"Not surprising," Morris said. "With the release of all that tension, you"re bound to feel pretty whipped. Anyone would."
A few minutes later, Stone"s speech started to slur, as if he had consumed far more than two drinks. His eyelids began to droop, and then they closed all the way. Stone"s head fell forward onto his chest, and the nearly empty gla.s.s dropped from his fingers and rolled across the carpet, before coming to rest against a leg of Morris"s coffee table.
"Stone?" Morris said. No reaction. Then more loudly: "Stone! Wake up!" Receiving no response, he slowly stood and went over to the unconscious man. He put two fingers on the inside of Stone"s wrist and held them there for several seconds, while looking at his watch. Satisfied, he gently released Stone"s arm.
Morris then left the room, and came back carrying a small, rectangle-shaped bottle with a gla.s.s stopper. Back at the sideboard, he poured several ounces of what looked like water from the bottle into a clean gla.s.s, then returned to his chair. He put the gla.s.s on a nearby end table, but did not drink from it. Then he glanced at his watch again, picked up the latest issue of Skeptical Inquirer from the end table, and settled down to wait.
Morris did not check the time again, but he knew the witching hour had arrived when an elegant grey Homburg suddenly plopped onto the middle of his coffee table. Looking up, Morris saw a small man in an elegant gray suit and maroon bow tie sitting on the sofa next to the unconscious form of Trevor Stone. The new visitor absently stroked his goatee as he frowned in Morris"s direction.
"I was about to say that I"m surprised to see you, Quincey." The little man"s voice was surprisingly deep. "But, on reflection, I really shouldn"t be. My last client tried to hide out in a cathedral, for all the good it did him. So I suppose it was only a matter of time before one of them came crying to you for protection."
"I"m a little surprised myself, Dunjee," Morris said calmly. "Surprised, I mean, that you even bothered with this one. He was contemplating suicide when you showed up to make your pitch, you know. You guys would have had him anyway - and a lot sooner."
The little man shook his head, frowning. "Our projections were that he wouldn"t have given in to his suicidal ideations, more"s the pity. Even worse, there was a 70-30 probability that, after hitting rock bottom a couple of years later, he was going to enter a monastery and devote the rest of his life to prayer and good works. Ugh."
Dunjee stood up. "I hope we"re not going to have any unpleasantness over this, Quincey." He reached inside his jacket and produced a sheet of paper, which he waved in Morris"s direction. "I have a contract, duly signed of his own free will. My princ.i.p.als have lived up to their part of the agreement, in every respect." He glanced over at Stone, and his expression reminded Morris of the way a glutton looks at a choice cut of prime rib, medium rare. "Now it"s his turn."
"You know that contract of yours is unenforceable in any court, whether in this world or the next," Morris said. "The only thing you"ve got working for you is despair. The client thinks he"s d.a.m.ned, and his abandonment of hope in G.o.d"s mercy ultimately makes him so."
Dunjee shrugged. "Say you"re right. It doesn"t matter a d.a.m.n, you should pardon the expression. If it"s despair that makes him mine, so be it. Bottom line: the wretch is mine - for all eternity."
"Not this time," Morris said quietly.
"Surely you"re not claiming he didn"t accept the validity of the deal. Did he come running to you because he was eager to hear stories about that famous ancestor of yours? I don"t think so, Quincey. He knew he was d.a.m.ned, and he was hoping you could find him an escape clause."
"You"re absolutely right," Morris told him.
Dunjee stared at him, as if suspecting a trick. "So, why are we talking?"
"Because I found one."
"Impossible!"
"Not at all. Despair is the key, remember? Well, he doesn"t despair any more. I convinced him that his soul isn"t his to sell. Further, I spun him a yarn about how you were a con artist planning to come back when his luck changed and extort money from him, except you got arrested before you could return." Morris shook his head in mock sympathy. "He doesn"t believe in the deal anymore, and that means there"s no deal at all."
Dunjee"s eyes blazed. "He doesn"t believe?" Before Morris"s eyes, the little man began to grow and change form. "Then I will MAKE him believe!" The voice was now loud enough to rattle the windows, and Dunjee"s aspect had quickly become something quite terrible to behold.
Morris swallowed, but did not look away. He had seen demons in their true form before. "That won"t work, either. I slipped him a Mickey - 120 milligrams of chloral hydrate, combined with about four ounces of bourbon. He"ll be out for hours, and all the legions of h.e.l.l couldn"t wake him."
Morris stood up then, facing the demon squarely. "The hour of midnight has come and gone, h.e.l.lsp.a.w.n," he said, formally. "You have failed to collect your prize, and consequently any agreement you may have had with this man is now null and void, in all respects and for all time."
Morris picked up the gla.s.s he had prepared earlier. Pointing the index finger of his other hand at the demon he said, in a loud and resolute voice, "I enjoin you now to depart this dwelling, and never to enter it again without invitation. Return hence to your place of d.a.m.nation, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is never quenched, and repent there the sin of pride that caused your eternal banishment from the sight of the Lord G.o.d!"
Morris dashed the contents of the gla.s.s - holy water, blessed by the Archbishop of El Paso - right into the demon"s snarling face, and cried "Begone!"
With a scream of frustration and agony, the creature known on Earth as Dunjee disappeared in a puff of gray smoke.
Morris took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He carefully put the gla.s.s down, then pulled out his handkerchief to mop his face. His hands were trembling, but only a little.
He looked over at Trevor Stone, who had started to snore. He would never know what Morris had accomplished on his behalf, but that was all right. In the ongoing war that Morris fought, what mattered were the victories, not who received credit for them.
Sniffing the air, he realized that the departing demon had left behind the odor characteristic of its kind.
Quincey Morris frowned, and wondered if a good spray of air freshener would get the pungent scent of brimstone out of his living room.
Justin Gustainis is a college professor living in upstate New York. He is author of The Hades Project, Black Magic Woman, Evil Ways and the forthcoming Hard Spell and Sympathy for the Devil. His website may be found at www.justingustainis.com Quincey Morris, who is descended from the man who gave his life in the fight to destroy Count Dracula, is an occult investigator living in Austin, Texas.
See Me: A Smoke and Shadows Story.
by Tanya Huff.
"Mason, you want to move a bit to the right? We"re picking up that very un-Victorian parking sign."
Huddling down inside Raymond Dark"s turn-of-the-19th-century greatcoat, Mason Reed shuffled sideways and paused to sniff mournfully before asking, "Here?"
Adam took another look into the monitor. "There"s fine. Tony, where"s Everett?"
Tony took two wide shots with the digital camera for continuity and said, "He"s in the trailer finishing Lee"s bruise."
"Right. Okay ... uh..." Adam was obviously looking for Pam, their PA, but Pam had already been sent to the 24-hour drugstore over on Granville to pick up medicine for Mason"s cold. He"d already sneezed his fangs out once, and no one wanted to go through that again. Tony grinned as Adam"s gaze skirted determinedly past him.
Although he"d been the 1st a.s.sistant Director since the pilot, this was Adam"s first time directing an episode of Darkest Night - the most popular vampire/detective show in syndication - and he clearly intended to do everything by the book, including respecting Tony"s 2AD status. Or possibly respecting the fact that Tony was one of the world"s three practicing wizards. Even if he didn"t get a lot of chance to practice given the insane hours his job required.
CB Productions had never had the kind of staffing that allowed for respect.
"I"m done here, Adam. I"ll get him."
"If you don"t mind..."
Chris on Camera One made an obscene gesture. "Dude, he"s with Lee."
Tony flipped him off as he turned and headed for the trailer that housed makeup, hair, wardrobe, and, once, when the writers were being particularly challenging, three incontinent fruit bats.
Halfway there, he met Everett and Lee heading back.
Everett rolled his eyes and cut Tony off before he got started. "Let me guess, Mason"s nose needs powdering."
"It"s a little ruddy for one of the bloodsucking undead."
"My sister"s wedding is in four days," Everett growled, hurrying toward the lights. "I"ve already rented a tux. If he gives me his cold, I"m putting itching powder in his coffin. And you can quote me on that."
Tony fell into step beside Lee, who, unlike Mason, was dressed in contemporary clothing.
"I get that it"s artistic, the real world overlapping Mason"s angst-ridden flashback, but, after four seasons, I can safely say that our fans could care less about art and the only overlapping they want to see is James Taylor Grant," he tapped his chest, "climbing into the coffin with Raymond Dark."
"Not going to happen."
"Jealous?"
Tony leaned close, b.u.mping shoulders with the actor. "It"s basic geometry. Mason"s bigger than me and you and I barely fit." At the time, they"d been pretty sure they weren"t coming back for another season and had wanted to go out with a bang. Tony still had trouble believing the show had hung on for four years. He had almost as much trouble believing he and Lee had been together for over two years - not exactly out, although their relationship was an open secret in the Vancouver television community.
Their own crew had survived a dark wizard invading from another reality, a night trapped inside a haunted house trying to kill them, and the imminent end of the world by way of an immortal Demongate hired to do some stunt work. Relatively speaking, the 2AD sleeping with the show"s second lead wasn"t worth noting.
Tony handed Lee off to Adam and headed down the block to check out the alley they"d be using as a location later that night. Stepping off the sidewalk and turning into the s.p.a.ce between an electronics store and a legal aid office, he switched over to the Gaffer"s frequency with one hand as he waved the other in front of his face.
"I think we"re going to need more lights than Sorge thought, Jason. There"s b.u.g.g.e.r all spill from the..."
He paused. Frowned. The victim of the week was an impressive screamer. Pretty much simultaneously, he remembered she wouldn"t be arriving for another two hours and realized that the scream had come from in front of him, not behind him.
Had come from deeper within the alley.
"Tony?" Adam, in his earbud.
"I"m on it." He was already running, muttering the night-sight spell under his breath. As it took effect, he saw someone standing, someone else lying down, and a broken light over a graffiti-covered door at the alley"s dead-end. Still running, he threw a wizard lamp up into it. People would a.s.sume electricity.
The someone standing was a woman, mid-twenties maybe, pretty although overly made-up and under-dressed. The someone on the ground was an elderly man and, even at a distance, Tony doubted he"d be getting up again.
"Tony?" Lee, leading the pack running into the alley behind him.
"Call 911!" Tony snapped without turning. He"d have done it himself, but these days it was best to first make sure the screaming was about something the police could handle. Like called to like, as he"d learned the hard way. Having Henry Fitzroy, b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Henry VIII, romance writer, and vampire based in Vancouver was enough to bring in the fine and freaky. Since Tony had started developing his powers, the freaky vastly outnumbered the fine.
Dropping to one knee beside the body, he checked for a pulse, found nothing, checked for visible wounds, found nothing. The victim wasn"t breathing, didn"t begin breathing when Tony blew in two lungfuls of air so Tony shifted position and started chest compressions.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
A smudge of scarlet lipstick bled into the creases around the old man"s mouth.
Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.
A glance over his shoulder showed Lee comforting the woman, her face pressed into his chest, his arms around her visibly trembling body.
Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.
The old man was very old, skin pleated into an infinite number of wrinkles, broken capillaries on both cheeks. He had all his hair but it was yellow/white and his teeth made Tony think of skulls.
Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.
His clothes belonged on a much younger man and, given what he"d been doing when he died - fly of his jeans gapping open, hooker young enough to be his granddaughter - he was clearly trying too hard.
Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five.
Where the h.e.l.l was the cavalry? There"d been a police cruiser at the location. How long did it take them to get out of the car and two blocks down the street?
A flash of navy in the corner of one eye and a competent voice said, "It"s okay. I"ve got him."
Tony rolled up onto his feet as the constable took over, stepping back just in time to see Lee reluctantly allowing the other police officer to lead the woman away.
She was pretty, he could see that objectively, even if, unlike Lee, he"d never been interested in women on a visceral level. Long reddish brown hair around a heart-shaped face, big brown eyes heavily shadowed both by makeup and life, and a wide mouth made slightly lopsided by smudged scarlet gloss. Tears had trailed lines of mascara down both cheeks. Below the neck, the blue mini dress barely covered enough to be legal and he wondered how she could even walk in the strappy black high heels. She wasn"t trying as hard as the old man had been but Tony could see a sad similarity between them.
"She"s terrified she"s going to be charged with murder." Lee murmured as Tony joined him.
"Death by hand job?"
"Not funny. You don"t know that she..." When Tony raised an eyebrow, Lee flushed. "Yeah, okay. But it"s still not funny. She really is terrified."
"Sorry." Tony moved until they were touching, shoulder to wrist.
The police seemed a lot less sympathetic than Lee had been.
"I"m going to see if she needs help," he said suddenly, striding away before Tony could reply.
"This is not a reason to stop working," Adam called from the sidewalk at the end of the alley.
"Does anyone care that I"m f.u.c.king dying over here?" Mason moaned beside him.
Standing at the craft services table, drinking a green tea, and trying very hard to remember that the camera really did put on at least ten pounds, Lee attempted to ignore the jar of licorice rope. The memory of the woman in the blue dress had kept him on edge for two days and he kept reaching for comfort food.
Movement on the sidewalk out beyond the video village caught his eye and, desperate for distraction, Lee gave it his full attention. He"d have liked to have been able to tell Tony later that he was surprised to see the woman in the blue dress again, but he honestly wasn"t. Grabbing a m.u.f.fin and sliding a juice box into his jacket pocket, he picked his way through the cables toward her.
"These are for you." When she looked down at the m.u.f.fin in her hand, a little confused, Lee added, "The other night, you felt ... looked like you weren"t getting enough to eat."
She had on the same blue dress with a tight black cardigan over it. The extra layer did nothing to mask her body but, he supposed, given her job, that made sense.
"So, the other night, did the police ever charge you?"
"No."
Something in her tone suggested he not ask for details. "Were they able to identify the old man?"
"No." Her hair swept across her shoulders as she shook her head. "I don"t think so. They wouldn"t tell me anyway, would they?"
"I guess not." He heard a hundred unpleasant encounters with the police in that sentence and he found himself hating the way she seemed to accept it. "I never got your name."
"Valerie."
"I"m Lee."
"I know." She smiled as she gestured behind him at the barely organized chaos of a night shoot.
The smile changed her appearance from attractive to beautiful. Desirable. Lee opened and closed his mouth a few times before managing a slightly choked, "Right. Of course." He glanced down, unable to meet her gaze any longer, noticed her legs were both bare and rising in goose b.u.mps from the cold, looked up to find her watching him, and frowned. "Are you warm enough?"
Expectation changed to confusion and she was merely attractive again. "I"m fine."