Darkest Night - Smoke And Mirrors Part 2

As Mason turned to glare at the sound, Tony snagged the other half of the bagel. "Air in the pipes," he said, heading for the door. "Old plumbing."

The actor shot a scathing expression across the room at him. "I knew that."

"Right." Except old plumbing seldom sounded either that unhappy or that articulate. The new noises were almost words. Tony found a lot of comfort in that almost.

Safely outside the door, he restacked the bagel b.u.t.ter/honey sides together and headed toward the garbage can at the other end of the hall, rehearsing what he'd say when Mason discovered the bagel was gone. "I wasn't anywhere near it!"

No nearer than about six feet and Mason knew it.

Although near had become relative. These days he could manage to move unbreakable objects almost ten feet.

Breakables still had a tendency to explode. Arra's notes hadn't mentioned explosions, but until the shadows, she'd handled FX for CB Productions, so maybe she considered bits of beer bottle flying around the room a minor effect.

Fortunately, Zev had shown up early for their date and had been more than willing to drive him to the hospital to get the largest piece of bottle removed from his arm. His opinion of juggling beer bottles had been scathing. Tony hadn't had the guts to find out what his opinion of wizardry would have been.

The phrase special effects wizard had become a cliche in the industry. Arra Pelindrake, who'd been blowing things up and animating corpses for the last seven years, had been the real thing. Given the effects the new guy was coming up with, it turned out she hadn't been that great at the subtleties of twenty-first century FX but she was a real wizard. The shadows and the evil that controlled them had followed her through a gate she'd created between their world and this.

The battle had gone down to the wire, but Tony had finally convinced her to stand and fight, and when it was all over, she'd been able to go home-but not before dropping the "you could be a wizard, too" bombsh.e.l.l. He'd refused to go with her, so she'd left him her laptop, six gummed-up games of spider solitaire that were supposed to give him insight into the future, and what he'd come to call Wizards.h.i.t 101; point form and remarkably obscure instructions on becoming a wizard.

He wasn't a wizard; he was a production a.s.sistant, working his way up in the industry until the time when it was his vision on the screen, his vision pulling in the viewers in the prime 19-29 male demographic. He'd had no intention of ever using the laptop.

And there'd been times over the last few months where he'd been able to stay away from it for weeks. Well, one time. For three weeks. Right after he'd had the jagged hunk of beer bottle removed from his arm.

Wizardry, like television, was all about manipulating energy.

And occasionally bread products.

Mason's door jerked open and without thinking much beyond Oh, c.r.a.p. Tony opened the door he was standing by, dashed into the room, and closed the door quietly behind him. He had a feeling I wasn't anywhere near your bagel would play better when he didn't have b.u.t.ter, honey, and poppy seeds all over his hands.

The smell of wet paint told him where he was even before he turned.

The second-floor bathroom.

There were no shadows in this bathroom. On the wrong side of the house for direct sunlight there was still enough daylight spilling in through the open window to make the fresh coat of white semigloss gleam. Although the plumbing had been updated in the fifties, the actual fixtures were original- which was why they were shooting the flashback in this room.

Weirdly, although thirty years older, it made Mason's bathroom look dated and . . . haunted.

It was just the flickering shadows from the cedar tree and air in the pipes, he told himself.

Whatever gets you through your day, his self snorted.

Bite me.

The heavy door cut off all sound from the hall. He had no idea if Mason was still prowling around looking for him, hunting his missing bagel.

At least if the taps work, I can wash my hands.

Using the only nonsticky square inch on his right palm, Tony pushed against the old lever faucet and turned on the cold water. And waited. Just as he was about to turn it off again, figuring they hadn't hooked up the water yet, liquid gushed from the faucet, thick and reddish brown, smelling of iron and rot.

Heart in his throat, he jumped back.

Blood!

No wait, rust.

By the time he had his breathing under control, the water was running clear. Feeling foolish, he rinsed off his palms, dried them on his jeans, and closed the tap. Checking out his reflection in the big, somewhat spotty mirror over the sink, he frowned.

Behind him, on the wall . . . it looked as if someone had drawn a finger through the wet paint. When he turned, changing the angle of the light, the mark disappeared. Mirror-finger mark. No mirror-no mark.

And now we know where the paint on Lee's tux came from. Next question: who put it there? Brenda seemed like the prime suspect. She'd been upstairs delinting both actors before the scene, she'd have noticed the marks had they already been laid down, and the result had been Lee bare-a.s.sed in her trailer. . . . and let's not forget that she's already familiar with his a.s.s. He probably hadn't even noticed her stroking him on the way by.

Opportunity and motive pointed directly to Brenda.

Time . . .

Tony glanced at his watch.

"c.r.a.p!" Twenty-three minutes since Adam had called a twenty-minute break. Bright side, Mason wouldn't be able to bug him about a rule-breaking snack in front of the others. Slipping out into the hall, Tony ran for the back stairs figuring he could circle around from the kitchen. With any luck no one had missed him yet-one of the benefits of being low man on the totem pole.

As he ran, he realized Mason had been right about one thing. It's f.u.c.king freezing up here.

"Why was he in the bathroom? Graham said we'd be safe in there, that they wouldn't be using it until tomorrow."

"Be quiet, Stephen!" Ca.s.sie pinched her brother's arm. "Do you want him to hear you?"

"Ow. He can't hear us from way over here!"

"I'm not so sure." She frowned thoughtfully as the young man disappeared through the door leading to the stairs between the servants' rooms and the kitchen. "I get the feeling he doesn't miss much."

Stephen snorted and patted a strand of dark blond hair back into the pomaded dip over his forehead. "Good thing we weren't in the bathroom then."

"Yes . . . good thing."

Sunset was at 8:54 PM. It was one of those things that Tony couldn't not remember. He checked the paper every morning, he noted the time, and, as the afternoon became evening, he kept an eye on his watch.

Wanda, the new office PA, showed up at seven with the next day's sides-the half size sheets with all the background information as well as the necessary script pages. Tony helped her pick them up off the porch.

"This is so totally embarra.s.sing!"

He handed her a messy stack of paper. "Don't worry about it, everyone trips. Earlier, I did a little 'falling with style'

down the back stairs." The risers were uneven and he'd missed his step, very nearly pitching headfirst down the narrow incline.

"Falling with style is better than falling with skinned knee," Wanda muttered, shoving the retrieved sides under one arm and dabbing at the congealing blood with a grubby tissue. "And how many people saw you?"

"No one, but . . ."

"You saw me." She pointed at him. "And Brenda did." She pointed back toward the trailer. "Because I heard that distinctive snicker of hers. And the Sikh with the potted plant."

"Dalai. The prop guy."

"Whatever. My point, three people saw me. No one saw you and I'm bleeding."

"Yeah, well, don't bleed on the weather report. What would we do if we didn't know there was a seventy percent chance of rain tomorrow?"

She snapped erect and glared at him, nostrils pinched so tightly he wondered how she could breathe and talk at the same time. "That's not very supportive!"

"What?"

"That comment was not very supportive!"

"Kidding." Tony tapped the corners of his mouth. "Smiling, see?"

"It's not funny!"

"But I wasn't . . ."

"I'm taking these inside now!"

"Whatever." He wasn't quite mocking her. Quite. Okay, maybe a little. "I'll just be out here cleaning your blood off the stone."

"Fine." Spinning on one air-cushioned heel, she stomped in through the front doors.

"Someone needs to switch to decaf," he sighed. He'd been standing not three feet from the steps when she fell, close enough to hear her knee make that soft/hard definite tissue damage sound, and he had a pretty good idea of where she'd impacted with the porch. Weirdly, while there'd been lines of red dribbling down her shin, he couldn't find any blood on the stones. As embarra.s.sed as she was, she'd probably just bounced up before the blood actually started to flow.

Probably.

The show packed up around 8:30 PM.

"Nice short day, people. Good work. Eleven and a half hours," he added to Sorge as he moved out of an electrician's way. "No way we'll make that tomorrow, not with all those extras."

Tony's grasp of French profanity wasn't quite good enough to understand the specifics of the DP's reply.

Chapter Two.

"HEY, HENRY, it's Tony." He shifted the phone to his other hand and reached into the back of the fridge. "It's highly likely that we're going to run late tomorrow night. . ." How long had that Chinese takeout been in there? ". . .

so I was thinking that I'd better . . ." Opening the container, he stared at the uniform greenish-gray surface of the food. He had no idea what he'd ordered way back when but he had a strong suspicion it hadn't looked like that.". . .

meet you at the . . ." The click of a receiver being lifted cut him off. "Henry?"

"Tony? Sorry, I was in the shower."

"Going out to eat?"

He could hear the smile in the other man's voice. "Is that any of your business?"

"Nope. Just curious." The bologna still looked edible. Well, most of it. He tossed it on the counter and closed the refrigerator door. "We've got extras working tomorrow, so I'll likely be late."

"You say extras like you're thinking of calling in pest control to deal with them."

"I'm not, but Sorge and Peter are. They hate working with extras." Tony grabbed a little plastic packet of mustard from a cup filled with identical plastic packets, ripped off the top with his teeth, and squirted the contents out onto a slice of bread. "It might be best if I meet you at the theater. The show starts at ten, so if I'm not there by quarter to, just go in and sit down. I'll find you."

"We can call it off."

"Not a chance. How often do you get to go to the theater in the summer?" Friends of Tony's from film school were taping the play and the high-profile television stars playing the leads for the local cable channel. Opening curtain was at ten because they couldn't get the camera equipment until after their day jobs finished with it. Tony had no idea how they'd convinced the theater or the actors to go along with their schedule but that wasn't his problem. When he'd heard about it, he'd realized it was a perfect show for Henry. Given late sunsets and early sunrises, Henry didn't get out much in the summer. Ripping the slightly green edges off the half dozen slices of bologna, he stacked them on the bread and mustard. "You know where the Vogue is, right?"

"It's on Granville, Tony, practically around the corner. I think I can find it."

"Hey, I'm just checking." He applied mustard to the second slice of bread.

"Did you know that the Vogue Theater was haunted?"

"Really haunted or haunted for publicity's sake?"

"Bit of both, I suspect."

Tony took a bite of his sandwich. "Think we'll see anything tomorrow night?"

"I think we'll have to wait until tomorrow night to find out."

"I'm just asking because our last experience with ghosts wasn't much fun." Several innocents had died and, until the whole shadows-from-another-world incident, the experience had provided fodder for the bulk of Tony's nightmares.

Well, that and the undead ancient Egyptian wizard.

"Apparently this guy is a lot less interactive," Henry told him dryly. "What are you eating?"

"Bologna sandwich."

"I was thinking I'd have Italian."

"Good night, Henry!" Shaking his head, Tony thumbed the phone off and tossed it into the tangle of blankets on the pull-out couch. "Over four hundred and sixty years old," he commented to the apartment at large. "You'd think he'd learn another joke."

Vampires: not big on the whole contemporary humor thing.

"Seventy percent chance of rain, my a.s.s," Tony muttered as he drove out to the end of Deer Lake Drive and parked behind Sorge's minivan. The rain sheeted down his windshield with such volume and intensity the wipers were barely able to keep up. He turned off the engine, grabbed his backpack off the pa.s.senger seat, and flicked the hood up on his green plastic rain cape. Sure, it looked geeky, but it kept him and his backpack mostly dry. Besides, it wasn't quite seven-thirty in the freaking AM-ACTRA rules stipulated a twelve-hour break for the talent but only ten for the crew- he was in the middle of a park, about to head down an overgrown path to a forgotten house-who the h.e.l.l was going to see him?

Stephen turned from the window smiling broadly. "Listen to the water roar in the gutters, Ca.s.s! This'll fill the cistern for sure. Graham's going to be on cloud nine."

"And it's all about Graham being happy, isn't it?" she muttered, rubbing bare arms.