Keeper of the Shadows

chapter 19



She was making love with Mick, and then he was Robbie, and then he was Johnny. As he moved on top of her, inside her, he was constantly changing, shifting, and every different shift was reflected multiple times in the mirrors, like hundreds of movie screens projecting them.

Barrie looked into the mirrors, at the muscles rippling in his back as he moved inside her, and she saw the trident tattoo there, and with every shift only the tattoo stayed the same....

* * *

Barrie started awake. It was still night, and Mick was sleeping at her side, his arm flung over her in a strong and protective embrace. As she regained full consciousness she was all too aware of the length of his body against hers, the intoxicating feeling of his bare skin covering hers....

She forced herself to shut off the sensations that flooded instantly through her and eased out from under his arm. She sat up carefully, an inch at a time, so as not to wake him.

And then she leaned over him to look at his back. The trident tattoo from her dream was there on his left shoulder blade.

But that’s not right, she thought with a shiver. And her dream danced in her head.

She rose slowly from the bed and crept out of the room.

Outside in the hall, she eased the bedroom door closed and moved noiselessly into the living room.

She went to the entertainment console and grabbed the Otherworld DVD from its shelf, then hurried to the computer she had set up on her desk in the corner.

She slid the DVD into the disk drive and used the remote to click through the movie until she came to a scene that was etched in her memory, as it doubtless was etched in the memory of millions of teenage—and not-so-teenage—fans: the three young stars bathing nude in a hot spring. Barrie bit her nails as she watched through the scene, focusing intently on Johnny and Robbie. Especially on the lingering shots of their naked backs.

Then she suddenly leaned forward and skipped through to the end of the film, the final confrontation in the mirrored throne room of the Avalon Ballroom. She leaned forward and paused on a shot that showed a glimpse of Johnny Love’s bare back, so brief it took her several attempts to freeze the specific frame. When she finally did, it was there: a trident tattoo, just like the one on Robbie’s back.

But in the hot springs scene, only Robbie had the tattoo.

“What are you doing?”

The voice came from behind her, and she spun to face Mick, standing shirtless in the arch of the doorway.

He looked from her face to the frozen image on the computer screen. And she could see a million things on his face, none of which she could interpret.

Her voice was shaking as she spoke. “Johnny didn’t have a tattoo like that. Only in this last scene.”

Mick was silent.

“I guess you’re going to say you all got matching tattoos some time during the movie, between the hot springs scene and the last scenes.” She turned to the computer screen and pointed to the trident on Johnny’s shoulder. “But that’s not a fresh tattoo. The colors are faded. It’s yours. That’s not Johnny, that’s you. You forgot to change it when you shifted.”

She turned back to face him and spoke softly. “And I know you could do it. If anyone in the world could shift into Johnny and make everyone believe it, it was you.”

He looked at her in the dark. “Yes. It’s me. I was playing him. That’s why the set was closed.”

Barrie felt a dull pain in her heart. “He did die on set.”

Mick looked away. “Yes.”

“How?”

“They told me he OD’d. It wasn’t hard to believe, not the way he and DJ—well, all of us—had been partying. Mayo and Branson came to me and said that Johnny was dead and the film was dead, too, if we didn’t figure out a way to shoot the last scenes.”

His face crumpled; he looked haunted and terribly young. “I was a kid. I was crazy with...loss, grief, fear, a million things that I couldn’t even put into words. And I was an actor.” Now his face was bitter. “It’s hard for anyone outside the business to grasp the mind-set. Your every move is orchestrated by other people. My whole life was based on doing what directors and producers told me to do.”

He swallowed. “They said I should do it for Johnny, that it would make everyone remember him, his last role. Of course the only thing they cared about was getting the film in the can, but I believed them.”

Mick closed his eyes briefly and then opened them. “I shifted,” he said. “I shifted and I played him. The last scenes are all me. If you look at the editing, we’re never on-screen together. They had a stand-in on set with me for two-shots, and a stand-in playing me when I was playing Johnny.”

“That’s why he seems so different at the end,” Barrie murmured, without realizing she was speaking until she heard her own words.

“But I don’t know who killed him. By the time I’d worked it out that someone might have, it was too late to look into it. I didn’t exist anymore, anyway.”

“And when were you going to tell me all that? Or were you?”

It was as if she’d stabbed him in the heart. “Barrie. I was.” He put his hands to his head and paced. “I’m not used to telling that truth to anyone. Please believe me. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that it’s going to take time.”

He looked at her pleadingly, but she shook her head, slowly at first and then violently. “I don’t know. I can’t think!” she exploded. She sat on a couch and instantly sprang up again. “I have to think. I think you should go.”

He flinched as if she’d slapped him, but he nodded. “Then I will.”

She felt her heart breaking as she watched him walk out. She stood without moving until she’d heard the front door close.

Something brushed her leg, and she nearly jumped out of her skin, then realized Sophie was at her feet.

Barrie picked up the cat...and burst into tears.