Using power with the gate open would be like sending up a flare.

A hundred thousand voices cried out for her to save them. Clutched at her. Dragged her down under the weight of their need. The Shadowlord comes; you are our last and only hope.

Tony fought without her. When he reached for her, it was to ask her to fight at his side, not to fight for him. He stubbornly held to hope even as she denied it.

Pushing her chair away from the desk, she spun it around and scanned the workshop shelves. There had to be something . . . Yes! One of the baseball bats they’d blown up in Raymond Dark’s hands during the batting cage scene in episode three. The hands had, of course, been Daniel’s and the ad lib about switching to aluminum, Lee’s—although Mason had claimed it the second time they’d shot Lee pulling the bloody shard of wood from Raymond Dark’s shoulder. With CB complaining about the expense, she’d bought six bats, practiced on three, blown two for the camera, and tucked the last one away figuring that sooner or later she’d find a use for it.

Stopping the shadow-held from reaching the gate would also stop the shadow.

With half his attention on the time, half worrying at the hundred and one things likely to go wrong as he attempted to stop a shadow from returning to another world while surrounded by people who wouldn’t believe that’s what he was doing if it came with a director’s commentary, and trying to keep seventeen members of the Darkest Night fan club out of trouble, Tony was feeling a little overwhelmed.

And the thought of Arra sitting safely in her basement while he was up here saving the world was pissing him off. She doesn’t need to go near the fucking gate, he growled silently as he counted the fans. She could just take a moment and turn this lot into . . .

One short.

Three guesses where the runaway had gotten to and the first two didn’t count.

“Excuse me, but this set’s off limits.”

The fan froze, one leg hooked over the side of the coffin. “I was just . . .”

“Yeah. I know.” Tony jerked his head toward the high-pitched squeals coming from the other side of the soundstage. “I think Mason just appeared.”

He got out of the way barely in time to avoid being run over.

Emerging out beside the monitors, he could only assume from the sounds of adoration that Mason was on the other side of the group of hysterically bobbing and weaving bodies.

“Great. Just great.” Headphones down around his neck, Peter sounded ready to chew scenery. “I am never going to get him onto the set now.”

“Sorry.”