Darkest Night - Smoke and Shadows Part 23

She shrugged. "Who likes loose ends?"

"Your hand was in his chest."

The non sequitur seemed to throw her for a moment, then she snorted. "You saw that, did you?"

As far as Tony could see, Mouse's chest looked pretty much like it had all night. Okay, the horizontal part was new, but other than that, big and plaid pretty much covered it.

"You had your hand in his chest?"

"I had the essence of my hand in the essence of his chest. I reached into the place where the shadows have substance and we don't."

"How . . . ?"

"Clean living." Raincoat crinkling, she got slowly to her feet, her opinion of the question clear.

"Look, magic might be the obvious answer where you come from, but it isn't here." Tony swallowed the last of the potion and belched. A spray of tiny green sparkles danced in front of his face. "Not usually, anyhow." The world tilted slightly sideways. "I think I need to sit down." The floor seemed like the best option. It was close and he'd already proved that he could hit it. His legs folded. Another belch. More tiny sparkles.

"Is it the shadow?" Henry's face swam in and out of focus.

Tony stretched out a finger and poked him in the cheek. "The objects in your mirror may be closer than they appear."

"What?"

"I'm guessing it's the eight ounces of warm vodka." He poked him again. "I'm fine."

Henry straightened. All he could do at this point was believe him. "Will there be others tonight?" he asked the wizard.

"Other shadows returning?" She glanced toward the ceiling and although Henry heard her heart speed up, there was no outward manifestation of her fear. "Could be, but I doubt it. These seem to be the extended wear version, good for a few days. And if you're right and they've been sent purposefully to look for the ..." She sketched a set of air quotes. "... light, then they'll stay as long as they can."

"What was the waiting one waiting for?" When both wizard and vampire turned to look down at him, Tony waved. "There was one in Mouse and one waiting here by the gate."

Arra frowned. "I'd guess it was guarding the gate-the gate was open when you destroyed the shadow last night. The Shadowlord probably felt it die and wanted to make sure that wouldn't happen again."Tony's eyes widened as sudden realization dawned. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times and then he said, "I killed ..."

"No, you didn't." Arra cut him off. "They're pieces of the Shadowlord, of the evil he has become. They have no life, no sense of self, until they imprint with a host. You destroyed a tool. A weapon. A thing, not a person."

"Oh." He rubbed his fingertips along the painted floor. "That's okay, then."

Pulling Henry to one side, Arra leaned close to his ear and murmured, "Look, you stay here with him and deal with whatever shows up, and I'll take Mouse to a hospital. He smells like a vodka-catnip c.o.c.ktail and he's clearly been fighting, so there shouldn't be any questions I can't deal with."

"Given your ability to banish the shadows; shouldn't you be the one who stays?"

"First, I'm obviously not the one who hit him. They might not believe that so easily of you. Second, you haul that light stand around and you can banish them just as easily.

You already have. Third, there's no point in chancing me so close to the gate. If the Shadowlord knows I'm here . . ."

About to ask, He'll what? Henry changed his mind at her expression. Or rather her lack of expression; in all his long life, he'd never seen anyone so desperate to hide her true feelings. There would be a time of reckoning between them but not now, not with innocents needing their attention. "You can drive?"

"I can ride the heart of the whirlwind secured in place with a rope braided from the dreams of trees."

"That's not what I asked."

She rolled her eyes. "How hard can it be?" A raised hand cut off Henry's reply. "Kidding.

Of course I can drive. I live in downtown Vancouver and I work in Burnaby-only the young have the kind of stamina commuting by transit requires." A glance down at Tony and then over to Mouse. "Carry him out to the car for me, Henry, time's wasting."

Still on the floor, Tony watched Henry follow Arra out of the soundstage, Mouse's large body cradled ludicrously against his. He says he's coming back, he reminded himself.

Don't get rid of a vampire that easily.

Don't get rid of a vampire at all.

His head felt like the city was doing road repairs across his cerebral cortex.

Jackhammers, hot tar, the whole nine yards. As far as he could tell, it was the potion's only effect. Even the alcohol seemed to be wearing off. If he poked at the right place, he remembered how it felt as the shadow shoved him to the back of his own mind . . .

Not going there.

A deep breath and he got to his feet, just as glad he was doing it out from under Henry's watchful gaze. He couldn't have really indulged in the wincing and the groaning with Henry there.

He was unlocking the wheels of the carbon arc's stand when Henry returned. "This thing's worth a fortune," he said, motioning Henry around to the other side. "The security around here sucks."

"That thought had crossed my mind, not the price of the lamp but definitely the sucking."

Tony pointed and Henry rolled the heavy lamp back where it had been on the edge of the set.

"When you were asking Arra . . ."He stopped and started again. "Do you think the Shadowlord is looking for Arra, specifically?""I don't know. If he knew he was opening the same gate she did, he had to know she'd be here somewhere. But I got the impression he didn't expect her to stay around the gate."

"Maybe you should ask her why she did?"

Red-gold brows rose. "Me?"

"Why not you?"

"I don't think she likes me much."

"Vampire, remember?" He dragged the sleeve of his jacket across the gla.s.s lens. "You could make her like you."

"You know it doesn't work like that."

Tony discarded half a dozen responses. Some of them were even true. Finally, he sighed and nodded. "Yeah. I know." Bending to resecure the brakes, he had to catch himself on a cross brace, sucking air in through his teeth.

Henry didn't say anything until he straightened.

"You're hurt."

"It's just bruises."

"There's blood."

Right. Tony picked at the bits of gravel embedded in his other hand. "I'll heal."

I always have.

When he looked up, he knew that Henry'd heard the subtext. Another night, he might have said something. Tonight, he was allowing the illusion of boundaries.

The lighting crew had merely moved the lamp out of the way without unhooking it from the board. Since this wasn't going to end tonight, since another night they might not be so lucky, he studied the setup, noting where everything was plugged in.

Which reminded him . . .

"Henry, when the gate opens, you should go stand by the circuit board. It blew last night, remember?"

"Yes."

An interesting tone to that single syllable. Tony sighed and turned, not quite meeting dark eyes. "What?"

"You seem very calm." The long pause echoed with a shouted MINE. "All things considered."

"Hey, have I ever done the hysteria thing? I mean baby-eating ancient Egyptian wizards and ghosts screaming for vengeance aside?"

After a heartbeat, Henry smiled. "No, you haven't."

"Well, then." He folded his arms, trying to move as though muscles weren't shrieking at him, carefully missing what bruises he could. "I was thinking-we have to wait until the gate opens and the shadow separates before the light works, right?""Yes."

"So the Shadowlord'll still be able to sense that his guys are continuing to die on his doorstep."

Henry glanced up toward the ceiling. "Yes."

"What do you think he'll do?"

"I think," Henry said slowly, "at some point, he'll send something through that can't be killed by light. Something physical."

"You sound upsettingly happy about that."

The mask slipped. "If it has flesh and blood, I can deal with it."

Tony's blood agreed.

Chapter Ten.

SAt.u.r.dAY morning found Tony standing in the fourth floor hall outside Arra's apartment.

She opened the door before he knocked. Standing there, one hand raised, he had a strong suspicion he looked like he'd just seen Sigfreid and/or Roy get up close and magical with a white tiger. Arra's expression confirmed it.

Shaking her head, she stepped back out of the way. "It's a front apartment, Tony. I was removing Zazu from the dieffenbachia and saw you coming up the walk. Even Raymond Dark-hampered as he is by writers with but a single brain cell between them-could have figured that one out. Wipe your feet and hang your jacket to drip over the mat."

He did as he was told, then followed her into the kitchen, nearly tripping over the orange and white cat.

"That's Whitby. Ignore him, he's eaten."

"Does that mean don't feed him or don't worry, he won't go for my throat?"

"Bit of both." The wizard studied him for a long moment while he pretended he was paying attention to the cat. "You look like s.h.i.+t," she said at last. Turning, she took a big blue mug from the cupboard and filled it from an opaque thermal carafe. "This should help."

"What is it?" His tongue was still fuzzy from the aftereffects of the potion and his sense of smell was dicey at best. The frozen spring roll he'd heated up for breakfast had smelled strongly of acrylic paint-which, granted, might have been the spring roll since it was a month or two past its best-before date.

"It's coffee; organic, free-traded Mexican, picked by barefoot, sloe-eyed virgins."

"Really?"

"I couldn't swear to the virgins. There's cream in the fridge and sugar in that bunny bowl on the counter." She shoved Whitby out of the way with the side of her foot and headed out of the kitchen.

Tony hurriedly splashed some cream in his coffee- wondered briefly about a b.l.o.o.d.y plate of liver a little too interestingly arranged to be food-and followed. He found the wizard at her computers, both screens showing games of spider solitaire.

"Mouse is fine," she told him, laying a jack of hearts on its queen. "Where fine means he has a broken jaw and an extraordinarily p.i.s.sed-off wife. I told the hospital I found him wandering around disoriented and he pa.s.sed out once I got him into the car." She shuffled two columns, finished the run of hearts, and moved to the other game as the cards flipped down to the bottom of the screen. "They bought it." Eight of clubs on a nine of spades, six of diamonds on the seven of spades, and the eight of clubs moved again to the proper nine now uncovered. "How are you?"

His lip hurt, both palms were scabby, his torso was coloring up nicely, but he wasn't p.i.s.sing blood so, all good. "I'm fine."

"All right. What happened at the gate?"

"Nothing."

"Where nothing means . . . ?"

Tony forced his attention away from the hypnotic movement of the cards. "Nothing ..."

"It's about to open."

Tony glanced over at Henry and wished he hadn't. The vampire's eyes were dark and his lips were pulled back off his teeth. Nothing he hadn't seen a hundred times before, but tonight the knowledge of his place in the Hunter/hunted scheme of things was just a little too close to the surface. Then he started to feel the buzz and Henry became of secondary importance.

As the vibrations grew stronger, he had a pretty good idea why Lee had reacted the way he had.

The last gate opening had been no more annoying than having a wasp caught in his skull. The potential for disaster was there, sure, but the actuality was pretty much all sound and fury. Tonight it was like having teeth drilled just as the Novocaine was wearing off. Not screaming pain, not yet, but every muscle tensed against the rising vibrations, antic.i.p.ating the moment when the soft tissue would be hit.

"There's no one here. None of the other shadow-held have returned," Henry clarified as Tony stared at him blankly.

"So what do we do?"

"Stop anything that comes through from the other side."

"And did anything?"

"No." Tony took a long swallow of coffee. "The gate stayed open for a couple of minutes and then it closed."