Smoke and Shadows (48 page)

“Foster!”

“Right. Sorry.”

Painting left him far too much time to think. Thoughts of the gate, thoughts of what might come through the gate, thoughts of what he might do to stop it, thoughts of whether Arra might or might not have screwed off and left him alone—
mights
and
maybes
and
what ifs
chased themselves around in his head, but he couldn't get a grip on any of them. By the time he covered the last bit of plywood, he was so frustrated at the complete and total lack of substance that he was starting to look forward to the possibility of the Shadowlord's army charging through the gate after Arra with swords drawn. One thing about an army, it made it easy to convince people that something was going on.

*Alone.*

Fucking great. He knew that
almost
voice. There was still a shadow here on the soundstage! Whirling around, Tony tried to get a good look at his own shadow as it danced with his heels over the concrete floor.

“Foster, what the hell are you doing?” Charlie glared at him over an armload of Styrofoam capstones. “If you're done, get out of my way.”

“I'm, uh . . .” Did his shadow look darker? Occupied?

“You're, uh, nothing. Haul ass over to the workshop and bring the box of sticks for this glue gun.”

“I have to . . . I mean, there's someone . . .”

The capstones hit the floor; sticky hands closed around Tony's shoulders and turned him away from the wall. “Workshop. Glue sticks. Now. And, Foster, if you're having a nervous breakdown, I suggest you raise your caffeine levels and get over yourself. Today's a bad day!”

Tell me about it.
It wasn't in his shadow, he decided—the voice wasn't clear enough for that or maybe it wasn't enough in his head. Any kind of accurate description took a beating around this sort of shit. Relief mixed with apprehension as he hurried toward the workshop. If not in his shadow, where? Or, more specifically, who?

Peter and Lee were running through phone dialogue as he passed the office set, Lee sitting with one thigh propped on the edge of the desk in what had become one of James Grant's signature positions.

“. . . is still good and evil is still evil and good people continue to do what they can to negate the effects of evil people. But it's your choice, Raymond; I won't make it for you. After all, you're the one with the centuries of experience.” Moving the phone away from his ear, Lee shook his head. “Did that last bit sound as over the top listening to it as it did saying it?”

Peter shrugged. “You're talking to a vampire detective freaking out about a coven of aristocratic witches he's just discovered he didn't destroy back a hundred odd years ago; does it get more over the top than that?”

Tony walked on as the actor acknowledged the point.

“Three minute warning, people!”

Across the soundstage, other voices took up the cry and construction noises began to drop off. With no time to either stop shooting or stop building, the day would be a patchwork of both, carpenters and painters playing statue as the bell sounded, and bursting into antlike frenzy the second after “Cut.”

Glue sticks in hand, Tony got back to the office in time to see the first take of the scene.

“. . . won't make it for you. After all, you're the one with the centuries of experience.”

“Cut!” As hammers and saws started up again, Peter stepped out from behind the monitor and walked as far onto the set as his headphones would allow. “Let's do it again, only this time, put the emphasis on
centuries
instead of
you're
and then put a little sharpness into the way you hang up.”

“I'm mad at him?”

“You're not happy.”

“Go from the top of the scene?”

“Not this time. Start in at ‘morality hasn't changed.' ” Heading back, the director caught sight of Tony and beckoned him in. “Where's your headset, Tony? Get it on and get to work.”

“Charlie had me painting.”

“London?”

He thought about it for a minute. It certainly hadn't looked like London, but this was television so who the hell knew? “I guess.”

“You guess? Wonderful.” Stepping behind the monitors, Peter moved out of Tony's line of sight. About to continue on his glue sticks delivery, Tony froze like a deer in the headlights as he realized that Lee had been watching him the entire time. Was, in fact, staring at him wearing the kind of speculative expression he'd been seeing on Arra of late.

Honesty, or something more visceral, forced Tony to admit the expression looked better on Lee.

But it did remind him that he couldn't put off the Arra problem any longer.

“. . . cowled robes, how hard is that? No, not bathrobes. Kind of a black caftan with hoods. Yes, they have to be black. Because it's an evil coven, for chrissakes, not a freakin' pajama party!” Amy hung up with a studied lack of emphasis and smiled tightly up at Tony. “That was Kemel. He's in town trying to pick up our rental of a dozen cowled robes. But they can't find them. And the six they
can
find are pink.”

“Pink cowled robes?” Tony quickly ran through everything that had shot in Vancouver over the last couple of years and came up with zip. “Doesn't wardrobe usually make that kind of stuff?”

“Wardrobe is busy trying to make our one Victorian walking dress look like it's not the same dress we used back in episode four. And, yes, we could rent, buy, or make another one, but since we already have one, CB wouldn't approve the budget. Isn't it amazing what you can do with trim. Did you actually want something or are you just out here hanging around?”

“The door to Arra's workshop is locked.” He'd spent a good five minutes rattling the knob; pushing, pulling and getting nowhere. It said something about the level of the cowl crisis that Amy hadn't noticed.

“No, it isn't.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Can't be.” She smiled smugly. “There's no lock on the door. Every now and then, it just jams and only Arra can get it open.”

“Is she here?”

“Haven't seen her, so, no, I'd say she's not.”

No real surprise. “Did she call in?”

“Do I care? Wait . . .” An uplifted emerald-tipped finger cut him off. “. . . let me answer that. If she wasn't bringing a dozen black robes in with her, then, no, I don't.”

“Amy, this is important.”

“Why?”

“I can't tell you.” The big clock on the wall read 12:20. His stomach plummeted and then he remembered to glance down at his watch. 10:20. “You haven't fixed the clock yet.”

“Gosh.” Heavily kohled eyes opened emphatically wide. “You're right, I haven't. Get over it.”

It'd be over soon enough; he had a little less than an hour to go.

*Soon.*

God damn it!
He grabbed at his head, his fingers closing over a sticky smear of paint.
Stop fucking doing that!

Amy frowned up at him, tapping the end of a pen against her lower lip. She might have looked concerned, she might have looked annoyed—Tony was too distracted by the shadow-voice to decide. “I didn't talk to Arra,” she said at last. “Hang on and I'll see if Rachel did.”

A scribbled note shoved under the office manager's nose brought no pause in her heated discussion with their ISP about a lack of cable internet hookup and a negative response.

“I guess she'll be in later.” Amy's tone fell halfway between statement and question. Trouble was, Tony didn't have any answers.

Although he did have more questions. Would later be too late?

“Tony?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” About to ask if CB was in, he changed his mind. What would be the point? Anything CB knew had been erased and even if he had time to start an explanation from scratch, Tony had no way to prove any of it. Murderous body-snatching shadows on the loose from another world—it still sounded like a bad pitch from the bull pen. “I've got to get back to work.” Really wishing that Amy would stop staring at him, he spun around on one heel, took two steps, and slammed into a warm, yielding obstacle. CD cases clattered against the floor.

“Zev. Sorry, man. I've uh . . . I've got to go.” A glance back over his shoulder. “If Arra calls, tell her . . .” What? Get her magical ass in here? “Fuck it. She knows. Don't even bother.”

Amy watched Tony disappear through the door leading to the soundstage and shook her head.

“What was up with him?” Zev asked as he shoved aside a pile of uncollated scripts and stacked his retrieved CDs on the corner of her desk.

“I'm not sure, but I think you've been replaced in his affections by a fifty-five-year-old woman who blows things up.”

“Well.” After a long moment, the musical director sighed. “That definitely sucks.”

The big carbon arc lamp was gone. It wasn't by the set. It wasn't by the lighting board.

Tony stared at the empty space as the first vibrations from the gate started the liquid in his eyeballs quivering.
Crap. Crap! CRAP!
Heart pounding in his throat, he raced to the racks where the extra kliegs were stored. It wasn't there either. Back to the edge of the gate, every hair on his body lifting.

“Three minute warning, people!”

Right. They were shooting in the office set. They were using the lamp.

They weren't using the lamp.

“Sorge said we were done with it, so CB rented it to that buddy of his who's doing that new sci-fi show over in Westminster. Charged him a freakin' arm and a leg, too. He took it out first thing this morning.”

The gaffer looked down at his arm and then up at Tony. “You want to let go of me now?”

“Yeah. Right. Sorry.” It took him a moment to remember how his fingers worked.

“If Arra was still using it, she should've said something. Not that it would've made any difference if CB had a chance of making a buck off renting it. Good thing I didn't need it,” he added turning back to his board as Peter called for quiet on the set. “He'd have me using freakin' flashlights if it'd save him a few bucks.”

“Rolling . . . slate . . . and action!”

Lee's voice talking of good and evil got lost in Tony's rising reaction to the gate.

Flashlights?
Digging the heels of both hands into his temples, he staggered back to the dining room. Leaning against one of the vertical two-by-fours, he stared into the set. No one there. No one trying to send a shadow home. This was a good thing until he forced himself to consider why the last shadow wasn't heading home. Last minion left in this world could be staying to act as a welcoming committee. Welcoming what; now that was the question. Odds were good that flashlights wouldn't be enough to stop it and the baseball bat was in his bathroom leaning against the sink.

His nose was running.

A quick touch with the back of his hand.

No, his nose was
bleeding
.

The actual opening of the gate felt as though the two halves of his brain were being ripped apart. Slowly.

A weapon. He needed a weapon.

And an aspirin, but that would have to wait.

Just outside the set, he found a metal stand and with shaking fingers unscrewed the upright. Four feet of aluminum, threaded on both ends—after all those years with Henry, he knew the kind of damage a simple stake could do.

Holding the pipe across his body, he stepped back into the set in time to see a man fall about four feet and land facedown on the dining room table.