Smoke and Ashes (16 page)

Leah's dark eyes widened, and her lower lip went out. “Tony!”

“Do you have proof of this accusation, Mr. Foster?”

“No, but…”

“Then don't make it.”

“Hello! Wizard!” He tried to stand and fell back onto the couch. His second attempt was more successful but only because Zev helped. “Okay. Wizard. Let's assume I know more about what's going on here than…” The room shifted out of focus and back in again. “…than not-wizards, okay? And let's assume that I can…” Whoa. His head felt like a raw egg balanced on a strand of cooked spaghetti. “…I can…”

“You can barely stand, Tony.” Lee didn't sound particularly sympathetic, but then Lee was as enthralled by Leah as Jack and CB.

Okay, forget the room. Focus on Lee's face. You're good at that.
He was. But it had never been so hard before. His brain attempted to toss in a smutty innuendo but didn't quite manage it. “Behind her…there's a big…a big naked…”

On
naked
, Lee turned his attention back to Leah.

Crap.

Tony's knees gave out, and Zev was a second late keeping his head from bouncing off the floor of CB's office.

“That sounded like it hurt.” Amy frowned down at him.

Way to state the obvious.

“He needs to see a doctor.”

Constable Danvers was rapidly becoming one of Tony's favorite people.

“No, he just needs rest. A Powershot uses a lot of personal energy, and that's not something a doctor can fix. No wonder he's babbling.” Leah sounded convincing. Tony would have been more convinced if, when his head fell to one side, he hadn't been looking through a bare foot. An enormous bare foot.

“What happens if another demon attacks before he recovers?” Jack demanded.

“We're screwed.”

Tony wondered if he was the only one who heard,
You're screwed.

“I can shoot it.”

“That's sweet, but bullets will only slow it down. All you can do is hope Tony recovers and that from now on, he does things
my
way.”

Tony was starting to think Leah had some serious control issues. He closed his fingers around Zev's wrist. “All…about…sex.”

As darkness claimed him, he heard CB snort. “Welcome to the wonderful world of television, Mr. Foster.”

 

He came to, stretched out on the couch in CB's office, all his attention on the vegetable soup in a Styrofoam bowl steaming on the coffee table beside him. Ignoring the spoon, he grabbed it with shaking hands and downed it in four swallows. Or, more accurately, three, since a good portion of the fourth he coughed out his nose.

A familiar hand passed over a wad of paper napkins.

“Where's everyone gone?” he asked when he could talk.

“Back to work.” Ryne Cyratane had vanished and Leah looked no more than normally attractive. “Your friends on the force have reports to file and a nonexistent drugged fan to pretend to track down. Your coworkers are finishing the day's pages—well, except for Mason Reed, who leaked news of the incident to the press and is now giving interviews.”

Tony snorted out an alphabet noodle; an F or maybe an E deformed by its passage through his sinuses. “The studio's staying open.”

“Yes.”

“The demons will come here.”

“Yes.”

“Because the gate is putting out the kind of residual power that attracts them more powerfully than you do.”

“Yes.”

“If there're people in the studio, the demon won't just check out the gate, realize it's not you, and go hunting as instructed by its boss. It'll try for a snack and make itself obvious. If it's distracted by a meal, it'll be easier for me to send it home.” His subconscious had put the pieces together while he'd been out. “You're setting up the people here as bait.”

She stared at him for a moment, then she smiled. “Only during business hours. Your vampire can still deal with it after dark. More soup?”

“Sure.” Tony drank, slower this time, and considered his options. His brain felt like it was wrapped in barbed wire. It hurt to think and, as far as he could tell, he didn't actually seem to have any options. Sucked to be him. “I could tell them.”

“About what?”

“About them being bait. About you being a Demongate. About the Demonlord's plan to kill you and take over the world. I could tell them everything.”

“And that would accomplish what?” she asked reasonably, crossing the office and perching on the edge of the coffee table so she could stare earnestly into his face. “CB has very good reasons for not shutting the studio down. I agreed with him, so I helped him convince your friend Jack. Yes, your crew will be in a bit of danger, but if you get your head out of your butt and learn how to deal with the demons, it's all incidental anyway. You'll send them back before they do any damage.”

“Yeah, tell that to Ritz.”

“Who?”

“The gaffer.” He waved at his nose.

“Your gaffer's name is Ritz?”

“Probably not, but that's what he goes by.”

“Right.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “If you'd been here, instead of at my place…”

“I was protecting you!”

Leah ignored him. “…Ritz wouldn't have gotten hurt.”

“So what happened was my fault?”

“It was no one's fault.” Leaning forward, she patted his knee. “Tony, this is working out perfectly. The gate obviously has a more powerful signature than I do or that demon wouldn't have come here first.”

First. He frowned. First? “That wasn't the first demon.”

Leah wrapped a curl around a finger. “Well, no, but…”

“And the first demon didn't come here first.”

“Ah!” She held up a cautioning finger. “We don't know that.”

“It killed a guy, ripped off his arm, and
then
came after you.”

“It probably came to the studio at night when there was no one here, then it found my scent at the stunt site where it killed the construction worker. It was the next day before it found me. If there'd been a wizard in the studio prepared to send it back…” Her voice trailed off dramatically.

“I'm seeing a problem with that.”

“I'm not saying it was your fault that man died.”

“Yeah. Bite me. Let's consider the word ‘probably.'”

She frowned as she went back over what she'd said. Then she rolled her eyes. “Fine. But the second demon definitely came here first—even though we drove right by it—so the odds are certainly in favor of the first demon having done the same thing. Demons at this level aren't known for independent thought. They're just big scary, scaly killing machines. Fortunately, this lot has been given a mission, so there's less random killing.”

“That's comforting.” Tony's head hurt, his shoulder was throbbing, the soup had barely taken the edge off his hunger, and at some point while he was in la-la land, his torn and bloody clothes had been replaced by geek wear off the costume rack. He couldn't decide if he was pissed off, resigned, or just hungry, and he was doing it all while wearing polyester. “So I'll be sitting under the gate, 24/7 until the convergence is over.”

“You'll have breaks between demons. It takes time to divert enough convergent energy to get a demon through even a thinned barrier, and I can't imagine that my lord will be able to pop them out any closer together.”

“He's not still your
lord!
He's trying to kill you!”

“Sure, now, but he's been my lord for thirty-five hundred years. It's not going to be an easy habit to break.”

“And you like using his power.”

“Well, duh.”

Kind of a hard response to argue with. Tony wasn't sure if he admired her honesty or was appalled by it. Bit of both, probably. He dropped his head into his hands and scrubbed at his face. “I took out demon-with-the-arm last night and red-and-toothy this morning, that's barely twelve hours apart.”

“No, it's closer to twenty-four. Demon-with-the-arm acquired the arm the night before he attacked us,” she reminded him. “And look at the bright side, when you're not sending demons back to hell, you can do your job and, more importantly, collect a paycheck. You couldn't work or get paid if you were still following me around.”

He didn't really have an argument for that either. “My laundry is at your place.”

Sensing the win, she smiled. “I'll deal with your laundry.”

“Yeah.” The edge of the Styrofoam cup flaked apart under his fingernails. “Look, the only way I can see ruling out that probably—as in probably the demons will come here first—is if you're here with me. Then the demons will
definitely
come here first.”

Her hand dropped to her side, and the smile disappeared. “Tony, I bled.”

“So?” When he moved, the adhesive tape holding the gauze pad over the hole in his shoulder pulled at sensitive skin.

“The demons can hurt me.”

“Yeah, well, big scary killing machines, remember? You got off easy.” There were three deep scratches under his polyester pant leg. “We both did.”

Leah's eyes narrowed. “Are you being deliberately stupid, or did you hit your head harder than I thought? They're the
only
thing in the world that can hurt me!”

Ah. “So, given the chance, you'd rather they weren't given the chance?”

“And a second brain cell comes online!”

He supposed he could understand her reaction. Except…“You came to me so that I could help you deal with the Demonic Convergence, and now you're putting other people in danger.”

“Oh, no!” Both hands went up, palms toward him. “Don't put that on me. I came to you so we could spackle the weak spots and maybe deal with a few long-legged beasties that'd scuttled in from the closest hells. I never intended to face down demons. And people? People are in danger every time they step into the shower. Do you know how many household accidents happen in the bathroom? Should they stop showering? Or what about the chance of choking and dying? Should everyone stop eating? These demons are the
only
things that can hurt me, and I don't think it's unreasonable that I should avoid them!”

“But they can't
only
hurt you! You've lived for thirty-five hundred years; don't you think shorter lives should be protected because they are shorter?”

She sat back and frowned. “No.”

Actually, he should've seen that coming.

“Look, let's forget about me for the moment and talk about you. You're a wizard, and wizards pretty much have three options.” She flipped up a finger. “An ascetic life of learning.” A second finger. “World domination.” A third finger. “Or supporting the greater good. What's it going to be?”

“World domination.”

All three fingers snapped down. “Wrong answer.”

Was it fair that she could go for so long without blinking? Finally, he looked away and sighed. “Do I get a big red W on my chest?”

“Why would I know about your skin problems?”

“Just asking.”

Her expression bordered on triumphant as she patted his arm and stood. “You really shouldn't waste any time learning those runes. CB says you can stay here and use his office.”

“Me? Where are you going?”

“To get your laundry.” Tone and expression together suggested that if he was all that stood between the world and demonic domination, the world was doomed.

“Right. Laundry.” He watched her walk to the door. “Leah?”

She paused, holding the door handle.

“What if you're wrong? What if the next guy doesn't come here first? What if it goes after you?”

She chewed the corner of her lower lip, looking a lot younger than someone who'd seen her entire village slaughtered thirty-five hundred years ago. Then she tossed her hair back over her shoulder and smiled. It wasn't a particularly believable smile, not when one hand dropped to rest against the curve of her belly. “Then I race back here and you get to be my hero again.”

“But if…”

“Tony, relax, we drove right past that demon this morning and it still came here first. Since I seem to have another option, I'm not going to spend the rest of the Demonic Convergence, however long it lasts, cowering behind you. Nor will I let this latest plan of Ryne Cyratane's control my life any more than I let his first plan control me. You'll deal with the demons; I'll get on with living.”

“And my life?”