Smoke and Shadows (14 page)

“Can you substitute?”

An emphatic snort made her opinion of Henry's question clear. “And what would you suggest I substitute for glinderan root, Nightwalker?”

“That would depend on what its properties were.”

“You're serious?” When his expression made it obvious that he was, she snorted. “What do you care? Lee Nicholas isn't yours.”

“No, but Tony is and Tony cares.”

“So you're here, threatening me, because your exboyfriend . . .” She jerked her head in Tony's direction. His lip curled. “. . . has a crush on an actor?”

“I'm here, threatening you, because an evil wizard is attempting to gain a foothold in this world, my world. And the fact that I can make so ludicrous sounding a statement with a straight face should give you some indication of how serious I am.” Henry's eyes darkened as he allowed the Hunger to rise, capturing the wizard's gaze and holding it. “I will not sit by and allow that to happen and neither will you.”

When he finally released her, Arra shivered. “Fine. If you put it like that, I guess I don't have much choice.”

“Astute of you to notice.”

“Thank you.” She heaved herself up off the couch, pushing past Tony without really acknowledging him, and walked into the dining room alcove where two computers were set up on a long table. Both screens showed partially completed spider solitaire games. “I'm blocked here by the queen of spades.” Arra waved toward the laptop. “Caution and an older woman. Now that you two have arrived, it's easy enough to interpret the problem as my refusal to become involved.” She reached down and closed off the game. “Not really relevant now that my choices have narrowed a bit. This one, though . . .” The big seventeen inch monitor showed a game with almost all the cards in play. “. . . here I'm blocked by red twos. Hearts for love, diamonds for outside influences, twos for those unable to make a decision.” She turned that game off as well. “Signs are hazy; ask again later.”

“You use computer games for divination?” Henry sounded fascinated by the concept.

“Why not? Three or four games puts me into a trance state anyway. I might as well make use of it.” Dropping into a chair, she reached for her mouse. “I'll find an herbal encyclopedia on-line, then you two will have to go out and do some shopping.”

“Lee . . .” Tony began.

“Will return to the soundstage in . . .” Arra glanced at the lower right corner of the screen. “. . . a little more than four hours.”

“Yeah, but right now he's out in the city controlled by shadow and acting weird! You're a wizard; can't you do a locator spell or something?”

“I could or I could create a potion that will hopefully keep him from spending the rest of his life eating soft foods while wearing an adult diaper. I can't do both. Your choice.”

He looked at Henry who was clearly waiting for him to make the decision.
Oh, that's just fucking great; one minute I'm his and the next minute I'm in charge.
That whole on and off again, “I'm over four hundred and fifty years old and a prince and a vampire so I know best,” possessive attitude had been one of the main reasons he'd walked. There were times, and this was one of them, when he just wanted to punch Henry Fitzroy right in the fangs.
Not that I'm ever going to. And right now, I need to stop reacting and start thinking
.

They didn't know where Lee was now.

They knew where he was going to be in four hours.

They
didn't
know what condition he'd be in when the shadow left.

“Fine. Make the stupid potion.”

Wonderful. He sounded like he was twelve and a petulant twelve at that.

Fortunately, Lee was an actor; acting weird was part of the off duty persona and, in an area overpopulated by actors, most people had stopped noticing.

“All right, I got the stuff.” Tony kicked the apartment door closed behind him causing both of the wizard's cats to glare up at him like he was some kind of big, scary door-slamming army. “Can we get started now?”

“Elecampane will the spirits sustain,” Arra muttered, taking the bag. “At least according to
www.teagar-dens.com
. And the vodka?”

He handed over the bottle. “What's this for?”

“Screwdrivers.” She walked past Henry and into the kitchen. “After you two leave, I'm going to need a drink.” As they crowded into the tiny space after her, she glanced up at them and shook her head. “No sense of humor, either of you.” Cracking the seal, she poured the vodka into a Pyrex pot. “The alcohol will lower his inhibitions and open him up to the possibilities inherent in the potion.” She dumped in four tablespoons of the powdered elecampane root then: “Lemon balm to dispel melancholy. Bay leaves to protect the user from witchcraft—used sparingly because of narcotic properties which may, however, also come in handy. Interesting that even the worst stews in the world always have a bay leaf tossed in. Maybe we're supposed to hallucinate better-tasting food. Catnip used to treat hysteria and boredom.” She tossed a handful on the floor where the black and white cat and the orange and white cat began drooling all over it. “And a little valerian because, well—why not; your herbalists call it heal-all and we can use the insurance.”

Tony leaned toward the pot and then back again, nose wrinkling. “It stinks.”

“It always does.”

“It doesn't look like wizardry either. It looks like . . .”

“Like something my mother used to do,” Henry finished. “Ignoring the vodka, of course.”

“Oh, don't ignore the vodka.” Arra tipped the bottle back and took a drink.

“I get the feeling you're not taking this seriously,” Tony snarled.

She nodded toward Henry. “Ask him if I'm not taking this seriously.”

“You're taking
him
seriously, but the whole shadow thing . . .”

“Is something I've been through before and if I was taking it as seriously as you think I should be, I'd be sitting in the closet with a blanket over my head unable to function. I watched a good green land destroyed and the people right along with it. So, to put it in a way you might understand, to put it, in fact, in the vernacular of this world, if you don't think I'm taking this seriously, you can kiss my wrinkled ass!”

The rhythmic thrum of two cats purring, the buzz from the fluorescent light over the sink, the shuff of clothes rearranging as Tony shifted his weight—but mostly silence. He felt he should apologize, had a strong suspicion Henry was waiting for him to apologize, but he wasn't going to do it. He wasn't sorry—he was right. Arra had messed with his memory, let Lee be taken over by shadow, and, in spite of knowing that the evil wizard was spying on them, had no intention of doing anything but playing computer games. If he hadn't gotten his memories back, if he hadn't brought Henry with him, she'd still be
sitting
on her wrinkled ass.

And the silence continued.

Henry could wait, predator patient, for as long as he had to. Apparently, so could Arra.

Tony squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and said softly, “You'd think, having seen one world conquered, that you'd be working a little harder to keep the same thing from happening here.”

The wizard turned from the stove and stared at him for a long moment. Stared until Tony began to run over recent memories just to make sure they were still there. “I said destroyed, not conquered,” she pointed out at last.

He shrugged. “Same thing, aren't they?”

“Not always.” Her brows drew in and he felt like he did when Henry turned that kind of intensity on him. Like she was looking inside his skin. “In this case, yes.” Still frowning, she bent and picked a clean jam jar out of the recycling container beside the fridge. “Find the lid for me.”

What did your last slave die of?
He'd have asked the question out loud except that he was half afraid she'd have an answer. The lid had slipped down to the bottom of the bin, under a dozen or so washed and crushed cat food tins. Tony brushed it off against his jeans as Arra laid a strainer over the top of the jar and decanted the hot, greenish-brown vodka into it. When she held out her hand, he placed the lid in it, asking, “Shouldn't that cool down a bit before you close it?”

“Expert on potions, are we?”

“No, but . . .”

“Then be quiet, I'm concentrating.” Cupping the jam jar in both hands, she took a deep breath and, exhaling, sang a string of words that seemed to be made up mostly of vowels held together with a couple of els. Henry stepped back. The cats roused themselves from their catnip stupor and raced for the bedroom. The liquid began to glow. Placing the jar carefully on the counter, she took her hands away. Multiple lines of tiny lights swirled through the potion.

Okay,
that
looked like wizardry.

From the glance she shot him, Tony was momentarily afraid he'd actually spoken.

“You'd better hurry if you want to get to the soundstage on time,” she said, moving over to the sink and running cold water over her hands. “Get that down him before the last light goes out and he should be fine.”

“Should?”

“You won't know until you try. He might be fine without it. He might not be fine with it.”

“Oh, that's helpful.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You have my number; you can let me know how it turns out.”

“I thought you were coming with us.”

“No. I made the potion. I'm done.”

Catching sight of Henry's expression, Tony remembered that the vampire almost always had his own agenda. “The shadow within Lee Nicholas cannot be allowed to take the information it carries back to its master.”

“What kind of information is an actor going to pick up?” Arra snorted, drying her hands on a blue-checked dishcloth. “Apple martinis are in. Nicotine is a memory aid, not a poison that'll take years off your life. And if you can't manage a vacant expression 24/7, botox will take care of those embarrassing facial lines.”

As much as Tony hated to admit it, at least where Lee was concerned . . . “She's got a point, Henry. You don't have to come either,” he added as Henry's attention switched over to him. “I appreciate your help, I really do, but you've got me what I need; I'll take care of Lee, then meet you at the condo.”

“The condo?”

“Yeah, you know. I don't want you to think I've forgotten about . . . uh . . .” He tapped the inside of his left wrist with the first two fingers of his right hand.

Arra rolled her eyes. “He . . .” She nodded toward Tony. “. . . hasn't forgotten the offer he made you . . .” An identical nod in Henry's direction. “. . . earlier. You feed. He bleeds. As long as I'm not on the menu, feel free to discuss it. I'm not squeamish.”

“No, you're terrified.” Henry was using his Prince of Man voice, as commanding of attention as his Prince of Darkness although in a different way. Slightly different. Death wasn't quite so imminent. “You hide it well, but I saw it on your face two nights ago when the stunt went wrong, and I can smell it on you now. It clings like the smoke from a crematorium.”

Nice image.
Tony leaned a little forward and sniffed.

They both ignored him.

“We're all going out to the soundstage,” Henry continued, “because any information that shadow takes back is too much. We have no defenses here against wizardry and, unless we want to see this land destroyed, he can't know that. Evil is never content with what it has. It has to keep moving, keep acquiring. That shadow must be stopped before the Shadowlord is convinced we're ripe for conquering.”

“Too late.” Her smile held no humor. “Not the first shadow, remember?”

“But one of the first. Perhaps it took time for us to muster our defenses; he can still be convinced.”

“We're not defenseless,” Tony broke in. He jabbed a finger toward Arra. “She can defend us.”

“She is the cat's mother.”

“What?”

Arra draped the cloth over the oven door handle, carefully spreading it flat. “Just something my gran used to say. If you know a person's name, use it.”

“Fine.
You
can defend us.” Another jab for emphasis. “If you destroy the shadow, he'll know we're not helpless.”

“If I destroy that shadow, he'll send more.” Her lip curled as she straightened and turned. Under lowered brows, her pale eyes were hard. “Do you think we didn't destroy them the last time? That we sat around with our thumbs up our collective asses? We fought back. And we lost.”