You know what? Clubbing can wait. Those two are doing interesting stuff, and now I’m gripped by a sudden desire for something equally exciting. I haul out my laptop, root through my suitcase for a particular note card, and set myself up on the balcony.
It’s time to advance the cause.
I open my e-mail account and begin drafting a new message to Samantha. Even if everything goes my way on the screen, it’ll be years before I can think about going toe-to-toe with Ares. Fortunately, Samantha’s promise of aid might just tip that timetable, because if anyone can help me kill this scumbag sooner, it’s her. At the very least, maybe she can give me some clues about the trinkets I stole from Finemdi and what they can do. I haven’t forgotten those baubles, but they’re going to stay in their suitcase until I’m sure I can use them without blowing my head off.
Actually … maybe I should at least take them out for this. I head back inside and haul out the hard-side case packed with our share of the loot. I take each piece out carefully, arranging them on the bed in neat rows, then snap a picture with my Mim. Carefully, I pack everything back up, send the image to myself, and return to the laptop, where it’s waiting for me. Ah, technology—what marvelous conveniences you bring.
I add the picture to my new e-mail, write a short and to-the-point message, and hit the Send button with a thrill of satisfaction. That done, I lean back in my chair to enjoy the setting sun.
Not ten minutes later, a reply comes in. I sit up, surprised by the speed of Samantha’s response:
Info request (and hello!)
2 messages
* * *
Samantha Drass
Sun, Jul 22, 2018 at 10:37 AM
To: Sara Valen
Hello Sara,
I miss you, too! So glad you got in touch—and that you managed to get away with that many relics. I had a feeling this request might be coming, so I took the liberty of performing additional research and forming a basic plan of attack. The following is just a suggestion, but I believe it may be a good foundation for your eventual encounter with Ares. Here is what I propose:
• Incapacitate Ares with halāhala. You are familiar with this: It is the standard poison Finemdi uses to subdue deities. Its potency degrades over time, so to be effective on a being of his strength, you’ll need a fresh dose. I’ll do what I can to sneak one to you, but if I’m not able to do it in time, you’ll have to get it from one of our facilities or agents.
• The spherical device studded with small copper spikes in the image you sent (second row, third from the left) is a dogmatic lance. It is essentially a focused version of the leveler I gave you—aim it at Ares while he is insensate and will it to activate. Combined with the halāhala, it should be enough to disrupt the ties between his physical form and the morphogenetic substrate that fuels it.
• Immediately damage—but do not destroy—Ares to the point where he can no longer function.
• When the effect of the lance wears off, the Rule of Form will attempt to reassert itself, repairing and re-empowering Ares to match his believers’ image. At this point, your knowledge of “magic” becomes pivotal. The energy restoring Ares will manifest as transmutative threads that you can manipulate. Redirect the flow to yourself as if you were rewriting a persistent spell and you will subvert his regeneration, effectively “stealing” his strength for yourself.
Now, bear in mind that there are limits to the amount of power you will be able to consume, and that this will not fully eliminate Ares. That said, I’m certain these actions will leave you in a highly advantageous position, and once you’re there, well, the choice of how to deal with your foe is yours. I hope this is helpful. If you require further clarification or advice, please do not hesitate to ask—I’m happy to assist!
Sincerely,
Samantha
* * *
On Sun, Jul 22, 2018 at 10:28 AM, Sara Valen
Samantha!
Hello again! How is everything? Are you doing okay? Is this even an e-mail I should use to just, like, chat? Or is it all official? Anyway, let’s stick to business for now. I’ve been thinking about our mutual friend Ares, and I’d really like to get your thoughts on what I could start working on to knock him down a peg or twenty. He is BAD NEWS and I need help.
Hope things are going well—miss ya!
Best,
Sara
P.S.: I’ve attached a pic of the artifacts I stole from Impulse—do you think one of these could be useful?
I’m giddy. This is it! I think, vibrating with glee as I see for the first time a clear and plausible path to vengeance.
More than vengeance, actually—if Samantha is right, I’ll be taking his power as well as his life. What delicious justice. Sure, there’s the little matter of stealing some of Finemdi’s poison and actually getting close enough to Ares to use it, but this is all far better than that vague plan of “Get stronger; kill, kill, kill” I had going before.
I reply with a quick e-mail of overjoyed thanks, close the laptop with a snap, and get up to start my day with a megawatt smile. I’m not going to tear off for the first Finemdi site I can reach, obviously. I’ll stay the course for now, focus on my career and the power it will bring, but everything I do from here on out will be with Samantha’s advice in mind. This is exactly the breath of fresh air I needed. Centuries of waiting, and now my revenge is a sweet, tangible thing, suddenly real and close at hand. As I start going through my wardrobe and selecting the perfect outfit for the evening, I wonder if Samantha knows just how happy she’s made me, and just how badly I needed to hear such a plan.
The answer, of course, is that she did, because someone told her. Someone who knows how gods work and precisely what I want. She believes the moment of joy I’m experiencing now will, in part, balance the pain she intends to inflict upon me later.
It won’t.
13
IN A FOG
FREYA
I got the role!
It took more doing than I expected, though. Even with glowing recommendations and a top-tier audition tape, it turns out getting a major part on a cable miniseries as an unknown is incredibly hard. The show’s head writer and another producer grill me in LA in a meeting overseen by Diane Starling, and then there’s a flight to San Francisco for a sit-down with two HBO execs and the show’s director. I send out love taps left and right, feeling like I’m battling some sort of production hydra—charm one gatekeeper, and two others step up to take their place.
Still, however rocky the path, in the end I stand triumphant, backed by green lights and thumbs up across the board. They pay for our tickets to San Francisco, book us rooms at the Fairmont for the duration of the shoot, and we’re on our way. Filming will take place in apartments and offices across the city, as well as key streets, scenic spots, and soundstages. There’s a hefty amount of green-screen work planned, too, though I guess that’s not surprising considering the show’s near-future setting. I can’t wait to see how it all looks in the end.
We’re given a handful of lighter days to start, and it’s a nice ramp-up for what’s sure to be a demanding experience. Meet-and-greets with cast and crew, makeup tests, script readings, wardrobe fittings, and other trivialities leave us plenty of free time, and though some of it gets eaten up in passing Nathan back and forth for mystic training sessions and sexy-fun dates (I’ll let you guess which of us gets which), most of that freedom goes to exploring the Bay Area.
For two major cities set so close together, I’m shocked by how different San Francisco and Los Angeles are from each other. While the latter feels unrestrained, even wanton, the City by the Bay has an odd sense of pride that sets it apart. Coming from a land where people just plain don’t care what you think (for good and ill alike, granted), there’s a strange undercurrent of judgment here you wouldn’t have expected at first glance.
T
hat first glance is remarkable, too. The city rolls up and around hills, embracing the land at the mouth of this beautiful bay like an old friend. There’s so much splendor here, yet so much defiance. It’s as if its people are afraid the slightest touch will change everything, jostle the house of cards and ruin the good things they have going. There’s light and darkness in every city, every person, but here, it seems there’s a deep ache to embrace the former and deny the latter.
How perfectly puzzling.
I think my heart will always belong to Los Angeles, but perhaps San Francisco can claim my mind. At the very least, it’s stolen my stomach. I feel like it takes only a handful of weeks before I’m on a first-name basis with most of the city’s food trucks, to say nothing of its taco shops, bakeries, gastro pubs, and, well, you get the idea. I’m glad for those first days we spent exploring the area, because after the cameras start rolling, there’s little time for much else besides the job.
Do you have a picture in your head of what filmmaking is like? Maybe it’s a lot like mine was: pampered stars relaxing in luxurious trailers, days spent nibbling at the offerings of craft services like the emperors of old, then sweeping out for a few tantalizing moments to feed their talent into waiting cameras and boom mikes.
Yeah, no.
Let’s be clear: Stardom is work. If you’re even halfway near this industry, then I don’t care who you are or what role you play—I have newfound respect for you. From A-listers to reality TV laughingstocks, everyone is doing a job, and it is hard. Don’t even get me started on the crew members. Those camera guys and lighting specialists will sometimes spend hours making sure a scene is lit and the angles are perfect while you twiddle your thumbs by the craft table, then keep on doing their job as you step up for a zillion separate takes. This is a career, and like most things in life, success really only comes to those who work for it. That’s right, even the idiots you love to hate are working hard every day to broadcast that image to the world. This is not a place for those who think they can coast. At least, not for very long.
I throw myself into it. It’s exhausting like I’d never have guessed, but working on Switch is also probably the most fun I’ve had in … well, ever. The cast and crew become more than coworkers almost immediately, igniting friendships that feel like they could last for years. These are people you hang around for days, weeks, months and get to know like family. It quickly becomes apparent that the best productions come from a place of camaraderie and joy.
It helps that Switch is also good. It’s well written, balancing comedy and tragedy as deftly as any modern miniseries. It has a strong hook but never loses sight of its cast or their connections to one another while it explores its near-future setting. Karen, my character, is a fun-loving, multilayered firebrand, and I delight in giving her life.
Nathan and Sekhmet begin all helpful and interested, but their involvement starts to wane as my days get longer, and I can’t blame them. Being on a set is really cool the first few times, but after the novelty wears off, it just starts feeling like a strange office space. Once Sekhmet becomes convinced I’m safe with my new friends, she and Nathan start disappearing for longer stretches of time. They tell me they’re off exploring the city, wining and dining, playing tourist, and just having fun, but the frequent jabs of sexy feedback in my brain tell me that’s not all they’re doing. I do my best to ignore it when it happens.
Which is a lot.
Mahesh still manages my presence online and off, making sure I answer tweets (including Kirsten’s, which have gotten even more enraged, if that’s possible), smile for the paparazzi, and keep my name in circulation. Every now and then, he has me zip back to Los Angeles for a little more exposure and visibility among Hollywood’s elite, too.
I’m not sure when it happens, but at some point, I realize I could get used to this life.
* * *
Days slip into weeks, and I start to let my guard down. I try not to, actually making a bit of an effort to stay paranoid, but with the show gobbling up all my attention and a startling lack of Finemdi assault teams breaking down my door, I can’t help relaxing. Apep doesn’t even make a peep in my dreams. I still make sure to run Nathan through at least a few lessons in wielding my mystic gifts every night, but even that’s low stress; I can tell he loves every second of those training sessions, and he’s definitely getting a little better at it every day. Honestly, the only real problem I’ve had so far came at the beginning, and that was in makeup and styling.
Karen’s a brunette, which is fine (my hair actually takes to dye really well, since it never grows; no ugly roots!), but she also wears her hair short. It’s a cute style—a layered pixie cut that matches her personality to a tee—but it’s short.
See, it’s impossible to cut my hair.
You can style it all day long, set it in curls, whatever, but the moment you try to remove it, it’ll grow back in seconds. It’s as much a part of my image as, say, my arms, so it’s not going anywhere. A high-end tailored wig might work, of course, but then I’d need to answer some uncomfortable questions about why they can’t just do it the easy way, especially when hair and makeup changes are in my contract.
Once again, I had to lean on my gifts to fix things. After some experimenting, I managed to create a tailored illusion of the proper hair. The deceptions look real enough, and they show up on camera just fine, but the catch is that I have to befuddle my stylist every time she tries to make changes and keep up the masquerade off set, as well. I can’t let any of the crew suddenly see me with long hair after I’ve spent weeks with them otherwise. Still, it means the image I present to the world is very different from the Freya my foes know and loathe, so I try to think of it as one more layer of security.
That’s it—literally the only major roadblock I’ve hit since filming started. It’s almost too easy, to the point where I’m getting a little paranoid about how awesome it feels. It’s as if I really am the up-and-coming star I’m pretending to be and not some goddess who attracts unwanted adventures like a misfortune magnet. Weeks turn to months, I start to relax, falling back into the lifestyle of a minor Hollywood celebrity and loving every second of it. There’s just the bay, the shoot, and the joy of seeing my star rise.
It’s wonderful.
Completed episodes pile up, reshoots come and go, the press junket rumbles to life, and my schedule starts getting dotted with promotional interviews and marketing meet-ups. Mahesh stays true to his word, making sure I get good exposure alongside the show’s more famous cast members. Advance press is strong, there’s good word of mouth online, and I’m getting buzz as a surprising new starlet.
When something strange does happen, I’m almost relieved—I’d been waiting for another shoe of some sort to drop.
It happens while I’m on one of those press endurance runs, the kind where they sit you in a nice camera-ready room and send a gauntlet of interviewers at you to save time. Basically, it means you spend several hours answering the same questions asked a zillion different ways until your brain starts leaking out of your ears. If you’ve ever seen an interview with a celebrity who looked out of it, annoyed, or like they just plain did not want to be there, it probably happened on the tail end of one of these days.
Somewhere between Entertainment Weekly and Ain’t It Cool News, an assistant tells me my next interviewer is Sebastian Gallows, from something called Eye on the Stars. I give him a nod, and they send in my new nemesis.
Sebastian is a slim man in a crisply tailored pinstripe gray suit, which already sets him apart from my other interviewers. They all dressed nicely, sure, but this guy belongs in a boardroom, not writing cable TV puff pieces. He plops down in front of me, sending over a faint smile as the camera guy makes adjustments. It doesn’t come close to reaching his eyes, which sparkle with a dark blue sheen that carries vague hints of violet.
“Hi, Ms. Valen,” he says, crossing a leg and lacing his fingers on his knee. I notice he has no notes, no recorder, nothing. Also a
first.
“Hi,” I echo, feeling a little taken aback. “Sebastian, was it?”
“Mm,” he says, raising his chin.
“A pleasure.”
“Mm.”
I frown, and that smile of his seems to widen, just a little. The camera guy gives a thumbs-up and says, “Ready whenever you are.”
“Fantastic,” Sebastian says, bouncing his leg. “Ms. Valen, just a few questions, if I may.”
“That’s why I’m here!” I say, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu as I play up my lively, cheerful image.
“Delightful,” he murmurs, then leans in. “Switch airs in three weeks, and I understand the majority of your work is done. Commentary tracks and press meetings aside, what will you do next?”
Huh. Most interviewers start by focusing on the show itself or my status as a newcomer before heading to future plans. “I have a few potential projects lined up, but nothing’s finalized,” I say, going with my stock answer, which isn’t far from the truth. Nothing’s set in stone, but Mahesh has already brought up the possibility of guest roles on a few criminal and medical dramas, as those apparently chew through actors thanks to their “case of the week” plot structures.
“Honestly, it’s hard to shift gears after working with such a passionate team. I wouldn’t mind a few weeks to decompress before starting on something new.”
“Would you say you’re tired?” he asks, and something in the way his eyes flicker makes me feel like he’s watching me more for my reaction than what I’ll actually say.
“Uh, no, not at all.”
“Mm,” he murmurs. “Why show biz, Ms. Valen?” he asks after an awkward pause.
“I love it,” I say, adapting another easy answer. “Working with incredibly talented people, making new friends, and entertaining fans? This is a dream come true.”
“Was it always your dream?”
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