Box Office Poison (Linnet Ellery)

by Bornikova, Phillipa

  “Should I turn off the camera?”

  “Are you nuts! Those are Angelina’s boobs!”

  The Álfar actors who were not presently beset by our crew shimmered and vanished. They returned all too soon, and now they had guns. Gunfire, like angry coughs, cut through the screams, and the smell of cordite was in the air. The screaming rose even higher. Hank threw people aside as he moved toward the armed Álfar. Nausea clawed at the back of my throat. Despite our best efforts people were going to get hurt, maybe killed. Should I have warned the organizers of the Oscars? I shook it off. They would never have believed me, and there was no time for recriminations or second-guessing. I had my job—find Qwendar—and I needed to do it. I gazed with growing desperation around the room. Where? Where?

  David was wading through the crowds at the foot of the stage trying to reach the stairs so he could get on the stage and deal with Jujuran. But when the shots were fired he turned his attention to the gun-wielding Álfar and switched directions. He headed back up the aisle toward Hank and the shooters. They were the right men for the job. A gun was not going to hurt them.

  A flash of motion toward the back of the stage caught my eye. It was the telescoping pedestal toward the back of the stage that had been used during a performance of one of the nominated songs. It placed the singer high above the dancers that twirled beneath him, and now it was slowly rising again. There was a figure standing on the top. Qwendar.

  There was no way I was going to make it through the central aisle. It was crammed with terrified people, but I was only two rows from the front. My legs weren’t long enough, and I didn’t have the unnatural grace of a vampire, so I couldn’t balance on the backs of the seats. Instead I had to climb awkwardly over each row. I reached the front row and used my foot to push back down the cushioned seat so I had a place to stand. Hoards of people separated me from the curving stairs that led to the stage.

  It was terrifying to contemplate crossing that seething mass of people, but I had to get to the stage. I steeled myself to jump down, then screamed in pain as something struck me in the back. Slewing around I found myself face-to-face with an enraged Álfar actress who clutched her stiletto-heeled shoe in her hand. There was a smear of blood on the heel and I felt the warm trickle of blood down my back.

  Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of the Oscar statue falling toward me just as the Álfar actress raised the shoe again, aiming for my face. I flinched from both the statue and the shoe. The giant Oscar statue landed facedown on the seats next to me. A number of people were under the plywood and papier-mâché figure. It formed a perfect bridge from the front row of seats to the stage. There was no time to worry if it would hold my weight, I jumped on it and ran. The wood flexed beneath my feet and the gold coating cracked and split. With each gasping breath I felt my cracked rib shifting in my side. My Álfar attacker was right behind me, but there was a sharp crack, a scream of dismay, and when I glanced back she had fallen through the exterior of the statue and was trapped by the wood inside.

  I jumped onto the stage just as the statue broke in half. Jujuran was straddling the actress who’d tried to hold back the Oscar and punching her over and over in the face. I started toward them, but suddenly a vast section of air shimmered and six Álfar on horseback entered from Fey. That got everybody’s attention including Jujuran’s.

  Cildar spurred his horse and hit the actor with the hilt of his sword. Zevra rode up behind him, and leaning down, pulled the human actress onto the horse in front of him. Her face was a bloody mask and both her eyes were already swelling and blackening, but she clasped her arms around his neck and gazed up at her rescuer in amazement.

  I remembered John telling me that everything the Álfar did was bigger and more dramatic. “You weren’t kidding,” I whispered.

  I raised my eyes and looked up at Qwendar. He looked back down at me. Then he gestured, and I saw his mouth move, though I could hear nothing over the screams. I looked out across the audience. The seven Álfar actors, four of whom held guns, began moving toward the stage. They were totally focused on me. I gulped and turned my back on them. I had to trust that they couldn’t hurt me.

  I realized that the hoof beats of the horses were unnaturally loud. Then I spotted the wireless microphone laying on the stage. It had been picking up the sound of the hooves, and since at least one camera was still broadcasting, it meant the sound system was on too. As I ran toward the back of the stage I swept up the mike and carried it behind my back.

  There was a sound like an enraged bee passing close by me. Bullets had been much in my life over the past weeks, so I didn’t mistake it for anything but what it was. Qwendar’s zombies were shooting at me. The muscles in my back tightened in anticipation of a bullet. I couldn’t help it: I looked back over my shoulder to see David bodily throwing people aside as he rushed my firing squad.

  Then my view was cut off as the giant screen that had been used for the In Memorium dropped down behind me. If I couldn’t see the Álfar, they couldn’t see me. It was my chance. I darted off to my left as more bullets punched through the screen where I used to be. The screen began going madly up and down. Then it broke loose and crashed to the stage.

  I was safely backstage. Whatever it was that made me a unique human had come through again. Somewhere there would be controls for the pedestal. Qwendar was for damn sure not going to be able to stay above it all. Then I realized if I lowered the pedestal he would be able to step into Fey, but as long as he was thirty feet above the floor he couldn’t. There probably wasn’t an equivalent tower just waiting on the Fey side which would mean he would fall down and go boom. Which meant I needed to go up.

  I scanned the catwalks that crisscrossed above the stage. There was one that ran pretty close to the pedestal. I could make that jump … I hoped.

  Backstage I found the ladder leading up to the lighting catwalks. I started to climb. The metal rungs on the ladder were painful on my bare feet, and now my rib was screaming its objection. I reached the top and swung out onto a walkway. As I did I caught the single sleeve of my gown on a protruding hook. The rending sound of material tearing had me wincing. I ran down the catwalk, switched to another that ran horizontally across the stage, and switched again to the one that would bring me within feet of Qwendar’s aerie.

  He spotted me and, bending down, he swept up a remote control box that rested at his feet. This close I could hear the clunk as the gears engaged, and the pedestal began its slow descent. There was no time to dither or fear. I jumped across the intervening two feet and hit the platform. I let my knees take the shock, but the moving platform made it hard. I was starting to fall. I managed to get my shoulder down and rolled. My rib went on strike, and for an instant I wondered if I could climb back to my feet. Gazing at the toes of Qwendar’s polished shoes I saw him draw back his foot to kick me. Pain or no, I had to get up.

  I staggered with a groan onto my feet. Only inches separated us. Qwendar’s face twisted with rage. Somehow I had managed to keep a grip on the mike. I swung it like a billy club, and it connected with his wrist. He dropped the control box. We both lunged for it, but I got there first. I hit the stop button and then threw the controller off the platform. It hit the stage floor some twenty-five feet below us, and the plastic case shattered. I retreated to the opposite side of the platform well out of his reach, and we glared at each other.

  “I should have killed you long ago. The moment you began questioning Kerrinan’s guilt, I shouldn’t have wasted time on subtlety,” Qwendar said, and then reacted when he heard his voice booming out across the theater.

  “Yeah, because he wasn’t guilty and you knew it. You took control of him. Just like you’re controlling them.” I swept my arm out to encompass the theater. I noticed that the camera I had run past was no longer focused on the seething crowd. The single lens glittered in the stage lights. Out in the audience the sounds of conflict were dying away, as were the gunshots. It looked like David and Hank had reached the
firing squad.

  “Prove it,” he said.

  “Okay. I bet once I knock you off this platform, and you go splat all over the stage, those Álfar are going to return to normal.”

  He blanched and flinched. “You would not dare! You are a defender of your laws.”

  “And you just threatened to murder me. I’m pretty sure this would fall under the self-defense rule.” The moment I finished I took a step toward him. I thrust the mike at him. “Tell everyone what you did. Or…” I made a pushing gesture with my other hand.

  “Or I will kill you first,” the Álfar gritted, and he lunged at me.

  I knew it was coming, so I was ready for it. I jumped to the side and swung the mike against his temple as he plunged past me. Don’t break, don’t break, I implored the microphone. Qwendar pulled up short, spun, and managed to land a punch on my ribs. The world seemed to flare red, and nausea clawed at my throat. I couldn’t help it; I doubled over.

  Blinking, I realized I was facing his crotch. I knew from one night of lovemaking with John that Álfar had the same plumbing as humans. Would they be as tender as humans? I took a few staggering steps and head-butted him in the stomach while I brought up the mike and jammed it into his balls. Qwendar clutched himself, screeched, and doubled over. Looked like they were as tender as humans. I spun the old man around, wrenched his arm up behind his back, and started shoving him toward the edge.

  “Talk!”

  “All right, all right. I took Kerrinan’s blood. I had him kill the wife. I accosted Jondin in her trailer and cut her.”

  “Where did she get the guns?”

  “I pre-set them in Fey.”

  “Now let them go,” I ordered, and gestured at the hall.

  He just stared at me. The hatred in that look was so great that I almost felt it like a blow against my skin. There was still a gun being fired. This had to stop. I slammed the mike against his temple. I had to hit him twice before he fell unconscious. The moment he did the sounds of fighting stopped. Now all I heard was sobbing, people crying in pain, the whoop of approaching sirens, and … applause. Of course they clapped—it was Hollywood!

  25

  Since I’d broken the controller they had to get a cherry picker onto the stage to pluck us off the platform. Once down, we were surrounded by police and the six Álfar. The idea that there was going to be a tug-of-war over who took custody gave starch to my spine. I got right in Ladlaw’s face.

  “There is no way you get him,” I said. “He’s going to answer for crimes committed in our world in our world.”

  He stared down at me, and I could see his expression closing down as he prepared to argue. Parlan stepped in and touched his friend lightly on the arm. “She’s right. The world has seen us … your kind attacking humans tonight. If you carry him away to a realm where they can’t follow, they will never believe that justice was done. They’ll assume we … you let him off and the suspicion and resentment will continue to grow until there is a war between our people.”

  For a moment it hung in the balance. Then Ladlaw looked down at the old Álfar, and an expression of disgust flickered across his face. He met the gazes of a policemen. “Very well, you may take him. But keep him unconscious until you have him safely locked away.”

  I looked out across the auditorium, searching for my friends. It was quite a sight. Six horses stood in the main aisle tied to the arms of chairs. EMTs moved through the hall caring for the people who had been injured. Policemen were escorting the uninjured out of the hall. Tatters of torn fabric lay on the floor where trains and bows had been ripped from dresses during the frenzied stampede. I even spotted the forlorn toupee looking like a dead squirrel on one of the chairs.

  Jeff had an ice pack to his eye. The twins looked tousled, and one arm was ripped off Maslin’s tuxedo jacket. Hank was talking volubly to a burly man in a policeman’s uniform which had a lot of stripes and medals. He looked terribly official. Kate was holding a young actress and rocking her while the girl sobbed against her breast. Kate’s expression was bleak, so I had a bad feeling the tears weren’t just a reaction to sudden and terrifying violence. Someone close to the girl was either hurt or dead: there were a few black body bags being zipped shut and rolled out of the theater. We had done our best, but we hadn’t saved everyone. I couldn’t find David, and it felt like my lungs were closing down.

  Then I spotted him. He wasn’t out in the hall. He was sitting on the stairs on the right side of the stage with an EMT bending over him. I ran over in time to see the EMT lay a pad over the bullet hole in David’s chest and a matching pad on the exit wound just below his right shoulder. The slow leak of pale, translucent liquid was staunched.

  “Could you hold those in place while I rip off some tape?” the EMT asked.

  I nodded and knelt next to David, one hand pressed against his chest, the other against his back. Exhaustion had me wanting to lean against his shoulder, but he was the one who had been shot, so I forced myself to remain upright. There was the sharp tear and then rip as the EMT pulled off a long strand of medical tape and ran it around David’s torso.

  I helped David to his feet and he gave an experimental shrug. “Thank you, that feels better,” he said to the EMT.

  “I can offer you a pint now,” the EMT said. “You should eat. You lost a lot of blood.”

  David made a face. “Thank you, but no. I hate the taste and texture of cold blood. I’ll be fine for now.” The EMT shrugged, snapped shut his case, and went on to help the next person. David squinted down at the bulge where the pad covered the bullet hole.

  “Another scar. Life with you is certainly…”

  “Dangerous and uncomfortable? I suggested.

  “I was going to say interesting.” David looked around. I realized what he wanted and picked up his shirt. It had matching holes in the front and the back and was faintly stained with his pale vampire blood. He put it on. He then looked around the interior of the Kodak Theatre.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “For what?” he asked. “You were right.”

  “But people still got hurt … and killed.”

  “And it would have been so much worse if you hadn’t suspected and put a plan in place.”

  “I just didn’t want anyone to get hurt.” I hung my head.

  David put a finger under my chin and made me face him. “That was unrealistic, and you know it. We did all right. We forged an alliance of humans and Powers, exposed a plot, and prevented a bloodbath.”

  His words made me feel marginally better. I gave him a small smile. “Hey, we’re a pretty good team.”

  A strange expression flickered across his face and was gone. He stepped away from me and located his tuxedo jacket. “Yes. Well, now we have to do it again. We still have the arbitration to resolve.”

  * * *

  Two days later we were in David’s office. I was reclining on the sofa with my high heels kicked off and my head on the arm rest while he paced and tried to figure out when to resume the arbitration. Once again events had led to a cancellation.

  “I’m quite sure when we do resume Gabaldon is going to demand we be replaced,” David said. “We didn’t exactly show neutrality when we showed up the Oscars and started whaling on Álfar.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think they will. There’s a big kumbaya vibe going on right now. I think everybody looked into the abyss of war between humans and powers and took a very fast step back. Which makes it the perfect time to make a ruling in the arbitration.”

  “Lovely you think so, but I don’t have a fucking clue how to resolve this,” the vampire snapped back. I knew he was pissed because he rarely cursed, and I’d never heard the f-word out of his mouth before.

  “I do.”

  “You do?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So, are you going to tell me?”

  * * *

  “It has always been the case that people have a right to maximize their talents and abilities when they comp
ete in our free marketplace,” I said.

  Expectant faces stared at me from all around the long oval table. McPhee looked sleepy, but there was a glint of interest and calculation in his half-lidded eyes. Barbara Gabaldon sat tensely erect. She laid a hand over Palendar’s and gave his a squeeze. The bruises on Palendar’s face had turned interesting shades of green and brown, and he sat stiffly and carefully because of his broken ribs. LeBlanc looked worried and Missy looked sulky. Brubaker and his gaggle of suits were impassive. Jeff was back in his usual seat in the back of the room, his chair pushed up against the wall. He seemed relaxed and confident. I was glad he felt that way. I was incredibly nervous.

  Because David had decreed that I would offer the settlement. “So I can take the blame when it gets rejected out of hand?” I had asked that afternoon in his office.

  David’s reaction had been to turn an Olympian frown on me. “No. I’m trying to show you respect and not steal your thunder. It’s a damn good solution and you thought of it; it’s an excellent solution, so you should present it.”

  I pushed aside the memory, took a breath, cleared my throat, and resumed. “But that doesn’t mean that certain people should have an unfair or undue advantage over others.” Palendar stiffened. “It’s not in dispute that the Álfar are not human. They possess abilities beyond those of human beings. The ability to enter a different world that only touches ours, and which is closed to humans unless that human is brought there. The ability to do what we’ll call, for lack of a better word, magic. Tragically, we all saw that on display three nights ago at the Academy Awards.”

  Palendar’s looks of outrage vanished, replaced by one of guilt, and he seemed to shrink in upon himself.

  “It’s clear from the testimony that the place where the Álfar are consistently beating their human colleagues is in the casting sessions—because the Álfar actors have an advantage. An ability to cast a glamour on those around them. To be fair, I don’t think they do this deliberately or with malice aforethought. For an Álfar this power is as natural as breathing. They cannot simply turn it off. But it does give them an advantage, one which my associate and I feel is unfair.”