Jim Butcher - Blood Rites

But Jake stayed where he was. The paramedics took their lights with them, leaving the dressing room in darkness for a moment, until Joan returned with her little flashlight. "Guffie, get your Bowflexed ass into that ambulance."

He looked up at his reflection in the mirrored wall. His hair was sticking up every which way. "Though I apparently see the same stylist as Einstein, the Bride of Frankenstein, and Don King, I feel fine. Don't worry about me."

"I thought you'd say that," she said. "Fine, I'll drive you there myself. Everyone else needs to leave until I can make sure the power lines aren't going to kill anyone. Bobby and Emma are already outside. Harry, be back here by three, all right?"

"Why?" I asked.

"To start shooting."

"Shooting," Jake blurted. "After that ?"

She grimaced. "The show must go on. Everyone out so I can lock up. Guffie, get in my car and don't argue with me. Arturo is meeting us at the hospital."

"Okay," Jake said. He didn't sound like he minded agreeing. "What about Bobby and Emma? They have a car?"

"Don't think so."

Jake picked up his sports bag, dug in it, and tossed me a set of keys. "Here. Give those to Emma for me?"

I caught them, and we all started out of the building. "Gotcha."

Joan sighed. "Maybe we are jinxed. It's like someone said Macbeth. "

"What are the odds," Jake agreed.

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, fire bum and cauldron bubble. I didn't say anything to them, but I was pretty sure things would get worse before they got better.

A whole lot worse.

We went outside. Joan and Jake spoke briefly with Bobby and the woman I presumed to be Emma. Then Joan chivvied Jake into a car and drove out in a hurry, leaving the stage open for me to do some more snooping. There wasn't any time to waste with lethal magic like that on the loose, and the keys gave me a good excuse to do some more sniffing around.

I didn't hold out much hope that anything in Bobby the Bully's head would be important, so I focused on the woman and walked over to them. "Heya. I'm Harry. Production assistant."

"Emma," the woman said. She was actually very pretty. She had the kind of beauty that seemed to convey a sense of personal warmth, of kindness-a face best suited to smiling. Her eyes were shamrock green, her skin pale, her hair long and red, highlighted with streaks of sunny gold. She wore jeans with a black sweater, and made both of them look inviting-but she wasn't smiling. She offered me her hand. "I'm pleased to meet you. I'm glad you were there to help them."

"Anyone would have," I said.

"Come on, Emma," Bobby said, his expression sullen. "Let's call a cab and go."

She ignored him. "I don't think I've seen you around before."

"No, I'm local. A friend introduced me to Arturo, told him I needed a job."

Emma pursed her lips and nodded. "He's a softie," she said. "In case no one's told you, this isn't an average day on the set."

"I'd hope not. I'm sorry about your friend."

Emma nodded. "Poor Giselle. I hope she'll be all right. She's from France-doesn't have any family. I couldn't see her from where I was standing. Was it her throat that was hurt?"

"Yeah."

"Where? I mean, where was she hurt?"

I drew a line on my own face, starting at the back corner of my jaw and curving around to beside my Adam's apple. "There. Back to front."

Emma shuddered visibly. "God, the scars."

"If she lives, I doubt she'll mind them."

"Like hell she won't," Emma said. "They'll show. No one will cast her."

"Could have been worse."

She eyed me. "You don't approve of her profession?"

"I didn't say that."

"What, are you a religious type or something?"

"No. I just-"

"Because if you are, I'd like to tell you right now that I'm not, and I don't appreciate it when people pass judgment on my line of work."

"I'm not religious. I, uh-"

"I get so tired of hypocritical bastards who…" She started to say something else, then made a visible effort and shut her mouth. "I'm sorry. I'm not usually oversensitive. Sometimes I just get sick of people telling me how bad my work is for me. How it corrupts my soul. That I should abandon it and give my life to God."

"You're not going to believe me," I said. "But I know exactly what you mean."

"You're right," she said. "I don't believe you."

Her belt chirped, and she drew a cell phone from its clip. "Yes?" She paused for a moment. "No. No, sweetheart. Mommy already told you before I left. If Gracie says you get one cookie, then you only get one cookie. She's the boss until Mommy comes home." She listened for a moment, and then sighed. "I know, sweetie. I'm sorry. I'll be home soon. Okay? I love you too, sweetie. Kisses. Bye-bye."

"Kid?" I asked.

She gave me half of a smile as she put the phone back onto her belt. "Two. Their grandmother is with them."

I frowned. "Wow. I never really thought about, uh, actresses with children."

"Not many do," she said.

"Does, uh… does their father mind your career?"

Her eyes flashed hotly. "He isn't involved with them. Or me."

"Oh," I said. I offered her the keys. "From Jake, for the car. Sorry if I offended you. I didn't mean to."

She exhaled, and it seemed let out the pressure of her anger. She accepted them. "Not your fault. I'm tense."

"Everyone around here seems to be," I said.

"Yeah. It's this film. If it doesn't do well we're all going to be looking for work."

"Why?"

She shrugged a shoulder. "It's complicated. But we're all on contract with Silverlight. Arturo left them, but he had managed to slip something into his own contract with the studio that would let him continue hiring cast from Silverlight for three months after his departure."

"Oh," I said. "Jake said something about another movie."

She nodded. "Arturo wanted to do three of them. This is the second. If the movies go over well, Arturo will have a name for himself, and we'll have leverage to either quit contract with Silverlight or renegotiate better terms."

"I see," I said. "And if the movies crash, Silverlight will never pick up your contracts."

"Exactly." She frowned. "And we've had so many problems. Now this."

"Come on , Emma," Bobby called. "I'm starving. Let's go find something."

"You should start practicing some self-restraint for a change." The woman's green eyes flashed with irritated anger, but she smoothed it away from her face and said, "I'll see you here this afternoon then, Harry. Nice to meet you."

"Likewise."

She turned and glowered at Bobby as she walked to the car. They got in without speaking, Emma driving, and left the lot. I walked over to my car, pensive. Thomas and Arturo had been right. Someone had whipped out one hell of a nasty entropy curse-assuming that this wasn't a coincidental focus of destructive energy-the mystical equivalent of being struck with a bolt of lightning.

Sometimes energy can build up due to any number of causes-massive amounts of emotion, traumatic events, even simple geography. That energy influences the world around us. It's what gives the Cubbies the home-field advantage (though that whole billy goat thing sort of cancels it out), leaves an intangible aura of dread around sights of tragic and violent events, and causes places to get a bad reputation for strange occurrences.

I hadn't sensed any particular confluence of energies until just before the curse happened to Giselle and Jake, but that didn't entirely rule out coincidence. There is a whole spectrum of magical energies that are difficult to define or understand. There are thousands of names for them, in every culture-mana, psychic energy, totem, juju, chi, bioethereal power, the Force, the soul. It's an incredibly complex system of interweaving energy that influences good old Mother Earth around us, but it all boils down to a fairly simple concept: Shit happens.