Elven?
No, she couldn’t believe that the male Elven population would ever accept the sacrifice of Elven women. Her own people couldn’t be involved.
She hadn’t realized that she was prejudiced before all this began, but the truth was, she did think of her kind as more ethical, far less violent, and...a cut above.
“Wrong,” she murmured.
The truth was that Elven could be involved; she had to acknowledge that. Evil was evil—and it came in all guises.
Just as good came in all forms. She had to accept help and be grateful—and learn not to judge.
Jonquil whined and licked her fingers. “Good dog,” she told him.
She lay there, knowing that she desperately needed rest, but she was afraid to sleep again, afraid of her dreams. She was tempted to run downstairs so that she could be with people.
Jonquil whined softly again. He nudged her hand and wagged his tail.
The dog was with her, standing guard so closely, she dared to shut her eyes again.
And when she slept next, it was deeply.
* * *
Mark and Brodie pulled up two blocks from the old Hildegard Studio.
They weren’t there on official police business. Alessande had been right about one thing: to be official, they would need a search warrant. They didn’t have that kind of time.
They went through the hole in the gate that Alessande had told them about, rather than using their powers. Mark was only at half strength, having used up his reserves becoming a giant bat earlier. And it would just be a waste of energy he might need later should Brodie need to teleport and Mark make one more transformation into a bat.
There were five long soundstages that comprised the studio. Abandoned and neglected, they were dark and dangerous. Brodie had come prepared with large flashlights so they could see their way around.
They went cautiously and methodically from one stage to the next. The first three were empty, and it didn’t appear that anyone had been there for years. Cameras, lighting, sets, props—nothing remained.
The fourth soundstage was different.
The last thing filmed in it might well have been during the 1940s. Huge old cameras stood sentinel, along with recording equipment that could have housed elephants. Two sets remained; one was a cemetery at night. Walking around it, they found cardboard headstones, rubber hatchets and plastic guns and knives. There were fake corpses sticking out of graves—most of them truly rotting by this point.
Brodie found a film marker. “It was called The Awakening of Dr. Evil. A classic, I’m sure. Did you ever see it?”
“Can’t say that I caught it,” Mark told him.
The second set was equally sad—like something lost in time. It was also filthy and decaying. “I’m surprised all this wasn’t broken down, like on the other soundstages. With the cost of things these days, I would think someone would snap this place up and start a new studio. Everything here is outdated,” Brodie said.
“Yeah, but...just the real estate.”
“True,” Brodie agreed.
“I wonder if the dead women were ever here, or whether the killer—or killers—hid here, sneaking out to snatch the women as they passed by,” Mark said thoughtfully.
“Doesn’t seem that we’ve found anything to give us that answer yet,” Brodie said.
“Anyway, we have one more soundstage to go,” Mark reminded him.
They headed to the fifth building.
Like the fourth, it had not been completely stripped. This set looked as if it had been meant for a Victorian-era film. The facades of houses decorated with gingerbread porches and window trim stood to one side, while the other half of the soundstage had been dressed to resemble a series of businesses from the same time period. One of them had a huge sign that read Wax Works! Enter if Ye Dare!
“Hildegard seems to have been doing a lot of horror movies,” Brodie commented.
“Maybe he was living a horror movie,” Mark said. “I don’t really know anything about him, other than that he was a famous magician.”
“He booked himself as ‘Sebastian the Magnificent,’” Brodie said. “I remember one of my dad’s old friends talking about him one night when my father first took me to the House of Illusion. He was good—today he’d be all over TV, I imagine. But Sebastian also loved movies—making them, that is—and I imagine that’s why he founded the studio. But onstage, he was pretty amazing.” He paused and looked at Mark. “He liked to tell the crowds that he could even defy death.”
“As far as I know, he’s been buried for years,” Mark said.
“Has been buried...”
“Apparently now someone wants to see if the illusionist really can defy death,” Mark said.
“So—do we start with the Hildegard family?” Brodie asked.
“As good a place as any,” Mark said. He walked over to the wax works, aiming his flashlight as he went.
Behind the facade he saw a love seat with a script on it. Moving closer, he noticed that there was no dust on the wood or upholstery—or the end table next to it.
He slipped on a latex glove and picked up the script. He flipped it over to read the title aloud. “Death in the Bowery, by Greg Swayze.” It was new, by an up-and-coming scriptwriter whose name Mark thought he recognized. He looked up as Brodie joined him. “Someone’s been here,” he said. “Could be Swayze himself, or maybe someone else with access to his script.”
“Is he an Other? I don’t know the name,” Brodie said.
“He’s fairly new to L.A. I don’t know—we can ask the women if they’ve heard about him. Sailor’s in the business, so she might know,” Mark said.
L.A. was a hard place to be a Keeper, he reflected. Someone was always shooting a horror movie somewhere in town, and that made it very difficult to discern the real from the feigned.
Truth from illusion.
“Just because the guy’s screenplay is here doesn’t make him guilty. One or both of the dead women might have been an aspiring actress. They could have been given a copy to read, and they might even have been lured here on the pretext of an audition,” Brodie said.
“Newcomers to the area—yeah, they might have been here for the Hollywood dream,” Mark said. “We could go back to the station and find out about our murder victims, and then have a visit with the reigning Hildegard.” He grimaced. “Ah, hell. I forgot that I have to go in and do paperwork over the car incident.”
“I reported that someone drove you off the road, and that you barely escaped with your life,” Brodie told him. “I bought us the time to do this, but, yeah—the lieutenant is going to want a report.”
“Paperwork,” Mark groaned.
“Happens to the best of us,” Brodie said. “Let’s head on out. We didn’t find anyone—but so far no one has found us, either.”
* * *
Alessande awoke to the gentle touch of a hand on her shoulder. She expected Sailor or Rhiannon or Barrie. She jerked when she saw the face of an elderly man.
Merlin!
“I’m so, so sorry, my dear. I didn’t mean to startle you. You were whimpering in your sleep. I knocked, but you didn’t answer, so... But I didn’t wish to scare you.”
Merlin was an extremely polite ghost. He’d been a lovely man in life, and he was a lovely man in death.
Without being an Other, he’d been a spectacular magician.
“It’s okay, Merlin,” she said quickly. “You just surprised me. I was whimpering? I had no idea. I thought I was out like a light.”
“The mind is a mysterious machine, my dear,” he said. “May I?” he asked, indicating the chair near the window.