Smoke and Ashes (34 page)

“I guessed.” At the edge of his vision he could see her clutching the dashboard, knuckles white. “Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah. Things blew, but no one got hurt.”

“No one we know.”

“Hey, if you know how I can fucking save everyone, tell me now!”

“I was just…” Her protest trailed off as he ran a stop sign. “Sorry.”

“We know where they're going, and if they do any more damage, it'll just be en route.”

“And once they arrive.”

“Yeah.” A light rain speckled his windshield. He flicked on the wipers. Trashing the studio meant trashing a lot of expensive equipment.

“They won't be expecting a vampire.” Her tone suggested she was trying to cheer him up. It almost worked.

“Who does?”

The damp roads were greasy. Speeding around a corner, the car started to fishtail. Tony stomped on the gas and fought to straighten out, cursing under his breath. Something crunched as he passed an old blue Buick Regal, but he convinced himself it was garbage on the road and not a door panel.

“You just…”

“No, I didn't.”

“Why are you driving? Specifically, why are you driving instead of me?”

“Good question.”

“Okay.” After a moment, she said, “Ballard Power Systems is a hydrogen fuel development company.”

“How do you know that?”

“I did some wire work around one of their tanks.”

“Big boom?”

“Then, no. Tonight, very.”

“Good thing CB and Amy were right there to call it in.” It made him feel a little less guilty about sending them.

“Seems strange that there were two sites that led to explosions plus a…Jesus, Tony!” Her fingers locked back down on the dash. “What was that for?”

“Squirrel.”

“You swerved into oncoming traffic to miss a squirrel?”

“He's not protected by a Demongate.”

“You don't know that.”

“Very funny.” Not much farther. Napier Street would take them right to Boundary. “Two explosions plus a what?”

“An apartment building.” He heard her settle back in the seat and wondered about her expression, but it didn't seem smart to take his eyes off the road.

“So? You said the weak spots happen anywhere something's missing.”

“Well, yes, but if these three are deliberate, aimed for maximum shit disturbing, as it were, why an apartment building?”

“Population density. Lots of people screaming.” Boundary traffic was annoyingly heavy. Tony slid between a truck and a hatchback and sped south toward the studio. “Furniture thrown off balconies. A distraught mother screaming that the monster has her baby.”

“You had me at population density.”

“I like to be thorough.”

“Tony…”

And sometimes, just one word was enough. South of the studio, the streetlights were blowing out all along the east side of the road.
Bam. Bam. Bam
. Heading north. Shards of glass showered down, glittering in the passing headlights. Tires screamed. Horns blared. No accidents yet.

No accidents in sight,
Tony amended, barely slowing to head into the studio parking lot. There was a whole lot of road in between the Fraser and CB Productions. The lot lights blew as he parked the car, and a shadow passed between him and the building.

A big shadow.

So much for beating it back to the studio and setting a trap.

 

Feeding off Kevin Groves had been reflex. The reporter had walked into the soundstage, realized they were alone, and bared his throat, a desperate desire rolling off him like smoke.

Henry could have stopped himself, but the emotional need drew him as much as the blood. He expected the sharp intake of breath as his teeth met through soft skin. The look of peace as he swallowed a single mouthful of blood then drew back was less usual.

“Complete truth,” Groves sighed. “No codicils, no compromises.” Then his eyes snapped open, and he stared at Henry in rising panic. “It's just, you know, lies. I get so tired of them. Everyone lies. You don't. Even when you are. Lying. Please don't hurt me.” He stared at the drop of blood rising from the puncture on his wrist and his eyes widened. “You really did it. Oh, God.” Shaking fingers fumbled his PDA from his jacket's inside pocket. “I need to ask you some stuff.”

“No.”

The PDA fell from nerveless fingers, the plastic case cracking against the concrete floor. “Okay.”

“Go to Raymond Dark's office and sit down. Stay there. Don't move unless you're avoiding a threat.” He could hear glass shattering outside.

“What about…”

“Now.”

Raymond Dark's office was safer, given that it was not directly under the power residue drawing the demons. Safer. Not safe.

Concrete block walls, no windows into the soundstage. The weakest point was the large door the carpenters used. It had, once again, been left unlocked.

Metal screamed.

Henry raised a speculative brow. Apparently tonight's demon would rather go through the door than open it.

Expected, the shower of cherries was no less annoying.

 

“Son of a fucking bitch!”

The big sliding door had been pulled half off its track, the steel scored in three parallel lines. CB was going to be pissed.

Something howled. A cherry bounced out into the parking lot.

Tony dropped his laptop case by the wall and took a deep, steadying breath. “Get in there and see if it's marked for you. If not, help Henry.”

“And if it is?”

“It won't be. Maximum mayhem, remember? There's a lot less mayhem if it heads right for the person standing beside the guy kicking demon ass back home.”

“That was actually very convincing.”

He glanced up to see her staring speculatively down at him. “Thank you. Now haul ass.” Without waiting for a response, he turned his attention back to the laptop, clutched the pull thing on his fly—the spell needed a metal ground—and recited the words of the Notice Me Not.

 

This demon was no tentacled monstrosity. It walked on two legs like a man and had a caricature of a man's face—two eyes, one nose, and a mouth. Except the eyes were orange lid to lid, the nose nearly invisible under a plate of its chitinous body armor, and the mouth lipless, with more of the body armor growing up into gleaming tusks. The armor changed color to match its surroundings, and it was now fading down from night-sky black to concrete gray. Henry got a close look at one of the arm plates as it knocked him across the soundstage to slam into the outside wall. When it withdrew the arm, it dangled a length of yellow nylon rope from one thick wrist.

It was fast but no faster than Henry.

Strong, but no stronger.

Four arms, however, that's a bit of a problem.
This time, at least, he managed to keep hold of the rope. He rolled back under a slash that gouged the floor and managed to get a loop of rope around one leg as it lifted to stomp him. Ducked. Whirled.

“Nightwalker!”

Threw the coil of rope over the left arms to the Demongate.

She caught it. Whipped it back along the floor.

Henry kicked at the side of the demon's knee. Heard chitin crack. Scooped up the rope as he took a blow hard enough to crack even his ribs. He crashed to the floor and thought just for a moment he heard his father's voice bellowing at him to get up. His father had never approved of him being unhorsed. Snarling, Henry caught the next descending arm and threw himself back still holding it, trapping it under another loop of the rope.

Too close!

One of the lower tusks raked his shoulder, ripping through shirt and skin and filling the room with the rich scent of his own blood. At first he thought the flash of light was based in pain, but then he saw the rune take shape.

The demon veered away from the lines of blue fire, giving the Demongate a chance to slam it in the side of the head with what looked like a microphone stand.

Closing three hands around one end of the metal pole, the demon yanked it from her hands, raising it over its head to bring it down in a killing blow. At the apex of its backswing, the microphone stand went flying from its grip to land with a clatter behind one of the false walls.

“You must hate it that your master's spell protects her even from you,” Henry growled and ripped a plate of chitin from its shoulder.

It shrieked.

A second rune hung in the air.

He couldn't see Tony although it was obvious that Tony was there. Not obvious to the demon, thank God. It continued to keep clear of the runes but made no attempt to find the wizard drawing them.

 

Henry was hurt.

Leah wasn't. The world rearranged itself so that that demon kept missing her. The resulting contortions would have tied a human spine in knots. Demons were more flexible.

Lots more flexible, Tony realized as, chitin plates creaking, the demon curled around limbs wrapped in rope and charged toward Henry from a completely unexpected angle.

Concentrate on the rune!

He'd already screwed the third rune up once tonight. He couldn't afford to do it again. More specifically, Henry couldn't afford for him to do it again.

Three runes.

His head pounded as he began the fourth, keeping it next to the third as he finished it. If he drew the final rune in its proper place, the demon might realize his intent before he finished and go after him instead of Leah and Henry. The demon wouldn't be able to see him, not if the Notice Me Not was still working, but any kind of a charge in his direction would take it out from between the runes.

With any luck, his ability to move energy around was unique enough it would be unexpected. After all, how many wizards got trapped in haunted houses redolent with the waxy buildup of evil and ended up symbolically branding themselves in order to save the day? Well, the rune on his palm was symbolic; the branding part had been agonizingly real.

Tony'd just sketched in the final swooping crosspiece when the door between the offices and the soundstage bounced off the wall of Raymond Dark's sanctuary and crashed to the floor.

The wall swayed but stayed up.

It had been a soundproof door. Big, and thick, and heavy, it used to be attached to the wall with large metal hinges. The demon that had thrown it was mostly two enormous arms and the supporting torso. No head to speak of but just under where logic insisted the lower edges of its ribs should be—had logic not decided discretion was the better part of valor and buggered off for coffee—was a huge fang-filled mouth. There were no runes or glyphs or Post-it notes allowing it to take out Leah.

Jack and Lee's demon.

It had fucking well
better
be Jack and Lee's demon!
Because if it wasn't, they'd missed a hole, and if they'd missed one, then they could have missed a dozen and a dozen extra demons were twelve more than Tony wanted to deal with.

He finished the final rune but didn't move it into place, waiting until the second demon joined the first under the gate.

It stood, weight forward on its knuckles, and watched the fight. Maybe it sensed the trap—hardly surprising with three blue patterns of glowing energy suspended in the air and nothing distracting it. Maybe it was waiting until the first demon took the edge off a common enemy. Maybe demons liked to see other demons get the chitin kicked off them. Whatever the reason, the gate wasn't enough to draw it between the runes.

What could he add as enticement?

What did demons want?

Foot on knee, on elbow, on shoulder—Leah leaped for the light grid, kicking the demon hard in the face. It fell back, she dangled, and Tony called her jacket and shirt into his hand.

Fabric tore, buttons bounced off demon, vampire, and concrete.

Most of the Demongate was exposed between track pants and white lace bra.

The oldest operating spell in the world. Leah'd said it was what had drawn the Demonic Convergence, so demons were obviously interested in it even when they hadn't been marked to destroy her. Since they hadn't been marked, Leah was half dressed but still completely safe, protected by the spell.

From the look on Leah's face, if this didn't save the day, demons would be a minor problem as far as Tony, personally, was concerned.

The second demon roared and charged forward.

Tossing the handful of white silk aside, Tony shouted out the words for the clean cantrip.

Scrubbing bubbles covered the floor of the soundstage, knee-deep.

The second demon started to slide, threw out a massive hand to stop itself, overbalanced and, other arm flailing, slammed into the first demon. Chiton cracked. They both went down.