by Tanya Huff
Figuring he had enough mayhem in his life at the moment, Tony tucked his hands in Zazu’s armpits—front leg pits?—and carefully lifted her down to the floor. She snorted, sounding remarkably like Arra, sat down, and licked her butt. Never having spent much time with cats, Tony’d never realized they were so good at making their opinions known. “I thought I didn’t understand about you not getting involved?”
“What?”
“You said you weren’t going to get involved.” He stepped carefully around Whitby who was now winding between his feet, determined to be punted across the apartment.
“I’m still not going near the gate when it’s open, but I suppose I can bullshit you past a few carpenters.”
“What changed your mind?”
She paused, yellow raincoat up over one arm, and stared for a long moment at a framed Darkest Night promotion poster. “The cats like you,” she said at last.
“Arra!”
She jabbed at the elevator call button a couple more times as though hoping it would realize she was in a hurry and arrive.
“Arra!”
“I don’t think he’s going to go away,” Tony murmured.
Smiling tightly, she turned. “Julian.”
He shifted the Chihuahua in the crook of his left arm and, eyes narrowed suspiciously, stared around her at Tony. “It’s your turn to dust and vacuum the party room.”
“I don’t even live here,” Tony protested.
“Not you. Her.”
Except he was still staring at Tony—who’d have found it creepy had his creep level not risen over the last few days. It was, however, becoming more than a little annoying.
“The party room’s done.”
That snapped an equally suspicious gaze back to Arra. “It wasn’t done a moment ago.”
“Well, it’s done now. And look, here’s our elevator.” Her hand closed tightly around Tony’s arm just above the elbow, she propelled him inside, following right on his heels.
“Ow!”
“Sorry.” Arra turned and waved jauntily at Julian through the last six inches of open space.
Shoving his foot back into his shoe, Tony waited until the door was fully closed before asking if the wizard had magicked the room clean. He hadn’t seen any incantations or a wand or even an ambiguous gesture but then, what did he know about wizards?
She leaned against the back wall and folded her arms. “No. I lied.”
“You lied?” Wizards lied. All things considered, it was something to remember.
“Prevaricated, even. Julian’s an ac-tor, you know. He got up my nose before he became president of the co-op board; now he’s unbearable.”
Even on such short acquaintance, Tony could see where unbearable might be a justified definition. “And his dog is fat.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What if we shot flamethrowers through the gate?”
Arra finished merging her mid-’80s hatchback with traffic and glanced over at her passenger. “Flamethrowers?”
“Yeah. We just sit under the gate and when it opens . . .” He mimed shooting toward the ceiling. “. . . whoosh.”
“Where would we get flamethrowers?”
Tony shrugged, shuffling his feet into a more comfortable position among the discarded coffee cups that littered the floor. “Same place we get them for the show; the weapons warehouse.”
“They aren’t . . .” Her voice trailed off and Arra scowled out at the road, her frown deepening slightly at each slap of the windshield wipers.
When she didn’t say anything more for about five kilometers, Tony figured that was it. The suggestion of flamethrowers had clearly brought up some bad memories. Beginning to doze off—even with all the lights on, it hadn’t been a particularly restful night—he jerked awake as she started talking again.
“I think he’d take it as a challenge. He’s never been stopped, so at this point he has to believe he never can be.”
“We’ve stopped some of his shadows.”
“Minor players. They are to his power as UPN is to network TV. He wouldn’t for a moment assume that because you’ve defeated them you could defeat him.” She snorted. “Evil wizards who style themselves the Shadowlord and go on to conquer vast amounts of territory seldom have a problem with self-esteem.”
“Do you think he’s conquered your whole world?”
“He’s headed for this one; does it matter?”
“I guess not.”
Another three kilometers passed. Tony wondered what was happening during the silences. Finally, she shrugged. “It’s only been seven years; I doubt it.”
“Then why is he coming here?”
He was looking at her when she turned toward him, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t been, the force of her expression would have dragged his head around. Pain and anger and other emotions less easily defined chased themselves across her face.
“You’re right,” he told her soothingly. “It doesn’t matter why he’s coming here, only that he is. Now, could you do me a favor and get your eyes back on the road!”
As the old analog clock on Arra’s workshop wall ticked around toward 11:00, Tony moved restlessly from shelf to shelf picking up and putting down the heads and hands and other accumulated body parts. “I thought your special effects were all, you know . . .” He waggled his fingers in the air.
“Piano playing?”
“Magic.”
“Some of them are. Most of them are a combination. A glamour works better than an illusion and a glamour has to be cast on something. Even computer-generated effects work better with some kind of reference point. Sometimes it’s manipulating pixels, sometimes it’s squibs and corn syrup, and sometimes it’s magic.”
He manipulated the snarl on a stuffed badger and frowned; he’d been with the show since the first episode and he couldn’t remember them ever needing badgers. There’d been an episode with wolves once and an inadvertent raccoon on a night shoot but never badgers. It smelled funny, too—although that might have been the jar of rubber eyeballs propping it up. “It never looks this fake on the screen.”
“It’s television, Tony. You’ve been in the business long enough to know that nothing is what is seems, it’s all smoke and mirrors.”
“It was all smoke and mirrors,” he muttered, walking over to her desk. “Now it’s smoke and shadows.”
“Very profound if a little obvious.” As he stopped behind her, Arra placed a six of diamonds on a seven of clubs. Four of the monitors showed games in progress.
“Don’t you ever get tired of that?”
She shrugged. “When it happens, I switch to a mah-jongg for a while.”
“Don’t you ever work?”
A snarl cut off her response and he whirled around to see the badger charge toward him—the force of its leap having knocked over the jar of eyeballs which hit the floor and shattered. Dodging away from tooth and claw, Tony’s foot came down on something round that popped wetly. When he glanced at the floor, an eyeball rolled to face him, pupil dilating in the midst of familiar blue. Then he felt claws catch the back of his jeans . . .
“Yes.”
Badger and jar were back on the shelf. He supposed they’d never actually left it. Heart pounding, he clutched at the back of Arra’s chair. “Yes, what?”
“Yes, on occasion, I work.”
“Right.” Straightening, he forced his voice back down to its usual register. “That wasn’t funny.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be.” She spun her chair around to face him, her expression serious. “If you’re going to fight the Shadowlord, you’ll have to know what’s real.”
“You took me by surprise.”
“And he won’t be e-mailing you his intentions. Your ability to see has cost him the element of surprise. It is your greatest weapon.” Gray brows drew in. “It’s pretty much your only weapon,” she added thoughtfully.
“Great.”
“Probably not.” Reaching into her
desk drawer, she pulled out a light meter and tossed it to him. “Here, gird yourself with this and get going or you’ll miss the gate.”
“Right.” He bent and pulled a set of sides out of his backpack. “These are from yesterday. They’ll have most of the names we need, you’ll just have to pull the addresses out of the files.”
Arra snorted as her fingers closed around the papers. “Who put you in charge?”
Tony’s snort answered hers. “You did.”
“Any particular reason she can’t keep her knees together until we go to lunch?”
“She didn’t give me one, Les.” Tony rolled the carbon lamp into position and picked up the coil of cable. “She just said she wants it done now.”
The head carpenter scratched at an armpit and sighed. “Whatever. You going to be long enough for me to do a little research?”
“I doubt it.” He flipped the cover off the light board. “How’s the dissertation going?”
“Not good. ‘Pastoral Imagery in Late Eighteenth Century Amateur Poetics’ just isn’t enthralling me like it used to.”
“Hard to imagine.”
“Yeah. And the thought of teaching freshman English gives me hives.”
“You could always commit to a career in show business.”
Les snorted. “At the rates CB pays, it’s not a career, it’s a job. So, Sorge know you’re using the board?”
“I have no idea.” Tony checked that the big lamp was the only thing plugged in, then stepped away, casting a critical eye over his work. With only one connection to get right there were limits on how badly he could screw it up. On the other hand, if he did screw up, he’d not only blow all the power to the building and destroy a very expensive piece of equipment he shouldn’t be touching, not to mention an equally expensive light—resulting in him being unemployed at the very least—but also grant the Shadowlord unopposed use of the gate. So, no pressure. Without a clear line of sight, he squatted to peer under the loops of cable to check that the board was plugged into the grid and that this particular junction was live. When he straightened, Les was still standing there, clearly waiting for him to expand on his answer. “Look, if Sorge has a problem, he can talk to Arra. I’m just doing what I’m told; it’s safer that way.”
“You getting paid for this?”
“No.” 11:07. Eight minutes, give or take, until the gate opened. Les, go the fuck away! “Just a little free on the job training. You know, learning the business.”
Les rolled his eyes. “Because some day you want to be a director.”
That pulled Tony’s gaze up off his watch. “How did you know that?” He didn’t think he’d ever mentioned it.
“Jesus, Tony, I’m hardly psychic; everyone from the meat on up wants to be a director. I got three guys in my crew working on scripts as a means to that end. Although one of them isn’t looking past being a writer, God knows why.”
“Says the guy working on ‘Pastoral Imagery in Late Eighteenth Century Amateur Poetics.’ ”
“Yeah, well . . .”
Les’ voice got lost amid the rising vibrations in Tony’s head. A dribble of sweat ran cold down his side. As his muscles began to tense, he reached out and, with his hand poised over the switch, paused. If something happened and Les saw it, there’d be another voice to cry warning. Enough voices and people would have to listen!
But if something happened and he didn’t stop it, what then?
Could he risk another Nikki, another death, on the off chance that Les would see what a vampire, a wizard, and he had seen? No. And why me? he demanded as the vibrations pushed past the point of pain. He flipped the switch blasting the half demolished set with light. I’m nothing special. I’m nothing supernatural. And I’m no fucking hero.
“Ah, Tony?” Les’ grip on his arm dragged his attention out of his head. “Didn’t Arra want you to take readings?”
Right. The flaw in the plan. In order to take any kind of believable reading, he’d have to get a lot closer to the gate. A lot closer to the source of vibrations ripping great jagged holes in his brain.
Memo to self; next time come up with a less painful cover story.
Unsure if he was holding the light meter believably, and not really caring, Tony followed the cable to the back of the lamp, took a deep breath and, with his eyes squinted nearly shut, stepped forward.
Step out into the light.
Hang on, isn’t that what they say to dead guys?
Oh, yeah, just what he needed; portents of doom from inside his own head.
Either the light levels were making his eyes water or his eyeballs had burst and the fluid was now dribbling down his cheeks. Either option seemed equally possible. His vision had gone not so much blurry as fizzy.
Tony thumbed the control to capture and hold the reading, turned, and realized he was directly under the gate. Not at the board, not crouched by Lee’s side—directly under the gate. Every hair on his body lifted—not a pleasant feeling—and, unable to stop himself, he looked up. Light. And barely visible through the light, the ceiling. Beyond that, or beside it—there weren’t really words to describe how the gate both was and wasn’t there—distance. And at the end of that distance, something waiting . . . trying to see . . . trying to decide. Something cold. Calculating. Terrifying.
Then the lamp shut off and a heartbeat later the gate closed.
“Are you trying to blind yourself?” Les’ voice boomed out somewhere behind him. “Even pointed up at the ceiling this big bastard’s putting out enough lumen to do some damage.”
Tony swiped at the moisture on one cheek, realized his eyeballs were intact, saw that Les was waiting for him to say . . . something. “Uh, I got the reading.”
“Good on you. Now put this fucking thing back where it belongs and get the hell off my set. I got work to do.” The tone of voice suggested a deeper concern than the words.
“Right. Sorry.”
“Dumb ass.”
As Les called his crew back to the job, Tony rolled the lamp back along the path of its cable. With his stomach tying itself in knots, he quickly separated it from the board, secured the wires, and made sure everything was exactly the way he’d found it. Somehow, he managed to keep his hands from shaking too badly.
Outside of his conscious control, his shadow flickered around the edges.
Arra was just hanging up the phone as Tony walked down the stairs into the basement. She turned as he tossed the light meter onto her desk, looking him up and down. Her brows drew in as she completed the inspection. “You okay?”
He wondered what he looked like. Wondered if she could see the fear that had his guts in knots and stuck his shirt to the sweat on his back. “I’m fine.”
“Uh-huh.”
It sounded like she didn’t believe him. Tough. He was fine. “No one showed up. Nothing came through. He’s sitting up there considering things.”
“He?”
“The Shadowlord.”
Her frown deepened. “You felt that?”
“Not the sitting.” Dragging the second chair out into the middle of the room, out where the arrangement of the overhead fluorescents banished shadow, he dropped onto it. “But the considering, yeah.” He’d never seen anyone’s eyebrows actually touch before. “What?”
“You felt the considering.”
“Yeah. I guess.” The noise she made was in no way reassuring. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Something!” he snapped.
“I’m just impressed by your sensitivity.”
She sounded sincere and even if she wasn’t, he suspected he didn’t want to know the actual answer. Slouching deeper in the chair, he shoved both hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Yeah, well, I’m gay.”
“So I’ve heard.” Twisting around, she plucked a piece of paper off her desk. “I made a few calls while you were gone.”
“On the phone?”
“There’s an alternative I haven’t discovered in the last seven years?�
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“I just wondered why you don’t do a locator spell or something.”
“Because if I locate them using wizardry and we don’t stop them and they get back through the gate . . .”
“He’ll know you’re here,” Tony interjected into the pause. “Does it matter? There’s only one of you here and you said that back in the day he wiped out the rest of your order.” Her expression didn’t change, but her cheeks paled and Tony realized he might have put his foot in it. “I mean, it’s not like he’s going to be afraid of you being here.”
The presence he’d felt on the other side of the gate caused fear, it didn’t feel it.
After a long moment, when it was quite obvious that Arra was seeing neither him nor the basement workroom, she sighed, blinked, and focused. “No. He won’t be.” She held the piece of paper out toward him. “The names underlined in red are the possibles.”
Okay. If that’s how she wanted to play it. Tony was just as glad to move on; a little more sitting around wallowing in the terror and he might start joining Arra’s chant of this is it; we’re all going to die. Good thing she’d gone into television because she sucked as a motivational speaker.
Thirteen names on the much longer list were underlined. He tried not to see significance in the number. “What about Alan Wu?” The actor’s name wasn’t only underlined, it had been circled.
Arra shrugged. “His wife says he didn’t come home last night.”
“There could be a hundred reasons for that.”
“He was on the soundstage, on the set; practically under the gate and his wife gave me the impression that this was very unusual behavior.”
“Yeah, Alan’s pretty dependable.” He stood, folded the paper in quarters, and shoved it in his pocket. “So let’s go get him back.” Two steps toward the stairs, he paused, and turned to see Arra sitting where he’d left her. “Are you coming?”
“You do realize that in the long run it won’t matter. The moment the actual invasion begins . . .”
“. . . you’re out of here. I know, you’ve said.” Over and over and over. “But if you go home now, Julian’s just going to ride your ass about cleaning the party room.”