Darkest Night - Smoke And Mirrors Part 9

Brianna stepped off the dangling cable. "What?"

The second-floor bathroom had already been lit and a second camera was in place and ready to go. Although Peter hadn't been prepared for CB's children, he had been prepared for children. Given that CB had made it quite clear they were to be used only this one afternoon, it was imperative to work as quickly as possible while they were on the set.

Considering how long it often took between shots, the half-hour break between the front hall and the bathroom was up to pit standards at any NASCAR track in North America.

As the camera feed was hooked up to the video village out in the hall, the director went over the scene with all four of his actors-Mason standing as far from Ashley as close quarters allowed. "All right, we're going to do the girls'

taunting dance once with Mason and Lee in the shot and then the exact same thing with just the two of you pretending that Mason and Lee are in the shot. Then we're going to do it again from the top with each of you individually so we can get close-ups, then we'll do it again from the top with the blood." And then remembering the age of his actors, he added heartily, "But it's not real blood."

"Oh, please," Ashley drawled, "we know it's not real. We're not stupid. Well, I'm not stupid. The Cheese is a moron."

Head c.o.c.ked to one side, a stubby braid sticking straight up into the air, Brianna ignored her.

Peter took a concerned step toward the younger girl. "Brianna?"

She snorted and frowned up at him. "There's a baby crying."

The silence that followed her announcement was so complete Tony could hear a car pa.s.sing by on Deer Lake Road way out at the end of the lane. He could also hear a baby crying.

"I don't hear a baby." Peter glanced around at his crew, his gaze moving too fast to actually see any of them. "No one else hears a baby." Statement, not question. They didn't have time for babies.

"I hear a baby!" Her brows drew down into a familiar obstinate expression. In spite of a two-hundred-pound difference she looked frighteningly like her father. "I'm going to find it!" Head down, she darted toward the door.

Fortunately, maneuvering around the camera and Mouse and Kate slowed her down. Tony caught up at the door as she circled around Mouse and under the camera a.s.sistant's outstretched arms and managed to keep her from getting out into the hall. "Why don't I find it for you? Where's the noise coming from?"

Her lower lip went out. "It's not noise; it's crying!"

"Fine. Where's the crying coming from?"

She stared up at him suspiciously. Tony could feel the rest of the crew holding their collective breath. Few things held up a shooting schedule like chasing an eight year old around a house the size of some third world countries. Finally, she raised one skinny arm and pointed toward the far end of the hall. "That way."

Yeah, that was where he heard it coming from, too.

"All right. You let Peter set the shot and check your levels. I'll go look and be back before the camera's rolling."

"Yeah, but you're a liar."

"Yeah, but you know I'm a liar, so why would I lie to you?"

He held her gaze as she worked that out-a trick Henry'd taught him.

"The dominant personality maintains eye contact-it's one of the easiest ways to differentiate the hunter from the hunted."

"You mean when you don't have that whole teeth, biting, feeding thing to fall back on?"

"I mean, I am not the only predator in the city."

"Uh, Earth to Henry; how the h.e.l.l do you think I survived this lo . . . OW!"

After a long moment, Brianna nodded. "You check. Then you don't lie."

"Deal."

Reaching for the door handle, Tony realized that the door at the end of the hall had been divided in half-like the doors of fake farmhouse kitchens in margarine commercials. He could no longer hear the baby crying and since he couldn't hear it, he doubted that Brianna could. Given that she was safely back inside the huge bathroom being fussed over by both Brenda and Everett, he briefly considered lying about having checked.

Except that he'd more or less given her a promise and, staring at the door with the hair lifting off the back of his neck and a chill stroking icy fingers down his spine, he realized that this was neither the time nor place to break his word- although he didn't know why and that was definitely freaking him out.

The bra.s.s door handle was very cold.

With any luck, the room would be locked.

Nope. No luck today.

He expected a dramatic creak as he pushed it open, but the well-oiled hinges merely whispered something he didn't quite catch as he stepped over the threshold. The sky had grown overcast again, replacing the afternoon light with the soft drumming of rain against the windows. His right hand went back to the light switch, found it where it always was, and flicked the first little plastic tab up.

Nothing happened.

They weren't actually using this s.p.a.ce, so no one had replaced the thirty-year-old bulbs.

Tony really wished he believed that.

The air was colder than the air in the rest of the house and, considering the rest of the house had been comfortably cool in spite of television lighting, that was saying something. He could smell . . . pork chops?

There was ambient light enough to see the wide border of primary colored racing cars just under the edge of the crown molding. Light enough to see the hammock strung across one corner and filled with stuffed animals so covered in dust they all appeared to be the same shade of gray. Light enough to see the crib. And the changing table. And that the safety grate had been removed from the fireplace in the far wall.

Light enough to see the baby burning on the hearth. The border suggested it was a boy, but things had gotten too crispy to be certain. His stomach twisted and he'd have puked except there were close to a dozen adults, two kids, and a camera between him and the nearest toilet.

Besides, this was just a recording of something that had happened in the past. He wasn't watching this baby die and that helped. A little.

Man, you'd think I'd he used to this kind of s.h.i.t by now.

He could hear it screaming again.

Or he could hear something screaming.

The room grew suddenly darker.

Tony stepped back and slammed the door. Realized it had separated and he'd only brought the bottom with him, realized the darkness had almost filled the room, spat out the necessary seven words in one long string of panicked syllables, and reached. The upper part of the door slammed shut.

The half-dozen people standing around the video village were watching him as he turned.

"What the h.e.l.l was that?" Peter demanded sticking his head out of the bathroom.

Wishing that the skin between his shoulder blades would just f.u.c.king stop creeping back and forth and up and down, Tony hurried away from the nursery. "Air pressure," he explained, hands out and away from his sides, fingers spread in the cla.s.sic 'not my fault' gesture. "It slammed before I could stop it."

"If we'd been rolling . . ."

"We weren't," Tina broke in pointedly from behind the monitors, holding up her arm and tapping one finger on her watch.

Peter's eyes widened. "Right. Well, don't just stand there. Haul a.s.s and tell Brianna you didn't see a baby." CB's "one afternoon only" trumped doors slamming, production a.s.sistants making lame excuses, and mysterious crying.

Lying in this house might be a bad idea, but-in this case- telling an eight year old the truth would be a worse one.

Hurrying back to the bathroom, Tony really hoped that whatever weirdness was involved here would take that into account.

"He saw Karl."

"That's unlikely, Ca.s.s, no one's ever seen Karl. They just hear Karl. Even Graham hasn't seen Karl."

"And he wasn't touching the upper part of the door when he closed it."

Stephen stared at his sister and sighed deeply. "You've never missed that part of your brain before."

"What?"

He waved a hand toward the place the ax had hacked through her head. "The living need to touch things to move them; he's alive, therefore he had to have touched the door. Q.E.D. And where are you going?" he added hurrying to catch up.

"I need to see what's happening in the bathroom," she told him without turning.

She was wafting, not walking, and that was never a good sign. Ca.s.sie was usually militant about them maintaining a semblance of physicality lest they forget how flesh worked- he hadn't seen her so distracted for years. Memories drifted around him. They had no form and less substance, but he didn't like the way they made him feel, so he hung on to what he knew for certain. "Graham told us to stay out of the bathroom while these people are using it."

"It's our room."

"Well, yeah, but Graham said . . ."

"Graham doesn't know what's going on in here."

"Of course not, he's just the caretaker, he couldn't possibly . . . Ca.s.s!" He sighed again, slipped through a bit of the camera operator, and followed her in under the lights.

"But I want Mason to stay!" Ashley's protest carried easily over the ambient noise of Mason and Lee pushing past various crew members to emerge out into the hall. "He's my motivation!"

"There isn't room." Peter's voice had reached the preternaturally calm stage that seemed to suggest an imminent nervous breakdown-its tonal range so limited it sounded as though it had been Botoxed. "Besides, he's just out in the hall, watching you on the monitors."

To Tony's surprise, Mason, who'd been heading to his dressing room, stopped, sighed, and returned. Since the words "team player" and Mason Reed had never appeared together previously, the crew and his costar stared at him in some confusion.

"If we don't finish today," he muttered, "they'll be back."

Eyes widened and several heads nodded sagely, rea.s.sured that Mason's motivations remained vested self-interest.

Lee clapped him on the shoulder and murmured, "Greater love. I'll go get you a coffee."

"She is not in love with me," Mason growled, looking a little panicked.

"It's a quote, big guy. I'll be back in a minute," he added to Adam as he turned. "Peter won't even know I'm gone."

The 1AD shrugged. "Just be back when he needs you."

"I need you . . ." Peter's direction drifted out into the hall. ". . . to dance around in that circle a few more times pretending that Mason and Lee are still. . . Ashley, don't turn on the water. Brianna! Don't touch . . ."

All things considered, the soft phzt was vaguely anticlimactic.

Standing behind Sorge's left shoulder where he'd have a good view of both monitors, the gaffer frowned. "Sounded like a halo lamp going. I'm starting to think the lines in this house are seriously f.u.c.ked. We should bring in a second generator."

"And getting CB to agree?" Sorge snorted. "Bon chance."

Tony opened his mouth to say it wasn't the lines it was the house and then closed it again. His day was already c.r.a.p; he didn't need to add the ridicule that would follow any explanation of ax-murdered extras or rotisserie babies. No, better just to stay quiet and right where he was, surrounded by people who wouldn't know a metaphysical phenomenon if it bit them on the a.s.s. Almost literally in Tina's case although the specific piece of anatomy had been higher up.

"Malcolm! Adam!" The gaffer and the 1AD headed for the bathroom.

"Everett!"

"It's starting to be like a fraternity prank in there," Tina snickered as the makeup artist forced his way through the crowd in the doorway using his case like a battering ram. "How many people can you fit in one bathroom."

"Tony!"

Hopefully one more.

He squeezed past the camera-extra careful while squeezing past Mouse. Mouse had been shadow-held back in the spring and while under the influence had first locked lips and then worked him over with fists the size of small hams.

Theoretically, Mouse-like the other shadow-held-remembered none of his time possessed, but once or twice Tony had noticed him staring and the possibility that some lingering memories remained had made him fanatical about giving the much larger man his s.p.a.ce.

With any luck he remembered the beating and not the tonsil hockey; given Mouse's background the beating, at least, had been in character.

Fortunately, although Kate had also been shadow-held, their interaction during that time had been minimal. If she muttered something rude under her breath as he shuffled by her, it had nothing to do with the metaphysical and everything to do with Tony being one of the few people around who had less influence on the show than she did.

The bathroom was definitely crowded. The girls were sitting on the edge of the tub being powdered although they didn't seem to need it. Actually, given the number of bodies and amount of equipment, it was strangely cool.

The nursery had been cool.

Oh f.u.c.king great. . .

The girls, Everett, Peter, Adam, Malcolm, Mouse, Kate, one of the electricians-Tony wasn't sure of his name.

Nothing and no one in the room who shouldn't be there. Then he glanced in the mirror and saw the two half-dressed, b.l.o.o.d.y teenagers flickering in and out of focus.

He didn't quite gasp when Adam grabbed his arm. "Tony, the battery in my radio's gone t.i.ts-up again. Go drop it in the charger and bring me a new one."

"Sure." Not a problem. Happy to get the h.e.l.l off the second floor.

Clutching the battery, he pushed his way out into the hall and headed for the back stairs. The main stairs were just a little too close to the nursery. Of course, the back stairs were right across the hall from Mason's bathroom and the crying shadow crouched by the shower stall, but at this point, ghosts that merely rocked and cried were definitely the lesser of two or three or even four evils.

No. Don't even think evil. Don't give anything ideas.

He opened the stairwell door to be greeted by the same soft er er er er he'd heard earlier from the kitchen. From here, he could tell that it was actually coming from the third floor. Oh, yeah, like I'm stupid enough to look up.

An icy draft pushed him down the first few steps. The light started to dim. He moved a little faster. Missed his footing on the steep, uneven stairs. Started to fall. His feet sliding off every second or third step, his hands desperately grabbing for a guardrail that didn't exist, he plunged toward the kitchen, crashing against the bottom door which flew open. The impact slowed him a little but not enough for him to catch his balance and his out-of-control descent continued until he slammed into a warm and yielding barrier.

Unfortunately, yielding enough he took it with him to the floor.