The Magician's Blood

by Linda G. Hill

  “George, my intentions toward Herman are completely honorable. I’m not going to ask her to do anything she’s not comfortable with.”

  “He’s a hypnotist, did you know that?” George asked.

  “So?” Herman said.

  “So he can talk you into doing things you wouldn’t normally do. Don’t trust him.”

  “What exactly is it you have against me, George? What have I ever done to you?” Stephen asked sincerely.

  George was quiet for so long that Herman asked if he was still there.

  “He’s hiding something, Herman. There’s more to him than meets the eye.”

  Herman looked at Stephen with her eyebrows raised. He shook his head and put his finger to his lips, asking her not to speak about what she knew to be true of his powers.

  “I’ve been with Stephen long enough to know that I can trust him, okay?”

  “And how long is that?”

  When Herman didn’t answer, George said. “You knew where she was when I saw you at the airport, Dagmar?”

  “You didn’t want to know, if you recall,” Stephen said.

  “I remember exactly what we talked about, you sleazy asshole,” George said through clenched teeth.

  “Anyway!” Herman said, cutting off whatever was coming next. “As I said, Stephen’s been great the whole time we’ve been together. And you’re one to talk. I didn’t even know what you do for a living until I met Stephen.”

  “I was going to tell you when you were old enough to understand,” George said.

  “I’m eighteen.”

  “And now you know.”

  “You should be happy Herman has joined the family business,” Stephen said. He was convinced there was much more to it than just the fact that both father and daughter assisted magicians—he felt quite sure that George had innate magic of his own that he had likely passed down to Herman—but the likelihood that George would admit it was equal to the possibility that Stephen would confide in the man: nil.

  “I’m still going to wring your neck the next time I see you, Dagmar.”

  “You’re going to have to get through me first,” Herman said. “Is there any point asking you how I can find Mom and Chad?”

  George sighed. “Your mother is in a home. I’m sorry. Her forgetfulness when it came to her medications was getting dangerous.”

  “And I guess you couldn’t look after her.”

  “Not without quitting my job, no.”

  Stephen watched Herman run her hand through her hair—a habit she’d picked up from him in the ten weeks they’d been together. “Is Chad okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, he’s gone to live with your mother’s sister. Since Beryl’s been widowed she’s lonely, so she was happy to take him.”

  “Wait. Isn’t she all the way in Edmonton?”

  “I know it’s a long way away, but for the amount of traveling I do, I can visit him there just as easily as Ottawa.”

  “We’ll be going out there in a couple of months,” Stephen said to Herman. “We can visit him then.”

  “Stay away from my son, Dagmar.”

  “I want to see him,” Herman said to the phone.

  “You can go and see him alone then.”

  “How am I going to do that? I’m with Stephen all the time. And anyway, I wanted to take Chad with us for a while …”

  “That turd is not getting anywhere near Chad,” George said.

  “Ughh!! Stephen is fine! He’s not what you think he is. He’s good, and kind … he’s a wonderful man!”

  “He’s a bad influence if nothing else. There’s nothing you can say to convince me that that boy you’re with is trustworthy.”

  “Stop baiting your own daughter for answers, George,” Stephen said.

  Herman looked at him sharply; Stephen lifted a finger, indicating that he’d explain later.

  “Fine,” George said at length. “I’ll give you your Aunt Beryl’s number in Edmonton.”

  Herman wrote it down on the hotel’s letterhead along with the number where she could reach her mother who, thankfully, was still in Ottawa.

  “I’m glad you’re okay, Herman,” her dad said. “But I still wish you’d get as far away from Stephen Dagmar as possible.”

  “I love him, Dad. I’m not going anywhere.”

  There was a pause.

  “At least promise me you’ll be careful then.”

  “I will.”

  “I’ll have my agent call yours, Dagmar. I’ll be in Edmonton when you are.”

  “I look forward to seeing you again, as always, George,” Stephen said, smiling.

  “Yeah, sounds like fun,” Herman said sarcastically. “I love you, Dad.”

  “Love you too, honey,” he said.

  Herman turned to Stephen after she hung up. “About the hypnotism thing … Why didn’t you tell me you were a trained hypnotist?”

  “Never came up?” He shrugged.

  Herman snorted and turned to face the window, showing him her slender back, covered by her long brown hair. “What did you mean when you told my dad to ‘stop baiting’ me?”

  He put his hands on her shoulders and ran them down her arms to her elbows, then kissed the top of her head.

  “It seems your dad hasn’t given up trying to discover whatever he was attempting to get out of my Japanese assistant.” There were so many things the devious, horrible man could discover about him; levitation was just the beginning. He could discover Stephen’s ability to transport himself and other people and objects, or to start a fire with a thought; he could even find out the reason behind Nina’s pregnancy—it was all too personal.

  “So, you think he’ll try to get it out of me?” Herman asked his faint reflection in the window.

  “I think so. Especially now there’s more than the magician’s code of ethics at stake. Now I have his daughter.”

  “How important is it that you keep your powers a secret? I mean, assuming I don’t have any of the real magical powers you suspect he might have handed down to me.”

  “It’s still very important. Even if you do have powers of your own.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think, Herman? Aside from turning my entire career upside down if he tells people I’m not just performing stage magic, what do you think it’s going to do to me personally? To my family?”

  “Okay, so what if it didn’t go public? What if only my dad knew?”

  Stephen sighed. “I’d rather he kept on thinking I’m just a hypnotist.”

  “But if I’m going to stay with you, isn’t he bound to figure it out?”

  “What do you mean if you stay with me?” Stephen asked, gently turning her around to face him.

  “Don’t change the subject.” She raised her eyes to frown at him.

  “You’re starting to know me too well,” he said with a smile.

  “And you’re still doing it.” she said, clearly trying to suppress a smile of her own.

  He rolled his eyes. “All right, all right. Yes, your dad is bound to learn sooner or later that I have real powers. But I hope to have warmed him up to the idea of me as his son-in-law by then.”

  “I don’t know if that’s possible.”

  “What, me being his son-in-law?”

  “No,” she said, slapping his chest lightly. “Warming him up.”

  “Maybe I’ll hypnotize him and convince him I’m the best thing since sliced bread.”

  “Have you ever hypnotized me?”

  “Look into my eyes,” he said.

  She did.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think anymore,” she said half-heartedly.

  “Come on, Herman,” he said, standing back. He took her hands and held her arms out with his. “It’s me. Just me.”

  “You keep saying that to me, or some version of it, but when am I going to stop discovering that everyone else knows more ab
out ‘just you’ than I do?” she asked, exasperated. He knew that besides her father, she was referring to Margaret.

  “Where would the mystery be if you knew everything?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.

  “Stop joking around. You know what I mean.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry,” he said, sincerely. “But think of this—how overwhelmed would you have been if you’d found out everything there is to know about me in, say, the first week of meeting me?”

  “I’d have run for the hills. Especially if you’d told me that once I showed up you were bound by a curse that would end up with your servant pregnant.” She huffed a breath out through her nose. “So what you’re saying is, you’re doing this on purpose—still giving me a little bit at a time so you don’t overwhelm me?”

  Stephen smiled at her but said nothing.

  “How much more is there?”

  He looked up at the ceiling, thinking.

  “That you need to know?” He gazed into her blue eyes and held her arms out again. “Nothing. Everything you see here, this man who loves you more than life itself, this man whose thoughts and emotions you know inside and out; this is all you need to know. That you’ll probably find out?” He dropped his arms and hers with them. “I lived a pretty colorful life before you came along. I hope you’ll eventually get to the point where nothing will surprise you.”

  “Well, as colorful as your life has been is about as sheltered as mine was. It’s going to take a while before I’m not shocked. I mean, seriously? How much worse can it get than you having sex on stage with a bunch of people watching?”

  He did his best not to smile. “Getting back to the question of whether or not I’ve hypnotized you, the answer is I’ve never even tried. What reason could I possibly have?”

  “To make me love you and get revenge on your arch-nemesis, my father?”

  Stephen laughed. “Yes, that’s it. You have me all figured out. You’re free to go.”

  She crossed her arms and stared at him.

  “Herman, I fell in love with you without knowing who you were, remember? The second I laid eyes on you I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life with you. Don’t you think, if anything, that has made me a little vulnerable in regard to my arch-nemesis?”

  Herman scrutinized him for a full minute.

  “I love you, Herman Anderson. And I can’t live without you. That’s all that matters to me.”

  “I think there must be a fine line between charm and hypnotism,” she said, looking into his eyes as though in a trance. If he had hypnotized her, it wasn’t intentional. Then she narrowed her eyes.

  “I don’t think I care one way or the other,” she said. “What difference does it make?”

  “None, I guess. Neither are particularly honest. But I’m not trying to charm you nor hypnotize you. I’m only telling you how I feel.”

  “I love you too, Stephen Dagmar,” she said, looking him directly in the eye.

  He kissed her lips and then let his kisses travel down her jaw to her neck. Before he could get carried away, he pulled back.

  “Are you okay with everything you found out today? We can go and visit your mother the day after tomorrow.”

  “You don’t mind extending our stay in Ottawa?”

  “Of course not. We can stay a week if you want to.”

  Herman shook her head and drew herself up to kiss him again. “I don’t want to change our plans too much. I’ve been looking forward to our little vacation.”

  “So have I.”

  He dragged her backward with him to the bed, where they stayed until it was time to rehearse for the next day’s show.

  CHAPTER 3

  Their first performance in Ottawa—an afternoon matinee—had gone exceptionally well, despite the little girl in the front row who threw up half an hour into the show. For the matinee, Herman had worn a beautiful deep-blue gown that sparkled like the twilit sky. The evening performance, which included the ladder—a trick she was nervous to debut— required her to wear a two-piece outfit: a flared top and bell-bottom pants with golden sequins on an ochre background.

  When she’d stepped out onto the stage hand in hand with Stephen, she’d been fine. As always, the magic in him and in them as a couple created an elastic tension between the two; each held opposite ends and neither was capable of letting go. Their connection transcended speech or signs or perhaps even body language. The trust this instilled in them was absolute, so perfect that not even reading each other’s minds could surpass it.

  The time arrived for her favorite part of every show. Stephen—dressed in his usual tuxedo and a whiter-than-white lace shirt with frilly cuffs—strode onto the stage, pulled up a stool and stood his cane beside him, unsupported. He removed his fully skirted knee-length coat and top hat and hung them on the cane. It leaned ever so slightly, making it appear that it would fall after all, but then it straightened by itself. He sat on the stool, his black hair gleaming under the spotlights and his eyes scanning the crowd, making all the women weak in the knees, and he told a story. Little magic was involved in his soliloquy apart from the magic of his charm; he made each member of the audience feel as though he confided in them alone. It warmed Herman’s heart and made her feel proud. It was almost enough to take her mind off the ladder.

  The chat ended in a funny trick, after which he donned his coat and hat, and bid the cane to fly up and into his hand. She stood backstage alone, clapping with the crowd as he bowed.

  He turned to her and held out his hand, and the audience welcomed Herman back onstage to assist him at the same time the curtain behind them opened to reveal the thing she’d been dreading.

  As Stephen explained that this was the trick’s premier, she went to stand behind the ladder. She shook her shoes off and glanced through the rungs at the expectant faces that were visible by the stage lights in the first three rows. She moved her hand to the rung above her head, blocking the reflection that shone in her eyes from the sequins on her shirt; her nerves hit her in a flurry—never mind the butterflies, these were bat wings. Stephen smiled at her and nodded. Remembering his words before the show, she nodded back: “No matter what,” he had said, “I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

  Conceptualized and built by Stephen, the tall wooden ladder was designed so that, once she hit the halfway point, she would simultaneously ascend with her hands and descend with her feet. To her, it felt like the ladder was somehow collapsing in on itself, but to the audience, it gave the illusion that she was coming apart in the middle. She worried how it would be received, considering her own shock when she saw herself come apart on camera. That was back at home, at the station—their rehearsal space—weeks ago. Since then, she had had several performances to gather her nerves for this moment; now she wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t join the poor little girl who had thrown up earlier.

  Herman swallowed around the lump in her throat and started up. She stopped at the fifteenth rung, did a flourish with her hand, and waited for Stephen to address the audience.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, you may find what you’re about to see disturbing. Please try to remain quiet, as my lovely assistant needs full concentration on what she is about to do.” He pounded the stage with his cane three times and she commenced her simultaneous ascent and descent.

  Managing to ignore the screams and yips of surprise that dotted points in the crowd far below, she counted five rungs up with her hands and five down with her feet. She waited a dramatic thirty seconds for Stephen’s signal—one bang of his cane—and she began climbing back together. The crowd held its collective breath. As her top neared her bottom—or from her perspective, the ladder spread back out—and all was going as planned, a cricket chirped. Despite her nerves, or perhaps because of them, she was unable to suppress a giggle. And at that moment, she lost count. Her heart leaped in her chest and her face grew hot; panic shot up from her toes to her throat and she thanked God for the powder on her hands that kep
t them from becoming slick. She looked down to Stephen for guidance. He held up a hand; she thought she could see three fingers, but she couldn’t be sure with the lights shining on her sequins. It only took a second for him to realize he had to climb the ladder. The structure shook beneath his weight and she glanced up into the dark depths of the ceiling where the ladder was secured. She flinched when Stephen touched her ankle.

  “Three more rungs with your feet and three more with your hands.” His voice was unamplified by the mic, and he spoke without looking up at her. “You’re doing great, just keep going.”

  She waited until he reached the floor to continue. It was only the confidence in his voice that gave her the courage to move. At the last of the three rungs she hesitated only for a moment. The audience’s applause told her she appeared to be back in one piece. She climbed the rest of the way down toward the solidity of the stage as quickly as she could without appearing afraid.

  Stephen met her at the bottom and took her shaking hand. He squeezed her fingers and she looked into his eyes expecting reassurance. What she found was the smoldering reddish glow within, and time stopped. A warmth infused her veins from her fingers where he held them, down past her belly to her clitoris and she gasped, just short of an orgasm. As suddenly as it came on, she was released, and his eyes were just his eyes, smiling with affection. He walked her to the front of the stage, and she curtsied to a standing ovation. It wasn’t until they headed backstage that she realized she was no longer shaking.

  The curtain closed behind them, and they turned to find Margaret, her arms crossed and her foot tapping. Her medium-length dark hair was pulled back, and she wore a short, slim dress over tights and heels, which elongated her already long legs.

  “Great performance, until—you know.” She stared at Herman. “Did you lose count?”

  “Yeah. But the audience’s reaction told me that the illusion was complete, so I didn’t really have to worry.”

  Margaret frowned. “What would happen if you went the wrong way, though?”