Darkest Night - Smoke And Ashes Part 53

"Lee!"

"Bruised but fine."

CB and Jack had gotten rid of the bodies. Henry didn't know where and hadn't asked. "Why would I? This wasn't my fight."

"You upset about that?" Tony wondered, his hand paused in the bucket of fried chicken. "That we didn't, you know, need you?"

"Honestly?" Red-gold brows dipped down. "A little." And rose back up again. "It's a conceit of mine that I'm essential when it comes to saving the world. But mostly, I'm proud of the way you've grown into your power. Proud that you found a way to prevail against nearly unbeatable odds. Proud that you refused to quit and kept fighting long after many would have given up."

"Hey!" Tony jabbed a chicken bone indignantly in Henry's direction. "I couldn't give up; I was responsible for those people. They wouldn't have even been there if not for me."

"And, mostly, I am proud of that."

If his ears got any hotter, they were going to ignite and there was a suspiciously damp itch in his eyes. "Henry, I'm carrying some serious negative father s.h.i.+t, and you're creeping me out here."

"You'll have to get used to it if you're going to keep saving the world."

"Yeah, well I'm not..." He sighed as Henry smiled. "I am, aren't I? This kind of c.r.a.p is just going to keep right on happening."

"You said it to me once; like is drawn to like."

"Yeah, yeah, and then I said it to Leah. I'm a font of freakin' wisdom." Looking into a future full of metaphysical bulls.h.i.+t, he sighed again and reached for the last piece of chicken. Paused, hand back in the bucket. "Leah. What happened with Leah?"

"Happened?"

"After I pulled Ryne Cyratane through the Demongate. Is she all right?"

"She's fine."

"She's really p.i.s.sed, isn't she?"

"She's a little..." Henry visibly considered and discarded several words. "... annoyed." Tony didn't see Leah until early November-her agent had called while he was recovering and she'd gotten a job doubling on a CBC Movie of the Week being shot up in Hope.

"Being immortal doesn't pay the bills; falling off a railway bridge in a corset and bloomers does. I'll see you when I get back."

His entire response had consisted of: "Yeah, but, Leah..." and then he was talking to a dial tone.

The Demonic Convergence was still going on, but without Sye Mckaseeh's manipulations, things were coming through from a lot closer to home. Tony was out for no more than a couple of hours most nights tracking down weird little odds and ends and sending them back where they belonged. With the exception of a city employee working in the old sewer tunnel under Highbury Street who ran into a rat carrying a short sword, no one got hurt. Kevin Groves became an invaluable filter-most reports came first to him, and he could tell if the weirdness was real or homemade. In spite of a few very visible incidents, there was a remarkable lack of hysteria from the general population. The people of British Columbia had always been more willing than the rest of the country to adjust reality to suit them, and the contrary att.i.tude of Vancouverites kept them from agreeing on just what exactly they'd seen.

During the day, they were so busy getting the last episode of Darkest Night in the can before going on hiatus there wasn't time to replay the whole climatic battle scene in any detail. Maybe a few people strutted-as soon as they stopped limping-and maybe Mason thought a little more of himself than usual, but his ego was so enormous already it was hard to tell. Mostly they worked at getting the stains off the floor under the gate and got on with the job. Where they included Tony. CB'd given him as much time off as he was getting if he wanted to remain employed.

TO: [email protected] FROM: [email protected] u r teh suckhead!

TO: [email protected] FROM: [email protected] when you get back, i'll teach you what i can TO: [email protected] FROM: OMG! I <3>

A small part of Tony held out a forlorn hope that something eldritch would attack and rip him limb from limb before he had to make good on his promise. Most of him had grown resigned to the inevitable where "the inevitable" had been defined by powers with a vicious sense of humor as his boss' youngest daughter. "Nothing." Amy hung up the phone and looked up at Tony and Zev. "That's four days since Kevin's had anyone call about something going b.u.mp in the night. Maybe Halloween was the last."

A pair of half-meter-wide, phosph.o.r.escent-green, eight-legged visitors had made the traditional Haunted Village at the Burnaby Village Museum out on Deer Lake a little more authentic than most years. By the time Tony found them hiding under the carousel, they'd been completely terrified by the giant bat on stilts and were more than willing to go home.

"Halloween does have a certain satisfying end-of-season feel about it," Zev admitted. "And that means this whole thing lasted about a month."

"Golly, Tony." Amy batted bright orange eyelashes suggestively in his general direction. "The Demonic Convergence is over and the show's going into hiatus, so everyone who works on it will have some free time. What are you going to do?"

Before Tony could answer her, the door to CB's office opened. A motorcycle helmet cradled under one arm, Leah paused on the threshold and grinned. "Ah, that's so sweet. Spanky and his gang. Oh, stop looking at me like that." Eyes rolling, she crossed toward them. "I got back last night. I would have called."

Tony ignored the excuse. "Henry says your tattoo changed."

"That was a little abrupt. What's up your skirt?"

"We were still in the Demonic Convergence. You should have checked in before you left, just to be on the safe side."

"Should have?" Arms folded. Lip curled. "You're not my keeper, Tony," she snarled.

She'd had millennia to work on that whole "don't f.u.c.k with me" thing, and it was definitely definitive. Zev took a step sideways, putting more of Amy's desk between them. Amy looked like she was taking notes. Tony didn't really give a c.r.a.p. All things considered, att.i.tude from an immortal stuntwoman was pretty f.u.c.king low on his list of things to be impressed by.

"I'm the only wizard we know of," he told her flatly, "and you're walking around with the oldest working magic in the world etched into your stomach. I need to know what's going on with it."

Leah's eyes narrowed, and she stared at him for a long moment. "You used me to defeat Ryne Cyratane. You had no idea what slamming him back through the gate would do to me, and yet you did it anyway."

"I knew what Ryne Cyratane would do to this world. Reshoot the scene and I'd play it the same way."

"Would you?"

"Yeah. I would."

Unexpectedly, she smiled, set down the helmet, and unzipped her jacket. "Okay, then."

"Can you say anticlimactic?" Amy muttered.

"Anticlimactic," Zev acknowledged.

Leah grinned and pulled her fuchsia turtleneck up off the tattoo. "You were expecting a fight? I made my point when I blew town, leaving him to his own devices, and besides, he's right. He should have a look at this, just in case."

"In case of what?" Amy demanded as Tony peered at the interlocking circles. "These are new," Tony announced before Leah could answer. He traced the inner circle, his finger about a millimeter above the skin. "And there wasn't this much color before." Not only the new runes in the inner circle but a few of the unchanged runes were now a deep crimson. The color of fresh blood instead of dried. "What does it mean?"

"I don't know. You're the wizard."

"Yeah, but..."

No but, actually.

"I guess I'll have to find out," he said, straightening.

Letting the sweater drop, Leah leaned forward and kissed his cheek. She smelled like cinnamon. "I'm not going anywhere for a while, I'll help. There's not a lot about demonology I don't know."

"You didn't know Ryne Cyratane would betray us."

"Please!" She smirked and reached for her helmet. "He's a demon, what did you expect? Ciao, Antonio!" A second kiss on the other cheek and a wave with her free hand as she headed for the door. "Bye, kids. See you around."

"You going to stop her?" Zev asked quietly.

Tony shook his head. "No, if I need her, I just have to call." He rubbed the palm of his left hand against his thigh. "You guys want to go get a beer after work?"

"As if," Zev snorted. "CB wants the score for the last episode tweaked again. He's looking for a John Williams sound on a Chet Williams budget. I'll be here all night. Probably tomorrow night, too."

Amy leaned out and dropped a stack of old sides into the recycling box. "I'd love to, Tony, but Jack and I are going to a zombie retrospective."

That was unexpected. "Jack's into zombies?"

"He's not into so much. He thinks they're funny." She shrugged and pulled a strand of hair out from the inner workings of her skeleton earrings. "I figure as long as we're both enjoying ourselves, no harm no foul. Say, I know..."

Tony had always found ingenuous a worrying look on Amy.

"... why don't you ask Lee if he wants to go for a beer?"

"Why don't you ask Lee if he wants to go for a..."

"Zev!"

Not at all repentant, Zev sighed. "You're willing to go mano a mano with invading wizards, haunted houses, and enough demons for a theatrical production of The Inferno, what are you so afraid of when it comes to Lee?"

"I'm not afraid. Lee's..."

"I swear, Tony, if you say straight, I'm going to feed you Amy's stapler."

"Hey!" Clutching her stapler protectively, Amy rolled her chair over to the other desk. "Use Rachel's. She's never in the office anyway."

Tony took one step back, just to be on the safe side. "It has to be Lee's choice." "Why?" Zev folded his arms and glowered. It was a surprisingly impressive glower.

"His career..."

"Why would you affect his career?" Amy snorted. "You likely to do something kinky in public?"

"Actually..."

"Zev!"

"Earth to Tony; no one cares but you. So Lee likes guys as well as women. Big whoop. Most of the world has more important things to worry about than a bis.e.xual actor in a third-rate, syndicated, vampire detective television show."

"Yeah, but..."

"Hey. No buts. End the freakin' suspense." She tossed Zev the stapler. He made threatening gestures with it, and Tony surrendered.

If the whole thing blew up in his face, he'd be able to blame his alleged friends. And office supplies. Which was a dubious comfort.

Lee's dressing room door sat partly open and Tony had a moment's fear, relief, fear that he'd already left. There'd been talk about an offer to do an Amazons in s.p.a.ce movie in the Australian outback during hiatus, but he had no idea if Lee'd got the gig.

Between the end of the Demonic Convergence and the end of the season, they'd been so busy they'd hardly said two words to each other.

Yeah. That was the reason.

If he's not here, it's a sign and...

He was just taking his cell phone out of the charger. He turned. Saw Tony. Froze.

Okay. That's not exactly a welcoming expression. I should just back away slowly...

On the other hand, he did have a very threatening stapler waiting for him.

Oh, what the h.e.l.l.

Tony stepped into the dressing room, reached back, and closed the door. One of Lee's brows went up.

"I didn't know you could do that."

Both brows dipped down. "What?"

"The single brow thing."

"Oh. Yeah. Since I was kid."

"Cool."

A long moment of silence. It wasn't a very big room. They were no more than an arm's length apart. Tony wasn't sure which one of them sighed first. He ran a hand back through his hair. "One of us needs to stop being such a guy about this."

"Yeah, except we're both guys."

"That's not a problem for me."

"Me either."

It happened just that fast.

Where "that fast" ignored the events of the preceding six months, all leading up to this moment with the possible exception of those events that had been leading up to world domination, ma.s.s slaughter, or actually shooting an episode of Darkest Night.

Now he finally knew where Lee was, Tony wanted nothing more than to make magic, to hold out his hand and call the other man to him-but the smoop levels had already risen to nauseating heights. He felt like he'd stumbled onto a Rainbow Network Movie of the Week and this was the part in the soundtrack where the female vocalist would come in with the power ballad. "So what do we do..."

Lee tossed his phone aside, grabbed Tony's jacket in both fists, and swallowed the last word along with the lower half of Tony's face.

Later, when they finally broke for air, Tony felt he needed to make one thing perfectly clear.

"I never once thought of you as the damsel."

Although she left Nova Scotia at three, and has lived most of her life since in Ontario, Tanya Huff still considers herself a Maritimer.

On the way to the idyllic rural existence she shares with her partner Fiona Patton, six cats, and a Chihuahua, she acquired a degree in Radio and Television Arts from Ryerson Polytechnic-an education she was happy to finally use while writing the SMOKE novels. Of her previous twenty-three books the five-BLOOD PRICE, BLOOD TRAIL, BLOOD LINES, BLOOD PACT, BLOOD DEBT-featuring Henry Fitzroy, b.a.s.t.a.r.d son of Henry VIII, romance writer, and vampire are among the most popular.

She's pleased to be returning to that world once again as Tony Foster, ex-street kid, and one of Henry's own, discovers that working in television has less to do with "reality" than he ever suspected.