No Humans Involved (11 page)

Another message for me.

"Having a female Alpha will be an adjustment for all. It took a long time for me to accept Elena as a werewolf. Logically, I was fine with it, but deep down?" He shook his head. "It wasn't easy. To Clay, having a mate was the most natural thing. The wolf in him is so strong it rules out everything else. But for me? Being raised as a werewolf means being raised to keep your distance from romantic entanglements. Pack werewolves weren't allowed to form long-term relationships, let alone marry. Open yourself up to someone and you might be tempted to tell her everything. Now that the werewolves are back in the supernatural fold, there are women who can safely know my secret. I still have trouble accepting that."

We sat there for a while, staring at the water.

I knew now that Jeremy hadn't come to L.A. to declare himself— or to let me down easy—but to give us both a chance to explore the possibilities and weigh them against the consequences. We could spend time together, away from being "werewolf Alpha and necromancer delegate." Time to decide whether it was better to stay friends or risk becoming lovers.

Becoming lovers
would
come with risks. He was letting me know what I'd be in for. A lover who couldn't fly to meet me for romantic getaways. A lover whose priority would always be his family and his Pack. A lover who would put my life in danger just by being with me, making me a target for anyone who wanted to get at the Alpha. Even if I was fine with all this, after a lifetime of one-night stands, avoiding emotional attachments, Jeremy might never be comfortable in a relationship.

My impulse was to say: "Put my life at risk for a difficult, longdistance relationship that might never work? It's
Jeremy
. Sign me up." But I had to approach this with my head, not my heart. It wasn't something I could just leap into.

"We should get you back to the house," Jeremy said finally. "I presume you have a segment to film tomorrow?"

"In the afternoon, plus an interview midmorning."

He helped me to my feet. "When things settle down with your costars, I'd like to watch a segment or two. I'm looking forward to that."

"It's not nearly as much fun as you'd think. It's a lot of standing around doing nothing."

"I'm not here to be entertained, Jaime."

He put his hand on my back and led me from the park.

Spiritualist Big Brother

BACK AT THE HOUSE, I grabbed a cold drink from the kitchen before heading to bed. I was backing away from the fridge when something moved along the far wall. I turned and braced myself, waiting for a ghost to materialize. Another flicker—just a flashlight beam from a guard doing a walk-around outside. As I'd stared at the wall, though, something else caught my eye. Resting above the chair rail was a dark dot, smaller than a dime. I walked over. The dot became a hole, and recessed within the hole was the lens of a camera.

There could be a logical explanation for this. Maybe the family that lived here suspected the cook of spitting in their food. Or they had a dieter with a midnight fridge-raiding habit. But tiny wood shavings still clung to the hole, meaning it'd been drilled recently.

Time to take a tour of the house.

I FOUND four pinhole cameras in the shared rooms where we spiritualists were most likely to congregate. The crew-only areas were surveillance-free.

So we were being taped. By whom? My first thought was the crew. But if someone hoped for an ugly photo he could sell to a tabloid or a compromising video to post on the Internet, he'd be filming in the private areas.

I thought of Todd Simon. Beer-commercial director turned reality-show producer.

Becky said we were all in this house for budget reasons. Entirely plausible, and I was sure she believed that. But someone was hoping for
Big Brother-style
footage. Was it legal? That depended on our contract.

I went upstairs, pulled out my contract and gave it a good read. I never sign without studying the contract and consulting with my lawyer. I don't care if it looks just like the boilerplate I've signed a hundred times—I don't take chances. But Hollywood contracts are notorious for their legalese and for their sheer size, and this one had covered every eventuality from
Raising Marilyn Monroe: The Musical
to Jaime Vegas action figures.

I found the clause about agreeing to be filmed at the Brentwood house. Seemed obvious—I was going to the house to tape segments, so naturally I'd agreed to be filmed. When I reread that clause after finding pinhole cameras, it took on a whole new meaning.

I'd run this past my lawyer, but even if I had grounds for raising a fuss, I'd be labeled difficult, and my hopes for my own show would fly out the window. Better to tuck the knowledge into my back pocket and use it to my advantage. If I knew I was being taped, I could put on a good performance. And I could make damned sure I didn't pick my nose, scratch my ass or badmouth anyone in the common rooms. As long as they weren't taping me in my bedroom…

I put down the contract and searched. No cameras. Whew.

AS I headed to breakfast the next morning, Becky called to me from the living room. When I caught up with her, she was already vanishing into the study that now served as a communal office.

"I wanted to thank you for helping us out with Grady yesterday," she said as she shut the door. "I really appreciate it, and I want you to be the first to hear Mr. Simon's amazing new idea for the show. I just know you're going to love this."

I braced myself. In Hollywood, the words "you're going to love this" are more plea than assurance.

"Rather than pepper our show with random seances, why not make it a theme?" She lifted her hands, punctuating her words with a jab as if pointing to them on a marquee. "One final curtain call for the tragic dead of Brentwood."

"You want us to contact more dead movie stars?" I said finally.

"Not just movie stars.
Brentwood
stars. Those killed under mysterious circumstances, like Tansy Lane. A theme, leading to the grand finale with Marilyn Monroe."

"It's an… interesting concept," I said carefully. "Certainly ambitious—"

"We don't expect you to do as well with every ghost as you did with Tansy. You can ask how they died, but we won't expect any real revelations. We'll intercut with some talking heads giving their theories, some old detectives reminiscing about the cases, and by the end of the segment, no one will even notice that we didn't actually find out anything new."

"It sounds… interesting."

Becky crumpled, bracing herself against the desk. "It's horrible. I'm so sorry. We're still having issues with Grady, and this is Mr. Simon's solution, knowing how much Grady loves working with mysterious deaths."

"I'm not comfortable with changing the format at this point. It's been changed once, when they set it in this house, and I was very understanding about that."

Terror filled Becky's eyes. Part of me wanted to stand my ground and tell her that if she wanted to make the show she envisioned, then she'd better grow a backbone and stand up to men like Bradford Grady. But another part of me remembered being young, ambitious and overwhelmed, and I wanted to be the one person not making this shoot a living hell for her.

"I'll consider a change of format, but on several conditions."

"Name them."

"I want a written guarantee of equal screen time in the final production and equal preshow promotion. Is the Tansy Lane segment in danger of being cut?"

"Definitely not. I'll get Mr. Simon to put that in writing. No matter how much weight Grady throws around, your success with Tansy stays."

Her cell phone rang. A few quick words, then she hung up. "I need to run. The next seance will be after lunch. We're keeping the locations and subjects a secret. Yes, I know—Grady is an expert and by tonight his team will be faxing him dossiers on every semifamous person who died in this neighborhood. But I have a plan."

She headed for the door, then stopped. "Oh, and before you leave, there's a release form on the desk. Just an addendum to your contract. It's in the blue folder. Take it with you to read over. No rush."

I OPENED the blue folder she'd left on the desk. Inside was a single printed sheet. On first glance, it looked more like a memo than a release form.

Subject: Gabrielle Langdon.

The name sounded familiar, but I had to read a few lines before I realized what I was looking at: a detailed summary of the life and death of arguably Brentwood's most famous murder victim.

I slapped the folder shut and scanned the desk, but there were no more blue folders. No folders of any color.

Becky said she had a plan, and now I knew what it was.

I HAD lunch and the early afternoon off, so Jeremy picked me up. He'd already checked in with Robert and a second potential source: Clay. Like Jeremy and Elena, Clay worked part-time and primarily from home—the advantage to having a healthy communal bank account and little desire for material goods. From Jeremy and Elena, I knew Clay was passionate about his work, but he rarely talked about it with anyone outside the Pack.

While Robert Vasic looked like the stereotypical professor, no one looked—or acted—less like one than Clay. Yet that's what he was: an anthropologist. His specialty was religions with animal deities. There's a name for it, which I can never remember, and it's not like he's about to discuss it with me anytime soon.

"Any luck?" I said, shutting the car door.

"Very little," he said as he pulled from the curb. "According to Clay, we're barking up the wrong tree. Of course, he said it in far more colorful language, but the point he made was that the link between pagan religions, like Wicca and Druidjsm, and sacrifice is significantly overemphasized in popular culture."

"You mean they aren't out there slaughtering babies every full moon? Bradford Grady would be mightily disappointed. And probably out of a job."

"Wiccans and satanists don't practice human sacrifice, whatever the tabloids might say. But even the more mysterious religions are far more benign than I assumed. Animal sacrifice, yes. But not human. Those that did practice it did so only in the very distant past and have since found substitutes more acceptable to contemporary mores. One sect Clay did mention was tantraism."

"That's related to Buddhism, isn't it?"

Jeremy shook his head. "This is different. It's a religion based in India that practices sacrifice. Usually animal sacrifice, but reports of human sacrifice do arise, sometimes child sacrifice. Then there are 'muti' murders, primarily in southern Africa. Not necessarily human sacrifice per se, but the killing of people, often children, for medicine."

"Does that kind of stuff make its way over here?"

"I don't know, but if I haven't heard of it, it's likely very rare."

"Good."

"They suggested we concentrate on the occult underworld in Los Angeles, which won't be easy." He turned a corner. "Speaking of tabloids, though, Elena suggested someone else who might be able to cut through the research for us. Hope Adams is here for six months, on a work-exchange."

"Hope? Oh, right the
True News
reporter."

I'd never met her. Her contact with the council was Elena, a fellow journalist. A half-demon with a sixth sense for chaos, Hope covered paranormal events for a supermarket tabloid. Through a werewolf in Jeremy's Pack—Karl Marsten—she'd hooked up with the council and alerted them to any potentially real supernatural activity that crossed her desk. Strictly a volunteer job, but to kids like Hope, money never seemed to matter. Working for a good cause was payment enough.

Demons And Debts

WE PARKED IN A LOT so expensive that in Chicago, I'd have expected valet service and a car wash. It was still a few blocks to where Hope worked, so Jeremy offered to drop me off, but I refused.

As we walked down the street, the smell of falafels and fresh-cut fries reminded me I'd skipped breakfast. It was a business district, respectable enough, but with little else to recommend it. A hodgepodge of small office buildings and take-out restaurants, interspersed with nail parlors, boutiques and gourmet coffee bars, as if the neighborhood was taking one last stab at trendiness.

I updated him on the show situation: the hidden cameras, the newly scheduled seances and Becky's blue file folder.

"And when I made some calls about Grady, I found out that he is looking to move his show to America, but apparently only for one season, and his show wouldn't be anything like mine. Yet Becky's assistant seemed to think I should be concerned, and maybe I should. Hollywood executives are notorious for things like this: they'll see two spiritualism shows on the slate and won't notice any differences between them."

"Have you talked to Grady?"

"And say what, 'Get off my turf?" I sighed. "I know, you mean just talk to him and get the details. I intended to, but now with him making more demands, I'm nervous. I'm already flustered enough over that memo leak about Gabrielle Langdon. I know Becky meant well, but if I win, I want to win without cheating."

I shook my head. "Listen to me. One minute I'm telling you I want to stop all this competition, the next I'm saying I want to win. I'm so tired of the backbiting, the posturing, the lying. Especially now. I have child ghosts trapped God knows where, and instead of helping them, I'm trying to thwart a twenty-eight-year-old beer commercial producer who wants to turn this into
Spiritualist Big Brother
."

"You've been tired of show biz for a while."

"I know. I can't wait to get out. Not the stage shows, just…"

"The television work."

We turned a corner. "I know what you're thinking. I say I want out, but my sole reason for putting up with the crap on this set is so I can do
more
TV. But I only want a television slot for a few years. Once I've built up more name recognition, I can do live shows exclusively and be more available for the council. Last month, Paige invited me to join her on an investigation—after months of me practically begging—and I had to back out because it interfered with my talk show spots. If I could schedule a half-dozen sold-out live shows a year, I'd be set."

"Your shows almost sell to capacity now, don't they?"

"Yes, but—" Jeremy tugged me back as I'd nearly stepped off a curb on a Don't Walk signal. "I really need a TV show, just for a while, so I can say I had one. It's always been part of the plan."

"Your mother's plan."

He said it mildly, with no emphasis, not making a point, but I felt it all the same.

"No, her plan was for
her
to get me a TV show. Without her, I didn't stand a chance. Or so she thought."

Actually, she'd thought I'd never get anywhere without her. And in a way, she'd been right. At eighteen, I'd left home, still too young and inexperienced to make it on my own. I needed a mentor. And a world-renowned spiritualist had needed a student. But I'd only been doing spiritualism for a few years, and my rival for the position had been on the circuit since he was ten. So I made my deal with the devil.

It was my boyfriend's idea. He was a sorcerer I'd met through a friend of Nan's. He'd been older and smart enough to know that, as tempting as bargains with demons seemed, it was the kind of thing you really wanted someone else to test first… like a naive and ambitious young girlfriend.

The demon made me a deal: he'd get me the job, if I'd help him contact a soul in a hell dimension… and he'd even tell me how to do it. My only stipulation was that my rival wasn't killed. A week later, I'd been told my competition had left the business. I never found out why—never dared try. I had the job and he was still alive and that was all that mattered.

I contacted that ghost—the spirit of a serial killer. The demon questioned him about his crimes, getting graphic details that still haunt my nightmares. But what haunts me more is knowing that the demon couldn't have wanted those details for mere curiosity's sake. He must have had a supplicant that he wanted to reenact the crimes. Somewhere in the world, people had died horrific deaths, and it was my fault. That was the price I'd paid for fame.

After that, I climbed the ladder by myself—asking for no favors, indebted to no one, relying on no one. If my mother was surprised by how far I'd come, she never showed it. Almost the first thing she said to me every time we met was, "So, Jaime, have you gotten that TV show yet?" I didn't want it so I could say, "So there." I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.

"THAT'S THE building over there," Jeremy said. "I hope she hasn't left for lunch yet. Her voice mail said she's in the office, but when I tried leaving a message, it didn't seem to work." A faint smile. "Or, as is more likely, I was doing it wrong. Probably not much point in leaving a message, as I couldn't give a number for her to call back."

"That's right. We need to get you a cell phone. We'll do that this afternoon."

Jeremy led me around the corner and stopped in the alcove of a three-story building. He pulled on the door. A buzzer sounded and his gaze dropped to the Please Use Intercom sign. Below the intercom was a directory of offices. He scanned the list, frown growing.

"Perhaps 'just popping by the office' isn't going to be as easy as it seemed."

He pulled a notepad from his pocket and checked the address, then read the directory again. There was no listing for
True News
or anything resembling a newspaper.

"I'm not that surprised," I said. "Considering what they write, maintaining a low profile might be wise or they'd have a steady stream of UFO and Elvis reportings, and probably
not
from the sort of people you want walking into your office unannounced."

"True. So…"

"What's her number?"

"Ah. Right."

He gave it to me. I punched it into my cell, then handed the phone to him. He spoke for a minute, his voice too low to overhear.

"She'll be right down," he said as he handed the phone back.

We stepped out of the doorway. No more than a minute passed before the smoked-glass door flew open and a young woman stepped out. Dressed in sneakers, a T-shirt and blue jeans, Hope Adams looked like a Bollywood princess trying to pass through L.A. incognito. Fine-boned and tiny, with delicate features and golden brown eyes, she had the kind of face that would be as lovely at eighty as it was at twenty. Yet she wore that beauty awkwardly, like a farm girl handed a Vera Wang gown, not quite sure how to put it on or whether she even wanted to. Her long black curls had been yanked back in a careless ponytail. Ink smeared one cheek like war paint.

Her gaze lighted on Jeremy and she smiled, striding over to clasp his hand. Her handshake was firm and vigorous, and a little too much of both, like a junior employee called in for a meeting with the boss, pretty sure it wasn't bad news, but unable to shake that glimmer of fear.

"Mr. Danvers, good to see you again."

"Jeremy, please. And this is—"

"Jaime Vegas." She took my hand in a firm grip. "It's a pleasure. So you two wanted to talk to me about a council problem? My place is just down the block, if you'd like privacy."

I FOLLOWED Hope up the rear stairs to her walkup apartment. On the way we'd found a store with prepaid cell phones. I showed Jeremy what he was looking for, then he insisted on handling the purchase himself while I went on ahead, so we didn't take up too much of Hope's time.

She opened to the door to a dark cave haunted by the ghosts of mildew and pungent food. Someone had tried to banish them with lemon-scented cleaner and fresh flowers, but the odors lingered. Hope strode in and started opening windows.

"Can't get rid of the smell," she said. "I swear it's embedded in the walls."

She flicked on lights, but they did little to brighten the place. Two of the three windows gave lovely views of a wall so close it defied building codes. I walked into the kitchen. Five steps later, I was in the living room.

"Tiny, huh? The place is a hole, but it fit my budget, came furnished and it's close to work."

"It's nicer than my first few apartments."

"I had to fight with the landlord to let me paint it—doing the work myself and buying my own supplies." She ran her fingers over the wall. "Though, in the end, I probably didn't do him any favors. Apparently, you're supposed to wash the walls before you paint. I think that's why I can't get rid of the smell."

I looked over at an arrangement of fresh flowers on the coffee table. There was another, smaller one on the bookshelf. "The flowers brighten the place up."

"Courtesy of my mom's most recent visit. As are the curtains, throw rug, pillows… I probably have the only place in town where the accessories are worth more than the furniture. Every day I'd go to work, come back and find something new, then she'd explain how she chose the fabric or the color. Still trying to teach me how to accessorize. I keep telling her it's a lost cause—a gene I failed to inherit, among many." She grinned. "Moms, huh? They drive you nuts, but you know they're only doing it because they love you."

I nodded as if I knew what that felt like. She fluffed a pillow, a wistful look passing behind her eyes.

"You and your mother are close?" I said.

An almost embarrassed smile. "Yeah. I'm the baby. This is my first time living more than a few miles from home." She walked to the fridge. "Can I get you something cold? Or tea? Coffee?"

"Water would be fine."

She handed me a Perrier. "Also courtesy of Mom. When she saw my cheap bottled water, she had to take me aside for a little heart-to-heart on the state of my finances."

She got a Dr. Pepper for herself. "Have a seat—Oh, I'd better clear my mail off the table."

She sorted as she cleared it, fixing bills to the fridge and tossing junk mail in the trash. An expensive vellum envelope formally addressed to "Miss Hope Adams" went into a basket with a small stack of others.

"Invitations?" I said as I pulled out a chair. "I wasn't that popular even after living in L.A. for a decade."

"My mom, again. When she was down, she had to make the society rounds. Not really her thing, but it's expected, if only to make connections for her chairty and philanthropy work."

I nodded, as if I knew all about high society.

"So…" Hope waved at the basket. "Now they all know that Nita Adams's youngest daughter is in town, and they're inviting me to garden parties and luncheons, to check out my suitability."

"Suitability?"

She grinned. "As a wife, of course. Never been married. College graduate. Getting a little long in the tooth at twenty-eight, but if I'm half as pretty, witty, charming and well bred as my mother, then they'll overlook that and find me a match among their eligibles."

"That sounds very…"

"Arranged?" Her grin broadened. "Society here can be worse than in Bombay. In some families, background is still more important than making a love match. My father's family came over on the
Mayflower
and my mother has Indian royal blood in her veins, adding the dash of exoticism to a perfectly respectable American name. Of course, if they knew who my real father is, those invitations would dry up pretty quickly."

"You never know. You're a rare form of half-demon, which means your dad is probably pretty high up the ladder. Royal blood on both sides."

JEREMY ARRIVED and together we told her what we were investigating. "So, this group, the ones you think have broken the magic barrier, presumably they'd be local, right?" she said. "Or at least have a local branch. That's why the ghosts would be here."

"Most likely," Jeremy said.

"Then I know the perfect people for you to talk to. Some paranormal scam-busters. They know every person and rumor connected to the supernatural. They hooked up with me shortly after I came to town and we've been trading tips ever since."

"Scam-busters?" I said.

"You know what paranormal investigators are?"

"The bane of supernaturals everywhere."

"Think of these guys as the opposite. Instead of trying to prove that the paranormal exists, they try to uncover the scams and the frauds."

"Like unmasking TV spiritualists?"

"Oh…" She paused. "I hadn't thought of that. But it shouldn't be a problem. I can't imagine these guys taking an interest in you. If you were bilking windows of their life savings for passing messages to their husbands, you'd be on their radar. But that's not what you do. If you're uncomfortable, though, Mr. Dan—Jeremy and I could meet with them…"

"No, I'll be fine. I might not be their favorite sort of person, but we'll come up with a good cover story."