Smoke and Shadows (42 page)

“Something worse,” Tony muttered moving the lamp into place. “Way to be specific.”

“Let it go.”

“How?”

Henry wisely decided not to answer. “The gate's about to open.”

They were alone in the soundstage. The gate opened and closed and they were still alone. Wherever—whoever—the last shadow was, it wasn't going home. Not yet. Tony had no idea what the hell he was going to do tomorrow morning.
Not going to be as simple as turning on a light,
he acknowledged, his hands shaking as he rolled up the cable.

“Are you all right?”

“Sure. Fine.” He'd never felt the pull of the gate so strongly. Had actually found himself stepping toward it, his body practically vibrating with need. New call, familiar feeling. Only a white-knuckled grip on the sound board had held him in place. Not moving—not answering—hurt.

“This shadow-taint of yours; did the wizard mention how we can remove it?”

“No, because that would require a lack of ambiguity.” Cables stowed, he straightened. “Just takes time, I guess.”

In the dim glow of the emergency light, he saw Henry frown. “It seems stronger than it was.”

“Seems stronger or
is
stronger.”

The vampire shrugged.

“Okay, then, let's not worry about it.” Plastering on a fake smile, Tony added
shadow-taint getting stronger
to his list of things to worry about. Right under
something worse
and
more terrible options
.

He briefly considered adding
finds dark comforting
to the list but comforting wasn't quite the right word. Walking back to the rear doors, he felt hidden, safe, and hyperconscious of the man walking at his side—but then Henry'd been on his list for a few days now.

The circle of light on the back wall announced trouble of a different sort.

Crap. Security.

They hadn't been seen yet, but they were seconds away from discovery.

Grabbing Henry's arm, Tony threw him against the wall, hooked a leg between his, and locked their bodies together at mouth, chest, and groin—realizing too late that Henry might not understand the game.

Fortunately, Henry seemed willing to play regardless.

“Hey! You there! Break it up!”

Pulling away, Tony turned, faked surprise at the sight of the rent-a-cop, and murmured, “Wait here, babe.” As red-gold brows flicked up, he turned and stepped forward, launching into a low-voiced and urgent, “this is who I am and I'm trying to impress this guy with the whole working in television thing.”

The security guard rolled his eyes but allowed that he understood a guy doing what a guy had to do to get laid. “Just don't fucking do it here!”

“We're on our way out.”

“Good.” He'd clearly already dismissed them and was anxious to move on. He had a script waiting, after all. “Lock up behind you.”

Henry said nothing until the door was closed and locked, then he smiled, his teeth too white in the darkness. “Very clever.”

“Thanks.” Tony just barely managed to resist the urge to wipe his mouth. He'd kissed Henry a thousand times, but this was the first time he'd tasted blood. Kate's blood, Tina's blood, his blood . . . older blood.

He knew it was all in his head.

It was nothing but . . . shadow-stuff.

The shadows had surrounded her, a ring of darkness she couldn't break. Trapped. No escape. If she banished one, the others would attack. She drew herself up to her full height and began to gather power, determined to make them pay as high a cost as possible for their victory.

As they moved closer, she could hear their voices in her head.

“So I'm to be responsible for your lives as well?”

In answer, faces began to flicker around the circle. Lee. Mouse. Kate. Ben. Tony . . .

. . . Kiril, Sarn—eyes bulging, tongues protruding as they were nailed to the boards—Haryain, heavy white brows raised above his glasses.

“What's your damage?” he asked in another's voice. “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.”

“This . . .” She waved a hand around the circle, the shadows bending toward the gesture. “. . . isn't my job. I won't let it be my job.”

Haryain snorted. “Who says you get a choice?”

Arra jerked awake. Squinting up at the pair of monitors, she reached for her mouse with one hand while wiping away drool with the other. There was always a choice.

There was always another gate.

“
S
O HOW'D the date go?”

“Date?”

“With Zev? Friday night? I was going to call you, but I had a busy weekend.” Amy laid a salacious emphasis on
busy
and waggled her eyebrows in Tony's general direction.

“Barry?”

She punched his shoulder. “Brian! Dipwad. Now tell.” Setting her extra-grande mochaccino on the corner of her desk, she dropped into the chair and grinned up at him. “Mama wants all the gory details. Make this Monday morning worth her while.”

“I had hamantaschen.”

Heavily kohled eyes widened. “Kinky!”

“Cookies.”

“You had cookies? What are you, twelve?”

Tony shrugged. So much had happened since Friday night he'd almost forgotten about his non-date with the musical director. “We went out for coffee.”

“
I
was drinking coffee at twelve,” Amy told him with a pointed slurp from her cup. “That was it?”

“And we talked.”

“Jesus fucking Christ. I always thought gay men were supposed to be getting more than the rest of us. Don't you guys have a quota to keep up or something?”

He felt himself smiling for the first time in what seemed like days. “Not since the eighties.”

“The eighties?” She smirked as she reached for the phone. “I guess
you
were doing more than coffee at twelve. CB Productions, how can I help you?”

Maybe it was Amy's “the world wouldn't dare fuck with me attitude,” maybe it was her electric-green hair, maybe it was the familiar sound of her answering the phone—whatever it was, he felt energized, anticipatory. Like he'd been waiting for something big, something amazing, and that wait was almost over. The fear and doubt that had haunted his dreams and his ride to work were gone.

“Tony!”

And they're back.
He turned in time to see Arra emerge from CB's office. She still looked like crap, full sets of luggage under both eyes and her hair sticking up in uncombed gray spikes—exhaustion creating the same hairstyle Amy had probably needed a liter of gel to achieve. Obviously, a good night's sleep hadn't been in the cards.

Given that she'd probably spent most of the night trying to define the future by way of spider solitaire, that could have been an amusing observation. Except that it wasn't.

She took him by the arm, her fingers hot through the sleeve of his jean jacket, and walked him toward the basement door. “I spoke to CB . . .”

“So he knows?”

“Knows what?”

Fully aware that Amy could listen to half a dozen conversations simultaneously, Tony dropped his voice to a low murmur. He'd deal with her opinions on him keeping secrets from her later. “Everything. You said you were going to tell him everything.”

“Oh. Right. No. I told him I need you to work that big carbon arc lamp for me this morning; that I'm working on that ghost effect he wants for later in the season and I need more light levels. He'll clear it with Peter and Sorge.”

“I don't . . .” He didn't want to go anywhere near the gate. He didn't want to be within a hundred kilometers of it when it opened. And it didn't matter. There wasn't anyone else. “Sure. Whatever.”

Arra's grip tightened for a heartbeat, as though she'd known what he'd been thinking. “I did a search for the last shadow this morning. It's in the studio.”

“Who?”

“I don't know and it doesn't matter. Be careful. It'll know the others have been destroyed and it'll be desperate to get back through the gate.”

“What about stuff coming this way?”

“I doubt it. Not yet. The Shadowlord hates to move without information; it's his strength and, to a certain extent, his weakness. He likes to be sure. Worry once this last shadow is destroyed—although by destroying some of them away from the gate, we may delay his reaction.”

“Swell. That gives us time to prepare.”

“There's nothing to prepare!”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “I knew that.” When she released him and reached for the basement door, it was his turn to take hold of her. “Arra, I was wondering, why do they need to bring the people back to the gate? I mean, one of them followed us out to that location shot last week so obviously the shadows move around fine on their own.”

“No, remember I told you that the more specific a shadow is the more constrained its movement? And these latest shadows are really mobile only before they've taken a host,” she continued when he nodded. “After they've experienced physical definition, their mobility is pretty much limited to moving a short distance to another host.”

“But they can survive on their own, right?”

Tony saw a muscle in her jaw jump as she clenched her teeth. “You cannot reform them!”

“That's not what I meant.” Not entirely. “I just thought that it might be more . . . I don't know, intelligent if they bailed on the host after they got the information. I mean lurking shadows are a lot harder to spot than people acting like they're disappearing and acting like night of the living pod people.”

Her eyes narrowed and she stared at him for a long moment. She'd been doing that a lot lately and it was beginning to get seriously disturbing.

“Don't give them ideas,” she snapped at last, shook off his hand, and headed down to her workshop.

For the seven years she'd been his entire special effects department, Arra had made no close attachments among the crew. She'd interacted as much as necessary to perform her job but no more. Now, it seemed, in less than a week she'd made a friend. Or acquired an accomplice. Chester Bane wasn't sure which, but given everything else that had been going on, the timing was interesting.

Standing just inside his office, he watched Arra head downstairs and, after a long moment spent staring at the closed door, he saw Tony Foster disappear in the direction of the soundstage.

It, whatever it was, had something to do with light levels.

There was nothing he hated more than being lied to, so before he asked questions, he liked to make sure he could identify the answers.

About to return to his desk, he paused as the outer door opened and the two RCMP officers who'd investigated Nikki Waugh's unfortunate death walked into the office. He watched as Rachel hurried to meet them and stepped forward as she turned in his direction.

“Mr. Bane, these officers would like a word with you.”

“Of course.” He indicated they should precede him into his office. The man, Constable Elson, moved like he was hunting and close to his quarry. The woman, Constable Danvers, rolled her eyes before she followed her partner. There was disagreement between them, then. Not on the larger issues, perhaps, but she was definitely indulging him on the smaller.

Interesting.

“Alan Wu is dead.”

About to lower himself into his desk chair, he paused and turned, staring at the two officers. After a moment, Constable Danvers added, “He died Saturday afternoon.”