by Tanya Huff
Behind him, Peter called, “Quiet please!”
Adam’s voice rose over the continuing fannish babble, “If you lot keep quiet until I give the word, Mason’ll pose for pictures with you when we’re done.”
The babble switched off.
“Rolling!”
Grabbing the rack at the last moment, Constable Elson remained on his feet as he finished his accidental dance with a tattered antediluvian ball gown. “This looks like a fire code violation to me,” he muttered, untangling the distressed gray taffeta from around his legs.
“I assure you, Constable, it is not.”
“There’s not a lot of room in this hall.” He stepped back, got poked in the ass by the hilt of a cheap replica cavalry sword, jumped forward, and very nearly tangled with the taffeta again.
“There is, however slight, a clear passageway and the fire marshal has given his approval.” The fire marshal also had a teenage son looking forward to a career in television, but CB saw no point in mentioning that. “The soundstage door is just ahead.”
It was, in fact, a mere dozen paces ahead although impossible to see until the last corner had been rounded and a rack of white hazmat suits passed. He’d picked the suits up cheap from another show’s going out of business sale and instructed the writers to make use of them. Their ideas to date had been less than stellar but he knew that eventually one of them would dream up something the show could use—after all, if an infinite number of monkeys could write Hamlet . . .
His hand was actually on the door when the bell rang and the red light went on.
“Why are we stopping?”
“Cameras are rolling,” he said, inclining his head toward Constable Danvers. “We’ll have to wait.”
“How long?”
He shrugged. “Until the director feels he has what he needs.”
“Jack . . .” She turned to her partner who shook his head.
“No. I want a look around that soundstage and I want another word with Mr. Foster.”
“We could come back.”
Elson folded his arms. “We’re here.”
He translated the female constable’s expression to read: You wouldn’t have half as big a bee up your butt if this wasn’t television. She was probably right. Television, invited into homes 24/7 remained a mystery; to add mystery on top of that would be more than such a man could resist. Although the odds of him actually discovering anything were slim; he wouldn’t be waiting to enter the soundstage if CB believed otherwise.
Running feet, pounding between the costumes, pulled all three of them back around the way they’d come.
Baseball bat held across her body, Arra stumbled to a halt by the hazmat suits and stared at the red light beside the door. Damn! Had CB been on his own, she’d have taken her chances with a line of bullshit and charged right on in. But with strangers standing there . . .
Put them to sleep; you can call it a gas leak!
“Problem, Arra?”
Now would be the time . . .
Time.
11:16.
Too late anyway. Tony was on his own. She lowered the bat. “No. No problem.”
“Arra Pelindrake?” The blond man stepped forward. “I’m Constable Jack Elson, RCMP. As long as we’re all waiting here, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Beyond the constable, CB’s expression said much the same thing.
The lamp was in place, a light blanket arranged behind it to prevent any possible leakage into the set in use. All Tony had to do was hit the switch on the lamp itself—the gaffer had plugged him into the board and told him in no uncertain terms that if he came near it, he’d get a light stand up the ass.
Oh, yeah. Things were going well.
He’d seen a PBS special once—or maybe it was a horror movie, details were fuzzy—about this guy who attacked people with vibrations until their eyeballs melted. That was pretty much exactly how he felt. Like his eyeballs were melting.
Definitely time to turn on the last best hope for humankind. And the part of the hero will be played by a carbon arc lamp.
As his hand moved toward the switch, his shadow surged up his legs.
He had time to jerk back futilely before darkness slammed into his head and he was no longer in control.
“I did a search for the last shadow this morning, it’s in the studio.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. It’s in me! Except it hadn’t been in him, it had been hiding in his shadow. How long . . . ?
And then the gate was open and he was walking—being walked—out underneath it.
Déjà vu all over again.
The shadow hadn’t taken over so much as pushed him aside. He was in his own mind, he just wasn’t there alone. Henry could have pulled him free with a cocked finger, but Henry wasn’t here. Arra wasn’t here. Just him.
And shadow.
“Hey. If you go back, you’ll die. You know that. You don’t have to die!”
No response. And time was running out. Tony could feel the attention of the man on the other side of the gate. Could feel the pull. Could feel the shadow beginning to separate.
So he reached out and grabbed it. Not physically, of course. Physically, he was still standing like a total doofus in the middle of the set.
He wrapped his mind around the concept of shadow.
Contact.
Everyone has dark memories they can’t purge. Memories that creep out of mental corners on sleepless nights, perch on the edge of consciousness, and gnaw. Lucky people remembered things they read in newspapers or saw on television; cruelties that didn’t involve them personally but still cut deep. People who lived without the security of freedom or justice had darker memories, memories that often fit neatly into the inflamed map of physical scars. Tony had once seen an ancient Egyptian wizard devour the life of a baby while the baby’s parents walked on, unaware their child was dead.
The shadows were pieces of the Shadowlord. Dark memories. Memories of a world where those parents would thank the gods that their baby was safely dead.
The shadow had known what he knew from the moment it had entered his body. Now he knew what the shadow knew. It was like seeing a private slide show of atrocities against the front of his skull.
Had Tony been in control of his mouth, he would have screamed.
Then cruel intelligence on the other side of the gate called the shadow home and the slide show stopped.
Somehow, Tony managed to hang on.
“You don’t have to go!” He fed it the memory of being absorbed, of becoming nothing once again. Of losing self.
*And if I stay.*
It sounded like Hartley, the boom operator, had Hartley been able to list “enjoys inflicting torment” as one of his hobbies. It also sounded remarkably like the voice in Tony’s head.
“That was you. The bright lights in the elevator were freaking you out!”
*Yes.*
He was losing the tug-of-war. He could feel the shadow slipping away.
*If I stay, will you give me your body?*
Its tone went beyond innuendo. Tony shuddered, unable to control his body’s visceral response and lost a little more of his grip. Strangely, the rush of blood away from his brain helped clear his mind. If a lack of information was all that was keeping the Shadowlord from attacking . . . He couldn’t . . . He had to. Arra could deal with whatever that made him and Henry could call him back from wherever he’d gone and another little bit of shadow slipped free while he tried to work out the consequences. “Yes!”
Too late.
As the shadow roared free and his world became pain, he realized it had been taunting him, that however much it feared the loss of self, it had to rejoin the whole. It had just been indulging itself before it went home—offering a glimpse at hope, then snatching it away again.
Tony regained consciousness to see a familiar face bending over him. Green eyes were concerned and a warm hand had a comforting grip on his shoulder.
“Tony?”
He clutched at Lee’s voice as dark memories threatened to overwhelm him. Lee being there when he woke up was a bit of a dream come true and he was damned well going to hang onto it. “What . . . ?”
A slightly confused but comforting smile. “You tell me. You yelled and when Adam came over to tell you to shut up, you were on the floor.” He glanced around and the smile faded. “I was on this floor . . .”
Tony struggled to sit up, wondering, if the 1AD had come to check on him, where the hell he’d gone. Through the gate? No. The shadow went through the gate.
Oh. Fuck.
As his head cleared the floor, his stomach rebelled and just barely managing to turn away from the actor, he lost what remained of his breakfast and half a dozen strawberry marshmallows all over the fake hardwood floor. Oh, yeah, this was how he dreamed of waking up with Lee . . .
“Eww. Is that real vomit?”
Tony didn’t recognize the voice, figured it had to be one of the fans, and briefly considered crawling over and puking on her shoes. In comparison to how he now felt, melting eyeballs had been a good feeling. Coughing out what had to be a piece of his spleen, he managed to gasp, “Arra.”
“You want Arra?”
From the sound of it, Lee had moved away, but he was still closer than anyone else in his extended audience. In between heaves that achieved nothing more than a thin stream of greenish-yellow bile, Tony managed a nod.
“He was doing some work for her.”
Peter’s voice. And running footsteps. More than one set.
“Tony!”
“Arra, don’t kneel down there!” Peter’s voice again. “He’s been . . . Never mind. It looks like you missed it.”
He felt a hand on his shoulder and . . . something. It settled his stomach, but more importantly it pushed the darkness back to where he could . . . not ignore it but exist with it. Darker than what he was used to existing with, but he’d manage. Not like he had a choice.
Dropping over onto his back, he looked up into the wizard’s eyes and felt tears rise in his own. So much for what’s left of my macho image.
“It’s all right, Tony . . .”
“It isn’t.” He couldn’t cope with platitudes, not from her. “He knows.”
“I think . . .” CB dropped his voice to a level most of his employees wouldn’t have recognized as his, “it might be best if you speak with Mr. Foster another time.”
Constable Elson snorted. “Trust me, Mr. Bane. I’m not put off by puke. I’ve questioned suspects covered in it.”
“Have you? And Mr. Foster is a suspect in . . . ?”
“He’s not a suspect,” Constable Danvers interjected smoothly before her partner could answer. “We just want to speak to him, which . . .” Her voice sharpened as she directed it at the other officer. “. . . we can do later.”
CB inclined his head toward her. “Thank you, Constable. It seems that Mr. Nicholas was among the first on the scene. Would you care to speak with him?”
“No, thank you,” Elson began. “That’s not . . .”
“Yes.” Danvers flushed slightly as both men turned to stare at her. Given her skin color it was difficult to tell for sure, but he was fairly certain she was blushing. “I mean, we’re here. Let’s get something out of the trip.”
“Like what?”
“Mr. Nicholas was second on the scene.”
“And?”
“It wouldn’t hurt to get a statement.” Her tone suggested that she’d been promised some one-on-one time with a very attractive actor and she wasn’t leaving until she got it. Elson heard the subtext, opened his mouth to protest, and finally shrugged.
He beckoned the actor over. “Mr. Nicholas, if you could give Constable Danvers and her partner your full cooperation.” He locked eyes with the younger man, making sure he understood he was to dazzle them with celebrity and get them the hell out of the building.
“Tony . . .”
“Will be fine.”
“Peter?”
“I’ll speak with Peter. I’ll let him know you’re doing me a favor.” Nothing as crass as emphasis on the second sentence. Mr. Nicholas knew very well for whom he was doing a favor and the director had undoubtedly heard the entire conversation.
When the actor bestowed a brilliant smile on the female constable and she visibly melted, CB nodded once to the now oblivious officers and walked across the set to where his director stood watching Arra help Tony Foster to his feet. The police were no longer his concern. The one would have her full attention on the actor and the other would have his full attention on making sure she did nothing he considered embarrassing. After Mr. Nicholas turned his considerable charm on Constable Elson, they’d leave—if not convinced that they’d gotten what they came for, at least quite sure that their concerns had been taken seriously.
Mr. Nicholas was a much better actor than most people gave him credit for being.
He was destined for so much more than one small, straight to syndication genre program where he played second to a man with half the ability.
Fortunately, CB Productions had him tied up in a contract Daniel Webster wouldn’t have been able to break.
“Arra, why don’t you take Mr. Foster down to your workshop? He’ll be out of the way down there until he’s feeling better.”
He kept his face carefully blank as her eyes narrowed. “Yes, thank you, CB. I think I will.”
“Peter.”
The director started, looking from the producer to the two people slowly leaving the set and back to CB.
“I believe it’s time everyone went back to work.”
“Right.” The big man knew what was going on; Peter could see it in his face. He could also see that he wasn’t going to get an explanation. Whatever. He just wanted things to stop screwing up long enough for him to get this episode in the can.
“This is not, after all, the first time someone has been sick in the soundstage.”
Peter sighed. “True enough.” Raymond Dark’s filing cabinet was still a little whiff under the lights.
“Can you manage without him?”
“What, without Tony? Jesus, CB, he’s just the production assistant. I think I can struggle on. Adam!” The director’s voice echoed off the ceiling. “Where the hell has Mason got himself off to?”
No one seemed to know.
“Well, find him, for Christ’s sake. And count the fan club, a couple of them were minors! And get someone over here to clean up this puke.”
Confident that things were now back as they should be, at least on the surface—essentially business as usual for television—CB turned . . . and stopped as the director called his name.
“Yes?”
“Tony and Arra.”
“Yes?”
“Is there something going on with them? You know . . .” He waggled a hand. “. . . going on?”
Chester Bane favored the director with a long, level stare. “I wouldn’t like to guess.”
In point of fact, he very much disliked guessing. He liked to know.
He intended to know.
Fifteen
“IT WAS . . . It was in my. . .”
“Shhhh, not yet.”
Tony leaned heavily on Arra’s arm as she walked him down the basement stairs and sighed in relief as they stepped out onto the workshop floor, realizing the significance of the observation he’d made the first time he came down here. There were no shadows.
He stumbled toward a chair, dropped onto it, and didn’t have the strength to protest when Arra grabbed a folded space blanket from a shelf and wrapped it around him. The security of something between him and the world actually felt pretty good.
“Now tell me,” the wizard commanded as she sat.
So he did.
“It was hiding in your shadow?” She frowned. “That explains the deepening of the shadow-taint, but they’ve never . . . This is new behavior for them.”
Tony considered shrugging, decided his head might lose its precarious bala
nce if he tried, and snorted instead. “They were in Hartley for just over twenty-four hours. You said that no one knows how to hide like an alcoholic. I guess they learned a few tricks.”
“No . . . I banished the shadow holding Hartley.”
“It slipped through the pauses in your banishing spell. You were breathing kind of heavy so it wasn’t one long string of syllables like usual.”
Her frown deepened. “It told you that or are you guessing?”
“I touched it. Remember, I told you.” Unsure of what might be useful wizardly information, he’d told her everything.
“Did I tell you what a stupid thing that was for you to have done?”
“You kind of choked when I got to it the first time. So . . .” He was about to ask: What now? What happened now that the Shadowlord had the information he was waiting for? And then he realized he didn’t really want to know. Not yet. He could use a few more minutes of ignorant bliss. “. . . so what’s your story?”
No doubt Arra heard his original question in the pause. Less than no doubt that she didn’t want to deal with the answer either. “The moment I realized there was more than one shadow remaining, I headed for the soundstage but was prevented from entering by the presence of CB and the two officers.”
“And the shooting light,” Tony muttered, wrapping the space blanket more tightly around him.
“The light alone wouldn’t have stopped me—it’s a social contract, not an impenetrable barrier—but barging in past witnesses would have required explanations I couldn’t give. Not when two of those witnesses were police officers whose suspicions were already aroused. While we waited, they interrogated me about what we were doing together on Saturday, but I don’t think they believed what I told them.”
“May/December fag-hag romance?”
“What?”
“Never mind. What did you tell them?”
“Exactly what you told them. That you were spending your time off learning another aspect of the business, expanding your skill set, and keeping yourself employable.”
“And they didn’t believe that?”
“She seemed fine with it. He seemed reluctant.”