Darkest Night - Smoke and Shadows Part 6

She rolled her eyes. "In the bas.e.m.e.nt. The dungeon. The wizard's workshop."

"Wizard?" Something waved from the edge of memory; gone when he tried to work out exactly what it was."Duh. CB's own special effects wizard. Arra. Short old broad who blows things up."

Artificially dark brows drew in. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Sure. I'm . . ."

The shrill demand of the phone cut him off. "Don't go anywhere," Amy ordered as she lifted the receiver. "We're not done. CB Productions." Her voice dropped nearly an octave. "Where the h.e.l.l are you? It does matter, Gerald, because you were supposed to deliver that replacement coffin pillow today!"

Shaking his head, Tony propped a hip on her desk. Welcome to the macabre world of vampire television.

"Hey, Tony!"

He jumped as Adam's voice blared from his ear jack and bounced around his skull a couple of times. Cheeks flushed- he hadn't overreacted like that since his first week on the job-he reached for his radio muttering, "The volume control on this thing is totally f.u.c.ked," just in case Amy or anyone else in the office had seen. Then, dropping his mouth to the microphone: "Go ahead, Adam."

"If Lee's up to it, we're ready for him on the set."

Tony glanced at his watch. Nikki's body had been out of the building for just over an hour. An hour? That seemed . . .

"Tony! Thumb out of your a.s.s, man!"

"Yeah. Sorry. Uh, what if Lee's not up to it?"

The 1AD snorted. "Peter says youre to get him up to it but I'm not touching that. Just do what you can to get him back out here. Losing a day won't bring Nikki back."

"The show must go on?"

"Yeah, like I haven't heard that a hundred times in the last hour. Hustle up, were burning money."

Death came, death went, and it was amazing how fast everything got back to normal.

He waved a hand in front of Amy's face and pointed toward the exit.

She nodded. "No, we don't need it immediately, but that's not the point ..."

Shadow following, Tony headed for the dressing rooms.

For all his bulk, Chester Bane knew how to remain unnoticed. If being Chester Bane meant bl.u.s.ter, then a lack of bl.u.s.ter meant a lack of Chester Bane. He stood silently just inside his open door and watched the door leading out of the production office swing closed.

Tony Foster had been in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

The one good thing about finding a dead body was that the rest of the day, no matter how mired in suckage, could only get better. That was the theory anyway, but by quitting time, Tony figured no one could prove it by him. He had to talk to someone about this.

Someone.

Yeah. Right. There was only one person he could talk to about this.

Although he hadn't lived at the condo for almost eighteen months, he still had his keys.

He'd tried to give them back, to cut the final tie but Henry, his eyes dark, had refused to take them.

"Many people have keys to their friends' apartments."

"Well, yeah, but you're ..."

"Your friend. Whatever else I may have been, whatever else I am, I will always be your friend."

"That's uh. . ."

"Yeah, I know. Way over the top."

The place was a little neater without him, but nothing else had changed since he'd left.

"Henry?"

"Bedroom."

Henry slept in the smallest of the three bedrooms, the easiest one to close off with painted plywood and heavy curtains against the day. He wasn't there now, so Tony continued down the hall. Henry slept in the smallest bedroom but he kept his clothes in the walk-in closet attached to the master suite. For a dead guy, Henry Fitzroy had a lot of clothes.

He paused in the doorway and watched the vampire preen in front of the mirror. Popular culture had gotten a few minor details wrong. Vampires had reflections and, if Henry was any indication, they spent a significant slice of eternity checking them out. "The pants are great, but strawberry blonds can't wear that shade of red. The shirt doesn't work."

"You're sure?"

"Trust me. I'm gay."

"You have a gold ring through your eyebrow."

"And it clashes with nothing."

"You're wearing plaid flannel."

"I'm getting in touch with my inner lesbian." Tony pointed toward the discarded clothing on the bed. "Try the blue."

Henry stripped off the shirt, yanked a cream-colored sweater off the pile, and dragged it over his head.

"Or not." Grinning, Tony backed away from the door so Henry could leave. Feeling better than he had in hours, he fell into step beside the shorter man. Feeling grounded. Which said something about the entertainment industry when he turned to a vampire for grounding. Or maybe it just said something about him.

"You sounded upset when you called."And the ground disappeared again. Once the show had stopped going on, once he was on his way home from the studio, he hadn't been able to stop thinking about what had happened. He'd found himself thumbing in Henry's number before he came to a conscious decision to pull out his phone.

"Someone died at work today."

Henry paused at the end of the hall, turning to look at him. "The stuntman?"

What stuntman? It took Tony a moment to remember that Henry had been at the second unit shoot. "Daniel? No, those guys are hard to kill; knock them down and they just bounce back. Daniel's fine. It was the victim of the week. On the show," he added hurriedly as Henry's eyes widened. "There's always a body; I mean there has to be, right? The show's about a vampire detective. But this was a real body." He swallowed although his mouth had gone so dry it didn't help. "I sort of found it."

"Sort of?"

"Mason Reed was with me. He yanked open her dressing room door and she fell out."

One hand dragged back through his hair. "Dead."

Cool fingers on his elbow, Henry steered him over to the green leather sofa and gently pushed him into a sitting position before dropping down next to him. "You okay?"

"Yeah ..."

"But you don't think you should be."

"It's not that she's dead. That's bad, but it's not what's got me so ... I don't know, freaked, I guess." Resting his forearms on his thighs, hands dangling, Tony laced and unlaced his fingers, not really seeing the patterns they made. Trying not to see Nikki's face. "Just for a moment, before her head hit the floor, she looked terrified. You've seen a lot of bodies, Henry. Why would she look terrified? Never mind, don't answer that.

Obviously something frightened her. But she was alone in the dressing room. I mean, of course she was alone; those things are so small most actors can barely fit their egos in with them, but she was alone ..."

"I've left a lot of people alone in locked rooms."

"Well, it wasn't you, so you're saying ..." Twisting around, he raised a hand as Henry opened his mouth to reply. "Oh, don't give me that f.u.c.king more things in heaven and Earth' quote. You're saying it was something like you. Something not of this world ..."

Not of this world. Not this world. f.u.c.k! He almost had it.

"Tony?"

"I feel like I've put down the last bit of toast and now I can't find it. I know I haven't eaten it, but it's gone and that unfinished feeling is driving me bugf.u.c.k!" Unable to remain still, he leaped to his feet and walked over to the window. He laid one hand against the gla.s.s and stared out at the lights of Vancouver. "She shouldn't be dead."

"People die, Tony. They die for a lot of reasons. Sometimes, it seems like they die for no reason at all."

The gla.s.s began to warm under his palm. "And I should just accept that?"

"Just accept death? I think you're asking the wrong person."

"I think I'm asking the only person I have a hope in h.e.l.l of getting an actual answer from." When he turned, Henry was less than an arm's length away. He hadn't heard him move. "I don't need more plat.i.tudes, Henry."

"All right. What do you need?""I need ... I need . . . d.a.m.nit!" He tried to turn again, but an unbreakable grip on his shoulder held him in place.

"What do you need, Tony?"

He fought for a moment against relinquishing control then surrendered and sank into the dark, familiar gaze. "I need to remember."

"Remember what?"

Impossible not to answer. His mouth moved. He wondered what he was going to say.

"Remember what I've forgotten."

The dark eyes crinkled at the corners as Henry smiled. "Well, that's a place to start."

In a business where twelve-hour days were the norm and seventeen not unheard of, Chester Bane often stayed late at the office. His third wife had divorced him because of it. He'd enjoyed her company, but he'd preferred to walk around the soundstage, around the world he'd created, without the distraction of actors and crew. Over the years, security and cleaning staff both had learned to avoid him.

Tonight, fish fed, he walked across the dark production office and stood outside the bas.e.m.e.nt door. His set PA had been down in the bas.e.m.e.nt the day after he'd distinguished himself at a second unit shoot.

The day after something had gone wrong at a second unit shoot.

The day a young actress had died, the body found by that same set PA.

Individually, the first was unusual, the second unexpected, and the third a tragedy.

Together, they added up to something. CB didn't believe in coincidence.

In the seven years since buying the old box factory, he'd seldom gone down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. He could have. Nothing stopped him. He just hadn't. Arra Pelindrake provided him with inexpensive special effects and he in turn provided her with a way to exist in this new world. They never spoke of how the air had torn above his head and she had dropped through the rent stinking of blood and smoke. They never spoke of flames that didn't burn and squibs that used no gunpowder. They never spoke of what she did or how she did it as long as his shows came in on budget. In under budget; even better.

That was the sum total of their relationship.

He neither knew nor cared if she spoke of him outside the studio although he expected she did. Everyone b.i.t.c.hed about their boss.

He was unable to speak of her. His choice. He wasn't fool enough to believe that he'd never want to share so unbelievable a story and rather than lose her-and what she could do for him-he'd asked her to ensure his mouth stayed shut. He remembered everything and could put the necessary spin on her activities vis-vis the outside world but he was incapable of discussing what she was or where she'd come from.

At the time, it had seemed like the smart thing to do in order to protect his investment.

All of a sudden, he wasn't so sure.

His hand closed around the door handle.

Something was going on. Something attempting to make an end run around his control.

The stairs made no noise as he descended into the gray on gray of the lower level. He noted models and masks as he crossed to the desk, adding them to the mental inventory he kept of his possessions. Although the computer had been powered down, the ready lights on both monitors and speakers glowed green. He barely resisted turning them off. Wasted power meant wasted money.

There were modern fetishes scattered all over the desk. Little plastic Teletubbies. An octopus with only six arms. A red cloth frog exuding cinnamon and dust about equally mixed.

He had no idea what he was looking for and suddenly felt ridiculous.

A startled squeak from the stairs spun him around and he glared silently at the cleaning lady standing frozen in place about a third of the way down. The CB in CB Productions stood for Chester Bane and he had every right to be where he was. When it became clear she was not going to move without his permission, he beckoned her forward and, as she stepped off the last tread, he growled, "Do your job and go."

Arms folded, he watched her scuttle across to the desk and scoop up the garbage pail.

As she tipped it up into the green plastic bag she carried, he frowned.

"Hold it!"

She froze again; a tiny statue in a green duster.