“You’re right. They’re not dead yet and neither am I.” Snapping the laptop closed, she tossed it aside and spread her arms, a mirror image of the wizard on the other side of the light, pulling her own power in to support the pattern. “And if I die, I’m going out kicking your skinny ass.”

*If you die?*

Shadow laughter danced cold air up and down her spine.

A little over seven days spent in Tony’s company gave her the words she needed. “Bite me, you son of a bitch!”

Teeth gleaming gold, the Shadowlord jerked back again, far enough this time to find his own voice. “Maybe later.”

Fighting for focus, Tony rose up on one elbow and stared at the lines. He was right. It was the pattern that had been drawn on the blackboard in another world seven years earlier. The wizards had been nailed here . . .

. . . and here.

But here . . .

He shook his head, trying to clear it, and nearly puked.

But here . . . the line was wrong.

The Shadowlord cried out in victory.

Tony reached out and tugged a line of light a few centimeters to the right.

Golden light flowed out of the pattern. It covered his skin, ran up under his clothing, and drifted past each individual hair on his head. It felt like . . .

Like . . .

Pain.

As he fell, writhing, he realized he wasn’t the only one screaming.

The screams didn’t quite hide a familiar soft sputz.

Back arched to the point where bone had to be protesting, the Shadowlord rose up into the air. One by one, shadows were wrenched from him and destroyed.

Tony screamed a little louder as the bit of him went. It looked no different than the others, but he felt its loss.

By the time the last of the shadows were gone, Tony’s voice had faded to a hoarse rasp, but the Shadowlord’s agony continued to fill the soundstage. With the shadows gone, there wasn’t much of him left. A translucent figure of a man with golden patterns etched into his skin, his eyes and mouth dark holes in a distorted face.

Flare.

And nothing.

When Tony opened his eyes, he was lying on the couch in Raymond Dark’s office. It was a comfortable couch; he’d crashed out on it more than once during seventeen-hour shoots.

Golden flecks of light danced across his vision. He remembered fog.

Right. The London street flashback. Had they finished shooting it?

Then he tried to sit up. Memory rode in with the pain.

Henry’s arm was around his shoulder a heartbeat later, supporting his weight. Tony blinked and managed to focus on the vampire. His throat hurt, reducing his voice to a rough whisper. “Is that a black eye?”

“Yes. I ducked a crowbar and your makeup artist nailed me with a can of hair spray.”

Frowning hurt, too, so Tony stopped doing it. “Sort of remember seeing one fly by.”