The Magician's Blood

by Linda G. Hill

  Stephen reached for her hand and held it under the table, but she refused to look at him. Instead, she asked Margaret, “I suppose the message she wants to get across is what, that he’s sexually available?”

  “Virile, sexy … You said yourself you liked the pictures. Sex sells, and with Stephen’s looks, there’s no point not trying to exploit it. He doesn’t have groupies only because he’s a good magician, after all.”

  “May as well go ahead then.” Herman shrugged. “Why ruin a good thing? She doesn’t have to get into your pants or anything, does she?” Looking at him, for the first time since they started eating, she was almost surprised that his appearance hadn’t changed in some way. It felt as though everything else had.

  “I’ll make sure she doesn’t.”

  “What, this time?” She immediately wanted to take back the words. Petulant child wasn’t what she wanted to project.

  “I didn’t have a girlfriend last time.”

  “Was she in the coven?”

  “No. Are you sure you’re okay with me seeing her again?”

  She picked up her cutlery and said as calmly as she could, “I’m fine with it.”

  He put his hand on hers, and she snatched it away.

  Turning to Margaret, he said, “When you talk to Jill, tell her I have limits. If she’ll still do the shoot, fine. If not, I’ll find someone else.”

  “Consider it done,” Margaret said.

  They lapsed back into an uneasy silence for the rest of breakfast.

  Herman was just finishing her final sip of coffee when Margaret said, “I’ve decided to leave you.”

  Stephen nodded, intent on wiping the last of the egg off his plate with a piece of toast. Herman looked back and forth between the two, attempting to understand why the bomb that had just dropped wasn’t getting more attention.

  She leaned forward in her seat. “What do you mean you’re leaving?”

  Margaret regarded Herman with compassion in her eyes. “I mean that Stephen has you now, and he can do with another competent agent. He doesn’t need me anymore.”

  Herman hesitated, but it had to be asked. “Is this because of last night?”

  “No,” Margaret answered. “I need to get a life of my own. And the two of you need to be able to get on with your life together without me getting in the middle of it. And I’m not just talking about sex.”

  “Aren’t you going to try to talk her out of it?” she asked Stephen.

  He picked up his napkin and wiped his mouth. “She’s right. And as difficult as it’s going to be to let her go, it’s for the best, for all of us.” Stephen turned to Margaret. “Will you find your replacement, or shall I?”

  “I’ll do it,” she said. She looked him in the eye and looked away quickly. The emotional charge between them was palpable.

  “Would you like me to give the two of you some time alone?” she asked Stephen.

  “No, Herman. The whole point of Margaret and I getting away from each other is so our friendship doesn’t affect my relationship with you. That, and she needs to be able to settle down somewhere, and with someone.”

  “But, you’ve been friends forever. I don’t want to be the one who ends that. You’ll both end up resenting me.”

  Margaret reached across the table and touched Herman’s hand. “Stephen and I will still be friends, don’t worry about that. But he needs to stop depending on me for everything in his life …” She glanced sharply at him, returning Herman’s mind to the night before in vivid, living color. “And start depending on you instead,” she continued.

  Herman sat back in her chair and looked down at her lap. She could feel the silent conversation going on between Stephen and Margaret; not knowing what they were saying made her wish she could just touch one of them, to find out what they were thinking. Obviously, the touch had to have intention attached to it, otherwise she’d have been tormented with everyone’s thoughts since her father passed on the ability. She was relieved when Margaret spoke.

  “I’ll be staying ahead of you for the rest of the tour, until we break up for Christmas. You might catch up with me for a few hours between now and then, but that will probably be it, unless there’s something urgent. I’ll start looking for someone else in January, but I’ll stay until this tour is finished.”

  Herman’s mind whirled with uncertainty, hearing the finality of it all. As happy as she was that she wouldn’t be reminded of last night’s scene whenever she saw Margaret’s face, she had come to depend on the woman herself, as a friend and a confidant.

  They left the restaurant and went to see Margaret off at a nearby car rental shop. Herman hugged her goodbye and kissed her on the cheek, and Stephen did the same. Seeing him place his hand gently on Margaret’s waist as he kissed her made Herman want to turn and walk away. She supposed the two of them, having been together so many times before, were accustomed to remaining friends and acting as such. To Herman it was phenomenal that nothing had changed for them, because everything had for her.

  After Margaret drove away, they returned to get their bags and change hotels. They saw no sign of George. The moment they arrived in their new room, Herman called her aunt to make arrangements to get together. Chad had some new friends who wanted to meet Stephen. They were already gathered at Aunt Beryl’s house, waiting.

  When Herman hung up the phone and turned away from the desk, Stephen confronted her.

  “We need to talk about last night,” he demanded.

  “What about it? What’s done is done.”

  “True, but we need to get past it,” he said more gently. He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry, Herman. I know there’s nothing I can do to change what happened, but I’m willing to spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you.”

  “And you’re willing to make sure it never has to happen again?”

  “I’ll do everything in my power. With Nina out of the country, there will be time for me to teach you ways to relax, so that if I get out of control again, I won’t hurt you too much.” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you at all.”

  Herman snorted and forced her way around him. The need to keep control of her emotions surpassed the temptation to throw a fit. She wasn’t even sure what made her angriest: that Stephen had had sex with Margaret, that her father had somehow passed on the ability to predict the future, or that her own drunken logic had caused it to happen.

  “Herman, what do you want from me? I’ll do anything.”

  “Get your coat and let’s go then,” she said, heading for the door.

  CHAPTER 19

  Chad’s delight in finally spending time with Stephen was a balm for Herman’s emotions. With a deck of cards and a handful of small household items as props, they performed a few simple tricks together for her brother and his friends in Aunt Beryl’s quaint and homey living room. After they had exhausted all the magic they could manage together, Herman asked her aunt to accompany her into the kitchen to have a private word. She smiled as she went, hearing Chad excitedly recount the performance he had witnessed, with all the gory details of Herman losing her finger on the ladder.

  Once out of earshot, she explained her plan to invite Chad to Kingston for Christmas.

  “I know your father doesn’t like Stephen, though I can’t imagine why,” Aunt Beryl said. “But if you have room for me to come too, maybe that would affect his decision to allow it …” Her aunt looked down at the floor like she felt guilty about something. Herman knew what it was—her aunt was attracted to her boyfriend—but she had compassion enough not to mention it.

  “Of course you can come,” Herman said, thinking at the same time that maybe they could set up a cot in the guest room for Chad. She couldn’t imagine asking Aunt Beryl to stay in the playroom, even if she didn’t find the hidden part of it.

  The thought of the playroom brought Margaret to mind. Herman rubbed her brow as though it might er
ase the vision of the other woman having sex with Stephen and the rest of the coven up there.

  “I’ll have to consult with your dad before I tell Chad about it,” Aunt Beryl was saying. “I don’t want him to get his hopes up.”

  “I agree,” Herman said. “I have to get back to Stephen.” She turned toward the other room.

  “Actually, I hoped I could talk to you for a few minutes.”

  “What about?” Herman asked.

  “I talked to your mother.”

  “How was she?”

  “Pretty good, especially after I mentioned Stephen’s name. She remembered him well.” Aunt Beryl cleared her throat. “I called Doreen to see what she thought of him, since your father dislikes him so much.”

  “And?”

  “She spoke highly of him. In fact, she wouldn’t even call him Stephen. She insisted on referring to him as Mr. Dagmar. She has a great deal of respect for him and thinks he is the best thing to ever happen to you.” Aunt Beryl smiled. “I trust your mother’s instincts over your father’s, so I want to tell you that I’m very happy for you.”

  “Thank you,” Herman said, giving her aunt a hug. “That means a lot to me.”

  She started toward the door again but turned when Aunt Beryl touched her shoulder.

  “Are you okay, Herman? You seem upset today.”

  “I’m fine,” Herman replied unconvincingly, even to herself. “It’s just that I found out this morning that Margaret is going to start looking for a new job. I’m wondering what we’re going to do without her, that’s all.

  “I’m fine,” she repeated. She hurried out the door before Aunt Beryl could stop her again.

  Stephen looked up as she walked into the living room. He stood and asked her quietly if she wanted to go. She nodded. She regretted leaving Chad, but hanging around in the mood she was in didn’t seem like a good idea. Chad didn’t make it any easier when he clung to her and asked her when she’d be back.

  “I’ll see what I can work out with Dad,” she told him.

  She said goodbye to Aunt Beryl; when Stephen kissed her on the cheek she turned a deep shade of crimson. He shook Chad’s hand and said they’d keep in touch.

  They had nearly made it out of the subdivision before they almost literally ran into George, speeding around a corner on his way to catch them before they left Beryl’s house.

  Stephen pulled over and got out of the car. “You trying to kill someone?” he called as George parked across the street. He leaned against the fender on the passenger side and waited for Herman’s father to come to him. Herman opened the window—it felt safer knowing it would be harder to slug him one if she was sitting in the car.

  “What the fuck were you up to last night?” Stephen asked George when he finally made it across the street. “I thought we had things settled.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said to Herman, ignoring Stephen. “I had too much to drink last night, and I wanted to get you away from all this.”

  “All this is my life now, Dad. Can you please get it through your skull that we love each other and we plan to stay together?”

  “Herman, you’re going to get hurt.”

  “I’m not going to let anyone hurt her,” Stephen said, his arms folded across his chest.

  The older man regarded him, his lips shut tight. “Mark my words, Dagmar. If you really do love her, you’ll let her go. At least until that woman is locked up or dead.”

  Herman shivered from head to toe, hearing it put that bluntly. She wanted to put the talk of hurt and separation behind her, but there were certain things that only her dad could explain to her.

  “I need to talk to you about the power you have,” Herman said, interrupting their bickering. “That we have.”

  He narrowed his eyes but he didn’t answer.

  “Whatever it was you did to me the other night, it caused me to be able to ‘see’ like you do.”

  “What did you see?”

  Herman spoke through a lump that suddenly rose in her throat. To tell him what she saw would prove him right. Give him more ammunition. “The details don’t matter. The point is that what I saw seemed inevitable. Is it always that way? Or can things be changed?” She silently prayed that it was inevitable, otherwise her decision to encourage Stephen to have sex with Margaret was all for nothing.

  “It depends. Sometimes I feel things are inevitable and sometimes just potential, which is how I can see what people are capable of—like your boyfriend here having sex in public with five women.”

  Stephen answered the accusation. “That’s in the past, asshole. And Herman already knew about it. You didn’t have to show her.”

  George frowned at him. “I’ve never seen things that were only in the past. There’s always something of the future to them.” He turned back to Herman. “Anyway, if I feel something is inevitable, it usually is, but I can’t always interpret how, when, or where the things I see are going to happen. It’s impossible to tell if the visions are accurate or, by sheer luck, I’ve interpreted them right.”

  That did nothing to clarify whether she had caused the inevitability of Stephen and Margaret having sex, and Stephen wasn’t going to hang out with her dad long enough for her to figure it all out. She needed even more to know what he’d seen of the future.

  “Do you see it as inevitable that Nina will hurt me? Is it inevitable that the hurt will be physical?”

  “I’m afraid so, Herman.”

  “When you saw her hurt me, did she kill me?”

  “I won’t tell you how I’ve seen her hurt you,” her father said, looking down at his shoes. “But the details are flexible. If the how changed to become an impossibility, then the final outcome might change regarding how badly she hurts you. It’s like, say, if I were to touch Dagmar and see that you’re hungry for pasta. I’d say the probability is that you’re going to eat and that’s what you’ll eat. But if I touched him again in half an hour, and see that you’ve planned to go to McDonald’s, pasta is out of the question, though I was right about the eating part. It’s a stupid comparison, but that’s what it’s like.

  “Now that plans have changed and his pregnant bitch is being sent away, I might be able to see if the how’s changed, but I doubt the inevitability of it will have.”

  “So you’d need to touch one of us?”

  George nodded. “Dagmar, or his agent, or you.”

  She turned to Stephen.

  “I can’t allow it,” he said. “All I can do is protect you. And I will.”

  “But if it’s inevitable …”

  “Then it’s inevitable, and no matter what your father sees or does now, it won’t change anything.” He looked at George. “If it’s inevitable, then even if Herman and I break up, somehow, at some point, Nina will still meet up with her. If I put a hit out on the girl right now, something will go wrong and she will still find a way to hurt Herman before she dies. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes, because you won’t put a hit out on her. You’re not capable of doing it.”

  “So the threat you made on Nina’s life was for nothing either? She’s going to do it regardless?”

  “That depends on the details I’m not able to get, because you won’t let me,” he snarled. “There’s a possibility that I might alter what will happen. And to answer your question, she only has the potential to kill you. I don’t see that as inevitable.”

  “And how are you going to alter the possibility? By killing her? You just said that won’t work because it’s inevitable that she will hurt Herman anyway.

  “Do you see what he’s doing, Herman?” Stephen asked, standing away from the car to look at her. “He twists things around, and he’ll only be up-front if he’s backed into a corner. That’s why I don’t trust him, and that’s why I won’t let him into our heads. What makes you think he’ll tell you what he learns? What if he keeps it to himself and uses it to his own ends, or to cause more harm than is necess
ary? He’s already said he wouldn’t hesitate to take Nina out while she’s still expecting.”

  Herman turned to George. “You said you might alter the outcome, but you still can’t make it not happen at all, because it’s inevitable, right? And still, the ‘when’ will be up for interpretation, is that right?”

  “All I know for sure is that she’s pregnant when she does it, but even then, it might not be this pregnancy.”

  Herman and Stephen looked at each other but said nothing about the fact that there would be no other pregnancy, if everything went as planned. If.

  “I have to agree with Stephen on this one. I think I have a better chance of getting less hurt if he’s with me and protecting me. And I’m sorry, Dad, but I’m having a hard time trusting you too. Anyway, Nina won’t be around to hurt me.”

  “If she’s having your baby,” George said, “you’ll have to deal with her eventually. Make sure she doesn’t get anywhere near my daughter. Ever.”

  Stephen shook his head and walked around the car.

  “Don’t you have a ‘magician’ to get back to?” Stephen asked curling his fingers into quotes before putting the key in the lock on the driver’s door.

  “Beryl called me, by the way,” George said to Herman. “She says you want Chad to come and visit at Christmas. Assuming you’re still together, he can come on one condition—that I come too.” He looked over the car at Stephen. “Maybe you can come up with someone else who knows your bitch whose head I can get into.”

  Herman wished she’d been able to see the look on Stephen’s face at that moment, but all that was visible when she turned around was his chest up against the car window. At length, he said, “We’ll talk about it and let you know.”

  He got in, started the car, and drove away, leaving George standing on the side of the road waving. Herman waved back. She sat quietly in the passenger seat until they arrived at the hotel, trying not to think too much about anything.

  CHAPTER 20

  Stephen threw his car keys onto the hotel room desk with a satisfying clank, thinking that Margaret couldn’t have picked a worse time to leave. He was scared; afraid Herman would never forgive him, afraid that what George had seen couldn’t be prevented, no matter what he did. He wasn’t prepared to give her up if he could help it. Still, he had to ask.