Smoke and Shadows

by Tanya Huff

“Yeah. All right. Perspective; I get it.” Wondering when they’d started calling them shadow-spies—Like shadows alone aren’t enough?—he headed for the door, dancing sideways as Zazu hissed at him.

  “What did you do to my cat?”

  It had to be the attempted drag out from under the couch. Clearly, Zazu was holding a grudge. “Nothing.”

  He heard Arra snort as the door closed behind him. She was the wizard; if she wanted to know, she could ask the cat. Stepping out of Arra’s apartment didn’t seem to have the same emotional effect as it had earlier. He felt . . .

  Tony frowned. Actually, the feeling of safety had vanished about the time Arra woke up, and he’d felt antsy ever since. Doing her wizardship’s bidding had masked it, but now that he had nothing to occupy his mind, it was hard to ignore. The empty hall felt crowded with indefinable dangers and during the short walk to the elevator, he kept spinning around, certain someone or something was walking behind him, treading on his shadow.

  There was never anything there but his shadow, clinging to his heels as if it, too, was sensitive to whatever the hell was going on. The elevator was just as distressing as it had been earlier. Squinting, Tony pressed the button for the sixth floor and hoped the shadow-stain wasn’t somehow making him sensitive to light.

  Or Henry . . .

  “That Nightwalker of yours teaching you bad habits?”

  Henry had been feeding from him off and on for the last five years. More off than on lately, but still . . . Were there cumulative effects? He ran his tongue over his teeth. They didn’t feel any sharper. Mythically—and Tony’d made a point of checking out the myths way back when—it didn’t work that way, but Henry’d always insisted that the myths were flawed. Insisted without specifying exactly what the flaws were.

  Was he changing?

  Oh, get the fuck over yourself, he snarled silently as the elevator doors opened. There isn’t enough shit going on, you have to come up with new crap?

  At just past five on a sunny Sunday afternoon, the party room was empty. He could hear two people talking out on the deck, but a row of trees in pots blocked the view through the window and the phone books were stacked in a pale bookcase by the door—the perfect setup to grab and go without being seen. Yellow Pages for Vancouver and the lower mainland in hand, Tony wasted a moment checking out the room. About 99% certain Arra still hadn’t cleaned it, he figured someone else must have because it looked spotless. Blue—carpet, walls, upholstery—but spotless.

  If anything, he was feeling even more freaky riding down in the elevator. Maybe it was guilt although, given his life prior to Henry, he somehow doubted it. Lifting a set of Yellow Pages would easily be among the least of his crimes.

  Massive tome tucked under one arm in an effort to be as inconspicuous as possible, he stepped out through the elevator’s opening door and into a barrage of sound.

  “Hush, Moira! Quiet, girl!”

  Although still safely tethered in Julian’s arms, the Chihuahua was making it perfectly clear that if Tony wanted to get any farther into the hall, he’d have to pass her. Ears ringing, Tony gave some serious thought to doggie-flavored chalupas and stepped sideways.

  Julian stepped with him, the dog continuing to yap hysterically. “You’re that friend of Arra’s.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So tell her that common room isn’t going to clean itself!”

  “Sure.” Tony suspected that if Arra wanted it to, the common room wouldn’t only clean itself, it’d take itself out for dinner and a movie.

  “And tell her . . .” He pushed his voice through Moira’s continuing protest. “. . . that I will bring this up with the Borg!”

  The Borg? That put a whole new slant on co-op management.

  “And I guarantee the board will have something to say to her!”

  Oh. The board. Not nearly as interesting. Holding the phone book like he had every right to it, Tony put his back to the wall and managed to slide past. Twisting in Julian’s arms, Moira’s eyes never left him although the high-pitched barking was mercifully replaced by a low growl, the vibration causing her substantial jowls to quiver. It seemed she had better phone book sense than her owner.

  Julian’s high forehead started to crease.

  Or maybe not.

  He clearly knew something was wrong and it would only be a matter of moments before he figured out what. Time for a major distraction.

  “You’re an actor, aren’t you? I can tell by the way you use your voice.” Smiling insincerely, Tony cranked the bullshit up to full power. Two syllable ac-tors were the most susceptible to unsubstantiated hope. “I work out at CB Productions, in Burnaby—we do Darkest Night, the highest rated syndicated vampire detective show in North America—and we’re always looking for new faces. You know, people who haven’t already cropped up in every show shooting out here? You should stop by sometime. Talk to Peter—he does most of the casting.”

  “I’m theater mostly . . . Moira, quiet!”

  “Sure, but there’s no harm in making some solid cash to help support the arts, right?” His reaching fingers touched Arra’s door. Just another few inches . . .

  “Well, I was critically acclaimed for my Mustardseed at Vanier Park last year when Bard in the Park did—Moira, shut up!—Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

  “Great. Experience.” Three fingers hooked around the doorknob. “Peter loves Shakespeare. Hope to see you out there!” He was inside before Julian could reply, a final volley of yipping sounding through the door.

  “What was that all about?” Arra called from the kitchen.

  “Moira objected to me stealing the phone book.”

  “Fortunately, Moira’s small enough to punt down the hall, but how did you keep Julian from calling the police?”

  “He never noticed. He had his dick in a knot about you blowing off the party room and then I . . .” Tony flushed as Arra turned from stirring the potion and raised a speculative brow. “Nothing like that. I just told him he should stop by the studio sometime and talk to Peter, him being an ac-tor and all.”

  “Oh, Peter’s going to love that.”

  “Two people are dead. If these shadows get back through the gate, more people will die.” The phone book slammed down on the counter. “Besides, you keep saying the Shadowlord can’t be stopped. With any luck, we’ll be ass-deep in Armageddon before he gets there.”

  She looked at him strangely for a long moment.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  It was obviously something, but Tony didn’t bother pushing. Arra’s explanations never actually explained anything and he had enough unanswered questions already on his plate.

  The second shadow was at the South Delta Baptist Church.

  “They’re widening their search.”

  “Yeah.” Tony stared at the scrap of yellow paper. “Where the hell is Tsawassen?”

  “About half an hour south of the city, very nearly at the US border. Now, we’ll need one more phone book.”

  “No.” He shook his head, addresses laid out on the table. “This first one, the temple? It’s in Richmond. That’s south of the city. Then this one is farther south. What’s to say that when you did this first one that’s where the shadow was and now it’s here, at this one? It moved while I was finding the book.”

  “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “That’s not the way the spell works. I ask where I can find the shadow and this . . . these . . . are the answers.”

  “I get that; but time has passed. So, logically . . .”

  Arra snorted. “And how long have you been doing this?”

  “What?”

  “Because I’ve been doing it for a while now and I know what the hell I’m talking about.” She handed him the pair of thermoses. “Put these away and let’s go.”

  But he noticed she didn’t ask again for a third phone book.

  Children raced around the small groups of adults stand
ing outside the Nanak Sar Gursikh Temple—something family oriented had obviously just finished. Tony parked carefully, then reached over and shook Arra awake.

  “The Light of Yeramathia!”

  “Okay.”

  She blinked up at him, the edges of her eyes pink and swollen. “What did I say?”

  He told her, then asked what it meant.

  Arra snorted as she straightened and unbuckled her seat belt. “It means nothing. It was hope that became a lie.”

  Since this was about as clear as her explanations usually got, Tony merely shrugged and stepped out onto the sidewalk looking for someone he knew. Someone who’d been on Arra’s short list of the potential shadow-held. He looked for Dalal first, figuring that since the prop man was Sikh, this would logically be one of the places where he’d look for the light.

  Yeah, like logic has anything to do with my world . . .

  Barking drew his attention to the temple parking lot where an elderly man, who was definitely not Sikh and had probably just been out for an early evening walk, was attempting to control his dog. Breeds didn’t mean a lot to Tony; dogs came either large enough to avoid or small enough to ignore and this was one of the former. And then he noticed who the dog was barking at.

  Ben Ward, one of the lighting crew.

  Also not Sikh and looking like he hadn’t been home in nearly forty-eight hours.

  “Arra?”

  “I see him. Let’s go.”

  He glanced over at her. “Let’s go? You make it sound like we’re in an episode of Law and Order: Magic and Mayhem.”

  “Don’t laugh.” She started across the grass. “They pitched it.”

  Actually, Tony wasn’t laughing. “What exactly are we about to do?”

  “I get close enough to haul the shadow out of him, then I destroy it.”

  “That’s what you’re about to do.”

  “While you make with the potion and come up with a plausible story.”

  “Story?”

  “For the three dozen or so witnesses.”

  “Right.”

  It looked like Ben had been heading across the parking lot away from the temple when he’d crossed paths with the dog. He was staring at it like he’d never seen one before. Maybe he hadn’t. For all Tony knew, Arra’s world didn’t have dogs. Or, he amended, remembering his dream, dogs just hadn’t been a part of the shadow’s short life.

  Too much to hope for that, even distracted by the dog, Ben wouldn’t see them approach. They were still more than ten feet away when he turned, stared at Tony in confusion, then at Arra in fear. “You!”

  Tony half expected to see the shadow surge out of him like it had out of Alan Wu but shadow-Ben smiled, winked, and ran toward an extended family piling kids into a minivan. He careened through them like an out of control billiard ball. A child screamed. Men and women yelled in two languages. Strong fingers grabbed the stranger and threw him away from the van.

  Leaping out at the end of her leash, the dog kept barking.

  Ben hit the ground and stayed there.

  “It’s left him!” Arra announced, panting a little as they quickened their pace.

  “And gone where?”

  In answer, one of the preteen boys raced away from his family and charged into a clump of older kids. More shouting. And a moment later, another body on the ground. The remaining teenagers scattered.

  Men and older boys were running toward the parking lot.

  Tony stopped at the edge of the asphalt. “Is that kid . . . ?”

  “Dead?” Fingers closed around his arm as Arra leaned on him, catching her breath. “No, but if that shadow keeps moving through this crowd, I guarantee it’s going to hit someone who can’t handle it.”

  “Like Alan?”

  “Exactly like.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “I don’t know!

  Someone did.

  Twisting free, Tony sprinted toward the old man with the dog, tripped over the leash, and ripped it free of a tiring grip.

  The dog took off across the parking lot.

  “Shania!”

  “I’ll get her!” Tony leaped to his feet and followed, ignoring the deserved string of expletives flung after him. Sorry about your dog, mister. Trying to save the world here!

  It seemed the shadow was still in one of the teenage boys. Great. They’d had a chance of pulling this off as long as it was in Ben, but the Sikh community was very protective of their own and Tony could only see this ending badly.

  Still barking wildly, the dog slammed into a running teenager, flinging the boy into the outstretched arms of a middle-aged woman. She screamed as he sank into her embrace. He jerked, then stiffened and slid bonelessly to the ground.

  Shania sailed over the boy and landed on the woman, making contact with all four paws. Ringed fingers stopped snapping teeth an inch from flesh.

  This time Tony saw the shadow move.

  Shania yelped once. Woman and dog collapsed together to the ground.

  Tony got to the dog before the first boot could impact with her ribs. He took the blow on his thigh, gathered the trembling body up in both arms and rolled away yelling, “You don’t understand; she wasn’t attacking. This dog’s a hero! We’re from the health department,” he continued, not giving anyone else a chance to talk. “The first man who fell was contaminated by some stupid kid with a new designer drug. It’s a dust that works on contact with skin, he passed it on to that boy who passed it on to that boy,” he jerked his head toward the two teenagers, now standing and being fussed over by family. “Who passed it on to this woman. The dog could smell it. This dog has kept everyone else from being contaminated.”

  “You’re touching the dog!” But the voice held as much confusion as anger and Tony realized they actually had a chance of pulling this off. Witnesses were still too spread out for mob mentality to have taken over.

  “I’m immune to the drug, that’s why we were sent.”

  In the face of the inexplicable, people looked for explanations, something to make sense of what hadn’t made sense. The explanation didn’t have to make sense; it only had to sound like it did.

  “And you’re from the health department?”

  “We are.” Tony relaxed slightly as Arra pushed through the crowd holding up what looked like official documentation.

  “Get out of my way,” she snapped, “and let me make sure it ends at this dog.”

  “We should call 911,” someone muttered.

  They should, Tony agreed silently, but given cultural politics they probably wouldn’t. Lucky break for our side.

  Dropping heavily to her knees, Arra pressed a hand against the dog’s heaving ribs. Only Tony saw that the hand had slipped through fur and flesh and emerged holding a writhing shadow. Murmuring the incantation under her breath, she forced her hands together as the shadow struggled to survive, finally squashing it into nothing.

  Shania whined, wriggled, and bit Tony on the hand. Hard. As he jerked back, she squirmed free and ran into the arms of her owner.

  “Good,” Arra announced in a tone that brooked no argument. “The dog has neutralized the drug. Ought to get a medal. Now then, move aside and let me look at this woman. Thermos!”

  It took Tony a moment to realize the last word had been directed at him and then he shrugged out of his backpack and pulled a thermos free.

  “Eww.” A girl in the crowd wrinkled her nose. “It smells like that stuff in the back of Uncle Virn’s garden.”

  “Be quiet, Kira.”

  “No,” another voice said thoughtfully. “It does.”

  “Catnip is a medicinal relaxant,” Tony said with as much authority as he could muster. “Let’s get those others over here, we’ll need to have the . . . m looked at, too.” He’d been about to identify Arra as a nurse and changed his mind at the last minute. With his luck there’d be a nurse in the group and he didn’t want them suddenly thinking they should get involved.

  Arra helped her middle-a
ged patient sit up. “How are you feeling?”

  “What happened?”

  The wizard rocked back on her heels, and nodded toward the surrounding people. “Explain it to her.” She started for the teenagers as half a dozen voices began half a dozen different versions of the story. The younger teenager was protesting he was fine, the other, to Tony’s critical eye, seemed to be milking his collapse for all it was worth.

  Snagging Tony’s arm as he tried to follow, she muttered, “I’ll deal with the kids, you get as much out of the other thermos into Ben as you can, then get him into the car. If we give them time to think, we’re . . .”

  “Screwed?”

  “Well put.”

  Fortunately, Ben wasn’t much bigger than Tony, and they were essentially being ignored. By the time he had the electrician in the car, Arra was crossing the lawn toward him. “Final words,” she murmured as she slid into the passenger seat.

  “Thank you for your cooperation. If you have any questions, call health services.” About to remind them that the dog was a hero, he noticed the dog and her owner were nowhere around and decided not to bring it up. Out of sight, out of mind, he told the world silently as he started the car. Do not let any of this come back on Shania. Shifting out of park, he pulled into traffic and headed away from the temple faster than could strictly be considered safe. But safe, experience had taught him, was a relative term. “Where are we going now?”

  Arra waved the second piece of the Yellow Pages at him.

  “With Ben?”

  “We don’t have time to take him home. We’ll do it after.”

  “Man, the wife’s going to kill me!” Ben slurred from the backseat.

  “Let’s hope not,” Arra snapped. “Go to sleep.”

  There was a muffled thud as Ben’s head hit the rear window.

  “Health services?”

  Tony shrugged as he slowed for a yellow light. “It worked.”

  “Yes. It did.”

  Safely stopped he turned to look at her. She was frowning speculatively. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “The trick is to keep talking so no one has time to ask questions and then, you know, you showed up with the paperwork. Official documents carry a lot of weight. The whole Canadian peace, order, and good government thing.”