Smoke and Shadows

by Tanya Huff

  “I had hamantaschen.”

  Heavily kohled eyes widened. “Kinky!”

  “Cookies.”

  “You had cookies? What are you, twelve?”

  Tony shrugged. So much had happened since Friday night he’d almost forgotten about his non-date with the musical director. “We went out for coffee.”

  “I was drinking coffee at twelve,” Amy told him with a pointed slurp from her cup. “That was it?”

  “And we talked.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ. I always thought gay men were supposed to be getting more than the rest of us. Don’t you guys have a quota to keep up or something?”

  He felt himself smiling for the first time in what seemed like days. “Not since the eighties.”

  “The eighties?” She smirked as she reached for the phone. “I guess you were doing more than coffee at twelve. CB Productions, how can I help you?”

  Maybe it was Amy’s “the world wouldn’t dare fuck with me attitude,” maybe it was her electric-green hair, maybe it was the familiar sound of her answering the phone—whatever it was, he felt energized, anticipatory. Like he’d been waiting for something big, something amazing, and that wait was almost over. The fear and doubt that had haunted his dreams and his ride to work were gone.

  “Tony!”

  And they’re back. He turned in time to see Arra emerge from CB’s office. She still looked like crap, full sets of luggage under both eyes and her hair sticking up in uncombed gray spikes—exhaustion creating the same hairstyle Amy had probably needed a liter of gel to achieve. Obviously, a good night’s sleep hadn’t been in the cards.

  Given that she’d probably spent most of the night trying to define the future by way of spider solitaire, that could have been an amusing observation. Except that it wasn’t.

  She took him by the arm, her fingers hot through the sleeve of his jean jacket, and walked him toward the basement door. “I spoke to CB . . .”

  “So he knows?”

  “Knows what?”

  Fully aware that Amy could listen to half a dozen conversations simultaneously, Tony dropped his voice to a low murmur. He’d deal with her opinions on him keeping secrets from her later. “Everything. You said you were going to tell him everything.”

  “Oh. Right. No. I told him I need you to work that big carbon arc lamp for me this morning; that I’m working on that ghost effect he wants for later in the season and I need more light levels. He’ll clear it with Peter and Sorge.”

  “I don’t . . .” He didn’t want to go anywhere near the gate. He didn’t want to be within a hundred kilometers of it when it opened. And it didn’t matter. There wasn’t anyone else. “Sure. Whatever.”

  Arra’s grip tightened for a heartbeat, as though she’d known what he’d been thinking. “I did a search for the last shadow this morning. It’s in the studio.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. Be careful. It’ll know the others have been destroyed and it’ll be desperate to get back through the gate.”

  “What about stuff coming this way?”

  “I doubt it. Not yet. The Shadowlord hates to move without information; it’s his strength and, to a certain extent, his weakness. He likes to be sure. Worry once this last shadow is destroyed—although by destroying some of them away from the gate, we may delay his reaction.”

  “Swell. That gives us time to prepare.”

  “There’s nothing to prepare!”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “I knew that.” When she released him and reached for the basement door, it was his turn to take hold of her. “Arra, I was wondering, why do they need to bring the people back to the gate? I mean, one of them followed us out to that location shot last week so obviously the shadows move around fine on their own.”

  “No, remember I told you that the more specific a shadow is the more constrained its movement? And these latest shadows are really mobile only before they’ve taken a host,” she continued when he nodded. “After they’ve experienced physical definition, their mobility is pretty much limited to moving a short distance to another host.”

  “But they can survive on their own, right?”

  Tony saw a muscle in her jaw jump as she clenched her teeth. “You cannot reform them!”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Not entirely. “I just thought that it might be more . . . I don’t know, intelligent if they bailed on the host after they got the information. I mean lurking shadows are a lot harder to spot than people acting like they’re disappearing and acting like night of the living pod people.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she stared at him for a long moment. She’d been doing that a lot lately and it was beginning to get seriously disturbing.

  “Don’t give them ideas,” she snapped at last, shook off his hand, and headed down to her workshop.

  For the seven years she’d been his entire special effects department, Arra had made no close attachments among the crew. She’d interacted as much as necessary to perform her job but no more. Now, it seemed, in less than a week she’d made a friend. Or acquired an accomplice. Chester Bane wasn’t sure which, but given everything else that had been going on, the timing was interesting.

  Standing just inside his office, he watched Arra head downstairs and, after a long moment spent staring at the closed door, he saw Tony Foster disappear in the direction of the soundstage.

  It, whatever it was, had something to do with light levels.

  There was nothing he hated more than being lied to, so before he asked questions, he liked to make sure he could identify the answers.

  About to return to his desk, he paused as the outer door opened and the two RCMP officers who’d investigated Nikki Waugh’s unfortunate death walked into the office. He watched as Rachel hurried to meet them and stepped forward as she turned in his direction.

  “Mr. Bane, these officers would like a word with you.”

  “Of course.” He indicated they should precede him into his office. The man, Constable Elson, moved like he was hunting and close to his quarry. The woman, Constable Danvers, rolled her eyes before she followed her partner. There was disagreement between them, then. Not on the larger issues, perhaps, but she was definitely indulging him on the smaller.

  Interesting.

  “Alan Wu is dead.”

  About to lower himself into his desk chair, he paused and turned, staring at the two officers. After a moment, Constable Danvers added, “He died Saturday afternoon.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” And he was. In a profession with more than its fair share of insecure nut jobs and delusional divas, Alan Wu had been dependable. He sat, indicated that the police officers should sit, and he waited.

  Constable Elson made an obvious and obviously unnecessary show of checking his notes. “Alan Wu is the second of your employees to die in less than a week.”

  Less than a week. Now, it seemed, in less than a week she’d made a friend.

  “Alan Wu was not my employee. He was an actor who I regularly employed.”

  “Tony Foster was with him when he died. He told us he’d been driving around with another of your employees, an Arra Pelindrake. They do both work for you?”

  “They do.”

  “Good. And that’s not all.”

  He locked his gaze on the younger man’s face. “Go on.”

  It got more interesting by the moment.

  One of his cameramen had been dumped in emergency at Burnaby General with a broken jaw. No record of who left him there. An electrician and one of the caterers both reported missing by their spouses, gone for forty-eight hours only to turn up Sunday night with no memories and their cars missing.

  “I flagged anything that mentioned your company and pulled this together from a number of sources.”

  “You’ve been busy.”

  “I got curious. I don’t much believe in coincidence, Mr. Bane. A number of very different roads all seem to lead right back here, and that tells me that there’s so
mething going on.”

  No doubt.

  “Tony!”

  Tina’s voice froze him in place. Tina was the last person he wanted to deal with this morning. He’d already seen Kate standing by the camera smiling at nothing, right thumb rubbing over her left wrist. Praying that he’d never looked quite so dopey, he’d tugged his jacket cuff halfway over his hand and taken the scenic route around to the coffee maker.

  “Just so you know,” Henry announced as they drove along Adanac Street toward Kate’s apartment. “I didn’t like doing that.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Cranking up the sex appeal.” He repeated Tony’s phrase like it left a bad taste in his mouth. “The moment you bring sex into it like that, it becomes too much like I’m forcing myself on an unwilling victim.”

  Tony snorted as he twisted around to check on Kate sleeping in the backseat. “News flash, Henry; sex is always a part of it.”

  “Not so overtly. Not under those circumstances.” He paused, as though realizing the circumstances weren’t usual. “Not on my part.”

  “What’s not on your part?”

  “When sex isn’t actually occurring, I am not always thinking of sex when I feed.”

  Since they were both well aware of what the other person was thinking of, neither mentioned it.

  “So you weren’t thinking of sex when you fed on Tina?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “Which is not to say that under other circumstances . . .”

  “I didn’t need to hear that.”

  And now, looking at Tina approach, all he could think of was her and Henry humping like naked monkeys. The visuals were seriously disturbing.

  “Tony, don’t forget that the Darkest Night fan club will be showing up in about half an hour. They’ll watch us shoot, Lee and Mason will pose for a couple of pictures, and then they’ll . . .”

  Be taken over by shadows from another world.

  “. . . have some lunch. Tony, are you listening to me?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.” He forced himself to concentrate.

  “After lunch, give them each one of the old scripts and get them the hell out of here before we start . . .” She paused, eyes narrowed. “Is there something on my face?”

  “What?”

  “You’re staring at me.”

  I know how Henry looks when he’s come from feeding on you . . .

  “Sorry.” His life was just too weird.

  “Stop apologizing and pay attention. You know how Peter feels about fans in the studio, so this has to go smoothly or we’re all in for an unpleasant afternoon.”

  “Uh, Arra needs me to do some stuff for her this morning.”

  “I heard. Just don’t leave the fan club unattended. I can’t think of anything worse than another fan getting locked in Mason’s coffin.”

  Unfortunately, Tony could.

  Three of the games had been stopped by fours. Fixed opinions will hinder your process. What was she missing? What was she fixating on? On the other screen, two black jacks prevented her from making the last move that would finish the game.

  “This is ridiculous!” Arra shoved her chair out from the desk hard enough to roll her halfway across the workshop. “I might as well try to divine the future from a bowl of instant oatmeal.”

  Her stomach growled. Desperately trying to discover the source of her unease—although unease was far too mild a word for the feelings of doom filling her head like toxic smoke—she’d skipped breakfast. It was possible that hunger was distracting her just enough to keep her from making sense of the cards.

  Possible. But not likely.

  She’d been able to cast auguries right until the end, unheeding of the destruction raining down around her. She’d seen the fate of the city and of the wizards. She’d known there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  Nothing.

  But here and now they hadn’t reached nothing—although they would.

  Here and now, she needed to identify just what was going wrong.

  If memory served, the Rice-Krispie square she’d grabbed from the craft services table last week should still be in her desk drawer. It wasn’t exactly food, but it was as close as she could get without going upstairs.

  Slowly chewing the first bite—slowly because the square had solidified into a substance that defied speed, Arra cleared all screens but one. Maybe if she concentrated on a single game . . .

  Two black jacks.

  And again.

  Sucking the last bit of marshmallow off a corner of the plastic wrap, she scowled down at the clock on the corner of the screen. 11:02 A.M. The gate would open soon and the last shadow would make a move for home. The light would destroy it. It knew it was the last on this world, but would he know as he . . .

  Plastic hanging limply from a corner of her mouth, Arra stared at the monitor.

  Two black jacks.

  There were two shadows left on this world.

  Not one.

  Two.

  Somehow, one of them had escaped her spell. Exactly how wasn’t important right now, she had to warn Tony.

  But the gate was about to open.

  If both shadows were there . . .

  If he needed help stopping them . . .

  If she went to the gate . . .

  But if she didn’t . . .

  Using power with the gate open would be like sending up a flare.

  A hundred thousand voices cried out for her to save them. Clutched at her. Dragged her down under the weight of their need. The Shadowlord comes; you are our last and only hope.

  Tony fought without her. When he reached for her, it was to ask her to fight at his side, not to fight for him. He stubbornly held to hope even as she denied it.

  Pushing her chair away from the desk, she spun it around and scanned the workshop shelves. There had to be something . . . Yes! One of the baseball bats they’d blown up in Raymond Dark’s hands during the batting cage scene in episode three. The hands had, of course, been Daniel’s and the ad lib about switching to aluminum, Lee’s—although Mason had claimed it the second time they’d shot Lee pulling the bloody shard of wood from Raymond Dark’s shoulder. With CB complaining about the expense, she’d bought six bats, practiced on three, blown two for the camera, and tucked the last one away figuring that sooner or later she’d find a use for it.

  Stopping the shadow-held from reaching the gate would also stop the shadow.

  With half his attention on the time, half worrying at the hundred and one things likely to go wrong as he attempted to stop a shadow from returning to another world while surrounded by people who wouldn’t believe that’s what he was doing if it came with a director’s commentary, and trying to keep seventeen members of the Darkest Night fan club out of trouble, Tony was feeling a little overwhelmed.

  And the thought of Arra sitting safely in her basement while he was up here saving the world was pissing him off. She doesn’t need to go near the fucking gate, he growled silently as he counted the fans. She could just take a moment and turn this lot into . . .

  One short.

  Three guesses where the runaway had gotten to and the first two didn’t count.

  “Excuse me, but this set’s off limits.”

  The fan froze, one leg hooked over the side of the coffin. “I was just . . .”

  “Yeah. I know.” Tony jerked his head toward the high-pitched squeals coming from the other side of the soundstage. “I think Mason just appeared.”

  He got out of the way barely in time to avoid being run over.

  Emerging out beside the monitors, he could only assume from the sounds of adoration that Mason was on the other side of the group of hysterically bobbing and weaving bodies.

  “Great. Just great.” Headphones down around his neck, Peter sounded ready to chew scenery. “I am never going to get him onto the set now.”

  “Sorry.”

  The director snorted. “You think you could have prevented that? You are
suffering from serious delusions of grandeur, Mr. Foster. You should know by now that nothing comes between Mason and his adoring fans. Particularly when they’re carrying cameras.” Eyes narrowed as he watched the ebb and flow of the crowd. “At least if he’s out where we can see him, we have a chance of avoiding lawsuits.”

  “Do you want me to tell him you’re ready to shoot?”

  “He knows. That’s why he finally emerged from his dressing room. One of the reasons. And obviously not the most important. You try to remove him from that little love fest there, and he’ll treat the world to a scene where you’re cast as the villain and he’s just trying to give a little back to the people who make the show possible. Forgetting, of course, that there won’t be a show if we don’t get it shot.”

  “Could we do my reaction shots first?”

  Both Tony and the director turned.

  “Lee, I didn’t see you there.”

  Lee smiled. “It seemed safer to stay out of the way.”

  Tony opened his mouth to ask him how he felt and then closed it again. Not his place. It wasn’t like they were . . . friends.

  “Sorge?”

  The DP glanced up.

  “Lee’s reaction shots; do we need to relight?”

  “I don’t think so . . .”

  As the DP headed out onto the office set, Peter nodded toward the sides sticking out of Tony’s pocket. “You can read him Mason’s lines.”

  From elation to depression in less than a second. Probably a new record. “I can’t.”

  “You can’t?”

  He couldn’t look at Lee while he explained. “I have to do that thing for Arra.”

  “Now?”

  The feel of the gate powering up was making his eyeballs twitch. He glanced down at his watch. “Three minutes. She, uh, she says timing is everything in special effects.”

  “Fine. Whatever. Go. Lee, get out there. Adam . . .”

  The 1AD broke off a conversation with a boom operator Tony’d never seen before. Seemed like Hartley hadn’t made it in this morning.

  “. . . make sure that lot shuts up when I call quiet.”

  Trying not to look like he was walking into pain, Tony made his way to the lamp.