He felt Henry shrug. "Plans change."

"I can't believe you're defending her. She's not here, is she?"

"No. She's not here."

"A minute ago you were all p.i.s.sed off because she'd attacked me."

"The two things are unconnected."

Tony opened his mouth and closed it again, sputtering slightly as the dozen or so things he could say to that got tangled on the way out. When it seemed as though he'd been listening to nothing but his own ragged breathing for half an hour he muttered, "What time is it now?"

"11:17.".

"Is that all?" And then he realized. "No gate."

"Apparently not. I suspect our enemy has things to prepare."

That sounded reasonable. Not in the least comforting, or encouraging, but reasonable.

"Why face you when he can come through in the morning when you're out of it."

"Why, indeed."

"He can come through in the morning when it's just me." And as long as they were speculating . . . Tony lined up another couple of points as Henry moved the lamp back by the light board and rolled the cables. "He's got to have learned that it's harder for us to stop them when we're shooting. All those people hanging around trying to create a television show really screws with the hero's ability to defend against dark wizards invading from another reality."

Henry's smile flashed white in the dim light. "A television hero would manage."

"f.u.c.king television hero's got fifty people behind the camera making him look good. I'm going to get fired. You know that, right?"

"It's not a given."

"Yeah, it is." They fell into step, heading for the rear door. "Even if we save the world, I'm going to lose my job, lose my apartment, and end up turning tricks in Gastown. All of a sudden, I'm feeling a lot more sympathy toward season six Buffy."

"Is that supposed to mean something?"

"Twenty-first century, Henry; try to keep up."

At 9:30, Tony had vetoed the idea of breaking into the wizard's apartment.

"Look, if she doesnt want to come, you can't force her." "You can't force her," Henry had corrected.

"I can't."

"And can you force her to fight when she gets there?"

"You'd be surprised how many people fight when cornered."

"Yeah, like rats. She's cornered now." Frowning, Tony'd rubbed at his chest. "If we go in there, and if she's home, she'll fight us. If she wins, there's no one to block the gate."

"Alone stood brave Horatius, but constant still in mind; thrice thirty thousand foes before and the broad flood behind."

"What?"

" Horatius at the Bridge.' Lord Macaulay."

"f.u.c.k that. Just drive, would you."

So Henry had pulled away from the wizard's co-op wondering what had happened to change Tony's att.i.tude toward her from acceptance to sullen resentment. Immortal patience was a G.o.dsend as bit by bit the events of the morning emerged. As he pulled into the studio parking lot, he'd learned about the new circular bruise in the center of Tony's chest, purple and angry amidst the not-yet-faded leftovers of the earlier beating.

With the gate unopened and battle delayed, he'd dropped Tony at his apartment and waited outside, out of sight, until he'd heard his heartbeat-too familiar to him to mistake- slow in the cadences of sleep. Henry could see from the street that all the lights were on and he'd snarled, frustrated by a battle that dealt in terror and left him nothing to fight.

At 2:15, after a quick drive into downtown Vancouver, he followed another of the co-op's members into Arra's building.

If the wizard had warded her door, she hadn't warded it against brute strength. With the sleeves of his sweater pulled down to mask fingerprints, one hand on the door handle and the other up by the dead bolt, Henry gave a short, sharp push. The sound of steel f.l.a.n.g.es punching out of the wooden frame sounded like a gun going off, but he was in the apartment with the door closed behind him before any of the wizard's neighbors had roused. From the hall, there would be no sign of forced entry.

The wizard was not in the apartment; he couldn't feel her life. He searched every room regardless. Who could say what a wizard's abilities encompa.s.sed?

The laptop was gone from the dining room table. In its place a stamped envelope addressed to Anthony Foster. On the envelope a Post-It Note that read, Vera, please drop this in the mail after feeding the cats.

Henry set the note aside and carefully ran his thumbnail under the seal of the envelope.

The cheap glue parted with a minimum of protest.

A steady regard turned him toward the living room. Both cats sat on the sofa and stared disdainfully at him. Dogs always insisted on playing pack politics with his kind. Cats were smarter.

"I need to know what she's told him."

Zazu snorted.

"If you expect me to believe that you've never made a morally ambiguous choice, think again. Cats are all about morally ambiguous."

Whitby yawned.He'd half expected the letter to be handwritten in flowing black script on thick linen paper, instead it was Times New Roman, 12pt, on 20lb white bond. There was no salutation or signature.

I saw him win. As he advanced on the city, I cast the crystals and I saw he would win. I cast again, and again, and every time the Shadowlord was victorious. I tried to convince Kiril and Sam to leave with me, but they refused. They refused to understand that there was nothing they could do-that they could not win. Fight for us, the people of the city screamed. Die for us. They walked out to their deaths and I opened the gate.

Even after seven years, my sight is not so clear in this world, but every time I look, I see him win. What point in trying when loss is foreseen-although I no more expect to convince you of this than I could convince Kiril and Sam.

I can only hope that on some new world this will change.

Now you know what I know.

For what it's worth, I'm sorry.

"It's not worth much," Henry snarled, folding the letter back along its original lines. Then he stood for a long moment with his hand above the phone.

Tony, it's Henry. Don't go into work tomorrow.

Don't be among the first to die.

Wait until sunset when I am there to fight beside you.

Their tie was strong enough that even at a distance he could make it a command, not a request.

But he'd neither asked nor commanded it in the car as they drove away from the studio, both of them well aware of what the morning could bring.

As much as Henry wanted to, he would not take Tony's choice from him. He stepped away from the phone, hand dropping to his side. "The choices we make, make us," he told the cats.

Zazu snorted. Whitby yawned.

Arra's letter to Tony back in its envelope, back on the table, Henry slipped out into the night.

Chapter Sixteen.

THE CARPENTERS had been called in at 6:00, Peter and Sorge together having decided that the location they'd intended to use for the streets-of-London-circa-1870 flashback was unsuitable owing to half a dozen junkies who flat out refused to move. A set, therefore, had to be built. By the time Tony arrived at 7:30, the scream of saws and the pounding of hammers could be heard all the way out to the craft services truck.

As he came in through the open back doors, Charlie Harris, one of the painters, handed him a paint roller duct-taped to a broomstick and pointed him at five meters of plywood wall saying, "Get a layer of the medium gray down. I want to start airbrushing the stone on by 9:00."

"Yeah, but...""We've got time constraints here, bucko, and Peter said to use anyone who wasn't either directly in front of or directly behind a camera."

"Bucko?"

Hazel eyes blinked myopically at him through paint-flecked gla.s.ses. "You're the production a.s.sistant, right? You got something more important to do?"

More important? Still a little thrown by bucko, Tony glanced toward the set under the gate and realized with horror that the nervous bray of laughter still echoing around the soundstage had come from him. "I've got to save the world at 11:15," he announced.

Well, why not? At least when the s.h.i.t hit the fan, one guy might know enough to duck.

"Christ, you've got hours yet, you'll be long done by ... Hey! s.h.i.t for brains! I told you to paint those doors matte black, not gloss!"

As Charlie hurried off, Tony looked down at the roller and stepped up to the paint tray.

It wasn't like he had anything to prepare. The world's last line of defense pretty much consisted of him declaiming, "You shall not pa.s.s," and everyone knew how well that had worked out the last time. Oh, sure, eventually, it was happily ever after and all that, but first there was the whole falling through fire and dying thing. And if I die, I don't come back.

If I die . . .

Die. . .

"Hey, Foster! You want to get some of that paint on the wall instead of the floor?"

Paint dribbled off the roller to puddle by his foot. Wet, it didn't look much like medium gray. It looked like liquid shadow.

"Foster!"

"Right. Sorry."

Painting left him far too much time to think. Thoughts of the gate, thoughts of what might come through the gate, thoughts of what he might do to stop it, thoughts of whether Arra might or might not have screwed off and left him alone-mights and maybes and what ifs chased themselves around in his head, but he couldn't get a grip on any of them. By the time he covered the last bit of plywood, he was so frustrated at the complete and total lack of substance that he was starting to look forward to the possibility of the Shadowlord's army charging through the gate after Arra with swords drawn. One thing about an army, it made it easy to convince people that something was going on.

Drop an army through the gate and at least I won't be facing it alone.

*Alone.*

f.u.c.king great. He knew that almost voice. There was still a shadow here on the soundstage! Whirling around, Tony tried to get a good look at his own shadow as it danced with his heels over the concrete floor.

"Foster, what the h.e.l.l are you doing?" Charlie glared at him over an armload of Styrofoam capstones. "If you're done, get out of my way."

"I'm, uh . . ." Did his shadow look darker? Occupied?

"You're, uh, nothing. Haul a.s.s over to the workshop and bring the box of sticks for this glue gun."

"I have to ... I mean, there's someone ..."The capstones. .h.i.t the floor; sticky hands closed around Tony's shoulders and turned him away from the wall. "Workshop. Glue sticks. Now. And, Foster, if you're having a nervous breakdown, I suggest you raise your caffeine levels and get over yourself. Today's a bad day!"

Tell me about it. It wasn't in his shadow, he decided-the voice wasn't clear enough for that or maybe it wasn't enough in his head. Any kind of accurate description took a beating around this sort of s.h.i.t. Relief mixed with apprehension as he hurried toward the workshop. If not in his shadow, where? Or, more specifically, who?

Peter and Lee were running through phone dialogue as he pa.s.sed the office set, Lee sitting with one thigh propped on the edge of the desk in what had become one of James Grant's signature positions.

"... is still good and evil is still evil and good people continue to do what they can to negate the effects of evil people. But it's your choice, Raymond; I won't make it for you.

After all, you're the one with the centuries of experience." Moving the phone away from his ear, Lee shook his head. "Did that last bit sound as over the top listening to it as it did saying it?"

Peter shrugged. "You're talking to a vampire detective freaking out about a coven of aristocratic witches he's just discovered he didn't destroy back a hundred odd years ago; does it get more over the top than that?"

Tony walked on as the actor acknowledged the point.

"Three minute warning, people!"

Across the soundstage, other voices took up the cry and construction noises began to drop off. With no time to either stop shooting or stop building, the day would be a patchwork of both, carpenters and painters playing statue as the bell sounded, and bursting into antlike frenzy the second after "Cut."

Glue sticks in hand, Tony got back to the office in time to see the first take of the scene.

". . . won't make it for you. After all, you're the one with the centuries of experience."

"Cut!" As hammers and saws started up again, Peter stepped out from behind the monitor and walked as far onto the set as his headphones would allow. "Let's do it again, only this time, put the emphasis on centuries instead of youre and then put a little sharpness into the way you hang up."

"I'm mad at him?"

"You're not happy."

"Go from the top of the scene?"

"Not this time. Start in at morality hasn't changed.' " Heading back, the director caught sight of Tony and beckoned him in. "Where's your headset, Tony? Get it on and get to work."

"Charlie had me painting."