His aunt’s eyes narrowed. “He cut you,” she said. Sure enough, there was blood on his neck where Bing’s wolf teeth had sliced a shallow wound.
“It is nothing.”
“You are a god now.”
Walter frowned and his expression wavered. Confusion and delight chased each other across his features.
“You’re Walter,” Bing said sternly, suddenly realizing what he needed to do. “And you need to get it together. The set is in chaos and people are hurt.” Walter had the softest heart of any man he’d ever met. If anything could bring him back to reality, it would be the idea that someone was hurting. “Look around you,” he said as he slowly stood up. His muscles ached with the effort. He had been doing too much lately, and he was weak from the strain, but he kept his eyes on Walter, knowing that his next words were going to devastate his friend. “You hurt them, Walter. Stop this now and get people the help they need.”
Walter looked around the floor. The stuntmen all nursed injuries of one kind or another, but it was the one with the broken collarbone who was the worst. He lay where Bing had pulled him, half-hidden behind the makeup table. His face was pale and sweaty, and he clutched the hand of a woman who stood protectively over him.
“I hurt them?” Walter said in a whisper. “Me?”
Sand jerked her hand back. “They attacked you.”
“For the movie,” Bing said firmly. Then he looked hard at the director. “He lost himself in his role,” he said, giving the explanation a little mental push.
Taide blinked back to himself and abruptly called out, “Cut! Great work, everybody. Walter, don’t touch your neck.” He abruptly snapped his fingers at a cameraman. “Charlie! Get a close-up of his neck. That’ll be important. Stay still, Walter. Ms. Chen, could you back away a step? Yes, and put that prop down. It’s probably heavy.”
Just like that, the business of moviemaking resumed. Charlie came in for the close-up of Walter’s neck while Sand backed away with confusion in her eyes. Then she handed over the cudgel to the prop master with a benign smile, as if she were a doddering old lady. She wasn’t—Bing didn’t need his special sight to know that—but it was all the normal humans would see. Especially since every one of them was steeped in denial about this whole day.
That was the crazy thing about normal humans when faced with the paranormal. They just blocked it out and went on as if kangaroos were all over Wisconsin and werewolves were just—
“Neat special effect,” Taide said as he came over to shake Bing’s hand. “I would have sworn you were a wolf. Hey, next time dial it back, okay? Walter’s the star here, and we’re in deep shit if he gets hurt. Got it?”
“Yes, I understand….” His voice trailed way.
Taide had already moved on to the next phase of shooting. Even better, the ambulance arrived, adding a normal kind of chaos to the scene as the paramedics rushed in to take care of the stuntman with the broken collarbone.
Excellent. That gave Bing time to grab Walter and try to mitigate this disaster. Except the man was busy, moving from stuntman to stuntman, apologizing for what he’d done. He grabbed ice packs and Ace bandages and handed them out with a worried look in his eyes. In short, he was doing whatever he could to make up for taking out his entire stunt team.
They forgave him.
It was hard to stay mad at a guy who was as genuinely sorry as Walter was. Besides, these were stuntmen. After a few minutes they seemed more impressed than angry. Injuries were common in their line of work, and anyone who could fight as well as Walter had deserved respect.
Walter finished speaking with the last of the stuntmen and then went on to the rest of the crew. He was full of apologies and quickly asked if there was anything needed to set everything to rights. Walter led with his greatest strength—genuine kindness—and it worked. Ruffled feathers were soothed, fears were put to rest, and smiles followed in his wake.
Until the moment Walter made it to Bing.
Suddenly the man’s charm faded and any semblance of an apology disappeared. He squared off, eye to eye, with Bing and said three words.
“My office. Now.”
Then, not even waiting for an answer, he spun on his heel and walked away. Excellent. It was time to figure this out—away from prying eyes.
But he didn’t relish having to explain to Walter that he was being possessed by the Monkey King.
