Darkest Night - Smoke And Mirrors Part 4

He spun around so quickly he had to catch his balance on the door handle. "Jesus!" s.n.a.t.c.hing his hand off the metal, he sucked at what felt like a burn on the skin between finger and thumb. "Why don't I want to go down there?" he demanded, the question a little m.u.f.fled by his hand.

"Weather like this, the bas.e.m.e.nt floods. Probably six inches of water down there now." Mr. Brummel's red-rimmed eyes narrowed. "Nasty things in the water. You just be keeping your pretty ladies and gentlemen away from the nasty things."

"What?"

The caretaker snorted and shifted his grip on the black cat in his arms. "Look, kid, we got the original k.n.o.b-and-tube wiring down there. d.a.m.ned stuff gets wet and every piece of metal in the place is conducting power. Now, I personally don't give a c.r.a.p if nosy parkers fry, but I don't like doing the paperwork the insurance companies want, so stay out. You already picked up a spark off the door, didn't you?"

It could have been a spark. "Yeah."

"Well, there, then."

"Isn't all that free-floating electricity dangerous?"

"Yep. And that . . ." He enunciated each word carefully. ". . . is why you don't want to be going down to the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Let me see your hand."

Cat tucked under one arm, his fingers closed around Tony's wrist before Tony'd decided how he intended to respond.

The caretaker's second snort was dismissive as he peered at the dark pink splotch. "This is nothing. You aren't even bleeding." His grip tightened to the edge of pain, his fingers unnaturally warm. He leaned in closer, his eyes narrowed, his nose flared-he looked like a poster boy for dire warnings. "You don't want to be bleeding, not in this house."

"Why not?"

"Because we're miles from anywhere." He didn't so much release Tony's wrist as toss him his arm back. "For pity's sake, kid, use your head. These cinnamon buns for anyone?"

"Sure. Help yourself. The uh, cat. . . is it yours?"

"No. I just like carrying it around."

The cat yawned, the inside of its mouth very pink and white against the ebony fur.

Rubbing his wrist, Tony backed slowly out of the kitchen. He didn't turn until he was halfway through the butler's pantry and Adam's voice filled his earjack.

"Graham's not going to like this, Ca.s.s. This isn't what I'd call staying out of sight."

She smoothed down the heavy velvet folds of her skirt and smiled. "It's hiding in plain sight. Like the purloined letter."

"What about that feeling you had? The familiar feeling?"

"What about it?" Rising up on her toes, she peered over the heads of the people milling about the drawing room. "It felt familiar."

"Ca.s.sie! You just want to meet that actor."

"Well, why not? He's cute. And you're the one who was complaining you were bored." She settled back on her heels, tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, and smiled up at him through her lashes. "This isn't boring."

"It's dangerous," Stephen insisted, but his hand closed over hers and he didn't sound as convinced as he had.

"With all those people and all those lights crammed into one room, there's energy to spare."

"It's not the amount of energy." He glanced around and shook his head. "They're all older than us."

"So frown. It makes you look older."

"They're going to notice . . ."

"They won't." Her smile was triumphant as she waved a hand at the bank of lights. "It's hot enough in here that in a worst case scenario all we'll do is drop the temperature down to a more bearable level. Seriously, they'd thank us if they knew. Come on, he's over by the door."

No one noticed them as they crossed the room. The waiters practiced holding their trays and offering drinks in ways most likely to get them asked back for a larger part, maybe even a part with a name, later in the season. The guests did much the same with bright, animated, but-not-upstaging-the-stars, background chatter.

"Ca.s.sie, this isn't going to work."

"Well, it won't if you're going to be so negative. Just think 'party guest'."

"But . . ."

"Concentrate, Stephen!" As they neared the door, she licked her lower lip and dragged her brother around to face her.

"Is my face still on?"

He frowned. "I guess. But you overdid it with the eye shadow."

Lee was standing by the door talking to a couple of the extras. It was one of the things Tony liked about him-he didn't have the whole, I've got my name and face in the opening credits and you don't thing going on. He was smiling down at the girl now, saying something she had to lean closer to hear, and Tony felt an irrational stab of jealousy.

Irrational and idiotic and yes, still pathetic.

"Places, everyone!"

Interesting that Lee seemed to be telling them where they should stand. More interesting that they were standing almost entirely out of the shot.

"All right, people, listen up. This is what's going to happen!" Peter moved out into the center of the room and raised both hands as though he was conducting a symphony instead of episode seventeen of a straight to syndication show about a vampire detective-not so much a symphony as three kids with kazoos. "Mason and Lee are going to come in from the hall and cross the room to the fireplace as you all go through the usual party shtick. You'll all ignore them until Lee calls for your attention, which you will give to him. Mason will then say his piece, you'll listen attentively, reacting silently as you see fit-just remember that reaction because odds are good you'll be repeating it all morning. Do not drop your gla.s.s. The gla.s.ses are rented. Mason'll finish, and Ms. Sinclair . . ."

A distinguished looking silver-haired bit player Tony had last seen playing dumpster diver number two in a CBC Movie of the Week, raised her martini gla.s.s in acknowledgment.

". . . you'll say your line: 'If you're trying to frighten us, Mr. Dark, you're not succeeding.' Then Mason will reply, 'I'm not trying. Not yet.' And we'll cut. Let's run through once for cameras."

The run-through necessitated a few adjustments in the crowd and their reactions.

"What the h.e.l.l was that?"

"Astonishment?" the party-goer offered, checks flushed.

"Are you asking me?" Peter sighed. "Because if you are, I'd have to say it looked more like indigestion. Gear it down."

The girl divided her attention between the room in general and Lee, smiling in his direction like she knew a secret.

"Let's roll tape on this one." Peter disappeared behind the monitor and Adam moved out onto the floor.

"Quiet, please! Let's settle, people!" He glanced over the crowd and, when he was satisfied, yelled, "Rolling!"

Tony, along with nearly everyone else in a headset, repeated the word. It sounded in the hall outside the drawing room, at the craft services table in the kitchen, maybe even out at the trailers. Then Kate-because CB's budgets never quite extended as far as second a.s.sistant camera-stepped forward and called the slate.

"Scene three, take one! Mark!"

The boy standing next to the girl who'd been talking to Lee jumped at the crack.

Tony frowned. And he was a boy, too. Although his evening clothes fit him like they'd been made for him, he had to be at least ten years younger than anyone else in the room. Well, it wouldn't be the first time someone on the crew had snuck a relative or two in. As long as they behaved themselves, CB was all in favor of extras he didn't have to pay. It wasn't that these two weren't behaving themselves, it was just. . . Actually, Tony had no idea what it was about them that kept drawing his attention. Except maybe that Lee had been paying attention to them.

How often do I have to say this is pathetic before it finally sinks in?

Lee and Mason had barely reached the fireplace when Peter broke off a quiet discussion with Sorge and yelled cut.

"It's no good." Coming out from behind the monitors, he pulled off his headset. "The mirror over the fireplace is flaring out. Sharyl!"

"Yeah?"

"We're going to need to use some hair spray. Tony, take care of it. Meanwhile, Mason, as you come in . . ."

The end of the suggestion was lost as Tony moved away from the director. He reached Sharyl just ahead of a mascara failure and a lipstick problem.

"I swear it's so hot under those lights, it's melting right off my lashes."

"It's actually comfortable where I am, but I can't help chewing my lips while we wait."

Lipstick Problem had been standing near the girl-who'd-been-talking-to-Lee and the boy-who-was-younger.

And why do I care? Tony wondered as he took the offered hair spray with a nod of thanks. He could reach the bottom half of the mirror from the hearth, but the whole area was so supersized he'd need a little help for the rest. The ladders that had been used to set the lights were out in the hall, but maneuvering one through a crowded drawing room would be time consuming. Figuring Peter would appreciate him thinking of and then saving production time, he snagged the director's chair on the way past and set it on the hearth.

The trick was to spray on a nice even coat. Enough to cut the glare but not so much that the audience wondered what the h.e.l.l was on the gla.s.s. And he should probably move the chair in order to safely reach the other end of the mirror.

Yeah, but who wants to live forever?

Plastic bottle of hair spray in his right hand, thumb on the pump, left hand gripping the mantel, he leaned way out and just for an instant dropped his gaze below the line of application.

There.

In the reflection of the far side of the room.

The boy-who-was-younger was in a loose white shirt. Well, white except for the splashes of what had to be blood- had to be because a huge triangular cut in the right side of his neck looked as though it just missed decapitating him. The girl-who'd-been-talking-to-Lee was wearing a summer dress, one strap torn free, the whole fitted bodice as well as her bare shoulders stained a deep crimson. She was also short the top left quarter of her head-her face missing along the nose and out one cheekbone, her left eye completely gone.

He twisted around.

Now that he'd seen them, the glamour-or whatever the nonwizard, dead-people equivalent was called-no longer worked.

Nearly headless. Chunk of face missing. Their eyes-all three of them-widened as they somehow realized he could see them as they were, not as they'd appeared. Actually, he kind of suspected his expression was giving the whole thing away.

The vanishing . . . not entirely unexpected.

The chair tipping sideways, as gravity won out and he headed for the floor . . . he had to admit he'd been kind of expecting that, too.

Then a strong hand closed around his arm and yanked him back onto his feet. He fought to find his balance, won the fight, and turned to look down into a pair of concerned green eyes.

"Are you all right, Tony?" Lee asked, one hand still loosely clasped around Tony's bicep. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Chapter Three.

"TONY! THE mirror!"

Right, the mirror. The mirror where he'd just seen the dead up and animate-or as animate as any extras ever were between shots. Oh, f.u.c.k . . . the extras! If that feeling wasn't his blood actually running cold, it was pretty d.a.m.ned close-kind of a sick feeling in his stomach that moved out to his extremities so quickly he thought he might hurl. Traditionally, the presence of extras right before disaster meant a high body count and dead people in the drawing room certainly seemed like an accurate harbinger of disaster to Tony.

He stared at their reflections in the small part of the mirror still clear of hair spray. They all seemed oblivious to their fate. Might as well dress them in red shirts now and get it over with!

"Tony!"

He twisted around to see the first a.s.sistant director staring up at him in annoyance.

"Finish spraying the d.a.m.ned mirror!"

It might be d.a.m.ned, he supposed. d.a.m.ned could explain why it showed dead people. . . .

"Tony?"

Tony looked down into Lee's concerned face and forced his brain to start working again. It wasn't as if these were the first ghosts he'd ever seen. Okay, technically, he hadn't seen the last set-he'd only heard them screaming-but he was used to metaphysical pop-ups. h.e.l.l, he used to sleep with one. "Can I talk to you for a minute? I mean . . ."A gesture took in the chair, the mirror, and the plastic bottle of hair spray. ". . . when I'm done."

Dark brows drew in, and Lee glanced back at Peter still talking to Mason. "Sure."

Directing Mason-or rather, Mason's ego-took time.

A moment later, Tony was back on the floor. "Those two kids you were talking to . . ." At Lee's suddenly closed expression, he paused. "It's okay, I'm not going to get them into trouble. I know they weren't supposed to be in the scene." h.e.l.lo, understatement. "I just wondered who they were."

Lee considered it-considered Tony-for a moment then he shrugged. "They're Mr. Brummell's niece and nephew.

Ca.s.sie, short for Ca.s.sandra, which she informed me was a stupid, old-fashioned name, and Stephen. They were . . . well, she was just so thrilled at being here that I didn't have the heart to turn them in. I warned them that they had to stay in the background, though."

"Yeah, I saw you positioning them. You didn't notice anything strange?"

"Strange?"

"About the way they looked."

"Only that they were younger than everyone else in the room. I'd say mid-to-late teens, no older."