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There were auxiliary lights set into the steps that led down to the tunnel; on the days that the small museum was open, before and after movies were screened, the stairway and the landing would be ablaze with light. But tonight, no one was expected.
“Be careful,” he warned Jenny.
“Of course!” she said.
Alistair walked slowly down the steps, ever aware of her sweet-smelling presence behind him. He reached the landing. He’d never been here before when there was no illumination except the emergency lighting. It changed the entire appearance of the place.
The museum’s first scene was from The Maltese Falcon. Humphrey Bogart sat at his desk while femme fatale Mary Astor leaned toward him and a creepy Peter Lorre hovered off to the side. They were all caught in shadow, and even Bogie looked dangerous, ready to strangle Mary Astor. Across from that tableau, Orson Welles as the title character in Citizen Kane stood by the breakfast table, angry after ignoring Ruth Warrick, who played his first wife. The old mannequins, created in the mid-50s by the previous owner’s special-effects studio, had been works of love, and in the dim red light and shadows, Alistair could almost believe that Orson Welles was about to speak angrily, his patience finally snapping him from the ennui of his marriage. Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake were together next, in a scene from The Glass Key, and then there were Dana Andrews, Vincent Price and Gene Tierney in Laura. The hall was long, and the exhibits were plentiful. A slim wooden barrier separated the walkway from the exhibits, and visitors could push buttons, which would let them hear the audio from the scene they were witnessing, along with information about the actors, producers, writers and directors. That night, to Alistair, all the characters looked as if they could speak without benefit of electronics.
Bogie made another appearance, with Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca; he was saying goodbye in front of the plane that would take her away. Bogie gripped Ingrid by the shoulders, and the emotion between them—and the greater good of the war effort, the sacrifice required—seemed palpable.
Toward the end of the hallway, Alistair stopped.
The scene was taken from the movie he had been watching that night, Sam Stone and the Curious Case of the Egyptian Museum.
There was hard-boiled Sam Stone, played by the ill-fated Jon de la Torre, arriving just a little too late in the fictional museum’s “Hall of the Pharaohs.” And there was the empty sarcophagus, and nearby, the man clad in the robes, his hands around the throat of femme fatale Dianna Breen, played by the equally ill-fated Audrey Grant. Snakes—Egyptian cobras—abounded on the floor, and Sam would have to make his way through them if he was to have any chance of saving Dianna.
Alistair stared at the scene and blinked; he could have sworn he saw one of the snakes move.
“Hey,” Jenny said, pushing against his back.
“What?” Alistair asked, distracted. He kept staring at the tableau.
“The door is open. The door to the studio is open!” she told him, speaking softly.
He turned to look down to the end of the hallway. The door into the basement of the special-effects studio stood ajar. He frowned; it should have been locked. His father and upper-level management were adamant about the rules when it came to lockdown.
He glanced at Jenny. For a moment she seemed to look like every femme fatale who had ever graced a movie screen. There was something wrong here. He was being played, he thought, really played. Perhaps punked. There could be cameras somewhere that he didn’t know about and other people ready to break into laughter. Yes, he was a fool, ready to do anything for a woman’s touch. And, as in so many film noir scenarios, the woman was luring him to his doom. At least that was how it felt in his fearful and overheated imagination.
But there was something else about the night, the way the tableau seemed alive. Something that sent a chill raking his bones.
He warned Jenny with a glance that he was wise to the situation.
But when he started through the door to the studio he heard Jenny scream.
When he turned around, he was so stunned that at first his jaw just dropped.
The robed killer—the evil priest, Amun Mopat—had come down from the Sam Stone tableau. The thing seemed to have no face. There was only blackness where a face should have been. He, it, stood behind Jenny, and seemed to be staring at him, but it had no eyes….
“Hey!” He wanted to scream. The sound came out like a croak.
An act. It had to be part of an act.
A hand appeared, brandishing a long knife.
It was a special-effects studio, for God’s sake! Someone was playing a game, he told himself, maybe even at his father’s request. Maybe his dad had suspected him of doing something like this, hoping for a hot night with his girlfriend….
The knife looked very real.
“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 couldn’t accept that. He was too nice and decent, even shy.
“A monster,” she repeated. “You mean—the Egyptian priest, the killer from Sam Stone and the Curious Case of the Egyptian Museum?”
“Exactly! Is that movie stuff or what? Everyone suspects The Unholy is a remake of that movie, but most people don’t know for sure. And now, right in front of that tableau…a real murder! Anyway, I thought I’d call because if you show up at work, you’ll be sent home. This way, you might be able to get some more sleep.”
Madison wrinkled her face at the phone, as if she could convey her expression to Alfie. What? Go back to sleep now?
“Thanks, Alfie. Thanks for letting me know. I’m sure I’ll get tons of extra sleep.”
“Keep me posted if you hear more,” Alfie said. He seemed not to notice her sarcasm.
“Ditto,” she said, and ended the call.
She crawled out of bed, drawing an indignant meow from Ichabod, curled up at the foot of the bed. “Sorry, my friend,” she told the cat, hurrying out to the parlor of her old rented bungalow and switching on the TV, going from channel to channel until she found a news station covering the murder.
The information Alfie had given her was true. The news showed the crime tape blocking off the cinema and the studio, then cut to an earlier interview with Eddie Archer in front of the courthouse. He denied his son’s culpability, and swore that he’d learn the truth behind the shocking murder.
Mike Greenwood, creative head of the studio and Madison’s supervisor, stood beside him. When Eddie finished speaking, Mike stepped up to the microphone. He reasserted what Eddie had said, that the truth would be discovered and, while Alistair had been arraigned for the murder, the D.A.’s office had acted only on what appeared to be the case—not what was. They would work toward his release, and by the middle or end of the week, when the police had gone over every inch of the place, Archer’s Wizardry and Effects would be back in business. They would move forward with their various projects while the investigation continued. Mike spoke so earnestly, he silenced the spate of questions that should have arisen. He seemed concerned, but in control.
Mike was a steady man, excellent in stressful situations. Whenever they were on a tight deadline, Mike was the one who calmed down everyone at the studio, assuring them that, step by step, they’d get it all done.
Eddie had acted with his usual composure, but Madison felt so sorry for him.
Eddie, nearing fifty, was still fit, but his face bore the tension of sorrow. As Alfie had said, he looked white as a sheet. He’d run his fingers through his graying hair repeatedly as he spoke, his words calm but determined.
She was still staring at the TV in disbelief when her phone rang again. She’d left it in the bedroom, and raced to retrieve it, thinking it would be Mike Greenwood giving her the message that Alfie had already conveyed.
Her “Hello?” was breathless.
“Madison?”
The caller wasn’t Mike Greenwood. It was Eddie Archer himself.
“Eddie!” she said. “Oh, Eddie, I’m so sorry.”
“Then you’ve heard.”
“Yes.”
“Alistair didn’t do it.”
