Darkest Night - Smoke and Shadows Part 50

And laughing.

And screaming.

And a self-satisfied voice enjoying the taste of the pain.

Not hard to figure out what had happened; Henry'd had to hurt someone and the Shadowlord had drawn the shadow back into himself to enjoy it. A cliche scene that became less cliche when real people were hurting.

Tony ran faster. And hit the ground hard, his shadow wrapped around his knees.The fogger flew from his left hand and skidded across the floor, metal cha.s.sis shrieking against the concrete. The fogger from his right hit harder, tipped over, and was only just out of reach.

He could see the fog ready light on the remote.

All he had to do was reach it.

Dragging his lower body, he clawed his way forward. His fingertips touched metal just as his shadow closed over his face.

Youve got a lungful of air! You've got time!

Easy to say. Harder to deal with.

Eyes covered, working in the dark, he scrabbled at the edge of the fogger, fingernails sliding off the casing. Then it moved. And a little more. He stretched past it. Reaching.

Touched the remote cable. Hooked it closer.

He'd read once that lack of oxygen created an automatic panic response in the brain.

Like I need another f.u.c.king reason to panic!

There were four b.u.t.tons on the remote.

As he started to thrash, unable to stop himself, needing to breathe, he pressed the largest.

The G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing was too quiet to hear. And his ears were full of shadow. And it came with a f.u.c.king microprocessor, so maybe it wouldn't work flipped over on its side.

Then the shadow's grip started to loosen.

Going, going . . . gone.

Arms thrown wide, Tony sucked in a lungful of sweet, moist air. Then another. Then he opened his eyes and started to cough.

Foggers used distilled water and glycerin. It was perfectly safe to breathe except that the brain saw smoke and another automatic response kicked in.

Coughing and choking and telling his brain to shut the f.u.c.k up, Tony staggered to his feet, groped for the other fogger, and stumbled with it toward the set. At 7560 cubic- feet-per-minute output-not something he knew; output was stenciled on the top of both machines-the lower half meter of the immediate area was nearly full. There were still places he could see the floor but those places were disappearing fast. Even so, he wanted the second fogger as close to the gate as possible.

The last time they'd needed them, someone-Daniel?- had told him they used a higher density fog juice that kept the fog close to the floor and away from the guts of expensive electrical equipment. But use enough fog, especially between the confining walls of the set, and it would rise. Fill the air.

Fog was visible because each tiny water droplet refracted light. Or reflected light, Tony wasn't positive which. The point was it broke the light up into bits and that broke shadows up into bits. Destroyed their cohesion.

The light was real.

The shadows were an effect.

He thumbed the fog on as the extension cord hauled him to a stop at the edge of the set.With no shadows, the Shadowlord had only the shadow-held remaining.

As the set filled, Tony set the fogger down in the covering fog from the other machine.

It felt like he'd been gone for hours, but it had only been minutes.

And not too many of them.

Henry still fought the shadow-held, but he moved too quickly and there were too many of them for Tony to see how the battle was going. Henry would win. Henry was very hard to ...

A crowbar rose and fell. Impact against flesh and a snarl.

Henry might be hard to kill, but those he fought were more fragile. If he was hurt and the Hunger rose ... If there was blood and the Hunger rose . . . Tony just hoped Henry would-could-remember that fragility.

Still no sign of Arra.

G.o.d d.a.m.n, h . . .

The hair lifting off the back of his neck, Tony turned toward the throne. The Shadowlord stood staring at him through narrowed eyes. Even at that distance Tony could feel the rage rolling off him.

Man, the air is getting distinctly punky in here.

Teeth clenched, lips thinned to pale lines. Evil still looked pretty d.a.m.ned good. "Get him.

Turn that thing off!"

Mind you, good-looking evil is still evil , he admitted, backing up.

Mason and Lee rose up out of the fog.

Apparently shadow-held brains had no problem with that whole breathing smoke thing.

f.u.c.king figured.

Mason reached him first. Tony darted left around a blow and realized as both actors followed his movement that they were obeying literally. Get him. Then, turn that thing off.

All he had to do was keep them busy until Arra ended things.

Right. All he had to do. If Arra ended things.

He kept moving since closing with one would lead to a beating by the other; dodging, ducking, and finally slamming a bruised hip into the coffin so hard it rocked on its stand.

Pain distracted him long enough for both his attackers to reach him. He ducked under Lee's double-handed grab, found himself between the coffin and the wall, and, working with what he had, tipped it over on them.

It hit the floor with force enough to momentarily whoosh the fog away. The lid slammed open. Chester Bane rolled out.

Time stopped.

His eyes snapped open.

And time started up again.If asked, Tony would have described his boss as strong, powerful, arrogant, controlling, and a little strange. But not fast. He'd have been wrong. He didn't even see the producer move. One minute CB was on the floor, the next he was on his feet Mason clutched in one ma.s.sive hand, Lee in the other. White showed all around his eyes, the muscles of his neck stood out like rebar, and he was roaring-no words, just one loud, enraged bellow. It was the scariest G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing Tony had seen all day . . . and given the day he'd had, that was saying something.

Off by the fogger, someone screamed.

Dragged around by the sound, Tony saw the Shadowlord rear back, clutching his right hand to his chest.

To make fake fog, a fog machine's heat exchanger superheated the fog juice and forced the hot mixture out of the nozzle on the front. By their very nature, fog machines got hot. Very hot. It appeared the Shadowlord's personal protection didn't extend to pa.s.sive attacks by inanimate objects.

Hoping CB would remember he'd need the men he was destroying when this was over, Tony ran for the Shadowlord.

He didn't remember much from his GED, but he remembered some c.r.a.p about equal and opposite reactions. In order to blast an attacker away, the protections had to apply the same force to the Shadowlord and this time he wasn't comfortably settled on his throne.

If Tony went down, the Shadowlord was taking a fall, too.

Unfortunately, magic was one thing and, as it turned out, physics was something else again. Tony slammed into darkness maybe an inch away from his target and was smashed back into the fog.

A fist wrapped in the front of his s.h.i.+rt and dragged him clear.

"Foolish." Only a sliver of gray showed between narrowed lids. The word was almost a hiss. "We could have ..."

And then the Shadowlord's attention s.h.i.+fted.

s.h.i.+rt digging into armpits, Tony twisted in his grip.

At the far end of the set, a golden pattern s.h.i.+mmered in the air. As they watched, frozen in place, a new line of light curved around the outer edge.

Tony hit the floor, thrown aside hard enough to slide until he slammed up against the wall. Palms leaving damp prints against the painted plywood, he hand-walked to his feet. When he turned, Mason stood in front of him.

A quick glance showed CB struggling with three of the construction crew and Lee nowhere in sight.

Ducking a swing, Tony tripped on something in the fog. He managed a reasonably coherent, Not again! just before impact, then the mist folded over him. A hand closed around the back of his belt as his hand closed around a backpack.

What the . . . ?

Not a backpack, the photographer's camera bag.

As Mason hauled him up, he ripped through the camera bag, finding what he needed by touch. Finally clearing the fog, he squirmed around and triggered the photographer's flash.

The shadow had been in Mason Reed since Friday morning, absorbing all that Mason was. Mason had never met a flashbulb he didn't love. Yesterday, the fan club had delayed him with pictures and it worked again now. Mason's grip loosened, Tony fell free, got his feet under him, and, continually thumbing the flash, kneed the actor in the nuts.

He could almost hear his own giving a little cheer at getting some back.

As Mason dropped down out of sight, Tony ran for the other end of the set, ducking and weaving through the ongoing battle Henry and CB were fighting with the shadow-held.

His feet thumped into bodies he couldn't see. Didn't want to see.

The pattern hadn't grown in the last few moments because Arra, laptop open and balanced on one hand, was holding the Shadowlord in place with the other.

"You're only delaying the inevitable, old woman," he snarled as Tony ducked under a flying can of hair spray and slid between them.

"Let him go, Arra. I've got him."

"You?" Simultaneous. From both wizards.

Eyes locked with the one, he snarled, "f.u.c.king bite me! Let him go and finis.h.!.+" at the other.

He was almost surprised when she did.

But not quite as surprised as the Shadowlord.

"And what can you do?" he mocked, stepping forward.

Tony slid his hands around the other man's face, laced them behind his head, and locked their mouths together. His lips were cool, but Tony was used to that. He changed the angle, made it wetter, more . . . carnal. We could have the Shadowlord had said. We.

The protective spell didn't kick in.

Hands locked on his waist hard enough to leave new bruises.

Son of a b.i.t.c.h; it is my a.s.s.

Under other circ.u.mstances, he'd have found that gratifying. Although, even if evil wizards had been his type, any swelling crotch-side tonight was likely to be edema.

Pa.s.sion, pain-fortunately, all moaning sounded remarkably alike.

As a distraction, it worked because it was unexpected, but it didn't work long.

Darkness flared and Tony found himself on the floor again, his skull cracking hard enough against the concrete to cause stars.

Okay, stars are new.

When they didn't go away, he realized it wasn't stars he was seeing; it was Arra's pattern through the refraction of the fog. Which was dissipating. Either the foggers were empty or the sound stage was just too big.

On the bright side, the Shadowlord seemed to be caught on the lines of light like a fly in a web. That brief bout of tonsil hockey must've given Arra enough time to finish.

Yay, me.

And then again . . .

Torso tight against the light, the Shadowlord flung out his arms, fingers extended.

Streamers of darkness began to flow into them. He was calling back the shadows. Releasing the shadow-held. Tony could hear bodies. .h.i.tting the floor.

He was calling back pieces of himself.

He was getting stronger.

In another moment, he'd be free of the pattern.