When a vigilante group starts targeting celebrities, a bestselling author fears she’s next.
That’s the creepy premise of The Last Celebrity by Madeleine Henry, due out March 10 from Little A. It all starts when a pop star gets kidnapped in front of a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden by a group called the Nomen. “They leave behind a chilling manifesto leveled against the cult of celebrity, and the names of 49 other rising stars about to disappear forever. Bestselling author Fiona Hart is on the list,” the book’s official synopsis teases.
“One by one, targets vanish without a trace. Fiona can’t shake the feeling that her every move ― on a public street or even in the privacy of her own apartment ― is being watched,” it continues. She refuses to let herself be ruled by fear, but that’s before her friend Gwen Gordon goes missing too. It’s clear time is running out for her to unravel the Nomen’s plot.
As the synopsis puts it, “the last celebrity in hiding will risk anything to save herself and those she loves.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Pop star Myra Mane was kidnapped in Madison Square Garden last night while performing for her Wet Animals Tour in the first abduction claimed by the Nomen.
The Garden lost power at 10:03 p.m., when malware commanded the system to shut down. The stadium, fully booked, went dark. It lost all HVAC, sound, surveillance and other electronic security measures. All elevators froze. All doors were left open.
Members of the Nomen, a group calling for government regulations on fame, rushed Myra offstage in blackout conditions. Witnesses report seeing white uniforms in the dark.
After power was restored at 10:21 p.m., the Nomen played a never-before-seen video on the arena’s jumbotrons. This recording named their next 49 celebrity targets, including Lane Driver, Blake, Margot Kelly, Dwayne Jackson and Carson Beck, among other actors, athletes, TV personalities, influencers and musicians.
Their headshots were shown during a taunting voice over. “Aren’t they beautiful?” it began, then described fame as tyranny. It claimed celebrity culture has created permanent class differences that are anti-meritocratic and un-American. After the last headshot, all screens went black. The final line pronounced to a dark arena, “The only cure to seeing the same faces everywhere will be to see them nowhere.”
At least 32 employees are being held for questioning.
During one interrogation, an usher refused all questions. Instead, he tried to carve the Nomen’s symbol — an anonymous face — into the table with a pen. When the pen split, drowning his palm in black ink, he whispered, “I have dipped my hand in shadows.”
Until last night, the Nomen had been silent for 10 months, since their New Year’s Eve attack. On Dec. 31, the group hacked into ABC’s livestream as the ball descended on Times Square. They used the opportunity to introduce themselves and announce their mission on national TV. They said they were “vigilantes” out for “retribution.” After their message ended, the ball burst into confetti stamped with their symbol.
They call themselves Nomen from nomen nescio, Latin for “I do not know the name.”
Chapter 1
There’s one blank envelope in my mail.
I turn around in my lobby.
The front desk is deserted.
But the doorman, Alan, was just here.
He was right behind the counter, standing in a suit and tie. I asked about his weekend. Then Alan handed me my mail — three envelopes, two magazines — the way he does every morning. But now he’s gone. The entrance to the building is still. The glass doors reveal a stream of New Yorkers trekking to work in dark neutrals.
The envelope is stuffed but light, as if it’s packed with tissue — nothing but crepe paper, layers of empty padding. I pinch it, slow. Whatever’s inside rustles in a barely audible whisper. It really does feel like there’s only tissue paper inside. I turn the envelope over, slide my finger under the flap. Alan is still missing. Someone across the street raises her hand, hailing a cab. Inside the envelope, I see confetti. The triangles are all bright, sunny colors: yellow, neon pink and saturated tangerine. They look like pieces of a shattered rainbow.
All are stamped with the same dark symbol.
I drop the envelope.
“Fiona?” Alan crosses the threshold.
The confetti is everywhere — in my sneakers, across the floor. Alan leans closer to the bright spray of faces. The shreds are stamped on both sides, so every single piece stares back. He gives me a baritone apology that sounds sincere. But it doesn’t explain how this got into the building, whether someone who lives or works here was involved.
“Do you know who did this?” I ask.
“It won’t happen again.”
It’s not an answer.
I ask if there are cameras in the mailroom — no.
I ask who sorts the mail — he does. Well, when he’s here. Alan doesn’t need to say the rest out loud: The other daytime door man, Jayden, was on duty for the past two days. He was the one who sorted this mail. But I know Jayden. After years of seeing him twice a week, I know he lives in Queens with his wife and three kids. I know he’s saving for a house, and every spare dollar he earns goes toward that. Jayden has integrity. He respects this job. He’d never take an envelope from someone off the street and just slip it in my box. Or worse, put it there himself.
Alan promises to get to the bottom of this as he kneels. I put my coffee and mail down to join him. The triangles are the same size and shape as X-Acto blades. We push them into a jagged mound. Even after the floor is clean, Alan is still apologizing. For once, he seems nervous. I’ve never seen him like this. Alan is a young mid-thirties, but he usually carries himself like he’s older, with a mellow professionalism. Even when I’m up early enough to catch him getting to work — in a jersey and flat-brim hat, carrying his scooter into the lobby — he moves with quiet confidence.
Now he wraps his tie around one fist.
Tugs it multiple times.
“I should’ve double-checked the mail,” he says. “And I shouldn’t have left the desk. I thought I saw something outside, but it wasn’t — it was nothing.” He swears twice that it was nothing, still crouched low on the floor. I get the feeling that I’m not seeing the full picture, that maybe I should go upstairs and read the news. I stand and grab my things, telling Alan that everything’s okay, unsure if I believe it. He promises this won’t happen again. He swears he’s going to get a broom and wipe these off the face of the earth.
I step in the first elevator to arrive.
The door drifts shut.
Now I’m alone.
The buttons here remind me of the faces I just saw on the floor. These have fixed expressions too. I press the button for my floor. The elevator rises so smoothly I don’t feel it move at all. Each floor number appears in a red flash, pulsing like a siren on mute. I shouldn’t be afraid. I’m almost home. I only left a few minutes ago to pick up my morning coffee. But now I can’t shake the idea that when I do get home, I might not be the only one there.
I jab the floor button under mine.
The elevator stops just in time.
I step warily into a hall of closed doors.
Each is seven feet tall, made of gleaming blond wood. I study every one on my way to the other side, hearing nothing but the pulse in my neck, the nearest intersection. At the end of the hall, I survey the empty stairwell before darting up to the next level.
My floor is bare too.
Maybe no one’s waiting for me.
I creep quietly toward my apartment.
With one hand on my turned key and the door open just a foot, I scan carefully inside. My place is mostly blue, anchored around a dark blue kitchen island, and then, a distant navy sofa. There are tributes to the ocean throughout, echoing my underwater fantasy series, The Redfins. The first book came out eight years ago. Today I was planning to work on the third. I take in everything from my desk to the kitchen to the living area, where both swivel chairs are still.
On my left, a photo of a great white shark extends for 20 feet. He’s swimming right this way, carved with scars like extra gills down to his tail.
Everything looks as I left it.
I step forward, grabbing a pair of scissors off my desk before checking the bedroom, closet and bathroom. Nothing has been moved. In every mirror, I’m the only one staring back. I return to my desk. It crosses my mind that I might’ve carried one of the faces back. I scan both sleeves, the hem of my sweats. But I don’t find anything, not one smiling shard.
At my laptop, I check the news.
Myra Mane.
Myra Mane.
“White uniforms in the dark.”
I read past the front pages in shock, so deep into one newspaper that I find myself in the obituaries. I keep reading, my browser dividing into more tabs. The Nomen came back. 49 targets. And now faces for me. I picture them on the floor, like something out of a toddler’s birthday party. Alan’s head in a funereal bend as he took them in. But the Nomen couldn’t have named … me.
