Darkest Night - Smoke And Mirrors Part 52

Whatever. . .

Physical incompatibility had not been the reason they'd broken up. Tony finally had to pull back from the kiss lest he miss the next replay entirely. Also, he needed to leave a few brain cells functioning.

Lee's lip had been curled before, but it had enough lift in it now to give Raymond Dark a run for his money. "Perversions!"

"Protesting too much?" Zev looked smug.

"He doesn't want you." Lee's voice, Caulfield's disgust.

"I think he means me," Tony murmured.

"Yeah, I got that."

Caulfield spread Lee's arms. "He wants this!"

Zev snorted. "Who doesn't?"

That seemed to throw him for a moment. "He settled for you!"

"Duh."

"Hey!" Tony palmed the mirror under the cover of his protest. "I didn't settle! I didn't!" he repeated as neither Caulfield nor Zev seemed to believe him. He could only hope Lee wouldn't remember any part of being possessed.

"Wanting something does not keep you from being content with something else. I like hot dogs, but I'm happy with . . ."

"Blintzes?"

"Don't start."

He had the mirror now. Was that a flicker of gray on the edge of the lamplight? Two translucent figures waiting for their cue? Or was it hope and nothing more? "I want Lee standing over here with Zev before I come to you."

"Fine." The actor took a step forward, away from the wall. Room enough behind him for a ghost to do a little finger painting.

Or a pair of ghosts.

Lee took another step, shuddered, and stopped.

Good luck. Rough rasp of a voice in his head and the sudden return of pain as Lucy Lewis snapped back to the stairwell, to her place during the replay.

Tony checked the reflection in the mirror . . .

Eyes in the roiling black bulged out toward him.

Then formed a face. And a head. And a body. Caulfield defined.

And without the mirror?

The faintest hint of a pink and naked shape arcing out from the wall.

No way of knowing if Lee was protected.

No way of knowing if Lee was about to die.

Even if they managed to delay Caulfield until the next replay, he'd never be able to hold onto the ax.

Now or never.

Never.

Now.

Teeth clenched, Tony stumbled closer to the wall, somehow got his arm raised over his head, and put everything he had left into snapping the ax forward, not so much releasing it at the right moment as forcing his fingers to straighten and hoping momentum would do the rest. The ax became visible as it embedded itself in Creighton Caulfield's head.

Lee screamed.

They hadn't . . . He wasn't . . .

Tony splashed toward him. Didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Streams of cleanser were going by awfully high.

Oh, wait, I'm on my knees.

He didn't remember falling.

His left hand hurt up his arm, across his shoulders and chest, and all the way down to his right hip. Waves. Of.

Burning. Pain. The gardener's arm and head had both been smaller and he'd held them for a lot less time. Lucy's presence had masked the damage, allowed him to get this far, but hadn't stopped it from happening. Water was cool.

Water would help. He started to topple forward.

Wait.

That wasn't Lee screaming. Tony forced his eyes to focus. Lee was also on his knees, staring into the water like he couldn't believe what he saw, lower lip caught between his teeth and dripping blood. But he wasn't screaming.

So who was?

Right. Naked writhing guy with ax in head. Eyes wide in the streams of darkness running down his face Caulfield pulled an arm free and grabbed for the ax handle. His fingers pa.s.sed through the shaft.

His other arm came free on its own. Spat free.

Then his feet.

Seemed that the acc.u.mulated power wasn't too happy about having been trapped.

Tony scrambled backward as a decomposing body dropped face first into the water. Bobbed up. Rolled over. Head split open, no sign of the ax.

He screamed as hands grabbed his shoulders.

"It's me." No mistaking Mouse's voice or size.

Right, the cavalry. "Let's move it, people, I think that wall's going to blow!"

Adam's voice.

"Lee?" Tony twisted as Mouse lifted him out of the water.

Mouse shifted his grip, the pressure making a strong nonverbal argument that squirming would not be tolerated.

"Puking."

Puking was good. At least he thought puking was good. "Alive?"

They were climbing the stairs. The big guy could really motor when he had to.

"The dead don't puke."

"Didn't some freelancer pitch that t.i.tle for episode nine?"

"No."

Tony was fairly certain that he'd been kidding, but when he started to explain that to Mouse, he found himself pa.s.sing out instead.

"Something just happened." Henry stepped out onto the front path and frowned at the front of the house.

Graham joined him, rubbing at the rain running down his neck and under the collar of his overalls. "Yeah, I felt it, too."

"Felt what?" CB demanded. His tolerance for obscurity had never been high and what little there was had clearly already been used. "Is it over?"

Vampire and medium exchanged a glance. Finally, Graham shrugged. "Unfortunately, there's only the one way to find out and you're still f.u.c.ked up from the last time."

Henry's eyes narrowed. "I'm fine."

"You usually got those big purple bruises around your eyes? Nope. Thought not. And you keep rubbing your temples when you think no one's looking. Bet it's been a while since you had a headache."

Henry snarled softly.

"Long while. So it's up to me." He scrubbed his palms against his thighs, walked up the path, reached out, and touched the edge of the porch.

Flash of red light.

And he was lying at Henry's feet. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he muttered as he put his hand in Henry's and was set upright again. "It's not over."

"What's not over?"

The three men turned slowly.

Jack Elson stood in the driveway at the edge of the light.

"Cop?" Graham asked quietly.

"Cop," Henry replied at the same volume.

CB drew in a deep obvious breath and let it out slowly before meeting the advancing RCMP officer halfway. "My night shoot is not over. Can I help you with something, Constable Elson?"

"No, not really. I was just driving by and I saw some cars were still parked out on the road, so I thought I'd come in and find out if there was a problem."

"I see." And included in those two words, was the certain knowledge, shared by everyone who heard them, that Deer Lake Road didn't actually go anywhere, which made just driving by . . . unlikely.

"Not as many cars as there were."

"We don't need as large a crew at night."

Elson smiled in a hail-fellow-well-met kind of way that set Henry's teeth on edge. His father used to smile like that.

"I a.s.sume your permits for a night shoot are in order?"

"We've been shooting at this location all week," CB told him.

"But not at night."

"No, not at night."

"So your permits?"

"Are inside."

There was an undercurrent of warning in the producer's voice that Elson ignored.

"All right." His smile broadened. "Let's go take a look."

"The doors have swollen shut in the damp."

Blinking rain off pale lashes, Elson shot Graham an incredulous glare before turning his attention back to CB.

"Damp?" "Yes. Damp. My people are working on getting out."

"There's no lights."

"Constable Danvers." CB nodded as a second figure appeared in the driveway-nodded politely enough but with an edge of impatience in the movement.

Elson turned to scowl at his partner. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question." She shrugged and stepped up beside him. "But I won't. After all that research you did, I had a feeling you weren't heading home."