A Kind of Magic
I got two chapters of 21 Faces done today. Here's the first, guest-starring the Great Houdini.


I’m stuck in a box. My head feels like someone cracked it open and drank the insides.

I can’t see anything. I can only taste the salty brine of sweat – or is that blood?

The box is moving now, jostling me back and forth along a bumpy road. I lash out at my prison, kicking at the lid of my newest coffin. The hard wood gives a muffled thump but only yields a little. I redouble my efforts, ignoring the growing knife-tip pain in my brain. Can’t let myself be trapped again. I need to get to freedom.

I eventually realize that I’m targeting the wrong area. The box’s lid isn’t on the top – it’s on the side. I twist my body in the darkness and start pounding on the wooden opening. Whatever is moving me speeds up, making it harder to focus my blows on the same area. There’s enough room in here for someone else. The faster the box travels, the more I slide around.

I finally pound and kick and scratch enough for the box to open up. The lid swings open like a door. No, wait – it is a door. Just on the other side, the wooden wheels of a carriage spin around and around. Horses whinny as they continue galloping onwards. I lean out of the carriage to get a better look, but I’m still disoriented and off-balance. I lurch forward and then find myself falling out of the moving vehicle. A burst of color and loud music swells across my senses as I land head-first on the cobbled road. The horses keep moving for a few seconds until their driver reigns them in. As my vision clears, I hear footsteps approaching.

My blurry vision finally comes back into focus, and I see a pair of shoes. Cobbled shoes, smeared with the dust of a long ride and smelling of manure. Servant’s shoes. My own suit is dusty and disheveled, but almost entirely from the bumpy ride and subsequent fall into the road. Black suit and vest, white shirt. I recognize these clothes from somewhere.

“I warned you, sir. Laudanum is medicine at the best of times. It’s not meant for recreational drinking – especially not by someone with such a low tolerance as yourself.”

The man has a nasally British accent. London area – Hampstead. How do I know that? He helps stand me back up and starts dusting me off dutifully. Brown hair and a bent nose. I’ve seen him before.

“Jeeves,” I hear myself say. My voice sounds hoarse, as though I’ve swallowed most of the gravel on this dusty country road.

“Yes, sir?” He cocks an eyebrow at me, expecting something more. Then, realizing that I hadn’t actually asked him a question, he begins escorting me back toward the carriage. “You’re out of sorts again, sir. Having one of those dreaming spells. About a woman, of course. What’s her name? Mona?”

“Mona?” Mona? Do I know that name?

“It doesn’t matter, sir. You’re on holiday, and I’ll make sure that there isn’t a drop of liquor in sight. We’ll get you cleaned out sooner or later, I assure you.”

“Where’s Bertie?”

“Why he’s back at the manor, of course. And I really wish you would follow my advice and fire him. He takes advantage of these spells of yours and puts crazy ideas in your head.”

“No…he told me what was going on.” My mind is thick and heavy. Should I look in a mirror and clear it up? “Told me about the pictures?”

“That ridiculous art gallery? They’re all very beautiful women, sir, but you really need to focus on the present, not the past.”

“But this…this is the past, isn’t it?”

His mouth draws into a thin, straight line. “That’s the problem with laudanum, sir. It rots the brain. Don’t worry. We’ll get you straightened out yet.”
He pushes me toward the carriage door and helps me climb inside. “Now please, stay seated. I’ll have a doctor look at your head as soon as we get into town, but another fall like that might end up killing you. Just relax and put those dreadful dreams behind you.”
He closes the carriage door tightly. In another few moments, I hear hooves moving across the cobblestones again. I shake my head and try to remember what I’ve been forgetting – or should I forget what I’ve been remembering? It doesn’t matter. As soon as I close my eyes, I wind up somewhere else.

***

Sitting down now. Shelves of leather-bound book line the room. A red silk scarf lies draped across the right corner of the desk in front of me, covering something. A man with wavy brown hair sits across from me. He wears a suit that covers up powerful muscles that I know to be underneath. The subtle wrinkles on his forehead and at the corners of his eyebrows mark him as a skeptical man – one who has to see something to believe it, even though he’s worked miracles all his life.

A rolled up poster in my hand. I place it on the table and smooth it out. It’s a poster for a magic show. THE GREAT HOUDINI WILL BE BURIED ALIVE!

“Ah,” says the man, somewhat embarrassed.

“I’ve gone to many of your performances, but this was the best I’ve seen,” I tell him.

“And that’s what you’d like to discuss? Would you like me to sign the poster for you?”

“No,” I say, rolling the paper up again and placing it on the floor next to my chair. “The poster was just what got me interested in the act. I traveled all the way out to California to see your performance.”

“Then I’m sorry to have been such a disappointment.”

I feel the muscles of my face stretch into a grin. I lean forward and notice that my hands are shaking with excitement. “It wasn’t a disappointment at all. You were buried under six feet of solid earth, and you managed to escape.”

He shakes his head. “The weight of the earth nearly killed me. I passed out just after reaching the surface.”

“But you did reach the surface.”

“Barely. If my assistants hadn’t been there to pull me free, I might have suffocated in the last six inches of dirt.”

“How did you do it?”

“I hope that’s not the only reason you asked me here.”

“It is. I have a…concern. I worry about being buried alive. I want to know how to escape if that ever happens again.”

“Again?”

“Slip of the tongue.”

He presses his hands against the desk and pushes himself into a standing position. “I’m afraid my secrets are my own. Sorry.”

“One moment, sir.” I hold up a hand, and he pauses on command. “I’m not asking you to just give your secrets away. I’m hoping to buy some of them from you.”

“Mr. Kafka, I’m sure your fortune is considerable. But I have more than enough money of my own, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“I’m not offering money. I’m offering something you really want.”

“And what’s that?”

I pull the scarf aside dramatically, as though I’m putting on my own private magic show. A sharpened meat cleaver lies underneath, its razor blade flickering orange in the candlelight.

“I’ve read a great deal about you, Mr. Houdini. I know about your work debunking spiritualists, and I know about your obsession with death. I have secrets of my own – secrets that you would be interested in.”

I place the two smallest fingers of my left hand against the wooden surface of the desk. Then, in one swift movement, I lift up the meat cleaver with my right hand and chop downward. I grit my teeth as the blade cuts into and through bone. The pain lasts but and instant, and then the desk runs red with my blood.

“My god man!” yells the person who has been near death more than anyone else alive.

I drop the cleaver and hold up both hands. “Calm down. Wait for it…”

With my severed fingertips still lying on the desk, we watch as the spurt of blood starts to slow. Within seconds, the bleeding stops entirely.

Houdini grasps my wrist carefully, afraid to shatter the illusion if there is one. He looks closely at the stumps of my fingers, where the wound is already almost closed.

“How—?”

I pull my hand away and smile. “I’d like to propose a trade. My secrets of death for your secrets of avoiding death. Do you think that’s fair?”

Wordlessly, he nods.

“Good. Now could you do me a favor and ask my butler Bertie to bring in some needle and thread? He should know which ones I’m talking about.”

***

Back in the carriage again. No – a smoother ride. I hear the rush of evening traffic outside. Horns blowing, cars speeding by. What’s a car?

I open my eyes and everything is painted black. A hearse? Who died? I try to move, but my limbs don’t want to respond yet.

“Jeeves?” My mouth feels like it’s stuff with cotton. “Where are we?”

“Relax, Eddie,” comes a woman’s voice. “We’re almost there. I’ll get you fixed up and ready to go in no time.”

I roll my eyes toward the sound of the voice. Someone in the driver’s seat. Do I know her? She turns around and smiles at me. Then she raises a fist and strikes me hard on the forehead. The world disappears.

***

A red-haired angel. She has to be an angel – she’s floating a few inches above the ground. She holds out her hands, palms facing the ceiling, and beckons for me, offering me the chance to check for wires. I wave my right hand above her head and around her shoulders. Nothing. She’s really floating above the ground without any support.

The effect lasts less than a minute, after which she drops back to the floor, bending her legs to absorb the impact of her descent.

“How did you do that?” I ask when we’re standing face to face again.

“I can’t tell you that,” she says, cracking a smile. “It’s a magic trick. If I tell you how I did it, it’s just a trick. No one likes to be tricked, unless there’s magic involved.”

“Or unless it’s by a pretty lady,” I add.

She shakes her head and steps off stage. That’s where we are, I realize – a stage, albeit a modest one. The platform rises a foot or so off the floor, surrounded by a small circle of chairs. The rest of the room looks like an ordinary restaurant, although it’s obviously after hours. Folding chairs lean stacked against the far wall, and some wooden seats are upside-down on top of circular plastic tables.

“You perform here?” I ask, following her off stage.

“Sometimes.”

“Have you ever thought about a bigger venue?”

Her smile fades away. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

She raises her left hand, showing a tarnished gold ring. “A big audience means a lot of preparation. And my husband wants to keep me home. Besides, a big crowd means…complications.”

“What sort of complications?”

She looks out the diner’s front window and shudders as a pigeon flies by. “Let’s just say it would take more than a few simple parlor tricks to impress some people I know. You’re easy – that trick I showed you is called a Balducci Levitation. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book.”

“Balducci? Ed Balducci? Old guy? Glasses?”

“Well, he was an old guy with glasses. He died twenty-one years ago. Why, you’ve heard of him?”

I close my eyes, trying to remember something I’ve forgotten. Then I look at the red-haired wonder and shrug my shoulders. “Maybe I met him in a past life.”

She smiles knowingly. “I bet you’ve met all sorts of people.” She pulls down a chair from one of the empty tables and gestures toward it. “Why don’t you and I sit down and chat? I know the owner here – even if the place hasn’t opened yet, he can probably get us a bite to eat.”

I shake my head. “I can’t. I’ve got work to do.”

“Off to shoot someone dead?”

“What gives you that idea?”

“You haven’t taken your left hand out of your pocket since you stepped in here. Either you’ve got a gun in your pocket or you’re trying to hide one heck of an erection.”

I feel the warm prickling sensation of my face flushing. I glance at my left hand, which is indeed tucked deeply into my jeans pocket. I draw it out slowly, until I see the swirling black ink of my tattoo. Then I slide it back into the pocket and shrug. I shift awkwardly, but she’s already given up her quick attempt at dirty humor and is staring at me with an uncomfortable intensity.

“Eddie, I know why you’re here.”

I nod, having been discovered. “Mrs. Stevens, your husband hired me to find where you had gone.”

She shakes her head. “No, that’s just the pretense. It’s the sleight leading into a magic trick. I know why you’re really here, even if you don’t.” She glances at my left arm. “And I know why you don’t want Robin to be watching you right now.”

“How do you know about—?”

She cuts me off by stepping forward and kissing me. Her tongue forces its way into my mouth and she breathes in, drawing the air out of me. I place a hand on her side and try to push her away. Instead I feel myself drawing her closer and returning the kiss.

“You know who I am now?” she asks when she’s finally pulled herself away.

I nod. Her face starts to shift before my eyes. Black hair, brown, blonde. Pale white skin, dark brown, and the mottled tan she has now. Her clothes change as well, cascading through a dozen different styles and time periods. My body is trembling now, and I close my eyes. When I open them, I see only Mona again.

“Why do you think I made it easy for you?” she asks. “Someone trying to disappear doesn’t sit around her last place of employment just waiting for some private dick to find her.”

“Ifoundyou…and…you’re…in danger.” I can’t seem to control the volume or pace of my voice. Have I been drinking again? “You’re always in danger when I find you.”

“I remembered just a few days ago myself. I saw Naomi, and I hope she didn’t see me. The tattooed man is in town, too. I’m not running from my crappy broken marriage. There’s real danger here, for the both of us.”

“Then let’s go. We can get away this time.”

“No Eddie…we can’t. You know that much. I’ve got to go my own way, and you’ve got to disappear, too. You can’t stay around Robin anymore. It’s not safe.”

My face is warm again, but this time the heat is entirely around my eyes. My vision starts to blur. “Then why let me find you at all? Why give me that kind of false hope?”

“I had to…I had to see you once. I couldn’t be so close and not try to find you.” She waves her hand and plucks a brass-colored key from out of thin air. “Take this,” she says, pressing it into my hand. “Meet me at the Ligea Hotel tomorrow night, and we’ll have a proper sendoff.”

I leave the key in my open palm. It feels like a lead weight. Mona leans forward and rests her forehead against mine.

“Eddie…we’re closer than it seems. We can finally end all of this. We just have to find the right kind of magic.”

She takes a step back and holds up her left hand. With a flick of her wrist, her wedding band disappears. “Mistakes have been made, but now we both know who we are, right?”

I nod, but it’s just a sleight. She looks at me and sees a man she loves. I look at her and I see her skin melt away. The flesh vanishes from her face and a skull leans forward to kiss me again.

“It’s going to be okay,” she whispers to me with a dead tongue.

***

The box opens up again. Houdini escaping from a grave. But I haven’t learned that trick yet, and I’m not in a grave.

Jeeves shakes me, bringing me back to life.

“It’s not appropriate for one of my station to hit you, sir,” he hisses, “but I will do so if that’s what it takes to sober you up.”

“Mona…Mona was right here…”

“No sir. She doesn’t exist. None of those women do.”

“But Bertie said—”

"Bertie is a con artist who should be out on the streets. He fills your head with nonsense because he knows that’s what will keep him employed. Listen to me, sir. You are not seeing the future, and you are not immortal. You are hallucinating because you’ve been trying to drink yourself to death since Sarah’s funeral.” He shakes me harder until my eyes start to focus. “Now is not the time for your delirium. You have a very important person to meet, and you can’t afford to embarrass yourself in front of—”

He stops and lets me go as someone approaches outside the carriage. He bows so deeply that I have to wonder how his hat doesn’t topple off his head. “Ma’am, may I present to you Mr. Kafka.” He shoots a sidelong glance at me, filling it with as much menace as possible.

I stumble out of the carriage, smooth out my wrinkled jacket, and stifle a belch.

“Edward, is it? I’m glad to meet you.”

The woman wears a dark blue dress that blends in almost perfectly with the twilight around us. She extends a hand to me and I take it and kiss the back of her glove.

“The pleasure is mine, Miss Cooke.”

“Robin. Please, just call me Robin. You and I have a very important deal to discuss, I believe.”

She turns and starts walking toward her manor. I step forward to follow her, but the ground suddenly seems to have vanished. I stumble forward into blackness flailing my arms in an attempt to catch myself. Then I hear a gunshot, and a pain splits my skull. I fall into the abyss, screaming for someone to catch me.