Darkest Night - Smoke And Mirrors Part 24

"No s.h.i.t. Medium with an Internet connection, remember?" Graham slammed the car door and waited for Henry to join him on the sidewalk before he started walking toward the theater. "We got some poltergeist activity-you don't want to talk to those little s.h.i.ts-and repeat appearances of dark figure in a long coat suspected to be Alistair McCall, an actor who died during a performance of Henry V. The reviews said it wasn't the best death scene he'd ever done."

In spite of circ.u.mstances, Henry grinned. "Harsh."

"Yeah, well, we weren't there; they might've been right. So do you want me to try and talk to McCall, is that it?"

"If it is McCall, he was around at the same time as Creighton Caulfield, and they likely moved in the same social circles-Caulfield was nouveau riche and McCall was a local celebrity."

"Okay, sure, that's fine if it is McCall, but what if it isn't?"

"Then get what information you can."

"The dead don't usually like crowds." Graham nodded at the people milling about under the marquee. "And this lot doesn't look like they're leaving."

"They're not. There's a late show tonight."

"Yeah, so . . ."

"So you'll have to concentrate a little harder to ignore any distractions, won't you?" Henry wrapped his hand around the caretaker's elbow, the movement as much threat as restraint.

Graham glanced down at Henry's fingers, pale lines against the dark green fabric, and shrugged. "Okay. So we're what? Just going to walk right on in?"

"Yes."

"Because you got tickets?"

"Not exactly."

They slipped past two young women checking their watches as they discussed unlikely methods of revenge, pushed past a clump of slightly younger men who could only be first-year film students from the way they were pontificating, and went around the smokers desperately topping up their nicotine levels before they had to go inside. The clothes of all three groups were such an eclectic mix that neither Henry's white silk shirt and jeans nor Graham's workman's overalls looked out of place.

Muscles, tattoos, and a clipboard blocked the open door.

Henry smiled up at her, carefully keeping it charming. "Henry Fitzroy. Tony Foster."

The charm slid off without penetrating. She checked her list. Drew two lines. "Go in and sit down if you want. We'll be starting late-camera two's stuck in f.u.c.king traffic."

"Any idea how long it'll be?"

"If I f.u.c.king knew that, I'd be doing a f.u.c.king dance of joy," she snarled. "Sit, don't sit. It's all the same to me."

The Lambert had been built just before the turn of the century when money poured into Vancouver from timber, mining, and fleecing unwary treasure seekers heading north to the Yukon gold rush. A group of the young city's most upstanding and wealthy citizens, stung by a federal study that said Vancouver led the Dominion in consumption of alcohol, vowed to bring culture to the frontier and, with their wallets behind the project, it took only five short months from breaking the ground to the first performance on the Lambert stage.

A hundred years later, a similar group ripped out screens, projection booths, and drop ceilings and restored the theatre to its original glory. In order to sell local wines in the lobby during intermissions, the restored Lambert had a liquor license.

Henry appreciated the irony.

"Jesus." Graham tipped his head back and stared up at the gilded Graces and cherubs dancing across lobby's ceiling.

"That's a bit over the top, eh?"

"Well, when you're spending government money, why not go for Baroque."

"What?"

"Never mind." The lights on the stairs leading up to the balconies were off. It therefore seemed reasonable to a.s.sume that the balcony wouldn't be used during the performance and would offer them the privacy they'd need. Henry dragged Graham across the lobby. "Come on."

"We're not supposed to go up there."

"Then we'd better not get caught." Graham didn't seem to find that comforting. Frowning, he stopped at the bottom step. "The lights are off."

"You talk to the dead and you're afraid of the dark?"

"That's not . . . Oh, never mind." He threw a nervous glance over his shoulder, pulled his arm from Henry's hand, and sprinted for the second floor, the m.u.f.fled thud of work boots on carpet drowned out by Radiogram's new CD playing over the sound system.

Henry met him at the top of the stairs.

"Oh, sure . . . beat the old . . . man." He sagged against the flocked wallpaper and panted.

"You should exercise more."

"You should . . . mind your own . . . d.a.m.ned business." Pushing himself upright, Graham headed for the main balcony.

"If we're going to . . . do this. I want . . . to sit down."

The balcony was deserted, but Henry noted the cables leading to the empty spot waiting for the delayed camera two.

Down below, half a dozen crew members ran around attending to last minute details. On the stage, a pair of actors Henry didn't recognize-although Tony had a.s.sured him they'd been famous in their day-worked on blocking. The seats were about three quarters filled, the audience not yet restless but becoming loud.

Loud was good. Loud would cover the conversation Graham Brummel was about to have with the dead.

"Well?"

The replica turn-of-the-century red plush seat protested as Graham dropped into it. "Well, what?"

"Is he here?"

"Sure. But that's the wrong question. The right question is; does he want to talk. Actually . . ." Graham scratched thoughtfully at his comb-over. ". . . the real question is, will he say anything I can understand. The dead are not usually what you'd call articulate. Now these days I can't get them to shut up, but I still had to work on Ca.s.sandra and Stephen for a couple of weeks before I could get anything and I had a blood tie there."

"Here, you have me."

"That and thirty-two seventy-five'll buy you a two-four." He sighed. "I could use a beer."

"You've had plenty. Call. Or concentrate. Or do whatever you have to."

"You've got no friggin' idea how this works, do . . ." Twisting around, he looked up at Henry and froze. "Yeah. So like, I'll just, um . . . ."

As little as he wanted to, Henry dialed it back. Masked the Hunter. Destroying this annoying little man would not help free Tony and the others. Move's the pity. Closing his fingers over the back of Graham's chair, he waited.

"I'd still like to know, why me?"

"Like attracts like. Look, there's a whole s.h.i.tload of myth about you. Okay, not you, specifically, but about your kind. It's all around you . . ." Tony spread his arms. ". . . like a metaphysical fog. I bet that's what the ghost's attracted to. I bet that's what pulls him to you."

Tony's theory, expressed between visits from the last ghost Henry'd had to deal with, had made a certain kind of sense. Like was drawn to like. Except, of course, when opposites attract.

That wasn't helping.

Fabric began to tear under Henry's fingers and he snarled softly in frustration.

The temperature in the balcony plummeted.

"He's here." Graham's announcement plumed out from his mouth.

"I figured."

A tall figure began to take shape in the place where camera two would rest. The lack of light in the balcony made it difficult to see defined edges, dark bleeding out into dark. It almost seemed as though the pale, middle-aged face cupped by the high formal collar of the early part of the century floated, sneering and unsupported.

"He's complaining about the theater. I don't think he means the building, I think he means . . ." Graham waved toward the stage. "That stuff."

"Why couldn't I hear him?"

"Because you're not a medium." Graham snickered. "You're short enough I bet you're barely a small. What?"

The ghost frowned.

"I think he thinks I'm brave talking to you like that because you walk in darkness. Jesus, the lights are out. Who doesn't?"

Alistair McCall, once given five curtain calls for his Faust, and Henry Fitzroy, once Duke of Richmond and Somerset, exchanged an essentially identical expression.

"Yeah, yeah, Nightwalker. What the h.e.l.l is a . . ." Whites showed all the way around Graham's eyes as he slowly turned and gazed up into Henry's face. "Oh, boy, oh boy-I knew you were strange from the moment I laid eyes on you, but you're a vampire?"

Henry smiled, and this time he didn't bother being charming. "Ask him about Creighton Caulfield. We haven't got all night."

"Hartley's gone?" Brenda's eyes were painfully wide and both her hands were wrapped around Lee's arm in a white- knuckled grip. "The house! It's the house!" she shrieked as Lee closed his hand over hers-not so much for comfort, Tony was just petty enough to observe, but to try and force her to loosen her hold. "It's eaten him!"

"No, it hasn't!" Amy snapped. Then she frowned and turned to Tony. "Has it?"

He shrugged and glanced over at Stephen and Ca.s.sie who'd finally rejoined them. Ca.s.sie still looked a little twitchy-which would have seemed reasonable given the dance music still playing a counterpoint to Karl's crying except that she was dead and therefore should, in Tony's opinion, be beyond twitchy.

"The house doesn't eat you, it uses the energy of your death," Ca.s.sie told him, smoothing down her bloodstained skirt and glaring at Brenda. The you're an idiot was clearly implied.

Tony repeated Ca.s.sie's statement, trying to keep the implication a little less obvious. "And since no one else is dead," he added, "Hartley can't be. It's been murder then suicide since the beginning."

"So he's probably just gone off looking for a drink," Peter sighed.

Arms folded, Kate shifted her weight from foot to foot. "Or he's gone off looking for someone to kill!"

"Who?" Amy demanded impatiently. "We're all here."

"So he wants us to go looking for him and when we're separated, then he kills one of us."

Heads nodded agreement.

"Yeah . . ." Amy pursed her lips, giving credit where credit was due. "That sounds reasonable."

"Tom wasn't a murder/suicide," Mouse muttered mournfully.

Tina shot him a flat, unfriendly look. "Stop saying murder/suicide around the children."

Safely out of the way beside Zev, Brianna rolled her eyes as Ashley pulled her ears out from between the script supervisor's hands. "First of all, not a child," the older girl snorted. "And second, it's not like we don't know the words.

We watch Law and Order, you know."

"How can you avoid it," Adam snorted.

Heads nodded again.

"Tom was kind of a metaphysical accident," Amy reminded them. "He didn't intend to kill himself, so his death is different."

Kate's lip curled. "If one death can be different, what's to say others can't be."

More nodding.

"Hartley wants a drink," she continued, "so the house, the thing . . ."

"In the bas.e.m.e.nt," Amy interrupted.

"Fine. The thing in the bas.e.m.e.nt convinces him that a bottle of rubbing alcohol is just what he's looking for and the next thing you know, he's poisoned himself."

Amy spread her hands. "Come on, guys. This is Hartley we're talking about. He's perfectly capable of drinking a bottle of rubbing alcohol and poisoning himself without any help from a thing in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

The nodding continued.

The circle was beginning to look as though it contained an a.s.sorted variety of bobblehead dolls.

"So do we go looking for him?" Tony asked.

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you? Go off all alone. Come back and tell us stuff we're expected to believe. If all we have to do is survive until morning, then I think we stand a better chance if we use a little duct tape on Tony and keep him from wandering off." Kate patted the roll of tape hanging off her belt. "Who's with me?"

"No one is duct taping anyone," Peter told her. "Not unless I say so."

"Unless you say so?"

Stephen wafted closer to Tony as the shouting started. "It likes this. It likes anger. It likes any strong emotion," he added thoughtfully as Sorge shoved Pavin, Mouse shook Kate as she tried to lunge at Peter, and Amy, Adam, and Saleen were attempting to outshout each other-the three clumped together but yelling independently. Tina, Zev, Mason, Lee, Brenda, and the girls were being shoved toward the far edge of the circle. "Anger's easiest for it to use, though."

"Yeah?" Tony jerked back away from Kate's flailing arm. She wasn't flailing at him, but he still wanted to avoid impact. "How do you know?"