Magic Mansion

by Jordan Castillo Price

  John was fairly certain the heart monitor, had he been wearing it, would have made a very undignified noise…because as far as he could tell, his heart had just stopped. Four months? That was a full season. A third of a year. How could he deal with being away from Ricardo for four months when he could hardly imagine being torn from him for a single night?

  If Ricardo won, of course he would want John to come along. But John would need to get back to work right away, to take full advantage of whatever gigs his time on the show might generate. If John won the quarter million, there was no question he’d be willing to pay for Ricardo to accompany him. Ricardo was young, his career was just beginning, and his romance with John would generate as much buzz as a string of performances for him. It would be like all the trips John had taken with Casey—only he’d be working this time, not lolling around in the sun. And he’d have Ricardo by his side.

  That was it, then. John had to win.

  The four eliminated contestants appeared from behind a curtain to a flourish of dry ice, which didn’t look particularly imposing in the bright afternoon sunlight. Despite the lack of working theatrics, they looked plenty threatening to the Final Four.

  There was no elegant way to get them up on the platform. The cameras would need to cut from the reveal—maybe for a commercial break—to their appearance, standing behind the Final Four, with the straitjackets in their hands. Ken Barron was the first to climb the platform. He was in good shape, unlike Chip, and he’d been allowed to wear more sensible shoes than the ladies. “Good to see you,” he told John, and shook his hand while the other magicians struggled up the scaffolding. His grasp was firm and dry. The costume was flattering. Hawkish nose, high widow’s peaks—Ken’s face lent itself to the melodrama. His calm demeanor was reassuring as well. Better to have all the melodrama going on in Ken’s costume, rather than in his head.

  He saw John assessing him, and said, “You’re miked, aren’t you?”

  John nodded.

  “That’s fine. Just listen. When I heard you’d done so well on the Boardwalk Challenge, I was disappointed. Not for you, but for me. Because you were the magician I really wanted to be paired up with. Ricardo and Kevin…their styles and mine just don’t mesh. Their acts are too modern. And if I ended up with Jia Lee—let’s just say there’s no way I wouldn’t come out looking like a creep for tying her up too tight. This challenge is too physical for her. You ever hung upside down?” John shrugged. “Then you know what it takes to curl up with only the strength of your quads and abs to get yourself turned around. What’s the choice? Kick free of the gravity boots and fall on your head?”

  Images of Ricardo being wheeled out in a neck brace with a broken spine flashed through John’s mind, and a chill seized him. No, he told himself firmly. Ricardo was in fabulous shape. He wouldn’t just flop out of the boots and hurt himself. He’d curl up and right his body properly.

  But the capacity for an accident now seemed ridiculously huge.

  “You know how to work your way out of a jacket?” Ken asked. “Dominant arm on top, pinch out some slack?”

  John nodded again.

  “Okay. Good. I figured you would. Just promise you’ll do one thing for me.”

  Down on the ground, Iain yelled through his bullhorn, “Okay, people. Places.”

  “Struggle,” Ken whispered. “I mean, really struggle. Make us both look good.”

  John nodded, wondering at the hope that maybe his European sojourn with Ricardo might indeed kick off their relationship…and then a stunt tech approached with an armload of gear, and there was no more time for what-ifs.

  In addition to the straitjacket they would shortly don, each magician was fitted with a helmet, goggles, and respirator. No wonder they’d let the contestants provide their own wardrobe for this final stunt. The viewers would hardly be able to see past all the gear. Iain’s voice came through a radio monitor in the stunt helmet. “Testing. Test test. Can everybody hear me?”

  “I hear you,” John replied. He couldn’t hear whether the other magicians did or not. Iain’s was the only voice that fed through his monitor.

  “Okay,” Iain said. “This is a one-shot stunt—no do-overs. Meaning, if you cry uncle, you’re disqualified, you lose, and that’s that. Understand?”

  John gave a thumbs-up.

  “There’s an hour’s worth of sand in there. If it all pours out, it’ll be waist-high, so there’ll be no problem keeping on top of it. In all likelihood, one of you will unlock your door before then. It took our stunt coordinator fifteen minutes—and we even added more keys after that, just to make sure no one would get buried too deep. But if does take all of you longer than an hour to locate a key, don’t worry. There’s plenty of ventilation. It’ll just turn into a dig-off at that point. Any questions?” There was a pause, and then Iain said, “There’s thirty keys total in every hourglass, but you only need one. They’re all the same. Anything else?” Another pause while another magician presumably asked something. “The gravity boots are fastened with heavy duty hook-and-loop tape. You need to tear out of them.”

  “Who can hear us?” John asked.

  “I can hear you. Monty can. And so can everyone at the soundboard. Chances are, unless you’re talking to Monty, we won’t use much of your audio in the final cut—in our test run it sounded like a bunch of breathing—but we will want some, so keep the pottymouth to a minimum. That means you, Kazan.”

  Beneath all his gear, Kevin postured.

  “Everybody ready? Okay, we’re rolling. Action.”

  Chapter 39

  SANDS OF TIME

  “It’s time for Magic Mansion’s final challenge,” Monty said with requisite flair and drama, “where our top four magicians compete for the chance of a lifetime—a European tour, and a quarter million dollars. Not only are they facing one another. They’re also going up against…the Sands of Time. Each magician chose one of the eliminated contestants to strap them in—so let’s get to it. Magicians, hold out your arms. It’s time for your straitjackets.”

  John held out his arms, and Ken wrapped the canvas garment around his front and pulled the sleeves over his hands. The expression on Ken’s face was startlingly intense, and he dressed John with plenty of brisk yanks and tugs…though all the pulling in the world at this point wouldn’t affect the final fit of the straitjacket, not until the buckles were fastened. However, it would look extreme.

  “These are regulation straitjackets,” Monty said, “just like Houdini would have used.”

  Unlikely. These weren’t nineteenth-century period straitjackets—they were new. But they were the same as the one John had practiced with, and that’s what mattered. He grabbed some slack in the right armpit with his left hand, crossed his dominant arm over the top, and inhaled deeply to make himself bigger.

  He needn’t have been so cautious. Casey had been twice as fastidious about strapping him in firmly, although Ken Barron made a much bigger show with all his yanking, pulling and grunting. The only one louder than Ken…was Sue.

  She forced the straps on Kevin Kazan’s straitjacket so tight, she was flushed and gasping with the effort.

  “Yo, take it easy, girl,” Kevin said, voice muffled by the respirator, as she tightened the strap that came up between his legs. “I’m gonna lose a nut.”

  “Too bad. You picked me so I couldn’t work with Ricardo—and now you’ve got me.”

  Plenty of John’s friends threw around the word “karma,” but he’d never seen it materialize quite so instantly as it did for Kevin. As far as John was concerned, it couldn’t happen to a better person.

  “All snug, Magicians?” Monty said. “Then step into your hourglasses.”

  The hourglasses might look convincing from afar, but up close, they were a bizarre combination of steel and plexi. The sand compartments were octagonal, with the flat sheets of safety glass held to a frame by brackets and bolts. The more utilitarian parts were hidden from the camera by a decorative trim painted garishly in
red and gold. From John’s vantage point, however, the interior of the hourglass looked like a giant cluster of hardware.

  The structure that joined the two hourglass halves was an elaborately-rigged piece of equipment. L-brackets held a central disc in place that divided one half of the hourglass from the other. Openings in the disc would control the flow of the sand. Gravity boots were affixed in the center, so sand would pour down all around the upended magician. No doubt the visual effect would be stunning. Still, John’s anxiety was screaming for him to opt out of the challenge, to stay on this side of the plexi and let the other magicians put their fate in the stunt coordinator’s hands. But Ricardo was one of those magicians, and if Ricardo was going through with it, so would he. If there was any spite to be drawn, it made the most sense to give it more targets upon which to expend itself.

  John stepped carefully into the glass enclosure and lined up his feet with the gravity boot cuffs. A stunt tech strapped him in firmly. He looked at Ricardo. A stunt tech was strapping him in, too. Everything would be fine. The techs knew what they were doing. Ricardo gave John a small nod. Wrapped and strapped in yards of canvas and padding, it was the only thing he could really do—other than relaying a message to him through the soundboard. But no, he’d told John how he felt before the stunt. It was enough. John nodded back.

  The glass door clicked shut behind John, and his eardrums flexed. While the hourglass might have been ventilated, John still felt like a firefly in a mason jar. Sweat broke out on his forehead and back suddenly, as if it had been waiting for the signal of that click to spring forth. John reminded himself he wasn’t claustrophobic. And within the hour, hopefully less, someone would win or lose the competition. At that point he would be free—and not just of the giant bug jar. Really and truly free.

  “Ready, kids?” Iain said through the monitor. “Everyone secure?”

  John tested his feet. They weren’t going anywhere, though his straitjacket had plenty of slack. “Ready.”

  “Four magicians,” Monty said, “one prize. Who will free themselves from the diabolical Sands of Time and claim it? We’ll find out, in three…two…one!”

  An airhorn blasted, and the hourglass rumbled as the diesel rigs behind them roared to life. Not only was the height disorienting—the top half of the hourglass stood over eight feet off the ground—but the closeness of the air with the sun beating through the safety glass and the way the sound reverberated through it were stifling. And then, John felt himself tip sideways.

  He took a deep breath and told himself everything was fine, perfectly fine, even as he was turned upside down and all his blood rushed down to his head. No big deal. People hung from gravity boots all the time to stretch their backs…though they didn’t have hundreds of pounds of sand now pressing down on them from overhead. The stunt had been tested. There was no way for the sand to rush down through the narrow valves fast enough to bury him before he had a chance to slip his straitjacket and get out of the gravity boots.

  Was there?

  “And they’re off!” Monty called out…and John reminded himself to struggle.

  His upper arm would loop over his head without a problem. Then it would be a matter of slipping his arms out of the sleeves and threading them through the jacket’s lower opening. He rocked forward and back, struggling, making a show of the restraint. Sand sifted down from above in a steady stream. The dry, rasping noise it made as it hit the padded hourglass floor was shockingly loud.

  “Ricardo the Magnificent slips his arm over his head,” Monty said. “Jia Lee right behind him.”

  John continued to struggle. Sand pinged off his elbows and sprayed the glass walls. “Kevin Kazan almost has an arm free.” John was willing to put forth a few extra seconds of theatrical struggling, but he didn’t want to fall into last place this early in the challenge. Hopefully the struggling he’d done was enough for Ken. He forced his arm over his head, and then disentangled it from his other arm, freed himself from the sleeves and reached for the buckle between his legs. “And Professor Topaz breaks loose from master escape artist Ken Barron’s straitjacket.”

  Not quite yet, but almost. He worked open the buckle that held the strap threaded between his legs, and the whole straitjacket fell to the floor. John hung for a moment to gather himself, but only a moment—and then he heaved his body up toward the gravity boots. He grasped himself behind the knee, which would leave his other hand free to tear the hook-and-loop straps open—and a stream of sand hit him in the face, startling him. Was that a key that had pinged off his goggles? He couldn’t tell.

  “Ricardo is right-side up. Jia Lee is struggling with her boots—as is Professor Topaz. Kevin Kazan is still working on getting his arms out of those sleeves but he’s wrapped up tight.”

  John wasn’t struggling, actually. He was planning where to grab on to the gravity boots when he swung down. While it was a strain to jackknife himself long enough to undo the second gravity boot cuff, he hardly felt it. Everything else paled in comparison to the sheer adrenaline coursing through him. A final tug, a rip, and— “Professor Topaz rights himself. Jia Lee still upside down, Kevin Kazan still in his straitjacket!”

  John’s feet hit the hourglass floor with a padded whumpf. The dense stunt foam wasn’t easy to stand on, but it was no worse than a surfboard. Plus, he was sure anyone who fell on it would be grateful for the padding. Sand hit the top of his helmet, disorienting him, and the monitor near his ear went crackly.

  “bzzt—Kazan, really struggling—jshht”

  How long had John been upside down? Not long, less than a few minutes. He got his bearings, found the door, then located the locks. Four. One on each side, keeping the plexi panel in place. All he needed was a key. He dropped to his knees and began searching. And as naturally as someone might flick on a light to allow themselves a better look, he very nearly reached out with his True magic…but then he stopped himself.

  He was already ahead of everyone but Ricardo, and in every other challenge when he’d given in to the heat of the moment, he’d soon regretted his impulsiveness. It would be greedy to tempt fate. Greedy, and foolish.

  And so, instead, he simply dug.

  Sand had accumulated on the floor, several inches deep now. It pounded the back of John’s helmet like an unrelenting downpour. It sifted down the back of his shirt, and jammed itself beneath his fingernails as he dug. He ignored it all, and put all his focus into his fingertips as he swept through it, fanning his arms out in wide arcs, covering the area in which he thought a key might have landed…if it had, indeed bounced off his head as he hung upside-down. Which he couldn’t even say for sure was the case.

  “crackle—Lee is down…and what’s she doing?—bzz”

  Was that a key? Or that? Or that? A pebble. A twig. John combed his fingers through the rough sand, searching. It felt unnatural to restrain himself from reaching out with the Truth, like writing with his left hand. Which made John wonder, if only briefly, how often did he actually call upon it? Nearly as much as all his other senses, it seemed, now that he was forcing himself not to.

  What about Ricardo? Would he even bother holding back?

  John looked up and found Ricardo standing, stretched the length of his hourglass enclosure, with his fingers hooked into one of the holes where the sand sifted through. He dug at it, encouraging it to pour through faster. And if the piles at his feet were anything to go by, his method was working. Though whether he was using any talent beyond ingenuity and determination was anyone’s guess.

  “bzz—no key, and Kevin Kazan looks like he’s in trouble—zzt”

  Trouble.

  The single word, fuzzy and distorted as it was, rang through John’s consciousness as resonant and foreboding as a gong.

  LAPD—hello? Sir, is this the residence of Casey Cornish? And your relationship to him? I see. Trouble? Well, there’s been an accident at the post office. You might want to sit down.

  John turned on his knee, away from Ricardo (who was obviou
sly fine), to face Kevin instead.

  Kevin was still strapped into his gravity boots, rocking wildly. The long arms of the straitjacket flailed, buckles rapping against the plexi sides of the hourglass as they struck it. Kevin had the abdominal strength to pull himself up and release himself from the boots, no doubt. He’d constantly bragged about how many crunches and pull-ups and whatnot he’d done that morning. But now it seemed as if he wasn’t even able to get his hands free. He just hung there, flailing, like a butterfly trapped in its own cocoon, batting at his face with his canvas-covered hands.

  A seizure? A panic attack? John hesitated from reaching out, from seeing…but only briefly. Because in his gut, and in his heart, and deep within his marrow, he knew—something was wrong. Ducking out from the steady stream of sand, pressing himself up against the side of the plexi enclosure, he focused entirely on Kevin Kazan, and he sent forth the faintest tendril of his True magic, and touched it to the struggling magician.

  As if Kevin’s Truth could amplify John’s, the two seized upon one another, doubling, tripling, building upon one another like feedback. John’s chest constricted. His stomach clenched. His heart raced. But mostly…his eyes burned. Not both of them. Just one.

  It was more than just a burn. A burn would have been a relief compared to the sensation he was experiencing. It felt more like someone had shoved a red-hot poker into his eye socket.

  John brushed Kevin’s True magic away from his own, regretfully, as he might shed a clingy fan, and he attempted to pull back enough to gain some perspective on what was happening.

  “gzzt—stops digging to see what’s going on with Kevin—crackle”

  Every time John attempted to touch on Kevin—his face, his eye, any part of his body—Kevin’s True magic threatened to suck his awareness back in, to attempt to ameliorate its agony by forcing John to shoulder some of the pain and panic. There was no reasoning with it—the Truth was not exactly sentient. And then it occurred to John to check in with something that was just as close to the problem as Kevin’s physical body, without being part of that body itself.