Darkest Night - Smoke And Ashes Part 7

Jack stared at him for a long moment and then slammed the drawer. Fortunately, the seals absorbed most of the sound. "So what did?"

"I have no idea."

"Layers of h.e.l.ls?"

"Yeah."

"But if h.e.l.l exists, then... just, no."

Tony braced himself as the truck briefly lifted up onto two wheels while taking the exit off Lougheed. "If it helps, it's not h.e.l.l like a church-sponsored h.e.l.l. It's h.e.l.l like a really s.h.i.+tty place to be stuck in, so why not call it h.e.l.l. If you live there, you probably call it something like Scarborough."

"What?"

"It's a Toronto thing."

"Then no one outside of Toronto cares." Palming the wheel around, Jack hit the gas and set about trying to break the sound barrier heading south on Boundary Road. "So I can expect demons as this Convergence goes on?"

"First, demons would be a long shot even if there was no one around to take care of things. Second, I'm on it."

"Is that a 'no'?"

"That's a no. Although there might be a few imps." "Imps?"

"Sort of small, mostly harmless demons."

"Can I shoot them?"

"How should I know?"

"You're the wizard. How long is this Convergence going to last?"

"No idea."

Like many very fair men, Jack turned almost purple when upset. Tony took pity on him before he blew an artery. "I'll check some stuff out, okay? When I have answers, you'll have answers."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Wizard stuff."

"This is totally insane."

"Don't blame me, you're the one who decided to go all Nightstalker. You know, a little denial can be a lot healthier."

"Not in my line of work. I'm after the truth." He narrowly missed running down a young woman pulling a two-meter-high Dutch windmill on a dolly and sighed. "That sounded inanely pompous, didn't it?"

"Had a certain Fox Mulder-like quality to it, yeah."

The truck rocked to a stop in front of the studio, momentum fighting brakes hard enough that Tony's face nearly impacted with the dashboard. From his sudden vantage point, he could see other vaguely oily scuff marks. His face hadn't been the first. He supposed it was encouraging that Jack's driving hadn't been aimed specifically at him-he'd been starting to think he inspired a certain lunacy behind the wheel. Some kind of wizard leakage thing.

"I'm fine, thanks for asking," he muttered as he straightened, fumbling for the seat belt.

"You're welcome. You've got my cell number?"

"Yeah." Jack's card was in his wallet right next to Leah's. The cop and the stuntwoman. The RCMP and the Demongate. Small world. He jumped out of the truck and turned to close the door.

"Hey." Jack leaned toward him. "If you find out what killed that guy, you call me."

"I'll call," Tony sighed. He closed the door and looked in through the open window. "But whatever it is, you won't be able to arrest it."

"I can arrest anything I can get a pair of cuffs on," Jack snarled, slammed the truck into gear, and roared off. Traffic stuttered to give him room, and Tony had an instant's un.o.bstructed view of the other side of the street...

... and Kevin Groves. The tabloid reporter looked like he'd just won a lottery. "How long until we can shoot at UBC?" Eyes rolling, Amy beckoned Tony over. "You have got to be kidding me! Who? That can't take more than a... What, them again? Right. Fine. If anyone cancels, will you call me? Thank you." She dropped the phone onto the receiver and sighed. "Once again, UBC is standing in for every alien city in syndication. You'd think it was the only place in the lower mainland that looked science fictiony."

He balanced half his b.u.t.t on the edge of her desk. "So why do we want to shoot there?"

"Giant mutant plants escape from a genetics lab and start blinding people. Raymond Dark goes in at night when they're doing whatever plants do at night."

"Like Day of the Triffids."

"What?"

"RKO movie with Howard Keel and Janette Scott. Although I think it was a meteor shower that actually blinded people. They mention it in the Rocky Horror Picture Show." Frowning, he reached for a plastic six-legged octopus and got his hand slapped.

"So there are no new ideas in television. Quel surprise. Not." She moved the octopus out of his reach. "No one will notice we stole it."

"I'll notice."

"Yeah, and if you spent more time learning wizard s.h.i.+t and less time watching Movie Central, you might be useful."

"For what?"

"That's the question, isn't it?" Leaning back in her chair, she laced her fingers over the line of skulls embroidered onto her raw cotton s.h.i.+rt and smiled. Tony mistrusted the smile. "So, an afternoon off with the new boyfriend?"

And that was why. "You're delusional."

"I just want you to be happy."

"We were at the morgue."

"Cool. Why?"

"He wanted me to look at a body."

"Kinky. Pre- or post-autopsy?"

Tony couldn't remember any st.i.tching, so he guessed. "Pre."

"Kinkier."

Before the conversation could devolve further, they were distracted by a young woman fighting to get a Dutch windmill through the front doors and into the office. She looked familiar.

"This is the last one they have," she gasped over the noise of balsa wood and canvas. .h.i.tting the floor, "so it better be the right one."

"They?" Tony asked, ducking a flimsy-looking blade. "Windmills R Us?"

"Prop shop over at Bridge," Amy explained. "We borrowed it. And before you ask, I suspect it was part of some bucolic alien landscape."

"I was actually going to ask if they know we plan on burning it down in a blatant Frankenstein rip-off." "With any luck, that would be a big fat no and, according to the writers, it's not a rip-off, it's an homage. Krista, this is Tony, our TAD. Tony, this is Krista, the new office PA."

"Hey!" Krista waved a hand in Tony's general direction. "I don't suppose you could help me get this onto the sound-stage."

"Through there?" He glanced toward the scuffed door that led to the hall that led to the soundstage that led to the show that CB built. Lined with racks of extra costumes, the hall was barely wide enough for one and not even remotely wide enough for one and a windmill.

"Well, duh."

"Not possible. You'll have to take it outside and go around to the carpenter's door."

Krista looked at the windmill and then at the b.l.o.o.d.y knuckles she'd acquired getting it into the office. "You're f.u.c.king kidding me."

"He really isn't," Amy told her cheerfully.

The new PA's brows drew in, stretching the blue crescent moon on the left side of her forehead. "This is a test, isn't it?"

As Amy shook her head, Tony leaned close and murmured, "You're lucky. The last two got sent to Starbucks."

"Bad?"

"One of them's still there."

"Right." She took a deep breath and began to force the windmill back outside.

"Need some help?"

"No, thanks. I've got it."

Tony backed toward Amy's desk as something cracked. View blocked by the base of the windmill, it was impossible to tell what.

"Get out of my way, you f.u.c.king a.s.shat," Krista's voice snapped out like a whip.

Or who.

"I think I'm starting to like her," Amy said, grabbing for the phone. "She has a way with words. CB Productions."

"I definitely like her," Tony growled as Kevin Groves came into the office cradling his left arm. Anyone who recognized Groves for the f.u.c.king a.s.shat he truly was, was a person worth knowing. "Hey," he waved a hand in front of Amy's face. "I'm out of here."

She nodded at him and began explaining the company policy regarding their actors and reality shows. As far as Tony knew, CB didn't actually have a company policy, Amy just enjoyed maligning the intelligence of reality show producers on CB's dime.

"Tony Foster." Groves' voice matched his looks; thin and unmemorable.

"Can't talk." Tony spun on one heel, rubber squealing against tile, and headed for the exit. "Have to work."

"Just a few minutes of your time."

"No."

"Why were you out riding with RCMP Constable Jack Elson?" "Ask him."

"Is it true you're lovers?"

Tony turned in the open doorway and laughed in Groves' face. "You know, you should ask Constable Elson that-but wait until I'm there so I can watch you get your a.s.s kicked."

"I just intended to get your attention." Groves took a step closer. His jaw worked at a wad of gum. Spearmint from the smell. He was holding up his PDA, the record icon flas.h.i.+ng. "Were you with him today because of the construction worker who was killed last night by your location shoot?"

"My location shoot?"

"Fine. By the show's location shoot. By the location being used by the television program known as Darkest Night. Whatever. Do the police believe that supernatural forces are responsible for the removal of the man's arm?"

Groves knowing the arm had been removed was better than him knowing it had been bitten off, Tony supposed. Over one of the reporter's polyester-clad shoulders, he saw Amy stick her head in Mason's office. "Are you on cheap drugs?" he asked conversationally.

"Do you use drugs to heighten your senses?" Groves asked in turn.

Tony smiled as Jennifer, Mason's personal a.s.sistant, emerged. Part of Jennifer's job was to protect Mason from unwanted press attention. When she was in a good mood, she extended that protection to the rest of the studio. His smile widened as one set of impeccably manicured fingers clamped down on Groves' shoulder and the other reached low to give the wedgie to end all wedgies.

He joined in Amy's applause as Jennifer frog-marched the reporter across the office by the grip she maintained on the waistband of his tighty whiteys-which was now considerably higher than his waist.

"Foster!" Not surprisingly, Groves' voice sounded shriller than usual. "Does this have anything to do with the Demonic Convergence?"

He stopped applauding and ducked quickly through the door, closing it behind him before Groves could see his face.

"Demonic Convergence?"

Too late to hide his expression from Lee who'd apparently been lurking in the hall, one arm draped nonchalantly over a rack of faux Gypsy-wear.

"Tabloid reporter." Tony shrugged, hoping he sounded a lot more dismissive than he felt. "That sort of s.h.i.+t's his stock in trade."

"Like haunted houses."

"Sure." s.h.i.+t. Not sure. The last thing he wanted was for Lee, who knew d.a.m.ned well haunted houses were real, to start thinking they were about to be involved in an actual Demonic Convergence. Which they were. Tony worked his way past a pair of gorilla suits wondering how the h.e.l.l Groves had known about the DC. Had Leah spoken to him? And if she had, why? And if she hadn't, how else... ?

"Tony!"

He turned just far enough to see that Lee had followed him. Given his ongoing obsession with the actor, not noticing that kind of proximity had to be healthy. Healthier had he not been distracted by the thought of Leah taking Kevin Groves, of all people, into her confidence, but lately he'd take any emotional stability he could get.

"Well?" From Lee's tone of voice, he'd missed half of an entire conversation. "Sorry. I wasn't listening."

"Yeah. I noticed." And Lee wasn't happy about it. Another time, a time when Tony didn't have an immortal stunt-woman, a gung ho RCMP constable, and a Demonic Convergence to deal with-and let's not forget there's also something out there that reduced a grown man to snack food-Lee's unhappiness at his lack of attention would be bringing on a case of the warm fuzzies.

Another time.