Now he could hear the pounding of his heart—mostly because it was the only noise in the room.

Finally, after what felt like a year or two, Henry sighed. “Never underestimate the North American male’s capacity for denial.”

Tony’s lip curled. “Bite me.”

Red-gold brows rose.

One of the two dozen or so tiny lights in the chandelier over the dining room table flickered. The refrigerator compressor kicked on, the noise spilling out of the kitchen. A gust of wind off False Creek blew rain against the window, the drops hitting the glass in a sudden staccato rhythm.

Henry snorted.

Snickered.

Started to laugh.

Tony blinked, stared, and actually felt his jaw drop. Had he ever seen Henry totally lose it like that? The vampire had collapsed back into the couch cushions. Was, in fact, bouncing himself against the padded green leather, eyes closed, arms wrapped around his stomach. Just as he started to calm, the hazel eyes opened, he looked up at Tony, and lost it again.

“Hey, it wasn’t that funny!”

Henry managed a fairly coherent, “Bite me?”

And then again, maybe it was.

It took a while before they stopped setting each other off. His ribs were aching as they walked together to the elevator.

“You have no idea how worried I was that you would . . .”

He bumped his shoulder against Henry’s. “Hate you?”

“At the very least.”

“Nah, we’re good.” Motioning Henry in first, Tony stepped over the threshold and hit the button for the lobby. “Although I am feeling a rousing chorus of ‘You and Me Against the World’ coming on.”

“You’re twenty-four; how do you even know that song?”

“The woman who runs the craft services truck is a big Helen Reddy fan. Plays the greatest hits tape over and over and over.”

Henry winced. “I’m fairly sure the Geneva Convention doesn’t cover evil wizards; if you could get your hands on it, we could toss it through the gate.”

“And that really bad cover of ‘Big Yellow Taxi.’ ”

“And polyester bell-bottoms. I went through the seventies once and I don’t think I should have to do it again. Platform shoes, big clunky gold chains, hair spray . . .”

Leaning against the elevator wall, Tony listened to Henry listing the flotsam and jetsam of modern life he could do without and felt something he thought he’d lost. Hope. And annoyance. Because now he couldn’t get that damned song out of his head.

“Has Arra ever said that the gates are one way only?”

Tony ran back over every conversation he’d had with the wizard and shook his head.

“Then it seems to me that a shadow controlling her could take more than mere information back.”

That was a possibility he hadn’t considered. “You think it’ll take her? I mean, physically?”