by IGMS
For a moment, nothing happened. The audience went silent, expectant. Beryl's laughter tapered off. A fleeting doubt flickered through Barrett's mind, that he had pushed his luck too far, that it really wouldn't work this time.
He'd gotten used to those moments. Happened with every miracle.
Then he felt the power welling, that unmistakable transfer of energy flowing from him, and Beryl rose from the floor -- a foot, two feet, six feet. The audience gasped as one. Barrett closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the sweetness.
Beryl looked down, astonished and screaming laughter at the same time. The applause began, swelling until it filled the hall.
Barrett opened his eyes and let Beryl down. She collapsed into her seat, gaping. "It's real!" she said to her friends. "It's really real!"
Barrett glanced at Violet, still standing stage right with a vacuous smile on her pretty face, and went about levitating some of the other volunteers. Next came a squealing teenaged girl in braces, followed by a young couple -- newlyweds, Barrett guessed, visiting Vegas for their honeymoon. And after them, a balding, surly man, standing with his arms crossed as he waited his turn -- clearly a skeptic, certain this was all a scam. Barrett took particular pleasure in the way color drained from the surly man's face when he left the ground. Barrett fancied he could feel the man's fear. Perhaps a couple of somersaults in midair might --
And something shimmered and flickered in a nearby aisle, just catching Barrett's peripheral vision. A shape formed, upright, man-like, but far larger. Something scaly and horned, with eyes that glowed like jack o'lanterns. Leathery wings grew from its back.
Then it was gone.
Barrett almost lost control of the surly man. A fall from eight feet could result in a broken ankle and a hefty lawsuit. Barrett focused on what he was doing, slowly letting the man down. Ashen, the man sat, oblivious to other audience members pounding him on the back and applauding. His eyes never left Barrett.
For his part, Barrett glanced again at the aisle. The strange figure he had seen there -- or thought he had seen -- was gone. He looked around the auditorium for any sign of it, but saw only stunned and smiling faces, heard only cheers and applause.
But there -- toward the back of the house, in a corner still hidden in shadow . . . had there been something? Another strange shape like the one that had appeared in the aisle?
If so, it was gone now.
Barrett spread his arms wide, as if to embrace his audience. "No wires! No sleight of hand! No cabinets or curtains! It all happens --"
And the crowd, well accustomed to the prompt by this part of the show, responded as one: "Right before your very eyes!"
It was his tagline, or had been ever since his comeback had begun. Six months earlier, he could barely scrape up engagements for small parties. His long-suffering agent had finally given up on him, as had his previous assistant. Now he was headlining in Vegas.
His glance stole again to Violet Navarre, the new girl. Their gazes met. Her smile was no longer vacant, but rather a very knowing, See, I told you so grin.
Backstage after the show, he went straight to her dressing room, knocked. She opened the door and let him in, having already changed from her gown into a sweatshirt and jeans. She'd put up her hair, preparatory to removing her makeup.
She gestured to the white couch along one wall. "Have a seat." Her alto voice conflicted with her youthful appearance. He'd never been clear on her exact age; he put her in her mid-twenties, tops. But if he closed his eyes when she spoke, he could easily imagine a fifty-year-old woman. "Good show tonight," she said.
Barrett remained on his feet. "Did you see it?"
"See what?" She maneuvered around the numerous bouquets that had been delivered after the show and sat at her makeup table. She smeared cold cream over her eye shadow.
"The . . . so you didn't see anything unusual? During the levitation?"
"Other than the levitation, you mean?" She shook her head, wiping away the cold cream with a tissue.
"Never mind. I guess." Barrett sat on the couch. "So what's next?"
She tossed the tissue into a wastebasket and turned to him. "Glad you asked. It's time, Barrett."
He swallowed hard. "You mean it's time to settle up."
"That's what I mean. Oh, don't look so frightened. I promised it would be easy for you, didn't I?"
"Yes."
"And I've kept my promises so far, haven't I? All those miracles you're performing -- they've made you bigger than you've ever been."
"They have, yes." He'd been a professional magician for twenty years -- close magic, big shows, mentalist gigs, the whole gamut. But the crowds had dwindled over the past five years, perhaps sensing a tiredness creeping into his act. It paled to old-fashioned when compared to the flash and showmanship of young punks like Criss Angel.
Until his previous assistant had left him. Until Violet Navarre had auditioned.
Yes, she'd kept her promises. But she'd told him up front that the miracles wouldn't come free.
"So what's the price?"
"We're coming to the end of this run. You'll finish it with your best miracle yet. Your absolute show-stopper. The one they'll remember you for. A vanish."
"A vanish. Without cabinets, I presume."
"Right before their very eyes."
"What am I vanishing?"
"Me."
Barrett nodded. It would be a good trick -- stunning, really, if done with the right buildup. But -- "And that's gonna be the one they remember me for? Even more than the levitation bit?"
"I'm not coming back, Barrett."
"Not --" He sat up a little straighter. "I'm going to vanish you permanently? You're going to just disappear?"
"Yes."
"But --" He frowned. She had to know better. "That won't play. It's a trick without a prestige. You have to come back."
"Not this time."
He opened his mouth to protest further, but she stopped him with an upraised hand. "Yes, it's breaking the rules. It'll confuse the audience. But there are ways to spin it. Think of the buzz it will create, the aura of danger." Her dark eyes lit as she said it. "They'll be talking about it for years afterward. It'll be the mystery of the decade."
"Mystery, hell. I could get arrested."
"Difficult to get a murder conviction without a body." She waved it off. "You might be investigated, but they'll never pin anything on you. You'll be able to pass any polygraph. You'll truly have no idea of my whereabouts."
He couldn't believe what he heard. "That's a comfort. What about my reputation? I'll never get hired again."
"No such thing as bad publicity, Barrett. You know that."
Again, a moment of disconcert struck him. She sounded so much older than her years. "Won't . . . won't you be missed? Don't you think some family members might be curious about your disappearance?"
A hint of a smile played at the corners of her mouth. "Come on, Barrett. You're a bright man. You've figured out by now that I'm not from around here."
Around here -- an interesting way of putting it. Barrett settled against the back of the couch. "I suppose I have."
She looked down at herself with disdain. "This body . . . it's not me. It's a shell, a cage of flesh. Where I come from, I'm immortal. I've been exiled here, left to wither and die. I need to get back, but I can't do it on my own."
It was the first time she had spoken so openly with him. At first, it had been enough to know that she possessed abilities she could, by touch, impart to him in small measures -- just enough to enable him to perform magic acts no one had ever seen. It had been unnerving, sure, but Barrett Webster had been too desperate at the time to examine the gift horse. Later, as his career skyrocketed to unprecedented heights, he grew superstitious about it: the gift horse became a golden goose he didn't dare disturb, much less dissect.
"I don't understand," he said. "What do you need me for? Why can't you just vanish yourself back to" -- one hand made vague circles in the air -- "w
herever?"
She turned back to the mirror, staring as if she could see through it, beyond it. "Like I said, I'm exiled. The power, the energy -- whatever you want to call it -- has its own kind of . . . fingerprint, I guess you could say, unique to the user. Those who exiled me can sense that, and can block me from returning. They'd destroy this body outright if I so much as tried. So the energy has to come from someone else. And there are none of my kind here." Her face became grim, hard. "Even if there were, I doubt they would be inclined to help me."
"So . . ." Barrett squinted a little as he concentrated on following her. "So if the energy comes from me, it doesn't have your fingerprint on it anymore? Will that work?"
"I think so. These past few months have been a kind of experiment for me. I didn't want to tell you about it until I was sure it would succeed." She glanced at him in the mirror. "That's it. That's the deal. You vanish me, and then you're on your own. I'll leave you with enough energy to carry you through the rest of your life, if you like. But I doubt you'll need it. After I'm gone, I imagine you'd be able to live on the money from your book deals and talk show appearances."
The two stared at each other in the ensuing silence. Barrett got to his feet. "Why did they exile you?"
"I doubt you'd be very interested in the politics of my plane. Suffice to say I made some enemies. When I get back, I'll deal with them."
He took a step toward her. "And this isn't your real body. What do you look like, then?" He tried to picture her with scales, wings, and glowing eyes.
She laughed without humor. Her expression remained stony. "Where I come from, I don't have a body."
"So you really didn't see anything unusual during the show?"
She sighed as if bored. "No, Barrett, I didn't. Now, are you going to live up to your end of our bargain?"
"I -- sure. Yes."
"Good." She went back to removing her makeup.
He stood there for several moments, watching her. She paid him no further mind, not even so much as glancing again in his direction. He said, "We'll need time to rehearse it. About a week, do you think?"
She nodded acknowledgment as she went about her business.
He left. The hallway was empty but for a security guard at the far end. Barrett headed toward his own dressing room, aware of the familiar aches in his feet and back from standing for most of the last few hours.
A week to rehearse. That would take them right up to the last night of this run -- a grand finale.
He'd been in the business for twenty years, performing all varieties of magic. He'd been pretty good at mentalist acts, even before Violet Navarre had appeared in his life. If nothing else, he could still make a decent cold read -- picking up on subtle cues in inflection and body language. And his conversation with her set off warning bells. Something about it --
Oh, there was no point in being coy with himself. The signs were too clear to be denied. She had lied to him. About what, he couldn't tell. But she was lying.
By the third day of rehearsal, the buildup and blocking for the vanish seemed to fall into place. Thank goodness. Barrett spent most of his time distracted by his doubts, and by the shapes he thought he had seen. Violet picked up his slack, even contributing a little quip of her own to the script. Just before being vanished, she would say, "Oh, and if I don't come back, Barrett -- I think I left the iron on in the dressing room."
She would grasp his hand at that moment, and that was when she would send the power into him. All his miracles -- her miracles -- were preceded by some kind of contact between them. The rehearsals were all dry runs, of course, but it would be for real when they went live.
"This one will take a lot of energy," she said as the two of them worked in the empty auditorium. "More than levitation, or any of the other bits. You'll feel quite a surge. Be ready for it."
He always felt a surge when she sent the power pulsing through him -- not an electrical sensation, but a kind of organic, coiling warmth, as if something alive had slipped into his gut and writhed there. It lingered for a few hours after every show, a little longer each time, and always left him drained and nauseated.
After rehearsal, he exited the theater via the stage door. Outside, in a loading area shaded from the blazing afternoon sun, a white limo waited to take him back to his hotel. Whenever possible, he liked to catch a nap before dinner on show nights.
Even in the shade, the afternoon heat hit Barrett like a physical thing after the frigid air conditioning of the theater. He swigged distilled water from a bottle he had taken from his dressing room. Heading toward his limo, he spied a balding man he didn't know walking into the loading area. The man stared at Barrett with laser focus.
The theater's security staff was top notch. A guard in a black uniform that accentuated his broad shoulders moved to intercept the stranger. Barrett would have thought nothing more about it, would have just gotten into the limo and headed away, content to let the guard do his job . . . except --
On second glance, he recognized the guy -- the surly man from the other night. The one Barrett had levitated, and hadn't seemed very pleased about it. The one Barrett had almost dropped when he'd seen, or thought he'd seen, that monstrous apparition.
The guard stopped the man some fifteen yards from the limo. The two spoke in low voices, the guard shaking his head firmly.
Barrett hesitated, taking another swig from his water bottle. For that man to be here now . . . too much of a coincidence. Maybe he knew something useful, something to put a doubting mind at ease.
Barrett changed course, headed for the security guard and the surly man. The guard noticed him coming and put up a hand. "No need for concern, Mr. Webster. Everything's under control."
The surly man looked at Barrett, composed and calm -- not agitated or excited, as a fan or a stalker might be.
Barrett said, "Do you have something to say to me?"
"If you're willing to listen," the surly man said. "Just a few minutes of your time." He had a quiet voice.
"Really, Mr. Webster, I can --"
"It's all right," Barrett said to the guard. "Let him through."
"He's not authorized."
"I'll take responsibility."
The guard's face wrinkled as he pondered. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
The guard stepped aside, retreated to his post near the stage door.
The two of them took a few moments to size each other up. The surly man stood half a head shorter than Barrett. Wisps of his thinning hair danced with each breeze. His features seemed inflexible, as if a smile would cause his face to crack and fall off. He wore a blue button-down shirt, tucked -- over a bit of paunch -- into khaki slacks.
"Just a few minutes," Barrett said.
"Of course. Someplace private would be best."
Barrett nodded toward the limo. "Will that work?"
"After you."
They headed for the car. On the way, Barrett glanced toward the stage door. Violet had just emerged. Her gaze lighted on Barrett and the surly man. She frowned and said something to the security guard.
As Barrett and his new friend approached the limo, his driver, Tony, dressed in an all-black uniform and dark shades, got out from the driver's side and opened the rear door for him.
"Thanks, Tony. Give us a few minutes, will you? Get yourself a coffee or something."
Tony nodded and headed for the theater, where Violet and the security guard were still talking.
Barrett gestured for the surly man to climb into the limo, then followed, shutting the door behind him.
The car's plush red interior swallowed up all sound. The tinted windows, opaque from the outside, cast a pall over the view of the loading area.
"Felix Heller," the surly man said.
Barrett knew the name -- mid-level magician, worked on the West Coast. Good reputation for close magic, very skilled, but not much of a showman. With a dour face like that, it wasn't hard to see why. Barrett had never met him.
&
nbsp; "You were at the show the other night."
"I happened to be in town, visiting my sister. Your act is generating a lot of buzz. I thought I'd check it out."
"What did you think?"
"That's why I'm here. Mr. Webster, in all my years as a performer, I have never experienced what I saw at your show."
It didn't sound like a compliment. "Well . . . thanks, I think."
Felix Heller grumbled. "I mean it's the most disturbing thing I've ever seen, or felt. What you're doing is not magic as I know it. It's not sleight of hand. You're not using clever apparatus. You didn't levitate me and the others with concealed wires. I don't know how you're doing it, but I have no doubt that it's real."
"Well, that's the idea, Mr. Heller -- to make everyone wonder how you're doing it. I guess with that particular trick, I've even managed to confound a professional magician."
"No. You didn't confound me at all. You performed genuine levitation. And in my experience, there's no such thing."
The interior of the limo felt too confining, too warm. Barrett broke into a stinging sweat. "That -- that's kind of you, but I --"
"You are playing with something very dangerous, Mr. Webster. You almost dropped me the other night. I felt it. Whatever the source of your ability, you don't have control of it yet. But you're inflicting it on innocent people. Sooner or later, someone's going to get hurt, or worse."
Barrett's hands twitched. "All right, you've had your few minutes. Now you'd better --"
Heller leaned in. "I've been thinking about nothing else since that night. And I've done a little research on you. This" -- his hands fluttered in the air -- "this 'right before your very eyes' shtick -- it's all new. Your act used to be pretty standard magician fare." He shrugged. "Like mine, to tell you the truth. Well done, maybe, but nothing extraordinary. Right up until about six months ago. What changed?"
"Get out of my car," Barrett said.
"Your assistant is very beautiful."
Barrett fell silent. His breathing slowed. "What about her?"
"She seems very skilled in her own right, very good at what she does -- distracting the audience. Unusually self-possessed for one so young. I would think I would have heard of her before now."