Fall of Light Read Online Free Page B

with him about the Dark God in preproduction, but he had fobbed them off on the production designer, Dathan Riley, who was excited about the concept and worked with them to define and fine-tune it. Aldridge’s voice was mellifluous, and carried well. He sounded kind. That was not his reputation.
    The script supervisor, a sturdy woman with a clipboard, stood one step behind him. “The call was for six,” Neil said.
    â€œSorry,” said Opal. She checked her watch. They were a minute late. “Erika.”
    â€œDamn,” muttered Neil. “Well, get out here and let me see what we’ve got.”
    Opal led Corvus past Neil into the full glare of the lights near the altar. Something itched her feet, some dazzle or discomfort she didn’t recognize.
    â€œLadies, gentlemen, and others, our monster,” said Neil. Like a ringmaster, he swept an arm toward Opal and Corvus.
    All sound aside from the generators stopped.
    Corvus gripped Opal’s shoulders once, then gently pushed her aside. He stood with his arms crossed and looked over the assembled cast and crew. He moved his head and the hood fell away, revealing a stranger.
    The horns weren’t part of her prosthetics. They looked right, though, two short forward-thrusting spikes growing from Corvus’s leafy temples, gleaming gold in their grooves. Opal opened her senses wide. Stranger magic tickled the bottoms of her feet, met her own force without meshing with it.
    It climbed Corvus, enveloped him, resided most strongly in the places where she had changed him. Her alterations had left toeholds for it.
    â€œCorvus,” she whispered.
    The face turned toward her. The eyes were dark now, not so green, and the soul looking out was not the man she knew.
    He smiled. His teeth were pointed, serrated like a shark’s.
    Applause burst out around the circle.
    Corvus lifted both arms, basking, circled with his hands, then took a very theatrical bow, one leaf-skinned hand lifting a segment of his robe behind him.
    â€œHe’s going to steal the picture,” Neil muttered. Then, louder, “All right, everybody, find your marks for a run-through. Can you see all right, Weather?”
    â€œPerfectly,” said Corvus.
    â€œI want you looming on the far side of the fire, behind the altar, looking hungry while your minions dance for you. Menace and lust.”
    Corvus nodded. Opal raised her eyebrows, her gaze on his face. Did he want her to help him across the clearing to his mark? He nodded, gesturing from her toward the location. She stepped closer, and he settled his hands on her shoulders. They walked in tandem toward the fire and the altar. “Corr, are you all right?” she murmured.
    He laughed. “Better than ever.” He didn’t sound like himself.
    A tall man in a black robe backed away as they approached, Corvus’s stand-in. He had the height, and his face was the same color greeny brown as Corvus’s mask, but nothing else about him looked like Corvus. “Evening,” he said.
    â€œHi, Fred,” Opal said. Fred had been Corvus’s stand-in on Dead Loss , too.
    â€œWhoa, Nellie,” said Fred when he saw Corvus. He hurried off to where the other stand-ins stood, behind the camouflage backdrop and out of sight of the cameras, smoking and whispering.
    â€œCan you see your mark?” Opal asked. There was a piece of black electrician’s tape on the ground beyond the altar.
    â€œI know my place. Thanks, honey.” He let her go, and she edged away from him, turned to look back. She stared at the pointy-toothed smile, the too-dark eyes, as a flicker of firelight ran over his face.
    She hoped he was okay.
    â€œStand by for rehearsal. All nonactors off the set,” Neil yelled.
    Opal fled. She ran back to the car and pulled out her traveling kit, then joined Wardrobe, Makeup, and Hair at the cluster of canvas-backed chairs on the edge of the clearing, behind the