Darkest Night - Smoke and Shadows Part 36

"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.

c.r.a.p. 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 f.u.c.king 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.

Help us.

Don't let him destroy us.

Help us.

We want to live.

Help us.

We need you."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, Sam-eyes bulging, tongues protruding as they were nailed to the boards- Haryain, heavy white brows raised above his gla.s.ses.

"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.

Chapter Fourteen.

"SO 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 f.u.c.king 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 f.u.c.k with me att.i.tude," maybe it was her electric-green hair, maybe it was the familiar sound of her answering the phone- whatever it was, he felt energized, antic.i.p.atory. 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 c.r.a.p, 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 bas.e.m.e.nt 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 bas.e.m.e.nt 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 Sat.u.r.day afternoon."

"I'm sorry to hear that." And he was. In a profession with more than its fair share of insecure nut jobs and delusional divas, Alan Wu had been dependable. He sat, indicated that the police officers should sit, and he waited.

Constable Elson made an obvious and obviously unnecessary show of checking his notes. "Alan Wu is the second of your employees to die in less than a week."Less than a week. Now, it seemed, in less than a week she'd made a friend.

"Alan Wu was not my employee. He was an actor who I regularly employed."

"Tony Foster was with him when he died. He told us he'd been driving around with another of your employees, an Arra Pelindrake. They do both work for you?"

"They do."

"Good. And that's not all."

He locked his gaze on the younger man's face. "Go on."

It got more interesting by the moment.

One of his cameramen had been dumped in emergency at Burnaby General with a broken jaw. No record of who left him there. An electrician and one of the caterers both reported missing by their spouses, gone for forty-eight hours only to turn up Sunday night with no memories and their cars missing.

"I flagged anything that mentioned your company and pulled this together from a number of sources."

"You've been busy."

"I got curious. I don't much believe in coincidence, Mr. Bane. A number of very different roads all seem to lead right back here, and that tells me that there's something going on."

No doubt.

"Tony!"

Tina's voice froze him in place. Tina was the last person he wanted to deal with this morning. He'd already seen Kate standing by the camera smiling at nothing, right thumb rubbing over her left wrist. Praying that he'd never looked quite so dopey, he'd tugged his jacket cuff halfway over his hand and taken the scenic route around to the coffee maker.