The lights faded, and she saw Rachel five paces away, standing behind Alex Walters. The paparazzo unbuttoned his blazer and struck a fighting stance.
“Seriously?” Ree asked. The guy was so twig-like he made Ree look full-figured.
Alex laughed. “What? You don’t think I got smart after the first few bodyguards roughed me up?”
Ree brandished her sword. “Yeah, but I have a black belt and a sword.”
“That’s nice.” Alex said, his voice uninterested as he quick-drew a pistol and fired from the hip. The bullet hit her in the shoulder, opening a floodgate of pain. She rolled with the force and went to the ground. Ree huffed as she landed, adrenaline helping her scramble for cover as Alex continued to fire. A bullet skipped off the concrete near her head, spraying her face with gravel, and she felt another tear at her leg.
Ree’s ears pounded, and her senses reeled, shock hitting from the bullets, the head wounds, and the general beating she’d taken.
Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. Must save vs. Shock. Don’t pass out.
“A little help here!” Ree called, her voice breaking halfway through
help
.
Ree heard the sound of a thud, then a crash of bodies hitting the floor. And following that, one more gunshot.
She wobbled to her feet, sword now in her left hand, her right hand curled up against her chest, quickly covering with blood.
Gotta end this soon.
As she staggered forward, she saw Alex disentangling himself from Yancy, whose white shirt was already stained deep crimson from a gutshot.
Holy fuck.
Jane and Rachel were now grappling, lights and sounds of applause licking over them like steam off a block of ice. And she saw the edge of Drake’s cloak at the bottom of a pile of unmoving orc bodies.
Ree took another pained step forward, seeing Alex scramble for his gun. He brought a magazine up to reload, but she had the range, and cut down into his wrist. He lost his grip on the gun, which clattered to the ground. Alex clutched his hand close, mirroring Ree.
As Ree contemplated taking a Dark Side point and cutting him down right there, she heard a crunch and a cry, and then sensed another body hit the ground. Out of the corner of her eye, Ree saw that only one gown-garbed goddess was still standing.
Jane exhaled twenty gallons of pain and breath through a bloody mouth and leveled her gaze on Alex. Rachel MacKenzie was a pile of unconsciousness, her nose ripped open, her chest covered in blood.
Alex scrambled back, holding his readily bleeding wrist. He looked to Rachel, but the older star was out.
“It’s too late, Jane.” His voice was thin, desperate, but as he spoke, Ree felt a jackhammer of force move through the air, the biting critique of the gossip hound revved up to a magical 11. “Nobody wants you back on the screen. They’ve already moved on.”
Jane wobbled in place, catching herself on the ruins of a table. Ree moved to help her, but her adrenaline had broken. She collapsed, red crowding her vision. Oblivion was knocking on the door, and it had chocolates.
Ree looked to Jane. Her eyes were still flooded with power and that odd look that resembled madness way too much for Ree to be comfortable.
Jane turned to the screen. The tide of comments had turned back to Jane’s favor. “It’s not enough. It should be done by now.” She looked at Rachel, the fallen star’s magic dissipated.
“There’s just one last step,” Alex said. “Rachel was right about paying your dues. Every Sweetheart before has paid the price, that’s the big part you missed. It takes blood. Life’s blood. You have to take a life of someone you care about, someone who helped you along the way.”
Jane looked to Yancy, who held himself up on a table, a huge gash across his ribs. Then, she looked to Ree, and back to Alex.
Oh hell no,
Ree thought.
No way.
Alex continued. “I don’t make the rules, kid, but I do know them. It’s not like you actually knew how to do this ritual, right? It’s different this time from last time. No one ever wrote it down. Every Sweetheart before you had the right producers behind them, with the . . . institutional memory to help them along their way.”
Jane narrowed her eyes at Alex. “I am not a killer.”
Alex did his best nonchalant shrug, hampered by his profusely bleeding wrist.
“It’s either kill or be killed. With the amount of magic you’ve used today, what do you think the curse is going to do with you? I’ll give you that one for free. Tonight you take a life, or you take your curtain call.”
The film pushed on toward the climax, and without an outlet, Jane’s magical aura started lashing out, producing lights and random FX. The worry knot in Ree’s stomach twisted another half-turn. If the curse wasn’t broken, couldn’t be broken without the blood cost, then she didn’t doubt that the curse could kill her.
And if Jane was going to pay the price, then Ree was the obvious choice. Yancy was like a father to her—he was clearly the Butler/ex-husband Max. But Ree, Ree was the Joe Gillis of this picture.
Gulp.
Alex spat at Jane and continued, “If Yancy there weren’t in love with you, you would have plateaued at cereal commercials. There’s always someone new, Jane. I’ve got a dozen stars in the wings, all climbing over one another to be the next Jane Konrad, the next Rachel MacKenzie.” Alex nodded at Rachel. “You and she, you’re both replacable, just a face to put on a poster. It’s about butts in seats, about gate, about keeping the masses happy. It’s never been about you. If you want to keep them at bay, you have to pay the price.”
Ree looked at Jane through bleary eyes and wished she’d passed out. Jane’s eyes, those eyes that said so much, could convey the texture of emotion, were a mix of a hundred thoughts. She saw fear playing out over Jane’s face, but also hunger, ambition. It was an ugly hunger, and with the blood on her face, the look was terrifying, like that of a starving wolf approaching a rabbit.
And Ree was the rabbit.
“Jane! Don’t listen to him! There’s no one like you. You built this!” Ree waved, if weakly, at the ruined set. “This came from you and from me. We have stories to tell, stories only you can tell. He’s full of shit; he’s just trying to save his ass!”
“Shut your mouth, bitch.” Alex kicked Ree, and she fell over onto her wounded shoulder.
Pain blue-screened her vision, and all she could do was cry out. Her eyes locked closed in pain, she heard Jane take another step, her single stiletto heel clicking on the concrete.
“I will have my return.” Again, Jane’s voice was twinned by the actress’s, despite the fact the film hadn’t been hooked up to a speaker. Ree opened her eyes and saw Alex’s gun in Jane’s hand, wavering. Behind her, the film reached its finale as Norma Desmond threw open the door to follow her false lover.
“Jane, don’t,” Ree croaked, sitting up despite seventeen kinds of pain.
The star aimed the gun at Ree, rage in her eyes. Ree forced herself to watch, her eyes locked on Jane. She wouldn’t look away, wouldn’t just wait for the end. She tried to pull herself up to her knees but fell backward.
Is this what it was all leading toward? Was I just some fucking pawn in this Hollywood tragedy, caught by my own ambition like Joe Gillis?
A moment later, two shots rang out: one from the screen, and one from the gun. A huge wave of energy swept out from the screen with the gunshot, along with the smell of burning celluloid.
That’s All Folks!
Ree thought.
But there was no thud of impact, no blossoming of pain. Ree turned and saw Alex drop to his knees, blood spreading on his chest from a bullet hole in his freshly pressed shirt. His eyes were wide as he looked to Jane with snide disbelief, then fell forward to the concrete.
“Fuck. Oh, fuck, thank you,” Ree said. She heard the gun clatter to the ground, then Jane wrapped her arms around Ree.
Jane spoke, the echo of Norma Desmond gone. “I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. That’s not who I am.”
Through the pain and the onset of shock, Ree found the energy for one more sentence. “You’re goddamned right you couldn’t.”
Off to the side, Ree heard a
pop
. She turned, her vision wavering, and could have sworn she saw a flowing puddle of ichor where Alex had been.
“What the fuck?” Ree asked, her voice weak.
“Don’t worry. Just stay with me, Ree.”
Ree looked up to the screen one last time. On one side, she saw Joe Gillis floating facedown in the pool. She couldn’t make out the words on the other side, but she knew that Jane’s fans had rallied, that they’d come through. Or maybe that was the shock talking.
“It’s going to be all right, you hear? Just stay with me,” Jane said.
Ree’s nod was as much loll as anything, but she focused on the star’s face, tried to keep the black at bay. She lost track of time, and before long, she couldn’t hold it back anymore and drifted off into the black.
Epilogue
Only If for a Night
Production of One Tough Mama’s
Awakenings
ended early today, following extensive damage from arson late Sunday night. Police are investigating the attack but have not announced any suspects.
Given One Tough Mama’s financial problems, it’s not likely that the production will be able to complete principal photography without additional investors.
Before Jane Konrad’s personal struggles, One Tough Mama had been on a run of successful independent productions with strong showings through major distributors, including the romantic comedy
Green Thumb
with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the toast-of-Cannes drama
Uriel Falls
, and video-game action sleeper hit
Player Two
.
—Vlada Janczuk, StraightDope.com, May 28, 2012
Ree woke in a hospital room. At least, it better have been a hospital room, because nowhere else was allowed to smell that sterile.
She was bandaged up like an eight-year-old’s mummy costume, gauze covering her head, arms, waist, and legs. She tried to lift her head and look around, but she felt like one of the gorillas had followed her to the hospital and was curled up on her chest.
“Well, that won’t work,” she croaked, her mouth dry. “Testing, one two.” Her voice was low, husky, more Tom-Waits-in-drag than torch singer.
She heard movement to her left, then Jane entered her vision. The star was still wearing the vintage dress, but her makeup and glamour were gone, leaving the woman’s face hollow and wan.
“Thank God,” Jane said, leaning in to hug Ree.
“Owwfuckshitalloftheow!” Ree said as the compression lit a bajillion pain receptors on fire.
Jane backed off, and the pain receded like a slow tide.
A cog of thought dropped into place, and she gulped. (Even gulping hurt.) Ree opened her mouth, then pursed her lips, struggling to build up the courage to ask the question and face its answer. “Yancy?”
“He’ll make it. The SWAT team had already signaled emergency services and backup. They arrived just after you passed out. Good thing, too. The EMT said another minute and he’d have been too far gone.” Jane sighed, and Ree tried one of her own, then gave up as the expected wave of pain hit.
“And Drake?”
“He was just unconscious. He’s actually checked himself out. Said he was going to ‘manage your affairs with the ladies three.’ I hope you know what that means, because I’ve got nothing.”
Yep, that sounds like Drake.
“The Rhyming Ladies are my three best friends. Sandra, Anya, and Priya.”
Jane nodded. “The doctors say they called your dad. You’ll want to give him a ring, too.”
Fuuuck.
Covering up a hospital visit with the ladies was one thing, but her dad would positively freak the fuck out. He’d probably already bought a plane ticket.
“How long have I been out?” Ree asked.
“About ten hours. I’m just glad to have you up and talking. Pacing around this room and staying out of the halls to avoid paparazzi was getting old.”
“How’s Danny?”
“Several lacerations and a broken arm. They found him unconscious against a wall with a double-bladed ax on his lap beside his baseball bat.”
Ree stumbled through her mental Rolodex, trying to make sure she’d covered everyone.
“Did the crew get out okay?”
Jane nodded. “Everyone who had survived the dragon attack. Are you going to ask about yourself, or should I just have the doctor come back in and read you the list herself?”
“I’m not dying, right?” Ree asked. Another nod. “I’ve been putting points into Stamina. As long as this arm heals up pretty soon, I’ll be fine.”
Something hit Ree, a foggy memory from just before she’d passed out.
“What happened to Alex?”
A shadow passed over Jane’s face. “He . . . dissolved. Like those creatures.”
So I wasn’t hallucinating. Go me.
“What the hell does that mean?” Ree asked.
“I don’t know, Ree. I just don’t know.” If Alex was a monster or came from the same place they did, that put a whole new light on a lot of things, not the least of which being that something was seriously wrong at Cosmic Studios.
“Huh. I’ll have to dig around for some answers,” Ree said, trying to sit up. Another wave of pain hit her like a two-by-four across the nose.
“Take it easy, okay? You’ve taken a lot of punishment.”
“I’ll be fine.” Ree reconsidered for a moment, looking at the hospital room and trying to do some mental math at how big of a bill she’d just racked up. “Though this hospital bill will bankrupt me. Not like I had much money to begin with.”
Jane’s face soured. “The hell it will. That’s all taken care of.”
Ree looked over her wrecked body again. “This has got to be like a hundred grand in surgeries and other crap.”
“So?” Jane asked. “I was going to have to sell my house anyway.” Ree saw a tear in the star’s eye, reminded of how much Jane had already given up to plot the course of her own life instead of letting other people pull her strings. Ree’s headache reannounced its presence like a poorly tuned metal band doing a sound check. Ree kept a working knowledge of her own headaches, and this one was very clearly the vengeance of the Caffeine Fiend.
“I don’t know how to repay you,” Ree said. “But if I can ask a little more, I’d kill for a coffee.”
Jane chuckled, her face lighting up. Even like this, she was beautiful. Not knock-your-socks-off gorgeous, but Ree was beginning to wonder if there was anybody who was actually that hot in person, sans magic, sans makeup. On her own, Jane was still beautiful.
“So what about the show?” Ree asked.
Another laugh. “Oh, we’re fucked. With a disaster like this, no one will touch the project. People are superstitious about dragon attacks and things like that.”
“And the curse? Rachel?”
Jane opened her arms. “Gone at the end of the film. I used enough magical energy yesterday to power N.Y.C. for an hour, and I’m exhausted, but that’s all. I beat Rachel head-on, Alex is dead, and #JaneDay trended for the whole afternoon. One of the PAs counted the tweets, and my fans buried Rachel and Alex’s haters 2-1. If the curse isn’t broken, it might as well be,” she said, waving the issue off.
Ree tried to sit up to ask again. Jane held Ree down and continued. “Rachel slinked off when she came to, all bullshit smiles and thanks for getting rid of Alex. I didn’t believe her for a second when she said that bygones were bygones. But she has the divorce to deal with first.”
Ree ticked problems off her checklist, one by one. The
Unfuck writing career
box was still empty, but there was no reason for her to be a sore winner, considering how many other bullets she’d dodged.
Ree pursed her lips. Her stomach auditioned for Cirque Du Soleil as she tried to address the Relationship Sword of Damocles swinging overhead. “So, where does that leave us?”
That got a wistful look from Jane, and a long silence. “I have to go back to L.A., be there with Yancy and his family while he recovers. You could come with us. Try to get funding for another pilot.”
Go to L.A., live with a superstar, keep tasting the high life. Have a real career as a writer. But that’d be crazy-pants, moving a thousand miles for a relationship. What if things went bad? I know better than to try and pull a Felicity.
And I doubted her, thought she was just using me. That’s not a great foundation for a relationship.
Ree thought of the Blins, Charlie, the Rhyming Ladies, and everyone in the magical underground she’d come to know. Eastwood, Grognard, Drake. She couldn’t just leave all of that behind, hang up her lightsaber and live by the pen.
Ree saw a flash of her mother, looking haggard and worn in the vision provided by the Thrice-Retconned Duke of Pwn last Halloween.
Eastwood and I still have work to do, and someone needs to make sure he doesn’t go Dark Side again in the process.
She shook her head. “My life is here. And if I went to be a writer, I’d be turning my back on the people I can help.”
Jane squeezed Ree’s unwounded arm. “Think of all the people you could help as a writer, telling stories that need to be told. You could help millions. And it’s not like there aren’t monsters and more creeps like Alex in Hollywood.”
“One of my friends’ kids would be dead if not for me. I have to stay here and look after my people, my city.” Her eyes were hot, and she wiped the newborn tears away with her unwounded hand.
Jane’s mouth wrinkled as she struggled with something. “You’re sure?”
Ree sniffed back the totally unsexy snot that flowed like a leaky faucet whenever she got teary.
“Might be the morphine talking,” Ree said.
Jane sighed, shaking her head with a knowing smile. “Oh, honey. You’re something else. And it was just a week, after all. I don’t like it, but I can understand.”
She sounded like she was trying to convince herself, putting on a brave face. Ree did her best to follow suit, even as her mind flashed back to dinner at Yoritomo’s, the night at Infinity . . . and other things from nights.
Jane smiled the Making Lemonade smile that adults learn to do when they get used to the world stomping on their heads. “You’re welcome anytime you come to L.A. If I hear you’ve come down and didn’t give me a call, I’ll be pissed.” And then Jane proved herself a saint and produced tissues from nowhere.
Ree blew her nose, embarrassed at how much it sounded like a trombone. The snot was, for the moment, bested.
“I’ve seen you pissed; I’m not that dumb,” Ree said, trying her best to grin through the laundry list of injuries. “Can you stay for a while anyway?” Ree went on. “In the hospital, I mean. Of course you’ll go home with Yancy when he’s out. Just for right now. I don’t want my friends to know about this dumbass magic stuff I do, and I’d rather not be alone just yet.” Ree folded the tissue over itself, looking for a usable spot.
Jane squeezed Ree’s left hand, and for the first time that day, there was a touch without pain. “Of course. And it may be a terrible cliché, but I’d like to be friends.”
Ree slipped her hand free, not recoiling but simply to make the Ted Mosby struck-in-the-heart motion. Jane stuck her tongue out at Ree.
“Of course,” said Ree. “But I reserve the right to keep on nursing my childhood crush.”
“Done and done. I do wish you would come down. The women in L.A. are all crazy. I have to go out to the valley or up to the Bay to find a girl who has her act together but isn’t as boring as a sack of potatoes.”
“That’s what you get for living in Diva Central.”
That earned another smile.
Jane indulged Ree a bit longer, and the two kept talking until Ree passed out again.
• • •
Ree was mobile in the morning and accompanied Yancy, Jane, and Danny to the short memorial for the four crew members who lost their lives during the dragon attack. Ree might not be able to make the full ceremony down in L.A. with the families, but she wanted to make sure she had the chance to learn their names, etch them on her memory. If she was Pearson’s self-styled protector, then they had died on her watch, for her production, and they deserved to be remembered.
Kalolo Grant, the security guard with the big smile.
Christopher Yao, one of the camera grips.
Georgia Summers, the lighting tech who had climbed around in the rigging like she was born to it.
Vanessa Yen, the PA who had dragged Ree into makeup for the press conference.
Yancy, Jane, and several other cast and crew spoke, each with a story about one or another of the fallen teammates. Most of One Tough Mama had worked together for years, some even decades, going back to film school. They were truly a family. And for a little while, Ree had been a guest in that family.
• • •
After the memorial, Yancy, Ree, Danny, and Jane piled back into the town car, the two heads of One Tough Mama still red around the eyes, while Danny looked out the window, watching the city scroll by. Ree held Jane’s hand on the way to the airport, stumbling over how she could help. She hadn’t known any of the deceased more than the tiniest bit. So she did what she could, just to be present.
They rode in silence to the airport as Ree locked the stories into her memory, dwelling for a time on the cost of ambition, the dangers of the crazy world she insisted on making her own. And on the implications of a walking, talking, smarmy mastermind who was also the same kind of not-human as the monsters he commanded.
Thankfully, her dad hadn’t hopped on a plane, and she had been able to placate his panic enough, promising a full after-action later that day. She sent Grognard a text during the drive, and his response came within a minute, saying that Drake had already touched base and for her to heal up. She still didn’t totally get Grognard (like how he could prefer the
AD&D
rule set to
Pathfinder
), but as far as bosses went, she’d had far worse.
The team stepped out onto the curb, where Ree gave teary, tender goodbyes all around, until it was just Jane and Ree, with Danny keeping the crowds at bay.
“Keep in touch, okay?” Jane said.
Ree nodded, tearing up in an uncharacteristic public display of not-put-togetherness. At least, uncharacteristic while sober.
“Sure thing.”
“And since he’s no longer the competition, I might as well tell you that Drake is crazy about you,” Jane said with a knowing smile.
“Really?”
“I get that he’s all man-out-of-time and such, but there are only a few reasons for someone in his position to be so devoted: he’s paid to do it, like Danny, he’s family, or he’s completely in love with you. Plus, one side benefit of celebrity magic and cultivating desire is that I’ve got a pretty damned good sense about these things. I saw the way you looked at him, even when I was around.”
Ree’s ears got hot.
This is not me at my sexiest
, she thought, imagining how she must look: beaten, bloodied, teary, and snotted up.
But Jane still looked at her with that kind but sad look. “The way I see it, you were playing it cool like you tried to do with me. Somebody has to be the one to take the plunge, to put themselves on the line. This one is all you.”