Smoke and Mirrors (51 page)

The ax slapped against his hand as the lights dimmed. His fingers didn't so much close as spasm around the handle.
Well, whatever works.
When the replay ended, he couldn't see the ax, but he sure as hell could feel it.

The pain was . . .

Definitively pain.

The kind of pain that, should he actually survive this, he'd compare to every other pain for the rest of his life.

You think
that
hurts? I once pulled a ghost ax out of its time and walked through a haunted house with it.

Except he wasn't exactly walking. Or doing anything but trying to suck enough air into his lungs to stay conscious.

A deeper breath. And then another.

Yeah, but he didn't have time. Or not much of it anyway. He had to be in place in the basement before the next replay started.

One step didn't hurt any more than standing still. Neither did two or three.

He could do that. Hell, he'd once walked to Wellesley Hospital in February with two broken ribs, a fat lip, and only one shoe. To this day, he had no idea where his other shoe'd gone.

Wait.

He needed a test. Some way of making sure that the energy he held continued to act like an ax. It'd be piss useless if it didn't.

Instead of down, he went up. And gravity was a bitch.

Lucy's rope had crossed the lower edge of the third floor just slightly off center. The stairs were so steep he could reach the lower edge of the third floor from four steps up. If he could reach it from four, he wasn't going for five. No point being stupid about this. Sucking in a lungful of air, he willed his arm to work and swung the ax.

He felt the blade cut into the wood.

Felt the burn of a severed rope whistle past his cheek.

Felt dead weight just for an instant roll against his legs.

Staggered back down the four steps, panting; small quick breaths that didn't hurt quite so much.

Heard a voice destroyed by a noose murmur, “Thank you.”

And felt a lot better.

For just a moment, he had the strong feeling it was 1906 and he was a chambermaid, but since that was a huge improvement on what he had been feeling—pain, pain, and, well, pain—he could cope. He still felt as though his left arm had been dipped in acid and then rolled in hot sand, but whatever Lucy was doing—Lucy being the only chambermaid he knew from 1906—it gave him a little distance from the feeling. It got him down the stairs and across the kitchen to where Mouse and Adam and Zev waited with the second lantern.

When he joined them, the double circle of light expanded to include Amy sitting cross-legged just outside the butler's pantry by an open can of white paint. She shook her head at his silent question.

It took them a while to recover from their own murder.

There was still time.

“Come on, Zev.”

As the music director came forward, Tony grinned. “Is that a bottle of cleaner in your pants or are you just happy to see me?”

Adam rolled his eyes and handed Mouse five bucks as Zev reached back and touched the bottle crammed into the top of his jeans. “What about us?” the 1AD asked. “When do we charge to the rescue?”

“You'll know,” Tony told him.

“You sure?”

“It'll be obvious.”

“Obvious how?”

“I'm thinking, screaming.”

“Yeah.” Adam forced a hand back through thick hair, standing it up in sweaty spikes. “Listen, if this thing's been around for so long, what makes you think we can beat it?”

Time for the big, last minute motivational speech.

“Duh. We're the good guys. Zev, can you get the door? My hands are full.”

Lantern in one hand. Ax in the other. Of course, no one could see the ax. Zev made a clear decision not to ask and opened the basement door. He frowned as Tony stepped over the threshold. “What's that on your cheek?”

“Rope burn.”

“Do I want to know?”

“I doubt it.” He shifted over as Zev joined him on the top step. “Stay to my right, by the lantern. And remember,” he added as they began to descend, “anything Lee can hear, it can . . . Fuck!”

Lee's face appeared in the darkness at the bottom of the stairs looking for an instant like it was on its own, floating unattached. “I was beginning to think you weren't coming back to us.”

Tony shrugged and tried to pretend he wasn't carrying an invisible ghost ax. Lucky break that Lee—Caulfield—couldn't see it either. He hadn't been one hundred percent certain about that, but given the total lack of reaction, it seemed
no one
could see it. “I told you it would take a while to convince them.”

“But convince them of what; that's the question. Hello, Zev.”

“Lee.”

“Not Lee,” Tony growled.

“Close enough.” The green eyes narrowed, pupils dark pinpricks in the direct glare of the lantern. “Why are you here, Zev?”

“The odds are good that you . . . your body . . . will need a little help leaving after Tony does his thing.” He waved a hand, the gesture managing to encompass all the possibilities inherent in the word
thing
. “And besides . . .” His eyes narrowed in turn. “I had no intention of allowing Tony to go through this alone.”

“So you're here to hold his hand?”

“I'm here to hold anything that might make it easier for him.”

Lee fastidiously brushed a bit of muck off his dress pants. “The depth to which moral rot has penetrated this age astounds me. Perversions accepted as normal behavior.”

Tony turned just enough to grin at Zev. “You never said anything about perversions.”

“I didn't want to get your hopes up.” He shrugged philosophically. “There may not be time.”

“Fair enough.”

“Stay with him, then, if you must,” Lee snarled.
And be the first to fall!

That had to be some of the loudest subtext Tony'd ever heard and, given the volume of the subtext over the course of the night, that was saying something. “You go first.” He motioned with the lantern. “I want you out where I can see you so that I know you're not mucking about with Lee's body.”

“I do not muck about!”

“Muck about, torture. Potato, potahto. Move.”

Lee pointedly turned and began wading across the basement.

“Since when do you quote Gershwin?” Zev murmured as they descended into the water.

“Sometimes I like to embrace the stereotype.” The water felt warmer than it had. Tony really hoped that was because his legs were already wet.

“Gilbert and Sullivan?”

“Not in a million years.”

“That's a pretty halfhearted embrace, then.”

“I gotta be me.”

The thing seemed closer to the stairs than it had been, but, as it was a part of the foundation, Tony was fairly certain it hadn't moved. As Lee took up his old place by the wall, Tony realized that with both hands full, the mirror in his pocket was about as useful as last week's
TV Guide
.

“Hand the lantern to your friend . . .” The final word dripped with distaste. “. . . then come forward and merge with us.”

“Dude, you make it sound so dirty.” He motioned for Zev to step back, splashed closer to the pillar and hung the lantern on the nail. “Less likely to take damage if I leave it here.”

“Dude?” Lee's lip curled. “Your speech patterns are strange.”

“You'll have time to get used to them.” He never thought he'd miss the sound of Karl's crying. Or rather the sound of Karl not crying to mark the beginning of the next replay. They had to fill the time and they had to fill it in such a way that they didn't seem to be stalling. He stepped in front of Zev and leaned in. “So, I guess this is good-bye.”

A faint smile within the bracket of the dark beard as Zev silently agreed to take one for the team.

Give one?

Physical incompatibility had
not
been the reason they'd broken up. Tony finally had to pull back from the kiss lest he miss the next replay entirely. Also, he needed to leave a few brain cells functioning.

Lee's lip had been curled before, but it had enough lift in it now to give Raymond Dark a run for his money. “Perversions!”

“Protesting too much?” Zev looked smug.

“He doesn't want you.” Lee's voice, Caulfield's disgust.

“I think
he
means me,” Zev murmured.

“Yeah, I got that.”

Caulfield spread Lee's arms. “He wants this!”

Zev snorted. “Who doesn't?”

That seemed to throw him for a moment. “He settled for you!”

“Duh.”

“Hey!” Tony palmed the mirror under the cover of his protest. “I didn't settle! I didn't!” he repeated as neither Caulfield nor Zev seemed to believe him. He could only hope Lee wouldn't remember any part of being possessed. “Wanting something does not keep you from being content with something else. I like hot dogs, but I'm happy with . . .”

“Blintzes?”

“Don't start.”

He had the mirror now. Was that a flicker of gray on the edge of the lamplight? Two translucent figures waiting for their cue? Or was it hope and nothing more? “I want Lee standing over here with Zev before I come to you.”

“Fine.” The actor took a step forward, away from the wall. Room enough behind him for a ghost to do a little finger painting.

Or a pair of ghosts.

Lee took another step, shuddered, and stopped.

Good luck.
Rough rasp of a voice in his head and the sudden return of pain as Lucy Lewis snapped back to the stairwell, to her place during the replay.

Tony checked the reflection in the mirror . . .

Eyes in the roiling black bulged out toward him.

Then formed a face. And a head. And a body. Caulfield defined.

And without the mirror?

The faintest hint of a pink and naked shape arcing out from the wall.

No way of knowing if Lee was protected.

No way of knowing if Lee was about to die.

Even if they managed to delay Caulfield until the next replay, he'd never be able to hold onto the ax.

Now or never.

Never.

Now.

Teeth clenched, Tony stumbled closer to the wall, somehow got his arm raised over his head, and put everything he had left into snapping the ax forward, not so much releasing it at the right moment as forcing his fingers to straighten and hoping momentum would do the rest. The ax became visible as it embedded itself in Creighton Caulfield's head.

Lee screamed.

They hadn't . . . He wasn't . . .

Tony splashed toward him. Didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Streams of cleanser were going by awfully high.

He didn't remember falling.

His left hand hurt up his arm, across his shoulders and chest, and all the way down to his right hip. Waves. Of. Burning. Pain. The gardener's arm and head had both been smaller and he'd held them for a lot less time. Lucy's presence had masked the damage, allowed him to get this far, but hadn't stopped it from happening. Water was cool. Water would help. He started to topple forward.

Wait.

That wasn't Lee screaming. Tony forced his eyes to focus. Lee was also on his knees, staring into the water like he couldn't believe what he saw, lower lip caught between his teeth and dripping blood. But he wasn't screaming.

So who was?

Right. Naked writhing guy with ax in head. Eyes wide in the streams of darkness running down his face Caulfield pulled an arm free and grabbed for the ax handle. His fingers passed through the shaft.

His other arm came free on its own. Spat free.

Then his feet.

Seemed that the accumulated power wasn't too happy about having been trapped.

Tony scrambled backward as a decomposing body dropped face first into the water. Bobbed up. Rolled over. Head split open, no sign of the ax.

He
screamed as hands grabbed his shoulders.

“It's me.” No mistaking Mouse's voice or size.

Right, the cavalry.

“Let's move it, people, I think that wall's going to blow!”

Adam's voice.

“Lee?” Tony twisted as Mouse lifted him out of the water.

Mouse shifted his grip, the pressure making a strong nonverbal argument that squirming would not be tolerated. “Puking.”

Puking was good. At least he
thought
puking was good. “Alive?”

They were climbing the stairs. The big guy could really motor when he had to.

“The dead don't puke.”

“Didn't some freelancer pitch that title for episode nine?”

“No.”

Tony was fairly certain that he'd been kidding, but when he started to explain that to Mouse, he found himself passing out instead.