Again, a smile that didn’t look like it belonged on Lee’s face. “Try.”

Damn. Four years on the streets, four years with Henry; he could take care of himself if he had to. A little more difficult when he really didn’t want to hurt the guy feeling him up, but still . . . Tony tensed, and froze. There was something wrong with Lee’s shadow. There was something wrong with shadows in general.

“. . . nothing remained of our defenses save terrified men and women fighting individual losing battles against the shadows.”

CB worked carefully, methodically, quickly; stroking a line of graphite along the imprinted pattern.

“The Shadowlord cannot be defeated. Now he has tasted this world. The next shadow he sends will have more purpose.”

Tony jerked back against the door, partially because of the sudden rush of memory. Partially because of what Lee was doing. Wondering how a guy got selected for sainthood, he twisted away and gasped, “You’re a minion of the Shadowlord!”

Which sounded so incredibly stupid, he regretted the words the moment they left his mouth.

Lee stared at him for a long moment, blinked once, and started to laugh. “I’m a what?”

Oh, crap. Now he was going to have to repeat it because there really wasn’t any variation on this particular theme. “You’re a minion of the Shadowlord.”

“That’s what I thought you said.” Scooping his shirt up off the floor, Lee shrugged into it, still chuckling. “You know, you’re a very weird guy.”

Tony merely pointed.

Lee’s shadow appeared to be investigating a pile of shadow magazines.

It was a cheesy effect on screen and unexpectedly terrifying in real life.

The actor sighed, reached out, and slapped Tony lightly on one cheek. “Who’s going to believe you? You’re nobody. I’m a star.”

Tony cleared his throat. “You’re a costar.”

The second slap was considerably harder and almost seemed to have more of Lee in it than shadow. “Fuck you.”

“You’re not leaving this room.”

“Is this supposed to be where I strike a dramatic pose and tell you that you can’t stop me?” Lee leaned closer, his position a parody of his earlier seduction. “Guess what? You can’t.”

And he couldn’t.

The shadow dropped the magazine and swept across the room, holding him against the wall. Tony couldn’t move, he couldn’t speak, and most importantly, he couldn’t breathe. It was like being trapped under a pliable sheet of cold charcoal-gray rubber that covered him from head to foot like a second skin, curving to fit up each nostril and into his mouth. Obscenely intimate.

As the door closed behind the thing controlling Lee’s body, the shadow flexed, flopped away from him, and slipped through the final millimeter of open space.

Bent over, sucking his lungs full of stale, makeup redolent, slightly moldy, but glorious air, Tony spent a moment or two concentrating on breathing before straightening and staggering toward the door.