“He controls the gate or the shadows?”

“Both.”

“And the shadows call him Shadowlord?”

“No. The people of that world.” He slipped his hands under the table and wiped sweaty palms against his thighs. This was going better than he’d hoped. “The other world.”

“Right.”

“These shadows are like his spies and they’re coming through to find out about this world so that he can invade and conquer it.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why invade and conquer? What’s his motivation?”

“I don’t know; invading and conquering, I guess. What difference does it make?”

“You have to know his motivation, Tony.”

“It doesn’t matter!” As heads turned he lowered his voice. “The point is; these shadows can kill, have already killed, and now there’s at least four more.”

“So how do you stop them?”

“I don’t know.”

“You need a hero.”

“Tell me about it. Although I’m not sure a hero would solve the problem. Arra’s a wizard . . .”

“So she’s working on this, too?”

“Not really. She doesn’t want to get involved. I think she’s afraid.”

“Of what, bad writing?” Amy snorted. “Because if she is, she’s working on the wrong show.”

“Of the Shadowlord!”

“Well, he doesn’t sound very scary. But let me take a look at the script; you never know.”

“Script?”

“Yeah, for your show about the Shadowlord.” Her brows drew in as she reached for her butter tart. “Or was it an episode of this show? You weren’t exactly clear on that.”

“It’s not a script! It’s . . .” About to say it was real, Tony paused, looked, really looked into Amy’s face, and realized he’d never convince her. She had nothing to anchor this kind of a situation on. She’d never faced the possibility of a demon’s name written in blood across her city, never seen an ancient Egyptian wizard kill with a glance, never felt sharp teeth bite through the skin of her wrist, never heard the soft sounds of her lover feeding. Well, maybe the latter, but . . . never mind. The point was; if he tried to convince her, she’d think he was either yanking her chain or losing his mind. “It’s not a script,” he repeated. “It’s just an idea.” He shoved back his chair and stood. “I need to go talk to Arra.”

“Can I have your Nanaimo bar?”

He found a smile from somewhere, probably the same place Lee’d found his earlier. “Sure.”

“Work on the hero. The whole thing falls apart without one.”

The magic on the basement stairs tried once again to turn him back. Tony gritted his teeth and ignored it. It wasn’t real. Or it wasn’t any more real than anything thing else she did for Darkest Night. It was all smoke and mirrors. Or maybe smoke and shadows . . .