Darkest Night - Smoke And Mirrors Part 44

"I'm going for the other lantern," Tony told the now empty pantry. There was resistance as he started to turn. "Amy, let go of me. You're right, it won't help Lee if I go charging to the rescue unprepared, but I can't be a part of any plans right now and it'd be stupid to waste the light." After a moment, the resistance disappeared. "This isn't a long replay," he said as he walked to the other door, sliding his feet along the floor lest he step on someone. "I promise I'll come right back with the lantern."

And the moment we're out of this, he promised himself silently as he closed the pantry door behind him and started to run. I'm learning shield spells and lightning bolts. Maybe fireb.a.l.l.s. Don't wizards always use fireb.a.l.l.s?

He couldn't believe his feelings for Lee were that obvious.

Had Lee noticed?

Learning the mess-with-the-memory spell was looking better and better.

He didn't need both of the ballroom doors open, so he whipped out Amy's lipstick and began to block the right side.

Fortunately, he could open his left hand almost all the way; a raised ridge of skin gave him the necessary symbol etched in white across the flesh of his palm. Finishing the last curve and dot required the final bit of color gouged out of the tube on his little finger. Although his left hand continued to ache, he found he could hold the lipstick against the pressure and the return of manual dexterity banished a fear he hadn't acknowledged.

Karl stopped screaming just as he opened the blocked half of the ballroom door.

His experience with this sort of thing was limited, but the tiny orange speck of light over by the bandstand probably meant the lamp was nearly out of fuel.

"Tony . . ."

He had a feeling he should be a little more distracted by ghosts of workmates calling his name while "Night and Day"

played in the background. Hand outstretched. First three words of the incantation . . .

"Tony!"

Lee's voice. Distant. Desperate. Afraid. It wrapped around Tony's heart and squeezed.

Now that was a definite distraction.

Brenda slamming up against an invisible barrier and screaming jealous curses no more than four inches from his face-that was almost expected.

"I had him!" she shrieked, the wound gaping in the translucent ruin of her throat.

"I know." "He likes girls."

"Yeah, live girls."

"Tony!"

Save me.

The good of the many, he reminded himself and fought his way back to focus. The lantern slapped into his hand and he almost dropped it. "Son of a . . . !"

"Was it hot?" For a dead wardrobe a.s.sistant, all Brenda's sarcasm facilities seemed intact. "Did you burn yourself?"

Strange; still a third full. "Nearly. Thanks for asking."

Hard to tell for sure, given that she was a gray sketch against the darkness, but she looked confused by his response.

"I win in the end, you know. Me."

"You're dead. Not my definition of winning."

"He'll be dead with me. Dancing. Forever."

"What? Lee dies after the thing's destroyed me? Not so easy as that."

"Easier. You'd let Lee slit your throat or cave in your skull or rip out your heart and never lift a hand to defend yourself because it's him."

The third option, maybe.

"But that's not what it waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaa . . ."

Hartley spun her away from the door. Danced her howling across the ballroom until she faded in the darkness, the ballroom door slamming shut in Tony's face. Slamming shut. He hadn't shut it. Maybe Brenda'd been about to tell him the secret weakness of the thing in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Maybe she'd been about to taunt him with Lee's breakfast preferences.

Either was as likely in Tony's opinion. Dead or not, Lee was still between them.

The same way Brenda would always be between him and Lee.

Except that there was no him and Lee, for f.u.c.k's sake, because Lee was straight-random kissage aside-and possessed by the thing in the bas.e.m.e.nt. There'd be no Lee at all if he didn't get the lantern back to the butler's pantry and figure out a way to get him back.

Glaring down at the lantern-responsible for the delayed rescue-he realized the wick was almost burned away. Two turns of the wheel on the side and he was rewarded by a sudden increase in light. Eyes watering, he made his way back to the pantry.

Kissage.

Lee possessed by the thing in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Oh, c.r.a.p, not again . . .

Aspects of this were becoming frighteningly familiar.

As he entered the dining room, he caught a glimpse of something moving by the bottom of the door leading to the butler's pantry door.

Gray. Translucent. And rolling!

The gardener's head came out from under the table into the circle of light and rolled, wobbling, toward the entrance hall.

Eyes and ears for the thing in the bas.e.m.e.nt. The only possible reason for it to be there-where the word reason was stretched to the limit. The head had been eavesdropping on the plan to free Lee .

Tony got between it and the door.

It smiled and kept coming.

It? He? Did a ghost head have gender?

Not important right now . . .

I really don't want to do this.

Not that he had a choice.

He relicked the pattern onto his left palm and grabbed the head as it went to roll through his legs.

"Zev! Dump your backpack and bring it to me!" Yelling helped the pain. "Amy! Quick, another lipstick!" Although not significantly.

The pantry door slammed open.

"Tony? What the . . ."

"Your backpack . . ." Fingers pressing into the gardener's skull, he set the lantern on the dining room table and ran toward Zev. ". . . is it empty?"

Zev glanced down at the pack dangling from one hand. "Yeah, I ditched . . ."

"Tony, here!" Amy shoved Zev farther into the dining room and thrust another tube into Tony's free hand. "It's Tina's!"

"Zip the backpack shut and hold it up!" This lipstick was pale pink-easy to see the symbol against the black fabric and over the black plastic zipper. Easy to tell why Amy had disavowed it. With both Amy and Zev holding the pack steady, he finished the last curve. "Open it!" Slam-dunked the head into the pack. "Close it!"

The sides of the pack bulged, but the symbol held.

"More of the gardener?" Amy asked, breathing a little heavily. "Yeah." Tendrils of pain extended from his hand to his shoulder. "I think . . . I think it was spying on you."

"On us?"

Peter's question drew Tony's attention to the doorway. It seemed that everyone but Mason, Mouse, and Kate were crammed into the narrow s.p.a.ce, watching.

"Yeah, on you." When expressions remained mostly skeptical, he added, "Can you think of another reason a head would be hanging around outside the door?"

No one could.

No surprise.

"Me, I seen better heads," Sorge remarked thoughtfully. "More realistic."

Tony stared at him in astonishment. "This head is real!"

The DP shrugged as he turned to go back into the pantry. "Maybe it's the lighting."

"Weird that there's no weight," Zev murmured as he held the backpack out an arm's length from his body.

"It's captured energy, not substance," Amy snorted. She poked the bag with one finger. "You know, if people weren't dying, this would be so cool."

"You'd think so. Can I put it down?"

Curled around his left arm, Tony nodded more or less toward the table. "Sure. Whatever."

"Are you all right?"

"Uh . . ."

"Let me look." Zev gently pushed Tony up into a more vertical position. His eyes narrowed. "That can't be good."

Tony's hand had curled back in on itself and his lower arm was tight against his upper, tight in turn against his torso.

"How does it feel?" Amy asked.

"Like frozen flames are lapping at my skin."

"Ow. Mixed metaphors. That's gotta hurt."

Zev laid two fingers against Tony's forearm and s.n.a.t.c.hed them back again almost immediately. Two red marks remained behind for a heartbeat. "This is just a suggestion, but I don't think you should grab anything else. This kind of cold is going to do some serious nerve damage if it hasn't already."

"Just tell me it was worth it and that you have a plan."

Amy picked up the lantern and led the way to the pantry. "We have a plan."

"Really?"

"No. We've got nothing. But," she continued as they stepped over the lipstick line and closed the door behind them, "I did find out that the thing in the bas.e.m.e.nt has a name. It's A . . ."

Tony slapped his good hand over her mouth. "Don't! Names have power. We don't want to . . ."

"Attract its attention?" she snarled, dragging his hand away. "Because I think it knows we're here. I mean, ignoring the story thus far with us locked in and three people dead, it's sending body parts to spy on us!"

"Speaking of body parts; where's the head?" Peter asked.

"In the dining room."

"Is that safe?"

How the h.e.l.l should I know? "Sure. It's contained. Look, you don't have a plan to save Lee, so we're going with mine."

"Which is?"

"I'm charging to the rescue."

"With a useless wing?" Amy snorted. "Good plan."

His mouth twisted into something he suspected looked nothing like a smile. "Only one we seem to have."

"Tony?"

It took him a moment to place the voice-he was getting just a little too used to ignoring people calling his name- and a moment after that to notice Tina holding out a pair of caplets on the palm of her hand.

"For your arm."

"Thanks." He swallowed them dry then drank half a bottle of water after, just because. Odds were good, they'd do nothing for the pain in his arm but what the h.e.l.l, they couldn't hurt.

"There's what?" Adam wondered, frowning. "A c.r.a.pload of ghosts in this building, right?"