Smoke and Ashes

by Tanya Huff

  Pinned under the length of his body, it was warmer than he’d expected.

  Warmer, and a little damp.

  It took him a moment to realize why it smelled so strongly of crushed cherries.

  Heavy muscles bunched up to try and throw him off, and, with the right leverage, Jack was pretty sure it’d be able to toss him across the soundstage.

  It shifted within the confining rope.

  Suddenly the floor was farther away.

  Oh, fuck…

  Henry had faced a Demonlord and bled to keep an ancient grimoire from falling into the taloned hands of the lesser demon it commanded. In comparison, this creature seemed no more or less than it appeared. Strong. Fast. Other. But not necessarily evil.

  If there are, as the Demongate supposes, a multitude of hells—he slid under a clawed tentacle that would have disemboweled him—then perhaps, in some of these—another loop of rope secured the limb—we name the inhabitants demon based on appearance, not motivations.

  As the creature hissed and writhed, he spun about in time to see Jack Elson lifted into the air on the largest of what seemed essentially its arms.

  And then the arm flipped over and Constable Elson was heading back toward the concrete floor at high speed.

  There were no visible joints to act as weak spots—or rather too many joints to attack in the little time he had. Racing in toward the creature, Henry grabbed the arm just under the front set of claws and kept moving, dragging it—and the constable—around until he could brace himself against the creature’s own body.

  Teeth bared, he managed to stop the momentum of the limb and snarled, “Let go!”

  Letting go seemed like a fine idea to Jack. He dropped and rolled and crushed a little fruit, finally turning in time to see Henry drag the tentacle down to the body of the creature and secure it with another loop of the yellow rope.

  No one was that fast. Or that strong.

  “What the hell are you?” he panted, pulling himself up onto his knees.

  He knew when Henry looked up and smiled. He couldn’t put it into words—hell, he didn’t think he could form words right at that moment—but he knew. He knew it in the way the hair rose off the back of his neck, in the way a sudden drop of sweat ran down his side under his shirt, in the way he couldn’t seem to catch his breath or hear himself think over the pounding of his heart. He knew it in his bones.

  No, in his blood.

  And then he fell into dark eyes and he forgot that he knew.

  “Hey! You guys! There’s a demon heading this…” Tony skidded to a stop, dragging Leah, who was half supporting him, to a stop as well. He stared at the demon—which may or may not have been staring back. The eyestalks were flipping around in a way that made it hard to tell. “Never mind.”

  “What’s with the cherries?” Leah demanded, scraping pulp off the bottom of her high-top.

  “Tony’s early warning system,” Jack grunted, getting to his feet.

  “It made cherries?”

  “Apparently.”

  She turned to Tony, who shrugged. They had bigger problems than fruit. He shook free of Leah’s hand and shuffled carefully toward Henry. Trouble was, when a romance writer slash vampire fought a demon, it wasn’t the romance writer that then had to be dealt with. He could see the Hunter in the set of Henry’s shoulders. In the way he was standing, his back to them, perfectly, impossibly still.

  At Henry’s side, he leaned forward, careful not to touch, and murmured, “If you need…”

  “Not from you.” A quiet voice. Barely audible. A voice that stroked danger against Tony’s skin. “Not after last night.”

  Last night. This time, he didn’t stop himself from touching the mark on his neck. No wonder he was exhausted; it wasn’t just the wizardry. “Then who?” The emotional kickback was as important as the blood and Jack, as he’d been insisting to all and sundry, was straight. Leah was far too dangerous.

  “Give me a moment.”

  “Sure.” Terror was as valid an emotion as any other and the shadows in Jack’s eyes suggested he’d seen something more frightening than the big rubbery monster tied up on the floor. Tony tried not to wonder what would have happened had they got there a little later and had pretty much buried the question by the time Henry turned, the mask of civilization firmly back in place.

  Pretty much.

  A red-gold brow rose.

  Tony shrugged.

  “So…” Leah sighed loudly. “…if you two are finished with all the silent communing, you think we could get going on sending Maurice here home?”

  “Maurice?” Jack snickered, the sound just this side of hysteria.

  She pushed a handful of curls back off her face and smiled, deep dimples appearing in each cheek. “What? You don’t think he looks like a Maurice?”

  About to tell her to knock it off, Tony realized what she was doing as Jack’s shoulders squared and he rubbed a hand back though his hair, standing it up in damp, golden spikes.

  “If you’re asking, I think he looks like a Barney.”

  “Isn’t Barney a dinosaur?” Her tongue licked a glistening path along her lower lip.

  Jack’s eyes half closed. “Barney, Fred’s neighbor.”

  The only thing keeping them from consummating the repartee was the demon, tied and pissed off, filling the space between them.

  When Ryne Cyratane made his expected appearance, Tony frowned. The Demonlord looked…frustrated?

  Because Leah wasn’t actually getting any in the here and now?

  Because his demonic minions kept failing?

  Because he couldn’t find the wizard who kept defeating him?

  Except this demon hadn’t been sent back to hell, so how would he know it had been defeated? And why did he look frustrated rather than angry? A glance down and Tony realized the Demonlord wasn’t even particularly interested in the whole Jack/Leah dynamic. Interested, yes, but not, well, fully.

  “Tony!”

  “Sorry.” He shook his head as Leah turned her attention to him and Ryne Cyratane faded. He was missing something, something important, but he was just too damned tired to make the effort and figure out what it was. “I’ll start drawing the runes.”

  “Are you strong enough?”

  “Sure.” Why not lie on the side of truth, justice, and the wizardly way given there was a distinct lack of choice regardless of how he felt. The demon was fighting against the ropes, rocking back and forth and in a few other less easily defined directions. “Although…” His stomach growled on cue. “…I wouldn’t say no to food.”

  “There’s half a bomb bottle of cola left,” Jack offered, clearing his throat and looking everywhere but at Leah. “And some cherries.”

  “Close enough.” Or not. The cherries had no pits and tasted like cough syrup. Fortunately, the cola, essentially sugar and caffeine, faked nourishment.

  “It’s weird how it can’t break the rope.” Jack circled the demon slowly as Tony began to burn the first rune on the air. “We know it’s strong and the rope isn’t that thick.”

  “It’s an unnatural rope,” Tony reminded him, squinting through the blue lines. “What’s weird is that Arra would know that it would work. She never faced demons here in this world.”

  Leah snorted. “Where do you think her demons came from? Wal-Mart?”

  “These are not the demons I know from the past,” Henry said quietly as Tony started the second rune. “This poor creature is nothing more than an animal out of its place.”

  “Let’s not forget these things are killers,” Jack pointed out.

  “They kill to eat,” Henry told him. “So do you.”

  “Yeah, well, so far I’ve managed to avoid ripping any arms off while I’m having lunch.”

  “Good for you.”

  “You’re not entirely wrong,” Leah broke in before Jack could respond. “Neither of you. These guys are on the low end of the demonic pecking order.” She waved a hand at the demon on the floor. It writhed a
t her. “They’re all about the rending and the killing and, yes, the ripping off of arms, but they’re not really very motivated by anything other than the rending and the killing. Relatively speaking, they come from fairly close by. The hell that the ancient mystics saw…” She turned her attention to Henry. “…the hell adopted by your religion, that was considerably farther away.”

  “Your Demonlord is no beast. If he uses these creatures, then he has moved closer without using the gate.”

  “There’s some movement within the hells,” Leah admitted. “But he can’t get here without help. If you want the big guys, the demons with dialogue and motivations, then you have to call for them specifically. It takes a lot of power to punch a gate through to their level, a couple of artifacts that aren’t easy to get, and, if you want to survive it, a will of iron.”

  “Actually, it’s not that hard.” Henry folded his arms. “I know a not very bright young man who brought through a creature capable of speech and independent evil with a small barbecue and a few cheap candles.”

  “Did he survive?”

  “Not ultimately, no.”

  She spread her hands. “I rest my case.” Before anyone could demand to know what that meant, she added, “And with that kind of power he was probably an untrained wizard.”

  “Not likely,” Henry snorted.

  “Outsider?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “It’s been my experience…” A twitch of her sweater hem directed attention to her abdomen and the physical evidence of that experience. “…that potential isn’t particularly rare. Actually accomplishing something with it, now that’s unusual. If Tony here hadn’t met Arra, he wouldn’t be fighting demons today. Heroes rise when we need them.”

  Tony let the observation pass without responding as he finished off the third rune, going over the last curve three times before it stopped sputtering. The buzz from the cola had burned off and it was getting harder and harder to focus.

  “Tony?”

  A cool, familiar touch against his wrist. He blinked a couple of times in Henry’s general direction. “I’m okay.”

  “Can you finish?”

  “Do I have a choice?” The demon was writhing again, bulging around the rope. “Why doesn’t it make any noise?”

  “Perhaps it communicates by motion.”

  “No, it made a noise before. Although…” weak sneaker-against-tile noise could have easily been made by rubbing demon against asphalt. “So we’ve tied and gagged it.” He snickered, but he didn’t really think it was funny. It was just easier to laugh than run screaming from the room. Besides, he was starting to feel sorry for the big-squishy thing. That burned, in go home looked painful.

  “Tony.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Look at me.”

  “Henry, I’m…” Henry’s eyes were dark and the masks were gone. Hunger. Danger. Tony felt his heart race and a sudden wave of energy flood his body. He jerked back, blinked, and Henry’s eyes were hazel again.

  “Can you finish now?”

  “Oh, yeah. Word up for adrenaline.”

  The red-gold brows dipped. “I have no idea what that…” A silent pivot toward the soundstage door. “Someone’s coming.”

  “Tony? You around?”

  “Zev?” Damn. It was Thursday. Zev left midafternoon Fridays, so he always worked late Thursday.

  “Good, you’re still here. I was finishing up the score on that last episode, and I just wondered if you were on the soundstage.” Rising volume suggested he was walking toward them. “You know, given the possibility of demons and all. I’ve got this great complicated harp piece and…” His eyes widened as he came around the corner of the set and he stopped so quickly he rocked back and forth. “…never mind. So.” The pause extended almost a beat too long. “That’s a demon?”

  No reason to deny it. “Yeah.”

  “Really? Okay. It’s, uh, you know, big.” He frowned, opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, shoved his hands into his front pockets, and took a bravado-inspired step forward. Then glanced down at the floor. “What’s with all the cherries?”

  “They’re part of the early warning system,” Jack said dryly, picking one up and flicking it into the wall.

  “They must have cost a fortune. They’re out of season,” he added when it became obvious no one got the point. “Apples would have been significantly more cosahhhhh!” Yanked off his feet by the tentacle around his ankle, he screamed as he slid along a path of crushed fruit toward the demon.

  “Don’t shoot!” Tony grabbed for Jack’s arm as Henry grabbed for the tentacle.

  Still screaming, Zev slapped into the demon’s side.

  Henry twisted a loop into the excess flesh, tightened it, and shoved the music director away with the side of his foot as the demon went after more immediate prey, driving the end of the tentacle spikelike toward Henry’s head.

  The possibility of the demon getting free, not to mention eating his ex, added a whole new burst of adrenaline. Tony sketched the fourth rune. “Crap!” Erased the last line. Drew it again.

  There was a sudden, intense smell of sulfur and Henry hit the floor beside Zev and a tangle of yellow nylon rope as the demon disappeared. Fortunately, the runes only worked on creatures not native to this reality.

  Fortunately.

  Really, really fortunately. Tony wiped sweaty palms on his thighs and tried to remember if he knew that.

  “I assume there’s a reason for all the noise?”

  Swaying, he fought to focus on CB’s face. “Demon.”

  “Screaming?”

  “That was me!” Zev scrambled to his feet and thrust his arm toward his boss. “It had a mouth in its side! In its side! Not its face! It bit a hole in my sleeve!”

  “How fortunate it didn’t remove your arm.” As Zev absorbed the truth of that, CB stepped forward and caught Tony as his knees unlocked and he began to topple. “And the smell of sulfur?”

  “Tradition?”

  “Are you asking me?”

  Tony sneezed. “No.”

  “And the cherries?”

  “Long story.”

  “I see. Mr. Fitzroy, if you could place the chaise upright again, please. Constable Elson, there should be food of some kind in the office kitchen.”

  Tony managed to remain on his feet as they crossed the set, but he suspected that had more to do with the grip CB maintained on his arm rather than any macho shit on his part. Although the chaise looked hard and lumpy, it was the most comfortable piece of furniture he’d ever collapsed on. No need for anyone to worry; he was just going to take a few minutes to recover the feeling in his extremities.

  A little easier to do, actually, after CB let him go and moved away.

  “Ms. Burnett, I thought your technique of dealing with the demons would use less energy and leave Mr. Foster on his feet.”

  “It did use less energy,” Leah protested indignantly. “After the day he’s had, any other way—his whole mano a mano way, for instance—would have killed him.”

  Yeah, yeah. Déjà vu all over again.

  “We’ll have to take your word for that. Mr. Groves is in my office with the page of demonology he found. If you could bring him here, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Kevin Groves?” Tony lifted his head to check if the disapproval he could hear in Henry’s voice matched his expression. It did. “The tabloid reporter who’s been hanging about the show?”

  “That’s the one.” Leah answered, walking backward toward the exit. “It turns out he knows about the Demonic Convergence and may have primary source information.”

  “How does someone like that get hold of primary source information?”

  “The easy way,” she snorted, one hand against her belly as she turned and left.

  “She’s an odd one,” Zev muttered. He had a plastic broom in his hand, the kind with a scraper along one edge. “Even for a stuntie.”

  “He’s right,” CB murmured, stepping clos
er to Henry as Zev began sweeping up the cherries. Tony strained to hear him; this was not a conversation he was going to miss. “There’s something about that young lady that’s…different. Unusual.”

  No shit.

  Fortunately for Leah, Henry had secrets of his own. “She studies demons; that’s got to skew things a little.”

  And again, no shit.

  “It seems to be time,” CB said, still talking quietly to Henry, “for Mr. Foster to put some serious work into that memory erase spell of Arra’s.”

  Henry glanced down at Tony and then up at CB. “It’s like you’re reading my mind.”

  “It wouldn’t be the strangest thing that happened today.”

  “Word.” Tony snickered at their expressions, or at as much of their expressions as he could see through eyes that kept sliding closed. “You two need to get out more.”

  “Mr. Foster?”

  “Let him sleep.”

  “Are you certain he’s sleeping?”

  Henry laid a hand gently against Tony’s chest, listened to his heart beating slow and sure. “I’m certain.”

  “I’ve never seen anyone eat that fast. I mean, that was almost a whole carton of potato salad and almost a liter of milk, gone between one blink and the next.” Jack brought his hands together, crushing the empty milk carton. “I don’t know why he didn’t choke. Or puke. Or both. You know, choke and puke. Especially considering it was potato salad and milk, for Christ’s sake.”

  Henry exchanged a glance with CB.

  “Are you all right, Constable Elson?”

  “Me?” Jack’s chin lifted and his chest went out. Henry hid a smile. Although the RCMP officer wasn’t a small man, there was no way he could avoid being dominated by CB’s bulk. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine?”

  “You have been exposed today to not one, but two demons.”

  “So have you.”

  “Yes, but I’m in television.”