Houdini's Last Trick (The Burdens Trilogy) (15 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-T
WO

B
ESS
WALKED
IN
with a tray of tea.

“Shut the door!”

It was too late for any of them to make a break for it down the hall. The dressing room had no windows and no other exits. It was little more than an oversized broom closet. There would be no escape.

Houdini scanned the room frantically, for what he didn’t know. A weapon? Something to call for help? There was nothing; only some stage makeup, an assortment of handcuffs and picks, and the wardrobe that held his costumes.

The wardrobe.

He hoisted the child up and put him in Pickford’s arms.

“We have to hide you.”

Bess closed her eyes silently for a moment.

“Atlas,” she said.

Houdini nodded. He opened the wardrobe and lifted all of the clothes off the hangers, lying the stack over the back of a chair.

“He wants the Eye, but he’ll hurt you both if he sees you. And the boy…”

If being around the boy had such an effect on his talent, Houdini could only wonder what he might do for the others.

“Whatever you do,” he told Pickford, “You can’t let him have the boy. Hide him. Send him far away. Whatever you have to do.”

He felt for a hidden latch at the back of the wardrobe. It was a trick piece that he used to have in his show, but it was broken and he hadn’t gotten around to fixing it.

“Get in!” he said.

He stuffed all three of them in the shallow space designed for only one person. When he tried to close the false back, it popped open again. The latch was faulty and the door tended to swing open of its own accord. Bess leaned out.

“Harry!”

Her eyes glowed with fear. He didn’t want to know what she had seen down her own threads of possibility.

“Two kisses, darling,” she said. “One for now and one for later.”

Houdini leaned in and kissed his wife fiercely.

“I’ll wait,” she said. “For my second kiss.”

“You’ll get it,” Houdini said. “I promise.”

In this life or the next.

There was a knock at the door of the dressing room.

“Coming!” Houdini said.

He was about to shut it again when he had a thought. He pulled the Eye off from around his neck and hung it on Pickford’s.

“Hide it well, and tell no one. Not your husband, not Chaplin. No one. The fewer who know the better.”

Down every thread of possibility, he had seen Atlas get the Eye. By giving it to Pickford, it left his future. He couldn’t tell what would happen to it from that point on.

“Get Mrs. Pickford out of here and call the police,” he told Bess.

There was a pounding at the door this time.

“Just changing my trousers!”

He took one last look at Bess, then the boy. Staring at those brooding eyes, a thought struck him.

“Destiny!” he whispered. “He’s my reason for being in Hollywood. I know it!”

He shut the panel and replaced the clothes, praying the latch held.

The dressing room door burst off its hinges, and Houdini ducked to avoid the flying door. There, at the entrance, stood Atlas. It felt like déjà vu.

“I don’t have it,” Houdini said.

The man ducked and angled his torso to fit through the doorway. When he stood, his body filled the space. He looked around as if the Eye would be lying about somewhere.

“Where is it, then?”

“After our encounter, I wanted nothing to do with it,” Houdini said. “I threw it into the Hudson River.”

“Hmm.”

The giant man picked through objects on the vanity, touching Bess’s make-up brushes with a gentleness that belied his size.

Houdini saw movement in the doorway. From behind Atlas, the dark beast scurried into the room. For the first time Houdini got a good look at it. It wasn’t a monster, but a person—someone either very small or hunched over. The person was wearing a cloak and hood made of long, dark, luxurious hair—human hair.

“Check his jacket,” Atlas said.

A white, bony hand appeared from the folds of the hairy cloak and began to rifle through the jacket lying on the chair. Atlas approached Houdini and felt his pants pockets. He ripped the top button of Houdini’s shirt to see if the Eye was around his neck.

“If you did throw it away,” Atlas said, “Then there would be no reason for me to chase you down.”

“Exactly,” Houdini said.

“Then there would be no reason for you to live on the run, which is what you have been doing for the past year. We only caught up to you this time because you stayed an extra day.”

He grabbed Houdini by the throat, his entire hand nearly wrapping around the magician’s neck, and lifted him off the ground.

“You must have the Eye. A man hides only when he has something to hide.”

He squeezed.

“Don’t kill him,” a whisper of a voice said. It came from the person in the cloak. “Not yet. Here.”

The shriveled white hand held up Pickford’s letter from yesterday. Atlas took the note and read it.

“Perhaps she has it, then,” the beast said.

“Who is she?” Atlas asked.

Houdini decided that he wouldn’t say another word for fear of slipping up and giving Pickford away. Atlas had never seen them together in Hollywood; there was nothing publicly linking them together. She would be safe, if only she and the boy could get out of the room.

I have to create a distraction.

Houdini removed the longest pick from his sleeve and stabbed at the giant man’s face. It was a futile effort. Atlas flicked the magician aside like a twig. Houdini flew against the vanity mirror, shattering it into pieces. The shelf below it collapsed under Houdini’s weight, and he fell to the floor. There were cuts on his face and his wrist felt broken.

Houdini saw that Bess’s jewelry box had tumbled open. There, scattered about the floor with inexpensive earrings, barrettes, and necklaces, was the Ring of the Fisherman. Houdini covered it with his left hand as he rolled over, and with his other hand covered a plain gold chain much like the one that held the Eye. He kept them pinched in the palms of his hand as he stood. To others, it would look as if he held nothing.

Atlas closed his hands into boulder-sized fists.

A gasp escaped from the wardrobe. Houdini coughed to cover it, but Atlas cocked his head. Houdini had to distract him.

“Tell me, Mr. Atlas, what’s your legacy going to be?”

Atlas walked over to the wardrobe and looked behind it.

“What?”

“Once you have the Eye, and use it however you intend—what are you hoping to leave to the world?”

Atlas peered inside. Houdini prayed to anyone who would listen that the latch would stay shut.

Don’t move, my son. Don’t say a word.

The giant man rummaged through the clothes until he came to the back wall. He looked at it a moment, then threw the door shut.

“I’ll leave a lesson,” Atlas said. “Strip away a man’s fancy clothes, his money, his titles and connections, and at our very core, we have only our strength to rely on. Humanity’s true leaders are the strong.”

There was a creaking sound from the wardrobe. Atlas looked back, and stepped toward it again.

Everything I love is in that wooden box.

“Atlas!” Houdini said.

He held up a loose fist and let the gold chain dangle out of it. Misdirection at its simplest.

“If you want the Eye, you’ll have to wait until my show is over. You’ve never seen my disappearing act, have you?”

Houdini slipped on the Ring of the Fisherman. Atlas’s big brows furrowed in confusion as he tried to zero in on the magician’s location.

The dark beast was blocking the doorway, so Houdini thrust it aside. The tiny being was so light and fragile it went tumbling over and smashed into the wall. The magician then darted out of the room, making loud footsteps as he ran.

Houdini didn’t need to look behind him to see if Atlas was following. The thunder of footsteps and the explosion of breaking walls was evidence enough.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-T
HREE

H
OUDINI
SPED
PAST
Marcel, the stage manager.

“Houdini, is that you?” Marcel said, looking around. “The show is starting. Come on!”

The magician had been running for the exit, but Marcel gave him an idea.

The stage.

Houdini stopped in his tracks and turned sharply left. He stuffed the gold chain into his pants pocket and jumped up the five steps onto the stage behind the curtain. A live orchestra was finishing the last few bars of “Charleston,” the song meant to cue him on. The curtains burst open: spotlights blinded the magician and applause deafened him. This was typically his element, but right now the external stimulation made it difficult to think.

I have to buy as much time as possible.

The applause died as people looked around at the seemingly empty stage. Houdini slipped off the Ring of the Fisherman and suddenly appeared. There were gasps and then more applause.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said as loudly as possible, “thank you for coming.
Merci
.”

Atlas stormed onto the stage, every footstep cracking the wooden floor below.

“Tonight we have a special guest—a strongman!”

Atlas eyed the crowd uncomfortably. This was what Houdini had hoped for. Enough uncertainty to make the giant man pause.

“Magic is the art of manipulating the eye. A good magician directs the audience where to look. And where not to.”

Houdini stepped toward Atlas, who cocked his arm. The magician slipped on the ring and ducked just as Atlas took a wild swing at him. Gasps and applause from the crowd.

“In this way, magic is much like life,” Houdini said, sneaking quietly across the stage toward a table of handcuffs. He knew people had a sense of him on stage, but they couldn’t quite get their eyes to look in the right place.

“People will distract you, trying to get you to look one way when, really, you should be looking another.”

He picked up a pair of handcuffs, which to the audience must have appeared to be levitating. Atlas ran for the table and smashed it in half with one fist. Houdini quietly stepped out of the way.

“If there’s one escape I could teach you, it would be to escape what the world tells you is important, and instead look for what really matters.”

At the back of the audience, Houdini saw two figures, barely more than shadows, sneaking their way toward the front door. He instantly recognized the outline of Bess in front, guiding Pickford with a sleepy little lump against her chest.

“Ask yourself, what is worth dying for? Your work? Your status? Your wealth? All of those things die off when you do, maybe sooner.”

Bess and Pickford stopped a moment to watch the stage.

Run, my dear wife! Run and call the police!

“I never believed in the supernatural, but I now believe there is magic. Magic in the love of friends and family. Magic in what you would do to protect them. When your love for someone transforms them for the better, it’s the greatest magic in the world.”

Atlas lunged toward Houdini’s voice, quicker than the magician expected. Houdini jumped to escape him, but Atlas’s hand clipped his shoulder. Houdini landed hard, and the ring came tumbling off his finger. It bounced and then rolled to the front edge of the stage, about to fall into the orchestra pit.

The giant man grabbed Houdini by the front of the shirt and pulled him to his feet.

“There is no power in magic,” Atlas said. “But power itself is rather magical.”

He pulled Houdini close to him.

“I’ve heard you brag that you can withstand the punch of any man,” Atlas said. “Is that true?”

Before Houdini could react Atlas walloped him in the stomach with massive force. Houdini flew across the stage and crashed into a stone column at the far end. Sharp, burning pain shot up and down his body. For a moment he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t even think about anything except the fiery bolts of pain.

Houdini grabbed the decorative ridges in the column and pulled himself to standing.

“It’s true,” he said, coughing up blood. “Only you didn’t give me the chance to brace myself.”

Houdini took a rasping breath and looked inward. Three of his vertebra were fractured and the nerves going to one of his legs were damaged. There was a soft, squishy mass above his bladder that he had trouble identifying until he realized it was what remained of his appendix. His pancreas had been bruised and a section of his small intestine had been severed clean in half. Houdini gingerly touched a bulge that was forming to the side of his belly button. There was massive internal bleeding.

In short, I am dying.

He collapsed onto his hands and knees. Somewhere in the far reaches of his mind, he heard people in the audience murmuring to themselves in concern. His head was spinning with nausea and the corners of his sight had gone dark. Through his blurry vision, he saw the Ring of the Fisherman, teetering on the front edge of the stage.

A voice came to him. Calamity Jane. She had said something to Houdini so many years ago. What was it?

Men would kill for talent like yours. Don’t you ever let them.

Why it was so important, Houdini didn’t know. He pulled the gold chain from his pocket and bunched it into a ball.

“You win, Atlas,” he said.

He stood, and with as much strength as he could muster, he threw the chain into the dark recesses of the back stage. Atlas scrambled for it.

Houdini stumbled over to the ring. He flipped open the cap and pulled out the white tablet Pope Benedict had told him about. He stuck it on his tongue. It was unbearably bitter, but he forced himself to swallow.

Dark must die.

He didn’t know what the chemical was, but he could tell it was powerful, and that it would work quickly to finish him—much faster than Atlas’s blow to his stomach. The ring tumbled from his grasp and clattered into the orchestra pit.

When Houdini looked up, he saw that Bess and Pickford were gone. They were safe. He had bought them enough time to escape. There was a faint sound of sirens in the distance. Houdini doubted the police could subdue Atlas, but they would delay him even further. They would buy more time.

Once Atlas discovered Houdini’s ruse, would he chase Mary Pickford down, or was her identity still safe? And what would she do with the boy? If the giant man continued to hunt her, it would be too dangerous to have him with her. He could only imagine how Atlas might use him, what his unexplainable power might do for the other Burdens. Pickford needed to send him away. But could she bear to part with him?

As he observed his dying pulse pumping the poison through his body, he noticed his son’s strange drop of blood still inside him. His body had not absorbed it; rather, it resided there, comfortable and self-sustained, as if it were its own entity.

Houdini focused all of his gift on that one drop, every last bit of energy he had.

I love you, my son. The sacrifice is worth it.

He held onto that drop in his mind, cradling it as if it were the boy itself. There was a calmness in knowing there was nothing left for Houdini to do but die. He had done his job. He had left his magic to the world. And he had discovered his true legacy.

—THE END—