‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,’ Adam chanted under his breath, running as fast as he could to keep up, refusing to let go of Jack’s hand.
Natalia descended the ladder and hurried across the helipad to meet us, just as Charlie came striding out of the hotel.
‘Girls, I need you to lift him up to me,’ the pilot instructed as he scrambled up the ladder.
Holly and I prepared to shift position and hand over the stretcher to the pilot. Charlie had arrived, his face set in an expression you couldn’t read – eyes narrowed, teeth gritted, black hair blown back from his knitted brows.
‘Oh, God – oh Jack – what happened?’ Natalia wailed, ignoring Charlie and standing in our way. She reached out to stroke Jack’s cheek with the back of her hand.
‘I’ll handle this,’ Charlie told her.
For once Natalia still wasn’t listening. ‘He isn’t going to die, is he?’ she begged. ‘Tania, please say he’ll make it.’
My hand was shaking as I prised Adam’s fingers away from Jack’s hand. ‘It’s OK,’ I whispered. ‘They’ll make your daddy better in the hospital.’
‘Thank God,’ Natalia breathed, eagerly accepting my promise to her son. ‘You hear that, Adam? Daddy isn’t going to die.’
‘I said I’ll handle it,’ Charlie repeated sternly. ‘Natalia, you stay here with the kids. I’ll go with Jack to the hospital.’
No! I resisted the urge to spring forward and stop this from happening.
‘Why would I do that?’ she asked.
‘Because you two are through and everyone knows it. And because you have to stay for the party tonight to secure the new movie deal with Ryan.’
‘I don’t care about deals right now!’
‘I know – you’re traumatized. And it’s hard to let go when you see Jack like this. The old feelings kick back in. Believe me, I know.’
‘No, you don’t.’ With one final shake of her head Natalia turned away from Charlie and gathered Adam in her arms. She handed him into the chopper. ‘Please help me up,’ she asked the pilot. ‘I’m coming to the hospital with my husband.’
‘Interesting.’ Charlie watched the helicopter rise into the darkening sky. The first stars had already appeared and a full moon sailed from behind the jagged mountains to the east. He swung round towards us and his sinister eyes flashed in the moonlight. ‘That wasn’t on my radar. The plan changes.’
We shuddered as we stood with him on the helipad, partly from fear and partly because we were almost freezing to death without our jackets.
‘So now you’re going to zap us to hell with your superpowers?’ Holly challenged and I remembered never to underestimate Holly’s ability to put on a brave front. I bet any money that underneath she was shaking and trembling as much as I was.
I mean, I was stunned by the strength of evil emanating through every ice-cold pore.
‘Not yet,’ Charlie sneered. He stood tall and powerful as the helicopter disappeared down the narrow pass between Carlsbad and Mount Evelyn. He stared at me with cold, cruel eyes, his good-guy disguise long gone. In its place was a dark, vicious and violent force that made me shudder and stagger back. ‘No, Tania, not yet,’ he repeated with a laugh. He’d done with us for now, turning again and striding towards the lodge. He paused, turned and smiled again. ‘Later, maybe.’
‘We look forward to that,’ Holly muttered. She held the bravado until he’d finally swung in through the side door and disappeared. ‘Why not now?’ she asked me in a sudden show of panic. ‘Why didn’t he destroy us on the spot for spoiling his fun?’
‘It’s not the right time. He’s making us wait until the party.’ I gave a big sigh as I pictured the scene. ‘That’s the highlight. It’s where I lose Orlando to the dark angels. Charlie wouldn’t want me to miss that, now, would he?’
19
Grace’s costume was pure white, with the silver headdress covered in fantastic scrolls. A silver mask covered her face.
Holly was dressed in a magenta gown and a hat festooned with black ostrich feathers. Her mask was white, with enormous almond-shaped holes for her eyes and a rosebud doll’s mouth painted in red to complete the effect.
They both looked as if they were about to step out of a Venetian palazzo into a gondola that would take them across the shimmering blue lagoon to the doge’s ball.
‘Tania, get dressed,’ Grace urged.
I was sitting on my bed, desperately wishing I could stop time.
‘Put on your costume,’ Holly told me.
It was seven thirty pm. The party was due to start. I wasn’t ready. I would never be ready to face what was about to take place.
Grace held up my dress of black and white silk. She made me step into it and hold still while she closed the back zipper. It had a nipped-in waist and a stiff, corseted bodice. The skirt billowed over a wide, hooped petticoat.
‘Now your mask and hat,’ Holly said.
The black hat had a wide brim and big silk flowers. The mask was white, decorated with delicate pink flowers. It felt weird for my face to be hidden behind a painted plastic shell.
‘OK?’ Grace checked.
I shook my head. This was what Marie Antoinette must have gone through before they carted her through the streets of Paris to the guillotine. She had ladies-in-waiting to clothe her in fine linen, to lace her into her embroidered gown and dress her to impress the crowds as she faced her executioner.
Grace squeezed my hand. ‘The beauty of this is that no one will recognize us. But you know what Orlando will be wearing, right?’
‘Black cloak, black tunic with silver decoration,’ I recalled. ‘White mask with a kind of cowl hood and a broad-brimmed hat.’
‘Good,’ Grace murmured. ‘We pick him out from the crowd and do whatever we have to do to get him out of here.’ When I didn’t respond she grew more insistent. ‘What! You’ve done it before, haven’t you? You got Holly out of New Dawn and me out of Black Eagle Lodge.’
‘That was different,’ I whispered. This time it was Orlando.
‘Right.’ Holly stood by the door in her spectacular red costume. ‘So, Tania, this is it. We really have to go.’
A white screen covered one entire wall of Owen’s bar. Projected on to it were images of Venice – waterside palaces, piazzas, white church spires and narrow covered bridges spanning the canals. The music playing through the speakers was stately and classical.
The plan was for Holly, Grace and me to enter separately and mingle with other guests. That way we wouldn’t be so easy to identify. We’d agreed on a place and time to meet and update – eight thirty in reception. Beyond that, none of us knew what to expect.
‘Find Orlando. Get rid of Gwen.’ Holly’s parting instruction couldn’t have been clearer.
I focused on those six short words to cut out the fear. I reduced it to two – find Orlando. Then I added two of my own: Breathe. Believe.
Find Orlando. Breathe. Believe. In preparation for the final battle, this was my mantra.
I went in and mingled. The music was loud, the room full of Ryan James’s excited guests. Ryan himself was easy to recognize – a tall figure dressed in a long dark-blue velvet cloak with a high collar, his fair hair visible beneath his hat. I guessed that the person next to him was Larry King and the girl to his left must be Lucy Young, listening so intently that she failed to move out of the path of three jugglers who had just entered the room.
The juggler who collided with her was dressed in a green and red tunic with matching jester’s hat, complete with bells. He and his fellow performers darted through the crowd throwing balls high into the air, leaping to catch them, adding more balls, magicking them out of their long, bell-shaped sleeves, even out of their mouths and ears and from under the hats of astonished guests.
People behind their masks laughed in surprise and began to applaud.
Then a team of nimble fire-eaters appeared, all dressed in the figure-hugging, flame-red, sequined body suits that Macy had chosen as her costume.
There were six of them, jumping on to the bar and parading along its length. They carried flaming torches, which they threw into the air. The torches twirled, flickered orange and yellow, tracing crazy circles, arcs and zigzags in the air, until the performers caught them and thrust them into their wide-open mouths. There was a series of soft pops as the flames went out.
Onlookers gasped. There was more applause.
The sound of hands clapping. A fire-eater leaps down from the bar brandishing a flaming torch, a red devil. His fingertips are alight, he breathes out fire, flames dart from his eyes as he throws his arms around me to claim and destroy me.
‘Tania?’ Grace peered at me from behind her silver mask. ‘How are you doing?’
The fire-eaters’ performance had ended. Wreaths of blue smoke hovered over the bar. ‘I’m doing good,’ I lied, and Grace carried on by.
Then with a swish of his cloak Ryan broke away from Larry and Lucy. Guests made way for him as he strode to greet a band of musicians – the signal for live contemporary music to take over. Guitar players, drummers, pianists and singers all took their places under the giant screen.
‘Fabulous party,’ a woman close to me said to her partner.
I recognized the voice and body of Angela Taraska. The body was draped around her companion as only Angela knew how.
It took me a couple of seconds to work out who her dance partner was – a guy of middle height but stocky, wearing a surreal white bird mask. The beak was sharp as a curved knife. Weller.
The backdrop video image of narrow waterways seemed suddenly real. To the rapid, urgent beat of a drum, Weller and Angela transmuted on to the screen. He danced her along a colonnade, under a bridge and out of sight. I told myself to get a grip, to ignore the image of Angela being swallowed into unreality.
Two more dancers whirled by. The woman shrieked and her hooped skirt billowed upwards as her partner lifted her off her feet. Then I glanced at the musicians by the bar. They wore grotesque, ugly masks with black gaping holes for eyes and contorted, down-turned mouths.
The mouths tell me they are in agony. They are the wailing, tormented creatures of the underworld. Their guitars screech, the piano thunders as rocks fall. My chest feels crushed; I can hardly breathe.
Grace watched from a distance as Holly caught up with me. ‘Do you see Orlando and Gwen?’ she murmured. ‘Over there, by the door. Is that them?’
Bracing myself, I studied a couple who had just entered the room. Yes, that was Orlando’s black costume with silver trimmings. It was definitely him behind the white mask, under the wide-brimmed hat.
Gwen held his hand, dressed all in silver. The bodice of her dress was straight and stiff, coming to a point below her waist and she wore a thick sash over one shoulder. Her hat was formed from a tall column of embroidered silver satin; her mask was plain white.
A tall figure in black approached them. He spoke to Gwen, who turned her head sharply to look over her shoulder. Then she and the messenger quickly left the room.
‘Now’s our chance,’ Holly decided. ‘Come on, Tania – Orlando’s alone!’
There was no time to think or plan. Gwen could be back any second. We threaded our way through the dancers, signalling for Grace to join us.
Silk dresses brushed against us, satin-shoed women and cloaked, grotesquely masked men blocked our way. There was a whirl of shiny fabric and soft feathers, glimpses of suspicious eyes behind masks with painted smiles.
‘Orlando, it is you, isn’t it? I came to say hi,’ Holly began in her everyday voice.
He didn’t move or react in any way.
I stepped forward. ‘It’s me – Tania,’ I told him. ‘Grace is here too.’
He turned his head away.
‘We’re leaving this party,’ I told him. ‘We want you to come with us.’
The floor tilts. We’re not on firm ground. We’re in a boat, a narrow gondola, and the boatman is Weller in his cruel beaked mask. We’re way out in the lagoon. There’s a whole city beneath the waves – crumbling palaces, broken bridges, churches where silver fishes swim.
‘Come with us,’ I beg.
Orlando takes off his mask. I scarcely recognize the lost face beneath. It’s as if the mouth has never smiled, the eyes have never shone. He looks at me and he doesn’t even know me.
A wave sweeps the boat off course. Grace, Holly and I sway and clutch each other. Another wave slams against us. The boat overturns. We’re in the cool, clear water and sinking to the bottom of the lagoon, our skirts ballooning around us, clouds of tiny bubbles rising to the bright surface.
‘Orlando has to wait for Gwen,’ a bystander explained above the wave of sound – drumbeat and guitar, keyboard and a rising babble of voices.
‘Why? Where did she go?’ I asked.
‘Who knows? But I hear there’s going to be some sort of an announcement about her and Orlando. Watch out, here she comes.’
Gwen crossed the lobby with the tall figure in black. I could tell by the walk that it was Charlie hiding behind a plain white mask. Before they came back into the bar, Gwen caught Charlie’s arm and spoke urgently. They were about to hurry on when a third figure crossed the lobby behind them.
At first I didn’t believe my eyes, but the slight figure and cascade of beautiful red hair was unmistakable – Natalia Linton was back. Unable to think straight and stick to plan, I left Orlando and ran out into the lobby.
‘How come?’ I cried, tearing off my mask.
Natalia put up both hands as if trying to stop the express train of events. ‘We ran into a snowstorm the other side of the pass. The pilot had to turn round.’
‘And Jack?’ I cried.
‘He’s OK, Tania. The Xcel team has a medic permanently on call here at the hotel. Amber paged him the moment she heard we couldn’t fly Jack to the hospital. The doctor’s with him right now. She’s sutured the wound and given him fluids.’
‘Is he conscious?’
Natalia nodded.
‘Does he remember what happened?’
‘It’s too early for him to talk about that. The doctor wants to sedate him so she sent me down to the medical centre to fetch diazepam.’ Natalia held up two packs of sedatives with a wry smile. ‘But you know Jack – he’s fighting the medics’ advice.’
‘So, everything’s good?’
‘Yes, everything’s good,’ Natalia echoed, but with a rising inflexion like a question mark at the end of her sentence. She held me back as I got set to run back into the bar. ‘You don’t need to go back in there, you know.’
‘Yeah, I do,’ I sighed.
‘You’ll only torture yourself watching Gwen and Orlando party together.’
‘I still have to be there.’ I could spot them now, arm in arm against the video backdrop of St Mark’s Square. Music and guests spilled out of the bar into the lobby.
I was about to fight my way back into the bar when Natalia stopped me again.
‘Tania, do I get the impression that you know more than you’re saying about what happened to Jack? Who else did you and Holly see up on Carlsbad?’
‘Nobody.’ My focus was back on Orlando. This had to wait, I told myself and I pulled away. The action was sudden and it made Natalia drop one of the packs of pills she was carrying. I saw it skid across the polished floor and under a couch. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘It’s under here somewhere.’
‘It’s OK, I have enough here,’ Natalia decided, in as much of a hurry to get back to Jack as I was to find Orlando again.
I bent down and my fingers closed over the pack of diazepam but when I stood up she was already on her way.
‘Let’s talk tomorrow,’ she said as she ran towards the lift.
‘Tomorrow,’ I agreed.
Should I have left her in the dark about what Charlie had done? Should I have stolen the drugs? I didn’t have time to consider my answers as I ran back to the party.
20
Find Orlando, get rid of Gwen. I’d never needed my mantra more
as, clutching the diazepam, I plunged into the crowd of dancers.
Breathe. Believe.
I took a moment to inhale. On screen I saw a beautiful image – the dimly lit interior of an Italian church with round arches and decorated marble columns, a vaulted roof that soared towards heaven. There was a carved wooden screen leading through to an altar covered with a cloth of gold. On the walls and ceiling were faded frescos of angels and cherubs and in one cool, quiet corner there was a life-sized marble statue.
I am there in the church – a pilgrim kneeling on the cold black-and-white mosaic floor. I look up at the smooth face of the Virgin Mary carved in sparkling white marble. The face is serene and compassionate like Maia’s; the folds of her long cloak and dress fall softly to the ground. She cradles an infant in her arms. The stone seems to give off a mysterious silvery light.
I am drawn into that light. I hear high, pure voices singing. A grey dove flutters from the rafters and alights on my shoulder.
Breathe again. Have faith. My good angels are with me.
The screen faded on a close-up of the pietà – on Mary’s loving face and the gentle, sleeping Christ child. The focus softened then the screen was blank.
‘Hey, everyone!’ Ryan had waited for the musicians to come to the end of a slow, romantic number played on Spanish guitar before he stood on a chair in the centre of the crowded room and called for silence. ‘I want to take time out to tell you guys what a great job you’ve done here in Mayfield. I recognize that we’ve had some setbacks, but I also know that Siege 2 will be huge when it hits the screen in spring next year – bigger than anything in the whole thirty-year history of Starlite!’
Ryan let the applause run just long enough for Charlie to join him. People enjoy congratulating themselves, after all. I saw the two men exchange a few words before Ryan nodded then spoke again.
‘As we all know, movie-making is all about team work every inch of the way. Each one of you here has played a vital part in making Siege 2 the great movie that it’s going to be. And I’m not bullshitting here – at Starlite we totally place the same value on every member of the team, from runners through technical crew members, extras and stand-ins to our major stars. We love you all!’ This time he raised his hand to halt another outbreak of smug clapping and whooping. ‘So enough from me. Enjoy the rest of the party, but before we really let our hair down, Charlie Speke wants to say a few words.’