by Farris, John
Big, better, best. His perpetual quest as an illusionist. Always searching for an edge over his competitors. Dedication to his art kept his theatre filled every night while other Vegas magicians were closing up shop for lack of business.
When their working meal was over, Grayle rolled up two sets of plans for further study, had a second glass of sauvignon blanc from his Napa Valley winery poured for him. He leaned back in a leather lounge chair on one of the glass-walled terraces with retractable roofs to watch the high-desert sunset flare metallic green along a saw-toothed black horizon. He listened, as he did most nights when he was home, to Christmas music and parodies. He loved Eartha Kitt's seductive "Santa Baby," Burl Ives's jovial "Jingle Bell Rock," and never tired of the tragicomic bonhomie of "Granma Got Run Over by a Reindeer."
Marcus Woolwine found him there. Woolwine had allowed himself only the slightest smile of satisfaction, as if he were fearful that his eighty-year-old face might cramp if the smile got any wider. But obviously he was pleased with himself.
"Would you care to see her now?"
"She's awake?"
"No, no. She needs to sleep for another twelve hours. The minor surgery is done, and we're mentally prepping her to accept her new status, giving no further thought to Eden Waring."
"Her new status and my proposal?"
"Only Lincoln Grayle, and his desires, will matter to Gwen when she awakens."
"No more of this 'I'd rather vomit in my own eyes'? Fab. No wonder you came so highly recommended by Bronc Skarbeck."
"How did you happen to meet the General?" Woolwine asked.
"After the Multiphasic Operations and Research Group imploded, Bronc was casting around for someone else to sell his soul to, and I offer unmatchable terms."
"I'm also indebted for the opportunity you've given me, to study a doppelganger in such detail. She will be mine, once she has fulfilled her obligations to you?"
"Certainly, Dr. Woolwine."
The sky had darkened, stars appearing like flecks of silver in a miner's pan. Grayle finished his sauvignon blanc and followed Woolwine, who in spite of his age bounded like a pneumatic mountain goat up a double flight of outside steps to the wing of the house that Grayle had turned over to the biogeneticist.
In a large room decorated with exotic cacti growing like crude homunculi Gwen lay face up and completely nude except for a surgical patch on one side of her neck in a mild yellow-green soup of mineral salts more buoyant than ordinary seawater. She was wired to murmurous machines and taking on clear fluids through the IV needle in the back of one hand. There were sunlamps ten feet above the shallow tank in which she serenely floated, breathing almost undetectably, but no ultraviolet light. Her overall deep tan had a beautiful luster, like the painstakingly applied paint jobs to hobby cars. Her dulse-red hair also floated, fanlike, on soothing currents that rippled through the gelatinous solution.
"Why can I see her?" Grayle said. "Doppelgangers in the nude are invisible unless you catch them in black light."
"Her skin and hair are sheathed in an organic compound that maintains the integrity of her image within the spectrum visible to the human eye. I obtained the formula from a Yaqui sorcerer accustomed to dealing with dpg's in his own work. The compound binds to the skin in a layer a few microns thick, hardened by a gentle electrical stimulus, the source of which is the billions of microorganisms in her salty bath. The compound, however, begins to break down after a couple of weeks."
"So she can't disappear on me when she wakes up."
"Had she the desire to do so, where could she go? Back to Eden Waring? The device I've implanted in her neck alters her magnetic field just enough to cancel contact between Gwen and her homebody. Gwen is no longer 'on call,' shall we say."
He paused to mop his steamy bald dome with a paisley handkerchief. It was both hot and humid inside. There were half-moons of moisture on the inner surfaces of Woolwine's mirror lenses. "Isn't she lovely, though? I'm nearly persuaded to jumpstart my libido again, in spite of the potential consequences at my age." Grayle gave him a look. "That is, unless you had a sexual relationship with Gwen in mind. Female dpg's are barren, of course."
"I don't fuck," Grayle said. "Anyway, Gwen's not for breeding purposes. Eden will give me the child I want. A child of power and magical strength. Charming and ruthless. My equal, once I'm at full strength again. I hope all of this tinkering you've done with Gwen hasn't diminished her ability to do a little time-traveling."
"I shouldn't think. Just point her in the right direction."
"If only it were that easy" Grayle said, brooding over the face and nude form of the girl in the sunlit tank. "Do you know how many chain gangs there were in the state of Georgia in 1926? Almost every county had one. Thousands of prisoners. I don't have a face. All I have is a name. Smith. Not very helpful, is it? There are no records anymore of who the prisoners were. The Caretakers did a number on me. I made them pay, but not enough. If Gwen fails me, they've won." He turned to stare at Marcus Woolwine. Who, just for a moment, was treated to a glimpse of what lay behind the handsome facade of the magician. His face felt numb; his Adam's apple bulged in his wrinkly throat. When Grayle spoke again, it was as if his voice were brawling from a chasm like an avalanche in reverse. "I hate to lose!"
Woolwine was able to swallow. He smiled diplomatically.
"Oh, I don't blame you! But I have made it a point during my career never to involve myself in the, ah, politics of those who acquire my services. Nevertheless—may I wish you luck? It all sounds so fascinating."
Chapter 34
WESTBOUND/ROME-LAS VEGAS
GULFSTREAM N657GB
OCTOBER 25
0015 HOURS ZULU
Over the Bay of Biscay Bertie fell asleep. Even heading: danger she had the happy faculty of the young and supremely healthy of sleeping almost anywhere and at any time, dismissing the world and its load of cares. She was never a worrier. Eden had a more precarious outlook, dictated by events of her recent past. Hadn't closed her eyes, or so it seemed, in days. She had had a shower but still felt annoyingly out of focus, airborne, not of earth anymore but not in tune with the spheres. Part of her sense of dislocation was inspired by futile attempts to contact her doppelganger. It was like listening to the celestial drone for a different pulse, a beacon of intelligent life half the cosmos away. When she was too long at this mental labor her brain needed an ice bath.
Tom Sherard came aft from the flight deck with a drink in his hand, ice cubes and a generous slug of Glen Livet. He paused to cover Bertie, stretched out nearly prone in a reclining armchair, with a blanket, then parked himself with the slowness of a man expecting pain opposite Eden. She held out a hand mock imperiously and he passed her his glass. Eden had a swallow, then another, a taste she had begun to relish, twenty-year-old smoke and heather. Developing a needful thirst. Drinking made her feel less afraid of herself. Even Avatars, she'd decided, had to have their flaws. She would be watchful, and accommodate this one. A third sip and she gave back the glass, looking into Tom's eyes.
"Feeling okay?" he asked.
"Better than dismal, but not as good as lousy."
"Thatta girl," he said with his faintly sardonic smile. "Can't find your dpg?"
"No. She's trapped, somehow. Black light would be my guess. The son of a bitch. I almost fell for him, you know."
"Not surprising." Tom picked up his walking stick from the seat next to him and idly stroked the gold lion's head. The lion's eyes opened partway and it yawned. Eden touched the Pope's talisman, which she now wore on a gold chain around her neck, one of the two mountings that a Rome jeweler had fashioned for Bertie and herself.
"We need to start talking about how we'll deal with Grayle," Sherard said. "If it wasn't against the law I wouldn't mind having a crack at him with one of the rifles I brought along. Although filling either Grayle or his alter shape full of lead doesn't seem to be the answer."
"Where are we staying in Vegas?"
"Bahla."
Eden shrugged. She had never been to Las Vegas.
"It's a Bellaver property. Quite lavish. And losing money. Our hotel business is faring poorly these days."
She smiled wryly. "What's another half billion or so? I buy my sneakers at Wal-Mart anyway." She held out her hand again. "Let me help you with that drink." She helped him by draining his glass while he watched, still sardonic. Sometimes he only needed to look at her a certain way, like now, to give her goose bumps. She covered up her sexual uneasiness by dropping the ice cubes from the glass he'd given her into a Coke can on the table next to her, began rolling the heavy fluted whiskey glass back and forth between her palms. "Tom?"
"Yes?"
"I'm scared that I'll freeze up when I see Grayle, or Mordaunt, or whoever he is. I'm out of touch with G-G—you-know-who, and seriously disconnected from reality. I'm sitting here talking to you and all I see is that ugly saber-toothed baboon-thing bounding down a fifty-foot-wide marble corridor and tearing a huge door off its hinges. And the look in its eyes! The evil. The contempt for all that's sacred."
"You didn't freeze up then, sweetheart."
"I had old reliable Simba to protect me. I knew he'd do his stuff." The lion's head turned inquiringly in her direction. She set the whiskey glass on the table next to the Coke can. Tom looked at it. The glass was lopsided, as if it had been aimlessly reshaped by the rolling action between Eden's palms. "But is Simba up to handling a seven-hundred-pound tiger with the head of a hyena? It immobilized a shape-shifter, but the thing wasn't dead. It's in a place with other undead curiosities the Church doesn't know what to do with. Evil is eternal, but I know I'm not."
The Gulfstream jet had run into turbulence at thirty-nine thousand feet. A flight attendant looked in on them and advised fastening seat belts. Tom requested another scotch from the attendant, then got up to secure Bertie in her seat. But she looked up at his touch, smiled drowsily, and put her arms around his neck, pulled his face toward her. Eden examined a broken nail on her left hand.
"There already?" Bertie said.
"Not by a long shot."
"Need to use the potty." Eden looked up as Bertie kissed Tom, stretched, got up, smiled vaguely at Eden in passing. "Anybody hungry yet?" She went into the bathroom. Sherard sat down again, rubbing his jaw as if bewitched.
After a couple of minutes he said, "That may be an answer."
"What are you talking about?" Eden asked, aroused from a brown study.
"Grayle the illusionist is fond of disappearances. A staple of the magician's art. Let us suppose he vanishes one night, but neglects to reappear."
"Bravo. Where's he going?"
"To a tomb of his own, perhaps."
Bertie came out of the bathroom, still yawning hugely, and popped joints in one shoulder and her left wrist. She dropped into the chair next to Eden and removed her ear phones.
"Have I missed anything?"
"Doom and gloom," Eden said.
"Are you cold?" Bertie asked, looking at Eden's forearms. "Do you want a sweater?" Eden shook her head brusquely. Bertie leaned back and steepled her fingers on her breastbone. "Poor attitudes could make us careless," she warned.
"So you're optimistic that we're gonna handle this okay?"
"Why not?"
"Sure, why not. Well, it isn't your ass the were-beast is after."
"Are we going to fight?" Bertie said mildly. She picked up the misshaped whiskey glass from the table. "Neat. How did you do it?"
"I don't know. I was playing with it and it got hot. I thought the glass was going to melt in my hand, so I put it down."
Sherard said, with a narrowing of his hunter's eyes, "Why don't you see if you can soften the glass more."
"I could, I guess. What for?"
"Without touching it," Bertie suggested.
"Oh, now; that would be like hitting a half-court J with the gym lights out."
"Nevertheless, I'd like for you to try, just as Bertie said," Tom persisted.
"Burns a ton of energy, and I'm half brain-dead already."
"We'll channel the Dark Energy," Bertie said. "I need to use up a bunch of calories. I'm three pounds heavier than when I left Shungwaya. All that lovely Roman pasta, mamma mia, just shoot me."
The flight attendant came in with Sherard's fresh scotch. Bertie noted the red in his eyes and gave him a significant look. Tom ignored her. Bertie said to the attendant, "Yvonne, would you bring some empty glasses? Half a dozen should be enough." She gave Eden a gleeful look.
Eden groaned and slumped in her chair, pretending she had fainted. Bertie prodded her in the ribs until she opened her eyes again.
"Come on; it'll be fun! We'll have a competition. And then I can afford to have dessert with dinner."
"Is my nose going to bleed?" Sherard asked.
"Do what I told you to do in the papal library. Just pinch the bridge of your nose with your thumb and forefinger. You'll be okay."
"There's another problem," Eden said.
"'What?"
"We could screw up the plane's avionics if we're not careful and take a quick trip to the bottom of the Atlantic. I mean, what do we know about Dark Energy?"
"Good point," Bertie said, fingering her papal-issue talisman. "We need a way to monitor our output."
"Magnetic anomaly detector," Sherard said, getting up and balancing on his good leg while reaching for the walking stick. "There should be one in the flight deck kit. Don't start without me."
Bertie took the first turn in the competition she'd proposed. The quarter-inch-thick glass left the palm of her outstretched hand and hovered a few feet away in her line of sight. Bertie had once levitated a MORG psychic named Mae Purkey in her wheelchair and flown her halfway across the Vanderbilt University campus, but she'd been very angry then; and her chi worked best outdoors. Glass, she found, was hard to work with, but in short order she had reshaped hers into a Vasa Murrliina pitcher tinted in shades of lavender and lime green. She turned it around for the others to inspect.
"Very pretty," Eden commented.
Bertie took deep breaths to balance her chi.
"I'll give it a six," Sherard judged. He was enjoying his third scotch of the flight and keeping an eye on the MAD readout, which had registered a higher number only briefly during Bertie's efforts, and nowhere near a dangerous level.
"Six?" Bertie cried. "On a scale of ten?"
"That's fair," Eden said with a trace of smugness, her own drinking glass floating free of her hand like a discarded module from a spacecraft.
"Really?" Bertie said, still miffed. "Can't wait to see what you have in mind."
Eden toyed with the talisman on her breast. She didn't feel tired or dispirited anymore. Whatever Dark Energy was, every cell of her body now seemed to brim with it. She melted the glass easily, feeling its sensuous plasticity in her exquisitely sensitive temple bones. Then she willed the glass to draw itself out into a twenty-inch rod. She was gliding quickly on her long wave of foaming, revitalizing energy, through supple twists, turns, and knottings of the glass until her cunning figurine had been sculpted.
Bertie whistled softly.
"What is it?" Tom said.
Eden sent her figurine past his nose, into a dive, then a climb and a final flyby at near-stall speed. Tom plucked it out of the air as deftly as if he were capturing a butterfly.
"Now don't you see?" Eden said with a happy laugh. "It's Dumbo the flying elephant."
They were all smiling now. "This one's an eight' Tom decided. Bertie made a face. "Challenge round," he announced. "Eden, in my judgment, which is unassailable and absolute, you won the right to challenge first."
Eden, flush with the rhythms of her psychokymes, said to Bertie, "How about a stained-glass window?"
"With or without angels?" Bertie shot back.
"Show off all you want, babe."
Chapter 35
0445 HOURS ZULU
Tom Sherard found himself sleepless after several hours in the air, uninfluenced
by the slumberous sounds both young women were making in their blanket cocoons. Deep, untroubled sleep. The nearly dark compartment was littered with the successes and failures left over from the competition he'd proposed. Bertie's stained-glass window containing the bearded figure of Moses, Eden's marvelously filigreed, rose-tinted Camelot sculpture. Bertie had modeled Tom's face in glass, but couldn't get the nose right; the bust had the aspect of a disagreeable camel. Eden had bombed out trying to get the strings right on her glass cello. But by then whatever charge was feeding the astonishing neural energy of their minds had waned. They were pooped and quarrelsome, ate silently with prodigious appetites, and curled up soon afterward.
Tom used his alone time to access Lincoln Grayle's Web site on his laptop computer.
Grayle had been born in Ladue, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. He was an only child. His father performed routine magic tricks for children's parties; he recognized that his son was a prodigy and generously encouraged him to study the techniques of great illusionists. Linc's twin passion was gymnastics; he excelled in prep school competitions while lopping off fake heads with a guillotine at assemblies.
His parents died within weeks of each other when he was eighteen, leaving Grayle with enough insurance money to support himself while ascending the learning curve of his career in magic. (Sherard wondered at just what point the entity Mordaunt, looking for a new human persona, had settled on the bright and athletic teenager from the Show-Me state and moved himself in. The suspiciously convenient deaths of the elder Grayles might have been the starting point for an entirely new version of Lincoln Grayle.) At twenty-one the young man was a well-publicized escape artist. Headliner in a Vegas showroom a couple of years later.