Smoke and Ashes

by Tanya Huff

  Then the moment passed.

  Lee nodded toward the dressing rooms, still half a dozen meters down the hall. “Come on, you need to get cleaned up.”

  Maybe it came from facing demons. Maybe he was light-headed from hunger. “Chicken.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Lee really sounded pissed, but to Tony’s surprise, he didn’t let go—although his grip on Tony’s upper arm tightened until his fingers were digging into flesh. They walked in silence to the door of his dressing room where Tony balked.

  “I’m using your shower?”

  “You’d rather have Mason walk in on you?”

  He was a heartbeat away from saying what he’d rather have. He said nothing as Lee opened the door. Nothing as he walked inside. Nothing as Lee released his arm, stepped back, and asked, “You going to be okay?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Well, that was something but not exactly relevant.

  He said nothing as Lee tossed him a towel. Said nothing as Lee left.

  As he dropped to the end of the couch and bent to fight with his shoes, he muttered, “Who’s chicken now?”

  At least if they were both chickens that was sort of a species step in the right direction. Or possibly he’d moved beyond light-headed to completely fucking insane.

  Amy was setting a tray of food on the battered coffee table as he stepped out of the tiny en suite, the towel wrapped around his waist. There was no sign of Lee.

  And the repressed gay interlude seems to be over; back to business as usual.

  “Just so you know, I’m not accepting a supporting role.” Amy stuck a fork upright in the lasagna. “I lied my ass off to the cops last night,” she continued, straightening, “and I demand a spot in the front…Whoa, Tony, those are some interesting scars.”

  It took him a moment to realize she meant the crosshatching on his left pec. Most people who saw him with his shirt off didn’t mention them.

  “Who did this to you?” Henry traced cool circles over the damaged skin.

  “If I tell you, what’ll you do?”

  His smile had been like a knife in the dark. “Make them pay.”

  So Tony’d told him. Hell, he was eighteen. Revenge had seemed like a good idea. He still didn’t regret it.

  Zev had said nothing, merely acknowledged the evidence of old pain with a gentleness that had broken Tony apart. And then acknowledged that by putting him back together again more gently still. I so didn’t deserve him.

  “Are they tribal markings?” Amy asked as he rummaged a shirt out of the garbage bag of his clean laundry.

  “Sort of.” They were what happened to those who got caught on the wrong turf.

  “Cool.”

  Not really, no. But Amy was looking at darkness from the outside where it was a lot safer and practically branded. “What the hell are you wearing?”

  She pulled the front of her T-shirt out far enough to be able to look down at the picture of a nearly skeletal man climbing out of the bisected body of a rotting bear. “New movie shooting in the park. I scammed it off one of the publicity guys. Werebear!”

  “Where castle?” He shimmied jeans up under the towel and let it drop.

  “What?”

  “Are you kidding me?” When she continued to look blank, he shook his head and dropped down onto the couch. “No one cares about the classics these days.”

  “Yeah, yeah, tell it to your next boyfriend. And speaking of, that cutie cop wants to see you on the soundstage when you’ve eaten; he’s taken your spot on the chaise. Lee says you can leave your clothes in here as long as you need to. Zev says try not to get killed before tomorrow sunset because he’d like to say good-bye. Adam wants to know why you can’t work since you’re in the building anyway. And I’d be kind of pissed about taking messages for you except I’m sucking up in the hope you’ll take me demon hunting.”

  He muttered a negative around a mouthful of lasagna.

  “I can get my hands on some holy water.”

  “Wrong kind of demons.”

  “There’s a right kind of demon?”

  “Damned if I know.” He smiled up at her.

  “Ew. Mouth closed while eating, pig person.” Wiggling her fingers at him in what may have been a sign against the evil eye although it looked more like she was trying to flick a booger free, Amy backed out the door. “Don’t forget the cop on the chaise,” she warned as she closed it behind her.

  Sometimes, Tony acknowledged, stuffing another forkload of pasta and cheese into his mouth and this time chewing with his mouth closed, the tricks a guy learned grossing out girls at twelve ended up helping him out for the rest of his life.

  “Your friend Fitzroy doesn’t answer his phone.”

  Tony shrugged in Jack’s general direction. It had been Henry last night. Now it was Fitzroy again. At least he hadn’t shortened it to Fitz—Henry reacted badly to diminutives. “He’s probably on deadline.”

  “Oh, yeah. Romance writer.” Reclining on the chaise, fingers laced over his stomach, wearing the pale blue dress shirt with the handprint scorched onto it that Mason had worn in episode five, Jack crossed his legs at the ankles. “I don’t know many romance writers who can do what he did last night.”

  “How many romance writers do you know? And how many of them have you seen deal with a demon?”

  “Good point. Points.”

  He crossed to the chaise, fighting the urge to look up at the gate as he passed under it. Technically, he fought the urge to look up into the lighting grid at the place the gate would be if it was still opening, but that was more complicated than he was up to right now. “Amy said you wanted to see me?” His attempt at not sounding defensive failed miserably.

  Jack grinned. “Thought you’d like to know what you missed after you went all Sleeping Beauty on us last night and before Prince Charming showed up this afternoon.”

  “Who?” So much for defensive—now, he was just trying not to sound confused.

  “Leah sent that actor guy you’re so hot for in to watch over you.” The grin broadened in a decidedly shit-disturbing manner. “I suggested he wake you with a kiss. How’d that go? I’m curious,” he added as Tony opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, “because he looked like he was considering it. Good-looking guy if I was interested in guys, which I’m not.”

  “Neither is he.”

  “Bullshit. I pointed out that the place is being overrun by demons and we could all be dead tomorrow, so he should take the chance.”

  “He’s st…” Tony couldn’t get the word out. Apparently his subconscious would only allow hypocrisy to take him so far. “He’s not interested.”

  “The hell he isn’t. I’m a trained observer…” Jack unlaced his fingers and thumped himself on the chest. “…your tax dollars at work. The girls are either camouflage or he’s willing to switch hit.”

  “Spare me the lame sports analogy, Dr. Ruth.”

  “Shut up, I’m not done. He’s decided he wants you, but he’s too fucking freaked to take that final step. Can’t say as I blame him, him being in the public eye and all.” A thoughtful frown. “Or he would be if anyone actually watched this dumbass show.”

  “Hey! We’ve got the highest numbers of any vampire detective show in syndication.”

  “That and a buck seventeen will buy you a bad cup of coffee.” Swinging his feet to the floor, Jack sat up. “So, the story thus far: Your reporter buddy Groves showed up with that page of his. Your romance writer buddy Fitzroy went home and got the rest of the book. Your very hot stuntwoman buddy Leah knows how to read the book, and she’s working on the translation. Basically, we’re all waiting to find out what the hell is going on. Oh, and your freak buddy, Amy, kind of grows on you. Is she seeing anyone?”

  “Not right now.” He dropped onto the end of the chaise. “And forget it.”

  Jack made a noise Tony couldn’t identify—although he was pretty sure it wasn’t agreement—and said, “So, who’s Arra?


  “Arra?” He needed to find out how much Jack knew, then he could craft the lie. “How do you know about Arra?”

  “You mentioned her last night.”

  Crap.

  “We were talking about the rope, the unnatural rope, and you said it was weird that Arra’d know it would work since she’d never faced demons here in this world. Then Leah said that if you’d never met her, you wouldn’t be fighting demons today.”

  “You remember all that?”

  “It’s part of my job to remember the details.”

  That wasn’t the part of his job Tony had trouble with. It was more the parts that involved the government and arresting people. And sure he’d been willing to falsify reports and get involved on his own time, but how long before the weird built up past the point he could justify not mentioning it. Justify not bringing out the big guns to try and stop it? And would that even be a problem? People had died? Tony stared at the toes of his Doc Martens. They were in the midst of a Demonic Convergence; odds were good that more people would die.

  “You want me to take a guess?” Jack leaned forward, forearms balanced on his thighs. “I’m guessing she was the wizard who fingered you as a wizard and that she was from another world, like the demons are. I figure this happened back last spring when I got fed a bullshit line about what happened to Charlie Harris and Rahal Singh.”

  He didn’t need to be reminded of their names.

  “I figure she either died then, too, or went home since she wasn’t around this summer while you were talking to the dead and she isn’t around now.”

  Tony opened his mouth and closed it again when Jack kept talking.

  “At first I thought you may have made some kind of mistake when this Arra was starting you out as a wizard and that’s how those two men died—and that’s what you’ve been hiding from me.”

  He could feel Jack’s gaze on the side of his face. He didn’t turn. “It’s not.”

  “I know. Leah said something else last night.”

  “Um…take me? Take me, I’m yours?” A weak attempt to lighten the mood but pretty much a gimme.

  “She said that heroes rise when we need them.”

  That forced the turn. “You think I’m a hero?”

  Jack shrugged. “I did a background check on you,” he said matter-of-factly. “I know what battles you’ve already won.”

  “Holy after-school special, Batman,” Tony muttered, cheeks flushed. He hadn’t won any battles; he’d done what he’d had to in order to survive.

  “So what happened last spring?” Still matter-of-fact.

  Why not. “Arra and I fought off a guy called the Shadowlord invading from her world. After we won, she went home.” Cole’s Notes version.

  “The Shadowlord was responsible for the deaths?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He got eaten by the light.”

  “Is that some kind of wizard metaphor?”

  “Not really.”

  “Here?” His gesture took in the immediate area.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.” Jack nodded. “Good,” he said again, sounding more satisfied the second time, as though he’d taken that moment to consider things and now was able to let it go.

  They sat silently for a moment, Jack staring down into his loosely clasped hands. Voices across the soundstage sounded like they were coming from another world. Tony glanced up into the lighting grid and then back down at his shoes. “An old friend of mine says there’s too often a difference between law and justice.”

  “Would that old friend be Detective-Sergeant Mike Celluci?”

  “Christ, no!”

  Fortunately, any discussion that might bring up Vicki Nelson was cut off by the bell and calls of “Rolling!” from the permanent sets. It sounded like they were shooting by Mason’s coffin—far enough away for quiet conversation but just as well Jack didn’t know that. Tony did not want to talk about Vicki Nelson with Jack.

  Talking about Vicki would only lead to more lying and basking in the warm glow of even a truncated confession. Tony didn’t feel like lying. With any luck, the feeling wouldn’t last, but for the moment he decided to go with it.

  “Cut! Reset! We’ll go again from the top.”

  They heard the door open almost immediately after the light went out.

  “Must be nice,” Constable Danvers muttered, stopping at the foot of the chaise, arms folded over her damp, brown corduroy jacket. “Sitting around, head up your butt, not actually accomplishing anything.”

  “We had a demon last night,” Jack protested.

  “Yeah? I had a six-year-old who disassembled the DVD player, an eight-year-old who wants a tattoo, and dog vomit all over the living room rug. Trade you.”

  When she motioned for Tony to move over, he stood. “I’ll get a chair.” No way he was sitting between two cops. That brought back bad memories.

  “…good news is, no bodies,” she was saying as he returned. “No body parts either. We had Sammy Kline making his biweekly call about lights in the sky and, this time, he might actually be onto something since there was a slightly more credible report about a flash of light across the Arm from the airport.” She turned the page of her occurrence book and squinted at her notes. “Pilot saw it when he was circling for his final approach and thought it might be an explosion. Richmond detachment sent a car over, and it turned out to be some kind of gas leak and blow in a Goth coffee shop. Goth coffee shop,” she repeated with a snort. “That almost qualifies as weird shit on its own.”

  “A demon knocked the door down.” Tony told her. He hid a grin as her head jerked up. “That flash by the airport was the weak spot opening.”

  Her eyes narrowed and suddenly he didn’t feel much like grinning. “Weak spot?” she demanded.

  “Between here and the hells.”

  “You were there?”

  He shrugged. “I was trying to cut it off at the pass.”

  “Great,” she smiled insincerely, the expression barely reaching her mouth let alone her eyes. “You’re a cowboy now. So there was a demon at a Goth coffee shop? They must’ve been thrilled.”

  “Not really. Not all of them,” he amended, remembering Amy.

  “You’d think that the sort of people who’d drink at a Goth coffee shop…What?” she demanded as Jack growled something under his breath. “I just like saying it. We, where we refers to the police in general as opposed to our detachment in particular, also received a number of calls about vandalized satellite dishes, a couple of downed power lines, a destroyed pigeon coop, and, not far from here, a balcony railing ripped right off the twelfth floor. No one saw anything, though.”

  “It took the high ground between the coffee shop and here,” Tony realized. “That’s why there were no casualties.”

  “Not a lot of healthy pigeons left in that coop,” Constable Danvers pointed out dryly. “And when you say it, you’re talking demon, right?”

  “Right. They move really fast.”

  “No shit.”

  “Can you check for more flashes?”

  She shook her head. “There was only the one reported last night.”

  “Not just from last night,” Jack broke in. “Go back at least a week,” he told his partner, then turned to Tony. “You want to compare the flashes to the demons you dusted, get a count, and find out if there’s any still hanging around.”

  “It’ll get us the timing, too. Unless the intervals are completely random, we’ll know when to expect the next one.”

  “You’re smarter than you look.”

  “I hate to put a damper on the mutual congratulations,” Danvers sighed. “But last night’s report was a fluke. Pilot just happened to be passing over at the right time. No one else called it in.”

  “There’s not much around there.” It was on the edge of an industrial park, as far as Tony could remember and, that close to the airport, what locals there were would be used to blocking out lights and sound.
The guests at the hotel down the street wouldn’t know what passed for normal in that part of Vancouver and the staff would be too busy to care. “If a weak spot opened where there were more people, someone probably called the cops.”

  Looking thoughtful, she snapped the occurrence book closed, slid it into an inside pocket, and pulled out her PDA. “Worth a try, I suppose. I can access the electronic files from here.”

  “Not from here, you can’t. You can’t get an uplink any closer than the other side of the road,” he explained in answer to the questioning curl of her lip, impressed by the amount of information she could convey in a sneer.

  “Fine.” She stood. “I’ll check and then I’m gone. Some of us can’t waste precious sick days saving the world. Oh, hell, I’m going to have to come back, aren’t I? I can’t just call you with the info.”

  “Let’s settle down, people!” Adam’s voice, rising from around Raymond Dark’s coffin, dampened the ambient noise. “Quiet on the set!”

  Tony glanced over toward the door. The light was still off. “You won’t get to come back if you don’t go away.”

  “You can talk after he says quiet?”

  “Yeah, but you can’t leave after the red light goes on.”

  She took two steps toward the door and half turned, one hand rising to touch the loose knot of hair at the back of her neck. “Lee Nicholas?”

  “Is in Chester Bane’s office with the demonic consultant,” Jack told her. “I thought you didn’t have time to hang around and save the world.”

  “I may need to ask him a couple of questions about that deranged fan.” She flashed him a “two can play at this game” look and ran for the door.

  “Lee’s with Leah?” Tony asked when no one yelled rolling. He was aiming for nonchalant. He suspected he missed.

  “That’s where I left him. I took over out here, remember?” Leaning on the curve of the chaise, Jack raised an eyebrow. “You think he’s in there shoring up his increasingly dubious heterosexuality?” He snickered as Tony shrugged, once again missing nonchalant. “Yeah, it’s all right there on your face. Except the increasingly dubious bit. I added that myself.”