Smoke and Shadows (55 page)

“No.”

“Do I have to make the observation about omelets and breaking eggs?”

“God, no!”

“Good. It's a stupid observation.”

Traffic was heavy on Hastings until they cleared Chinatown, then it spread out and started moving a few kilometers above the limit. Tony drummed his fingers against his thigh and tried not to think of what they were heading toward.

War.

Broken eggs.

Around Clark Drive South, he frowned. “You were working that light thing out on a laptop.”

“So?”

“So we could have been in a moving vehicle all afternoon. I drive, you work.”

Arra nodded agreement. “Yes, I thought of that after Keisha arrived.”

“And?”

“And then I realized I work best in a familiar environment.”

Tony stared at the side of her face. “I had to beat up girls,” he said at last.

“That's a bit sexist, don't you think?”

“No.”

“And given the results, not entirely accurate. There're still
girls
at the studio,” she added when he didn't respond.

“Your point?”

The brow he could see lifted into a distinctly sardonic arch.

“Never mind.” He glanced at his watch. “I'd better call CB. Make sure the Shadowlord's even still at the studio. Maybe he's convinced Mason to take him clubbing.”

“I thought CB had arranged to have promo shots done?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So, it would take more than an extraordinarily powerful, evil wizard to keep Mason Reed from having his picture taken.”

“Valid point.” CB's cell phone rang half a dozen times before he answered. Worried that the boss might be standing where he could be overheard by the enemy, Tony started talking immediately.
Safest if he just has to answer yes or no.
“Hey, CB, it's Tony. Is he still there?”

“Yes, he is.” A dark, smooth voice that caressed each word. Definitely
not
CB's voice. “And he's wondering what's taking you so long.”

The line went dead.

Tony dropped his phone like it was contaminated. “He's got CB.”

“The Shadowlord answered CB's phone?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me exactly what he said.” She frowned as Tony told her. “He's posturing. Trying to frighten you. Rattle you.”

“News flash. It worked.” His palms left damp streaks on his jeans.

“Yes, but if he'd said nothing at all, you'd have kept talking. Probably said you were with me. Said we were on our way.” Her voice trailed off and she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “This isn't like him,” she announced three blocks later. “He could have gathered information, but he didn't—he played boogeyman instead. That's just not like him.”

“How do you know?”

“I may not have stuck around for the big finish, but I was there for the rest of the war,” she snapped. “I know him.”

“Uh-uh, you
knew
him,” Tony amended. “You knew him when he was conquering. He's conquered. He's been ‘the conqueror' for seven years. He's not the same guy you faced. Seven years—fuck,
everyone
changes over that long a time.”

“Your Nightwalker?”

Tony thought of Vicki Nelson's conquest of Vancouver and snickered, amused for the first time in . . . well, since girls started smacking him around anyway. “You have no idea.”

“No.
You
have no idea.” But it was a playground response and she sounded unsure and Tony figured that shaking up a few of her carved-in-stone opinions about the Shadowlord was probably a good thing.

Probably.

Maybe not.

When Arra turned onto Boundary Road, he closed his eyes for a moment, confronted the fear that had been chewing at him since the call, and said, “Do you think CB's dead?”

“No. He knows too much. He could be too useful. The Shadowlord can't have changed so much he'd throw away that kind of resource.”

Which would have been more reassuring had she not so obviously been trying to reassure herself.

At 8:43 the parking lot was still surprisingly full. Zev's car was gone and so was Amy's—Tony thanked any gods that might be listening for small mercies—but Lee's bike was still there.

“They're shooting promo stuff,” he murmured, realizing. “Lee had to stay.”

“Any new shadows will be for control, not information, so he's probably shadow-held.”

Again? Oh, that's just fucking great.
The thought of Lee shadow-held came with the memory of Lee's hands on his body, scrambling his responses.

“He survived it the first time,” Arra reminded him, misreading his silence.

“Yeah. That's not very comforting.”

She shrugged and turned off the engine.

“What do we do now?”

“Right now? We wait for your Nightwalker. No point in going over the battle plan twice.”

Seat belt unbuckled, Tony twisted around so that he could see her. She looked unconcerned. Or possibly blank. Nothing showed. He was looking at the last wizard of her order, the one hope to defeat the Shadowlord—he could just as easily have been looking at someone's grandmother, parking and waiting to pick the grandkids up from school. He wanted to know what she was thinking but he couldn't see it on her face.

“So, does a gate have to be opened in a specific spot?”

“No. Variables are adjusted for location.”

“So you could open a gate here?”

She turned very slowly to face him. “I could.”

He really, really hoped she'd add,
But I won't.
But she didn't. “Hey, I just thought of something.”

“Don't strain yourself.”

She was under a lot of stress, so he'd give her that one. “If you can only affect the gate on the world of origin, how's the Shadowlord going to get home? I mean, sure this is a great world and all, but his stuff's back there and I expect he'll want to go back and forth.”

“He probably has the spell set up on the other side ready to go off every twelve hours.”

“He's got the gate on a timer?”

“Essentially.”

“Cool. Still evil,” he clarified as Arra turned to glare at him. “But cool.”

“Less cool if he calls through reinforcements.”

“Granted.”

Henry's BMW pulled into the lot at 8:47. Tony opened his door as he parked and walked around the car to meet him beside Arra. He'd left the-story-so-far on Henry's answering machine and then sent him an e-mail as well as a text message. The whole instantaneous electronic communication thing had very little relevance to Henry—sending multiple copies of things he really needed to know worked best. Things like,
CB is holding the Shadowlord at the studio, Mason and most of the crew are shadow-held and we have to take him out tonight. Meet us there as soon as you're up.

They not only had to take him out tonight, they had to take him out before the gate opened at 11:15. They had to take him out before he called through reinforcements. Tony hadn't asked Arra what kind of reinforcements were likely to be called through. He didn't want to know.

Henry frowned and Tony remembered he was both bruised and bleeding.

“You've been fighting again.”

He shrugged, didn't bother hiding the wince as new bruises rose and fell. “I had to take down three of the shadow-held.”

“Girls,” Arra snorted, getting out of the car. “So.” She looked from one to the other. “What's the plan?”

Tony opened his mouth to protest, but as Henry didn't seem surprised by her assumption, he closed it again. It was the son of Henry VIII, trained in strategy and tactics and, hell, probably the minuet for all Tony knew, who asked: “What do you need us to do?”

“Keep the shadow-held from taking me down.” Arra began rolling her shoulders like an old boxer about to go into the ring. “Keep the Shadowlord from preventing my call to the Light of Yeramathia.”

“Which is?”

Figuring he wouldn't understand the explanation, Tony hadn't bothered to ask.

Arra frowned at Henry's suspicious tone. “The Shadowlord gave himself over to a dark power, this is its opposite.”

That was it? Okay, he understood that.

“A god?” If Henry'd sounded suspicious before, he sounded distinctly unhappy now.

“We've had a little trouble with gods in the past,” Tony explained hurriedly before Arra's frown could deepen. “An ancient Egyptian undead wizard tried to call up his god from the top of the CN Tower. Oh, and the year before that, we had demons.”

“You never thought to mention that?”

He shrugged. “It didn't seem relevant.”

“It isn't. But
you
had no way of knowing that.” She turned her attention back to Henry. “Yeramathia is neither god nor demon, only a power. We need to attract its attention. I will draw the calling in the air; the Shadowlord will try and stop me. The only things he controls in this world are the shadows and the shadow-held, but there are plenty of the former and the latter will fight you to the death.”

“How much time will you need?”

“As long as it takes to draw the calling.”

Tony rolled his eyes. Right. More obscure. “And that'll be how long?”

“Well, it's not a 1-800 number,” Arra snapped.

Henry's hand closed over Tony's shoulder before the snapping could escalate. “And if it answers?”

“When it answers,” Tony muttered.

“We hope it destroys the minion of its ancient enemy.”

“Hope?” Tony began, but Henry's fingers tightened.

“If and hope,” Henry said softly as though trying the words on for size. “Battles have been won with less. Do you believe we can win?”

With both of them staring at her, Arra shrugged. “Tony does.”

And then they both moved to stare at him.

Were they waiting for him to say something?

Apparently.

He sighed, squared his shoulders, and tried to think of something inspiring. “Right. Let's go.”

“Not exactly the St. Crispin's speech,” Henry murmured.

“The what? Never mind.” He raised a hand and cut off the explanation. Knowing Henry, it was likely to be lengthy, boring, and classical. “Instead of walking in the back door like the Three Stooges, how about we split his attention. Henry, remember that up-on-the-roof-through-the-ventilation-shaft thing you wanted to do earlier?”

“Uh, no.”

“Good. Now's your chance. Arra, you go in through the front doors, I'll go in through the back. Henry, you take out the shadow-held—bottom line they're still flesh and blood and you're . . .” Even in the dim light of the parking lot, he could see the vampire's eyes darken. “. . . you.”

“And me, I'll deal with the Shadowlord.”

“You will?”

It almost wasn't a question. Tony made a mental note to ask Arra about that later—if they survived this. “Someone has to and I'm all that's left. You . . .” He bent and picked up his backpack, swinging one strap over his shoulder. “. . . just dial.”

“I have to be in his presence for this to work.” Her eyes narrowed. “How do you plan on dealing with him?”

Tony shrugged. “Maybe it
is
my ass.” He held up a hand to stop Henry's question and then waved them off in opposite directions, hoping the gesture was fast enough that neither of his companions could see how badly his hand was shaking. “Can we just . . . go!”

Walking over the gravel made so much noise that Tony half expected a couple of the bigger guys on the crew to be waiting for him at the back door. They weren't. No one was.
See, he's cocky. No security.