Darkest Night - Smoke And Ashes Part 49

"I didn't have a choice," Tony grunted, accepting Henry's hand and allowing himself to be lifted to his feet. "There was this horde of Darkest Night fans ready to tear me limb from limb."

A red-gold brow rose. "The show has enough fans to make up a horde?"

"Small horde," he admitted, checking to make sure everything worked. "More like a mob, really. Very feisty, though. And p.i.s.sed.

So, are you planning to apologize for dumping me on my a.s.s?" Which felt distinctly bruised.

Henry smiled. "Your spell distracted me with thoughts of the Hunt."

"So you're saying I'm lucky I only got dumped on my a.s.s?"

"Essentially."

"Okay, works for me." He turned to study the steel skeletons of the three towers. "Leah's notes say this one's tucked up in that first structure."

Tony knew Henry wouldn't drop him. Knew it without question. His hindbrain however, currently dangling four stories up supported only by a vampire's grip on his ankles, was having none of that. As far as his hindbrain was concerned, they were going to die.Painfully.

Messily.

On impact.

The hysterical background babbling of OH, MY G.o.d! was annoying. And distracting.

"I don't want to rush you, Tony, but the moon has risen and we're not exactly invisible up here. If a resident living on the upper floors of any of those buildings across the way should happen to glance out their window..."

"Yeah. I get it. We'd be screwed. Sorry."

The orientation of the runes didn't seem to matter.

Good f.u.c.king thing, too, because I don't think I could draw them upside down.

Right side up. I'm upside down.

OHMYG.o.dOHMYG.o.dOHMYG.o.d!.

Ten down. Seventeen to go.

The second weak spot of the night wasn't so much in a construction site as an excavation.

"What's with the attraction to holes in the ground?" Tony muttered as they walked down the packed dirt ramp left for the excavation equipment.

"They are creatures of h.e.l.l. They would feel at home in a pit."

"It's not that kind of a h.e.l.l, Henry."

"Would a man spend his time there in eternal torment?"

"I guess." Based on what they'd seen of the inhabitants, it seemed a fair a.s.sumption. Although eternal might be thinking a bit too long term.

"Then it's close enough for me."

Eleven to sixteen."Oh, no," Tony protested, backing away even though Henry had made no move in his direction. "There'll be time enough to sleep when this is over."

"If you could finish it tonight, I'd agree with you, but you can't and you're becoming visibly exhausted. When you're tired, you make mistakes. When you make mistakes, you get hurt. When you get hurt, you heal yourself and, as your body becomes progressively more worn down, there is always the chance you won't survive the process."

"There's not much room for argument when you put it like that."

Henry smiled his most irritating Prince of Man smile. "Which is why I put it like that."

Television meant early mornings and habit got Tony to the studio by seven, a mere ten minutes after sunrise even though Henry had set his alarm for eight before he left. CB and Leah and Jack were already in the office. Amy arrived minutes after Tony and Lee minutes after that, carrying a tray of coffee.

"You may be wondering why I've called you all here," Jack muttered.

Only Amy laughed.

One hand up under the edge of her sweater, Leah stared down at the map spread out over CB's desk. "Well, that confirms it. The tears are deeper than they were."

Sixteen of the burns on the map were noticeably darker.

The good news was, Leah had recognized Ryne Cyratane's owners.h.i.+p of the arjh coming through in the middle of the Willingdon overpa.s.s. And the bad news involved the Telus overpa.s.s and another weak spot.

While Tony and Lee had been dodging teenagers, CB had spent a couple of hours on the phone and called in some favors.

At exactly 9:45, an RCMP patrol car, lights flas.h.i.+ng pulled out into the middle lane of the Kingsway and parked just out from under the Telus overpa.s.s. Morning rush hour traffic, finally having dropped from insanely busy to annoyingly crowded began to flow around it. When the uniformed constable stopped traffic entirely, Tony helped manhandle the rented telescoping platform out under the overpa.s.s. As the guy who'd come with the platform locked it down, he set out orange traffic cones.

When CB had laid out the plan, Tony had stared at him in disbelief. "What am I supposed to do while they're setting up?" he'd demanded.

"I suggest, Mr. Foster, that you do your job. Unless there happens to be a spell to turn straw into gold on that laptop of yours, in which case you may do whatever you please."

As traffic began to move again, now including the area the platform occupied in their detour, he followed the steadicam operator up the short ladder and clutched the steel railing as the platform rose.

They were directly under the weak spot. He could burn the runes in the air just below it and then shove them quickly up and through. The steadicam operator had his back to Tony as he shot the traffic moving under the overpa.s.s. The occupants of the cars, used to having to accommodate a dozen studios plus visiting productions, didn't even look up. He was finished in just under ten minutes.

"Okay, let's go."

"I don't think so, kid. Chester Bane is paying me for twenty minutes of brand spanking new stock footage and that's what I'm going to shoot for him."

"But..."

"Do I look stupid enough to cross Chester Bane, kid?"

Fair question. And no, he didn't. "Then just let me down."

"We have this spot for half an hour, kid, no more. That's b.l.o.o.d.y close to not enough time so, again, no."

He couldn't climb down; dangling then dropping made him think of broken legs and Henry's reaction. "I'm trying to save the f.u.c.king world here!"

"Yeah, well, I only have your word for that whereas I know what'll happen if Chester Bane pays for twenty minutes and gets nineteen fifty-nine. The end of the world will seem tame in comparison."

Since Tony didn't have an argument for that, he folded his arms and fumed.

With the easy places already taken care of, he only got two closed that day and one closed after dark.

Fourteen to thirteen. They'd pulled ahead by one. Two if he put Ryne Cyratane's marked arjh on their side of the count.

As Tony fell into a fitful sleep, he held tight to the hope that they might have a shot at winning this after all.

Three closed the next day.

Seventeen to ten.

Only two the day after that, though, and the second was nearly a disaster.

"What the h.e.l.l is he doing? Does he paint graffiti on the pool? I see him paint something! I don't believe you come from vampire television. You stay! You stay right there! I call the 911!"

The Notice Me Not kept him from getting arrested, but it also kept him from interacting with anything until long after sunset when Henry finally found him. The longer the spell was on, the harder it was to get off.

Nineteen to eight.

Twenty to seven.

Twenty-one to six.

Those last two had gone relatively easily, but now he was stuck in traffic with Leah singing along to the latest from Radiogram. They were a local band who'd recently rocketed off local playlists and into the international music scene. Tony liked the band and their music, but Leah's smug I followed them before they were famous att.i.tude was driving him up the wall. She even sang along smugly.Like I don't have enough to do without sitting here and listening to her...

Hang on. Had Radiogram worked the Darkest Night theme into their latest release?

No. That was his phone.

"Leah."

"I'm on it." She stretched an arm behind his seat, snagged his backpack, freed his phone, and stuffed it into the dock.

"Tony, it's Kevin Groves. I just got a call from one of our regulars. She says she saw something big with horns blow apart the Willingdon overpa.s.s."

Tony eased into the curb lane while he waited for the other shoe to drop.

"She wasn't lying."

And there it was.

"Thanks, Kevin. Hang up." The phone clicked off. He needed to get to the studio. He needed to get turned around. Diagonally through a gas station, out the other side, over a median strip, and into the left turn lane to more-or-less catch the final seconds of the advance green.

Half a block. Picking up speed. Cutting between two SUVs.

Sliding sideways on damp pavement, Tony fought the car back onto four tires. "Keep that map down. I need to see out that window!"

"You need your f.u.c.king head-BUS!-head examined! And you need to look at this."

Another half block before he could take his eyes off the road long enough to glance her way. The way Leah was holding the map, he could see six pinholes where the light showed through. Six weak points burned through. Six demons in the city. One of them was theoretically on their side, but somehow that didn't make him feel any better.

"Call CB, tell him to empty the studio. Then call Jack and Henry."

"Sun's not down. BIKE!"

He missed the cyclist by millimeters. "Leave a message."

"I have a better idea." Her fingernails had left half moon cuts in his dashboard. "Why don't you pull into that strip mall, then you can make the calls and I can get us to the studio alive."

Tony hesitated just for a second then bounced up over the curb and into the strip mall parking lot. This was not the time to let machismo get in the way of a professional stunt driver. Their odds would improve with stunt drivers in the surrounding cars, but he'd take what he could get. As he dove back into the pa.s.senger side and buckled up, he glanced at the clock. 5:07. More than an hour and a half until sunset.

As Leah stomped on the gas, he reached for the phone.

They'd be starting before Henry woke for the night. Then he'd have to drive out to Burnaby. They'd be fighting multiple demons without his strength and speed, and it was entirely possible they'd be finished without him. f.u.c.king weak spots might as well have torn open at noon. "TAXI!"

"Please. I saw it. You know, we still have time to get on a plane and haul a.s.s out of here." Suspicion tightened his chest. "Was that why you wanted to drive?"

"No, no, I'm doing the responsible thing."

"ONE-WAY STREET!".

Leah snorted and drove half a block on the sidewalk. "You know, Tony, if you're going to save the world tonight, you really need to pace yourself."

Chapter Fifteen.

FIGHTING TO KEEP THE nutritional supplement pouring into his mouth instead of spraying around the inside of the car, Tony watched in amazement as Leah forced every possible ounce of power from the elderly engine, took a few highly illegal shortcuts, and beat the demons back to the soundstage. The previous two trips they'd taken had clearly been nothing more than a rehearsal for this.

"Bonus that there's never a cop around when you need one," he ground out through clenched teeth, really hoping he wasn't going to hurl as they bounced over the back curb of the CB Productions lot.

"We weren't on a major highway this time, so I doubt anyone called us in."

"You doubt?" His voice went up embarra.s.singly high on the second word. "You went the wrong way down a Tim Horton's drive- through!"

"Please, in this area..." Leah yanked the wheel hard to the left and skidded to a stop, spraying gravel over the craft services truck.

"... they probably thought we were filming."

She had a point. A month earlier, Vancouverites had applauded an armed bank robbery; bank security hadn't intervened, apparently waiting for someone to yell "Cut!"

"There're too many vehicles still in the lot," Tony grumbled, getting out of the car. Sure they'd been speedy, but he'd seen CB clear the building in less time. When the big guy said go, it took a stupidly reckless man to linger.