Darkest Night - Smoke And Ashes Part 14

"I saw an interruption in the rain. Some demons don't like to get wet."

Tony snorted. "Man, are they converging in the wrong place." And then the program loaded. "Hang on! There's another demon through?"

"Looks that way. Drive faster," she commanded, throwing herself back into the seat.

"What? No! I can get off Loughheed on Douglas and back on at Springer."

Leah turned to stare at him. He could feel incredulity hit the side of his face as he changed lanes. "And do what?"

"If there's a demon back there, it might eat someone. Or part of someone. I can't let that happen."

"So if we go back and wave me around like bait, and you Powershot it, what happens then?"

"No one gets eaten."

"Yeah, but you're out on your a.s.s for another twelve hours. You're too wiped to learn the new spell and you're not able to protect me. Then, during those twelve hours, another demon shows up and eats me, opening the Demongate and ending the world as we know it."

"If it eats you, will the gate open inside it? Ow!" He rubbed his thigh where she'd smacked him.

"If you drive faster, we'll put more distance between us and it, and it'll take that much longer to find me. During that time, you can learn how to send it back to h.e.l.l so that, when it finally catches up, you'll be able to save me without taking yourself out of the fight."

They were almost at the off ramp.

"I can't just let a demon run around loose."

"You can't just let a Demonlord into the world either."

Valid point.

Past the ramp. Too late to go back.

"If someone else dies..."

"Better them than me." He fought the urge to hit the brakes and skid to a dramatic halt. It was the kind of reaction that would look great on screen and accomplish absolutely nothing in real life. He wanted to snarl, It isn't all about you! but, until the Demonic Convergence was over, it was. He wanted it to be about imps again. He'd kind of been looking forward to that.

"All right." Deep breath. No option but to deal. A little more gas and they were matching speeds with the fastest car on the road.

"Why won't this new thing you're going to teach me knock me on my a.s.s?"

Her seat creaked as she shifted her weight, tucking her knees up to brace her feet against the dashboard. "You'll be manipulating energy instead of just hurling it."

"Say what?"

She sighed impatiently. "Well, I'm no wizard, but that Powershot of yours looked like the magical equivalent of picking up the biggest rock you can find and crushing your enemies with it. Of course you're exhausted afterward; you're also looking at pulled muscles, back trouble, and probably hernias."

"Hernias?"

"Magical equivalent of. What I'm going to teach you is more like rolling the rock to the edge of a cliff and pushing it off as your enemies pa.s.s under it. There's a lot less effort involved and result is the about the same."

"Really?"

"No, not really." Slouching as far as the seat belt would allow, Leah propped her yellow high-tops up on the dash. "It's actually a pretty lousy a.n.a.logy and only applies to the amount of power involved. Powershot lots. My way, less."

"Yeah, but you said you're not a wizard..."

"No, I'm not. I'm just the one who stands to be eviscerated if you don't get it right." She gave his leg a patronizing pat, her fingers lingering just a little too long. "And then the world as we know it ends."

Yeah. Yeah. No pressure.

Leah's condo was in a clump of high-rise concrete towers overlooking the TransCanada and a railway ravine, and it wasn't hard to understand why she objected to his beige. Her walls were shades of yellows, oranges, and reds. Her furniture was large and heavy and predominately wood and leather with cushions the same shades as the walls softening the angles. Every piece looked st.u.r.dy enough to take the weight of two moving adults.

From the spa.r.s.ely furnished second bedroom on the north side of the corner unit, Tony could almost convince himself he could see Simon Fraser University high on the heights of Mount Burnaby-where height was a relative term given the actual peaks of the Rockies less than an hour's drive to the east.

He couldn't see any interruptions in the rain.

"All right." Leah opened the bottom of the white silk shirt she'd changed into after an impressively quick shower and, pushing her black track pants dangerously lower on her hips, stepped closer to the gooseneck lamp they were using as a spotlight. "The innermost circle of runes defines the actual gate. All you have to do, because we're not talking about creating an actual gate as much as reminding reality that demons don't belong here, is burn these four into the air..." One finger, a careful distance from skin, indicated the runes in question. "... each rune more or less an equal distance from the other, with the demon in the middle of the pattern. When you finish the fourth rune, reality will reset itself and no more demon." With his nose so close to her skin, she smelled like soap and cinnamon. Or cinnamon soap. Which was a weird choice, but it suited her. "All I have to do?" Tony muttered, peering at the intricate tattoo.

Leah chose to ignore the sarcasm. "Because the demon doesn't belong here, you don't have to be specific about its name or its ultimate destination. Once you weaken the barrier, it'll snap back to where it belongs. It's a variation on what we were going to be doing before Ryne Cyratane upped the stakes-only then you'd have been pushing the runes through the weak spot to reinforce it."

"Yeah. Okay." The individual runes were a lot more complex up close than they were when they were just a part of the larger pattern. "What happens if I screw one of these up? Squiggle when I should spiral?"

"Probably nothing..."

The probably was a little worrying.

"... although if, by chance, you re-create an entirely different power definition..." She shrugged, the curve of her belly rising and falling with the motion. "Maybe death. Destruction. Perpetual reruns of The Family Guy."

"Hey, that show's a cla.s.sic!"

"Every now and then," Leah muttered, flicking Tony on the top of the head with one finger, "I think, why not let him in? How much worse could things get? You'd better draw the runes on paper first."

"Sure." He straightened. "But what did..." Tucked into the front pocket of the laptop case, his cell phone played the Darkest Night theme; Zev had made a digital file available to anyone in the studio who wanted to use it. Tony suspected he was hoping it would get picked up as a download by one of the big online ring-tone sites, but so far there were no takers. Flicking the phone open, he checked the display. "It's Amy."

"Who?"

"a.s.sistant office manager at the studio. I should take it."

"Why?"

"It might be about work."

"You're a TAD." Leah allowed her shirt to fall closed. "Nothing you do is more important than learning how to keep me alive."

Since she put it that way, he answered the phone.

"Tony?" Amy had conspiracy in her voice. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, why?"

"Because CB said you weren't coming in today. Or tomorrow. CB. The boss. He didn't show up at your place last night and beat you into a coma, did he?"

"No. Why would he?" Did Amy know something about CB's feelings toward him that he didn't?

"Why would he carry your messages unless he was feeling like mondo guilty?"

"I asked him for some personal time."

"Personal time?" Amy snorted so vehemently, he had to move the phone away from his ear. "Loss of consciousness is CB's definition of personal time. It's not..." She lowered her voice dramatically. "... the other stuff is it?" "The other stuff?"

"This isn't a secure line, nimrod."

"It isn't a line at all."

"Exactly my point. Well?"

And who was to say that Kevin Groves wasn't crouched in a bush outside the studio attempting to intercept his phone calls? It was the kind of sneaky underhanded, not exactly legal thing that tabloid reporters did, wasn't it? "It's sort of the other stuff."

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Just so you know, if you have any..." Her voice moved away from the phone. "CB Productions, please hold." And back. "... extracurricular fun without me, I will kick your a.s.s up onto your shoulders."

"It's not... fun." He said the last word to no one in particular.

Leah sat down and pushed the lamp out of her line of sight. "So Amy, the a.s.sistant office manager at the studio, knows you're a wizard?"

"Yeah."

"And your boss knows?"

"Well..."

"Well," she mocked, fingers tapping out annoyance on the polished tabletop. "Most people who have, let's say, unusual powers don't go talking about it to all and sundry since all, and particularly sundry, don't usually deal well with unusual."

"Thing is, we were trapped in a haunted house together."

"All three of you?"

"No, CB was outside."

"But he knows?"

"He knew before, during the Shadowlord thing."

"So Amy and your boss..."

The Darkest Night theme interrupted.

Tony glanced down at the screen. "It's Zev. He's the music director at the studio."

"Does Zev know?"

"He was in the house."

"Along with how many other people?"

"Not many."

"Good."

"About thirteen." Dark brows rose almost to her hairline. "About?"

"Three of them died."

"Yay." Her fingers stilled.

It's when the drums stop that you have to worry. The Darkest Night theme looped back to the beginning and kept playing.

"Tony, answer the d.a.m.ned phone."

The conversation with Zev paralleled the conversation with Amy minus the speculation about a coma and the final threats.

"You'll call me if you need me?"

"Sure."

"And you'll be careful?"

"Count on it."

"Because you're an annoying pain in the a.s.s, but I'm used to you being around."

"I'm used to being around. Don't worry." As he hung up, Leah slid a sheet of blank paper in front of him.

"Practice," she snapped, handing him a pencil. "Before someone else..."

The Darkest Night theme.

Once.

Lee's cell number.

Tony had, of course, memorized it even though he'd never used it. He stared at the phone, but Lee had obviously reconsidered calling.

"Earth to Tony." One bare foot kicked him, not particularly gently, in the shin. "Let's try and remember we're on the clock here!"

Leaning back, she reexposed the Demongate. "Now that your fan club has checked in, can we get on with this?"

"Sorry." He peered at her belly, put pencil to paper, and stopped. "Look, when you said, burn these four runes into the air, what did you mean?"

"You know." The tip of one finger sketched invisible circles. "Draw them in the air with lines of energy."