The Spawn of Lilith Read online

  I gave a snort of laughter. “Finally, a note of realism in this piece of shit.” I thought about it for a minute. “Sure, I’ll do it if it means I get some screen time doing an actual fight.”

  “You sure? I mean, that guy’s out of control. Look what he did to Jermaine. Dislocated his shoulder during their fight.”

  Jermaine had been one of our gladiators, now permanently out of the arena and relegated to guard duty. I think he was secretly relieved—no more fights with Axel, no more injuries. I hoped he had health insurance.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. Then I gave Randy a sideways glance. “I don’t have to have sex with him first, though, right?”

  “Jeez, no!”

  “Are you blushing, Squid?”

  “No!”

  He totally was. It was so cute I almost forgave him.

  Almost.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Early the next morning I went to see the costume supervisor, an understandably grouchy woman named Cora. I say “understandably grouchy” because she was the entire costume department. She did the shopping, the fitting, and helped actors dress when needed. If that meant having to touch Axel…

  Well, I sympathized.

  My sympathy ran out quickly, however, when she pulled out my concubine costume. I stared at the scrap of leather in the woman’s hands.

  “I am not wearing this.”

  “It’s a corset,” she said with a sniff. “And it’s the only thing I’ve got that’s actually a size eight, so you’re going to have to live with it.”

  “I’ve seen strippers wear bigger pasties,” I retorted. Okay, maybe I was exaggerating just a little, but seriously, eight wasn’t exactly the gargantuan size she was implying.

  Cora gave me a flat look. “You’re playing a concubine. You think you’re gonna wear jeans and a T-shirt?” She thrust the corset out and I reluctantly took it from her, holding it up for a better look.

  It actually wasn’t too bad. Dark-brown leather with brass buckles and straps hither and yon, little brass findings in the front for closures. An overbust style, with enough length to cover the hips midway. It looked like something a steampunk dominatrix would wear.

  “Here.”

  Cora tossed me a pair of fishnets, a G-string, and a pair of high heels, one after the other. I caught the stockings and G-string, but let the heels tumble to the ground.

  “I am not wearing those,” I growled. “I’m supposed to do a sword fight in this costume, and I’m not being nearly paid enough to cater to some adolescent wet dream fantasy, and maybe break an ankle in the process.”

  Cora shot me a look, but reached back into a pile of shoes and pulled out a pair of ankle boots that looked like they’d escaped from the same Jules Verne fantasy as my corset. Lots of buckles and straps and such. The heels, however, were thick, stacked, and only two inches high. There was also decent traction on the sole.

  I could fight in those.

  “Okay,” I said grudgingly. “These’ll do.”

  “Great,” she said. “So glad you approve of them.”

  I took the hint and left.

  * * *

  Later that morning I had to do a scene with the gladiators and other concubines. It took place in the gladiators’ quarters after combat, a sort of après bloodshed celebration involving wine and women. Navida was determined to make the most of what he saw as an orgy scene, even without bare breasts.

  The other concubines were already paired with their gladiator dates by the time I got on set, and I thought I’d lucked out when I was paired with Chas, a ruggedly handsome blond actor in his twenties with an easy-going attitude. One of the ones who’d been fun to work with during the training sessions.

  The makeup gal wandered around and indiscriminately spritzed fake sweat on gladiators and concubines alike. Lights and camera angles were set. Then Navida arrived on set and took one look at the various pairings.

  “No, no. Dis is no good.”

  All of the girls were shuffled around until he was satisfied. To my quiet horror, I was paired with Axel right off the bat.

  “See, this one,” Navida explained, “she wears black leather. She is dangerous. This will be a contrast when Axel takes Johnny’s virginal girlfriend, see?”

  All I saw was that I had to spend the next few hours cuddling up to a man who didn’t need to be spritzed with fake sweat. He generated his own supply and evidently didn’t believe in deodorant. Chas ended up with a blonde concubine in a pink teddy because Navida thought he would choose another blonde.

  “And they are both tall, too,” Navida added. “Their children will be superior specimens.”

  Okay, he didn’t actually say that last part, but he was thinking it.

  The blonde gave me a sympathetic look when she took my place. I tried not to hate her even though she was slender, busty, gorgeous, and obviously not a bitch. Then when I took my place next to Axel, he jerked me down onto his lap.

  “Leather makes me hard,” he said, and he shoved his hand down the front of my corset. In keeping with my dangerous image, I drove my elbow back into his solar plexus.

  It went downhill from there.

  * * *

  By the time noon rolled around my blood sugar was dangerously low. If I had to stand one more minute of Axel groping my butt and adlibbing lines like “Your ass is like a ripe peach, hahahah!”, something was gonna snap. Possibly Axel’s wandering hand.

  When we filmed the scene where my character refuses to cooperate, my acting was probably the most realistic in the film so far.

  “If you don’t want to fuck, then you want to die,” Axegard growled. Given the choice in real life, I would totally take my chances in the arena, so it was a snap to deliver the response.

  “I would rather die than let you touch me again.” I had to stop myself from adding, “But odds are good that I’ll kick your ass, douchebag.”

  Then we broke for lunch.

  I hurried to the catering area, a mirrored room formerly used for classes. Gayleen stood on the other side of the table, serving spoon in hand and a glower on her face.

  I watched in cautious anticipation as she lifted the lid to reveal the day’s lunch offering—stuffed cabbage.

  Little white globules of fat clung to shiny purple cabbage leaves that held what looked—and smelled —like dog food. They were lined up neatly in the heated metal catering trays, surrounded by a reddish swamp of tomato sauce and grease. Steam rose up, pooling across the top of the dishes like an alien fog.

  “And you let it on the ship,” I muttered under my breath.

  Someone behind me gave an indelicate snort of laughter. I turned to find the pink lace blonde next to me in line. She grinned at me and mouthed, “Good one.” Gayleen plopped one of the fledgling aliens on my plate before I had a chance to do more than smile in response.

  I did my best to keep from breathing until I’d left the room and dumped the plate into the nearest trash can. I found Randy and made him go—gladiatorial garb and all—to the Taco Bell. After lunch we were supposed to film the fight between me and Axel, and I was determined to do it with stable blood sugar levels.

  Randy returned with our lunch and I fell on the bag with a heartfelt thanks. While I dug into the first of four crunchy tacos, leaning against a bag of weapons, he chowed down on his own monster of a burrito, all the while casting surreptitious glances at my fishnet-clad legs.

  I just ignored it. After dealing with Axel, Randy’s inability to stop checking me out seemed harmless, especially since I knew he had a genuine crush on me. I tried to discourage it as gently as possible, but at least it wasn’t offensive.

  “Concubine in black leather! On set, please!” It was Aaron, the AD, and his voice echoed through the building, finding its way through the halls to our room. I scarfed the remaining tacos in record time, gritted my teeth, shot an admittedly undeserved glare in poor Randy’s direction, and stalked out down a dank hallway.

  Making my way down a flight of crumb
ling cement stairs, I entered what used to be the pool, now a gloriously tacky gladiatorial arena. The production designer had made the most of a roll of cut-rate gold lame, by way of set dressing. Navida, dressed in tight black pants and a form-fitting, V-neck T-shirt, stood in the empty shallow end of the pool. Don’t get me started on cheap symbolism.

  “Ah, there you are!” he exclaimed when he saw me. “My leather girl!”

  Leather girl?

  That was just so wrong on so many levels. If he hadn’t been the man more or less in charge of my paycheck, I would have killed him by now.

  “You are ready for your fight, yes?”

  “That’s what you’re paying me for, yes.” I tried to smile, but my face didn’t want to cooperate. Navida didn’t notice.

  “This is good!” He put an arm around my shoulders, long fingers casually draping over my collarbone, fingertips grazing the top of my right breast. “I see this as a short fight. A woman who is willing to risk her life to win her freedom. She wins? She goes free. If she loses—”

  “She doesn’t have to sleep with Axegard,” I said sweetly. “How short a fight are we talking?”

  “It depends.” His fingers snaked down a little further. My eyes narrowed. I knew what he was doing, the weasel.

  “You see, she is only a concubine. She is not a fighter. Axegard, he is a gladiator. His pride, it is wounded. He will show her no mercy. She is terrified. The fight, it would not last long. Maybe two or three moves at most.”

  Oh, hell no, I thought. I wasn’t going to have worn this stupid costume and put up with Axel pawing me, just to end up with “two cuts and I’m dead” on screen.

  “Yes, but she’s desperate,” I challenged him. “And who’s to say what this woman did before becoming a concubine. Maybe she was a martial artist.”

  Navida nodded thoughtfully—or at least with a good facsimile of it. “This might be so,” he said, like someone attempting a half-assed Dothraki imitation.

  “Besides,” I pressed, “don’t you think his anger and wounded pride would make him want to draw the fight out? Female viewers would appreciate seeing a woman hold her own before watching her die.” Okay, most female viewers would actually prefer to see my character kill Axegard, but I didn’t think Navida would be open to a rewrite.

  Besides, Johnny had to kill Axegard because of the male ego cliché that ruled this movie. I wasn’t quite sure where sleeping with the villainess Vixenia fit into the whole thing, though.

  Navida nodded again, his brow furrowed and mouth pursed as if thinking really, really hard. His index and middle fingers were about two inches from nipple territory. He had about a half inch to go before I snapped those fingers and slapped his face.

  Luckily for Navida’s fingers—and my continued employment—Randy showed up on set at that moment. He had a bunch of weapons in his arms, including a couple of aluminum broadswords that I’d borrowed from Katz’s stash the night before. I’d sneak them back into the stash when the shoot was over.

  “Need a hand?” I asked brightly, sliding out from under Navida’s questing arm to help Randy.

  Deprived of his prize, Navida scowled at me and asked, “How will you have time to choreograph a fight between you and Axel? I have seen the troubles our experienced actors have with these fights.”

  I raised an eyebrow, but kept my tone level.

  “I’m an experienced fighter. Besides, Randy and I choreographed all the fights, so I already know it.” It was bullshit, but it sounded good.

  “Yes, but does Axel have time to learn a new fight? He is good, yes. Very good, but he is only human.”

  I didn’t bother arguing either of those points.

  “He doesn’t have to learn a new one. We’ll do the one he was supposed to do with Jermaine.”

  Navida considered my logic. “I think the concubine would be scared and maybe not fight so well.”

  “I think she’d be scared and pissed off and fighting for dear life,” I replied with what I thought was admirable calm. What I really wanted to do was pick the idiot up by his collar and shake his skinny ass until he stopped being such a sexist asshole, but I wasn’t willing to make that kind of time commitment.

  If only he’d make up his goddamned mind.

  “As stunt coordinator, I’d like to see this fight in the finished movie,” Randy said unexpectedly. “It’d be a shame to waste the choreography.” I shot him a look of surprised gratitude. While I knew he wouldn’t stand in my way, I hadn’t expected him to actually back me up.

  Navida pursed his lips again and made a little scoffing noise that sounded like a half-hearted fart.

  Randy narrowed his eyes, looking less like a puppy and more like a wolf for the first time since I’d met him. His corneas went from green to gold in a flash, and then back again in the space of seconds.

  Lycanthrope, I thought. How did I not notice this before?

  There was more to Randy than met the eye.

  “Yes, then,” Navida said, taking a small, almost unconscious step away from his stunt coordinator. “We will try this—but if you are hurt when you fight with Axel, I cannot be responsible.”

  “She won’t get hurt,” Randy said. “And I guarantee you’ll get one hell of a fight on film, too. Probably the best one you’ll have.”

  “I think this will be a good fight, too.”

  The voice came from the entrance, and we turned to see Axel standing there, all oiled up and ready to gladiate. He could move quietly for someone his size.

  “You think you can handle the heat, little girl?” he added. He looked me up and down in a way that would have gotten him kicked out of the Ranch so quickly he never would have known whose boot did the kicking.

  “You ready to rehearse?” I kept my tone neutral.

  “I am ready for more than that, little girl.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Let’s see if you can keep up with the choreography first.”

  * * *

  Axel did his best to beat me into the ground with his muscles, but I’d learned long ago how to deflect someone trying to overpower me using strength alone, by using their own momentum against them. Sean had put me in judo and aikido classes, along with several different karate styles and even krav maga.

  I resisted the temptation to use one of the more aggressive disciplines on the jerk, instead either slipping to the side or underneath his reach when he tried to grapple, without letting him establish a solid grip on me.

  Jermaine had a year or so of aikido under his belt, so we’d put those moves in the original choreography. Seeing how that had ended for Jermaine, however, I stayed on my toes. I knew Axel would do his best to hurt me—and probably feel me up—just to prove that he could.

  By the end of the hour-long rehearsal, I was tired but unhurt. Axel was winded and more than a little pissed off.

  “She fights too hard,” he said, sounding like a sulky Germanic five-year-old.

  “But this looks good,” Navida declared with genuine enthusiasm. “My leather girl, she can fight! It will make her defeat even more tragic, yes?”

  Randy and I exchanged quietly triumphant looks.

  “Sure,” I said.

  * * *

  “You sure you’re okay for this fight?”

  Randy paced back and forth like a caged wolf. Funny, but now that I’d noticed the fluctuation in his eye color, other subtle signs suddenly became obvious. He was either a beta wolf or something not quite as fierce, like a fox. I’d ask him later, if and when he ended up in the Katz inner circle.

  “I’ll be fine,” I reassured him. “Just like you told Navida, okay?”

  I was all dolled up in my corset, fishnets, and boots, hair pulled back into a tight braid. I had my amulet safely tucked away in a pouch around my ankle and was ready to kick some Axel ass. Even if I had to die—on film—to do it.

  “Let’s just get this damned fight on film,” I said.

  “Digital video,” Randy replied.

  “It’s a figure of
speech, Squid.”

  “Sorry.” He grabbed me by the arm as I headed toward the door. “Just be careful, okay?”

  I stopped, looking at him.

  “You know I can handle this, right?”

  “I know,” Randy said, “but I don’t trust him. He wants to hurt you. And Rock’s too stupid to do anything about it.”

  “Rock has a testosterone crush on Axel.”

  “I don’t think that’s actually a thing,” Randy said doubtfully.

  I patted him on one cheek. “You’re cute, but kinda naive.” He blushed. I shook my head and gave him a one-armed hug. “Seriously, I’ll be fine, okay?”

  “Yeah. Okay.” Randy hugged me back, using both arms.

  “C’mon,” I said, stepping away. “Let’s shoot this puppy.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Cut!” Navida yelled.

  He glared at Randy, who’d shouted for him to pause after Axel slammed his blade into my forearm hard enough to make me drop my sword. Then he looked at me and shook his head sadly.

  “My leather girl, you must get this correct on the next take. We are running out of time. Maybe this fight, it is too much for you after all.”

  I picked myself up off the ground where I’d landed for the third time in as many takes, bent the arm, and flexed my hand a couple of times to make sure nothing was broken, then glared up at Axel with narrowed eyes.

  “You missed your parry, little girl,” he said with a nasty grin.

  “You cut instead of parrying,” I said between gritted teeth. “Try sticking to the choreography.”

  Axel laughed, not bothering to deny it. I knew he’d done it on purpose, and that was that.

  He was so going down.

  “Lee, you okay?”

  Axel strode over to the sidelines to get a bottle of water as Randy hurried over to my side.

  “I’ll live,” I said, watching Axel’s retreating form. “He might not.”

  “Look,” Randy said. “He’s fucked up on purpose three times. If we’d gone for steel instead of aluminum blades for this fight, or if you hadn’t dropped your arm so quickly when you saw he was going for a cut there…” He trailed off and shook his head. “Hell, you’d be heading for the ER about now.”