Smoke and Shadows

by Tanya Huff

  She looked startled, then, to Tony’s surprise, she smiled. “True enough. So we find them one shadow at a time and we make sure that one doesn’t get back to the gate.”

  We. She’d used it twice. Tony figured he’d better not point that out. “It’s a big city.”

  “But they’re searching for the light.”

  “Henry told me his theory.”

  She shrugged and stood. “It seems sound.” Opening the middle drawer on her desk, she pulled out the Greater Vancouver Yellow Pages. Turning, she jerked her head to one side, indicating that Tony should move out of the center of the room. The instant he was clear, she heaved the massive book up into the air and shouted two words that seemed made up mostly of consonants.

  In the midst of a shower of pale ash, a single box ad fluttered down to the floor.

  Tony grinned. “Cool.”

  The Royal Oak Community Church was a large, fake Tudor building on Royal Oak just down from Watling Street. The multiple additions gave it a comfortable, welcoming appearance only slightly offset by the disturbing presence of a pair of trees so severely pruned they looked like giant gumdrops on sticks.

  Tony leaned forward and peered through the streaks of rain on the windshield. “You figure he’s inside?”

  “That would be where they keep the light.”

  “Yeah, but they don’t usually keep the doors unlocked.”

  “That wouldn’t stop a shadow.”

  “No, but it would stop the guy they’re riding. Unless these things come with break and enter already downloaded.”

  Arra pulled in behind a battered station wagon and turned off the car. “I expect Alan Wu called the minister and asked for a meeting.”

  “It can do that?”

  “It knows everything Alan knows. I imagine Alan knows how to use a phone.”

  Since that level of sarcasm seldom required an answer, Tony got out of the car. The sky was still overcast and threatening although the rain had stopped. He waited until the wizard joined him—not entirely positive she was going to until she was standing beside him—then started up the three steps to the concrete walk. “Everything Alan knows?” he asked after a moment.

  “That’s right.”

  “So, that’d include pages and pages of really crappy dialogue.”

  “Probably.”

  “You know, it’d almost serve the Shadowlord right if we let this one back through.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.”

  “That was a joke,” he pointed out, glancing over at Arra’s profile.

  “It wasn’t funny.”

  Okay.

  The front door of the church was locked. The side door was open. Even though it was just past noon, so little sun shone through the many windows that the lights were on. A lone figure stood at the front of the sanctuary staring up at the altar. Even at this distance there was no mistaking Alan Wu’s great hair. Or the fact that his shadow was facing in another direction entirely.

  Arra closed her hand around Tony’s arm and when he turned toward her, she laid a finger against her lips.

  Momentarily distracted by the depths to which the wizard chewed her nails, he jumped when she pinched him. Since he hadn’t planned on bellowing a challenge as he charged forward, he nodded, rubbed his arm, and together they started up the aisle. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten . . .

  Alan Wu’s body turned. His eyes widened. “You!”

  Then they widened further as the shadow surged free in one long whiplike motion, clearly trying to escape.

  No. Not escape. Attack. It was heading straight for . . .

  He dove into a pew as Arra lifted her hands and shouted out the incantation. This time, the third time he’d heard them, the words almost made sense. Might have made sense had they not been immediately followed by a scream from Alan Wu. Tony lifted his head over the barricade of polished wood just in time to see the actor hit the floor in convulsions.

  Scrambling back out into the aisle, he raced forward, dropped to his knees, and ripped off his backpack. He had one hand inside, fumbling for a thermos when Alan’s back arched, his shoulders and heels the only body parts touching the floor. Then he collapsed, apparently boneless.

  “Fuck!”

  Throwing the backpack to one side, Tony pressed his fingers into the cold and clammy skin of Alan Wu’s throat searching for a pulse.

  “What is going on here?”

  No pulse.

  “I said . . .”

  “I heard you!” Tony glanced up at the astonished minister as he started CPR. “Call 911!”

  “Tony Foster.” RCMP Constable Elson stepped out of the path of the paramedics as they wheeled Alan Wu out of the church, but his gaze never left Tony’s face. “Another body and here you are again. It’s a small world, isn’t it?”

  Tony nodded. He wasn’t going to argue the point, not when explanations were going to be . . . complicated. Two deaths connected with Darkest Night and he’d found both bodies; a guy didn’t have to be on the crew of DaVinci’s Inquest to know that wasn’t good.

  Interesting to note that not only was Arra nowhere in sight, her car was gone.

  Yeah, well, she’s good at running, isn’t she.

  More interesting to realize that he had no idea if the shadow had been destroyed or if it had found another ride.

  Where interesting had a number of meanings, each darker than the last.

  Eleven

  “ALL RIGHT, let’s go over it one more time. Just to be sure.”

  Tony fought the urge to roll his eyes and nearly lost. A messy desk away from a cop who clearly didn’t much like him was not the time for street kid attitude to reemerge. Squaring his shoulders, he took a deep breath—hoped it sounded like impatience and not the start of a practiced speech—and stared down into his empty coffee cup. “I was driving along Royal Oak with a friend . . .”

  “Arra Pelindrake. The special effects . . .” Constable Elson checked his notes. “. . . supervisor at CB Productions.”

  “Yeah.” And now possibly the shadow-held wizard. Tony wet his lips and tried not to think about that. “Like I said, I was doing a little on the job training with her; learning a different bit of the business. She was working on this new thing and she says she thinks better when she drives, so she was driving. I was just along for the ride. Anyway, I saw Alan Wu go into the church and I remembered I needed to tell him that he hadn’t filled out the ACTRA sheet on Friday . . .” A safe lie because Alan never remembered to do his paperwork. “. . . so I got Arra to stop and I went into the church and he fell over. I couldn’t find a pulse. I started CPR. You guys showed up. Well . . .” He picked up the cardboard cup and turned it around in his hand. “. . . the paramedics showed up first.”

  “And Arra Pelindrake is where?”

  Looking the RCMP officer in the eye, Tony shrugged. “I have no idea. I guess she kept driving after she let me out.”

  “What is it about her that makes you nervous?”

  “What?”

  Constable Elson’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t repeat the question.

  Oh, crap. He’s not as dumb as he looks. Unfortunately, I’m afraid she might be a minion of the Shadowlord wouldn’t go over well.

  “The Shadowlord? Is this some kind of a gang thing?”

  “No, it’s an evil wizard setting up to invade thing.”

  “Funny guy, eh? You know what we do to funny guys around here?”

  Make them listen to bad tough cop dialogue. Make them piss in a cup. Make them miss the next gate so that a shadow gets back through with the information needed to destroy the world.

  And Constable Elson was still waiting for an answer.

  Tony shrugged again. “She blows stuff up. And there was this thing with maggots . . .” The shudder was legit. Yeah, not very butch of him, but so what.

  “So you being there in the church when Alan Wu dropped dead, that was coincidence? Bad luck on your part?”

  “Worse luck for Alan.”

 
; “I guess it was. Bad luck for Nikki Waugh, too.”

  “Yeah, well, if I am killing them, I wish you’d find out how because I’d really like it to stop!” He rubbed a hand over his mouth, gave some serious thought to puking—just, well, because—and looked up to find Constable Elson watching him, wearing what was almost a sympathetic expression. Or the closest he’d come to it all afternoon.

  “No one’s accusing you of killing anyone.”

  “I know. It’s just I was there and you were there and . . . fuck it.” He sagged back in the chair, confused by the outburst. It was either spontaneous method acting or he was more screwed up about all the shit going down than he thought. “Any chance of another coffee?”

  “No.”

  So much for that growing camaraderie. “Are you almost done with me?”

  “Why? Do you have someplace to go?” Pale blue eyes flicked over to Tony’s backpack sitting open on a corner of the desk. “That’s right. The party you were bringing your vodka-catnip cocktails to.”

  He could have said no when they asked if they could go through his backpack. He could have. But he wasn’t that stupid. “Hey, there’s nothing illegal about vodka or catnip!”

  “Are you two still on about that disgusting combination?” Constable Danvers asked coming back into the squad room. “And it is illegal to carry open containers of alcohol.”

  “They were closed.” Fortunately, not sparkling. Wouldn’t that have been fun to explain.

  “Unsealed containers,” she amended, tossing the backpack into his lap and propping one thigh in its place on the scuffed wood. “Contents did wonders for our drains. I called your friend in Toronto, Detective-Sergeant Celluci—just as an unofficial character reference.”

  This time, he let his eyes roll. “Yeah? He must’ve been thrilled.”

  “Not really.”

  “Let me guess. You mentioned the name Tony Foster and he said, ‘What’s the little fuck got himself into now?’ ”

  She grinned. “Word for word. Then he expressed some concern and allowed that you were a good kid . . .”

  “Christ, I’m twenty-four.”

  One shoulder lifted and fell as the grin broadened. “Kid’s a relative term. Then he said you should call and that Vicki wanted him to ask if you’ve forgotten how to use a phone.”

  Elson snorted. “Vicki is?”

  His vampire. “His partner.”

  “On the force?” Danvers asked, looking interested.

  “She was, but she had to quit. Long story.”

  “Skip it,” Elson growled.

  Tony wondered if they were playing good cop/bad cop or if Constable Elson really suspected something was going on. The last thing he needed was to be on the wrong side of a cop playing a hunch. Hell, at this place and this time it was the last thing the world needed. But if a hunch had already done the priming, maybe he could tell him what was going on. Get some reinforcements with weapons. Back in the day, if he’d gone to Vicki with this, she’d have . . . assumed he was shooting up again and hustled his ass off to detox.

  Never mind.

  “So, where are you going now?”

  “Now?” Confused, he glanced from constable to constable.

  “Looks like you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Twice,” Elson interjected.

  His partner ignored him. “We’ve got your statement. You’re free to go.”

  “Okay.” He stood, swung his backpack over one shoulder, found himself caught by two pairs of eyes, and realized that last question was still hanging there, waiting for an answer. “I guess I’ll go back to the studio, see if Arra’s there.” See if she’s still Arra. And if not, well, I’ll probably die.

  Fucking great. I think I’m getting used to the possibility.

  “She’s not answering her phone.”

  Good news or bad? He had no idea. “Then I guess I’ll go home.”

  Elson’s lip curled. “Not to your party?”

  “Not at 3:20 in the afternoon, no.” It had been a long day. Tony figured he was entitled to the attitude. Fine upstanding members of the community would be screaming for their lawyers by now. Only people who had history with the cops played nice.

  Both RCMP officers knew it, too.

  “Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Foster. If we need you, we’ll be in touch.”

  “Yeah. Well, you’re welcome.”

  He was almost at the door when Elson growled, “Don’t leave town.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Jack, get off his case. He’s a witness—not a suspect.”

  Since Constable Danvers seemed to have his defense well in hand, Tony just kept walking. Out the door. Into the hall. It was weird that squad rooms all smelled the same. Past the front desk. He ignored the speculative stares. Tried not to care that another three cops could pick him out of a lineup. Out the front doors.

  It was raining again.

  Nikki Waugh was dead. Alan Wu was dead. Arra was . . . who the fuck knew.

  He was in way, way over his head.

  Man, this place had better be on a fucking bus route.

  Arra wasn’t at the studio. She wasn’t at her condo. She wasn’t in either of the two churches he’d gone to just because he had to go somewhere.

  The sunset over English Bay was a brilliant display of reds and oranges that made it look as though sea and sky were on fire. With any luck, it wasn’t an omen.

  Although, given the way his luck had been running . . .

  Bouncing the keys to Henry’s condo in the palm of one hand, he admitted he didn’t have a hope in hell of finding her without help.

  “It’s like she’s totally disappeared!”

  Henry nodded thoughtfully. “She’s good at running.”

  “Yeah, I thought that, too, except that if the shadow took her, she’s not running—she’s investigating. Checking out the light. Or not.” Unable to remain still, Tony paced back and forth in front of the wall of windows in Henry’s living room. “Maybe she’d just hang around out of sight, waiting to go back through the gate. The one that was in me, it said that the important news was that she was alive, so a shadow in her, well, it’s going to want to get that information back to the boss. Right? So all we have to do is destroy the shadow in her just like we destroyed Lee’s shadow.”

  “I doubt it will be that easy. Obviously, these things can protect themselves and with the wizard’s knowledge it’ll be able to set up protections we won’t be able to break.”

  “So we get there early and when she arrives, we sneak up behind her and hit her over the head.” He punched his right fist into his left palm.

  “And then we’re stuck with an unconscious wizard and no way to remove the shadow in order to destroy it—the shadow can’t separate from an unconscious host or the one in Mouse would have gone for me last night.”

  Last night. Tony slid past the memory. “Fine, then while she’s unconscious, we tie her up and we gag her. When she wakes up, we stick her under the gate, let it suck the shadow out, and then we hit it with the light.”

  “Again, I doubt it will be that easy.”

  “That sounds easy to you?” He turned and laid his forehead against the cool glass and wondered if the lights across False Creek looked like the campfires of an advancing army. Probably not; too much neon. “She’d better have been grabbed by that shadow. She ditched me, man. Just tossed me to the cops.”

  “Perhaps she thought you’d do better on your own and she didn’t want to cramp your style.”

  Tony snorted, his breath misting the window. “Yeah. Perhaps you were right when you said she was good at running.”

  “Perhaps I was right?”

  He pivoted his head around just far enough to grin at Henry. Realized he was doing it when it pulled on the swollen edge of his lip. Stopped. Watched Henry’s expression change. He’d walked in and started talking—about finding Alan Wu, about the cops, about Arra. Until now, there hadn’t been a big enough opening for a
n awkward silence to slip through. Oh, fuck; here it comes.

  “Tony, about last night . . .”

  “Hey, you were hungry, I understand. You had to feed. No big.”

  “What?” Realization dawned before Tony had to explain. “No, not when we parted. Earlier, when . . .”

  “When you called and I came running? Like I said; no big. I’ve found my happy place with it, Henry. I’m living with it, just like I have been since we met. And you know what else? I’m bored with it. You own my ass—it’s old news. I have a life because you allow it? Well, thanks. Let’s move on. We don’t need to keep revisiting the . . .” He sketched the most sarcastic set of air quotes he could manage, knowing full well that Henry could hear the pounding of his heart. “. . . underpinnings of our . . .” And a second set, air quotes Amy would have been proud to display. “. . . relationship. This isn’t one of your romance novels, this is real life and no one talks about this kind of thing in real life. Okay?”

  Now he could hear the pounding of his heart—mostly because it was the only noise in the room.

  Finally, after what felt like a year or two, Henry sighed. “Never underestimate the North American male’s capacity for denial.”

  Tony’s lip curled. “Bite me.”

  Red-gold brows rose.

  One of the two dozen or so tiny lights in the chandelier over the dining room table flickered. The refrigerator compressor kicked on, the noise spilling out of the kitchen. A gust of wind off False Creek blew rain against the window, the drops hitting the glass in a sudden staccato rhythm.

  Henry snorted.

  Snickered.

  Started to laugh.

  Tony blinked, stared, and actually felt his jaw drop. Had he ever seen Henry totally lose it like that? The vampire had collapsed back into the couch cushions. Was, in fact, bouncing himself against the padded green leather, eyes closed, arms wrapped around his stomach. Just as he started to calm, the hazel eyes opened, he looked up at Tony, and lost it again.

  “Hey, it wasn’t that funny!”