He’d just been nearly electrocuted by a wizard who seemed more than willing to deal with a disaster she’d set in motion by running away. Everyone in the immediate area was about to become painfully dead and he was the last best and only line of defense. Well, him and Henry. And two thermoses still full of vodka-catnip cocktails.

Green eyes narrowed and Tony wondered just how much of that had shown on his face.

“I’m fine.”

“Henry, I told you, I’m fine.”

“She attacked you.”

Subtext: She attacked something of mine.

Tony rolled his eyes. Jesus, Henry, get an afterlife. “I provoked her. I said some stuff that really pissed her off.”

“But you said it in order that she reconsider her position.”

“Bonus if she does it, but no.” As he remembered it, he’d been so angry, he’d been hitting out at the only thing available. “I said it pretty much just to piss her off.”

“Because you have a death wish?”

He elbowed the vampire lightly in the side. “Duh. I’m here, aren’t I?” He didn’t want to be there. He wanted to be safe at home, safely oblivious, eating nachos in bed and watching one of Lee’s old movies. He wanted his biggest concern to be about his pointless attraction to a straight boy. He didn’t want to be in charge of saving, if not the world, the immediate area and anyone who might have ever had anything to do with Arra Pelindrake. No one seemed to care what he wanted. “What time is it?”

They were standing so close, he felt Henry lift his arm to check his watch. Standing in the soundstage with just the emergency lights on, he couldn’t even see his wrist, but Henry had an advantage in the dark. “It’s just turned 11:00.”

“Do you hear anything? I mean anyone? Here.”

“Only you. Your heart is racing.”

No shit. “Just revving up for the fight.”

“Of course.”

They had the lamp, and the leftover potion, and a baseball bat picked up on the way home from work, and a certain small amount of experience in kicking metaphysical ass. They didn’t have a wizard—she wasn’t answering her phone or her buzzer—but they were as ready as they’d ever be. If that last shadow made a break for home, they’d stop it and if the Shadowlord sent new minions through the gate, solid minions, impervious to the light, they’d be facing . . .

Crap.

They knew they’d be facing a vampire. They knew what he knew. “They’ll come through prepared. Ready to take you out.”

“I am not so easy to kill.”

Prince of Darkness voice. Yeah, that’ll impress them. “But you can be killed.”

“Not easily.”

“But . . .”

“You’ll have my back.”