“Of course not,” Max said soothingly.
“But what happened last night…My God, man! I’ve never experienced anything like that!” Goudini finished his drink. “I panicked. I admit it. Anyone would have panicked, and no one can tell me differently.” He went to the wet bar and started mixing yet another whiskey and soda. “You’re sure no one else wants one?”
“No, thanks,” we said, almost in unison.
According to Khyber, with the failure of the disappearing act, Goudini’s performance had bombed so badly last night that magic buffs were talking about it on BBs all night and all morning. The chatter had been easy to trace when Khyber got up today and started checking the sites he’d been monitoring in recent days.
“It was a shattering experience,” Goudini told us.
I was so recently out of the shower that my hair was still damp, and my face was probably still pink from the determined scrubbing I’d given it. Max looked as weary as I felt, but his expression was intent as he extracted the details of last night’s disappearance from Goudini.
The magician’s account was similar to the others we’d heard, except that it was bigger! better! bolder! His prop box was an enormous tiger cage with shiny silver bars, and it levitated fifteen feet above the stage while music blared and lights danced. The cage filled with smoke, there was a momentary blackout of the whole theater, a few flashes of thunder and lightning—
“Lightning?” Khyber asked, recalling his research.
“Simulated,” Goudini clarified.
—followed by some sinister twirling effects of the cage, and a sudden, heart-lurching drop as the apparatus fell to the stage with a crash as if to release the deadly tiger inside—
“Poor thing,” Khyber murmured. “Was it scared?”
—to prey upon the magician and his audience.
“Then the lights come up, the smoke clears and the tiger has been replaced by a beautiful girl, who steps out of the cage and takes a bow with me.” Goudini gave another shudder. “Except, of course, that things went wrong last night. Very wrong.”
“We’ll need to examine that cage,” Max said.
Goudini gave a little cry of despair. “How can I go on with the show this afternoon?”
“This afternoon?” I repeated.
“Saturday matinee,” Khyber said.
It was Saturday, I realized. Golly had vanished one week ago. I fought off a sudden, gloomy fear that our quest was hopeless and we’d never find the disappearees—whose numbers were certainly increasing faster than clues were accumulating.
Goudini was agitated enough to run his hands through his hair. I was right—it didn’t move at all. “What am I going to do without her?” he wondered brokenly.
“Don’t you worry, Mr. Goudini,” said Khyber. “We’ll find her.”
“Yes,” I agreed firmly, stiffening my resolve. “We’re going to find…I’m sorry, what’s her name?”
“Alice.”
“Alice,” I repeated. “Can we get a description?”
“Of Alice? Well, she’s nine years old,” Goudini said.
I blinked. “What?”
“A white Bengal tiger. Average size for an adult female. And she has a scar on her nose from getting caught in some brambles as a cub.”
“Oh,” I said. “Alice is the tiger. Right. Gotcha. What’s the young lady’s name?”
“Hmm?”
“The woman who disappeared?” I prodded.
“Oh. Sarah Campbell.”
I started to inquire about Sarah’s mood and attitude last night, but Goudini interrupted me. “You really think you can get my tiger back for me?”
“We certainly hope so,” said Max.
“We also hope to find your beautiful assistant,” I said tersely.
“Hmm? Oh! Right. Well, that’s good,” Goudini said. “But Alice is the irreplaceable part of the act. I’ll do anything—I mean, anything—to get my tiger back!”
“I see.”
“It isn’t just that tigers are so expensive,” Goudini explained, as if fearing I might think him mercenary. “They’re also incredibly difficult to train.”
“I totally believe that, Garry,” I said.
“I’ve got two grown cubs of Alice’s,” he said, “but they’re just set dressing. They sit in cages on either side of the stage, looking fierce and pretty. They’ve never taken after their mother, they’re really of no use in the act.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I must get Alice back!”
“Roger that,” I said, rising to my feet. “Max, shall we examine the cage?”
“Yes, but I think perhaps we should question Mr. Goudini a bit more.”
That was no doubt a wise suggestion, but I thought there was a good chance I’d clobber Goudini if I spent much more time with him. I wondered if he’d even be talking to us about the disappearance at all if Alice was safe now and Sarah Campbell had vanished alone.
However, we needed Goudini’s cooperation. So, in order to avoid alienating him (by, you know, clobbering him), I suggested that I interview members of his performance team while Max continued talking with the magician. Max approved of this time-saving plan, and so I spent the rest of the afternoon tracking them down and questioning them.
All of them wanted Alice back. And, oh, yeah, Sarah, too.
Back at the bookshop, I wrote the names of the two latest victims on the display board, Alice the Tiger and Sarah Campbell.
“The human body,” Lysander was saying to Satsy, “like virtually everything else in the cosmos, consists of more empty space than it does of solid matter. Therefore, the puzzling thing is not really that something can be made to vanish, but rather that things don’t vanish more often.”
Satsy said, “That’s such clever reasoning!”
“No, no, merely the result of years of arduous study.”
I gave up staring at the display board and went to the refreshments stand in search of sustenance. There was a mini fridge there. Max kept little pints of milk in it, to go with the coffee and tea he provided for his customers. I’d stored last night’s Thai leftovers in there. When I opened the door now in search of a meal, though, I discovered the food had disappeared.
“Of course,” I muttered.
The Chinese leftovers from Thursday night had also disappeared. Our research team ate too much, I thought bitterly.
“Vultures,” I muttered.
Preferring to starve in a sulky mood rather than go back out onto the streets in search of food when I was so tired, I sat down at the research table with a sigh. I picked up a copy of John Aubrey’s Miscellanies and opened it to the chapter entitled “Transportation by an Invisible Power.” Within minutes, my head hurt. Seventeenth-century English prose isn’t exactly light reading.
Satsy was perusing Colin Parsons’s Encounters With the Unknown. There was a stack of books at his feet, under the table, but he’d already declined my offer to help him go through those. Lysander was working his way through an ancient-looking grimoire in a language I didn’t recognize. According to what Max had told me, a grimoire was sort of a manual on ritual magic, both “good” and “evil”—which were concepts, I gathered, grimoire authors cared about less than they cared about simply how to get the job done.
I looked up as Max and Khyber entered the shop. After a quick greeting, Khyber set up his laptop, using Max’s telephone line to get online, while Max explained that they’d learned nothing particularly useful from interviewing Goudini or examining the magician’s tiger cage.
“I gather Goudini didn’t feel like coming back here with you and hitting the books?” I said cynically.
“He’s busy finishing his matinee performance,” Max said.
“Without his big finale of the tiger and the girl swapping places in the levitating cage?” I asked.
“The show must go on.” Khyber noticed our scant numbers and asked, “Where is everyone?”
“Whoopsy and Delilah are at the public library again
,” I said. “Hieronymus is down in the cellar. Of course.”
“I should check on him,” said Max. “He was looking rather haggard when I left this morning. I think the poor boy’s been working too hard.”
“Yeah, that sounds likely,” I grumbled.
Satsy said, “Barclay and Dixie are rehearsing.”
“Oh, that’s right—tonight’s performance!” Max said.
“Barclay’s big break,” Satsy said. “And what with so much of yesterday being devoted to police interrogation, he had no time to rehearse, so they’ve got a lot of work to do today if they want to be ready by showtime.”
“Is Duke with them?” Khyber asked.
Satsy nodded. “He ducked out a while ago with apologies. Dixie phoned in, said she and Barclay would need some help loading his props into his van and setting up at the cabaret.”
“It must be a more elaborate act than I pictured.” I set aside John Aubrey’s book and the undisciplined spelling that always seems to characterize prose of that era.
“Well, Barclay’s worked awfully hard lately, from the sound of it,” Satsy said. “Devoted himself to study and practice. All to arrive at this big day!”
“Yes.” I rubbed my tired eyes. “He told me. When we met.” What had he said? The act was getting better, all his hard work was paying off.
“I’d really like to go to Barclay’s show tonight,” Khyber said.
“Me, too,” said Satsy. “But we have to do our own show, girlfriend.”
“But maybe Delilah should go,” Khyber said. “It might cheer her up.”
Delilah at the Pony Expressive was like a widow holding vigil. Maybe it would be good for her to go somewhere else tonight.
I said, “I could take her to the Magic Cabaret.”
“Good idea,” Khyber said. “We should suggest it to her.”
“Where is the Magic Cabaret?” I asked.
We all looked at one another and realized none of us knew. Khyber tried looking it up online but didn’t find it.
“We’ll call Barclay and ask.” I glanced at the clock and decided there was no rush.
“Maybe I’ll come to the show, too,” Max said.
Lysander said repressively, “Don’t you think an early night might be wise, for a change?”
I made an involuntary sound of longing. “An early night does sound good.”
But I supposed I couldn’t just go home and go to bed, much as I’d have liked to. Barclay probably needed some moral support, and Delilah certainly needed a distraction. They were having a very difficult week, too, after all. Barclay almost had to cancel his longed-for debut at the Magic Cabaret, and Samson and Delilah’s brand-new act had resulted in disaster.
I frowned.
Garry Goudini’s comeback was in dire straits…
Something clicked in my head, like the numbers on the lock of a bicycle chain tumbling into place and giving that faint snap as the chain sags and slips away. Something had fallen into place, but I didn’t know what. I was so tired, and so confused by now.
“So are you going to go, Esther?” Satsy asked me.
“Hmm?”
“Esther?”
“Shh, she’s got that look on her face,” Khyber said.
Barclay had been upset, like Goudini, about losing the disappearing act from his routine. It was his best illusion, his big achievement. Goudini’s, too. Barclay and his big break, Goudini and his comeback…Joe Herlihy, hoping to propel Sorcerer! to Broadway…
Was ambition what united the magicians? Was that the common factor?
But Duke was an amateur who had denied any expectation of turning pro. Still, the night we met, Dixie said he’d been working on the act, trying to improve it….
Goudini and his comeback. Joe with his ambitions. Barclay and Cowboy Duke, amateurs striving for improvement. Delilah and Samson had a brand-new act, one they’d been rehearsing…
“Striving for improvement…” I murmured. I looked at the display board. Or was I reaching? Wasn’t I always striving for improvement, too? Wasn’t every performer?
“Esther?”
I felt like I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
How had five magic acts, all of them striving for improvement, become the fertile ground where something Evil had taken root?
“Five disappearances,” I muttered. “What is it that we’re missing?”
“I’m wondering the same thing.” Max tugged at his beard in obvious frustration.
“Five disappearances in one week!” I slammed a book down on the table, making the others jump. “How can we not see the clues, the key, the answer? How many more people have to vanish before we can figure out why this is happening?”
“And how?” Lysander added.
Khyber said, “Dr. Zadok, do you think we should rule out translocation or teleportation as possibilities?”
“Why?” Max asked absently, still tugging his beard.
“Well, those are phenomena in which someone who vanishes reappears somewhere else, usually instantaneously.” Khyber looked worried. “And I think we’d have heard from Samson or the others by now if they’d reappeared elsewhere.”
Max shook his head. “No, we can’t rule it out. There are too many reasons they might be unable to contact us. They might be in another dimension, or in another time period—”
“Or being held prisoner somewhere?” I guessed.
“Four women, a man and a tiger?” Khyber frowned. “Why would anyone hold them prisoner?”
Satsy said, “I don’t want anyone to mention this to Delilah, but…” He pushed his bulk well away from the table, reached under it, and sat back up a moment later, holding the books that had been sitting at his feet. He set them on the table. “I’ve been reading some of the books on ritual sacrifice. You know, from this week’s sale section?”
While Satsy gestured to that part of the store, I saw Max and Lysander exchange glances.
“And?” Khyber said.
“And, well, it looks to me like there are all sorts of reasons someone might summon that many people—including the tiger—for…for ritual sacrifice.”
Lysander lowered his eyes. Max froze, didn’t even blink.
“Oh. My. God.” I realized what that brief look between them had meant. “You knew all along that might be why this was happening!”
“Now, Esther,” Max said anxiously, “it’s just one possible theory.”
“Among many possible theories,” Lysander added.
Max said, “We can’t be sure—”
“They’re being sacrificed?” Horrified, I rose to my feet. Khyber gasped.
“Not necessarily,” Lysander said.
Satsy’s face crumpled. “Oh, no! I didn’t want to be right!”
“You may not be,” Max said, “and we ought to remain optimistic.”
“We also ought to remain calm,” Lysander added, eyeing me warily.
“Calm?” I repeated shrilly. “Calm? Are you nuts? If ever there was time to get hot under the collar, this is it!”
“No, Lysander’s right,” Max said. “We don’t want to jump to conclusions.”
“Why are they being sacrificed?” I asked.
“Oh, no!” Satsy said again.
Lysander shook his head. “Speculating about that won’t help. There are too many possibilities.”
“Such as?” I prodded.
Apparently forgetting I wasn’t supposed to learn the secrets of the Collegium, Lysander replied, “Well, for example, sacrifices can be used to summon a demon, summon Satan, placate a demon or devil—”
“My God,” Khyber said.
“—placate a god,” Lysander said, nodding at Khyber as if he’d suggested this, “request help from any number of forces, imbue some spells with special potency, increase an individual’s power, protect some locations or ward certain areas, open the gateway to prophecy or divination, grant specific powers such as flight or the ability to translocate—”
“It can’
t be that last one,” I said, realizing that Lysander might go on forever now that I’d encouraged him to lecture me. “Whatever we’re dealing with, it can make the victims translocate, so surely it has that ability itself?”
“That’s if they are translocating,” Lysander said. “It’s possible that the disappearances are caused by dissolution, and that it might be occurring in a form that causes instantaneous death.”
“Samson,” Satsy said broken-heartedly. “And poor Duke—how will he face Dolly’s death?”
“But if they’re being translocated,” I said quickly, as if translocation for the purpose of being sacrificed was a good alternative to instantaneous death, “doesn’t that narrow down the possibilities? I mean, what ritual would call for the sacrifice of five people?”
“And a tiger,” Khyber added.
“That’s what I can’t understand,” Lysander said. “For any ritual involving multiple human sacrifices, the individuals being sacrificed should be far more homogenous than our disappearees are.”
Satsy gasped and his expression brightened with hope. “That makes sense!”
“It does?” I said.
“Yes, it fits with what I’ve been reading,” Satsy said. “For example, if you wanted to make a bargain with the gods for victory in war, you’d sacrifice, say, thirty nubile young women.”
“That’s horrible,” I said.
“Precisely,” Lysander said to Satsy with approval, ignoring me. “And if you wanted to summon an army of demons to destroy a nation, you’d sacrifice four hundred white mares.”
“You would?” I said.
“If you wanted to destroy just one enemy, you’d only sacrifice seventeen brown hares.” Max frowned and added, “Or, in some places, twenty-one green parrots.”
“And if you wanted to control the outcome of the World Series, you’d need to sacrifice more virgins than anyone is likely to find in New York City these days,” Lysander said primly.
“Those damn Yankees,” said Khyber, a dawning suspicion creeping across his face.
I realized our problem. “But our disappearees are three young women, a middle-aged woman, a man and a tiger.”
Lysander nodded. “They do not seem to have any requisite qualities in common.”
“They have one,” I pointed out. “They were all performing disappearing acts.”
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