Darkest Night - Smoke And Ashes Part 43

Tony sighed and pointed.

The tall blonde sitting behind the desk in the main lobby was intent on one of her monitors and hadn't seen them.

"You're right. We have a problem."

"Fortunately, I have a solution."

"You know a spell to take care of her?"

"Nope. I don't need magic for this."

Leah patted him gently on the shoulder. "Tony, you're gay."

"That'll help," he said, quietly pulling open the heavy gla.s.s door, "but more importantly, I'm in television."

The door got the guard's attention. Wearing a professionally neutral expression, she watched them cross to her desk. "Can I help you?" she asked, the neutrality touched with suspicion. Tony smiled and pulled a business card out of his wallet. "I hope so," he told her, pa.s.sing it over. "My boss sent me out to find a location for our next episode and with any luck, this building will have the perfect s.p.a.ce."

"You work on Darkest Night?"

"I do."

"Oh, wow. I love that show! Lee Nicholas is so hot! That episode where he got captured by the coven and they were going to sacrifice him unless Raymond Dark-who they'd been hunting for centuries-surrendered to them and he was tied out over that altar; that was just brilliant! And that scene where he was chasing that mad scientist down the street after he was ex-sanguinating people and blaming it on vampires, that went right past my mother's best friend's ex-husband's store!" Her enthusiasm dropped about five years off her age. "It says here you're a TAD?"

He cranked up the camp, just a little. "I'm also a location scout, the photocopier repair person, decorating consultant, and, occasionally, second dead body on the right." He leaned in. "That leg at the edge of the screen after the ma.s.sacre on that container ship at VanTerm-mine." CB had been way too cheap to have a leg made when he had any number of them walking around collecting a paycheck.

"No."

"Yes."

She rose up on her toes and peered over the edge of the desk. "Oh, my G.o.d, it was your leg! I recognize the shoe!"

No she didn't, it was a different shoe entirely, but Tony wasn't going to mention that. "Look... Donna..." Her name tag, now close enough to read, said Donna Hardle. "... I know you can't leave your post, but would it be possible for us to wander very carefully around the building-not touching anything, I promise-to see if we can find the s.p.a.ce my boss is looking for?"

"I don't know; it's Sat.u.r.day, and..."

"And there won't be many people working, so we won't disturb them. We thought about that. And besides, we'll want to shoot on a Sat.u.r.day."

"On a Sat.u.r.day?"

"Uh-huh."

"I'm here on Sat.u.r.days!"

"Hey..." His cheeks were beginning to hurt from all the lunatic smiling. "... that's great. You know, Lee loves to meet his fans."

Her cheeks went pink. "He does?"

"Loves to."

Donna glanced down at the card, looked over the bank of six monitors, bit her lip, and said, "I guess it's okay if you don't touch anything, and I'll have to make sure you're not carrying cameras."

"That's fair." Because if they were intent on industrial espionage, they'd surely have their corporate spy supplies out where they could be easily found. On the other hand, as he turned out the front pockets on his jeans and patted down his jacket, he gave her points for even considering it. Leah had his car keys, so all he was carrying was his wallet.

"And you..." Donna frowned at Leah. "Are you with the show, too?"

"Stunts," Leah said shortly, holding out her bag. "The location needs a safe fall site. Why don't you just hold onto this." "You do stunts? That is so cool!" Setting the bag down on her desk, she keyed in a fast run of numbers and the door at the end of the lobby buzzed. "Go on through. There's a couple of guys working today; don't disturb them, okay?"

"We'll be as quiet as the mold man in episode nine."

"That was a great episode!"

Leah snorted as the door closed behind them. "Somebody should tell Donna that womb to tomb she only gets so many exclamation points and she's wasting them."

"Be nice," Tony muttered, ma.s.saging the inside of his cheeks with his tongue.

"No."

Sye Mckaseeh's potential entrance was in a multidesk office with windows overlooking what was probably a manufacturing area.

There were long tables and individual stations of tools, and if it wasn't manufacturing, Tony had no idea what it was. "I don't see the two guys the guard mentioned."

"They're probably in R&D if they're in on the weekend," Leah told him, down on her knees running a hand over the teal blue carpet. "It's under here. There's a bit of a b.u.mp. I think there was a wall taken down and the office made bigger."

When he c.o.c.ked his head, he could see the shimmer. "Back up."

"What was with all the hand waving?" Donna asked as they came back out into the lobby. "I could see you on the security monitors," she added before they could ask how she knew.

"I was setting up the shots," Tony told her, peering at her through the square of his fingers. "You know."

"Of course! So cool! Did you find what you needed?"

"I think so, but now I have to tell the boss. He makes all the final decisions."

"So you don't know what Sat.u.r.day you'll be here?"

"Not yet."

"That's okay, I wrote down all my days off until after Christmas, so can you try and be here when I am?"

As Tony took the piece of paper, he laid his other hand over his heart. "I will do my best."

"That's just so great!" She was handing Leah back her bag, but her attention never left him. "Tony, can I ask you a question?"

He noted the impressive amount of information conveyed by Leah's we have another twenty-six of these things to close and not nearly enough time so we need to haul a.s.s expression and then ignored it. Donna had done them an enormous favor and right now was definitely not the time to be acquiring a karmic burden. "Sure."

"It's about Raymond Dark and James Taylor Grant." She lowered her voice and glanced to both sides, as if worried about eavesdroppers. "Is there, you know, a subtext there on purpose because they always stand so close together?"

"Sorry, that's standard blocking for television," Tony told her. "Actors have to be well within each other's personal s.p.a.ce in order to get them both in a small screen closeup. There's no subtext; they're just hitting their marks." Donna clearly didn't entirely believe him. "But they're so perfect together."

He winked, and gave his best imitation of a lascivious screaming queen. "You don't think James Taylor Grant would prefer a younger man?"

Giggling, she waved them toward the exit. "Go on. I have work to do!"

"Subtext?" Leah demanded incredulously as they walked to the car. "What was she talking about?"

"You don't spend much time online, do you?"

"I have a life. And what was with the Queer Eye schtick?"

He snorted as he dropped into the pa.s.senger seat and let his head fall back. "I know our fan base. Be sure to hit a drive-through on the way to number twenty-six."

"This is looking very familiar." Tony finished his coffee and tossed the empty cup into the back seat. "Isn't this near... ?"

"The place the tentacled demon broke through and terrorized your friend's coffee shop? Yes. Same neighborhood. And this is where our next stop is." Leah pulled into the parking lot at the Four Points Sheraton, narrowly missing two middle-aged women dragging an impressive amount of luggage.

"It's not just a residual reading from the old place that blew?"

"No. But I'd have thought it was if you hadn't mapped it and I'd have gone right on by and we wouldn't have closed it and it might have spat out the demon ready to destroy the world as we know it. Not to mention me." The parking s.p.a.ce she chose was some distance from the building. "Probably Sye Mckaseeh's intent. Good thing she doesn't know what you're capable of."

"Yeah. Good thing." Right at the moment, he didn't feel capable of much.

"There's a few too many men in there for me to distract them all, not to mention women."

"Not to mention."

"So how do we play this?"

He sighed and unfastened his seat belt. "We get lost in the crowd."

"And if the weak spot's in one of the rooms or one of the offices or in the middle of the lobby?"

"Why don't we just cross that bridge when we come to it? And speaking of Bridge..." Standing just outside the car, he stared at the hotel.

"Superficial resemblance at best," Leah snorted. "Come on. Let's do this."

Dark girders held the Four Points sign out over the main entrance. Tony stared up at them, noticed a spot where a bit of paint was missing, and closed his hand around Leah's arm. "Tell me it's not up there."

"It's not up there." "Thank you. Just look like you're supposed to be here," he murmured as they entered the building. "There's hundreds of people in and out every day. We're just two more faces in the crowd."

"You've done this before?"

Why not. It would look better if they were talking. He kept his voice low. "Big hotels with conference rooms have bathrooms tucked away in odd unwatched corners. If you're not so filthy you get noticed right off, you can use them to clean up as long as you miss the suits having their post-conference p.i.s.s. Sometimes, you can score a coffee and some food from outside the rooms."

Leah looked intrigued as she guided them past the front desk. "The hotel rooms?"

"Them, too. Half-eaten room service beats Dumpster diving any day, but I meant from outside the conference rooms. Pastries and stuff. Handful of creamers if nothing else."

"For all it's been short, you've had an interesting life."

"Yeah, and getting more interesting by the day."

The weak spot they were searching for wasn't in the lobby.

Or by the pool.

Or in the Business Center.

It was in the ballroom. Although there were round tables draped in peach tablecloths set up for later in the day, at the moment, the ballroom was empty.

"And we catch a break. Go us."

"Maybe." Frowning, Leah trailed her hand along one of the long walls until she came to a narrow wallpaper-covered door.

Opening it exposed a dark, empty cubbyhole.

"It's where those folding walls go," Tony said, peering over her shoulder and squinting a little to see the familiar shimmer. "You know, the kind that divides the room into smaller rooms."

"I guess this one's missing." Motioning him forward, Leah stepped back out of his way.

"Excuse me? What are you doing?"

They turned to see a man in a navy blue suit staring at them suspiciously from just inside one set of double doors. He was wearing a Four Points Sheridan name tag and the slight bulge at the waist of his jacket was either a radio or the hotel business in Vancouver was excessively compet.i.tive.

"I've got it," Leah murmured and started across the room.

For the first couple of steps, she was just a good-looking woman walking, then even Tony could see the difference as she cranked up the metaphysical attraction. Checking on the hotel employee's reaction, Tony noticed the gleam of a gold band against a dark finger.

The guy was married.

Just f.u.c.king great.

He sketched out the first rune at full speed, shoved it through the shimmer, and glanced over his shoulder.

Leah was almost at the door, the translucent image of her Arjh Lord flickering around her. "You're the manager?" he heard her purr. "Just who I wanted."

Second rune.

She had her hand against the manager's chest and he was smiling.

Third rune. At little slower because this was the one that gave him trouble.

Tony turned in time to see the door close.

c.r.a.p.

Fourth rune and he was sprinting across the ballroom before the shimmer had entirely disappeared. Fighting off a wave of dizziness, he crashed through the door, stumbled, apologized as he bounced off a pa.s.sing luggage rack, and caught sight of Leah and the manager going into a conference room.

If the door closed, he wouldn't be able to stop her.