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The knife looked very real

"Hey, enough! Let her go!" Alistair said, willing his feet to move toward Jenny and her costumed attacker

Jenny was no movie femme fatale She implored him, her blue eyes wide and filled with terror "Alistair!" His naain

Then he stood dead still The thing attacked and, with a hard, quick motion, drew the blade across Jenny’s throat Blood didn’t merely leak fro sounds that accompanied the blood, and it was cut off within seconds

There was a scent in the air Hot and tinny and fetid

Because it wasn’t stage blood being spewed

The costumed form dropped Jenny andthe creepy and thevillains Monsters, vaic, reason--turned off, his terror was so great

And he fell toward the floor as blackness seemed to overwhelm his vision

He fell into a pool of blood And he knew, from its smell, that no, it wasn’t part of any special effect

It was Jenny’s death, all bloody Bloody, and real

Vengeance

In Hollywood, every character needed a naeance stood hidden, watching, feeling such a sense of glee, it was al The scent of blood remained; the first fewreels of eance, crazy Stone-cold crazy But that wasn’t the case Crazy could not have worked out all the technicalities and the precise tiured out everything that was needed to pull off the stunt

Crazy could never act it all out, as it one better than could possibly be i, falling, knocking hiuard station

And now…the blare of sirens in the street

Cops would soon be crawling all over the place But the cops would never suspect Because the cops didn’t know the studio, and the cops didn’t know the past, and the cops would never recognize the brilliance that was bringing it all to fruition

Ah, toeance would becoeance would throw off the assuo about day-to-day business…

And no one would ever, ever know

Not in this lifetihed aloud in the night; no eance couldn’t be heard

It was all too good to be true…

Tieance needed to savor the ood, and vengeance eet

And Vengeance had just begun

1

Madison Darvil wasn’t really ahen the phone rang She was in that delightful stage of half sleep, when the alarone off…but the snooze button was on and she had a fewHer phone was loud and strident She rolled over groping for it, swearing softly as it dropped to the floor and she had to lean down to get it, banging her head on the bedside table

"Shit!" she muttered, and was further humiliated when she realized she’d hit Answer as she’d picked up the phone--and the caller had heard her

"Hello?" she said frowning Seven thirty-three Who was calling this early?

She could hear a soft chuckle, and then soroaned

"Yes, Alfie?" Alfie Longdale was her assistant at the studio She loved the fact that she had an assistant and she loved Alfie One day, he was going to rule the world, his eye for detail was so exceptional