by Tanya Huff
“Not even when I grow up?”
“Not even.”
They walked in silence for a moment or two then Brianna asked, “Are they dangerous?”
Tony hoped she was asking about poltergeists, because right now, that was all he was willing to discuss with the boss’ youngest daughter. “They can be. But mostly they’re just trouble makers, not too bright but not actually malicious. Do you know what malicious means?” He took her snort as a yes. “They’re hard to get rid of, so we’ll just let this one be, okay. You keep listening and the moment it sounds actually angry, you call me, and we’ll deal with it.”
“You’ll teach me how?”
“Sure.” The heat of her regard warmed the side of his face.
“You don’t even know how!”
“Not right now, no. But I’ll work it out by the time we need to know it.” He heaved the computer case back up onto his shoulder. “We’re wizards. It’s what we do.”
*
In a just world, Ashley thought the next afternoon, when once again, Brianna was late meeting her at the curb, I’d be the wizard and then I could stuff her into a jar and keep her in my pocket.
“Lose your freak?” Sandra sniffed as she sashayed past, hem of her kilt flipping rhythmically, her posse giggling reinforcement behind her.
Ashley ignored the lot of them as she went back up the stairs and into the school. No Brianna in the atrium. No Brianna in the hall outside the science room. Where the hell was she?
*
Brianna sat on an overturned bucket in the custodian’s closet by the library.
She heard things in the floor, and Ashley called daddy. Daddy yelled at Tony. Tony found out about poltergeists on his computer in the car on the way to the school, because if he knew what it was she’d heard, he wouldn’t have brought the computer with him.
She had a computer. And Ashley’d got rid of the Net Nanny about twenty minutes after their mom’s last boyfriend had put it in. They’d found out all sorts of good stuff about mom’s last boyfriend.
Last night, she’d found out all sorts of good stuff about poltergeists. Even though it took her a bunch of tries to spell it right.
The seed was moving around in the orange, but she couldn’t get it to come close. Tony said it was attracted to her power. But it wasn’t. She frowned and kicked at the side of the metal bucket. Wizards worked things out. Tony said it was what they did.
There were still some other girls in the school being all emotionally turmoiled, so maybe she needed more power to make it leave them.
Tony said she needed to learn to focus.
Fine.
And to concentrate.
Whatever.
Tony just pointed and drew blue lines in the air.
She wasn’t Tony. Maybe he was right and she didn’t need a wand. Maybe he was a jerk. Reaching into her backpack, she pulled out the pen. It was wood. And smooth. And it smelled a little like her father’s cologne.
She pointed the pen at the floor, and she concentrated on being focused. She concentrated as hard as she could but nothing happened.
Because it wasn’t a real wand! The pen bounced off the wall when she threw it, and an instant later a bag of rags bounced off the shelf and landed beside it. The muttering in the walls wasn’t muttering now. It was laughing. Laughing at her.
Her lip curled. She kicked the rags aside and snatched up the pen.
A copper-coloured spark gleamed on the pointy end. By the time she’d carefully spelled poltergeist in sparkling cursive script about an inch above the tiles, it wasn’t a pen anymore.
She didn’t have to wait very long.
The mops fell over first. Brianna covered her head with her arms as they clattered around the tiny room, biting back a shriek as they whacked against her shoulders. The paper towels flew off the shelf and unrolled. She batted them aside. The lids flew off two bottles of floor cleaner, and the contents sprayed toward the ceiling. Cleaner couldn’t hurt her.
She felt it touch her pattern.
She gripped her wand, ducked a flying bar of soap, and smiled.
*
“There you are!” Ashley grabbed her sister’s arm and dragged her along the hall toward the front doors. “Mom’s going to be here in a minute, and you know she throws a total fit when we’re late.” She glanced down at what Brianna had clutched in one hand. “Tell me you weren’t hunting for another bug.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Yay. Why do you smell like floor cleaner? Never mind. Don’t tell me.” She brushed at Brianna’s jacket as they walked. “You’ve got bits of paper towel all over you.”
Narrow shoulders rose and fell. “Some got shredded.”
“Were you fighting?” Ashley asked as they emerged onto the broad, stone steps. She stopped on the path and pulled Brianna around to face her. “You’d better tell me.”
“Sort of.”
“Did you win?”
“Totally.”
“Good. You know what Daddy always says…”
“…no point in fighting if you don’t win.” Brianna grinned up at her.
“I see you found your freak,” Sandra called from the lawn. “Maybe you should put a leash on it.”
“All right. That’s it.” Ashley began unbuttoning her jacket. “This school isn’t big enough for all three of us. I’m going to rip her hair out and stuff it in her bra with all those socks!”
Brianna’s hand on her arm stopped her. “It’s okay. Let it go.”
Ashley looked from the hand to her little sister. “She keeps calling you…”
“I know. But mom’s here.” As the car pulled up, Brianna pocketed the little gold jewellery box, the new copper clasp gleaming for an instant in the late afternoon sun. “We’ll deal with Sandra tomorrow.”
The muttering from the jewellery box sounded pleased.
Author’s Note
I readily admit that while I’m an easy cry where books are concerned, I don’t usually evoke tears with my own writing. I know too well what I did and how I did it. This, however is one of three stories (out of seventy plus) that makes me tear up a bit at the end. As always, your mileage may vary.
SEE ME
“Mason, you want to move a bit to the right? We’re picking up that very un-Victorian parking sign.”
Huddling down inside Raymond Dark’s turn-of-the-19th-century greatcoat, Mason Reed shuffled sideways and paused to sniff mournfully before asking, “Here?”
Adam took another look into the monitor. “There’s fine. Tony, where’s Everett?”
Tony took two wide shots with the digital camera for continuity and said, “He’s in the trailer finishing Lee’s bruise.”
“Right. Okay… uh…” Adam was obviously looking for Pam, their PA, but Pam had already been sent to the 24-hour drugstore over on Granville to pick up medicine for Mason’s cold. He’d already sneezed his fangs out once, and no one wanted to go through that again. Tony grinned as Adam’s gaze skirted determinedly past him.
Although he’d been the 1st Assistant Director since the pilot, this was Adam’s first time directing an episode of Darkest Night—the most popular vampire/detective show in syndication—and he clearly intended to do everything by the book, including respecting Tony’s 2AD status. Or possibly respecting the fact that Tony was one of the world’s three practicing wizards. Even if he didn’t get a lot of chance to practice given the insane hours his job required.
CB Productions had never had the kind of staffing that allowed for respect.
“I’m done here, Adam. I’ll get him.”
“If you don’t mind…”
Chris on camera one made an obscene gesture. “Adam, dude, Everett’s with Lee.”
Tony flipped Chris off as he turned and headed for the trailer that housed makeup, hair, wardrobe, and, once, when the writers were being particularly challenging, three incontinent fruit bats.
Halfway there, he met Everett and Lee heading out.
Everett rol
led his eyes and cut Tony off before he got started. “Let me guess, Mason’s nose needs powdering.”
“It’s a little ruddy for one of the bloodsucking undead.”
“My sister’s wedding is in four days,” Everett growled, hurrying toward the lights. “I’ve already rented a tux. If he gives me his cold, I’m putting itching powder in his coffin. And you can quote me on that.”
Tony fell into step beside Lee, who, unlike Mason, was dressed in contemporary clothing.
“I get that it’s artistic, the real world overlapping Mason’s angst-ridden flashback, but after four seasons, I can safely say that our fans could care less about art and the only overlapping they want to see is James Taylor Grant…” He tapped his chest. “…climbing into the coffin with Raymond Dark.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Jealous?”
Tony leaned close, bumping shoulders with the actor. “It’s basic geometry. Mason’s bigger than me, and you and I barely fit.” At the time, they’d been pretty sure they weren’t coming back for another season and had wanted to go out with a bang. Tony still had trouble believing the show had hung on for four years. He had almost as much trouble believing he and Lee had been together for over two—not exactly out, although their relationship was an open secret in the Vancouver television community.
Their own crew had survived a dark wizard invading from another reality, a night trapped inside a haunted house that was trying to kill them, and the imminent end of the world by way of an immortal Demon Gate hired to do some stunt work. Relatively speaking, the 2AD sleeping with the show’s second lead wasn’t worth noting.
Tony handed Lee off to Adam and headed down the block to check out the alley they’d be using as a location later that night. Stepping off the sidewalk and turning into the space between an electronics store and a legal aid office, he switched over to the Gaffer’s frequency with one hand as he waved the other in front of his face. “I think
we’re going to need more lights than Sorge thought, Jason. There’s bugger all spill from the…”
He paused. Frowned. The victim of the week was an impressive screamer. Pretty much simultaneously, he remembered she wouldn’t be arriving for another two hours and realized that the scream had come from in front of him, not behind him.
Had come from deeper within the alley.
“Tony?” Adam, in his earbud.
“I’m on it.” He was already running, muttering the night-sight spell under his breath. As it took effect, he saw someone standing, someone else lying down, and a broken light over a graffiti-covered door at the alley’s dead-end. Still running, he threw a wizard lamp up into it. People would assume electricity.
Most people.
The someone standing was a woman, mid-twenties maybe, pretty although overly made-up and under-dressed. The someone on the ground was an elderly man, and even at a distance, Tony doubted he’d be getting up again.
“Tony?” Lee led the pack running into the alley behind him.
“Call 911,” Tony snapped without turning. He’d have done it himself, but these days it was best to first make sure the screaming was about something the police could handle. Like called to like, as he’d learned the hard way. Having Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry VIII, romance writer, and vampire based in Vancouver was enough to bring in the fine and freaky. Since Tony had started developing his powers, the freaky vastly outnumbered the fine.
Dropping to one knee beside the body, he checked for a pulse; found nothing. Checked for visible wounds; found nothing. The victim wasn’t breathing and didn’t begin breathing when Tony blew in two lungfuls of air, so Tony shifted position and started chest compressions.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
A smudge of scarlet lipstick bled into the creases around the old man’s mouth.
Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.
A glance over his shoulder showed Lee comforting the woman, her face pressed into his chest, his arms around her visibly trembling body.
Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.
The old man was very old, skin pleated into an infinite number of wrinkles, broken capillaries on both cheeks. He had all his hair but it was yellow/white and his teeth made Tony think of skulls.
Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.
His clothes belonged on a much younger man, and given what he’d been doing when he died—fly of his jeans gapping open, hooker young enough to be his granddaughter—he was clearly trying too hard.
Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five.
Where the hell was the cavalry? There’d been a police cruiser at the location. How long did it take them to get out of the car and run two blocks down the street?
A flash of navy in the corner of one eye, and a competent voice said, “It’s okay. I’ve got him.”
Tony rolled up onto his feet as the constable took over, stepping back just in time to see Lee reluctantly allowing the other police officer to lead the woman away.
She was pretty, he could see that objectively, even if, unlike Lee, he’d never been interested in women on a visceral level. Long reddish-brown hair around a heart-shaped face, big brown eyes heavily shadowed both by makeup and life, and a wide mouth made slightly lopsided by smudged scarlet gloss. Tears had trailed lines of mascara down both cheeks. Below the neck, the blue mini-dress barely covered enough to be legal and he wondered how she could even walk in the strappy black high heels. She wasn’t trying as hard as the old man had been, but Tony could see a sad similarity between them.
“She’s terrified she’s going to be charged with murder,” Lee murmured as Tony joined him.
“Death by hand job?”
“Not funny. You don’t know that she…” When Tony raised an eyebrow, Lee flushed. “Yeah, okay. But it’s still not funny. She really is terrified.”
“Sorry.” Tony moved until they were touching, shoulder to wrist.
The police seemed a lot less sympathetic than Lee had been.
“I’m going to see if she needs help,” he said suddenly, striding away before Tony could reply.
“This is not a reason to stop working,” Adam called from the sidewalk at the end of the alley.
“Does anyone care that I’m fucking dying over here?” Mason moaned beside him.
*
Standing at the craft services table, drinking a green tea and trying very hard to remember that the camera really did put on at least ten pounds, Lee attempted to ignore the jar of licorice rope. The memory of the woman in the blue dress had kept him on edge for two days, and he kept reaching for comfort food.
Movement on the sidewalk out beyond the video village caught his eye, and desperate for distraction, Lee gave it his full attention. He’d have liked to have been able to tell Tony later that he was surprised to see the woman in the blue dress again, but he honestly wasn’t. Grabbing a muffin and sliding a juice box into his jacket pocket, he picked his way through the cables toward her.
“These are for you.” When she looked down at the muffin in her hand, a little confused, Lee added, “The other night, you felt… it looked like you weren’t getting enough to eat.”
She had on the same blue dress with a tight black cardigan over it. The extra layer did nothing to mask her body, but he supposed, given her job, that made sense.
“So, the other night, did the police ever charge you?”
“No.”
Something in her tone suggested he not ask for details. “Were they able to identify the old man?”
“No.” Her hair swept across her shoulders as she shook her head. “I don’t think so. They wouldn’t tell me anyway, would they?”
“I guess not.” He heard a hundred unpleasant encounters with the police in that sentence, and he found himself hating the way she seemed to accept it. “I never got your name.”
“Valerie.”
“I’m Lee.”
“I know.” She smiled as she gestured behind him at
the barely organized chaos of a night shoot.
The smile changed her appearance from attractive to beautiful. Desirable. Lee opened and closed his mouth a few times before managing a slightly choked, “Right. Of course.” He glanced down, unable to meet her gaze any longer, noticed her legs were both bare and rising in goose bumps from the cold, looked up to find her watching him, and frowned. “Are you warm enough?”
Expectation changed to confusion and she was merely attractive again. “I’m fine.”
“You sure? Because I could…”
“Lee!” Pam trotted up, breathing heavily, one hand clamped to her com-tech to keep it from bouncing free. “They’re ready for you.”
*
Tony watched Lee take his leave of a familiar hooker and follow Pam onto the section of street standing in for Victorian Vancouver. Tony hurried to meet him just before he reached his mark and leaned in, one hand resting lightly against the other man’s chest. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. I was just talking to…”
“I saw.”
“Her name’s Valerie.”
“I know. Police let it drop when they questioned me about finding the body. They didn’t charge her.”
“Yeah, she said.”
“Apparently you don’t scream if you’ve just killed someone and there was still five hundred and twenty-seven dollars in the guy’s wallet.” Tony frowned “They said there was no ID, though.”
Lee frowned as well, a slight dip of dark brows. Not quite enough to wrinkle his forehead. “They said a lot.”
Tony shrugged. Past experience had taught him that a lot of cops weren’t too concerned about maintaining a hooker’s privacy, but he had no intention of getting into that with Lee. “She say why she came by? Are we on her stretch of turf?”
“No.” Lee shook his head, careful not to knock James Taylor Grant’s hair out of place. “Well, maybe. But I don’t think that’s why she came by.”
“Get a room, you two!” Adam’s shout moved them apart. “And Tony, unless you’ve been cast as Grant’s new girlfriend…”
“And the Internet goes wild,” someone muttered.
“…get your ass out of my shot.”