterly unconvincing smile. “Please don’t mention that film in my presence.”
The rest of the cast were concealing grins. Christian concluded he wasn’t the first to step on this particular tripwire. Not about to dance to the tune of some human brat, he regarded her calmly.
“I’ll mention if I want to,” he said with equally insincere pleasantness.
Viv’s dove-soft jaw fell open as her director laughed. Nim Wei stopped when Viv stared at her, aggrieved.
“Well,” the queen said, not exactly repentant, “now that you’ve established who’s the cock of the walk, perhaps we could continue our read-through?”
Viv closed her mouth and tugged down her dress’s sleeves. The motion covered a flash of silver on one slim wrist.
“
I’m
ready,” the littlest Forrester said darkly.
Five
G
race could have warned Christian Viv would retaliate for his failure to apply his lips to her derriere. The former child star had a taste for screen idol-style fawning.
Grace hid her amusement by bending over her script. With brisk, irritated motions, Viv flipped through her copy to catch up. She stopped when she reached the scene where her character, Mary, was breakfasting with her parents prior to her first day at Haileyville High School. Rolling her shoulders like an athlete, she cleared her throat.
Grace couldn’t doubt that Christian was in for it.
Normally, Viv wouldn’t have pulled out all the stops for a read-through. Since Christian had pricked her pride, however, she was determined to show him up. With a single—and believable—quaver in her voice, she became shy Mary. The actors who played her parents were perfect foils, their stage backgrounds making them sound fake even as they strove for sincerity.
“Do
try
to be outgoing,” Mrs. Reed advised with a fruity maternal kindness no one on earth would have bought. “Not like at your last school. When I was your age, I was the belle of two classes.”
“She was,” Mr. Reed agreed. “The prettiest cheerleader any of us had seen.”
Viv-as-Mary jerked her head in a downcast nod. “May I be excused?” she mumbled.
Grace could have laughed with pleasure at how convincing she was. The famous little Forrester tears thickened each soft word. All around the table, Grace spotted eyes dewing. Anyone who’d ever felt like an outcast—which, for some reason, included a lot of actors—was touched by Mary’s fragility. Christian was surveying the faces, too, though his expression seemed more aghast than moved. Grace could practically hear him wondering if
he
was expected to affect his audience this way.

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