Smoke and Ashes

by Tanya Huff

  “Dead guy missing an arm.”

  “Tony.”

  “Seriously. That’s all I…”

  “What?”

  Frowning, Tony walked around the drawer and stared at the construction worker’s other side. Head cocked, he spread his fingers and tried to match the tips of the first three and his thumb into a line of gouges ending in deep punctures. “Is there a set just like this on the guy’s back?”

  “Why?”

  Wizards saw what was there. “Because if there is, it’s how it held on while it bit the arm off.”

  There was a set of identical punctures in the guy’s back.

  “It?” Jack demanded.

  Tony shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Probably not!”

  Yeah, okay. That was valid. He took another look at the body. Something with three fingers and impressive claws had definitely bitten the poor bastard’s arm off. And that was all he had.

  Not an imp, though. Not unless the Demonic Convergence imps were bigger than the regular kind, and Leah’s attitude had implied they weren’t. She’d said he wouldn’t have any trouble dealing with them and, although his ego was plenty healthy, he suspected he’d have a little trouble dealing with whatever the hell had been snacking on construction workers.

  Worker.

  So far.

  Great. This meant there was something going on in Vancouver besides the Demonic Convergence. And Henry. Yeah, we’re a happening kind of place.

  “If you’ve got something, Tony, spit it out.”

  He rubbed the edge of the stainless steel table with his thumb. “It’s not about this.”

  “For Christ’s sake, try and stay focused. I’ve got a dead man here, and…” When Jack’s voice trailed off, Tony looked up to find the constable’s pale eyes locked on his face. “It’s more weirdness, isn’t it? There’re two sets of weird going on. This…” He waved a hand over the body. “…and whatever you decided didn’t do this.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Oh, no. This is something so the other thing, it doesn’t get to be nothing until I say it’s nothing.”

  Tony ran over that in his head and wasn’t sure where he ended up. “What?”

  “Talk. Or we stay in here until you do.”

  “So this Demonic Convergence thing, it started a week ago but it isn’t responsible for this?”

  “No. Probably not.” Jack’s expression suggested he be more definite and since hanging around in the morgue was beginning to freak him out, that seemed like a good idea. “Definitely not,” he amended.

  “Demonic Convergence says demons to me, and a demon could have done this.”

  “Yeah, but there’s barely even been enough time for it to wear reality away to the point where imps could get through.” Tony was improvising now off very little information, but Jack didn’t need to know that. “No way the Demonic Convergence had anything to do with this unfortunate man’s death.”

  Jack stared at him for a long moment and then slammed the drawer. Fortunately, the seals absorbed most of the sound. “So what did?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Layers of hells?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But if hell exists, then…just, no.”

  Tony braced himself as the truck briefly lifted up onto two wheels while taking the exit off Lougheed. “If it helps, it’s not hell like a church-sponsored hell. It’s hell like a really shitty place to be stuck in, so why not call it hell. If you live there, you probably call it something like Scarborough.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a Toronto thing.”

  “Then no one outside of Toronto cares.” Palming the wheel around, Jack hit the gas and set about trying to break the sound barrier heading south on Boundary Road. “So I can expect demons as this Convergence goes on?”

  “First, demons would be a long shot even if there was no one around to take care of things. Second, I’m on it.”

  “Is that a ‘no’?”

  “That’s a no. Although there might be a few imps.”

  “Imps?”

  “Sort of small, mostly harmless demons.”

  “Can I shoot them?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You’re the wizard. How long is this Convergence going to last?”

  “No idea.”

  Like many very fair men, Jack turned almost purple when upset. Tony took pity on him before he blew an artery. “I’ll check some stuff out, okay? When I have answers, you’ll have answers.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Wizard stuff.”

  “This is totally insane.”

  “Don’t blame me, you’re the one who decided to go all Nightstalker. You know, a little denial can be a lot healthier.”

  “Not in my line of work. I’m after the truth.” He narrowly missed running down a young woman pulling a two-meter-high Dutch windmill on a dolly and sighed. “That sounded inanely pompous, didn’t it?”

  “Had a certain Fox Mulder-like quality to it, yeah.”

  The truck rocked to a stop in front of the studio, momentum fighting brakes hard enough that Tony’s face nearly impacted with the dashboard. From his sudden vantage point, he could see other vaguely oily scuff marks. His face hadn’t been the first. He supposed it was encouraging that Jack’s driving hadn’t been aimed specifically at him—he’d been starting to think he inspired a certain lunacy behind the wheel. Some kind of wizard leakage thing.

  “I’m fine, thanks for asking,” he muttered as he straightened, fumbling for the seat belt.

  “You’re welcome. You’ve got my cell number?”

  “Yeah.” Jack’s card was in his wallet right next to Leah’s. The cop and the stuntwoman. The RCMP and the Demongate. Small world. He jumped out of the truck and turned to close the door.

  “Hey.” Jack leaned toward him. “If you find out what killed that guy, you call me.”

  “I’ll call,” Tony sighed. He closed the door and looked in through the open window. “But whatever it is, you won’t be able to arrest it.”

  “I can arrest anything I can get a pair of cuffs on,” Jack snarled, slammed the truck into gear, and roared off. Traffic stuttered to give him room, and Tony had an instant’s unobstructed view of the other side of the street…

  …and Kevin Groves. The tabloid reporter looked like he’d just won a lottery.

  “How long until we can shoot at UBC?” Eyes rolling, Amy beckoned Tony over. “You have got to be kidding me! Who? That can’t take more than a…What, them again? Right. Fine. If anyone cancels, will you call me? Thank you.” She dropped the phone onto the receiver and sighed. “Once again, UBC is standing in for every alien city in syndication. You’d think it was the only place in the lower mainland that looked science fictiony.”

  He balanced half his butt on the edge of her desk. “So why do we want to shoot there?”

  “Giant mutant plants escape from a genetics lab and start blinding people. Raymond Dark goes in at night when they’re doing whatever plants do at night.”

  “Like Day of the Triffids.”

  “What?”

  “RKO movie with Howard Keel and Janette Scott. Although I think it was a meteor shower that actually blinded people. They mention it in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Frowning, he reached for a plastic six-legged octopus and got his hand slapped.

  “So there are no new ideas in television. Quel surprise. Not.” She moved the octopus out of his reach. “No one will notice we stole it.”

  “I’ll notice.”

  “Yeah, and if you spent more time learning wizard shit and less time watching Movie Central, you might be useful.”

  “For what?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Leaning back in her chair, she laced her fingers over the line of skulls embroidered onto her raw cotton shirt and smiled. Tony mistrusted the smile. “So, an afternoon off with the new boyfriend?”

  And that was why. “Yo
u’re delusional.”

  “I just want you to be happy.”

  “We were at the morgue.”

  “Cool. Why?”

  “He wanted me to look at a body.”

  “Kinky. Pre-or post-autopsy?”

  Tony couldn’t remember any stitching, so he guessed. “Pre.”

  “Kinkier.”

  Before the conversation could devolve further, they were distracted by a young woman fighting to get a Dutch windmill through the front doors and into the office. She looked familiar.

  “This is the last one they have,” she gasped over the noise of balsa wood and canvas hitting the floor, “so it better be the right one.”

  “They?” Tony asked, ducking a flimsy-looking blade. “Windmills R Us?”

  “Prop shop over at Bridge,” Amy explained. “We borrowed it. And before you ask, I suspect it was part of some bucolic alien landscape.”

  “I was actually going to ask if they know we plan on burning it down in a blatant Frankenstein rip-off.”

  “With any luck, that would be a big fat no and, according to the writers, it’s not a rip-off, it’s an homage. Krista, this is Tony, our TAD. Tony, this is Krista, the new office PA.”

  “Hey!” Krista waved a hand in Tony’s general direction. “I don’t suppose you could help me get this onto the soundstage.”

  “Through there?” He glanced toward the scuffed door that led to the hall that led to the soundstage that led to the show that CB built. Lined with racks of extra costumes, the hall was barely wide enough for one and not even remotely wide enough for one and a windmill.

  “Well, duh.”

  “Not possible. You’ll have to take it outside and go around to the carpenter’s door.”

  Krista looked at the windmill and then at the bloody knuckles she’d acquired getting it into the office. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  “He really isn’t,” Amy told her cheerfully.

  The new PA’s brows drew in, stretching the blue crescent moon on the left side of her forehead. “This is a test, isn’t it?”

  As Amy shook her head, Tony leaned close and murmured, “You’re lucky. The last two got sent to Starbucks.”

  “Bad?”

  “One of them’s still there.”

  “Right.” She took a deep breath and began to force the windmill back outside.

  “Need some help?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve got it.”

  Tony backed toward Amy’s desk as something cracked. His view blocked by the base of the windmill, so it was impossible to tell what.

  “Get out of my way, you fucking asshat,” Krista’s voice snapped out like a whip.

  Or who.

  “I think I’m starting to like her,” Amy said, grabbing for the phone. “She has a way with words. CB Productions.”

  “I definitely like her,” Tony growled as Kevin Groves came into the office cradling his left arm. Anyone who recognized Groves for the fucking asshat he truly was, was a person worth knowing. “Hey,” he waved a hand in front of Amy’s face. “I’m out of here.”

  She nodded at him and began explaining the company policy regarding their actors and reality shows. As far as Tony knew, CB didn’t actually have a company policy. Amy just enjoyed maligning the intelligence of reality show producers on CB’s dime.

  “Tony Foster.” Groves’ voice matched his looks: thin and unmemorable.

  “Can’t talk.” Tony spun on one heel, rubber squealing against tile, and headed for the exit. “Have to work.”

  “Just a few minutes of your time.”

  “No.”

  “Why were you out riding with RCMP Constable Jack Elson?”

  “Ask him.”

  “Is it true you’re lovers?”

  Tony turned in the open doorway and laughed in Groves’ face. “You know, you should ask Constable Elson that—but wait until I’m there so I can watch you get your ass kicked.”

  “I just intended to get your attention.” Groves took a step closer. His jaw worked at a wad of gum. Spearmint from the smell. He was holding up his PDA, the record icon flashing. “Were you with him today because of the construction worker who was killed last night by your location shoot?”

  “My location shoot?”

  “Fine. By the show’s location shoot. By the location being used by the television program known as Darkest Night. Whatever. Do the police believe that supernatural forces are responsible for the removal of the man’s arm?”

  Groves knowing the arm had been removed was better than him knowing it had been bitten off, Tony supposed. Over one of the reporter’s polyester-clad shoulders, he saw Amy stick her head in Mason’s office. “Are you on cheap drugs?” he asked conversationally.

  “Do you use drugs to heighten your senses?” Groves asked in turn.

  Tony smiled as Jennifer, Mason’s personal assistant, emerged. Part of Jennifer’s job was to protect Mason from unwanted press attention. When she was in a good mood, she extended that protection to the rest of the studio. His smile widened as one set of impeccably manicured fingers clamped down on Groves’ shoulder and the other reached low to give the wedgie to end all wedgies.

  He joined in Amy’s applause as Jennifer frog-marched the reporter across the office by the grip she maintained on the waistband of his tighty whiteys—which was now considerably higher than his waist.

  “Foster!” Not surprisingly, Groves’ voice sounded shriller than usual. “Does this have anything to do with the Demonic Convergence?”

  He stopped applauding and ducked quickly through the door, closing it behind him before Groves could see his face.

  “Demonic Convergence?”

  Too late to hide his expression from Lee, who’d apparently been lurking in the hall, one arm draped nonchalantly over a rack of faux Gypsy-wear.

  “Tabloid reporter.” Tony shrugged, hoping he sounded a lot more dismissive than he felt. “That sort of shit’s his stock in trade.”

  “Like haunted houses.”

  “Sure.” Shit. Not sure. The last thing he wanted was for Lee, who knew damned well haunted houses were real, to start thinking they were about to be involved in an actual Demonic Convergence. Which they were. Tony worked his way past a pair of gorilla suits wondering how the hell Groves had known about the DC. Had Leah spoken to him? And if she had, why? And if she hadn’t, how else…?

  “Tony!”

  He turned just far enough to see that Lee had followed him. Given his ongoing obsession with the actor, not noticing that kind of proximity had to be healthy. Healthier had he not been distracted by the thought of Leah taking Kevin Groves, of all people, into her confidence, but lately he’d take any emotional stability he could get.

  “Well?”

  From Lee’s tone of voice, he’d missed half of an entire conversation. “Sorry. I wasn’t listening.”

  “Yeah. I noticed.” And Lee wasn’t happy about it. Another time, a time when Tony didn’t have an immortal stuntwoman, a gung ho RCMP constable, and a Demonic Convergence to deal with—and let’s not forget there’s also something out there that reduced a grown man to snack food—Lee’s unhappiness at his lack of attention would be bringing on a case of the warm fuzzies.

  Another time.

  Right now, he had rather a lot on his plate. Did Jack expect him to go hunting the snack-food-reducing monster? Because that so wasn’t going to happen.

  “Tony!”

  “Right. Sorry. Distracted.”

  Lee sighed and ran a hand up through his hair. “I was just asking if there was anything in what Groves said. That you were out with Constable Elson because a construction worker got killed.”

  He wanted to be a part of it—whatever it turned out to be. It was obvious in his voice, in his expression, in his body language. Everything said: Let me help you.

  Oh, yeah, like Tony was going to let that happen. In the last six months, Lee had been possessed three times and there was no way in hell—any hell—that he was going to add to t
hat list.

  Let me help you.

  Why?

  Because I seem to have a deep-seated metaphysical death wish I’m not even aware of. Maybe it stems from my repressed sexual identity, but since that’s tied up with you, too, I guess I’m in the right place.

  No fucking way. He was not going to be responsible for Lee getting whammied yet again. Tony managed a near approximation of a smutty grin and flashed it in the actor’s general direction. “Hate to admit it, but Groves was right. I was with Constable Elson because we were having hot Mountie sex in the cab of his truck.”

  Long pause.

  Lee stared.

  Tony kept grinning.

  Finally, Lee sighed again, the exhalation a type of surrender. “CB let you off work for that?”

  “Yeah, the boss is all about keeping the cops happy.” He started walking again. Once in the soundstage, Peter’d have them both back at work and this conversation would be over. “Just be thankful Jack’s not interested in your ass, or he’d pimp you out, too.”

  “You call him Jack?”

  “When I call him other things, he reminds me he’s armed.”

  “Tony…”

  Tony sped up just enough to keep Lee’s hand from landing on his shoulder. Goddamn it! The red light was on, and they were stuck together at the end of the hall, waiting for the camera to stop rolling in a space barely a meter square. They were not going to talk about the Demonic Convergence. He was not going to give Lee the chance to talk him into changing his mind, then somehow put himself in danger, and confuse the hell out of both of them when Tony had to ride to the rescue. Again. “So, how’s the blonde?”

  Lee frowned. “Which blonde?”

  “You can’t keep track?”

  “Sure, but…”

  “The one you took to the latest premiere.” Hands curved out in front of his chest indicated her dominant features. “Nice picture of the two of you in TV Week.”

  “Ah, yeah…Judith. She’s fine. Great.”

  “Rented?”

  “Jesus, Tony.” Lee rolled his eyes. “No, she was not fucking rented.”

  “Borrowed?”

  “Where do you go to borrow a blonde?”

  Tony snorted. “Probably not the same place you do. So how was the movie?”