Henry’s BMW pulled into the lot at 8:47. Tony opened his door as he parked and walked around the car to meet him beside Arra. He’d left the-story-so-far on Henry’s answering machine and then sent him an e-mail as well as a text message. The whole instantaneous electronic communication thing had very little relevance to Henry—sending multiple copies of things he really needed to know worked best. Things like, CB is holding the Shadowlord at the studio, Mason and most of the crew are shadow-held and we have to take him out tonight. Meet us there as soon as you’re up.

They not only had to take him out tonight, they had to take him out before the gate opened at 11:15. They had to take him out before he called through reinforcements. Tony hadn’t asked Arra what kind of reinforcements were likely to be called through. He didn’t want to know.

Henry frowned and Tony remembered he was both bruised and bleeding.

“You’ve been fighting again.”

He shrugged, didn’t bother hiding the wince as new bruises rose and fell. “I had to take down three of the shadow-held.”

“Girls,” Arra snorted, getting out of the car. “So.” She looked from one to the other. “What’s the plan?”

Tony opened his mouth to protest, but as Henry didn’t seem surprised by her assumption, he closed it again. It was the son of Henry VIII, trained in strategy and tactics and, hell, probably the minuet for all Tony knew, who asked: “What do you need us to do?”

“Keep the shadow-held from taking me down.” Arra began rolling her shoulders like an old boxer about to go into the ring. “Keep the Shadowlord from preventing my call to the Light of Yeramathia.”

“Which is?”

Figuring he wouldn’t understand the explanation, Tony hadn’t bothered to ask.

Arra frowned at Henry’s suspicious tone. “The Shadowlord gave himself over to a dark power, this is its opposite.”

That was it? Okay, he understood that.

“A god?” If Henry’d sounded suspicious before, he sounded distinctly unhappy now.

“We’ve had a little trouble with gods in the past,” Tony explained hurriedly before Arra’s frown could deepen. “An ancient Egyptian undead wizard tried to call up his god from the top of the CN Tower. Oh, and the year before that, we had demons.”

“You never thought to mention that?”

He shrugged. “It didn’t seem relevant.”

“It isn’t. But you had no way of knowing that.” She turned her attention back to Henry. “Yeramathia is neither god nor demon, only a power. We need to attract its attention. I will draw the calling in the air; the Shadowlord will try and stop me. The only things he controls in this world are the shadows and the shadow-held, but there are plenty of the former and the latter will fight you to the death.”

“How much time will you need?”