Smoke and Mirrors (46 page)

The almost gratitude in Mason's eyes was almost enough to make up for the kick Brianna landed on his shins. Almost.

“And if you phase off again . . .” Peter shrugged. “Well, we can still hear you, so just keep talking.”

“I don't think that'll be a problem. The conservatory's up next and we have the gardener's head in a backpack. Part of the program's missing. It can't reboot.”

“Computer metaphor?” Zev asked him, grinning.

Tony grinned back. “Best I could do on short notice.” Fuck, maybe it
was
all about Mason because with him up and about, the mood certainly had changed. They were all working together again. The “us” defined against Mason's “them.” If the basement had taken Mason instead of Lee, they'd be out of here by now. He managed to move his lower arm about two inches from his upper. His fingernails still looked kind of opalescent, but he could feel his fingers. He kind of wished he couldn't, but the pain breaking up into specific areas was probably a good thing. “Okay, then. Let's . . .”

The door leading to the kitchen began to swing open.

Everyone crowded to the far end of the room. Behind Tony.

And given the size of the room and the numbers in the crowd, having everyone behind him pushed Tony to within about three feet of the door.

Sure.
Now
you're all fine with the wizard thing.

The lantern light extended just far enough to illuminate Lee's smiling face.

No one moved.

Tony's heart beat so hard the burn on his chest ached in time.

“Lee?”

Might have been Peter. Might have been Adam. Tony wasn't sure.

Green eyes gleamed. As Lee opened his mouth, Tony answered for him.

“No. That's not Lee.”

His smile had too many angles. Tony knew Lee's smile and this wasn't it.

“The thing in the basement,” Lee said mockingly, “wants to talk to you.”

No need to be more specific. They all knew who he was referring to.

“Why?” Tony demanded.

“I don't know.”

“Give it up. For all intents and purposes, you
are
the thing in the basement.”

“Why, so I am.” One long-fingered hand brushed back through the fall of dark hair. “But I don't want to talk to you in front of an audience—talk about a tough room. Unfortunately, you refused to be lured, so I had to go with the direct approach. Come downstairs and face me.”

“And if I don't?”

Lee's hands started to tremble and the velvet voice roughened. “I think you know the answer to that.”

“If you don't go with him, the thing in the basement will hurt Lee!”

Tony sighed. “Yeah, Tina, I got it.”

“Well, pardon me for wanting to be clear about things,” the script supervisor muttered.

This time the smile was almost Lee's.

Tony looked past him, into the darkness of the kitchen, at the edge of the ceiling over the door, down toward the floor at his feet—anywhere but at the smile that almost
wasn't
Lee's. “Let me talk it over with the others.”

“Why? You know you're going to come with me.”

“Let's pretend I have a choice.”

“All right.” Dark amusement flashed in the depths of the green eyes. “Let's pretend. You talk. I'll wait.”

Tony turned, stepped back toward the pack, and motioned for the others to huddle around him.

“If you go down there and the thing in the basement destroys you, what the hell are we supposed to do?” Amy demanded.

“Thanks for caring.”

“You know what I mean!”

“If it destroys me, you stay in here and do anything you have to in order to survive until sunrise.”

Adam shook his head. “How do you know it'll let us go at sunrise?”

“It's traditional.”

“In order for a thing to become a tradition, it has to happen more than once,” Zev pointed out, dragging Brianna back into the huddle and away from Lee.

“In every movie . . .”

“This isn't a movie!”

Tony closed his eyes and counted to three. “Look, you'll just have to trust me on the sunrise thing. Besides, I think I'll be okay. Brenda implied it didn't want me destroyed.”

“Why not?”

“She didn't say.” Technically, she'd only said that the thing in the basement didn't want Lee to destroy him. It could still want to do the nasty itself. Since he was going into the basement regardless, Tony didn't see a lot of point in mentioning that. “Does anyone have a mirror? I left Tina's in the ballroom.”

“Honestly, Tony, you should be more careful when you borrow something!”

“I'm sorry.”

“I'd had that compact for years.”

“It's still there; you can get it in the morning.”

“Oh, sure.” Her nostrils flared. “
If
I survive. Well, even if I were willing to lend you another mirror, I don't have one.”

“Amy?”

“Please.” She tucked a strand of black-tipped magenta hair behind her ear. “I look this good when I leave the house and it lasts all day.”

After a long moment, Mason sighed and pulled a small silver compact out of his pants pocket. “I like to check my touch-ups,” he explained as he passed it over.

“You always look wonderful!” Ashley gushed up at him.

He nodded. “True.”

All eyes tracked Tony as he slid the compact into his front pocket. He leaned farther into the huddle and murmured, “Let the gardener's head out while I'm gone. I want to see how the thing in the . . .” Screw it, life was too short. “. . . the
thing
reacts to a replay.”

“Mouse and Mason?” Zev asked.

Glancing over at the actor and the cameraman, he didn't immediately understand Zev's point. Mason ignored him—business as usual—Mouse peered at him through his viewfinder. Oh. Right. The possible return of the crazies. If the replays began again, would the house then feel it could expend the power to repossess? If Mouse and Mason didn't remember how far they'd fallen apart, could they make the decision to risk it again?

Did he have the right to risk them—all of them; a crazy Mouse was a dangerous roommate—for the sake of information that might not be relevant?

Might be, though.

No way of telling.

“Tony?”

“Ask them first.” The good of the many.
Yeah, like that'll apply to Mason.
He touched the hard ridge of the compact, and straightened.

“So you going, then?” Sorge asked.

“Of course he's going,” Peter answered. The director reached across the huddle and clasped Tony's forearm. “Bring Lee back to us. We can't lose him now; he's pulling in as much fan mail as Mason is.”

“More.”

As Mason sputtered, everyone else craned their heads to stare at the thing that was Lee.

He shrugged. “Small room, and Peter's voice tends to carry. Are you coming, Tony?”

No,” Tony muttered under his breath as he turned, “just breathing hard. Ow!” He scowled at Amy as he rubbed his bad arm. “What the hell was that for?”

“So not the time to make jokes!”

“Can't think of a better time.” Picking one of the lanterns up off the counter, he waved it toward the kitchen. “Let's go.”

“Don't want to be alone in the dark with me?” Lee asked as the pantry door closed behind them.

“Stop it.”

“You don't think your attraction to me might have caused me to ask myself a few questions about the way I'm living my life?”

“Yeah, right,” Tony snorted. “With one bound, he was up and a gay? I don't think so.”

“Perhaps you're selling yourself short.”

“Perhaps you should shut the fuck up.”

He could hear the creaking of Lucy's rope up on the third floor. Karl crying. The band playing on. Aware of each sound momentarily before it faded to background again.

The basement door was open. The memory of touching the doorknob spasmed though Tony's left hand and the new pain burned a little of the rigidity out of his arm. Eyes watering, he realized that
no pain, no gain
was quite probably the stupidest mantra he'd ever heard. And that whole wizard being able to feel power thing truly sucked.

As he followed Lee down the basement stairs, the lantern light seemed to close around him, as though the darkness was too thick for it to make much of an impression. Old boards creaked under his weight as he hurried to keep up, not wanting to lose sight of the other man.

The splash as he stepped off onto the concrete floor came as a bit of a surprise. So did the cold water seeping in through his shoes. Apparently Graham Brummel hadn't been kidding about the basement flooding.
Great. And the thing knows, because Lee knows, about tossing live wires into the water and making soup.

He'd half turned back toward the stairs before he realized he'd moved. He didn't want to be soup. But then, who did? A rustling from above caught his attention and he lifted the lantern. The light just barely made it to the top of the stairs. The gardener's hand rose up on its wrist and flipped him the finger.

Looked like they hadn't released the head.

On the bright side, he could hear neither Karl nor the band. The silence was glorious. Muscles he hadn't realized were tense relaxed.

“Cold feet, Tony?”

“Yeah. Cold and wet.”

“You're perfectly safe. I don't want to hurt you.”

Not Lee,
he reminded himself.
Also, big fat creepy evil liar.
Wrapping his left hand carefully around the handle of the lantern, he slid Mason's compact out of his pocket and quietly thumbed it open. He almost pissed himself as Lee's hand closed around his elbow.

“Come closer.”

“I was
going
to.”

“You're still standing at the foot of the stairs.”

“I know! I said I was going to.” He took a deep breath, hated the way it shuddered on the exhale, and allowed Lee to pull him forward. The basement smelled of mold and old wood and wet rock.

He stumbled once on a bit of cracked concrete, but Lee's grip kept him on his feet. Hurt like hell, since he was gripping the left arm but better than falling when falling would have extinguished his light. “Thanks.”

“Like I said, I don't want you hurt.”

“I wasn't thanking you.”

Amused. “Yes, you were.”

Not amused. “Bite me.”

At least the reflection of the lantern light off the water pushed the darkness back a little farther. Enough to see Lee if not the actual basement. Under the circumstances, it didn't exactly help to see Lee, but it was nice to know he wasn't alone. Of course, Lee all by himself wasn't alone. He suppressed most of a totally inappropriate snicker.

“Care to share the joke?”

“It's not really very funny.”

The sound of them splashing forward bounced off hard surfaces, nearly but not quite an echo. Made sense; big house, big basement. Tony was pretty sure he could hear water . . . not so much running as dribbling . . . somewhere close.

“So, is there a laundry room down here?”

“Yes.”

“Wine cellar?”

“There is.”

“Bathroom?”

“No.”

“That's too bad because all this wet is reminding me that I could really use a chance to piss.”

“Too bad.”

He snorted. “Yeah, well I've walked through worse, so how are you going to stop me if I just whip out and let 'er rip?”

Lee's grip tightened way past the point of pain. Tony's hand spasmed. The lantern fell. Without releasing his hold, Lee bent and gracefully scooped it out of the air just before it hit the water, straightened, and hung it back over Tony's fingers.

Teeth so tightly clenched he thought he could hear enamel crack, Tony held the lantern as securely as possible and yanked his arm free. He staggered, would have fallen but slammed up against a stone pillar instead, forgave it for new bruises, and collapsed against its support.
Right. Taunting the thing in the basement—bad idea.

Gaining a little more movement in his left hand—bad trade.

“I don't
want
to hurt you.”

“Yeah, I get the emphasis.” His voice sounded almost normal, which was good because he hadn't totally ruled out screaming as an option. “You don't want to, but you will.”

Lee continued walking to where the edge of the light lapped up against a section of the fieldstone foundations then he turned and spread his hands. “I have a proposition for you.”

Déjà vu all over again. “What is it about evil,” he wondered aloud, “that makes it so damned attracted to my ass?”

The thing raised Lee's eyebrows into a painfully familiar expression. “Excuse me?”

“You, the Shadowlord . . . Is it something I'm doing? Because if it is, I'll stop.”

“What?”

“My ass,” Tony sighed. “Your interest.”

Understanding. Then disgust. “My interest in you has nothing to do with your body or your perverse and deviant behavior.”

“Oh.” Wait a minute. “You shove people off the sanity cliff and then pull a
Matrix
battery thing on them and I'm a deviant?”

“What are you babbling about?”

“Little trouble keeping up with contemporary culture? Here, I'll translate. You drive people crazy and then you feed off their deaths. You have no business calling me a deviant.”