The darkness was nearly absolute, the dim red of the exit sign barely enough for Tony to orient himself. “He’d better make some noise,” he murmured, “or we’ll never see him arrive.”

“I will.”

“Oh . . . yeah.” The darkness was nearly absolute to human eyes.

Tony tried not to fidget, but he’d never been much good at waiting. “Henry? Are you still going to try and stop that shadow?”

It took so long for the vampire to answer, Tony began to think he hadn’t been heard. Which was stupid because Henry could hear his heart beating. Although, at the moment, it wasn’t so much beating as pounding.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. The wizard may be right; now that the Shadowlord has found this world we have no chance, no hope, but I choose to think differently.”

“Because no one messes with what’s yours?”

He could feel Henry’s smile in the darkness. Knew how it would look, sharp and cold like a knife.

“Something like that.”

A sudden line of gray below the exit sign warned them that the door was opening. For barely an instant, a body stood silhouetted against the night, then an arm reached in and around to the right. Way up above the heavy steel grids where the grips hung the heavy kliegs, banks of low-level fluorescents came on.

It made sense. Shadows needed light to survive.

Tony shrank back into the alcove as Lee hurried by. He looked like he had when he left that afternoon and that was a good thing. Probably. It meant the shadow was still there, but it also meant it had done no visible damage. He let Henry slip out first, knowing the vampire could stay close without being spotted—standard operating procedure for Raymond Dark and his sidekick. When Lee and Henry disappeared around one of the walls defining Raymond Dark’s office, he followed, eventually catching up to Henry by the video village on the edge of the new living room set.

Lee stood near the couch, looking up toward the ceiling and trembling.

There was—although had Tony not known what he knew, it would have been easy enough to convince himself he wasn’t seeing it—an arc of shadow rising up above the actor’s head.

“The shadow’s separating,” Henry murmured, mouth close to Tony’s ear. “But it seems to be taking some time.”

“Yeah, it took some time getting in. Henry!” He’d set the potion on the seat of Peter’s canvas chair and was walking across the set. “Where are you going?”

Henry stopped an arm’s length from Lee and leaned forward, nostrils flaring. The possessed actor didn’t move, didn’t twitch, didn’t acknowledge his presence in any way. “The separation seems to be keeping all senses occupied.”

“It wasn’t like that going in. Except . . .” Tony frowned, remembering. “Except that going in took most of the afternoon.”