Feast of Saints (3 page)

Chapter 3

“Hold on,” Jake said from the backseat before Wil could pull away from the restaurant. He watched as Lilly opened the storage compartment on the ridiculously ancient motorbike, pulled out a white helmet and stowed the book and envelope. Giving the smoky Bentley a jaunty wave, she mounted the bike and rode off.

Ty’s openly acknowledged crush on Lilly had become a family joke, but Ty had been serious when he told Jake to hire Lilly to design his character for
Feast of Saints
. Jake had been humoring Tyler when he’d acquiesced. He had instructed Phillip to offer her a small position, the equivalent of an intern, and to scout out a veteran effects artist to take charge of the design.

But Phillip had seized on the idea of hiring Lilly. “Tyler is absolutely correct. She’s brilliant. I could find you someone more experienced but with the glut of vampires in entertainment, the approach would be tired, uninspired.”

Apparently they’d decided to gang up on him. The lunch with Ms. Rose had been arranged without telling him.

As irritated as he was over being ambushed at lunch, he trusted Phillip implicitly. And Ty, young though he was, had good instincts. He had to admit that the encounter with Ms. Rose had turned out to be intriguing. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone other than his immediate family, or Phillip, had stopped him from ending a conversation, or lectured him as she had when she spelled out what would be required
of him
.

Turning to Phillip in the car, he said, “That sure I’ll change my mind?”

“Certain of it,” replied Phillip, “You’d be foolish not to let Lilly design the vampire Allegrezza. You have seen her work with Tyler, haven’t you?”

“Of course I’ve seen it.” He had seen all of Ty’s performances multiple times, although he had been focused on his acting, not the special effects makeup.

“I haven’t changed my mind – yet. But I’ll look back over her work.” Perhaps the magic that allowed him to suspend reality and to believe that Tyler really was the Fox King in
Fox Hollow
was as much due to Lilly’s work as Tyler’s innate acting ability.

Phillip called Lilly Sunday afternoon, not Monday, apologetic, to ask if they could go ahead with the lifecasting session with Jake on Monday morning. He also sketched out the financial terms of the offer. Lilly was glad he’d told her the details over the phone so he couldn’t see her jaw drop. She gave him her email address so he could send her the contract to review.

When Phillip asked her to arrive at nine a.m. Monday morning, she managed to put the appointment off until noon, explaining that she had preparations to make and materials to obtain. “In light of your requirements, we think it’s best to do the work at Jake’s home,” Phillip said. “You’ll have plenty of room to set up and anything else you might need.” Lilly agreed and jotted down the exclusive Beverly Hills address.

If she hadn’t been still woozy from her birthday outing the previous night, she probably would have panicked. As it was, she plopped down at her little kitchen table and tried to write a shopping list with her head resting on the cool Formica. Her mold-making and casting supplier in North Hollywood was closed Sundays. She’d have to hit the ground running when they opened at eight a.m. if she planned to be at Jake’s by noon. It took her an hour to complete the list and check it three times with her befuddled brain.

Setting the list aside, she opened the barely cracked copy of
Feast of Saints
. Her hung-over brain made it difficult to concentrate but she grasped the general storyline and characters. Maya Trent would be playing Sofia Gabrielli, a human caught in a supernatural love triangle. Jake, of course, was the villain, a vampire named Allegrezza Cavender. Alan Hume would be playing Blaylock, Jake’s archrival and some kind of hybrid angel. Blaylock is not supposed to interfere in human affairs, but he falls in love with Sofia, and so he is constantly thwarting Allegrezza’s nefarious plans for her.

Palmer’s writing was a bit overwrought for Lilly, but with a good going over by a cerebral, twisty screenwriter like Chris Nolan, she could see how the story could generate industry excitement.

Later that evening, Lilly decided she’d better brush up on Jake Durant. Her Internet search produced such a wide variety and volume of content that she didn’t know where to start. He was born Miles Jacob Durant, the son of two lesser-known actors. It looked like his parents had tried to steer him out of Hollywood. He graduated high school early and was shipped off to Columbia in New York at age sixteen. Lilly presumed that was where he’d met Phillip Greer. If his parents wanted to isolate him from film, they should have sent him to Boston, or some other top ten school not located in a film Mecca like New York City.

He was involved in several productions in college, both in front of and behind the camera. All of them were film noir or gangster flicks by independents. One, in which he was credited as producer, received honorable mention at Cannes. Achieving his MBA by 21, Durant returned to Hollywood and opened his first business, a live music venue and club, Point Dume, near the promontory of the same name in Malibu. Lilly was familiar with the club. With its dramatic setting and constant remodeling every few years to stay fresh and ahead of the curve, Point Dume remained the place for guaranteed star sightings in LA.

Upon his return to LA, Jake also accepted his first major studio film role in
Hands Under Armageddon
, a bizarre star-studded movie that had controversial reviews. In the movie, Durant played a philosophizing, sociopathic probation officer who preyed upon his parolees for drugs and sex. It was not her kind of movie.

Jake’s film career never veered from the strange and often violent bent with which it had started. Although classically attractive, he was either never offered, which she doubted, or never accepted a mainstream romantic leading role. His characters were often dark, sometimes quirky and a few times outright deranged. He certainly never lacked for roles. Many of them were mobsters, although by drastically transforming his appearance and mannerisms, he never repeated a character or allowed himself to be typecast.

She scanned his bibliography of film works again and noted to herself that none of the characters he played would have required him to wear the kind of special effects makeup the role of Allegrezza would need.

When she flipped over to YouTube, she was soon swamped in videos featuring Durant. She’d thought of him as primarily a cult, character actor, but he obviously had a large and vociferous fan base. Most of the videos were movie clips, but there were a surprising number of fan-made videos. The movie clips reconfirmed that Jake’s movies were not her speed. Too scary and violent. Still, as she watched Jake on a Late Night with Letterman guest appearance from the previous year, she had to admit he had definite sex appeal.

More than just a little sex appeal
, she thought, clicking on a clever fan-made video set to the music of the Supersuckers’ “Born with a Tail,” in which the creator had spliced together some of the more outlandish scenes of Durant charming, bullying or scheming his way across the silver screen to comic effect.

More than a lot of sex appeal, she thought, clicking on some of the other fan-made videos, which were edited to include only the most provocative Durant scenes. When she realized she’d watched the same video three times – a six-minute montage of close-ups and body shots of Jake in various stages of undress set to JT’s Sexyback – she smacked her cheek and made herself step away from the monitor.
Phew
. With the right editing, Jake Durant, even covered in blood splatter, was some serious eye candy. Gads, it was after eleven. She had a lot of work to do in the morning to get ready for the lifecasting session with Jake.

Just before five a.m., Lilly was jolted out of sleep. Madcap, who’d finally warmed to her and had taken up sleeping on the pillow next to her, started awake and leapt to the end of the bed where she stood, back arched, tail a bristle. Strung out on too many violent YouTube videos, she’d had a horrible nightmare. She couldn’t remember how the dream started, but for the last few minutes before she awoke she’d been running through her father’s cornfield, which had been blazing with an out of control wild fire. The dream ended sharply with her running headlong into a barbed wire fence, where, snared, the flames caught up with her and engulfed her.

Getting out of bed – no sense trying to sleep now – she flipped on the light in her little kitchen and brewed an Earl Grey tea. It had been several years since she’d had a dream that vivid and violent. She had been plagued with nightmares as a young adult and teen. She knew now that they were brought on by stress. Back then, it had been her grief over her mother’s death, her difficult relationship with her broody and domineering father and the heap of responsibilities that had fallen upon her. As a result, most of her high school memories were lost in a haze of sleep deprivation and stress-induced nightmares. She fervently hoped this morning’s episode was an aberration.

Chapter 4

Uncharacteristically late, Jake roared up to the manned security gates that fronted the street of his Beverly Hills residence. The security guard, recognizing his silver McLaren, activated the gate without stopping him. Jake’s home was set on the same two acre lot on Calle Vista Drive that his parents had purchased over fifty years ago, a decade before the street had become one of the most exclusive and sought after addresses in LA. The original house had since been repurposed as staff quarters, Jake having built a modern 20,000 square foot residence seated farther back on the property.

He had spent all of Saturday afternoon and evening in his home theatre reviewing Lilly’s work and then finally relented, agreeing to give her a try. Phillip had acted quickly, before Jake could change his mind, and squeezed the lifecasting session into his busy Monday schedule.

Pulling up the drive, irritation sparked with pleasure when he saw Lilly bending over to set a Rubbermaid tub on the front step. He was surprised by how much he’d been anticipating seeing her again, and even more surprised by why, as the rumbling of the 799 horsepower engine vibrating the center seat of the McLaren intensified the tightening of his groin at the sight of her pint-sized, bent over ass.

Jake’s fascination with Lilly’s backside was shared by the cab driver, who’d stopped struggling to extract one of the five gallon drums out of the trunk, and instead stood leering at her. She was dressed casually. If you could call the skin-tight designer jeans above leather, sky-high, heeled hiking boots casual.

He flipped the sports car into neutral and floored the gas pedal, causing the McLaren’s 6.1 liter V12 to roar and startle the distracted cabbie. Jake glowered at the older man as he unfolded from the low-slung sports car.

What the hell was Phillip doing letting her cab it here?
And where the fuck was his staff? He could defend a small country with his security budget, yet they’d left little Lilly to schlep her gear into his house. Jake touched the icon on his cell phone that summoned his driver, Wil, without having to call him. A GPS app automatically notified Wil of his location.

Stepping to the open trunk, he shouldered the cabbie aside, grabbed the two, heavy, five gallon buckets and started up the steps.

Lilly met him halfway down, “Here, let me help you with that,” she said. “Those weigh at least fifty pounds!”

Jake smirked at the idea that he needed her – in those boots – to help him haul whatever was in the buckets. His pointed look at her overall size and getup turned into a laugh when he recognized Edward Scissorhands on her novelty shirt. He’d thought her quirky style was interesting in the booties and gold short-shorts at lunch on Friday, but this was even better. No wonder Ty, a huge Tim Burton fan, liked her so much. He could definitely see what the eleven year old saw in her, and beyond.

Wil pulled the front door open in a rush just as Jake reached the top step. Jake set the buckets down and directed Wil to take them to the gym bathroom. The size of a luxury hotel spa, it had multiple vanity sinks, two showers, a large utility sink and a laundry facility. There was also a hair cutting area complete with barber’s chair in a large tiled space with a glass wall that looked out over the pool and tennis courts.

Wil struggled to lift both drums, and then had to give up and just make two trips. Jake trotted back down to take a second plastic box from Lilly. It was empty, but large and unwieldy for her. He stacked it on top of the other box at the top of the stairs and told her to follow Wil. When she would have taken the other drum, Jake shook her off.

“Leave it. Wil will come back for it. I’ll meet you down there after I change.”

“I can carry something,” she said, reaching for the large box.

Jake placed his palm on it, shaking his head.

“There are two flights of stairs between here and where you’re going. I don’t want you trying to carry this down my stairs in those boots.”

He watched, amused, as she made a face at him before she spun on her heel and followed Wil. He liked watching her stomp away almost as much as he’d liked her bent over.

Stopping in the kitchen on the way to change clothes, he greeted Kwanga, his housekeeper, and asked her to prepare a lunch for two.

“We’ve got some work to do that may take a while, so make it something simple that will keep,” he instructed her.

In the master suite, Jake looked around his expansive closet. Lilly had told him to wear something that could get ruined. Ordered him, as he recalled. Pulling a pair of well-worn running shorts and a plain, white T-shirt out of a drawer and setting them on the padded center island, he changed quickly. He didn’t bother with shoes, wondering why she needed molds of his feet. At the thought of her bending over his feet, he felt the tightening in his groin he had experienced watching her from the car. Changing his mind about the thin, revealing nylon running shorts, he opted for a pair of faded denims instead.

When he entered the tiled room, Jake congratulated himself on his foresight. There she was, bent over again, over the now open Rubbermaid tub. Without straightening, she twisted her hips to look at him and waved her hand around the room.

“This is perfect. I saw a bench in the gym. Can we pull it in here?”

“I’ll get it,” he said, tearing his eyes off of the seam of her jeans. When he returned, she was placing an organized tray of what appeared to be color-coded, white plastic toothpicks on the counter. He sat in the barber’s chair and had to adjust to keep from uncomfortably crushing his half hard-on. Looking in the mirror, he tried to remember his last good date. Gauging by his hair trigger with Lilly, he decided he needed to get out more. Work less.

“Okay, ready?” she said, turning toward him. She was wearing surgical gloves.

“Ready for what?” he asked warily.

She smiled reassuringly at him. She had pretty, pearly, little white teeth and plush, baby doll lips.

Jake watched her mouth as she said, “I’m going to do a quick allergy test and I’ll leave you with a skin patch that I want you to wear for twenty-four hours. Before we start filming and applying the special effects materials to your skin, we need to know if you’re allergic to any of it. None of the materials I’ll be using cause a severe reaction with moderate exposure, but during filming you’ll be wearing them all day, every day. If you are allergic to any of it, it could limit what we can do with the effects.”

“Okay?” She was waiting for him to respond.

Looking from her mouth to her wide, hazel eyes, he said, “It doesn’t sound too bad.”

“It’s not really.” She smiled that pearly, reassuring smile at him again. “Do you mind taking off your shirt?”

He pulled the shirt over his head, tightening his abdominal muscles and liking the pleasant feeling it gave him to undress in front of her. Lilly stepped beside him to grasp his upper arm with one gloved hand. She scrubbed his skin with a sterile alcohol wipe, then used a medical marker to quickly draw a series of five horizontal and four vertical intersecting lines, numbering the axes.

Picking up the color-coded plastic spiked toothpick from the number one spot on the tray, she said, “This part’s not very nice. It’ll sting but not as bad as a bee sting. There’s a tiny drop of the potential allergens on each of these. Don’t pull away or jerk your arm, otherwise I’ll miss my mark, okay?”

“I think I can handle it,” he said, amused. She sounded like she was reassuring a child. When she made the first prick, he just couldn’t help himself from playing with her.

“Ow!” he yelled loudly, causing Lilly to jump back, her startled expression amplified by her big, thickly-lashed eyes.

When Jake chuckled at her, she wagged her finger at him.

“That’s not funny! You really scared me!”

Laughing harder at her flabbergasted finger pointing, he huffed out, “Yes it was,” completely unrepentant.

She pursed her sweetheart lips at him. “Just keep it up, big guy. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. You realize I have nineteen more of these, don’t you?” She waved the plastic toothpick threateningly.

With one last snort, Jake stopped laughing and stared into her eyes. This close, he could see that her irises were forest green around the edges, then abruptly transitioned to golden brown close to her dark pupils. Warm and layered. Complex and beautiful. Captivating and otherworldly.

“Do your worst, Pixie,” he said.

When she’d completed the pricks, she applied the skin patch, instructing him again to leave it on for twenty-four hours. Removing the surgical gloves, she said, “It’s waterproof, so you can shower. I don’t think this will happen, but if you see any redness around the rim of the patch before twenty-four hours, go ahead and take it off.”

Inspecting the grid on his arm, she said, “So far so good. I’m going to start the casting. I’ll do the most uncomfortable casting first, which is your head and face. I asked you if you were claustrophobic because it can feel quite unnatural to have so much of your head and face covered. Instinctively, you’ll want to remove it, although it can’t harm you.”

Placing her bare hand on his shoulder she said, “You’ll have to help me by staying still and keeping your mouth closed. I’ll talk you through it.”

Her tiny, bare hand on his skin created an altogether different and distracting sensation than her plastic gloved hand had. Experimenting, Jake shifted his shoulder under her hand, causing her palm to slide over the muscle. Her fingertips trailed his collarbone as she pulled her hand back. His nostrils flared and his breathing quickened as her caress provoked a sudden need for more oxygen. The nerve endings tingled from the base of his throat, fanning out over his chest and hardening his nipples.

Stand down, Miles
, he commanded himself, using his mother’s given first name for him.

His heated reaction to her was a wake-up call that he needed to wise up and stop messing around. If Lilly had the talent that Phillip thought she did – and Ty proclaimed she did – she would be working with him, for him, for months. He didn’t want to scare her off. Or open himself up to a harassment suit.

Stepping away from him, she turned to her Rubbermaid box and pulled out another plastic tray clearly marked, “J.Durant, head cast.” In it were apparently all of the materials she needed for the next part of the job. She certainly was organized.

“I need to coat your hair so that it doesn’t stick to the casting material.” Picking up a tube of what looked like thick, greasy hair gel, she applied some to her palms, rubbed her hands together then threaded both hands through his hair, smoothing it back from his forehead and massaging the gel along his temples and hairline. To reach far enough, she had to stand between his legs and lean toward him, so close he could smell her skin and hair.

She smelled like vanilla sugar cookies.

Jake clamped his jaw shut as a blast of desire shot from the roof of his mouth to his groin. He suppressed a sudden compulsion to lean forward and rub his nose along her bare neckline.

Oblivious to the effect she was having on him, Lilly talked while she worked.

“I brought a clarifying shampoo that I’ll leave for you that will help get this out, but you may have to shampoo a couple of times.” She dabbed more of the gel on her fingertips and smoothed it gently over his eyebrows.

He closed his eyes and was immediately sorry as an image of what she would look like standing naked between his knees in nothing but those damn hiking boots invaded his brain.

Finished with the hair gel, she said, “You look like one of your hoodlum characters. All you need is a big fat cigar.”

Jake opened his eyes to look at her.
Oh, I’ve got that right here
, he thought. He knew he was leering at her, but hoped she’d think he was just in character.

Patting him on the shoulder, she said, “It’ll take me a few minutes to mix the alginate used for the casting. It’s the same stuff the dentist puts in your mouth to take an impression of your teeth, which I’ll also do after we’ve done your head and face. I’m sorry you have to wait between each stage. I can’t mix it beforehand because it sets so quickly.”

He was glad of the reprieve as she moved away from him to pull more supplies out of the bottomless Rubbermaid tub. She mixed water and some kind of white powder in a container. As she mixed, it changed color and turned into a purple gooey mess.

She carried the goo to where he was sitting. “I’m going to work quickly, and spread the alginate over your face, head and neck. It will cover your mouth. Just try to relax and breathe through your nose. The alginate sets in five minutes, but I’ll have to wrap it in plaster bandages for support so that it doesn’t tear when I take it off. The plaster takes longer to dry, about five to ten minutes. The alginate warms as it hardens, so don’t be surprised by that. It won’t get uncomfortably warm.

“Ready?” she asked brightly.

“I guess,” he said, dubious. He couldn’t decide if all of the explaining was helping or hurting. But she did work quickly, and expertly. Spreading the goo gently but firmly with her fingers and palms, she covered his head, neck and ears first, reminding him occasionally not to move.

When she covered his eyes and mouth, the sensory deprivation and instinctive fear of suffocation caused his heartbeat to speed up, although he could breathe just fine through his nose.

Lilly began saying brief and reassuring things every few seconds.

“Looks good… that’s going on nicely… only a little longer… it may feel slightly warm now… that’s it, almost done.” Her calming tone was muffled but discernible.

She must have known how disconcerting it was having his ears covered and his mouth and eyes glued shut. But once he got over the initial feeling of impending suffocation, it wasn’t so bad, even soothing as she continued to reassure him.

When she softly tapped the top of his head to satisfy herself that the cast had hardened sufficiently to be removed, she said, “You’re doing great. Just continue to stay still. I’m going to split the cast down the back and pull it off of you.”

It came off surprisingly easily. When he looked in the mirror, he didn’t see any remnants of the hardened material on his face or hair.