“Hey, enough! Let her go!” Alistair said, willing his feet to move toward Jenny and her costumed attacker.
Jenny was no movie femme fatale. She implored him, her blue eyes wide and filled with terror. “Alistair!” His name was a shriek of panic.
“Enough!” he roared again.
Then he stood dead still. The thing attacked and, with a hard, quick motion, drew the blade across Jenny’s throat. Blood didn’t merely leak from the wound; it spurted. Her scream died in choking sounds that accompanied the blood, and it was cut off within seconds.
There was a scent in the air. Hot and tinny and fetid.
Because it wasn’t stage blood being spewed.
The costumed form dropped Jenny and moved toward Alistair.
He’d spent his life among the creepy and the macabre, the greatest movie heroes and most terrifying villains. Monsters, vampires, ghosts, alien slime…
But something within him—logic, reason—turned off, his terror was so great.
And he fell toward the floor as blackness seemed to overwhelm his vision.
He fell into a pool of blood. And he knew, from its smell, that no, it wasn’t part of any special effect.
It was Jenny’s death, all bloody. Bloody, and real.
* * *
Vengeance.
In Hollywood, every character needed a name.
Vengeance was a good name.
And so Vengeance stood hidden, watching, feeling such a sense of glee, it was almost frightening. The scent of blood remained; the first few minutes after the scene were all but imprinted on the moving reels of memory.
Most people would consider the act, and Vengeance, crazy. Stone-cold crazy. But that wasn’t the case. Crazy could not have worked out all the technicalities and the precise timing that had been necessary.
Crazy could not have figured out everything that was needed to pull off the stunt.
Crazy could never act it all out, as it must now be acted out….
But it had gone better than could possibly be imagined. The girl…the blood.
And Alistair Archer, slipping, falling, knocking himself out.
Then waking, screaming…racing to the guard station.
And now…the blare of sirens in the street.
Cops would soon be crawling all over the place. But the cops would never suspect. Because the cops didn’t know the studio, and the cops didn’t know the past, and the cops would never recognize the brilliance that was bringing it all to fruition.
Ah, tomorrow!
Tomorrow…
Tomorrow, Vengeance would become normal, ordinary, once again. Vengeance would throw off the assumption of superpersonality, sympathize, go about day-to-day business….
And no one would ever, ever know.
Not in this lifetime.
Vengeance smiled, and Vengeance actually laughed aloud in the night; no matter, because Vengeance couldn’t be heard.
It was all too good to be true….
Time to move, but Vengeance needed to savor the moment. Alone in the dark, watching…
Vengeance was good, and vengeance was sweet.
And Vengeance had just begun.
1
Madison Darvil wasn’t really awake when the phone rang. She was in that delightful stage of half sleep, when the alarm had gone off…but the snooze button was on and she had a few minutes to lie lazily in the comfort of her bed before rising. Her phone was loud and strident. She rolled over groping for it, swearing softly as it dropped to the floor and she had to lean down to get it, banging her head on the bedside table.
“Shit!” she muttered, and was further humiliated when she realized she’d hit Answer as she’d picked up the phone—and the caller had heard her.
“Hello?” she said frowning. Seven thirty-three. Who was calling this early?
She could hear a soft chuckle, and then someone clearing his throat. “Madison?”
Inwardly, she groaned.
“Yes, Alfie?” Alfie Longdale was her assistant at the studio. She loved the fact that she had an assistant and she loved Alfie. One day, he was going to rule the world, his eye for detail was so exceptional.
“You don’t have to come in this morning. In fact, you can’t come in.”
Her heart seemed to sink to her knees. Had someone suddenly decided she was really a fake? That, despite her training, degree and experience, she was just a kid who played at working on the movies?
“What…what—?”
Alfie’s voice became hushed. “There was a murder last night! In the tunnel. Lord, Madison, Alistair Archer was arrested for murder! Some little starlet he had the hots for—they say her throat was slit from ear to ear. She’s dead, Madison. And Eddie Archer’s kid is saying that an Egyptian mummy—you know, the priest in the original Sam Stone movie, a monster—came down from one of the tableaux to commit the bloody carnage!”
Alfie was being dramatic. He was dramatic. But right now, what he’d said wasn’t registering.
A mummy? A monster? Alfie had to be making it up. Monsters were what they did, what they created, quite frequently. Well, superheroes, giant rats for commercials, cute little pigs and other such creatures. But horror was big; horror movies could be reasonable in cost and make massive amounts of money.
“Alfie, is this—”
“No! It is not some kind of joke. It is not a movie script. Madison, it’s real. A woman was killed in our tunnel. Anyway, the crime scene units are there today, and Eddie Archer’s closed the entire place. No one goes in until the police have finished with the tunnel, the security tapes, the studio—you name it. Anyway, I was up last night when it all hit the news. And Eddie Archer looked white—I mean, white as a ghost!—when they showed him on film. He said he wants the police to have complete access to everything because he’s going to find out what really happened—his son is not a murderer!”
Alfie was telling the truth. As shocking as it was, she knew he was telling the truth.
Madison felt her heart break for Eddie Archer. He was such a good man.
Alistair was a good kid, too. Could he have snapped and killed someone?
No.
She
