Free Smoke and Mirrors by Tanya Huff

the threat. “All right, you win. I was standing at the top of the main stairs and I thought I heard a baby cry.”
    â€œToo cool.”
    â€œNot really.”
    â€œReally.” Throwing her weight back in her chair, she steepled black-and-magenta-tipped fingers together and beamed. The beaming was freaking Tony out just a bit. Amy wasn’t usually the beaming type. Scowling, frowning, glowering, yes. Beaming, no. “It’s possible that the baby is Cassandra, that she isn’t able to manifest the way Stephen does and this throwback to her infancy is all she can manage.”
    â€œWhat the hell are you talking about?”
    â€œEctoplasmic manifestations. Ghosts, you moron!”
    She took a long, almost triumphant swallow from her coffee mug and exchanged it for the receiver as the phone rang. “CB Productions. What? Hang on a sec.” Swiveling her chair around, she bellowed toward the closed bull pen door: “Billy, it’s your mother. Something about water getting into your comic collection!” There was a faint scream from one of the writers. Amy listened for a few seconds, then hung up the phone. “Apparently, his room in the basement flooded. Anyway, the ghosts . . . Stephen was a year younger, so he’ll be stronger. You get points for hearing the baby—provided you heard what you thought you heard—but I suppose it’s too much to ask if you’ve seen the young man in white?”
    â€œYou suppose right.” Which, technically, wasn’t even a lie. “ I don’t suppose you’d be willing to do a little more research on the house? You know, just in case.”
    â€œIn case of what? The kind of ‘oh, no, ghosts are dangerous’ crap that shows up in bad scripts? Ghosts are unhappy spirits caught between this life and the next. They can’t hurt you, you big wuss.”
    Someone had scooped a finger of wet paint off the wall of the second-floor bathroom and applied it to Lee’s ass. Granted, no one had gotten hurt, but that did prove they could manifest physically. And physical manifestation wasn’t good.
    â€œI mean, it’s not like they’re poltergeists,” Amy continued. “They’re not throwing things or damaging anything or you’d know about them by now. They’re lost and confused and probably lonely. They might not even know they’re dead.”
    They knew. Their reaction to him seeing past the glamour had proved that.
    â€œWe’re shooting in the second-floor bathroom this afternoon.”
    â€œSo?” Amy snorted. “It’s not like they’ll show up on film, and I very much doubt that anyone who works here is sensitive enough to . . . CB Productions, can I help you?”
    If they didn’t show up on film and he was the only one who could see them . . . No wait, Lee had seen them. Except, Lee hadn’t seen them as they were. Did that matter? No. None of this mattered. Bottom line; haunted houses were not a good thing, and he was only a PA; he had to talk to the . . .
    â€œDaddy! Ashley shoved me!”
    For the second time that day, Tony felt his blood run cold. He matched Amy’s terrified gaze with one of his own, she hung up the phone, and together they turned toward the outside door.
    â€œI did not, you little liar!”
    â€œDid! You just want to get to Mason!”
    â€œHe’s not even here, Cheese!”
    â€œZitface!”
    â€œGirls, try to remember this is a place of business.”
    â€œAnd Zitface wants to do business with Mason!” Making kissing noises, a girl of about eight backed into the office both hands raised to ward off the attack of a slightly older girl.
    Following them was Chester Bane. The six-foot-four, ex-offensive tackle, who ran every aspect of CB Productions with an iron fist and a bellicose nature to back it up, looked a little desperate. Tony didn’t blame him. Ashley and Brianna’s mother,