Lights, Camera…Monsters Read online

  “First we eat, then you talk and then we tell the others.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Okay, Lena, enough’s enough, time to tell us what’s going on.” Jane demanded. Margo and Cali sat on either side of Jane on the couch, while Akta reclined in the armchair. Lena stood in front of them, her back to the TV, looking just as professional and delectable in jeans and a tank top, with her hair in a ponytail, as she had in a skirt and sweater.

  Luke leaned against the sidewall and prepared to watch the meeting. The sight of him, shirtless and bandaged, had ratcheted up the tension in the room.

  That morning, Luke and Lena had talked for hours, Luke answering each of her questions with as much information as he thought it was safe to divulge. It had been a relief to talk about his worries and fears with someone he’d come to respect as much as he did Lena. She’d listened, her bright eyes flashing with intelligence as she made the connections and asked the right questions, all without any exclamations of disbelief.

  It seemed that she’d accepted the truth about him, and what it meant and implied. That acceptance did much to ease the hurt caused by her terrible and violent reaction to his monster form.

  He hadn’t meant to show her that way, in fact he’d rather hoped never to show her his true form. The sex and emotional windstorm of the previous night had worn him out to the point that he’d forgotten to enact the wards that would keep him in human form even when he slept. His body had reverted to that of the monster and terrified someone he’d never wanted to see look at him the way she had.

  Lena’s sweet voice pulled him from his dark ruminations.

  “Ladies, what Luke, Henry and Michael have brought us is a unique opportunity to create something that will change the world.”

  It was dramatic thing to say, almost comically so, but no one laughed. A few glances darted Luke’s way before returning to Lena.

  “Yesterday they were just a bunch of pretty guys looking to get famous,” Margo reminded the group. “What’s changed since then?” she asked Lena.

  Lena opened her mouth, but Cali held up her hand and stalled Lena’s response. “First answer this question,” Cali demanded. “Did you sleep with him?”

  “Yes,” Lena replied without hesitation.

  Cali slumped back onto the couch and folded her arms. “I really hope you didn’t make us all troop to your place so you could try and con us into working on your latest fuck buddy’s project.”

  “I would never do that. I’m not the one who lets personal matters influence business decisions.”

  Cali sat forward, poised to rise to her feet, and said, “That was a long time ago and I am tired of having you throw it in my face.”

  “Then don’t assume I’d act the way you have in the past.”

  Both women were flushed with anger. Luke opened his second sight and marveled at the jagged slices of red through each woman’s aura. Was it normal that he found this arousing? He took a few steps backwards, retreating into the shadows of the hall.

  “Stop it, both of you.” Margo demanded. “Lena, you need to hurry this up. You called us all here with your cryptic message. We find Luke in your house, long past when a one-night stand should have left, and if that weren’t weird enough, he’s got a monster bandage on his shoulder. So, like Jane said, enough already, spit it out.”

  “Interesting word choice, Margie.” Lena said, using an old college nickname.

  “Which word?”

  “Monster.”

  “And why is that interesting?” Jane demanded

  “Because monsters are real.”

  The other four women look at one another, then back to Lena.

  “That’s the great truth we have to tell. Monsters, and I do mean monsters, exist.”

  “Of course they do. The world is full of child abusers and rapists—”

  “No, Jane. I don’t mean people who act in monstrous ways. I mean beings that aren’t human, the kind children fear finding in the closets or under the bed.”

  “You’re talking about some sort of undiscovered animal species?” Margo asked.

  Her brow was wrinkled in confusion. It was clear they were trying to understand what Lena was saying, but were having trouble. Humans were conditioned not to believe. As children they knew monsters were real, but growing up made them blind and stupid. Luke thought it a mark of how highly Lena’s friends regarded her that they did not call her crazy and dismiss her words.

  “No, not animals, not in the way you are thinking. They have human level intelligence.”

  Hmm. Personally Luke would have considered monsters more intelligent. After all, they didn’t go around pretending half of the world wasn’t there, but now was not the time to voice that particular opinion.

  “Is it vampires?” this was the first thing Akta said, and the others all turned to stare at her. “Human level intelligence plus monster equals vampire in my book.”

  “I’m putting you on a Joss twelve-step program, you need to back away from the Buffy DVDs,” Margo said with an eye roll. Then she looked at Lena. “Er, we’re not talking about vampires, are we?”

  “Uh, no, not vampires. Monsters.”

  “Werewolves?” Akta asked, voice hopeful.

  “Akta, for the love of—” Margo started.

  The others all burst out talking. Everyone was voicing opinions, and though they seemed to be having a messy five-way conversation, Luke had no idea how they could possibly understand one another.

  Lena left them chattering and made her way down the hall to Luke.

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” she asked.

  “Yes, but you have to prepare them, explain.” Luke cupped Lena’s upper arms and gave them a small squeeze, as if that could impress the importance of his words into her. “If you don’t, they will react the way you did.”

  Lena cupped his cheek and stood on her toes to kiss him. Luke closed his eyes and savored the taste of her lips under his. He sighed when she broke the kiss and turned away. As she headed back to her friends, shouting for them to be quiet, Luke moved to stand at the mouth of the hall.

  “Monologue time. I’m going to talk, you listen.” The others quieted.

  “We are talking about monsters. Not vampires or werewolves, but scary looking beasts. They exist. They have language and culture and ethnic identity. For years, for all of human history really, they’ve been hiding, living in places that humans won’t, or can’t go.

  “But the world is expanding. We’ve all heard about globalization and the decreasing wilderness. That human encroachment is affecting the monsters. They won’t be able to stay hidden from humans for much longer. Since the invention of photography they’ve been trying to avoid humans altogether, but now they know that won’t work anymore. Sooner or later someone is going to catch them on film, and then hunters or explorers will come, and their existence will be exposed.

  “So they’ve decided to be pro-active. The monsters are going to go public, come out of the closet, before they are forced out.”

  Lena stopped talking, and one by one the faces of the other women turned to Luke.

  “He is…?”

  “Yes, Luke is a monster.”

  “If they all look like that I don’t think they’re going to have a problem,” was Akta’s wry observation. The women all laughed softly and some of the tension seemed to dispel.

  Lena smiled, and the skin around her eyes loosened. Luke realized she’d been as nervous and worried as he was about this revelation, though her confidence and conviction hid it.

  “If the monsters looked like that…” she turned to smile directly at Luke, and he straightened, answering her smile with a tentative one of his own. Though he didn’t want to admit it, it was a bit unnerving to have all of them looking at him and discussing the physical merits of a body he wasn’t yet fully used to. “I agree. They wouldn’t have a problem. But that is only a recent development.”

  “In what way?”

  “Luke, do
you want to explain this part?”

  “Uh, sure.” They’d arranged this change in lecturer, at Lena’s suggestion. Luke would have been more than happy to let her explain the whole thing. He took a tentative step, but stopped, not sure where to stand.

  Lena rescued him, looping her arm through his and bringing him to stand where she had, in front of the TV. She released his arm and perched on the edge of the couch.

  Luke looked at them, five gorgeous, confident females from a species he didn’t really understand. Their gaze bore into him. Their silent demand for him to explain, perform, coated him like tar.

  He couldn’t breathe.

  Luke sucked in a great gulp of air, but it didn’t help, he couldn’t get it far enough into his lungs. He bent and braced his hands on his knees, staring at the carpet. He could vaguely hear the women’s alarmed conversations, and sense the shadows of their movement.

  “Luke? Luke?”

  “He looks like he’s going to pass out.”

  “Is this some ‘monster’ thing?”

  “Looks to me like he has public speaking anxiety.”

  Soft hands touched his bare shoulders and back. Though he couldn’t see who touched him, Luke knew which hands were Lena’s. There were murmured exclamations as they got their first good look at his tattoo.

  They eased him down into the armchair and pressed a cold cloth to the back of his neck. Hands stayed on his back, keeping him bent forward, as a whisper soft voice urged him to relax and breathe.

  When he no longer felt that he was being smothered by a heavy coating of tar, he sat up. All but Lena moved away from him.

  “Luke, are you okay? How do you feel?”

  “I feel…” embarrassed “…fine now.”

  “Has anything like this ever happened before? Is this something going on with your spell?” She rested her fingertips against his tattoo.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Then I think Margo is right, you don’t like speaking in public.” She smiled and kissed him.

  Pride and desire for her swelled as she kissed him in front of her friends. Among his people, displaying sexual awareness of, and desire for, another being, was a way of staking a claim over them. Though there was no male there to see him reciprocate the possessive body language, Luke cupped her head and deepened the kiss. When he released her, Lena sat back, eyes closed, parted lips wet and red.

  “Is he that intense during sex?” Luke looked up to see Lena’s friends watching them, Jane having voiced the question.

  “Oh yes,” Lena replied, before blinking her eyes open. “More intense even.” Bracing her hands on his knees Lena pushed to her feet and moved away from him to sit on the floor. “As a matter of fact, I’m dethroning Akta as reining Queen of most orgasms in a night.”

  “You had more than four?” Cali asked.

  Lena held up eight fingers.

  The women’s attention turned to him again, and this time there was a distinctly covetous nature to it. “I am so hot for you right now,” Akta admitted, tossing her mane of black hair, which smelled of roses.

  “Uh, thank you.” Luke said.

  “Ladies,” Margo, who seemed to be the most practical after Lena, said, “Let’s please refocus. Now, Luke, can you explain to us what Lena meant by ‘recent development’?”

  Luke focused on Margo, finding it easier to talk when he didn’t have to stand in front of all of them.

  “Monsters have only had one form, though those forms are many and varied. No two monsters are the same, and humanity has never imagined that all the things they classify as monsters are actually related. Our monster forms, sometimes glimpsed by humans, gave rise to the tales of beasts that kidnap and eat children or live in caves and under bridges.”

  “Quick question. Do you eat children?”

  “No.”

  “Good to know. Please continue.”

  “About fifty years ago, there was a female of exceptional power born to us. She could work magic with skills that many believed were lost to our people. She had the sight, and warned us that we could not continue to hide forever. She said that when the humans discovered us there would be a great slaughter. Those among my people who were not warriors, were not fighters, would die. All that would be left were those fierce enough to survive, and soon all that would remain of our people would be the mindless destroyers the humans expect to find.”

  Luke looked towards the sliding doors, where the last rays of sundown painted the chemically tainted sky orange and pink.

  “Her prediction created a panic. Some chose to retreat further into the wilds we hide in, others who had grown to fear humans for their extremely violent ways and terrifying weapons, chose to end their own lives. I saw many whom I loved die rather than face the terrifying guns of humanity.”

  “You poor thing.” Akta said. She reached over and rested her hand on his forearm. He looked up to see her dark eyes swimming with tears. One by one he looked to the other women, each wore an expression of sympathy and grief.

  Lena had wept when he told her of the mass suicides and terrified retreats into the wild. She’d wrapped her arms around him, offering sympathy and understanding, sharing in his sorrow, which lightened the burden. Lena’s reaction hadn’t surprised him. After the physical closeness they shared the night before, he’d expected her to have some reaction, through nothing near the genuine and beautiful sorrow she’d exhibited.

  He did not expect these women to be affected by his words. Their depth of compassion amazed him.

  Luke placed his hand over Akta’s. “Thank you.”

  There was a quiet moment during which a few blotted their eyes, before Luke resumed his story.

  “There were a few of us who were not as afraid of humans. I’d grown up not far from a small human owned farm, and when they left, my friends and I would sneak in and play with their things. We learned about some truly remarkable food and not to play with electricity, but our most interesting discovery was TV. Then movies.

  “We became addicted, to the point that many others teased us about our love for all things human. But we didn’t care, we wanted more.

  “When our seer told us what the future held, everyone realized that we had to change the way humanity saw us, before they found us. There were many ideas about how to do this, but only myself and my friends realized there was already a way to influence human thought, we just had to become part of it. We told the seer of this, and to help us in her mission, the seer performed a spell that gave us a human form. Never in our history had we been able to take human form. Only the seer’s great knowledge and power allowed it, but it is hard to do, and not all the monsters wanted the spell. We forced them to take it, hoping the ability to become human would provide a last defense. My friends and I took the spell,” he motioned to the tattoo on his back, “and set out to find a way to save our people.

  “We came to Hollywood hoping to find people who would make a movie, or a TV show, about us. We need to show the world that though we are monsters, we are neither killers nor evil, before humanity finds us, and destroys us.”

  Luke finished his plea, the walls echoing with the conviction of his words. He’d given everything he had to this final pitch, placed his passion in his words, let his voice deepen with a hint of its true tone.

  The women looked from him to each other.

  Cali was the first to move. She rummaged in the bag at her feet and pulled out a book of blank white pages. She flipped it open and started sketching a series of boxes.

  Margo leaned forward and braced her hands on the coffee table. “It’s gotta be an action adventure.”

  Jane mimicked Cali, digging through her bag until she came up with a lined notebook. “I think we should work along the basic storyline he just outlined. There’s enough here for three movies. This is also good TV.”

  “Girls, this isn’t without risk,” Lena warned them.

  “Shut up, Lena,” Akta demanded, looking over Cali’s shoulder as sh
e sketched out a storyboard.

  “I’m serious. This is a huge risk for all of us.”

  “This is also what we’re all about. This is a story that needs to be told, and told well. Luke and Michael and Henry deserve a chance at changing the way the world sees them, before the monsters are destroyed.” Jane’s passionate speech had them all nodding in agreement.

  Lena smiled and unfolded herself from the floor to kneel beside the coffee table. “That’s what I thought you all would say, so here’s what I propose. Not a movie or a TV series, but a movie and a TV series.”

  “Damn, that would be amazing. You’re talking about developing them simultaneously.” Margo said.

  “Yep.”

  “That would be huge, revolutionary, if we could make it work.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Margo cupped her head in her hands, “I have so many fucking ideas whirling around in my head right now I think my brain is going to overheat. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it big. We need a big, online presence, we can start the hype there, we’re going to want to pull all the online sci-fi and fantasy fans into this from the start.”

  “Modeling,” Akta said suddenly. “We need to make them models too. Can’t you just see one of them on a billboard in Times Square modeling Calvin Klein? I still have some contacts in high fashion.”

  “Akta, that’s perfect,” Lena said, eyes feverishly bright. “We’ll make them a brand.”

  “Wait. Wait!” shouted Cali, who now had four pages full of storyboards. “We’re missing some critical information.”

  “What?”

  “We don’t know what the monsters look like.”

  The women all looked to Luke again.

  He’d been so preoccupied trying to figure out what they were talking about it took him a moment to realize they were all waiting for him.

  “You want to see me change into a monster?”

  “Can you change at will? Are there any triggers? How about extreme emotional distress, will that trigger a change?” Jane asked, looking down at her story notes. “It would be really helpful if you had a fatal weakness.”