Soul Mates

by John R. Little

  We have our entire lives to appreciate the rest.

  And then, they were there.

  Their walk ended in a hallway with a sign above the entrance, but it was draped so nobody could read it.

  “Here is the entrance to your stage,” said Amanda Smythe.

  They stopped and Jeremiah felt his heart beating. It was one thing to see blueprints but quite another to see that somebody had invested millions of dollars to build a stage just for him.

  The walkway was blocked by two security guards, but they didn’t budge when the trio walked past. The walkway was at least fifteen feet wide and snaked in a curving pattern. The walls were mirrored, as was the ceiling. There was no obvious lighting, but there was enough ambient light somehow.

  Sound filtered from all around them, dark moody music, perfect for magic.

  “Oh God, this is amazing,” said Alannah.

  “I know,” he answered. “I can’t believe it.”

  They walked slowly, dazzled by the mirrors, and noticed that the mirrors had shadows that appeared every once in a while. Shadows of magic being performed. They only appeared for a second, just long enough to register and make them wonder if they’d really seen anything.

  After a few minutes, they entered an atrium with a half dozen doors that looked like they guarded an ancient dungeon: oak, heavy, scratched, like they’d seen a thousand wars.

  “The lighting will be up, so you can inspect anything you wish, but of course that’s way brighter than it will normally appear.”

  They both nodded, both speechless.

  The dungeon-like doors swung open and they went inside.

  Chapter 18

  2016

  It was January 1, and Alannah was feeling nothing but butterflies. The first show was tomorrow, and although they’d practiced and practiced, it was still a huge event, and she was close to freaking out.

  She was sitting behind the stage, trying to calm herself. Jeremiah was out front, talking to the lighting director. This was the last full dress rehearsal before the real thing, and they wanted everything to be perfect.

  Alannah had messed up a couple of times when Jeremiah magically transformed her into a tiger. That was the trick she was most worried about.

  The rehearsal started at 10:00 a.m. Alannah and the three temp assistants got into place at the back of the theater. They climbed some hidden ladders and waited.

  Deep baritone music fill the theater. The acoustics were perfect; Alannah could hear every note clearly and there were no echoes. The music rose in pitch and volume, and the lights in the theater went out when the sound reached its climax. The sound stopped as suddenly as the lights, and she imagined the audience, shocked by the sudden transition to darkened silence.

  A moment later, the first pyrotechnics showered the stage. When the glare dissipated, the spot lights engaged, focused on Jeremiah at center-stage.

  He waved his arms, and Alannah and the assistants started to fly down toward him. The wires holding them were completely invisible and, when they landed on the stage, disengaged without being touched. The four woman looked like magic elves appearing from nowhere.

  Jeremiah wanted to start the show with a bang…by turning Alannah into a tiger. Once she got past that act, she would relax.

  Jeremiah had always planned for the music and other background noise to be an integral part of the show, along with the fireworks and lighting. Every piece of the puzzle had to fit together perfectly.

  He held his arms out as if commanding attention and directed a large cage to be rolled out. The cage had solid steel bars, and the back was draped with a large cape.

  Jeremiah helped Alannah enter the cage while the other assistants danced around. Fireworks blasted off almost at random, keeping the nonexistent audience captured.

  When Allannah was in the cage, Jeremiah pulled the cape all the way around, so that nobody could see inside. He gestured for the cage to be lifted into the air, so the audience would see that there was no way for Alannah to escape.

  She knew that from their perspective, she would be transformed into a tiger, and it would seem astonishing.

  The audience would start the process of wanting to believe. That’s what Jeremiah needed.

  In reality, though, the trick wasn’t the slightest bit magical. She knew (but the audience didn’t) that the back of the cage was faked. It looked like the same steel bars that the rest of the cage was made of but was instead a thin wooden wall painted to look real. Behind the wall the tiger was waiting. Moments before, his trainers had settled him in the cage, bribing him with pieces of raw meat, and then lifted the fake cage backing.

  As soon as the cape hid what she was doing, Alannah pulled a small trap door in the bottom of the cage and slid into the tight area beneath. It was the kind of trick that needed a slim assistant to work. From the audience’s perspective, there didn’t seem like anywhere near enough room for somebody to hide. That was the secret of most tricks in which the assistant disappeared.

  She hurried into her hidey hole and pulled a cord that released the fake wall. It crashed to the floor, on top of her and the rest of the cage. The tiger was free.

  The sound of the wall crashing down was hidden by the loud music and fireworks that Jeremiah used to distract the audience. He would hear it, though.

  A few seconds later, he’d pull the cape off with a big flourish, and the transformation would be complete.

  Alannah was now a tiger.

  It worked like clockwork.

  The cage was taken off the stage and the handlers took care of the tiger, allowing Alannah to be freed.

  She punched the air with both arms, loving how well the trick worked. She couldn’t wait to hear the audience’s reaction tomorrow night.

  Still off stage, Alannah dropped into a tunnel and waited for her cue to climb onto the middle of the stage. This time she was hidden only by darkness, as Jeremiah stood to one side with the spot light on him. The darkness only lasted a few seconds, and she climbed up exactly as planned, magically appearing out of thin air.

  She smiled. The show was going to be great.

  The rest of the rehearsal went without the slightest problem, and they were ready.

  Thirty minutes later, after a quick debrief, Alannah wanted to be alone. The excitement had given her a headache, so she went to her dressing room behind the stage and sat on the floor, leaning in a corner of the small room.

  A sudden sleepiness come over her, draping her like the cover in the tiger cage. Her eyes closed almost on their own, and she fell asleep within a minute.

  * * *

  The next couple of hours were quiet in the Jeremiah Moore Theater. Most of the staff had left to be with their families on New Year’s Day. Only a few holdouts still hung around, mostly people who didn’t have any family to go home to.

  This was the first time that Savannah Clark had seen the inside of the theater. She had read detailed descriptions of it from Alannah’s diary, of course, but nothing really prepared her for the glitziness, the size, the amazing technical triumphs that allowed people to fly and invisible trap doors to swallow people. Even though she knew the trap doors were there, when she bent down and tried to find them on the stage, she couldn’t. The floor was beautiful hardwood and looked better than the living room of any house she’d ever seen.

  She walked through the seating area, trying out various chairs, and every one was perfect.

  The back of the theater opened out to the waiting area that connected to the main part of Caesar’s by the snaking mirrored walkway.

  She went to that walkway and couldn’t help herself. She laid on the floor and looked at the ceiling. Her image looked down at her, and she laughed. It was surreal to see herself hanging in the sky with no support.

  “Nice, isn’t it?”

  A man stared at her from the doorway to the theater.

  “It sure is,” she said.

  “I’m Will. One of the electricians.” He moved toward her.
/>   “Savannah. I’m nobody, I guess.”

  He grinned. “Can’t say I agree with you there.”

  He locked eyes with her and stepped closer. His eyes wandered down her body.

  “You don’t work here?” he asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  What the hell?

  She moved to him and didn’t hesitate. She took his face in her hands and kissed him.

  He kissed her back hard, greedily, as if it’d been a long time since he’d been with a girl. He was hungry for her body.

  Savannah didn’t mind. It’d been a long time for her, too. She thought to the last time she’d pretended to be Alannah with Jeremiah. A month ago? Six weeks? Either way, she was overdue.

  Will’s hands roamed over her body, and she felt every touch.

  She whispered in his ear, “Over here. It’s secluded enough.”

  She led him to the main part of the theater, near the back. It wasn’t dark but neither was it lit as brightly as other areas.

  Everyone’s left, anyhow.

  She kissed him again, passionately, their tongues meeting and playing. His erection was pushing against his jeans, and she undid his belt, unzipped him, and pulled his pants to his ankles. She wanted this to be something he would remember.

  She heard a couple of small noises from farther down the stage, but they barely registered on her. She was totally preoccupied.

  Savannah knelt and took his cock into her mouth. She pushed it in as far as she could without choking and clamped down on it. She knew the warmth of her mouth would make him go crazy. He held her head with his hands as she bobbed up and down, his balls in her hands.

  “Oh God,” he moaned. He braced himself and pushed her head gently in the rhythm she was setting, and it didn’t take very long for him to come.

  He moaned louder and pushed her head down.

  She swallowed what she could and licked his cock, slowly removing herself from it.

  “Next time, it’ll be my turn,” she smiled as she stood up.

  He just nodded.

  As he reached down to pull his jeans up, Savannah could see over his shoulder. Jeremiah Moore had been watching the entire time. He stared in horror, then turned and ran from the theater.

  Chapter 19

  2016

  Amanda Smythe had watched a number of the rehearsals and now that it was officially Day One, she was a nervous wreck. She could only imagine how Jeremiah and his team were feeling.

  Amanda had met the magician and his fiancée when they arrived at Caesar’s Palace and she’d shown them around the digs, but there was a lot she didn’t tell them.

  She didn’t tell them that it was her idea in the first place to build the theater and offer Jeremiah the ten-year contract. She’d put together the figures, verified them with her best contractors, co-ordinated customer surveys asking what they’d think of a world-class magic show being stationed at Caesar’s, and most importantly, convinced the Board.

  She remembered the presentations she’d put together, the arguments from the nay-sayers, the eventual agreement (because, really, how can you argue with the bottom line figures she’d come up with?), and finally working with the legal team on Jeremiah’s contract.

  Amanda didn’t want Jeremiah and Alannah to know that the theater wouldn’t exist if she hadn’t imagined it into being. She knew that would make them look differently at her, and she just wanted them to see her as some kind of co-ordinator.

  It was 8:00 p.m.

  Curtain time.

  She sat in the back, because that would give her the best perspective of the entire show. The house was filled, as she had predicted. In fact, the first night had sold out within two hours of the official press release. Everyone important had to be there at the premiere, which is why the ticket prices were doubled for tonight.

  The best table had seating for eight, and she’d sold it for $50,000. Now she looked over to see Robert De Niro sitting with his wife and six people she didn’t recognize. He would have paid double the price for the table.

  Amanda couldn’t eat. She knew in her heart that everything was going to run like clockwork, but there was so much riding on it. If the first year went as planned, with mostly sold-out shows each night, she’d look like a genius and that vice-presidency she’d dreamed of for the past year would be locked in.

  If things didn’t go so well . . . well, there was no point thinking of that. It wasn’t going to happen.

  Try telling my stomach that.

  The music rose and the show started.

  The audience loved the assistants flying above their heads to join Jeremiah at the stage. First check mark!

  Amanda tried to relax as the waitress placed a martini on her table. She took a drink and a deep breath to go along with it.

  Just enjoy the show.

  She was sitting in a crowd of strangers. None of them knew her and she knew none of them. Exactly how she wanted it.

  When Alannah was transformed into a tiger, the audience gasp. Amanda smiled, finally feeling a little bit at ease.

  The members of the Board would be watching the show on closed circuit TV. She’d invited them all to attend the show in person, but none of them took her up on her invitation. That was fine with her.

  The feeling in the room was amazing. She loved the tension, the dread when a dangerous trick was performed, the thrills . . . the magic.

  The audience loved the magic.

  So did she. She almost felt a tear forming in her eye, but it didn’t get far enough to drop. She wasn’t built that way.

  On the stage, they were setting up for the last big, dangerous trick: cutting the girl in half.

  More fireworks sprayed from the stage as the box was wheeled on stage. The box reminded Amanda of a casket. Jeremiah spun it around several times and opened it so everyone could see it looked like just a plain old box, the kind a girl would have no way of escaping from.

  “And now!” yelled Jeremiah from the stage. His voice was amplified by a tiny microphone hidden behind his left ear.

  He helped Alannah climb in.

  Just for a moment, Amanda thought she saw something on his face. An unusual look as he locked eyes with Alannah just before enclosing her.

  Amanda had watched this trick several times. There was something different this time. She leaned forward trying to figure out what was going on.

  Alannah’s head was sticking out one end of the casket. The audience knew that her feet were shackled at the other end with no way for them to be freed.

  Of course, in reality, Alannah could easily get her feet out of the shackles because her ankles were much slimmer than anyone would have expected. She had done it fifty times with no problem.

  This time, though, it looked like real fear on her face. She looked up at Jeremiah, and Amanda was sure she saw her mouth form the word, “Please.”

  The casket was made of heavy oak.

  Jeremiah spun it around so that everyone could see that the girl was indeed trapped. This is when Alannah should have been moving her legs up to her chest.

  Most magic acts use a simple lumberjack’s saw to cut through the box. What other magicians use had never been good enough for Jeremiah Moore. That was why he was considered the best in the business.

  Lowering from the ceiling was a giant circular blade, four feet in diameter. When it was near enough, Jeremiah plucked some of the blades to show it was solid steel. And it truly was.

  The blade started spinning.

  “No,” whispered Amanda. “It isn’t right.”

  She still didn’t know what was wrong, but her senses were heightened after seeing how Jeremiah and Alannah had looked at each other. It was a look that said, “Good-bye.”

  He nodded, and the saw began to spin.

  She wanted to jump up and stop the show, but of course that would be her own ruin. She needed this show to be a success.

  Jeremiah explained to the audience that the blade was spinning at 2,400 revolutions per
minute.

  Alannah was calling from the box in distress.

  That was part of the act. She’d done the same thing every time Amanda had seen a rehearsal.

  But is it the same? She’s calling much more loudly.

  Jeremiah waved to some hidden facilitators, asking them to lower the blade.

  The audience was on edge. Even though many of them had seen this trick on television, it was much edgier to see it up close and personal.

  Alannah screamed louder. “HELP ME!”

  The blade dropped and started to dip below the edge of the casket.

  Alannah’s screams cut off, and suddenly the blade was red.

  Amanda stared as if the whole thing was happening in slow motion. The entire blade was crimson, seemingly all at once. Then blood spurted in all directions from the box.

  Alannah moaned and fell silent.

  The blade kept lowering, as it was programmed to do, until it was at the bottom of the box.

  Jeremiah did not move. Amanda thought he must have been in shock.

  Then, the theater lights went out and stayed out for five minutes.

  At first the audience gasped and whispered, thinking this was part of the show, but it quickly became apparent that this was not planned.

  Robert De Niro had blood splattered on his shirt. As soon as the lights came up, he motioned to his group to move away.

  Alannah’s head was no longer sticking out of the box. The cascade of blood covering the floor and the box made it clear she must be dead.

  But her body was gone.

  Part 3

  The Big Reveal

  “Magicians will always tell you the trick is the most important thing, but I’m more interested in telling a story.”

  —Marco Tempest

  Chapter 20

  2018

  Brian James Clark woke on day 9,490 of his incarceration. He knew the number of days exactly because there was little else for him to do in his cell other than count the days, even the hours. It was that number of days since he’d killed the tramp he’d been married to, and he still didn’t regret it one little bit.