“You knew I would; in spite of how remarkably cryptic you were.”

“Sorry. I didn’t have time for War and Peace.” He turned and started across the wide sidewalk toward the road.

Assuming he was to follow, his concern deepening toward worry as tension rolled off the younger man like smoke, Henry caught up at the edge of the asphalt.

Traffic held them in place.

“There’s an evil wizard sending shadow minions through from another world.” Tony tried to sound matter-of-fact about it; hoping his tone of voice would make the whole thing more believable. Unfortunately, he had a bad feeling that his matter-of-fact sounded more like about-to-totally-lose-it. “One of the shadows has taken over Lee. From the show. Lee plays, um . . . he plays . . .” Oh, just fucking great, now he couldn’t remember that.

“I know who he plays,” Henry said gently.

“Right. We need to find him and free him.” He slipped into a break after a parade of SUVs and hurried across to the center line. Henry’s hand on his arm kept him from moving on although he continued to shift his weight back and forth from foot to foot as traffic roared by inches away both in front of and behind them. “Arra, the woman who does special effects for the show, she’s a wizard from the same world as the shadows. I’d seen some stuff and I told her and she told me what was going on, and then she made me forget.”

Henry maintained his grip as they crossed the final lane. Just in case.

“Anyway, this is where she lives.” Tony nodded up at the six-story, peach-colored building. “I checked the mailboxes before you got here; she’s on the fourth floor in one of the front apartments. I have to make her tell me how to save Lee, and I need you to stop her from making me forget again.”

“All right.”

For the first time since Henry’d arrived, Tony was still. Pale eyes locked on Henry’s face, he murmured, “You believe me? Just like that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Wizards, shadow minions . . .”

“Vampires, werewolves, demons, mummies, ghosts.” Henry smiled reassuringly. “And besides, why would you lie about something like that?”

“I guess.” He shrugged, more because he needed to move than because he needed to add a physical emphasis to his words. “I mean, it’s just that between Lee and the memories and the motorcycle . . .”

“I understand.” Well, not about the motorcycle, but under the circumstances, it seemed unimportant. Henry frowned at the building. It had gone up during the ’80s real estate boom and was definitely not traditional architecture. Personally, he found the multiple angles aesthetically unpleasant but had to admit he was probably biased about the number of additional windows the design allowed. Large sunny apartments were not to his taste. “Are you sure she’s home?”

“Someone’s home. The lights are on and I saw a shadow moving behind the blind. A real shadow. Not the invading kind.”