Darkest Night - Smoke and Shadows Part 47

Arra had paused on her way out of the kitchen. "It's not a science at all, kid, it's an art.

It's like television, art and science blended."

Knowing how big a part luck played in making good TV, comparing it to wizardry didn't exactly inspire confidence. As far as he was concerned, a world where Joss Whedon got canceled was exactly the kind of world where the Shad-owlord could win.

The contents in the second pot weren't quite the same shade of green. He tossed in another bay leaf and a few more flakes of catnip, changed his mind and attempted to scoop them out again. Unsuccessfully. Sucking his fingers, he realized he should have used a spoon.

"I told her I didn't know what I was doing," he muttered down at Whitby.

Whitby stretched out a paw and languidly poked Tony in the ankle.

He sprinkled a few more flakes of catnip on the cat. Getting stoned seemed like a good idea to him, but since that wasn't an option, he'd have to mellow vicariously.

Someone knocked on the apartment door.

Tony checked his watch. Not quite 4:30-way too early for Henry and Julian had already been by. Twice. Which didn't, of course, rule out the fact that this could be Julian dropping by again.

He turned both pots down to simmer and hurried toward the door. Arra had made it quite clear after Julian's second visit that a third would result in the Shadowlord knowing exactly where she was because she'd open a gate to the world of annoying gits and return her unwelcome visitor to his own kind. And his little dog, too.

A second knock as Tony's fingers closed around the door handle convinced him to yank it open immediately. He very much doubted Arra would open a gate but, as the lock, the spark, and the incident with the litter box had proven, she could do smaller magics without attracting unwelcome attention.

"Look, Julian, you've got to sto ..." Propelled by Keisha's fist, the final consonant exploded out of him along with all the air remaining in his lungs. Gasping for breath, he was able to offer little resistance as the set dresser shoved him up against the wall, his head impacting against the drywall with a distinct crunch.

"So here you are." Her forearm up against his throat, she leaned a little closer. Her dark eyes gleamed. "I was wondering who'd find you first."

Shadow-held.

Holy obvious observation, Batman.

"You don't have to do this."

"Do what? Kick your a.s.s?"

As her knee came up, Tony brought his own leg up and around, hooking hers while simultaneously slamming her on the opposite the side of her head with his elbow.

Between the double blows she went down. He followed her to the floor, landing on her torso as hard as he dared.

Keisha grunted, reached between his legs, grabbed a handful of crotch, and squeezed.

Tony yowled. Rearing back, he clutched at her arm with both hands and tried to free himself from her grip. Free her grip from him. Stop the pain!

When his b.a.l.l.s dragged away from his body with her fingers, he changed his plan of attack. Unless he could knock her out and take the shadow controlling her out of play, just hitting her wouldn't do any good. Catching her free hand around the wrist, he pinned it to the floor then, twisting his body as much as the pain allowed, began to tickle her exposed side.

The release hurt almost as much as the initial grab and he yowled again as blood flowed suddenly back into abused tissue. Bright side, he hardly felt the back of Keisha's fist drive the edge of his lower lip in over his teeth reopening the cut he'd received during his earlier dance with Mouse. Her hips canted up between his thighs, throwing him forward, off-balance. Barely managing to keep from kissing the linoleum, his weight slammed down on his elbow.

"The master says we can't kill you," she growled, her teeth closing around his ear. "But we can hurt you."

If he yanked his head away, he'd lose a piece of his ear.

Jesus f.u.c.k!

If he didn't he'd lose a piece of his ear.

Tony could feel warm and wet running down his neck and he really hoped Keisha was drooling.

Something was making a strange half growling, half howling noise. He didn't think it was Keisha. He punched her in the stomach. She grunted and grabbed his wrist. Small bones ground together. The noise continued uninterrupted. Nope, not Keisha. Him?

"Keisha!"

A small eraser bounced off the set dresser's close-cropped hair and hit him on the cheek.

"Go to sleep!"

Her mouth separated from his ear with a wet slurp. Her left leg settled slowly toward the floor. Her hand fell from his wrist. Tony clamped it immediately on his ear.

"Stop being such a baby." Arra's voice sounded both m.u.f.fled and annoyed. "It seems a little over the top after you had someone deliberately jab a hole through your eyebrow."

"Not the same thing," he muttered, checking his palm. Damp but not b.l.o.o.d.y. As Keisha sighed under him, he pushed himself carefully up onto his knees.

"Zazu, be quiet!"

The growling howl stopped.

Reaching behind him, Tony untangled a long leg from around his. The moment he was clear, he fell to one side, crawling away until he could brace his back against the wall, cradling all his injured bits close. "Is she . . . ?"

"She's fine," Arra told him as she stared down at the younger woman. "Physically anyway. Unless you did damage."

"I took damage." And as soon as he got the chance, he was heading for the bathroom to check things out. They still f.u.c.king hurt!

"The shadow-held aren't stronger than they were before, but they have no inhibitions.

They have no fear of injury, so they hold nothing back."

He picked the eraser up off the floor. "So what was this for?"

"To get her attention."

"Right." And then he remembered. "You said she's physically fine. What isn't?"

"What isn't what?"

"Fine."

"Ah. Yes." Arra pressed her lips together into a thin line, all color leaching out. "It's like this," she began just as Tony thought she wasn't going to answer him. "Putting Keisha to sleep involved her energies only-it's undetectable at a distance. The shadow is still in there, confined. If I destroy it, the Shadowlord will know immediately where I am and I am not yet ready for him."

"You've destroyed shadows before."

"So it's true, then. Men really do think with those?" She nodded toward his crotch and he covered it instinctively. "Because you're not thinking now. The Shadowlord wasn't on this world, wasn't part of this world's energy flow before. She'll have to hold the shadow until we defeat him once and for all. And if we don't, well, she'll have worse problems than a few nightmares."

"A few nightmares?" Now he knew to look, he could see Keisha's eyes moving behind her closed lids.

"Constant nightmares."

Constant. Babies dying. Rotting. And he was the only one who could see it. Their parents kissed and hugged and played with the tiny corpses until bits started falling off.

"You've got to wake her up."

Arra snorted. "And do what? Smack her on the head with a frying pan? You can't knock someone unconscious without doing damage, Tony. There's no such thing as a Vulcan neck pinch or any other tidy television solution. This is war-not everyone comes out..."

The only sound for a long time was Keisha's labored breathing.

". . . whole." Turning on one heel, Arra headed back to the dining room. "Put her on my bed. She won't wake up until I tell her to."At 5:57, Carol from the lighting crew showed up.

"If another shadow-held shows up searching for me, you'll have to let them in. They're just as likely to grab one of my neighbors and gouge an eye or something out in front of the peephole in order to get a reaction. With my luck, they'd probably grab the wrong neighbor."

"Why don't you let them in? Open the door and nighty-night them?"

"Because they'll see me and he'll know where I am. He'll have something in them set to my power signature."

"Keisha ..."

"Didn t see me. You distracted her."

"Yeah, and she sure as h.e.l.l saw me!"

"Didn t you tell me that he doesn't care about you? Now go away and let me finish this. Try putting your brains on ice if they're still not working."

Tony sighed. Carol had a black belt in some kind of martial art. He hadn't been paying enough attention to the overheard conversation to know exactly which martial art but, bottom line, it didn't much matter since he had equivalent training in absolutely nothing.

Plastering a fake smile on his face, he opened the door. "Hey. What's happening?"

"Don't play dumb," she snapped, pus.h.i.+ng past him.

"All right." He grabbed her shoulder, spun her back around, and threw the contents of his mug in her face. The coffee wasn't exactly hot, but it distracted her just long enough for him to sweep her legs out from under her and send her cras.h.i.+ng, to the floor.

Really close contact kept her from landing any serious blows, but she still beat the c.r.a.p out of him.

"What took you so long?" he gasped, not being at all careful of anything but aching ribs as he crawled off of Carol's sleeping body.

"Time is relative. There's one of those gel cold packs in the freezer. Maybe you'd better use it."

"You think?" His voice already sounded higher. The way things were going, by the end of the night only dogs would be able to hear him.

At 7:02, it was Elaine from craft services.

Keisha, Carol, and Elaine-the three women who'd run to comfort Lee. Wiping up his spills, holding his hand, offering comfort, and making it quite clear there was more being offered . . . Tony had to wonder if this was a message to him from the Shadowlord. If his nose was being rubbed in Lee's obvious unavailability.

A sudden chill ghosted down Tony's spine. Or was the message that Lee was at the studio with the Shadowlord, unprotected?

Elaine knocked again.

And, nice change, she went for his eyes not his b.a.l.l.s."Put her on the bed with the others."

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, patting the bleeding scratch on his cheek. "What did your last servant die of?"

Arra's eyes lost their focus for a moment. "One of my order killed him while shadow-held.

She melted his bones and left him lying in a fleshy puddle in the great hall. Without structure enough to scream, he died gurgling."

Fighting the urge to vomit, Tony reached down and tucked his hands in Elaine's armpits.

He had a vague memory of deliberately not asking that question earlier. Apparently, his instincts had temporarily deserted him. Smart instincts. If he didn't have to be around, he wouldn't be. "You suck as a motivational speaker. You know that, right?"

"You asked."

He laid Elaine out as comfortably as he could beside Carol and Keisha and stared down at them for a moment, hating to leave them trapped. Tormented. Keisha had cried out half a dozen times. Carol's head almost continually jerked from side to side on the pillow. Unfortunately, if even the glare of light in the elevator hadn't been enough to destroy his. .h.i.tchhiker, there was no way anything in the entire co-op would affect, let alone destroy, these shadows. Well, nothing except Arra and she was saving herself for the final battle. At least, that was the benefit of the doubt explanation.

"I'm sorry," he told them, as Elaine began to tremble. "It's just . . ." Just what? He sighed. "It's just, I'm sorry."

Arra was packing up her laptop as he came out of the bedroom, "Have you worked it out, then?" he asked her, as she slid it into the case. "The light thing?"

"Yes, I have. I charged the potion while you were in with the girls; seal it up and let's get going."

"It's still early. Henry won't be awake for another forty minutes."

"You told him to meet us at the studio?"

"Well, yeah, but ..."

"I won't be using any power during the drive. We'll be moving more slowly than usual."

That was the best news Tony'd had in days.

"And," Arra continued, swinging her laptop case over her shoulder, "the shadow-held will have a lot more trouble finding us if we're in a moving vehicle. Charging the potions may have created enough of an energy blip to alert him."

Made sense, they were anti-shadow potions and if he was the Shadowlord, he'd be watching for something like that. Tony sealed up the four thermoses-they'd bought two new ones with the groceries-and packed them quickly away in his backpack. Then he went for the elevator while Arra locked up and set wards.

"Think of a ward like a spiderweb made of energy," she'd explained earlier when he'd asked. "Some webs warn the spider there's prey nearby, some capture it."

"And youre the spider?"

She'd snorted impatiently. "No, I'm the walrus. I thought I told you to put those on ice?"

The elevator was taking its own sweet time arriving. A door opened. A familiar yap drove through his eardrums and straight into his brain."Julian ..."

Tony spun around, ready to intervene, but the wizard was smiling almost benignly across the hall toward her neighbor. "Would you mind telling anyone you hear knocking on my door that I've gone to Victoria? With Tony." She gestured.

Julian and Moira leaned out of the doorway to look.