Fury and the Power (47 page)

The magician said with a stir of interest, "Tell me."

She said, "I want Linc to know that what began at Shung-wa-ya"—she stumbled over the pronunciation—"must be finished tonight."

The magician sat up on the table.

"Let her in, Perk! Give me five minutes, then bring her to my suite."

He sat on the edge of the table for ten seconds, blankly astonished, then ran a hand through his unruly hair, still a little damp from his recent shower, and laughed.

Within five minutes he was combed and dressed in white beachcomber pants, sandals, and an unbuttoned long-sleeved shirt. He was pouring Tuscan wine into two glasses when Eden was shown into the suite.

"
Jambo
!" he said, holding up one of the glasses in a welcoming salute. "And I must say I like the sound of 'hello' better than good-bye. Which is where we left it, I believe, at Kenyatta Airport."

Eden acknowledged him with a smile of such diffidence it was as if she had neglected to bring a personality with her—or at least the lively spirit to which he had been attracted on their first meeting. Her hair was shorter now, and redder. Cut with some flair, as if she'd found time to visit a salon, or Bertie Nkambe's personal hairdresser. Which reminded him.

"I heard about Bertie. Terrible, just terrible." Perhaps he was referring to the fact that she hadn't been killed instantly.

A muscle jumped in Eden's face, affecting one eye, but otherwise she didn't respond, just continued to look around, eyes skipping over his face a couple of times as if he were furniture.

"Will she make it?" he persisted.

"I don't know. I can't talk about it."

"Would you like to sit down? How about some wine?"

"Yes, thank you."

She took the glass from him, still not meeting his eyes, moved sideways to a grouping of comfortable leather chairs amid a collection of props, puzzling to someone outside the profession, that had been employed by magicians a century ago. She had a sip of wine, holding her free hand close to the glass as if she were afraid of a clonus that would cause her to spill the contents on his Turkish carpet. Her lips did tremble slightly. Her eyes were rimmed with a fine mist of perspiration. They were restless, as if she couldn't focus on anything for more than a second or two. He wondered if she were in shock.

"Do I get to do all of the talking?" he said genially, sitting next to her on the arm of a cream leather sofa. Eden was wearing a shawl-collar cashmere sweater and a blue skirt. No ornamentation except for a plain gold chain around her neck with a pendant made of a dark lump of metal that didn't look as if it had monetary value. He didn't remember having seen her wear it in Africa.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. Another sip of wine braced her. She lifted her head and was able to look at him. "I don't mean to be… bad company."

"It's understandable. Still, as long as you're here..." His expression was a mixture of pleasure and skepticism.

Her eyes wandered off again, to a framed one-sheet of a magician in Chinese dress. "I had no idea your theatre was so huge."

"Why don't I give you a tour? While we talk about our 'unfinished' business."

"There's not much to say, really. I thought about... what choices I have left, and I've come to be with you. For as long as you want me."

"Quite a change of heart."

Eden finished her wine in a couple of swallows and stood.

"But there are conditions. Of course I know what—who you really are. You wanted Bertie out of the way. It's done. Even if she recovers she won't be the same. You have no reason ever to hurt her again. And you
won't
hurt Tom."

"Granted," the magician said with a shrug. "He's no problem to me."

Eden walked toward the double doors in the vestibule of the suite. More framed posters there. Movie monsters. The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Boris Karloff's Frankenstein. Surrounded by them Eden looked threatened, haunted.

"One other thing. I want Gw—my doppelganger back."

"In all sincerity, Eden, that's out of my hands. She's in a... slightly altered state, and on her own now. I don't even know if she made it to where she was going."

"You've taken away so much from me. Has anyone ever denied you anything?"

"Not for long. As I reckon time. Don't be afraid. It won't be such a bad life, Eden."

"You mean after the nightmare you have in store for me? I don't want to see it coming.
I don't want any memory of it later
. Can you do that, Magician? Take away my mind until it's over?"

"If you'd like you may sleep through insemination and your pregnancy. Which should reach full term in about seventy-two hours."

"Don't shit me," Eden said in a snarly tone.

"True. Spectrographic enhancement of your vital life-giving processes. Theoretically it ought to work. My all-too-human flaw is, I hate to wait."

Eden held her bowed head in the palm of one hand, like a sorrowing bride.

"And what, theoretically, am I expected to give birth to?"

"If only it has your eyes," he said, "I'll be pleased."

"Thank you. I need to walk now; otherwise, I swear to God, I'll turn to stone. So give me the hurry-up tour. Bring the bottle. Wine will relax me while I'm learning more about the wizardry of Mordaunt the Great."

10:18 P.M.

T
om Sherard found the note from Eden taped to a sofa I cushion in the empty hospital office.

TOM:

THE TERRACE OF THE

LINCOLN GRAYLE THEATRE.

SHOWTIME WILL BE

TWELVE MIDNIGHT.

I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU.

The windows in the office rattled, further aggravating his nerves. How had she slipped out of the hospital without his knowing?

Midnight
.

Why?

Sherard checked his watch. He could have used more time.

But if Eden was with the magician now, he might already be too late.

11:55 P.M.

H
e had shown her everything behind the scenes, a hidden and mostly subterranean complex of tunnels, trapdoors, elevators, flying rigs, suspension systems that could hold an elephant steady twenty feet above the stage floor. They had visited his menagerie of blue-eyed tigers and snow-white lionesses, and other lissome felines that were a combination of leopard and lion.

Eden, having regained her normal tongue and a measure of self-assurance after consuming most of the wine from the bottle she had with her, was unimpressed.

"That's genetics," she said of the crossbreeds. "I know a little something about genetics." She leaned against an unpainted concrete wall, eyes simmering in subdued lighting. "Now tell me your real secrets, Magic Man."

"Like what?"

"Like how you raise blood lust to the level of insane murder in an otherwise average, well-behaved teenage kid like Jimmy Nixon. And, like, where do shape-shifters come from—f'r instance, that saber-toothed baboon I met in the pasto—the, y'know, 'cause you were there too, don't deny it; the Pope-astolic Palace."

"Interesting mutation. I never know what I'm going to get. That's the fun part. So it was a saber-toothed baboon you destroyed?"

"Damn right I did!" Eden said, leering with pride. "'N with little help from my own brand of magic." She held up the bottle to a work light in the tunnel outside the menagerie, sized up with a squint the inch of dark wine remaining, and drank it unsteadily, the rim of the bottle clicking against her front teeth. A few drops dribbled off her chin.

The magician watched her with the same forbearance, mild amusement—and continued skepticism—that he had shown Eden for more than an hour. "C'mon" she said, lowering the empty bottle and issuing a challenge, "if we're gonna have a true, lasting
relationship
, gotta level with me. Hey! Speaking of the relationship, have to call you something. What do you suggest? Linc? Or, no, more appropriate, how about
Morrie?
You get it, don't you? Short for
Mor
daunt."

"Linc will do for now, Eden."

"'Kay. So, Links. How 'bout another bottle wine? I am
really
starting to get loosed up here, no shit. That's how you want me, right?
Purrrrf
eckly relaxed." She hiccupped and smothered a giggle with the back of her free hand, stealing a glimpse of the face of her watch as she did so.

"Maybe later," the magician said indulgently. "Why not take a break from the booze for now? You're sweating. I don't care for that. I don't like having women who sweat around me. Which they tend to do, onstage, when we've got flames going—"

"Just like in hell? Oops, my bad. Sorry. Listen, about sweating. That's what my glands are used to doing. Pour out the juice. I played basketball since I was in third grade, you know. Sweat's just bodily essence. If a man I happen to like sweats, it turns me on. That's something personal I'm letting you know, Links."

"There's a great deal about Eden Waring I'm eager to learn. But we have many years ahead of us."

"Kind of warm in this tunnel. Keep the animals cozy, right? Keep
your
animal warm too, Links? The one I heard so much about, came sniffing 'round my bed at Shungwaya. Scary son of a bitch. So let me in on it. The
big
secret. How can you take ordinary human beings, make them into monsters?"

"If you know how to stimulate the pineal body and the endocrine system by the use of spectrochrome therapy, human evolution can be accelerated to warp speed. The trigger is then implanted in the brain through the time-honored power of suggestion."

"Human evolution? Devolution, I'd call it," Eden said wisely.

"Whatever. They serve our purpose, luv."

She wagged a forefinger at him, face going slack; but her eyes were frightened. "Nuh-uh! Changed my mind. 'Clude me out.'

"But I need you. It's a most interesting experiment in genetics, Eden. I'm so looking forward to seeing just what it is you give birth to three days from now."

She jerked away from the wall as if she had been stuck there, lurched toward him.

"I'm scared! Why can't it just be you and me, Links? You and me."

"Because what you see as Lincoln Grayle is only an insignificant part of who and what I really am. We want to realize, in the person of a child, what is most powerful in each of us."

Eden tried to snuggle against him. He resisted the thrust of eroticism with a grimace of displeasure, but couldn't prevent her hand from clamping onto his penis.

"Isn't
this
good enough?" she said, whorishly kneading the brute sausage. "It's what
I
want, Linc. Give it to me, please? Right here. Now. I am so ready!"

"I'm not. It can't happen when—unless I—and you need to sober—"

Eden became dead weight on his arm, as if she were having a spaz attack. When he tried to hold her up off the floor she recovered with all of the nimble footwork that had made her a star point guard and, squaring up to him, smashed him full in the face with the butt of the empty wine bottle. His nose shattered and his head was driven into the wall behind him. Blood flew as his lungs emptied.

She hit him again, backhanded, and the bottle broke against a wedge of cheekbone before he hit the floor rolling, just beginning to feel the awful pain.

Eden stood astride him momentarily, still holding the jagged neck of the wine bottle, his blood dripping down her face.

"I believe I could use some fresh air," she said, perfectly lucid. "You'll find me on the terrace—Links, honey."

She walked away, steady after a first stagger-step, wiping blood off her face and trying to keep her gorge down. She headed along the tunnel toward the freight elevator that would take her to stage level. Wanting to scream but she couldn't get it out of her throat. The adrenaline rush was rapidly burning the alcohol out of her blood. She thought she could make it. Outdoors, the cold night air. But his blood. A little of it had passed her lips. She spat and spat.

As Eden ran into the large elevator, big enough to lift an elephant, she heard the roaring of the mutant big cats in their menagerie cages. She felt a livid itch on her lower lip and knew she was about to break out in hives.

Something entirely different from the magician whose face she had just ruined would be rising from the bloody floor of the tunnel, finding her spoor.

Eden looked at her watch again.

Showtime was eighty seconds away.

If she lived that long.

11:59 P.M.

T
he strong winds that had afflicted the Las Vegas area and caused some temporary power outages had abated and the clouds were breaking up as the cold front passed through, affording glimpses of a waning moon above the summit of Spring Mountain.