Smoke and Ashes Read online

  “What movie?”

  “The one you went to with the borrowed blonde.”

  “Obviously, not great; I don’t remember it. How was the morgue?”

  Nice try. “What morgue?”

  “The one you went to with your borrowed blond.”

  “Before or after the hot Mountie sex?”

  “Look, Tony, if you don’t want me to have any part of this—whatever this is—all you have to do is say so.”

  A long moment passed, and it was as if all that guy banter hadn’t happened. They were back at the Demonic Convergence part of the conversation.

  Tony’d never noticed before that the red light made a noise when it went off. Sort of a faint plock. “I don’t want you to have any part of this,” he said, yanked open the door, and stepped out onto the soundstage.

  He hadn’t expected to be done with work by sunset let alone have time to get from the studio to VanTerm before Leah finished her stunt. But at 5:50, almost an hour before the sun actually went down, he was in his car and heading west on Hastings, squinting behind the shield of his dark glasses.

  VanTerm was a container terminal up on Burrard Inlet. Eventually, everyone shooting any kind of shipping scene in the Vancouver area ended up there because its layout made it easy to crop the shot. For the short time Tony’d been paying attention, it had stood in for San Francisco, New York, New Jersey, Singapore, Gotham City, and at least two alien planets, not to mention the half-dozen times it had actually played itself. It was the UBC of shipping locations.

  He turned right on Victoria Drive, drove more or less the speed limit to Stewart Street, turned left and then right onto the terminal grounds.

  “I’m here for the CBC shoot.” He fumbled out his Director’s Guild Card, but the middle-aged security guard in the box barely looked up from his laptop before waving him through.

  Berth three was past the reefer yard, past the container yard, jutting out into the inlet across the end of the jetty that also held berths one, two, and four. Tony parked by the first truck—freshly purple, the CBC logo bright and shiny on both sides and across the back—locked his car, and started walking. Quickly. It was still a bit of a hike and he wanted to make sure he saw Leah take her dive. It was more of a stunt than CB would ever be willing to pay for—even if the season one Darkest Night DVDs sold as well as Olivia in marketing predicted. Since Olivia in marketing was ten thousand or so in debt to a bookie named Icepick Ernie, no one put much faith in her ability to pick a winner.

  They had four cameras set for the shoot. One up on the back end of the container ship to catch the fall from above, one in a Ports Canada Police boat about ten meters out, and two on the jetty. The two on the jetty were, Tony was happy to notice, one model older than the cameras used by CB Productions.

  “Let’s hear it for government spending,” he muttered, hands in his front pockets as he watched the second unit director set the shot. “Repaint the trucks before you replace the equipment.”

  Still, hard to argue with the kind of pull that got clear skies and a totally killer sunset in a city that got roughly three hundred days of rain a year. When the CBC wanted a sunset, they got one.

  A familiar voice shouting his name turned his attention away from the water.

  “Daniel?”

  CB Productions’ entire stunt team jogged over, grinning.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Daniel patted his radio. “I’m on the safety crew. You don’t honestly think I can support a family on the hours I get from CB, do you?”

  “I thought your wife supported your family.” Daniel’s wife was in advertising. Tony wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but it had, at one point, involved Daniel bringing in packages of wieners for everyone on the shoot.

  “Ouch. Way to kick a guy in the nuts.” But he was still grinning when he said it, so Tony decided not to worry about insulting a man who had black belts in three martial arts and who cheated death for a living. Okay, maybe not death, not most of the time, but he definitely cheated soft tissue damage on a regular basis. “So, you’re done early today.”

  “I am that.”

  “You here to see Leah’s dive?”

  “Yeah.” Tony nodded up at the container ship. “She going from the back end there?”

  “It’s called the stern, you ignorant git.”

  “Looks stern. Also high.”

  “And this is one of the smaller ones. There’s ships out there today that can carry up to and above 8,000 TEU—this one, I’d say no more than 4,000.”

  “No shit.”

  “You have no idea of what I just said, do you? TEU stands for twenty-foot equivalent unit and…uh, never mind. Essentially, this may look big, but there’s lots bigger.” He waved a hand; a Blue’s Clues bandage wrapped around one finger. “Approximately seven meters, railing to surface, into water approximately fifteen meters deep.”

  “Deep enough?”

  Daniel snorted. “More than. And cleaner than usual, too. Ports Canada guys on the boat were saying it was highest tidal backwash they’d ever seen up the inlet. Swept all sorts of crap out to sea.”

  “And that’s good?”

  “Very. Hitting a hunk of crap that floated in past the cleanup crew is always a frightening possibility—where always means not today.”

  Not today, not for Leah, Tony thought as Daniel took on the unmistakable characteristics of someone listening to voices in his head. Coincidence or Demongate? He didn’t have enough information to answer that. He really didn’t want enough information to answer that, but then, it sucked to be him.

  “Divers are in the water.” Daniel clapped him on one shoulder hard enough to rock him back a step. “We’re ready to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “You know you’ve got a burning windmill in your future, right?”

  He paused, half turned. “Frankenstein rip-off?”

  “Homage.”

  “That’s what they all say.”

  True enough, Tony admitted as Daniel jogged back to join the rest of the safety crew on the jetty. The sunset had painted the tops of the waves red-gold and burned highlights along the edges of the ship. Leah, wearing a short blonde wig and a shorter red dress, was standing at the rail talking to a heavyset man with a gleaming shaved head and a down vest. Probably the show’s stunt coordinator. As Tony watched, she glanced down and lifted a hand to acknowledge the divers, then positioned herself with her back to the rail. She had to be on a box. She wasn’t that tall.

  Bald-and-gleaming moved back to stand by the camera.

  The entire crew gathered itself up.

  “Rolling!”

  Tony repeated the word silently as it bounced up and down the jetty. As it faded, he knew the director would be telling Bald-and-gleaming that Leah could go when she was ready.

  Leah’s arms went out; she jerked back and went over.

  Seven meters later, she hit the water butt first, folded just enough to take the heavy slap off her back. From the pumped fist rising up over the video village, the splash, lit by the setting sun, was everything the DP wanted.

  He couldn’t see her surface, the edge of the jetty was in the way, but he heard her.

  “Damn! That’s cold!”

  He joined the crew’s applause and moved closer as the divers swam up to help her to the aluminum ladder Daniel had just lowered into the water. The strappy red high heels seemed to be giving her a bit of a problem, but hands reached down to pull her the rest of the way. She accepted their congratulations with a coy and dripping curtsy, waved toward the director’s double thumbs up and again to Bald-and-gleaming. By the time she got to Tony, she was wrapped in a thermal blanket.

  “You okay?” he asked, falling in to step beside her.

  “Please. Went out of the crow’s nest once on a pirate ship in the Caribbean—1716, it was. Now that was a fall.”

  “I thought you said you spent your time in the beds of powerful men?”

  She winked at him from
under a dripping fringe of wet wig. “What do you think I was doing in the crow’s nest?”

  “Keeping watch?”

  “I had my eyes open if that counts.”

  Tony followed her up into the makeup wagon where she sat, still wrapped in the blanket so that a middle-aged Japanese woman could work the wig off without ripping the lace that attached it to her face.

  “Tony, Hama. Hama, Tony.”

  The makeup artist nodded without looking up.

  “Tony works over at CB Productions.”

  “The vampire show?”

  “That’s the one.”

  She looked up then. “Everett Winchester still with you?”

  “Yeah. But don’t quote me on that.”

  Hama grinned at Everett’s signature line. “Tell him I said hi. All right, that’s it.” She tossed the wig onto the counter where it looked like blonde roadkill. Drowned blonde roadkill. “Get into dry clothes, and I’ll take out the pins.”

  Her own hair still up under a net cap, Leah left the towel in the chair and slipped in behind the set of shelves that separated makeup from wardrobe. It was a layout Tony was familiar with and therefore just a bit on the cheap side for any other show. Still, with only Leah on camera, there wasn’t a lot of point in bringing out two separate trailers.

  “So, you the boyfriend?”

  Given the peal of laughter from behind the shelves, Tony didn’t see much point in answering.

  Hama raised a delicately arched brow. “Apparently not.”

  “We’re just…” Then he paused. What were they? Friends? Not yet. Metaphysical accidents? Closer, but hard to explain.

  “We’re compatriots,” Leah declared, emerging from behind the screen in jeans, a white T-shirt, and a yellow hoodie, dress dripping from one hand and a pair of yellow high-tops in the other. “Partners in crime. Paesano!” She dropped back into the chair and drew her feet up to lace on the sneakers as Hama took the pins out of her hair. Released, it fell in thick black curls reaching just below her shoulders.

  “Your mouth is open,” she snickered, looking up from tying her second shoe. “What?”

  “How the hell do you fit all that hair…” He waved at the wig on the counter. “…under that?”

  “Magic.”

  Tony believed her.

  Bouncing out of the chair, she zipped up the hoodie and turned just far enough to kiss Hama on the cheek. “You are a wizard of the makeup chair. I’ve stair falls next week. Will I see you there?”

  “You will.”

  “Bueno!” She scooped the strap of a plaid shoulder bag up and over her shoulder, and grabbed his arm, not quite dragging him out the door. “Come on, Tony, I’ve got to sign off, then we can go.”

  “The stair falls for the same movie?”

  “Yep. Hell of a way to make a living, eh?”

  “Then why do you do it?”

  “Are you kidding? It’s the most fun I’ve had with immortality since the thirteenth century.” She raised a hand. “Don’t ask. And the money’s nothing to sneeze at. I mean we’re talking $500 a day base rate plus, for this shoot, the CBC increase of 25 percent. I get called for a big budget movie and the increase can be as high as 130 percent—you should maybe learn some basic physical protections and think about it.”

  “No, thanks, I want to direct.”

  “Of course you do. Hey, I’m starving. The moment I finish the paperwork, let’s head for some food.”

  “We’re eating?”

  “And talking. I think you proved last night you can handle both.”

  Last night. Right. “Where’s…?” He gestured at the space over her head.

  “Ryne Cyratane? Probably as far from the gate as he can get. He’s like a cat, hates water. Shit. Shoelace. Hang on.”

  Tony who’d taken a couple of extra steps, turned as she dropped to one knee. The sunset was behind her, the last of the light unexpectedly bright. He raised a hand to shade his eyes, and saw something move. At first he thought it was the Demonlord, then he realized it was significantly more solid and was swinging a human arm directly through the space Leah’s head had just occupied.

  She dropped flat, warned by the swish or the smell or both, and rolled away from a kick that would have disemboweled her had the claws made contact.

  Disemboweled anyone else.

  As Leah rose to her knees, he thought he saw a familiar breadth of translucent bare shoulders behind her although with the sun in his eyes it was hard to tell for certain. “Do something!”

  “Do what?” There were scales and horns and whoa! Teeth!

  “Wizard it!”

  Right.

  He folded the middle two fingers of his right hand in and swung his right arm back and then around and over his head. He was supposed to shout the eleven words of the spell clearly and distinctly, but clear and distinct got dumped in favor of speed. Things that were mostly serrated edged were fucking motivating! As long as the arm motion and the words finished as the same time it should…

  Energy surged up from his feet, roared through his body, and blew out of his outstretched arm, arcing between forefinger and little finger then blasting forward.

  The sudden flash was impressive.

  “Tony?” Leah scrambled across the asphalt toward him. “Are you all right?”

  Good question. Bits hurt. Hardly surprising since the spell had knocked him back on his ass. He blinked away brilliant blue afterimages. “I think I broke my tailbone.”

  “Yeah…” She slipped an arm behind his shoulders and levered him up. Fortunately, her Demonlord seemed to have taken a powder because being cuddled by them both would have been too weird. “…and your fingernails are smoking.”

  One last narrow wisp of smoke drifted off into the twilight from the ends of both blackened nails. “Ow.”

  “Well put. What do you call that?”

  “Arra called it a Powershot.” His fingers felt scalded, but he could use his hand. “What the hell was that thing?”

  “That was a demon.”

  “A demon? Like a Demonic Convergence demon? Like nothing to worry about because we’ll only have to deal with imps? That kind of a demon?”

  “It shouldn’t be here!”

  “No shit!”

  Still supporting most of his weight, she glared down at him. From this close, Tony could see a tiny scar at the edge of her right eyebrow. “Quit yelling at me! It’s not helping!”

  He could also see that she was really most sincerely freaked and that threatened to send him into strong hysterics. When thirty-five-hundred-year-old immortal stuntwomen got freaked, it was time for the rest of the world to fucking lose it. Fortunately—for some weird definition of fortunately he didn’t want to go into right now—he was too exhausted to start up the whole oh, my God, we’re all going to die thing. After a couple of deep breaths, he managed a fairly calm, “What happened to it?”

  “Ash.”

  “And the arm?”

  Leah nodded toward a long, narrow lump of black on the pavement. “It got just a little overcooked.”

  “But the demon is ash?”

  “The demon was other, the arm was flesh.”

  That almost made sense. Tony struggled to sit up a little straighter, but someone seemed to have snuck into his body and replaced all his muscles with marshmallows. “I don’t feel so good.”

  “Considering the way you just blew your wad, I’m not surprised.”

  “Nice imagery.”

  “Thank you. Can you…” Approaching voices cut her off and suddenly it became necessary he sit up on his own as Leah withdrew her arm and stood. “Oh, no, here comes the cavalry. They must’ve seen the flash. You get that arm packed up and let me deal with them.”

  Deal? Tony managed to brace himself on one hand and turn enough to see three men approaching from the jetty. Then Leah crossed into his line of sight, hips moving to an ancient rhythm. She laughed in answer to something one of the men said, a low, throaty sound that held heated su
ggestion.

  And if even he could feel the heat, the odds were very high that none of the three men were now paying any attention to anything else.

  You get that arm packed up.

  Yeah. Right. Like that was the sort of thing he did every day. Well, actually, given the content of Darkest Night, he’d done it a couple of times helping out the set dresser. He rolled up onto his feet, swayed for a moment, and staggered back to the makeup trailer where he begged a garbage bag from the box on the counter.

  “Are you feeling all right?” Hama asked as she handed it over. “You don’t look so good.” Her eyes narrowed. “You should be a medium beige and you’re down to a light ivory.”

  “I’m fine. Just a little tired.”

  “You need more protein and less pizza. Especially if you’re going to spend time with Leah.”

  “I’m not spending that kind of time with her.” He’d just rest for a moment longer against the open door.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m gay.”

  “I’m generally fairly cheerful myself,” she said dryly. “Trust me about Leah and red meat. Now close the door and go; you’re letting cold air in.”

  It wasn’t easy finding the remains of the arm. The banks of overhead lights shining down on the stacks of containers created nearly impenetrable shadow and, half blind, he almost tripped over it before he saw it. It looked like a long lump of charcoal roughly carved into the shape of an arm—a slight bend in the black where the elbow might be and little stubby fingers on one end. Given that the construction worker’s other hand had been relatively normal, he had to assume the stubbiness occurred after death. Had the Powershot burned the fingers away? Or had the demon snacked on the end of his weapon?

  “Demon snacks. Right. Why can’t I ever spend time thinking about cars or getting laid, like a normal guy?” He sighed as he shook out the garbage bag. It was one of the small white ones made for garbage pails under the sink and it smelled vaguely of mint.

  The scar on the palm of his left hand twitched as he dropped heavily to one knee beside the arm, and he hesitated, fingers spread out about five centimeters over the burned flesh.

  “Problem?” Leah’s voice behind his right shoulder.

  “The last time I picked up an arm, it wasn’t…fun.” Hello, understatement.