Unsympathetic Magic - Laura Resnick [136]
As I was putting my phone away, a cardboard box blew out of a stairwell and hit me. I was startled, rather than hurt. The wind speed had continued increasing while I slept. It was dark and overcast today, the temperature was cooler, and it looked like we were in for a huge storm. I was glad I had included a rain slicker and a small umbrella when packing my duffle.
I called D30’s production office to see if the schedule had changed. They said no. Due to the delays caused by Nolan’s heart attack, they couldn’t afford to cancel this evening’s shoot unless it was raining all night and impossible to film, so I should still plan to be there.
I was walking several blocks east so that I could catch a subway train that would let me off close to the foundation. When I got to a major intersection, I saw that a suicidally brave cop was directing traffic there by hand; the power lines had been blown down by high winds, and the streetlights weren’t working. I found a similar situation up at 125th Street in Harlem when I exited the subway some time later.
The sky rumbled menacingly overhead as I walked to the foundation. I thought it was crazy to plan to film outside in this weather; but I also knew there was a lot of money at stake for every day of filming that D30 lost. So they’d stick to the schedule tonight unless it became physically impossible to do so.
When I arrived at the Livingston Foundation, I was a little surprised at how normal everything looked. You’d never guess that less than twelve hours ago my friends and I had been destroying an evil bokor’s lair in the basement and searching the building for zombies.
I was also surprised that I felt no serious anxiety about entering the building now. Mambo Celeste was still on the loose, after all, and this was where she had conducted her dark rituals. However, her work space was destroyed, and her snake was dead. By day, the building looked prosaic, and there were plenty of other people here. Thinking about safety in numbers, I touched the reassuring gris-gris charm that hung around my neck, then went inside the foundation to teach my class.
Considering the weather, I wasn’t surprised to find my class was almost half empty. If I were a student instead of a teacher, I’d probably have stayed home, too. Still, we had a good session, and I thought the kids who came were probably glad they had braved the elements and attended.
As class ended, one of the students who lived in Brooklyn said that her mother had just phoned to tell her not to take her usual route home. Most of the lower third of Manhattan had lost power a few minutes earlier, and the girl’s parents were worried she’d get stuck somewhere.
“How will you get home?” I asked with concern.
“I’ll take the subway to Queens and transfer there.” The girl blew out her breath on a sigh and summoned her resolve. “It shouldn’t take me too much longer to get home than it does by my normal route.”
I was startled to hear that a third of Manhattan was without power now, so I logged on to one of the foundation’s computers to check current local news. Sure enough, high winds had continued causing power failures all over the city while I’d been teaching the acting workshop this afternoon, and many neighborhoods were now without power.
As thunder boomed overhead, I turned off the computer and went to the window. Still no rain, but the sky was dark gray and roiling. I flipped open my phone and called D30 again. The connection was full of static, and the harassed production assistant’s voice kept fading out while we spoke.
I said, “We’re not still shooting this evening, are we?”
Yes, we were. Given the probability of heavy rain, though, they were looking at the prospect of