Smoke and Shadows (36 page)

“No.”

“No?” One hand clutched at the dash, the other at the side of his seat, his fingers almost a joint deep in the cheap vinyl, and he was still being flung about within the loose confines of the seat belt.

“No, I wasn't
the
senior.”

Her emphasis was slightly different than his. Almost bitter. Had she thought she should be? Tony added that new question to the bottom of the list and returned to the top. “Why were you in my apartment?”

“Honestly, I'm not sure. You and your Nightwalker are the only people on this world who know me and the sun was up . . .”

What there was of an answer sounded like truth, so he let it go. “Where did you go yesterday?”

Her sigh was deep enough to lightly mist the inside of the windshield. “Whistler. I had a foolish idea of finding CB and telling him everything.”

Again an interesting emphasis. Everything? He had a suspicion Arra's everything included a few somethings he didn't yet know about, but before he could ask, she continued.

“I saw him with his daughters and I realized that a man who has no idea he's being played by an eight year old and an eleven year old couldn't help me.”

“Harsh.”

“Perhaps. There's always the chance I just chickened out at the last minute and ran.”

Given her history, Tony found the latter more likely. “Uh, you know that if the police stop you, you'll be a lot later getting home.”

“The police don't see this car.”

“Damn.”

“I move from world to world and this is what impresses you?”

“
This,
I understand. And . . .” Another light changed after only a moment of red. “. . . I was also impressed by the maggots.”

The corner of her mouth he could see twisted up into a close approximation of a smile. “Fair enough. What happened to the girl?”

“What girl?”

“Kate.”

“You know about Kate?”

“I was there. I saw. I needed to see.” Her tone lengthened the list of questions even further—although the new ones hadn't quite acquired actual words.

“Henry took her home.” At least he assumed Henry took her home. He'd been dropped off first and although Kate was sprawled across pristine upholstery in the back seat of the BMW still totally out of it, she was smiling. He'd reminded himself he trusted Henry, had stripped and fallen into bed. Sleep hadn't been long in coming and he really wished he hadn't thought about sleeping. Images from the dream played out like a slide show in his head.

Arra's voice disrupted the show. “You found a way without me.”

“It's easier with you.”

“Not always.”

Okay. Enough was enough. “Stop doing that!”

“Doing what?”

“Adding another layer. Talking to you is like opening one of those nested doll things. You open one and there's another. I get that you're thinking things through, working out old shit—really I do get that—but every time you open your mouth, you're saying six or seven things besides the stuff you're saying out loud, but you're leaving me to figure out what those things are! How come I have to be the hero
and
figure all this shit out?” Whoa. Where had that come from? He didn't even feel better having said it.

“Maybe I should just drive.”

“Yeah. Maybe you should.”

Arra screeched into her parking place at the co-op, turned off the car, tossed Tony her keys, and disappeared. Damp air rushed in through the open window to fill the empty space.

He swallowed as his ears popped. “Guess I'm taking the scenic route.”

It took him a while to lock up the car and figure out which key went where. By the time he got to the apartment, Whitby had his head buried in a bowl of food, but Zazu was nowhere in sight. Dropping his backpack by the door, Tony followed Arra's voice into the living room to find her with her butt in the air and
her
head nearly under the couch. Wincing, he looked away.

“Look, I said I was sorry. What more do you want?” The wizard was sounding increasingly desperate with every word.

“Is everything okay?”

“She's making me pay.”

“Pay?”

“For abandoning her.” Shuffling backward on her knees, Arra straightened. “No one does guilt like a cat.”

“And you were only gone one night.”

From the way Arra narrowed her eyes she'd picked up the subtext.
Just think of how she'll feel if you abandon her for good.
But all she said was, “Grab that catnip lizard out of the basket. It's her favorite toy.”

Tony grabbed the stuffed animal that looked the most like a lizard and tossed it across the room.

“This isn't a lizard, it's a platypus!”

Say what? “Who the hell makes catnip platypuses?”

“Platy
pi
. I get them at a local craft fair.” She ducked back under the couch. “Zazu, sweetie, see what I've got for you.”

“It's almost quarter to ten. We don't have time for this.”

Arra shuffled backward again. “Don't tell me, tell her.”

Tony snagged the platypus out of the air as she tossed it back to him. As Arra stood and headed for the kitchen, he suddenly realized she expected him to coax the cat out from under the couch. “I don't know anything about cats!”

“Good. Maybe a fresh approach will work.”

He thought about refusing, decided there was no percentage in it, and took up the position. Zazu glared at him from what was clearly just out of reach. Wait a minute. Just out of Arra's reach . . . He wasn't tall but he had a good four inches on her.

Grabbing the cat by a foreleg he started to slide her across the hardwood floor and nearly lost his hand at the wrist.

Except that it seemed to have worked. Whether she was satisfied now that she'd drawn blood or whether she was so mortally insulted she wasn't staying under the couch for another moment, Tony couldn't tell—nor, he supposed, did it matter. Point was, as he nursed his injuries, Zazu swaggered toward the kitchen, tail in the air.

Tony followed with a little less swagger, sucking his wrist.

“That Nightwalker of yours teaching you bad habits?”

“What? Oh.” A final lick and he let his arm fall to his side. “No. And he's not mine.”

She tested the temperature of the alcohol in the pot and began adding herbs. “Does he come when you call?”

“Well, yeah, but . . .”

“That's more than you can say about cats and most people would tell you that these two are mine.”

“Most people?”

“Some people know better. Pass me the bay leaves.”

As he handed them over, Tony wondered just how disturbed he should be about finding the smell of warm vodka and catnip comforting. A sharp pain in his right calf drew his attention down to an imperious black and white face. “What!”

Arra snickered and, stirring with her right hand, tossed him the paper bag of catnip with her left. “Try this. Why so jumpy when I showed up at your place this morning?” she continued as he tossed a handful of the dried leaves on the kitchen floor.

“Why was I so jumpy?” He stared at her in disbelief. “I don't know, maybe because I'm in the middle of breakfast and this wizard who might have been taken over by shadow—based on the whole ditching and disappearing thing—suddenly appears in my apartment! Not to mention being caught with my dick waving around.”

“Ah, I see.”

At first he thought she was laughing at him, but what he could see of her expression looked serious.

“Still have my thermoses?”

“In my backpack.”

“Get them.”

If anyone had
reason
to be jumpy . . . He set the pair of thermoses on the counter by the stove. “You know, I've got to say, this morning, even after I knew you weren't shadow-held, I was concerned about you.”

“Why?”

“You looked bummed.”

“Bummed?” The first soup ladle of potion splashed into the first thermos with a hollow sound. “I suppose that's as good a word as any.” The sound grew higher pitched and less hollow as the thermos filled. “The shadow from Alan Wu touched me before I destroyed it. Only for an instant, but in that instant I knew what the shadow knew.” She set the first thermos to one side and began filling the second. “It is one thing to extrapolate the probable fate of your home; it's another entirely to see it.”

“I'm sorry.”

“About what?”

He shrugged, made uncomfortable by the question. “I'm not sure. It's a Canadian thing.”

Her snort sounded more like the Arra he'd started to know. Setting down the ladle, she wrapped her hand around each thermos in turn, singing out the vowels she'd used to make the first potion sparkle. After the whole beam-me-up-Scotty, now-you-see-me-now-you-don't it seemed unnecessarily . . . twee. She snorted again when he mentioned it.

“All magic involves the manipulation of energy. Lesser magics like this are, as you say, unnecessarily twee because lesser wizards need their cue cards to get the desired result. Doing it their way is, therefore, easier.”

Tony didn't see the “therefore.” “So what's the cost?”

“Cost?” She paused, the second lid half tightened.

“Yeah, there's
always
a cost.”

“You're really a very remarkable young man.”

Pointing out that flattery didn't answer the question seemed rude, so he waited. He was still waiting when she screwed the cup back on over the lid and passed the first thermos back to him. He was good at waiting. By the time the second thermos was ready, Arra'd realized that.

She sighed. “The more energy manipulated, the more it takes of the wizard's personal strength.”

Tony nodded. That sounded reasonable. As he tucked the potion into his backpack, he decided not to make the obvious “you're so strong” declaration. In the last twenty-four hours, Arra had destroyed a shadow, driven to Whistler and back, snuck onto the soundstage to watch him and Henry deal with the gate, spent the night away from home wrestling with personal demons—probably not literally, but he wasn't ruling it out—popped into Tony's apartment, shielded her speeding car from the cops, popped into her own apartment, and zapped two liters of potion. Energy manipulation levels: high. Wizard's personal strength . . .

“Give me a minute to change.”

“Change?”

“Clothes.” She tossed the word over her shoulder on the way to the bedroom, adding, just before she closed the door behind her: “You won't make it out to the studio by 11:15 unless I drive, and I reek.”

She was right. Not about the reeking—not by guy standards anyway although he had no idea how women her age defined reek—but about the driving. Sunday transit schedules sucked as far as hitting the burbs in a hurry.

So, wizard's personal strength: energizer bunny levels.

In fact, ever since he'd reminded her about the cats it had been like he'd pulled a plug and the momentum of that initial “oh, my God” was keeping her moving. The faster she moved, the more she did, the less she had to deal with the crap the shadow had called up when it touched her.

And hope it didn't happen at 80K.

Or at 120K, for that matter . . .

Both hands white-knuckled around the shoulder strap, Tony couldn't decide whether he preferred eyes open or eyes closed. Eyes open, he could see his imminent death in a fiery car crash approaching and prepare. Eyes closed, he could pretend he wasn't in a hatchback whipping diagonally through westbound traffic and occasionally, when things were tight, into the oncoming lane.