And the silence continued.

Henry could wait, predator patient, for as long as he had to. Apparently, so could Arra.

Tony squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and said softly, “You’d think, having seen one world conquered, that you’d be working a little harder to keep the same thing from happening here.”

The wizard turned from the stove and stared at him for a long moment. Stared until Tony began to run over recent memories just to make sure they were still there. “I said destroyed, not conquered,” she pointed out at last.

He shrugged. “Same thing, aren’t they?”

“Not always.” Her brows drew in and he felt like he did when Henry turned that kind of intensity on him. Like she was looking inside his skin. “In this case, yes.” Still frowning, she bent and picked a clean jam jar out of the recycling container beside the fridge. “Find the lid for me.”

What did your last slave die of? He’d have asked the question out loud except that he was half afraid she’d have an answer. The lid had slipped down to the bottom of the bin, under a dozen or so washed and crushed cat food tins. Tony brushed it off against his jeans as Arra laid a strainer over the top of the jar and decanted the hot, greenish-brown vodka into it. When she held out her hand, he placed the lid in it, asking, “Shouldn’t that cool down a bit before you close it?”

“Expert on potions, are we?”

“No, but . . .”

“Then be quiet, I’m concentrating.” Cupping the jam jar in both hands, she took a deep breath and, exhaling, sang a string of words that seemed to be made up mostly of vowels held together with a couple of els. Henry stepped back. The cats roused themselves from their catnip stupor and raced for the bedroom. The liquid began to glow. Placing the jar carefully on the counter, she took her hands away. Multiple lines of tiny lights swirled through the potion.

Okay, that looked like wizardry.

From the glance she shot him, Tony was momentarily afraid he’d actually spoken.

“You’d better hurry if you want to get to the soundstage on time,” she said, moving over to the sink and running cold water over her hands. “Get that down him before the last light goes out and he should be fine.”

“Should?”

“You won’t know until you try. He might be fine without it. He might not be fine with it.”

“Oh, that’s helpful.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You have my number; you can let me know how it turns out.”

“I thought you were coming with us.”

“No. I made the potion. I’m done.”

Catching sight of Henry’s expression, Tony remembered that the vampire almost always had his own agenda. “The shadow within Lee Nicholas cannot be allowed to take the information it carries back to its master.”

“What kind of information is an actor going to pick up?” Arra snorted, drying her hands on a blue-checked dishcloth. “Apple martinis are in. Nicotine is a memory aid, not a poison that’ll take years off your life. And if you can’t manage a vacant expression 24/7, botox will take care of those embarrassing facial lines.”