Mind you, good-looking evil is still evil, he admitted, backing up.

Mason and Lee rose up out of the fog.

Apparently shadow-held brains had no problem with that whole breathing smoke thing.

Fucking figured.

Mason reached him first. Tony darted left around a blow and realized as both actors followed his movement that they were obeying literally. Get him. Then, turn that thing off.

All he had to do was keep them busy until Arra ended things.

Right. All he had to do. If Arra ended things.

He kept moving since closing with one would lead to a beating by the other; dodging, ducking, and finally slamming a bruised hip into the coffin so hard it rocked on its stand. Pain distracted him long enough for both his attackers to reach him. He ducked under Lee’s double-handed grab, found himself between the coffin and the wall, and, working with what he had, tipped it over on them.

It hit the floor with force enough to momentarily whoosh the fog away. The lid slammed open. Chester Bane rolled out.

Time stopped.

His eyes snapped open.

And time started up again.

If asked, Tony would have described his boss as strong, powerful, arrogant, controlling, and a little strange. But not fast. He’d have been wrong. He didn’t even see the producer move. One minute CB was on the floor, the next he was on his feet with Mason clutched in one massive hand, Lee in the other. White showed all around his eyes, the muscles of his neck stood out like rebar, and he was roaring—no words, just one loud, enraged bellow. It was the scariest goddamned thing Tony had seen all day . . . and given the day he’d had, that was saying something.

Off by the fogger, someone screamed.

Dragged around by the sound, Tony saw the Shadowlord rear back, clutching his right hand to his chest.

To make fake fog, a fog machine’s heat exchanger superheated the fog juice and forced the hot mixture out of the nozzle on the front. By their very nature, fog machines got hot. Very hot. It appeared the Shadowlord’s personal protection didn’t extend to passive attacks by inanimate objects.

Hoping CB would remember he’d need the men he was destroying when this was over, Tony ran for the Shadowlord.

He didn’t remember much from his GED, but he remembered some crap about equal and opposite reactions. In order to blast an attacker away, the protections had to apply the same force to the Shadowlord and this time he wasn’t comfortably settled on his throne. If Tony went down, the Shadowlord was taking a fall, too.

Unfortunately, magic was one thing and, as it turned out, physics was something else again. Tony slammed into darkness maybe an inch away from his target and was smashed back into the fog.

A fist wrapped in the front of his shirt and dragged him clear.