Smoke and Ashes

by Tanya Huff

  “Right. You’re doing second unit work tonight.”

  Everyone seemed to know that. Were they posting his schedule now or what?

  Lee shifted his motorcycle helmet from under his left arm to under his right but didn’t actually move out of the doorway. “So you were here to…”

  “Meeting. I had a meeting with CB.”

  “Good. I mean, it was good?”

  “Yeah. I guess. Still dealing with Brianna’s reactions in the…” Shit. Never bring up the house thing with Lee.

  The actor-face slipped. “In the house?”

  Unless he brings it up first. “Yeah. In the house.”

  Lee’s eyes closed briefly, thick lashes lying against his cheeks like the fringe on a theater curtain. Only darker. Not gold. And without the tassels. Tony realized he was babbling to himself, but he couldn’t seem to stop. They hadn’t been alone together, standing this close, since, well, since the house. For a moment, he hoped that when Lee opened his eyes, the actor-face would be gone and they could maybe start dealing with what had happened.

  Lee had to make the first move because Lee was the one with the career he could lose. It was Lee’s face plastered on T-shirts worn by teenage girls and forty-year-old women who should know better. Tony was a TAD. Professionally, no one gave a crap about him.

  The moment passed.

  Lee opened his eyes. “Well, I have to say that it’s been nice running into you and all, but I need to get to my…” Dark brows drew in, and he waved the hand not holding the helmet.

  “Dressing room?”

  “Yeah.” The smile was fake. Well done, but fake. “My memory sucks some days.”

  Tony reflected the smile back at him. “Old age.”

  “Yeah.” The smile was still fake, but the regret flattening his words seemed real. “That has to be it.”

  Tony squinted up at the top of the building, trying to count the number of people standing at the edge of the roof. Sorge’s request for a steadicam had been overruled by the budget, so there should only be two: Leah Burnett, the stuntwoman doing the fall, and Sam Tappett, one of Daniel’s safety crew. Two. Not a hard number to count. Most nights he could even do it with his shoes on. So why did he keep getting three? Not every time—because that would have made sense. Every now and then, he thought—no, cancel that, he was sure—he could see a third figure.

  Not Henry.

  Not tonight.

  Not unless Henry had been growing an impressive set of horns in his spare time and had then developed the ability to share his personal space with mere mortals. The same actual space. Sort of superimposed.

  Welcome to the wonderful world of weird.

  Déjà vu all over again.

  The question now: should he do anything about it and, if so, what?

  It wasn’t like his spidey-sense was tingling or something in his subconscious was flailing metaphorical arms and wailing Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! He didn’t have a bad feeling about things, and he had no idea if this was a threat or some kind of symbolic wizard experience. Maybe it was something all wizards saw on top of buildings at—he checked his watch—11:17 on Thursday nights in early October and he’d just never been looking in the right place at the right time.

  Still, as a general rule, when he saw things others couldn’t, the situation went south in a big way pretty fucking fast.

  Unfortunately, none of the second unit crew had been in the house. They’d heard the stories, but they didn’t know. Not the way those who’d been trapped and forced to listen to hours of badly played thirties dance music knew. If he told Pam, the second unit director, that he intermittently saw a translucent, antlered figure on the roof, she’d assume controlled substances and not metaphysical visitations.

  Tony hadn’t done hard drugs since just before Henry pulled him off the streets. Point of interest; he’d never seen big, see-through guys with horns while he was shooting up.

  He glanced down as a gust of wind plastered a grimy piece of newspaper to his legs. Evening weather reports had mentioned a storm coming in off the Pacific, and the wind was starting to pick up, sweeping up all kinds of debris as it raced through the artificial canyons between the buildings. Before he could grab the newspaper, another gust whirled it away and slapped it up against the big blue inflated bag Leah would land on.

  If Daniel thought it was too dangerous, he’d cancel the stunt regardless of the shooting schedule. Tony hurried over to where the stunt coordinator was checking the final inflation of the bag.

  “It’s getting kind of windy.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Four stories is a long way to fall.”

  “Uh-huh.” He straightened and bounced against the side of the bag. “That’s why they call it a high fall.”

  “Yeah, it’s just that falling four stories the wind’ll have longer to throw her off…” As Daniel turned to look at him, Tony sputtered to a stop. “But you’ve taken that into account.”

  “I have.” Stern features under dark stubble suddenly dissolved into a smile. “But I thank you for staying on top of things. It never hurts to have another person thinking about potential problems.” He unclipped the microphone from his collar. “Hey, Sam, what’s the wind like up there?”

  “Little gusty. Not too bad.”

  “What’s Leah think?”

  During the pause, the antlered figured came and went and came again. It almost seemed to wave when Leah did.

  “She says she’s good to go whenever you give the word.”

  “We’re ready down here. Pam, we can go any time.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Pam’s voice in the ear jack. “Let’s have a slate on the scene and get started!”

  Tony backed away from the bag as Daniel’s people took up their positions. Since a high fall relied 100 percent on the stuntee’s ability to hit the bag safely, the stunt crew were essentially there to deal with a miss. Tony wouldn’t have wanted to see the backboard so prominently displayed were he about to jump off a roof, but, hey, that was him.

  “Quiet, please, cameras are rolling.”

  A repeat of “Rolling!” in half a dozen voices rippled out from the director’s chair.

  “Scene 19b, high fall, take one. Mark!”

  “Action.”

  Far enough away now, Daniel’s voice sounded in Tony’s ear jack. “On three, Leah. One…”

  Up on the roof, Sam would be echoing the count, fingers flicking up to give visual cues.

  A gust of wind blew a bit of dirt in Tony’s eye. He ducked his head just in time to see that same gust about to fling a ten-centimeter piece of aluminum with a wickedly pointed end into the bag.

  “Two.”

  Impact wouldn’t make anything as simple as a hole. At that angle, at that speed, it was going to be a gash. And a big one.

  “Three.”

  The wham whoosh of impact and applause from the crew covered the sound of aluminum slapping into Tony’s palm. The jagged piece of debris had probably blown down from the construction site. Revenge of the backhoe.

  “Cut!”

  He looked up as Leah climbed down off the bag, Daniel, grinning broadly, reaching out a hand to steady her. The fall had clearly not been a problem; the high heels, on the other hand, were giving her a little trouble. She was smiling, definitely happy, but less overtly euphoric than a lot of stuntees were after nailing a four-story fall.

  She didn’t look like Padma. She looked like a stuntwoman wearing the same costume over some strategic padding.

  So much for the magic of television.

  It took a moment for Tony to realize she was staring at him.

  No, not at him. At the piece of aluminum still in his hand.

  As though she’d suddenly become aware of his attention, she lifted her head. Lifted one dark, inquiring brow.

  Even the see-through guy with horns sharing her space seemed interested.

  Two

  NIGHT SHOOTS ALWAYS THREW Tony’s sleeping patterns out of wh
ack. When a guy his age got off work, he was supposed to go out and do things. He wasn’t supposed to drive straight home and fall over. It wasn’t just wrong, it was old. It was what old guys did.

  Except there wasn’t a whole lot to do at 2:30 on a Thursday morning in beautiful downtown Burnaby.

  Cradling a bag of overpriced groceries from the 7-Eleven, Tony kicked the door to his apartment closed and shuffled into the tiny kitchen. The shuffling was necessary because he’d started sorting laundry back on Monday, hadn’t quite finished yet, and didn’t want to start again from scratch because he’d mixed the piles. The bread and milk went into the fridge. He tucked the bottle of apple juice under his arm and carried the bag of beef jerky and the spray cheese into the living room—where living room was defined as the part of the long rectangle that contained an unmade sofa bed instead of a stove, a fridge, and a sink.

  The television remote was not in the pizza box under the couch. It finally turned up on top of the bookcase by the window, half buried in the pot with the dead geranium. Raising it in triumph, he settled back against the pillows, sprayed some cheese on a piece of jerky, and started channel surfing with the mute on.

  Replay of a hockey game on TSN, end of hurricane season on Outdoor Life, remake of Smokey and the Bandit…

  “Which after The Longest Yard and The Dukes of Hazzard pretty much proves there is no God,” he muttered, jabbing his thumb at the remote.

  …some guy eating a bug on either the Learning Channel or FOOD—he didn’t stay long enough to see if it came with a lecture on habitat or a raspberry vinaigrette—three movies he’d already seen, two he didn’t want to see, a bug eating some guy on either Discovery or Space, someone knocking at the door…

  His thumb stilled.

  Someone knocking at his door. Carefully. Specifically. Trying not to wake the neighbors.

  It didn’t sound like Henry’s knock. He checked his watch: 2:57. Besides the vampire, who did he know who’d be up at this hour? Even tabloid journalists eventually crawled back under their rocks for a nap. It wasn’t Jack Elson or his partner; the police had a very distinctive knock.

  Might be Conner, that friend of Everett’s he’d met while visiting the makeup artist in the hospital. They’d gone for coffee but hadn’t been able to hook up since—Conner worked in the props shop at one of the other Burnaby studios, and his hours were as insane as Tony’s. Maybe their schedules had finally matched up.

  Of course, Conner’d have no way of knowing that.

  Unless Everett had told him.

  Hell, if he was going to imagine hot guys, why not drop all the way into fairy-tale land and assume it was Lee, no longer conflicted and unable to deny the blistering passion between them? Okay, for passion substitute a couple of possessed kisses—but they’d been pretty damned hot.

  Another knock.

  Of course, I could just get off my ass, walk a few meters, and find out. Dropping the spray cheese down in a pile of blankets by the jerky, Tony headed for the door.

  There was a spell on the laptop called “Spy Hole” that allowed the wizard to see through solid objects. The first time Tony’d tried it, he’d given it a little too much juice and gotten way too good a look at Mr. Chansky across the hall in apartment eleven. Talk about being scared straight. The experience had convinced him that sometimes the old ways were the best. Leaning forward, he peered through the security peephole.

  Leah Burnett.

  And the translucent overlay of the big guy with antlers.

  She grinned up at the lens and lifted a bag of Chinese food into Tony’s field of vision.

  All right. She had his attention.

  Stepping back, he opened the door.

  “Hey.” She waved the bag. “I thought we should talk.”

  “All three of us?”

  “Three? If you have company…”

  “No.” He just moved enough to stay solidly in her line of sight, blocking her view of the apartment. “You, me, and the guy sharing your space.”

  Dark eyes widened. “Guy?”

  “Big guy.” He held his hand about half a meter over her head.

  “Really? What does this guy look like?”

  “Hard to say, he’s a little fuzzy. Got a rack on him like Bambi’s dad, though.”

  “And you can see him right now?”

  “Not right now. He kind of comes and goes.”

  “Uh-huh.” A quick glance up and down the hall. “Maybe we should discuss this inside.”

  “Got something to hide?”

  “Just trying to keep you out of trouble with your neighbors.”

  That seemed fair. Besides, there were precautions in place in case he was actually in any danger from her. Them. Although, given the Chinese food and all, he doubted it. Opening the door all the way, Tony tucked himself up against the wall and beckoned the stuntwoman in.

  The glyphs painted across the threshold were supposed to flare red and create an impenetrable barrier if danger approached—it had taken days of fine-tuning to stop them from going off for the pizza girl, Mr. Chansky, and the elderly cat who lived at the end of the hall. As Leah stepped into the apartment, they flared white, then orange, then green, then a couple of colors Tony suspected the human eye shouldn’t actually be able to see. The pattern slammed out to fill the doorway, turned gray, and fluttered to the floor.

  Leah brushed at the shoulder of her jacket, the pale ash smearing across the damp fabric. “Sorry about that.” Her nose wrinkled as the smell of burned cherries momentarily overwhelmed the smell of the Chinese food. “What did you paint those on with, cherry cough syrup?”

  “Yeah.” When she stared up at him in astonishment, he shrugged. Carefully. His head felt like he’d just been hit repeatedly with a rubber mallet. “Cherry was the only flavor that worked. And,” he added, hoping he sounded like he believed it was possible, “I will fireball your ass if you try anything.”

  “Like what?”

  “Sorry?”

  She pulled the door out of his hand and closed it. “What are you expecting me to try?”

  He had no idea, so he followed her farther into the apartment.

  “I suppose I should be impressed that a guy your age actually sorts his laundry,” she muttered stepping over a pile of jeans and up to the kitchen counter where she set the bag down, shrugged out of her jacket, and started opening cupboards. “Ah. Plates.” And a moment later, “Cutlery?”

  “In the drawer by the fridge.”

  “Right. It’s mostly plastic.”

  “They were free.”

  “Fair enough.” She handed him a full plate and stepped over socks and underwear and stood staring at the rest of the apartment. “Daniel told me you were gay.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Way to work against the stereotype.”

  “What?”

  Her gesture took in the walls, the floor, and most of his furniture. “It’s beige.”

  “It was beige when I got here.”

  “You have a flag tacked up over the window.”

  “I’m a patriotic kind of guy.”

  “The only thing on the wall is a poster for Darkest Night.”

  “It was free.”

  “I figured. You seem to have spent everything you’ve made in the last year on that entertainment center.”

  “Look…” Tony pushed the laptop to one side and set his plate down on the small square table. “…if you’re here on some weird makeover thing, I don’t want my apartment redecorated or my life rearranged.”

  “You sure?”

  Her smile changed the whole shape of her face. Made her look years younger. Made her eyes sparkle. Made her look like someone he’d like to get to know. Really well. Made him want to slide the sweater off her shoulders, push back the dark curls and…

  …he suddenly noticed that the translucent antlered guy looked a lot more solid. Except for the horns, and the weird way his eyes had no whites, he seemed to be human. His skin tone was a little deeper than
Leah’s—a regular coffee instead of a double double—he had a lot of long dark hair twisted into dreads, and he was naked. And, although it was difficult to tell for certain, given that he and Leah were still sharing the same space, remarkably well hung.

  What the fuck?

  Tony shook his head and Leah was once again just a not very tall stuntwoman eating chow mein in his living room. Alone. No overlay of antlered guy. Eyes narrowed, he took a step back and raised the plastic fork. “What was that?”

  “A test.” She caught a bean sprout before it fell off the edge of her plate. “Ninety percent of men fail it.”

  Tony did the math. “Well, good for me. I’m really most sincerely gay.”

  “And yet you still can’t afford a gallon of periwinkle paint?”

  “Yeah, well here’s a thought…” He moved a pile of old sides—the half-size sheets with all the background information for each day’s shoot as well as the necessary script pages—and sat on the steadier of his two folding chairs. “…unless that guy is your inner interior decorator, how about you let the beige thing go and tell me what the hell is going on?”

  She thought about it for a moment, then nodded and sat on the edge of his bed. “You’re a wizard.”

  Tony just barely managed to resist coming back with, I know I am, but what are you? It was just past three in the morning, for fuck’s sake. He was a little punchy. He swallowed a mouthful of beef fried rice and said: “You’re…?”

  “Not.” A wave of her fork, dangling a piece of overcooked bok choi, cut off his reply. “It’s complicated. Maybe you should call your teacher, and I’ll only have to go through it once.”

  “My teacher?”

  “Mentor. Whatever you call the senior wizard in charge of your education.” Dark eyes sparkled again. “I’m assuming that in this brave new millennium you don’t use the word master.”

  “What makes you think I have a teacher?”

  Leah sighed. “You’re young. Far too young to be on your own.”

  “Surprise.” He spread his hands.

  Brows rose. “What happened to your teacher?”