Celebromancy

by Michael R. Underwood

  Maybe the Doubt would help her, but she wasn’t counting on it. She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone and a microphone. “This is all you need to see, okay? I’m press, not some shady traveler at JFK.”

  She tried the withering look again, hoping it’d work on the bodyguards at least enough to get her in the door.

  Her pulse quickened as she thought about all the ways that this could go really, terrifically wrong.

  The bodyguard met her gaze, checked out the equipment, and then gave her a look up and down, leering obviously.

  The other bodyguard piped in, an older black man that had an ex-military look. “Go ahead.”

  Ree put her recording equipment away and walked past the bodyguards to open the trailer door and peek inside.

  “Kelly Dominguez, Pearson Patriot,” she said by way of announcing herself as she stepped into the trailer. It looked a lot like Jane’s trailer, because really, how different could actresses’ trailers look? Rachel’s had more chrome and glass, but there were still some personal touches, lush carpet, posters on the wall of old projects, and a whole wall devoted to pictures of MacKenzie’s daughter. And, of course, her Academy Award, which stood tall on a round table.

  A prim, twentysomething blonde woman in slacks and a baby-blue sweater looked down at her clipboard, tapping a pen.

  “You’re early.”

  Ree tried to disarm the woman with a smile. “If she’s free, might as well be done with it so she can go back to rehearsing, right?”

  The young woman, who Ree was tempted to call Emma due to the ice-queen demeanor, narrowed her eyes, then spun on her heels (heels on carpet?) and walked out of sight, presumably to speak with Rachel.

  Ree could feel the magic starting to fade in her mind, and her mental ticking clock got just a bit louder.

  Okay, magic, hold together. We have to untangle this clusterfrak of a situation.

  About two minutes later, Rachel emerged in what Ree took to be her costume for the shoot and full cinema makeup. Ree felt Rachel’s energy before she saw the woman, as she was wrapped in more Celebromantic mojo than Jane’d used even at the height of the previous night’s escapades. Now that she knew what to look and feel for, the magic was obvious. But no less seductive.

  Damn, Ree said inwardly. That’s some force of personality. Like Impressive x5.

  Rachel would stand a couple inches taller than Ree even in her own body, so she towered above Ree-as-Kelly. She had a veritable mane of curly red hair, bright-blue eyes, and skin so perfect you could use it for a color swatch. Celebromancy at work, and from the mojo radiation Ree was getting, it was Grade-A stuff.

  Ree wondered just how far the rabbit hole really went. She’d been playing in the deep end of a small pond, but there were many other pools, and Rachel brought her own diving arena with her as she entered the room. Ree wondered if knowing about Celebromancy would help make her resistant to the mega-charm powers, or if the star would be able to wrap her around one perfectly-manicured finger.

  “Hello. I have to be on-set in half an hour, so I’m afraid this will need to be quick,” Rachel said.

  Ree smiled again. “Of course. Thank you for seeing me early.” Was she lying about the set call, or had she never intended to see Kelly? Well, the real Kelly.

  Rachel took a seat on the couch, comfortable but regal, more than a hint of royal graciousness in the look she gave Ree. Ree didn’t know whether to be more scared because the woman clearly had Big-Leagues levels of magic or less intimidated because she was clearly using some of it to be scary. Ree split the difference and settled on wary, keeping the wall to her back.

  Ree spotted a chair opposite MacKenzie’s couch and took a seat, then pulled out the recording equipment, which she’d retrieved from a closet and hadn’t been used since she’d abandoned her webseries. She turned on the recorder and put it on the glass table between her chair and Rachel’s couch.

  Ree spoke in full voice to pick up on the bidirectional shotgun mike. “This is Kelly Dominguez for the Pearson Patriot, here with the Academy Award–winning star of film and television, Rachel MacKenzie. Thank you for speaking with me today, Rachel.”

  Rachel flipped some internal switch, and her voice came out effortlessly warm and generous. “It’s a pleasure, Kelly.”

  Ree rolled with it, going into interviewer mode, cribbing from questions she’d gotten herself and the hundreds of interviews she’d read online while the Awakenings deal was being solidified.

  “First, for people who aren’t familiar with Blog Wars, can you tell us a bit about the premise and your character?”

  They went back and forth with the basic questions, Rachel answering with calm confidence. She was relaxed, in control, a queen on her throne.

  Now for the real stuff. Ree asked, “In 1993, Time magazine proclaimed you America’s Sweetheart, and then again in 2005. What does that mean to you?”

  Ree saw a shadow pass over Rachel’s eyes, but it didn’t touch her smile or show in her response. “It’s a great honor. All I can do to show my appreciation to my fans is to keep making good films, mentor and encourage young actresses, and do my best to inspire young women.”

  Sure, because taking role after role where her job was to show up, look pretty, and have plot happen around her thanks to the actions of men was being a role model. Ree bit back her snark, staying on-target.

  “But last year in Time, Laurence Russell asked, ‘Is Jane Konrad America’s New Sweetheart?’ shortly before her accident and hospitalization. Do you think those events were connected? What’s it like to be held up to that level of public scrutiny?”

  Ree caught another hint of something in Rachel’s eyes at that question, and the star took a moment before answering.

  “America is a big place, and there are enough fans for everyone. I think Jane hit a bad spell, and she made some choices I wouldn’t have made myself. But I’m very excited to see her on her feet again and back in the game. I just hope that she doesn’t take on too much all at once.”

  Ree watched Rachel MacKenzie like a hawk, and even with the mojo-fueled confidence, Ree thought she detected unease in her answer, an artificiality in the star’s well-wishing for Jane. But she wasn’t even remotely objective, and might have been making Lonely Mountains out of wight-less barrows.

  As she prepared her follow-up question, Ree felt the magic fading in her mind. With her focus on coming up with questions, she was having a harder time keeping the magic active. She was used to the stress of combat or running while maintaining magic, but this was out of her comfort zone.

  There was a momentary fluctuation, like her body skipped a beat as her sense of self hiccupped back into her old body. Ree looked up with a start to see if MacKenzie noticed. The woman had folded her arms and was leaning forward, guarded but confident.

  Time to go, Ree thought.

  “Thank you, Ms. MacKenzie, it’s been a pleasure. Best of luck with Blog Wars.”

  Rachel’s face showed surprise, but her voice was still a clear and pleasant danger. “No, thank you, Kelly.”

  Was it just her, or was there more emphasis on Not-Her-Name than normal? Ree felt her hold on the magic growing weaker, and she snatched up the microphone, pressing stop on her phone’s recording program.

  “Excellent, thanks for your time,” Ree said, stuffing the mike in her bag and heading for the door.

  Rachel rose from her couch, moving like a lioness. She took a step forward. “If you have the chance to speak with Jane, do tell her to look out for herself. It can be nasty out there.”

  “Yeah, sure thing.” Ree felt taller. Or, more properly, less short. She tromped down the steps and opened the trailer door, nearly charging by the bodyguards and back into the open lane heading out of the shooting area. She felt her center of gravity changing with each step, and felt muscle spasms around her side.

  GTF
O, girl. Red Geekomancer is about to revert.

  She made a beeline for the entrance, hoping there wasn’t some kind of sign-out/waiver/release that the young assistant would challenge her with at the exit while she comically reverted bit by bit, Nutty Professor–style.

  Instead, just as the woman registered her again, Ree felt the magical energy slip, and she toggled back to her normal body and clothes, arms tearing the too-small clothes, only to have the clothes then stretch and shift back into her own kick-around-the-house outfit she’d been wearing while watching the film.

  Ree nearly fell as her stride length, shoes, and center of balance changed midstride. Ree caught herself on the stand-up metal fencing that served to block off the area and looked up at the woman, whose eyes had gone wide.

  “What the hell?” the intern asked.

  “Don’t worry, you won’t remember this in a few minutes. These are not the droids you’re looking for.” Ree waved her hand at the woman, trying to find calm in the familiar joke.

  Nope, still not working.

  She felt like a hundred eyes were on her at once, and knew that she couldn’t count on the Doubt to make them all slide away. Someone would remember her, someone who could call the cops, point her out on a lineup, or at least recognize her from the tabloid pictures. Every production needed to have at least one person who kept up on all of that, right? If she were a producer, she’d put someone on that, at least.

  Run now, worry later, she told herself, finding her footing again. Her real body, with its decades of Taekwondo training and several months of advanced Oh-God-Run-For-Your-Life masterwork, was more than up to the task of fleeing the scene of the impersonation.

  “Someone stop her!” cried a female voice as Ree booked it across the street, running against traffic.

  Not that Ree was an expert, but people didn’t usually send security to chase someone leaving a film set, especially if they hadn’t stolen anything. That’s not disconcerting at all.

  She dodged around cars as they tried to start accelerating across the crosswalk, and decided to slide over a hood rather than running straight into a car.

  The Dukes of Hazzard maneuver worked way better when one wasn’t wearing boy shorts. She could practically feel the rash coming on as she hopped off the hood while listening to a soccer mom swear like a sailor from her green Dodge Caravan.

  “Sorry!” she shouted to the road in general as she looked over her shoulder, trying to see if anyone had followed her.

  Yep. Generic tough guy, probably production security judging by the blazer he’s wearing. Him, I can lose. Ree looked back ahead of her, plotting a path through the walking crowd and trying to hold the map of the neighborhood in her head.

  I could just pull out some cards, she thought, and registered the idea, putting it off to the side—still in reach, though. It’d be a better test of her skills to get away on her own, but she wasn’t too proud to tear up a Black Dahlia card from the Netrunner CCG to make her escape.

  Ree tore down the street, dodging among the crowds of people, slowing to avoid knocking over a stroller. She turned to make sure the dad and toddler were fine and to check on her tail. Her tail was making his own way through the crowd, pushing people aside to shouts and complaints. She couldn’t see his eyes thanks to thug standard-issue sunglasses, but he was locked onto her, no mistaking it.

  Stay on target . . . actually, don’t. You can bugger off.

  Ree took the turn onto Park Drive, and started booking down the street, looking for the alley she swore was around here somewhere. An alley complete with a fire escape that she was betting she could scale faster and more easily than the tough, who was broad-shouldered enough to have to be greased through the gaps in the escape.

  People were parting to let her by, but she wasn’t seeing any fire escape. Where the hell is it? she asked the city, as if it’d shift around to suit her.

  Good idea, a little too late: Pull out Authority comics for Jack Hawksmoor God of Cities powers. Hopefully that won’t require being barefoot.

  Ree was so busy daydreaming about how cool it would be to have Hawksmoor’s rapport with cities that she nearly passed the alley and its fire escape . . . which was on the other side of the street from what she remembered.

  Gorrammit. Ree evaluated the traffic, grabbed a light pole to swing herself around, and ran across the street in between a car trying to parallel park and the car idling behind it.

  Or so she thought until she saw the oncoming car, which was arcing into the oncoming lane to pass both of them—and speeding to boot. Regardless of that, Ree had about one second to get out of the way of the Suburban or end up as a hood ornament.

  She lowered her head and dove out of the street, tucking into a shoulder roll and hoping for the best.

  The car hit her shin and sent her spinning. Instead of hitting the ground on her shoulder and rolling across her back, she landed flat on the concrete alley.

  The impact knocked the air out of her lungs with a PUH, and the world kept spinning as she heard a too-far-away sound of a car horn and people’s gasps.

  Get up! she yelled at herself as the world spun. Usually her senses and the hey, body, do stuff parts of her brain actually communicated with one another, but for long moments, all Ree could do was try to get her lungs to unfold from their upside-down umbrella position.

  Someone stood over her, a woman in a pencil skirt and collared shirt silhouetted against the sun.

  She asked something in a voice that sounded concerned, but the words didn’t make it through the lag between her senses and the rest of her brain. Ree flailed for a hand and pulled herself up with the woman’s help.

  The world settled out of shaky-cam mode and Ree scanned for her pursuer. He was crossing the street, moving slow so he could fit in as a concerned bystander, or maybe because he knew he had her.

  Joke’s on you, buddy, Ree thought. She fumbled in her bag for the cards she’d brought, steadying herself with a hand on the side wall of the alley.

  Ree thumbed through five cards before she realized that she hadn’t processed any of the titles. She started over and heard the heavy footfalls of the tough getting closer when she found the right card.

  Jump was a crap card in Magic: The Gathering, since there were so many other cards that could make you fly, and not just for one turn. But for Ree, it was just right. She tore the card, eyed the lip of the roof of the building closest to her, and pushed off as hard as she could, biting her tongue at the pain in her leg as she left the ground far behind. She looked down to see eyes filled with wonder quickly glaze over into disinterest.

  Thanks, Doubt! she thought as she looked back up to make sure she was on-target.

  Nope. The card was good for a thirty-foot jump, but that left her just short of the roof. Ree reached out and grabbed the lip of the roof to stop her fall, took a moment to focus, then hauled herself up onto the roof, glad to be her normal skinny-ass self again, so that adrenaline could boost her up while covering up the pain in her leg and back.

  She flopped onto the roof and collapsed again, breathing hard.

  Shit, that was way too close. Next time, no showing off. Also, track down that speeding Suburban and slash the tires.

  But first, she had to get her Assassin’s Creed on and sneak across these rooftops so she could get away. The Doubt would protect her to a degree, but in her experience, it wasn’t exactly consistent. Sometimes people would just totally blank out unexplainable events like the folks in the alley had done. Sometimes they’d recontextualize, like experiencing a monster attack as a mugging. And some people seemed to be immune to its effects entirely.

  Ree pulled herself up to a sitting position and opened her bag. She had painkillers in there somewhere.

  She found her bottle of naproxen sodium and dry-swallowed a small handful while she scoped out the neighboring rooftops.

  A
fter crawling a few yards toward the center of the roof, Ree stood up. Most of the buildings in the area were two or three stories tall, but the gaps between them were more than she figured she could take without magical assistance.

  So, options. She could watch The Incredible Hulk to enable Hulk-like jumps, or she could watch Spider-Man and get crawling skills to scale down another alley wall and sneak off.

  While the former sounded way more fun, the latter was a lot less dangerous (since her power cutting out at the top of a leap would make her three times as much a pancake as crawling straight down). And if she could find a nearby building with another fire escape, she might not need magic at all.

  Ree borrowed a page from Marcus Fenix and did the roadie run in ow, my leg slow-mo to the far side of the building. She hid herself against the lip of the roof and looked down the one story drop to the apartment building across an eight-foot gap. The apartment building had a fire escape, but she had to get across the gap first.

  Ree was in the middle of accepting defeat and reaching back into her bag to pull out her stack of cards for a solution when she heard a totally incongruous sound from above and behind her.

  “Skreeeee!” said an avian voice. Ree spun in place and looked up to see a dragon.

  Well, not quite a dragon. Maybe a wyvern.

  A wyvern(?) about the size of a large motorcycle with whiskers, dull brown scales, and no forelegs. Whatever it was, it was definitely angry and looking at her as it lofted in place, wings beating slow and deliberate.

  Well, shit.

  Chapter Eight

  A Typology of Random Encounters

  It turns out that it’d take more than ten Monster Manuals to even start to cover the total range of monsters in the world, plus another dozen to get all of the creatures that have gone extinct or passed out of the popular consciousness and faded away. I don’t know which one it is; I leave that to the research guys.

  But what it means is as much as you think you know, there’s always something new out there.