Fan Service

Chapter 4

4

The mod was late.

Devin had been sitting at a sticky table with an honest-to-god newspaper and a ball cap pulled low over his brow trying to fly under the radar in this hick-town Dunkin’ for almost thirty minutes.

Plenty of people had come and gone. MILFs in tennis skirts. An old guy who couldn’t get the coupon on his app to work. Nobody looked twice at Devin.

Until her.

He didn’t know what he’d expected from the mod. Maybe a dweeby mom’s-basement kinda guy. Greasy, thinning hair. A stained graphic tee. Cargo pants.

This lady was…not that.

She looked like a witch fallen on hard times. With one of those rings in her nose that reminded him of Ferdinand the Bull and jet-black hair so dark it was almost purple pulled into a big sloppy bun on top of her head. Her milk-pale skin would have been hell in Hollywood. Those dark circles under her eyes a bitch to cover, not to mention the tattoos he could see peeking out from under the sleeves of the plastic-looking jacket she had on.

In purple scrubs and ratty tennis shoes, she was coming off a shift at some kind of hospital, Devin bet, maybe the ER. He perked up a little in his seat. It would be super convenient if the mod turned out to be a doctor. She could X-ray his brain.

The woman stretched her arms behind her back while she waited for her drink, the movement pulling up the hem of her scrub top just enough to reveal a sliver of creamy skin below her navel.

Devin’s throat went dry.

The goth doctor was kinda hot, he realized with a jolt. In a cut-your-balls-off, too-young-for-him kinda way. Even if she did seem dead on her feet.

Her gaze passed over him after she paid, just someone scanning their surroundings on the way to the door, but almost immediately she did a double take, stopping her stride so fast the ice in her obnoxiously large coffee cup sloshed against the sides.

Who was still drinking iced coffee in January? This might be Florida, but it was still forty-six degrees out.

After a beat of awkward eye contact, Devin got to his feet and waved. If she wasn’t the mod, she was probably a fan.

“Hey, how’s it going?”

In the span of a moment, the woman’s heavily lined eyes widened, then narrowed, then she burst out laughing. The sound was loud even over the rest of the noise in the busy coffee shop. The guy working behind the counter stopped to look on with concern, drawing the eyes of the entire line.

Uncaring, the might-be mod continued to crack up, clutching her coffee in one outstretched arm as her whole torso shook.

Devin wiped at his nose, feeling self-conscious. A quick scan confirmed his fly was closed.

Humiliation heated the back of his neck. Was this about the video?

Still laughing faintly, the lady approached his table.

“Hi.” Devin made his smile toothpaste-commercial worthy. Maybe this was some kind of nervous fan reaction. Normally, he got criers. And that one lady who tried to trick him into signing a marriage certificate every couple of years at the cons. Uncontrollable laughter could be another symptom of the starstruck.

“This is a joke, right?” the woman said when she could finally speak. “Like a super-elaborate, weird, slightly mean joke?”

She had a naturally husky alto. Sort of a Scarlett Johansson–meets–Kathleen Turner thing. Like she needed a cough drop. To his surprise, Devin found he kinda wanted to give her one.

“Uh. What?” He blinked. “I mean, no.” Why would his presence be a joke? “Listen, are you by any chance the moderator of an Arcane Files fan archive…?” Devin’s voice trailed off a bit at the end as he realized what a weird thing that was to say out loud.

The question set her off laughing again, though this time she nodded in confirmation while her shoulders shook.

“Is Eliza here?” She peered around the coffee shop like she expected someone to pop out from behind one of the tables. “This feels like an Eliza thing.”

The next thing Devin knew, she had pulled her cell phone out.

“I didn’t even know you were on Cameo,” she said, mostly to herself.

Getting annoyed, Devin stood and put his hand over the top of her phone to get her attention.

“I’m not on Cameo. And you’re not getting Punk’d either.”

The lady wiped at the corner of her eye with her sleeve. “That show ended like twenty years ago.”

At least she finally stopped laughing.

“Do you mind sitting down?” Devin had imagined this meeting as much more covert in his head.

After a brief hesitation, the lady took the seat opposite him.

As she scooted in her chair, Devin got a big whiff of her.

She smelled horrible . So harshly medicinal his eyes started to water. What’d she do? Get up this morning and bathe in a vat of Clorox?

Up close he had a better view of her hands too. She had “mind” and “body” tattooed across her dainty knuckles in a lowercase gothic font.

Jesus Christ. Devin couldn’t give you any specifics, but this chick was one hundo percent worshipping the Darkness.

He pulled out the printed NDA he’d folded into his wallet and smoothed out the creases before passing the paper across the small round table to rest right side up in front of her.

“If you could just do me a favor and sign this before we get into anything delicate.”

The mod leaned over the document. “Why does the watermark say ‘Mile High Milk Bar’?”

“Oh, you can ignore that.” Devin waved off the concern. “My lawyer added it back when I was thinking about investing in weed chocolate. The rest of the thing’s boilerplate, I swear.”

Several tense minutes passed in which she pored over the paperwork and Devin tried to breathe through his mouth.

At least the coffee here was decent, he thought, taking a sip of his latte. They’d definitely used half-and-half instead of oat as requested for his foam, but damn, he’d forgotten how much milk fat ruled.

Finally, the mod pulled a pen out of her pocket and scribbled a signature on the dotted line.

Alex Lawson.

“Do you have some kind of ID to validate that?” God, he sounded like a narc, but he’d promised the remains of his team that he’d keep the lid closed on this werewolf stuff.

Alex Lawson pursed her lips for a moment like she was thinking about telling him to shove it, but her curiosity must have won out because she dug around in her backpack and then flipped open her wallet to reveal a Florida driver’s license.

Oh. According to her birthday, Devin was eight years older than her. She must have been in a retainer when The Arcane Files premiered. Meanwhile, last month’s People magazine described him as “well-preserved.”

Devin realized he was looking too long when she raised her eyebrow.

“If no one paid you, what are you doing here?”

“Shit. Yeah. Sorry.” Devin straightened up. “So, you read my email, right?”

“Many times.” Her mouth twitched like she still thought this whole thing was funny or maybe surreal.

He’d hoped the mod would take this situation a little more seriously, but Devin decided to push on. He’d flown all the way out here. And she’d shown up. He might as well lay out the situation.

“Okay, so then you should understand that I’m looking for some kind of test or assessment that would allow me to…you know, have peace of mind that I’m still…”

“…human?”

“Well, yeah.” Devin grimaced. It sounded more absurd coming out of someone else’s mouth.

“Uh-huh.” Alex took a long pull on her orange straw. “May I ask a question?”

“Sure, go ahead.” The formal framing made him nervous, but what was he gonna do at this point, deny her?

“Why in the world would you think that I’m qualified to administer that particular exam?”

“What do you mean?” He felt his brows pull together. “You created that whole Arcane Files wiki. You spent over a decade detailing every aspect of the show’s world-building and plot points. It’s all hyperlinked and cross-referenced and categorized.”

Devin didn’t say, You’re clearly an obsessive weirdo , but the truth of it still hung in the air between them.

“Okay.” Alex folded her hands in front of her, and once again Devin found himself weirdly mesmerized by the contrast of the ink on her pale skin. “Let’s say we accept that I have some degree of…authority”—she paused to wince—“on the werewolf lore of The Arcane Files . I would hope that you, as an actor on the show, would know as well as anyone that any archival expertise I may have unwillingly retained after all these years would be fictional. Since werewolves aren’t real.”

“Yeah, I know they’re not real. Thanks.” Unless he was turning into one. “That’s why you’re the closest thing to an expert I could find. On the forum, you used to answer all those questions that people wrote in. And tons of those went beyond the TV show. You were good at the—what do you all call them?—headcanons? Those hypothetical situations involving the characters.”

Putting aside the glaring exception that for some reason she clearly thought Colby was having a ton of sex with Nathaniel.

There was no way Colby was gay. Devin would know.

“Wait…are you saying you read the forum?” Alex looked like her brain was breaking.

Devin tugged at his ear. “I mean, not all of it.” Pretty much all of it.

“And you still came here,” she said quietly to herself, picking up her drink again and sucking down, like, fifteen ounces in one huge gulp. “You know what? What the hell. Let’s do it. Go ahead and try to transform.” She started scooting back her chair, the metal legs screeching on vinyl in a way that made Devin wanna scream. “Do you want me to pull the table back too or…?”

“Wait a second.” He hooked his leg around the back of her chair so the horrible sound would stop. “I’m not going to”—he lowered his voice—“?‘transform’ in this Dunkin’.”

Alex frowned. “Why not? On the off chance you are… mighty morphing …” She giggled to herself. “You already did it on the Venice Boardwalk.”

“Not intentionally,” Devin grumbled under his breath.

God, this was all so confusing and stressful and embarrassing. And he still had a headache, so something was probably seriously wrong with his brain. At this rate, the most likely outcome of this whole fiasco was he had five more hours to live and he’d wasted his time flying out to Florida to meet some goth nerd and not even for sex.

“Wait…are you scared?” Alex looked like the thought made her a little sick.

“What? No,” Devin said automatically. No one had asked him that.

But who was he kidding? He’d come all the way out here to ask a stranger for help.

He sighed, resting his elbows on the table. “Wouldn’t you be?”

“Yeah,” she said after a moment, though she didn’t look particularly happy about it. “So, if you’re not trying to shift, how do you suppose we determine whether or not you’re afflicted?”

“I thought you might have an idea for some kind of test,” Devin admitted.

Alex bit her lip, considering.

Devin found her teeth oddly fascinating. Everyone in Hollywood had veneers or at least braces. But hers were imperfect, with an obvious gap in the front. It was cute.

Could she stick her tongue through that thing?

“Is there any chance you might have enhanced senses?”

Devin knew what she meant. On the show, being a werewolf made Colby a low-key superhero. He had night vision, and he could track suspects by scent if he had a piece of their clothing or whatever.

“I’ve had a migraine for five days,” he said. “You think that’s something?”

Devin wasn’t willing to commit to being a mutant just yet, but what if his sensitivity to light and sound and smells did come from some kind of wonky sensory overload?

Alex tapped her fingers on the tabletop while she thought. She had short nails poorly painted black.

He could tell she was intrigued by his hypothetical problem, even if she didn’t like it. You could take the nerd off the Internet but you couldn’t take the Internet out of the nerd.

“We could try the lie detector test.”

“Oh shit.” Devin had completely forgotten about the living lie detector thing Colby used to do with suspects. Basically he could zero in on their heartbeat and find irregularities in the rhythm to figure out if they were innocent or guilty when interrogating them.

“You think that’s legit?”

Alex shrugged. “From what I’ve always heard, The Arcane Files ’ writers adopted werewolf characteristics on the show from the distributed folklore of cross-cultural and cross-generational accounts of lycanthropy.”

“I’m sorry. What? ”

“Werewolves aren’t an invention of The Arcane Files ,” she said slowly, as if worried Devin might not follow. “There have been accounts of them across history going as far back as a millennium. Stories of people growing claws and fangs and fur were especially prevalent across the Germanic regions during the early sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. If you look across the records and account for translations, there are certainly common parameters for the symptoms of the infection. Evolved senses, for example, are a pretty consistent marker.”

Despite what this lady might think, Devin wasn’t born yesterday. He knew werewolves existed prior to The Arcane Files . Hello, Michael J. Fox? But his particular “werewolf misadventures” had followed the world-building of The Arcane Files almost exactly.

Eyes, claws, jaws.

Maybe it was a coincidence?

“Let’s try it.” Devin cracked his neck, trying to psyche himself up.

The problem was he didn’t know how to zero in on someone’s heartbeat. He screwed up his face and closed his eyes and tried to listen, but he got everything all at once.

The highest pitches in the place slammed against his ear drums: the scream of the milk steamer, the whirling crunch of a bean grinder, acrylic nails scraping against a foam cup.

Devin’s blood ran cold.

For days, he’d been working to actively suppress an onslaught of new and mostly unpleasant scents and sounds. Plus, he was still breathing through his mouth to keep the astringent smell of Alex out of his sinuses.

He rubbed at his temples, trying to push through, fumbling blindly, feeling like his head might crack down the center at any moment.

A loud slurping cut through the chaos.

Devin opened his eyes to find Alex with her mouth wrapped around her straw, going after the last of her iced coffee.

“You look like you’re trying to poop,” she observed.

“Thanks.” Devin dragged his palm across his face.

“Is there a problem?”

“Everything’s all jammed.” Devin felt silly describing it, but he couldn’t concentrate over all the screeching static. “My brain’s like a radio getting too many signals at once.”

Alex put aside her empty cup. She was looking at him like he was a puzzle to be solved.

“So try tuning it like a radio.”

“What do you mean?”

“Colby needed a point of connection, remember? Start with eye contact,” she said, bossy, excited. Whatever she might claim, Devin knew a superfan when he met one.

He fought not to smile a little as she stared him down, daring him to see through her.

Alex’s irises were such a dark brown that even when she sat down across from him, Devin could barely distinguish any pupil. Locking eyes with her made him feel weird. Squirmy. A fish caught on a line.

But that sort of helped. It was a strong enough sensation that he could chase it.

Devin imagined himself zooming in as he let his gaze skip down the pale column of her throat, as if checking for a pulse, the way he might with his fingers.

There —he swore he could feel it, the tiniest tremor a few inches south of her ear.

Devin put every ounce of energy he possessed into blocking out the rabble, removing everything in the room that wasn’t this woman. He tried to breathe her in, chemicals and all. Tilting his head, he followed the rushing sound of blood pumping beneath her skin through the complicated archways of her arteries to her heart.

Thump thump. Thump thump.

He had it! Her heartbeat in his tenuous grip.

“What now?” he gritted out.

“Ask me a question,” Alex said.

Oh, right. Devin went with the first thing that popped into his head.

“What’s your middle name?”

“Kiley.”

Thump thump. Thump thump.

That seemed normal. Honest.

Devin guessed he had his baseline. He knew there were other ways to tell if a person was lying. You watched for shifting eyes and flushing cheeks and sweat at the hairline. But with surprising urgency, Devin found he wanted Alex to believe what was happening to him was real. So he’d do it her way.

“What kind of car do you drive?”

Alex’s cheek twitched like she was chewing on it.

“A 2007 Honda Civic.”

“Oh god.” Devin recoiled. “Really?”

Revulsion pulled him out of his concentration. He had to channel Colby to go back under, the way he used to pretend everything around him was moving in slow motion.

Thump thump. Thump thump.

Devin detected no spike. Nothing irregular. Was he missing the change?

“Where do you work?” He squinted, trying to double down on the link.

“The vet clinic on Clinton.”

Thump thump. Thump thump.

“Dang,” Devin said. “I was kinda hoping you were a doctor.”

“You and my bank account both,” she muttered.

Thump thump. Thump thump.

Her heartbeat held unwavering in his ears. Listening to it made Devin feel weird. Almost…calm. Like meditation, which he’d historically always sucked at.

“What’s your favorite sports team?” He was running out of questions here.

“I don’t like sports.”

Thump thump. Thump thump.

“Jesus Christ.” Devin slammed his palms down on the table. “The point of this whole thing is for you to lie.”

Alex put her chin in her palm. “These are really boring questions.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying, if this was an episode of The Arcane Files , the writing would be better.” A note of petulance underscored her general air of ambivalence.

“Yeah, well, this isn’t an episode of The Arcane Files .” Devin spent so much of his life performing for other people’s entertainment. And apparently it wasn’t enough. “We’re talking about my real life here.” Besides, Brian Dempsey and the writers always turned up their noses at Devin’s on-set ad-libs.

“Since this whole thing is ripped directly from the show, could you try to make it a little more exciting?” Alex had a twinkle in her eye, like she knew exactly how uncomfortable she was making him. “At the moment we’re skewing bland.”

Devin ground his back molars together. “You want me to ask you more interesting questions?”

She shrugged. “I mean, if you can manage.”

“Okay, you know what? Fine.” Devin leaned back and crossed his arms. “When was the last time you masturbated?”

To his surprise, a smile bloomed across Alex’s face.

Apparently his outburst pleased her.

She took out her phone and checked the time. “Roughly fourteen hours ago.”

Thump thump. Thump thump.

Devin’s whole face heated. He’d expected her to balk. It was eight a.m. There was a little old lady next to them sneaking Sweet’N Lows into her handbag.

And she’d just…

“Oh no. Are you embarrassed?” Alex asked, mock sympathetic.

“No, you are,” Devin snapped, and that was just gasoline on the fire.

She shook her head at him. “I’m really not.”

Thump thump. Thump thump.

Great. She wasn’t lying. And now Devin was picturing it. Her. Those pretty hands with the stupid tattoos, sliding down her stomach and between her legs. Had she used a toy? She looked like the kind of girl to have one of those bullet vibrators, something discreet and efficient. She probably hissed at the first press against her clit, her thighs flexing as she brought her knees up, feet pressing flat to her mattress, arching into it.

Devin grunted. Fuck. He was hard in Ben Affleck’s favorite coffee chain.

He shifted in his seat, trying to subtly relieve the pressure. Since when was his dick into goth girls? He didn’t have a type exactly, but he probably hooked up with more blondes with big fake tits than not. To be fair, though, that was more LA demographics than Devin being picky.

Alex’s eyes were laughing at him, even if her mouth stayed closed.

When was the last time anyone had been this openly mocking to his face? Especially a fan…

Wait a second. Alex was a fan. And not a casual fan. Everyone on that archive had been positively gagging for Colby’s dick.

He narrowed his gaze.

This chick wanted tougher questions? Well, Devin had been raised to entertain an audience.

He had enough of a handle on this super-hearing thing that he could lean back in his chair and ask casually, “Did you ever have a crush on me?”

Alex choked on an ice cube she’d been crunching. Twin spots of scarlet appeared high on her cheekbones.

Gotcha. It was Devin’s turn to smirk. Maybe he was being a little mean, but he hadn’t slept in days and his head was killing him. Plus, she started it.

“Well?” He raised his eyebrows and waited.

“No,” Alex finally said from between her teeth.

Thumpthumpthumpthump.

“Holy shit.” Devin jolted in his chair.

She was lying. He could hear it.

“Are you attracted to me right now?” He didn’t actually mean to antagonize her. The question was out of his mouth before Devin could consider the consequences.

“No,” she said again, the word somehow drenched in loathing.

Thumpthumpthumpthump.

Upon later reflection, he realized he shouldn’t have jumped to his feet, pointed straight at her, and shouted, “You’re lying!” but Devin got swept up in the moment.

“This is ridiculous.” Alex’s chair clattered to the ground as she stood.

Whatever. He was a human lie detector, baby!

Devin indulged in a grin and realized he hadn’t smiled in a week.

He didn’t know why Alex was so worked up. She looked pretty cute, all flushed and flustered, storming out the—Shit.

“Hey, wait!” He followed her out into the humid Florida morning. “Where are you going?”

Alex fumbled in her backpack. “I’m late for work.”

Thumpthumpthumpthump.

“No, you’re not,” he said, distracted. Now that he knew how to calibrate against a specific sound, it wasn’t actually that hard. “I thought you said you were gonna help me.”

She pulled out her keys and unlocked her car.

A few feet ahead of them, a 2007 Honda Civic beeped.

“I can’t.”

Thumpthumpthumpthump.

“Still lying,” Devin said and then immediately winced.

“Fine. You’re right.” Alex opened the driver-side door. “I just don’t want to.”

Devin didn’t need super senses to know that was the truth. He jumped in front of her bumper before she could get in and reverse.

“What if I pay you?”

He wasn’t trying to be offensive, but she was wearing a patched jacket, driving a car that looked like it would break down at any moment, and she’d made that comment about her bank account inside.

By the way her face twisted up, Devin could tell immediately that Alex wanted to say no but that something held her back.

“What do you expect me to be able to do?”

“I need to figure out what’s wrong with me. Maybe we could attempt to re-create the”—he swallowed thickly—“ shifting thing in a controlled environment.”

Alex raised her eyebrows. “So you really think—?”

“I don’t know.” Devin cut her off before either of them actually said the word. “But whatever is going on…” He swallowed thickly. “I don’t think I can get through it on my own.”

After a long moment, Alex sighed. “How much?”