Darkest Night - Smoke and Shadows Part 31

"All magic involves the manipulation of energy. Lesser magics like this are, as you say, unnecessarily twee because lesser wizards need their cue cards to get the desired result. Doing it their way is, therefore, easier."Tony didn't see the "therefore." "So what's the cost?"

"Cost?" She paused, the second lid half tightened.

"Yeah, there's always a cost."

"You're really a very remarkable young man."

Pointing out that flattery didn't answer the question seemed rude, so he waited. He was still waiting when she screwed the cup back on over the lid and pa.s.sed the first thermos back to him. He was good at waiting. By the time the second thermos was ready, Arra'd realized that.

She sighed. "The more energy manipulated, the more it takes of the wizard's personal strength."

Tony nodded. That sounded reasonable. As he tucked the potion into his backpack, he decided not to make the obvious "you're so strong" declaration. In the last twenty-four hours, Arra had destroyed a shadow, driven to Whistler and back, snuck onto the soundstage to watch him and Henry deal with the gate, spent the night away from home wrestling with personal demons-probably not literally, but he wasn't ruling it out- popped into Tony's apartment, shielded her speeding car from the cops, popped into her own apartment, and zapped two liters of potion. Energy manipulation levels: high.

Wizard's personal strength . . .

"Give me a minute to change."

"Change?"

"Clothes." She tossed the word over her shoulder on the way to the bedroom, adding, just before she closed the door behind her: "You won't make it out to the studio by 11:15 unless I drive, and I reek."

She was right. Not about the reeking-not by guy standards anyway although he had no idea how women her age defined reek-but about the driving. Sunday transit schedules sucked as far as. .h.i.tting the burbs in a hurry.

So, wizard's personal strength: energizer bunny levels.

In fact, ever since he'd reminded her about the cats it had been like he'd pulled a plug and the momentum of that initial "oh, my G.o.d" was keeping her moving. The faster she moved, the more she did, the less she had to deal with the c.r.a.p the shadow had called up when it touched her.

Memo to self. Prepare for the crash and burn.

And hope it didn't happen at 80K.

Or at 120K, for that matter . . .

Both hands white-knuckled around the shoulder strap, Tony couldn't decide whether he preferred eyes open or eyes closed. Eyes open, he could see his imminent death in a fiery car crash approaching and prepare. Eyes closed, he could pretend he wasn't in a hatchback whipping diagonally through westbound traffic and occasionally, when things were tight, into the oncoming lane.

He liked taunting death as much as the next guy, but since the next guy was a middle- aged and possibly old wizard from another world and there were still four shadows unaccounted for, all bets were off. She was worse than Henry and Mouse combined."So do you always drive like this?"

"Scared?"

"No."

"Lying?"

Like he'd tell her. "No."

"Good. To answer your question, almost never. But we're in a hurry."

There were high spots of color on her cheeks-technically cheek since he could only see one. On the bright side: at this speed they'd be there soon. On the other side, the less bright side: any idiot knew that the more energy burned, the faster it ran out.

He had to distract her or at least slow her down. "The other reason I was so jumpy ..."

"Jumpy?"

"When you played pop goes the weasel..."

"Wizard."

"Whatever. ... in my apartment was that I'd just had a dream."

The eyebrow he could see, waggled.

"Not that kind of a dream. A bad dream. I dreamed that the shadow was back in control and it took me through the gate."

"To Oz?"

"To a room. It looked like a schoolroom or maybe a lab.

There were books and blackboards with, I don't know, equations covering ..." When Arra hit the brakes, he realized distraction was relative. He tightened his grip as the car fishtailed across the wet asphalt and into a Timmy's parking lot.

When the squealing stopped-and he was 99% sure the squealing had come from the tires-when the only sound was the rain on the roof and the swish/click of the windshield wipers, Arra turned to face him and said, "Were there more than equations on the blackboards?"

Their eyes were open and their expressions suggested they'd been alive for a very long time after theyd been nailed to the walls.

"Yeah."

"People?" The steering wheel creaked under her hands.

Tony nodded.

She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them again, he knew he wouldn't have to describe what he'd seen. She'd seen it, too. "You weren't dreaming.

Those were images the shadow left behind. While it controlled you, you touched its memory."

"I touched?"

"Yes. It explains why the shadow-stain is stronger on you than the others." Shadow-stain. f.u.c.king great. Excuse me while I go home and soak my soul in cold water.

And then he realized . .. "So that... what I saw, it was real?"

"Yes."

"Who were they?"

"The last two members of my order who stood to face the Shadowlord."

"I'm sorry."

"Why? You didn't do anything."

"That was . . ." He sighed and sank back against the seat. "Forget it."

A light touch on his arm drew his attention back to the other side of the car. "I'm sorry."

"Hey." He shrugged. "They were your friends."

"Yes." A simple acknowledgment carrying an emotional payload that filled the car like smoke.

Because he couldn't look at her and because he had to do something, he checked his watch. c.r.a.p. 10:40. He'd just wanted to distract her, slow her down, not bring her back to a complete stop. "Arra, we have to get going or we won't get to the gate in time."

"Right." She fumbled the car into reverse and nearly backed over an elderly man carrying three medium coffees on a cardboard tray.

"Did you want me to drive?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

A skateboarder flipped her the finger as she cut him off.

"I'm just saying . . ."

"Well, don't!"

They got to the studio at 11:02, only to find that the code on the soundstage keypad had been changed. Three sets of wrong numbers would set off the alarms. Tony remembered with one number to go and s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand away from the pad. Alarms would bring police and with his luck Constable Elson would ride back into his life. "Can you do something about this?"

"No."

"Can you pop inside and open it?" He knew the answer before she opened her mouth.

Reaction had finally kicked in and her cheeks had turned an alarming shade of gray. "Are you all right?"

"I'll manage."

"This thing's been the same since I got here." The pad was off limits so he kicked the concrete foundation blocks. "Why are they f.u.c.king changing it now?"

"They had to change the front door lock. It probably reminded them about the back.""f.u.c.king great. Hang on; you have a key for the . . . old front door lock. Never mind."

11:07. This was going to be close. Actually, if he didn't come up with something, it wasn't going to be at all. "The carpenter's door!"

"The what?"

"The big door they use for deliveries of lumber and building c.r.a.p. Three of them smoke and they won't want to keep locking and unlocking the door every time they want a b.u.t.t." He started to run and stopped when he realized Arra wasn't beside him.

"Keep going," she snapped. "I don't sprint!"

"You'll catch up?"

"If you don't move your a.s.s, I'll run you over."

Kicking up gravel, Tony raced around the corner and up the west side of the building. As long as she didn't ditch him again . . .

The carpenter's door looked like a corrugated section of the wall. Because the tracks were hidden and the latch had been painted with the same dark brown antirust paint as the door, it was hard to find without knowing where to look. Deliberately so.

And it looked like it weighed a f.u.c.king ton.

Fortunately, it was already open about an inch. Tony hooked his fingers around the edge and threw all his weight against it. It flew open so fast it dropped him on his a.s.s, the big door sliding soundlessly along its tracks until his dangling weight stopped it.

Plus ten for maintenance. Minus several thousand for not warning a guy!

He scrambled to his feet, stepped over the lower track, and left the door open for Arra as he ran toward the gate. At least two hammers were pounding out a staccato rhythm back behind the permanent sets that made up Raymond Dark's office, but the dining room was finished and deserted. His back teeth beginning to vibrate and his hands sweating so heavily he could barely maintain his grip, he yanked the big lamp into position, threw a cable out of the box, and bent to make the connection.

"And what the h.e.l.l do you think you are playing at?"

s.h.i.t! Sorge-no mistaking the DP's accent. He's probably here to work out the lighting for tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, knowing that was no help at all.

"I am waiting."

Teeth gritted in an effort to keep his skull from blowing apart, Tony finished making the connection and straightened. The gate was about to open. All he had to do was turn the lamp on; he could lie about what he was playing at just as easily with the gate blocked.

Easier. More easily? Bottom line, he could concentrate on the lie if he knew the shadows-incoming, outgoing, pogo-ing-had been stopped. But Sorge was between him and the lighting board and it didn't look as if he was going to move.

Tackle him?

And get fired; losing access to the gate and any chance to stop the Shadowlord.

Reason with him?

Given how p.i.s.sed off he looked, that seemed even less likely to succeed.

The sudden brilliant light took them both by surprise.

"Tony's doing some work for me, Sorge." Arra released the switch and came out from behind the light board. "I need a number of readings off this lamp." She tossed Tony the light meter. "Go."

He trotted toward the set, allowing Sorge's protests and Arra's answering argument to wash over him. In another couple of minutes, it wouldn't matter. The gate would close and Arra could even let the DP think he'd won. In the meantime, Tony maintained the charade, holding what looking like a light meter but felt like a battery from one of the radios up in the light. He was as far from the actual opening as he could get and still make it look real but it wasn't far enough to escape the feeling of being examined.

Yeah, and me wearing a big f.u.c.king shadow-stain.

Then the gate closed and the lamp switched off a heartbeat later.

"Oh, don't be so Gallic!" Arra snapped. "Your lamp is fine and I have all the readings I need. Tony!"

"Yeah." He tossed her back the alleged light meter.

She nearly fumbled the catch and just for an instant it looked like a battery.

Sorge frowned and Tony prepared to a.s.sure him that he hadn't seen what he'd thought he'd seen.

"You are not well?"

Okay, that he had seen.