The Case: Two elderly men are found dead. Neither have identification. Otherwise, all they seem to have in common is a beautiful young hooker who was nearby when they died.
The Investigator: Tony Foster, one of three practicing wizards in the world and Second Assistant Director of Darkest Night, the most popular vampire/detective show in syndication.
SEE ME
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-nineteenth-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 Foster 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 twenty-four-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 First Assistant 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 Lee’s chest, “climbing into the coffin with Raymond Dark.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Jealous?”
Tony leaned close, bumping 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 Nicholas 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 space between an electronics store and a legal aid office, he switched over to the gaffers’ 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 bugger 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 assume 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 nine-one-one,” 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, bastard 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 hell 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.”