“You’re an actor, aren’t you? I can tell by the way you use your voice.” Smiling insincerely, Tony cranked the bullshit up to full power. Two syllable ac-tors were the most susceptible to unsubstantiated hope. “I work out at CB Productions, in Burnaby—we do Darkest Night, the highest rated syndicated vampire detective show in North America—and we’re always looking for new faces. You know, people who haven’t already cropped up in every show shooting out here? You should stop by sometime. Talk to Peter—he does most of the casting.”

“I’m theater mostly . . . Moira, quiet!”

“Sure, but there’s no harm in making some solid cash to help support the arts, right?” His reaching fingers touched Arra’s door. Just another few inches . . .

“Well, I was critically acclaimed for my Mustardseed at Vanier Park last year when Bard in the Park did—Moira, shut up!—Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“Great. Experience.” Three fingers hooked around the doorknob. “Peter loves Shakespeare. Hope to see you out there!” He was inside before Julian could reply, a final volley of yipping sounding through the door.

“What was that all about?” Arra called from the kitchen.

“Moira objected to me stealing the phone book.”

“Fortunately, Moira’s small enough to punt down the hall, but how did you keep Julian from calling the police?”

“He never noticed. He had his dick in a knot about you blowing off the party room and then I . . .” Tony flushed as Arra turned from stirring the potion and raised a speculative brow. “Nothing like that. I just told him he should stop by the studio sometime and talk to Peter, him being an ac-tor and all.”

“Oh, Peter’s going to love that.”

“Two people are dead. If these shadows get back through the gate, more people will die.” The phone book slammed down on the counter. “Besides, you keep saying the Shadowlord can’t be stopped. With any luck, we’ll be ass-deep in Armageddon before he gets there.”

She looked at him strangely for a long moment.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

It was obviously something, but Tony didn’t bother pushing. Arra’s explanations never actually explained anything and he had enough unanswered questions already on his plate.

The second shadow was at the South Delta Baptist Church.

“They’re widening their search.”

“Yeah.” Tony stared at the scrap of yellow paper. “Where the hell is Tsawassen?”

“About half an hour south of the city, very nearly at the US border. Now, we’ll need one more phone book.”

“No.” He shook his head, addresses laid out on the table. “This first one, the temple? It’s in Richmond. That’s south of the city. Then this one is farther south. What’s to say that when you did this first one that’s where the shadow was and now it’s here, at this one? It moved while I was finding the book.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”