Darkest Night - Smoke and Shadows Part 17

"Both."

"And the shadows call him Shadowlord?"

"No. The people of that world." He slipped his hands under the table and wiped sweaty palms against his thighs. This was going better than he'd hoped. "The other world."

"Right."

"These shadows are like his spies and they're coming through to find out about this world so that he can invade and conquer it."

"Why?""Why what?"

"Why invade and conquer? What's his motivation?"

"I don't know; invading and conquering, I guess. What difference does it make?"

"You have to know his motivation, Tony."

"It doesn't matter!" As heads turned he lowered his voice. "The point is; these shadows can kill, have already killed, and now there's at least four more."

"So how do you stop them?"

"I don't know."

"You need a hero."

"Tell me about it. Although I'm not sure a hero would solve the problem. Arra's a wizard ..."

"So she's working on this, too?"

"Not really. She doesn't want to get involved. I think she's afraid."

"Of what, bad writing?" Amy snorted. "Because if she is, she's working on the wrong show."

"Of the Shadowlord!"

"Well, he doesn't sound very scary. But let me take a look at the script; you never know."

"Script?"

"Yeah, for your show about the Shadowlord." Her brows drew in as she reached for her b.u.t.ter tart. "Or was it an episode of this show? You weren't exactly clear on that."

"It's not a script! It's ..." About to say it was real, Tony paused, looked, really looked into Amy's face, and realized he'd never convince her. She had nothing to anchor this kind of a situation on. She'd never faced the possibility of a demon's name written in blood across her city, never seen an ancient Egyptian wizard kill with a glance, never felt sharp teeth bite through the skin of her wrist, never heard the soft sounds of her lover feeding. Well, maybe the latter, but . . . never mind. The point was; if he tried to convince her, she'd think he was either yanking her chain or losing his mind. "It's not a script," he repeated. "It's just an idea." He shoved back his chair and stood. "I need to go talk to Arra."

"Can I have your Nanaimo bar?"

He found a smile from somewhere, probably the same place Lee'd found his earlier.

"Sure."

"Work on the hero. The whole thing falls apart without one."

The magic on the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs tried once again to turn him back. Tony gritted his teeth and ignored it. It wasn't real. Or it wasn't any more real than anything thing else she did for Darkest Night. It was all smoke and mirrors. Or maybe smoke and shadows . .

.Arra was at her desk, back toward him as he crossed the shadowless room. All but one of her monitors showed solitaire games. On the final monitor she seemed to be combining a graphics program with data entry. Equations scrolled up around a complex spiral made up of strange symbols rather than a solid line. As Tony closed the final distance, the last equation reached the center and disappeared. Arra right clicked her mouse and the spiral flared ... he had no idea what color that was although watering eyes insisted purple came closest. The light lasted for less than a second, then vanished, and the monitor screen was blank.

About to ask her what she was doing, Tony suddenly realized he didn't have to.

"You're going to gate out. That was a computer mock-up of a new gate!"

"A computer mock-up of a metaphysical construct?" Arra spun around to face him, eyes rolling. "You know that's impossible, right?"

"There are more or less sentient shadows falling through a hole in the air and killing people!" He was shouting. He didn't care. The situation certainly called for shouting and he had no idea how he'd resisted to this point. "I think you'll find that the bar for impossible has been set pretty d.a.m.ned high!"

"Don't you mean low?"

"I have no f.u.c.king idea!"

"You tried to tell someone, didn't you?"

"What?"

She jerked her head back toward the solitaire games. "Sixes blocked on all of them. A romantic idea of responsibility and justice; you tried to warn people, to raise the alarm."

Her tone softened slightly as she met his eyes again. "The trouble is no one will believe you. You're talking about things that ninety-nine percent of the people of this world refuse to see."

"Yeah. I get that." He'd dialed down the volume, but the anger was still very much there. "They'd believe you."

"Me?"

"You could make them believe you. You could prove that it's real."

"How? With magic? I should show them walking corpses or turn a sofa into a flock of geese? Tony, I do that every day and all they see is a special effect. They've seen wizards fly and petrify their friends and strike down their enemies from across the room.

They know it's a trick. Nothing I can do will convince the ninety and nine otherwise."

"Fine! What about the one percent?"

"Well ..." Arra sighed and spread her hands. "... that would be you."

"You can't make this whole thing my responsibility!"

"I'm not."

She sounded so calm and matter-of-fact, it drove the volume right back up again. He wanted to wrap his hands around her throat and shake her until she took him seriously; until she agreed to help; until she destroyed the shadows- unfortunately, he could only shout. "You can't just f.u.c.king run away from this!"

"Yes, I can."

"But it's your fault! You opened the gate to this world! You gave him a way to get here!" A small voice in the back of Tony's head seemed to be suggesting that p.i.s.sing off a wizard was less than smart. Tony ignored it. "If you run, eventually he'll find that gate, too and he'll think, oh good idea, another world to conquer' and you'll have to run again.

And again. You're thinking of no one but yourself!"

Her lip curled. "And who do you suggest I take through the gate with me? Who chooses who lives and who dies? Do I take you and leave the rest?"

"That's not what I f.u.c.king meant! How many worlds are you going to leave in ruins behind you?"

"Do you think I wanted it to turn out this way?" She surged up out of the chair with enough force to slam it back against the desk and shake the monitors.

"I think you don't care that it has."

"Caring means nothing!" Loud enough to echo, the word circled around them for a moment. When it faded, she took a deep breath and continued, back in control. "It didn't then, it won't now. It won't ever! If I could have saved my world, I would have! If I could save this world, I would. But I couldn't and I can't, and if all I can save is myself, then I'm not going to sit around here and die! Tell the world if you want to. Give a news conference. Maybe someone in that one percent is a person in power and, convinced, will face the Shadowlord with soldiers and weapons. It still won't matter. It didn't and it won't. He can't be stopped. And if you need to hear it, I'm sorry. But that doesn't matter either. He's barely begun and the end is already in the can. You can't stop it."

"I have to try."

Her snort spoke volumes. "If you go down fighting, you're just as dead as if you lived out your final days happily ignoring the inevitable. I can make you forget again."

"And that worked so well last time," he sneered. "In fact, now that I think of it, your previous work was not exactly inspiring. We don't even know if your potion did anything but drop Lee drunk on his a.s.s. You said that sometimes the shadows have no effect.

This could have been one of those times. So you know what? I'm going to take out those four new shadows my ..."

"Seven."

"What?"

"I counted seven shadows."

"Fine. Whatever. Seven. I'll take them out myself." He spun on his heel, the rubber screaming against the floor, and headed for the stairs. "I don't need you."

"Good. Because I have no intention of watching another world die."

Anger carried him to the top of the stairs, then, hand on the latch, he paused. And turned. He couldn't see the desk, couldn't tell if Arra was still standing where he'd left her but, to borrow a phrase he'd heard too d.a.m.ned many times in the last few minutes, it didn't matter. She could hear him. "What about your cats?"

"What?"

"Your cats. They'll die, too."

"Grow up, Tony. They're cats."

"And you took responsibility for their lives." As he closed the bas.e.m.e.nt door behind him, he thought he heard her say, "What's two more?" but the words were so quiet and weighted with sorrow, he couldn't be sure."Tony, what the h.e.l.l are you doing?"

It wasn't quite a scream. The complicated patterns of light and darkness that came with television lighting had been sc.r.a.ping at his nerves. Shadows that were nothing more than patches of blocked light kept moving, changing shape, and disappearing. Crawling out from under the worktable, Tony switched off the beam of the strongest flashlight he'd been able to find and twisted around until he could stare up at Adam. "I thought I saw ..." A quick glance to either side, an obvious check for eavesdroppers, and a lowering of his voice. "... a rat."

"Jesus."

"Yeah, well I thought that while I wasn't needed for other stuff, I should have a look and see if I could find droppings and s.h.i.t."

"Droppings are s.h.i.t."

"Right."

The 1AD waited a moment then sighed. "And?"

"And what?"

"And did you find any?"

"Not yet, but this place has a billion nooks and crannies."

"Yeah, it's a regular English m.u.f.fin."

"What?"

"Nothing. Forget it. And keep looking. The last thing we need is to be part of another remake of Willard."

Official sanction-of a sort-didn't help. By the end of the afternoon, he'd found a dozen pens, a radio, three scripts for two different shows, a rather disturbing number of condom wrappers, and some rodent droppings, but no minions of the Shadowlord.

Seven shadows.

Twenty to thirty people on the soundstage. But not him, or Lee, or Arra. And why not Lee? Because he'd already been taken over and therefore pumped dry of all relevant information? Why not; that theory made as much sense as any of this did. So say, twenty-five minimum. Unless . . . was that why Arra was leaving? Because she was controlled by shadow? Possible, but not likely. After yesterday's adventure in Lee's dressing room, he was about 99% certain that he'd be able to spot the shadow- controlled; so, no easy excuses for the wizard. She was leaving because she was a ...

"Tony."

Still not quite a scream but getting closer.

Peter frowned. "Are you all right?"

Any one of the twenty-five could have been taken over by shadow. Peter's looked to be attached to his heels, but they were sneaky. Tricky. "Just a little jumpy."

"Well, don't be. I get enough overemoting from the actors." His smile suggested a shared joke. Tony tried to respond and didn't quite manage. "Anyway, good job on the rat thing. Those little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds can do more damage than a touring fan club. Which reminds me; there'll be one through on Monday. One of Mason's, I think. So, on your way out, tell someone in the office to order some poison.""For the fans?"

"Don't tempt me."

"Not poison. The rats eat poison, then they die in the walls or under a piece of equipment and the whole place stinks more than it usually does. We need traps. And not the sticky traps either because then you've just got a scared, p.i.s.sed-off rat with his feet stuck to a giant roach motel, I mean it's got to be embarra.s.sing for them. We need the kind of traps that..." Amy brought the side of her right hand down on the palm of her left.

Tony jumped.

"Are you all right? Because you're looking a little spooked."

"Rat traps. You know, things dying," he continued when she frowned. Amy had been in the soundstage for lunch. He leaned around her desk trying to get a look at her shadow.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?"

"I just. . . nothing. I thought I saw something fall. Off your desk."

Eyes rolled between dark green lashes. "It had better not be the d.a.m.ned highlighter again. I spend half my life crawling around after it." Holding a fall of cranberry hair back with one hand, she shoved her chair out from the desk and bent down. Her shadow went with her.

Not Amy, then.

Not unless this lot was cleverer than yesterday's and were lying low until they got away from the people who might identify them. The person. Him. How was he supposed to follow twenty-five people. No, stupid, you don't need to. You just need to be back here at 11:15 tonight to take them out. One zap of the lamp. A bright idea that'll shed a little light on the matter. Ha! Take that, Shadowlord. We laugh at your darkness!