Smoke and Shadows (57 page)

He kept moving since closing with one would lead to a beating by the other; dodging, ducking, and finally slamming a bruised hip into the coffin so hard it rocked on its stand. Pain distracted him long enough for both his attackers to reach him. He ducked under Lee's double-handed grab, found himself between the coffin and the wall, and, working with what he had, tipped it over on them.

It hit the floor with force enough to momentarily whoosh the fog away. The lid slammed open. Chester Bane rolled out.

Time stopped.

His eyes snapped open.

And time started up again.

If asked, Tony would have described his boss as strong, powerful, arrogant, controlling, and a little strange. But not fast. He'd have been wrong. He didn't even see the producer move. One minute CB was on the floor, the next he was on his feet with Mason clutched in one massive hand, Lee in the other. White showed all around his eyes, the muscles of his neck stood out like rebar, and he was roaring—no words, just one loud, enraged bellow. It was the scariest goddamned thing Tony had seen all day . . . and given the day he'd had, that was saying something.

Off by the fogger, someone screamed.

Dragged around by the sound, Tony saw the Shadowlord rear back, clutching his right hand to his chest.

To make fake fog, a fog machine's heat exchanger superheated the fog juice and forced the hot mixture out of the nozzle on the front. By their very nature, fog machines got hot. Very hot. It appeared the Shadowlord's personal protection didn't extend to passive attacks by inanimate objects.

Hoping CB would remember he'd need the men he was destroying when this was over, Tony ran for the Shadowlord.

He didn't remember much from his GED, but he remembered some crap about equal and opposite reactions. In order to blast an attacker away, the protections had to apply the same force to the Shadowlord and this time he wasn't comfortably settled on his throne. If Tony went down, the Shadowlord was taking a fall, too.

Unfortunately, magic was one thing and, as it turned out, physics was something else again. Tony slammed into darkness maybe an inch away from his target and was smashed back into the fog.

A fist wrapped in the front of his shirt and dragged him clear.

“Foolish.” Only a sliver of gray showed between narrowed lids. The word was almost a hiss. “We could have . . .”

And then the Shadowlord's attention shifted.

Shirt digging into armpits, Tony twisted in his grip.

At the far end of the set, a golden pattern shimmered in the air. As they watched, frozen in place, a new line of light curved around the outer edge.

Tony hit the floor, thrown aside hard enough to slide until he slammed up against the wall. Palms leaving damp prints against the painted plywood, he hand-walked to his feet. When he turned, Mason stood in front of him.

A quick glance showed CB struggling with three of the construction crew and Lee nowhere in sight.

Ducking a swing, Tony tripped on something in the fog. He managed a reasonably coherent,
Not again!
just before impact, then the mist folded over him. A hand closed around the back of his belt as his hand closed around a backpack.

Not a backpack, the photographer's camera bag.

As Mason hauled him up, he ripped through the camera bag, finding what he needed by touch. Finally clearing the fog, he squirmed around and triggered the photographer's flash.

The shadow had been in Mason Reed since Friday morning, absorbing all that Mason was. Mason had never met a flashbulb he didn't love. Yesterday, the fan club had delayed him with pictures and it worked again now. Mason's grip loosened, Tony fell free, got his feet under him, and, continually thumbing the flash, kneed the actor in the nuts.

He could almost hear his own giving a little cheer at getting some back.

As Mason dropped down out of sight, Tony ran for the other end of the set, ducking and weaving through the ongoing battle Henry and CB were fighting with the shadow-held. His feet thumped into bodies he couldn't see. Didn't want to see.

The pattern hadn't grown in the last few moments because Arra, laptop open and balanced on one hand, was holding the Shadowlord in place with the other.

“You're only delaying the inevitable, old woman,” he snarled as Tony ducked under a flying can of hair spray and slid between them.

“Let him go, Arra. I've got him.”

“You?” Simultaneous. From both wizards.

Eyes locked with the one, he snarled, “Fucking bite me! Let him go and finish!” at the other.

He was almost surprised when she did.

But not quite as surprised as the Shadowlord.

“And what can you do?” he mocked, stepping forward.

Tony slid his hands around the other man's face, laced them behind his head, and locked their mouths together. His lips were cool, but Tony was used to that. He changed the angle, made it wetter, more . . . carnal.
We could have
the Shadowlord had said.
We.

The protective spell didn't kick in.

Hands locked on his waist hard enough to leave new bruises.

Son of a bitch; it
is
my ass.

Under other circumstances, he'd have found that gratifying. Although, even if evil wizards had been his type, any swelling crotch-side tonight was likely to be edema. Passion, pain—fortunately, all moaning sounded remarkably alike.

As a distraction, it worked because it was unexpected, but it didn't work long.

Darkness flared and Tony found himself on the floor again, his skull cracking hard enough against the concrete to cause stars.

When they didn't go away, he realized it wasn't stars he was seeing; it was Arra's pattern through the refraction of the fog. Which was dissipating. Either the foggers were empty or the sound stage was just too big.

On the bright side, the Shadowlord seemed to be caught on the lines of light like a fly in a web. That brief bout of tonsil hockey must've given Arra enough time to finish.

And then again . . .

Torso tight against the light, the Shadowlord flung out his arms, fingers extended. Streamers of darkness began to flow into them. He was calling back the shadows. Releasing the shadow-held. Tony could hear bodies hitting the floor.

He was calling back pieces of himself.

He was getting stronger.

In another moment, he'd be free of the pattern.

Where the hell was Yerma-whoever?

It wasn't working. Arra knew it wouldn't work. Knew it. Had known it. Had always known it. She checked the pattern on the laptop, checked the pattern drawn on the air . . . They were identical. It wasn't her fault.

*All your fault.*

Caught on the other side of the light, the Shadowlord smiled.

*They died because of you,* the shadows whispered. *They die when you leave. They die when you stay. They die because you fail them. All of them.*

“Shut up!” A world lived in shadow because she couldn't stop him. This world would fall to shadow because she couldn't stop him. He was right. It
was
all her fault.

The light wavered.

His smile broadened and he jerked back.

*You should never have come here. You doomed this world.*

She shouldn't have. And she had. Her heart was pounding and her vision began to blur.

*At least this time you'll die with them.*

Kiril. Sarn. Haryain. Tevora. Mai-Sim. Pettryn. So many others, all dead.

Reflecting back the pattern, his eyes glittered in triumph and she realized he knew the names of the dead as well as she did.

*Charlie. Chester. Henry. Tony.*

“They're not dead!” All right, from what she'd seen, Charlie very probably was, but the others . . . CB and Henry still fought. Tony was down, true, but moving. Struggling.

*They're not dead
yet.
*

She could see Tony. He was close enough to the pattern that the gold tinted his skin and hair. He was trying to sit up.

“You're right. They're not dead yet and neither am I.” Snapping the laptop closed, she tossed it aside and spread her arms, a mirror image of the wizard on the other side of the light, pulling her own power in to support the pattern. “And
if
I die, I'm going out kicking your skinny ass.”

*
If
you die?*

Shadow laughter danced cold air up and down her spine.

A little over seven days spent in Tony's company gave her the words she needed. “Bite me, you son of a bitch!”

Teeth gleaming gold, the Shadowlord jerked back again, far enough this time to find his own voice. “Maybe later.”

Fighting for focus, Tony rose up on one elbow and stared at the lines. He was right. It was the pattern that had been drawn on the blackboard in another world seven years earlier. The wizards had been nailed here . . .

. . . and here.

But here . . .

He shook his head, trying to clear it, and nearly puked.

But here . . . the line was wrong.

The Shadowlord cried out in victory.

Tony reached out and tugged a line of light a few centimeters to the right.

Golden light flowed out of the pattern. It covered his skin, ran up under his clothing, and drifted past each individual hair on his head. It felt like . . .

Like . . .

Pain.

As he fell, writhing, he realized he wasn't the only one screaming.

The screams didn't quite hide a familiar soft
sputz
.

Back arched to the point where bone had to be protesting, the Shadowlord rose up into the air. One by one, shadows were wrenched from him and destroyed.

Tony screamed a little louder as the bit of him went. It looked no different than the others, but he felt its loss.

By the time the last of the shadows were gone, Tony's voice had faded to a hoarse rasp, but the Shadowlord's agony continued to fill the soundstage. With the shadows gone, there wasn't much of him left. A translucent figure of a man with golden patterns etched into his skin, his eyes and mouth dark holes in a distorted face.

Flare.

And nothing.

When Tony opened his eyes, he was lying on the couch in Raymond Dark's office. It was a comfortable couch; he'd crashed out on it more than once during seventeen-hour shoots.

Golden flecks of light danced across his vision. He remembered fog.

Right. The London street flashback.
Had they finished shooting it?

Then he tried to sit up. Memory rode in with the pain.

Henry's arm was around his shoulder a heartbeat later, supporting his weight. Tony blinked and managed to focus on the vampire. His throat hurt, reducing his voice to a rough whisper. “Is that a black eye?”