Smoke and Ashes (33 page)

Or fortunately, given how little he'd been looking forward to explaining what was going on.

“You'd think it'd be in apartment 666, wouldn't you?”

“Like I keep telling the vampire,” Leah snorted. “Wrong kind of demons.”

“Hey!”

“I'm picking a lock here, Tony. If someone hears us, the words
vampire
and
demon
will be the least of our problems.”

She had a point.

He could hear at least one television—maybe two—and a couple of different kinds of music, but at just after nine on a Friday night, most of the people who lived on the seventh floor seemed to still be out. Or they were sitting silently in the dark behind their locked doors. Tony had no intention of ruling the latter out.

The hall smelled like sausages and a spice that bounced around the back of his nose like a pinecone, doing multiple points of damage with every landing.

“That's it.” Leah rocked back off her knees and stood, reaching for the door handle. “But if there's a chain…”

There was. It was dangling down inside the door, unlocked.

“Nice to see they're taking home security so seriously.”

“You come home drunk and the chain's a pain in the ass to get open,” Tony explained as they moved inside and closed the door behind them. “And why do
you
know how to pick locks?”

“I hang around with a bad crowd in the fifties.”

“You mean hung around.”

“No. I mean that every century, I hang around with a bad crowd in the fifties. I like having a schedule.” She didn't sound like she was kidding. Reaching back, she flipped on the lights. “Good lord.”

Tony snapped his laptop closed and raised his left hand, palm out, rune in defensive position. “What!”

“It looks like your place: beige walls, cheap furniture, and an overpriced entertainment system.”

“That was it? I thought you saw something dangerous.” He started breathing again and his heart rate began to slow.

“No, just bland.” Walking out into the living room, she shook her head. “And if it wasn't so bland, the similarities would be frightening.”

“First of all,” Tony muttered, sliding his laptop into the backpack, “that's a sheet on the window, not a flag, and second, this has a separate bedroom.”

“Which is probably beige.”

“Hey, he has a set of RexTeck speakers—3-D sound effects and an awesome bass boost.” Leah's silence pulled him around. “What? I've heard great things about them.”

“Heard great things about demons taking over the city?”

Oh, sure. But she could take the time to discuss interior decorating. Half turned from examining the speakers, he paused. “The weak spot's right there.” He could see the shimmer hanging just in front of the floor-to-ceiling shelves of DVDs. “But I thought there had to be something missing?”

Leah moved closer and examined the shelves. “He's missing the third
Aliens
movie.”

“He's not missing much.”

“And
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
although he has all the rest.”

“Motionless picture,” Tony grunted.

“Oh, my God, he's got a copy of
The Princess Diaries
. One and Two!”

“Maybe I should just close this up before he comes home and finds you dissing Julie Andrews.” Setting the backpack on the floor, he wiped damp palms on his thighs and pointed a finger to start the first rune. A horrible groan came from the far wall. “What the hell was that?”

“The elevator.”

“Is it…?”

“Him?” Her gesture made it clear she meant the usual occupant of the apartment. “How should I know? Just wiz.”

“Wiz?”

“Wiz!”

The first rune went through the wall of DVDs with no problem. So did the second. The third got stuck.

“Stuck?” Leah moved away from her listening post by the door and glared at him. “It can't get stuck if you've done it right.”

“It's right.”

“Are you sure? Check the cheat sheet.”

“I didn't bring it.”

“Oh, for…” She came farther into the apartment, and hauled up her track jacket and the shirt under it. “Check the original, then.”

Tony gave the rune another ineffective shove and dropped to his knees, thumbs hooked behind the waistband of Leah's track pants to pull them low enough to see the rune. Head cocked to one side, squinting a little, he moved so close he could feel the air between them warm.

The apartment door opened.

Tony glanced up to see a young man blinking at them blearily, keys dangling from one hand. When he finally managed to take in the tableau, he grinned and flashed a double thumbs-up. “Dude!”

“Ignore him,” Leah snapped, tapping the tat with one scarlet-tipped finger. “Check the rune.”

“Wait a minute.” He was sounding less bleary by the word. “Why are you in my…”

“Got it.”

“…apartment?”

Tony stood as Leah turned, dimples flashing an offer no straight boy could refuse. He tugged the center of the glowing blue line farther out from the center of the pattern then pushed. With a sizzle and a faint smell of burning plastic, the rune slipped the rest of the way through.

One more.

Half finished with the fourth rune, refusing to be distracted by what was happening on the sofa, Tony felt the hair lift off his body—his entire body, not just the back of his neck.
Man, never going to get used to that.
Turning, he got an eyeful of Ryne Cyratane and had barely made the very short trip from appreciation to apprehension when a spray of red-and-purple sparks arced out into the room.

They were coming from the shelves of DVDs.

Crap!

Tony finished off the fourth rune so fast he nearly sprained his wrist. Left hand flat against it, he shoved it after the others.

And stumbled forward, unable to lift his hand.

A heartbeat later, he was wrist-deep in the DVDs.

“Leah!”

“Busy.”

“I don't care!” Yanking back only threatened to dislocate his elbow. “Le—!”

Hands closed on his shoulders, fingers digging in painfully tight. Next thing he knew he was flying. A short flight and a bad landing. Lying in a crumpled heap on the ruin of a cheap coffee table, Tony checked to make sure his arm had actually come with him.

“Time to go.”

“Ow. Ow! OW!” Protests didn't seem to matter. Leah hauled him to his feet and hustled him toward the door. Seemed like everything worked. Not quite to the original specs, but he was up and moving. He snagged his laptop case as they passed. “What about…?”

“He got a great memory and a broken coffee table,” Leah snapped, dragging him out into the hall and shutting the door. “I think he came out even. Come on. If we get into the elevator before he gets his pants back on, he'll never know what we looked like.”

“What if we have to wait for the elevator?”

They didn't.

She shoved him in, charged in after him, hit the button to close the door, hit the button for the first floor, and sagged against the stainless steel wall. “What did you do?”

“Me?”

“That spot wasn't close enough to blow like that.”

“It was plenty close.”

“Not close enough. I'd have felt it!”

They glared at each other for a moment.

“Okay.” Tony flexed the fingers of his left hand. The scar felt hot. “Let me think about this for a minute.”

“Don't strain anything,” she muttered, adjusting her clothes.

“Nice. I think we hit a metaphysical overload.”

“A what?”

“Between that weak spot being so close, you and your tat, me and my…” He waved the scar. “…power, then the whole distracting with sex invoking your Demonlord, I think we reached a point where things started to happen.”

“That actually makes a certain logical sense.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Sighing, he mirrored her position on the opposite wall. “And thanks for hauling me out.”

She stopped buttoning her shirt long enough to shrug. “Even I can't get a guy to ignore you if you keep hanging around.”

“Not then. When you pulled me out of the DVDs.”

Dark brows rose.

“You didn't pull me out of the DVDs?”

“I didn't pull you out of the DVDs.”

“Then who…” His gaze dropped to the tat, disappearing under white silk.

“No.” Leah shook her head as the door opened and they moved quickly across the apartment building lobby. “First of all, he has no corporeal form on this plane and second, why would he help you? You're trying to stop him.”

“Maybe I'm not.”

“What? Stopping him?” She linked her arm through his and dropped to a sedate walk as they moved away from the apartment building and toward his car. He wanted to run, but he made himself match her pace. “Since I remain unslaughtered, I think you're stopping him fine so far.”

“Not what I meant. Maybe…” The theme from
Darkest Night
cut him off. Sliding his cell phone out of the pocket on his backpack, Tony flipped it open and glanced at the screen. “It's Amy.” Thumbing it on, he held it to his left ear.

“Tony! It's out! There were all kinds of wild lights, and then it was like a bomb went off! This tanker by Ballard Power Systems totally blew! I had to call 911 before I called you!”

Shit. Shit. Shit. “CB?”

“He's making sure everyone's out of the building. I'm heading to the Future Shop warehouse to do the same! Tony, this thing was nasty looking. It took a swipe at me as it went by.”

The metaphysical taint! He'd totally fucking forgotten it when he'd sent Amy out to face a demon.

To observe a harmless little weak spot.

Yeah. Big difference.

“Are you okay?”

“It knocked me on my ass, but it was like I wasn't worth its time. I'm…”

Call waiting beeped out the last few words.

He checked the screen. Lee. Who'd been shadow-held twice. And possessed. If Amy had a faint taint just from acting as an anchor while he spoke with a dead housemaid, Lee must have a big red metaphysical target painted on his chest. “Amy, tell me you're fine!”

“I'm fine!”

“Stay that way!” Left hand thumbed the link. Right hand unlocked the car. Stomach twisted as he fought the urge to puke. “Lee?”

“Tony! The tear ripped just after we got to it!”

“Are you hurt?”

“What? No! Jack emptied half a clip into the demon, and it lost interest in us.”

Lost interest in you.
“My fault.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I sent you out there.”

“Hey, grown man here. I knew the risks.”

He didn't know all the risks because Tony hadn't thought to tell him.
How could I have forgotten about…Hang on.
There were alarms going off in the background. “What's happening?”

“Our demonic buddy didn't so much explode out of the building as explode the building!”

“Fire?”

“No. Rubble. I thought there was smoke, but it was steam. Jack says there must've been a boiler plant in the basement. A few of the surrounding buildings took some collateral damage. The whole place looked empty; the lights were off and all, but Jack's checking for casualties. I called it in before I called you. Tony, we're going to have to stick around here. We won't make it back to the studio before…”

Good, because there's going to be demons at the studio!
Where it looked like it would be just him and Leah and Henry, and that was how it should be. No normal people—however tainted—getting hurt. Circumstances had stepped up to the plate.

“Don't sweat it.” Phone clamped between ear and shoulder, he slammed the car into gear and roared out of his parking space and down the empty street. “You're sure you're okay?”

“Yeah, we're good!”

We? Right. Jack. “Stay good.”

“Can you handle…?”

“Yes.” Tony took his hand off the gearshift long enough to turn off the phone and toss it toward Leah. “Both of the other weak spots blew.”

“Another metaphysical overload?” She didn't seem to be making fun of him.

“Probably the same one. They were timed to go off together, remember. When ours tried to open, theirs did, too, but only ours got closed. We're heading for the studio.”