“Y ou want me to star in a movie?” I asked, looking across the table at Lucien.
Lucien Lyons was an astoundingly gorgeous white-haired man in a thousand-dollar suit wrapped in an enchanted red trench coat. He was my hometown’s resident crime lord and a shifter like me. Well, not like me because he was a weredragon and I was a weredeer. Bit of a difference there.
The two of us were sitting at an upscale restaurant in New Detroit that catered primarily to a human only crowd. Lucien had done the Bruce Wayne thing and bought the place for our meeting. Personally, I wasn’t sure why he felt the need to do so since I didn’t want to spend any time around rich humans.
I was wearing a cheap flower print dress with spaghetti straps while my best friend, Emma, was sitting beside me wearing a much more expensive red one. I’d been born with a wooden spoon in my mouth while hers was a gold one from Tiffany’s. Gold because Emma was a werewolf and silver would burn her tongue.
Of the two of us, I was significantly plainer but had gotten a little more mature in certain areas with age. So much so that I could call myself pretty without irony. Emma, by contrast, was drop dead gorgeous like most shifter women, with thick scarlet hair and porcelain skin. She was also just so naturally adorable that, even when a slavering giant wolf, people just wanted to pet her. I think people sensed the inner sweetness in her that I didn’t have.
I’d felt more than a bit guilty about accepting Lucien’s dinner date invitation and had ended up inviting Emma, deciding to treat it as a business thing. I was seeing Lucien’s brother, Alex, after all. Well, supposedly seeing since Alex tended to disappear for months on end. The discovery that this was a business thing was both relieving as well as a bit disappointing. I was a bad-bad deer.
“Absolutely, I want to hire you,” Lucien said, leaning back in his chair and pressing his fingertips together. “I want you and Emma both to be part of the production.”
“Versus actual actors,” I said, skeptical. “You realize I own a diner, right?”
I, Jane Doe (blame my parents), was the proud of owner of the Deerlightful Diner back in Bright Falls, Michigan. It was my mother and father’s before they’d given it to me. I’d had plans of leaving my small town and exploring the world, but life got in the way.
“Yeah, how’s that going for you?” Lucien asked.
There was the small fact that due to all the casinos popping up around my restaurant, the property taxes were keeping us just in the red despite legions of tourists visiting the town.
“I’m listening,” I said, frowning.
“Basically, there’s a new type of movie out there: real horror,” Lucien said. “Movies with a potential payout in the billions or, at least, millions without the bloated budgets Hollywood requires. Real horror films are the future for New Detroit and its budding film industry, of which I and a strip club owner named Arthur Morgan are the sole distributors.”
I had the funny feeling that Lucien wasn’t entirely serious about his offer. On the other hand, it wasn’t like any of the other promoters of business in the city were classier. New Detroit was a city that ran on blood, gambling, pot, and prostitution. “Real horror. What do you…oh no, you don’t mean—”
“You want to use real supernaturals? Awesome!” Emma said, clapping her hands together like a five-year-old. She was eating two rare steaks and had already scarfed down one. Emma ate steak by stabbing one end with her fork, lifting the whole steak into the air, and biting chunks off it. I mean, some werewolves used their hands, but she’s civilized so she used a fork.
I was having a salad. Usually, I’d be having a steak despite my herbivore ancestors but I just wasn’t in the mood. “You can’t be serious. No one wants to see actual magic.”
I was, with some reluctance, the Shaman of Bright Falls. It was a job that involved dealing with hauntings, possessions, supernatural murders, and worse. Prior to the 2008 Reveal, people went missing all the time in America and other nations with most just turning a blind eye. The truth was a lot of it was due to the various supernatural races that considered humans a tasty snack.
Ironically, although I was a shifter myself, most paranormal beings were awful. Vampires, despite how much I hated them, were low on the totem pole of threats to human life as they didn’t have to kill to feed.
“People do too want to see actual magic!” Emma said, offended. “A couple wanted me to become a warg outside and let their child ride me.”
“And if they saw your giant wolf form, they would have run screaming,” I said. “Trust me, the supernatural is terrifying in real life. Leave the fake stuff in movies where it’s safe. Special effects over deadly curses and demons.”
Given the three of us were discussing using actual magic in movies, I didn’t think my argument was the best, but I knew too many people who loved seeing Harry Potter movies with their kids while privately teaching their offspring that witches were all going to burn in Hell. I had a complex over it, really, since there were still twenty-eight states where it was legal to shoot my kind if you felt threatened. That was an improvement from last year.
“You’re in a city rebuilt by vampire money for people who want to hang around vampires,” Lucien said, having barely touched his fish.
“You gonna eat that?” Emma asked, having already eaten her two rare steaks.
“Yes,” Lucien said.
“Is it a crocodile thing or a dragon thing?” Emma asked. “I mean, I don’t know what you guys eat.”
“Both,” Lucien said, staring at her.
“Sorry!” Emma said, raising her hand and still eyeing it.
“You can order another steak,” Lucien said. “I’m paying for this.”
“Really?” Emma asked, bright-eyed.
“Yes,” Lucien said.
Weredragons were fire-breathing crocodile shifters but the distinction was nebulous once they assumed their giant crocodile form. They couldn’t fly but that was about the only thing they didn’t have compared to their fantasy brethren. Apparently, that didn’t come with the obsessively hyperactive metabolism werewolves had. Me, I drank some morning Mountain Dew—of the yellow, sugary kind—and was fine for the day.
“Well, yes, but vampires—” I started to speak before losing my argument. “Okay, what’s the movie about? Just one movie, right?”
I wasn’t sure why I was objecting so hard. I mean, aside from the facts that I had no acting experience and this was exploitative as hell. I needed the money, and it wasn’t like I had any real objections to using my powers for monetary gain. Lucien had done right by me and we’d even dated for a while. He was playing an angle, for sure, but I didn’t think he was going to screw me. Even if I was dating his brother now and we’d slept together in the past. Okay, maybe I did need to read the fine print on this.
“One movie with an option for two sequels is just the beginning,” Lucien said, sounding like a kid in a candy store.
“Ooo,” Emma said, trying to wave down the waiter for a fourth steak. Us being the only customers here should have made it easy.
Lucien reached into his leather satchel and pulled out a pair of scripts before handing one to each of us. “I think you can judge the quality of the material from the title alone.”
I looked at the script. “The Growling V ?”
“The Growling (2020) ,” Lucien said, correcting me. “It’s a reboot of a series I’ve acquired the rights to.”
“Clearly, a misunderstood modern classic,” I muttered, looking down at the script. “You want us to make a shifter slasher film ?”
I was aware of the series, much to my disappointment. When I was sixteen years old, I’d worked at the only remaining Blockbuster in Michigan for a summer. I was pretty sure the place was a front for laundering money, possibly for Lucien, but it had given me ample time to watch a bunch of Eighties horror movies. Not just the sequels to Friday the 13 th and A Nightmare on Elm Street , but things much, much worse. The Growling movies made April Fool’s Day and Sleepaway Camp look like the works of Dario Argento—and if you get those references then hats off to you, my fellow horror aficionado.
“More like a survival horror picture,” Lucien said.
“They were nothing but nudity, bad costumes, gore, and more nudity,” I said, not exactly comfortable with the prospect of baring myself. It wasn’t because of it being tasteless exploitation but when compared to Emma—or even most other weredeer—I was not exactly curvy. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m setting feminism back a decade, but body image isn’t something you can control.
“I know,” Lucien said, all too happy. “We’ve got a guaranteed streaming rights deal on five major platforms as well as two million bootleg DVD sales to China already set up. It’s like a license to print money.”
My eyes widened at those numbers. “Don’t people know you can find porn on the internet for free?”
“It’s not shifter porn!” Lucien said, frowning.
I reached for my purse. “Thanks for the salad, Lucien. I’ll take my giant brownie to go.”
“I can’t digest chocolate,” Emma muttered. “It’s a canine thing.”
I looked up from my salad. “Dogs are vulnerable to theobromine poisoning because their livers can’t process it very quickly. But most animals can’t! It’s just that most animals don’t have a lot of opportunity to eat chocolate, while dogs have unfortunately common access thanks to well-meaning humans.”
Emma looked at me strangely. “Still pretending those two years of college were worth it, huh?”
I stared at her. “I spent a lot of tip money on Biology 101. I intend to get every use out of it I can.”
“I considered being a vet, but most animals are terrified of me,” Emma said. “I could also never put anything to sleep. I mean, maybe if I took a claw swipe to put them down but gas is just cruel.”
Lucien raised his hands in mock surrender, thankfully interrupting this line of questioning. “Jane, you know I would never pressure you into anything you didn’t want to do.”
“No, you just know that I’m about to lose my place of business and want to make me an offer to do a T&A picture,” I said, dryly. “While I’m dating your brother no less.”
Lucien frowned, less than happy at the mention of Alex. “How is he doing, anyway?”
I frowned. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Lucien asked, skeptically.
Alex and I had been dating for over a year. The first six months of it had been absolute bliss. Hot and heavy with a side order of sexy martial arts mage goodness. Unfortunately, three months ago we’d been attacked by one of Phillip Tzu’s ninjas (long story—Phillip is Alex’s evil dad and he has ninjas—okay, maybe not so long) and my boyfriend had gone nuts. Alex had spent the time since attempting to hunt him down. I’d barely gotten a text message in the last month, which meant I’d been spending a lot of alone time with the shower head. Ahem.
“No,” I said, going back to my dessert brownie that I picked up a spoon to eat with. “Drop it.”
Lucien shrugged. “Okay. But I’d never ask you to do nudity in one of my films.”
“Really?” Emma asked. “What about me?”
“Do you have a problem with nudity?” Lucien asked.
“Nope!” Emma said. “I’m proud of my body! However, there may be an issue if I’m required to shave—”
“Wait, hold on,” I interrupted, not really wanting to go there. “Why do you not want me to do nudity?”
“That’s what body doubles are for,” Lucien said.
Now I was oddly insulted. Lucien had liked what he’d seen last time! Shaking that thought away, I cleared my throat. “Listen, I don’t see how making a T&A film where shifters hunt down and murder co-eds will improve our reputation globally. The only reason The Growling movies weren’t anti-shifter propaganda was because they were made before anyone knew people could become animals.”
Emma had put on a pair of reading glasses and was pawing (figuratively) through the script. “Yeah, I was hoping you wanted me to star in a romance between two shifters from different tribes! One who is an herbivore and the other a predator and how they come to love each other despite their differences! Also, both should be girls.”
Lucien and I exchanged a look before both of us shrugged.
“You want to do a lesbian Zootopia ?” I asked.
“Yes!” Emma said, pointing at me. “Exactly that.”
“I’ll pitch that to our sponsors,” Lucien said. “This is guaranteed profit. We’ll use local actors, the woods outside of Bright Falls—”
“Where horrifying murders actually take place,” I replied, less than impressed.
“Then we’ll wrap it up in a week,” Lucien said, making a little camera with his fingers. “Everything else can be handled post-production.”
Emma and I exchanged a look.
“You’re going to film it in a week?” I asked, not even sure you could do a single take of every scene in that time.
“Yep,” he said.
“Are you sure this isn’t porn-porn?” Emma asked. “Because I have nothing against nudity, yet I do not rut on command. Sex should be between two people who love each other. Or, at least, are good friends like my friends Deana and Robyn.”
“Together or singularly?” Lucien asked.
I grabbed a biscuit off the table and bounced it off Lucien’s head. “Where is the waitress, dammit?”
Emma laughed and so did Lucien.
Then I thought about why he might not care about the movie’s quality even if it was just the viewing public’s chance to gawk at shapechangers. “Going out on a limb here but, hey, is it possible this is a scheme to launder money? Like the old Blockbuster on Elm street? One I should clarify I never had a nightmare on.”
“What, money laundering?” Lucien faked being shocked. “That’s ridiculous! The Blockbuster there only covered for drug dealing out the back.”
“Oh,” I said. “That explains why all the cassette cases in the back room smelled like weed.” Not my finest moment. Maybe my teenage detective genes activated late in life.
“What?” Emma said, stunned. “This is just a cover for some sort of… criminal enterprise?”
“Yes, Emma, almost like he’s a criminal,” I said, taking a drink from my glass of water. Lucien wasn’t the biggest criminal in the city, that was Emma’s sister Alice O’Henry, but she tended to larger crimes like real estate fraud and banking scams. You know, the sort of things you could do and still be President. It said something about the company I kept that Lucien was probably still one of the most honest. “Really, Lucien, why didn’t you just tell me you were trying to make all your drug and prostitution money legal.”
“I don’t do prostitution,” Lucien said, frowning. “All the money from that goes directly to the men and women involved. I only run the strip clubs and hotels they operate out of.”
“Aren’t you a saint,” I muttered, chowing down on my still-warm brownie. It was delicious and justified this entire trip. “You and Arthur should give yourselves a big pat on the back. If you don’t hit on your employees, you can even claim to be decent human beings.”
“One: we’re not human, he’s a vampire,” Lucien said. “Second: I never hit on my employees, they come on to me.”
That would be infuriating if it weren’t true. I may have been in a relationship, but Lucien was one of the two sexiest men I’d met in my life. I wasn’t going to say where he ranked in that list with Alex. “So, spill, Lucien, why do you want me really? There are hundreds of shifters in Bright Falls. Many who would love to be in your shitty movie.”
“It’s actually a story about evil, redneck, racist hunters that a team of sexy shifter ladies kill in a variety of comical and funny ways!” Emma said, looking up from the script.
Okay, that sounded fun. I wanted those answers, though. “Come on, Lucien.”
Lucien frowned. “I need you to provide security at the filming site. You know, just in case someone tries to murder the cast.”
I blinked. “I think I’m going to need another brownie.”