Smoke and Shadows (12 page)

“I get it.” Gone. But maybe not too far gone. “He didn't take his helmet.”

Amy shrugged. “ 'Cause he didn't go for a ride on his motorcycle. He walked out the front door and grabbed the network guy's cab.”

“Oh that's just fucking great.” That thing had Lee's wallet, Lee's credit cards; if it got to the airport, it could go anywhere in the world.

“You got a message for him from Peter?” Amy picked up the phone before he could answer. “No problem. I'll just call his cell.”

“That's not . . .” He frowned. “Do you hear a phone ringing?”

She glanced down at the flashing light and back up at Tony as the office line rang again. “Duh.”

“No, in the distance.” He turned slowly, trying to make it out. “It's in the dressing room.” The sound could have been coming from any one of half a dozen small rooms behind the thin interior walls, but Lee's phone had been in the charger on the coffee table. “He didn't take it with him.”

“An actor without a phone.” Heavily penciled eyebrows rose dramatically. “Isn't that against some kind of . . .”

“Amy!” Rachel's bellow cut her off. “Would you answer that damned thing, I'm on another line!”

As the familiar “CB Productions” sounded behind him, Tony ran for the basement stairs. Arra. The wizard. She'd know how to stop him. It. How to stop the shadow and get Lee back.

Except that Arra wasn't in the basement.

Tony stared at the empty chair, at the bank of monitors, and fought a sudden urge to smash something. The bitch had screwed with his memories. Made him forget. Made him forget the shadows, and the Shadowlord, and the danger they were all in.

He'd told her he was going to do something and she'd stopped him.

Maybe even stopped him from protecting Lee.

Heart pounding, he took the stairs back up to the production office three at a time, slamming the door behind him hard enough to pull curious glances from the surrounding smaller offices. Even Zev reemerged from post, a set of headphones slung around his neck like a stethoscope.

“If you'll excuse me a moment.” As his visitor nodded a confused assent, CB surged to his feet and walked over to his open door. He considered himself to be a lenient employer, but petty displays of unnecessary noise were among the few things he refused to put up with. If it was one of the writers overreacting to script changes again, he would not be pleased.

He reached the doorway in time to see Tony Foster race across the production office.

“Where's Arra?”

Amy slammed a staple through a set of sides and frowned up at him. “What?”

“Arra!”

“I'm not deaf, dipwad. She's with Daniel, checking out cliffs for a new car-blows-up-in-midair-releases-afire-demon-into-the-world shot.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere along the coast, I guess. She said she was heading home after; that just because we're running obscenely late, there was no point in her hauling ass all the way back out here.” The frown became more questioning than accusatory. “Why?”

Tony shook his head. “Where does she live?”

“I'd have to look it up.”

“A co-op on Nelson,” Zev put in unexpectedly, crossing to the desk. “Downtown Vancouver, across from the Coast Plaza Hotel. What's the problem?”

Already turning, Tony paused.
An evil wizard is about to come through a gate between worlds and kick ass.
No. Not a good idea. That just wasn't the kind of news that most people took well. “Let's just say it's none of your business.” It came out sharper than he'd intended and he regretted the sudden hurt on the music director's face, but he didn't have time to regret it for long. He had to find Lee.

“Man, you're two for two on assholes today,” he heard Amy murmur as he ran for the door.

Returning to his desk, CB bent down and plucked the piece of drawing paper out of the trash. He slipped it under the edge of his desk blotter and settled back into the large leather chair, smiling across at his network visitor. “You were saying?”

He needed wheels. Riding transit, no matter how environmentally sound, was just not going to cut it. Fortunately, he knew where there were wheels to be had.

Lee's helmet was in the dressing room. So was his biker jacket. He'd left wearing his costume; gone out into the world as James Taylor Grant. And the only good thing about that was, given their latest numbers, the odds were high no one would recognize him.

Bike keys were in the jacket pocket.

One hand gripping the smooth leather, Tony had a sudden flashback to the feel of smooth skin.

It wasn't really Lee,
he reminded himself, shrugging into the jacket.
It doesn't count.

He hadn't been on a bike in years and never one so powerful. As he guided the big machine into the city, Tony prayed that the cops were busy busting more deserving heads. If he got pulled over, he was totally screwed.

He'd never had a license.

But he had to get to Arra and this was the fastest way. He had to force her to help him. Help him find Lee. Help him free Lee. Then they'd talk about the whole forgetting thing.

Except . . .

She could just make him forget again

She was a wizard.

And
she blew things up for a living.

He was just a PA for a third rate production company. How could he stop her?

Roaring past a late '70s pickup, he squinted into the red and gold of a brilliant sunset over the distant towers of the downtown core and smiled.

Tony's message had been short and to the point.
“I've remembered. I need you to meet me at the Coast Plaza Hotel or she'll make me forget again.”

So Henry had canceled his plans for the second night in a row. Just like Tony had known he would. He couldn't quite decide if he was pleased that the young man not only needed his help but acknowledged his right to give it or if he was annoyed at being so predictable it was unnecessary to even
ask
for his help, secure in the knowledge that he wouldn't refuse. A bit of both, he decided as he parked the car.

And there was, of course, the curiosity factor. What had Tony forgotten? Who had made him forget and how had she done it?

After four hundred and fifty years, the unexpected was almost as great a motivation as concern for a friend or plain possessiveness. Impossible to separate the latter two anyway.

He spotted Tony pacing in front of the hotel, caught his eye, waved, and walked over to him.

Tony had phoned the moment he'd parked the bike behind the wizard's building. Specifically, the moment his hands had stopped shaking enough for him to actually hit the right numbers. Adrenaline had started letting him down about the time he reached the city and the last bit of the ride in rush hour traffic had been less than fun. Waiting for Henry to arrive, he'd worked through his reaction and emerged ready to be freaked about wizards and shadows and Lee once again. “Hey. Thanks for coming.”

“You knew I would; in spite of how remarkably cryptic you were.”

“Sorry. I didn't have time for
War and Peace
.” He turned and started across the wide sidewalk toward the road.

Assuming he was to follow, his concern deepening toward worry as tension rolled off the younger man like smoke, Henry caught up at the edge of the asphalt.

Traffic held them in place.

“There's an evil wizard sending shadow minions through from another world.” Tony tried to sound matter-of-fact about it; hoping his tone of voice would make the whole thing more believable. Unfortunately, he had a bad feeling that his matter-of-fact sounded more like about-to-totally-lose-it. “One of the shadows has taken over Lee. From the show. Lee plays, um . . . he plays . . .” Oh, just fucking great, now he couldn't remember
that.