thrown in bills instead of nickels.
She wanted to scream. Worse, she wanted to run back to Savannah, where so many people—and…Others—survived on the tourist trade alone that they behaved with old-fashioned courtesy and something that resembled normal human decency.
But Hugh was right. This was Hollywood, where everyone was an actor. Or a producer, or a writer, or an agent, or a would-be whatever. And everyone was cutthroat.
It’s Hollywood, she told herself. Get used to it.
Go figure that the Otherworld’s denizens would be starstruck, too.
“I’m calling it quits for the day, Hugh. I’m heading home.”
He lifted her chin and stared into her eyes. “Calling it quits? That’s what they sent us? A quitter? It’s up to you, but I’d get up there and play if I were you. You can’t quit every time there’s a snafu. Lord above! We need Teddy Roosevelt, and they send us a sniveling child.”
“I’m not a sniveling child, Hugh. I just don’t see the sense of going on working today. Since there’s certainly no imminent or inherent danger—”
He interrupted her, laughing. “Imminent or inherent danger? The world is filled with inherent danger—that’s why you exist, Rhiannon. And imminent? How often do we really know when danger is imminent? Did you think being a Keeper was going to be like living in a Superman comic? You see someone in distress, throw on a red cape, save the day, then slip back down to earth and put your glasses on? How can you be your grandfather’s descendant?”
Rhiannon felt an instant explosion of emotions. One was indignation.
One was shame.
And thankfully, others were wounded pride and determination.
“Hugh, I know my duty,” she said quietly. “But my cousins and I were not supposed to take over as Keepers for years to come. No one knew that our fathers would be called to council, that the population explosion of Otherworlders in L.A. would skyrocket the way it has and we would need to start our duties now. It’s only been a week. I’m not quitting, I’m adjusting. And it’s not easy.”
Hugh grinned, released her chin and smoothed back her hair. “Life ain’t easy for anyone, kid. Now get up there and knock ‘em dead.”
She looked around the place and wondered drily if it was possible to “knock anyone dead” here. It was basically a glorified coffee shop, but she did need to make something of herself and her career here in L.A.
She’d left Savannah just when Dark As Night, her last band, had gotten an offer to open for a tour. Her bandmates had been incredulous when she’d said that she was moving, and distressed. Not distressed enough to lose the gig, though. They had found another lead guitarist slash backup singer before she’d even packed a suitcase.
Wearily, she made her way back to the stage. Screw the tip jar. She didn’t have another, and she wasn’t going to put out an empty coffee cup like a beggar.
She could not only play the guitar; she was good.
Unfortunately, given the recent twists in her life, it seemed she was never going to have the chance to prove it.
She stepped slowly back up on the stage. Earlier the crowd had been watching her, chatting a bit, too, but and enjoying her slow mix of folk, rock and chart toppers.
Now they were all talking about the latest Hollywood promo stunt.
Rhiannon began to play and sing, making up the lyrics as she went along, giving in to her real feelings despite her determination not to be bitter that she was suddenly here—and with little chance for a life.
I hate Hollywood, I hate Hollywood, oh, oh, I hate Hollywood, I hate Hollywood, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Everyone’s an actor, it’s a stark and frightening factor,
I hate Hollywood….
And I hate actors, too,
Oh, yeah, and I hate actors, too.
Okay, her cousin Sailor was an actress, and she didn’t hate Sailor, although she wasn’t certain that Sailor was actually living in the real world, either. She was too much the wide-eyed innocent despite the fact that she’d grown up in L.A. County—and had also spent a few years pounding the pavement trying to crack Broadway and the New York television scene. Maybe the wide-eyed innocence in Sailor was an act, too. No, no, Sailor really wanted the world to be all sunshine and roses. And, actually, Rhiannon loved her cousin; Sailor always meant well. And now, according to the powers that be, she and Sailor and another of their cousins, Barrie, a journalist with a good head on her shoulders, were to take their place as Keepers of three of the Otherworld races right here in L.A.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeaaaah, I hate Hollywood,
And I hate actors, too.
If anyone disagreed with her lyrics, they didn’t say so. No one was really listening, anyway. And maybe that was the point. Easy music in the background while the coffee, tea, latte, mocha and chai drinkers enjoyed their conversations.
Polite applause followed the song. Rhiannon looked down, not wanting the audience to see her roll her eyes.
At ten o’clock Hugh asked her to announce that the café was closed for the night. She was shutting her guitar case when one of the coffee drinkers came up to her, offering her a twenty. Surprised by the amount of the tip, she looked at him more closely and realized that he was Mac Brodie, the actor who had been covered in fake blood earlier.
She looked at the twenty but didn’t touch it, then looked back into his eyes.
Elven, she realized.
Six foot five, she thought, judging that he stood a good seven inches over her own respectable five feet ten inches. And he had the telltale signs: golden hair streaked with platinum, eyes of a curious blue-green that was almost lime. And, of course, the lean, sleekly muscled physique.
She lowered her head again, shaking it. “Elven,” she murmured. “It’s all right. You did ruin my night, but that’s okay.” She made a point of not looking directly at him. Elven could read minds, but most of them had to have locked eye contact, so looking away made it possible to block the intrusion. And, luckily, the process was hard on them, so they didn’t indulge in it frivolously.
“Keeper,” he said, drawing out the word. “And new to the job, of course. Sorry. I saw that look of panic on your face. I’m assuming you’re here for the bloodsuckers?”
She stiffened. In Savannah she’d been a fledgling vampire Keeper, apprenticing with an old family friend who’d kept the city peacefully coexisting for years, but she’d always known that one day she would take her father’s place in L.A.
As she’d told Hugh, this had all been so sudden. There hadn’t been a warning, no “Tie up your affairs, you’re needed in six months” —or even three months, or one. The World Council had been chosen, and in two weeks a core group of some of the country’s wisest Keepers was gone and their replacements moved into their new positions. And there was no such thing as calling the Hague for help. No Keeper
