Percival mounted the stage bridge and crept across the orchestra pit, enjoying the weight of the ax in his hand, relishing the thunk it would make chopping a wedge out of the mark’s skull.
Four more steps, then it’s mutton stew for me and the lads. Three more steps.
Percival sprang onto the stage proper, and he knew that at this distance there was not a man or animal on earth who could escape the deadly arc of his swing.
I could fell a bear from this distance, he thought.
He raised the ax high and brought the blade down with terrific force. It struck nothing but chair, slicing through the padding and biting deep into the wooden backrest.
Percival’s brain could not understand how certainty had become uncertain.
“Magic,” said a voice. “All is not as it seems.”
Percival yanked the ax free and whirled toward the source of these mysterious words. There in the corner stood the mark himself, Garrick, wrapped in his conjurer’s cape.
“Do you approve of my cloak? It’s a little theatrical, but this is a performance, after all.”
He don’t know about the others, thought Percival. Else he would not be blathering on.
Percival whistled two notes, high and low. The signal for Turk to advance from the folds of velvet curtain that concealed him.
Turk made even less noise than Percival, as he wore silken slippers, which he called his murder shoes. He came up on Garrick from the rear and reached out for a shoulder, to steady the magician for the scimitar’s blade, but his questing fingers skinned themselves on glass instead of flesh and bone.
A mirror, thought Turk. I have been misled.
Terror sank into his gut like a lead anchor—he had the wit to know that he was done for.
The mirror image of Garrick reached out through the mirror and plucked Turk’s own sword from his hand.
“You will not have need of this,” said Garrick’s image, and he plunged it directly into Turk’s heart.
Turk died believing a phantasm had killed him. His final wish was that he could return as a spirit to this place in order to decipher the events leading up to his death, but unfortunately that’s not the way the afterlife works, especially for blackhearted killers.
Percival would have attacked then, but he was uncertain of his enemy’s position. He heard an ominous creaking behind him and turned to see a large set piece being lowered from the flies. The piece was circular and constructed of canvas stretched over a wooden frame. On the front were circles painted within circles.
“Stone me,” breathed Percival. “A target.”
“Stone you?” came a voice from the blackness of the stalls. “I fear you are missing the point, but not for long.”
Percival backed up until his shoulder blades bumped the target and his head sat squarely in the bull’s-eye. Before he could twig the implications, a veritable hail of blades hissed from the darkness.
I am done, thought Percival, and closed his eyes.
But done he was not; instead the various knives, forks, swords, and bayonets pinned him tightly to the target, drawing no more than a pint of blood from minor wounds.
Was this by accident or design? Percival knew not, but he took advantage of his still-pumping lungs to call to his final confederate.
“Damn the blades, Pound. Plug this cove.”
Pound rushed from his place of concealment and waved the barrel of his pistol around, searching for the mark. “Where are you, Garrick? Show yourself!”
By some device, Garrick appeared where he had not been a second before, his face pale in the stage lights, dark hair rippling over his shoulders.
“I am insulted by this attack on my home. Insulted, I say.”
“Quite yer jittering and stand still,” ordered Pound.
“That you may shoot me dead? An odd request. However, as you wish. Pull your blasted trigger, but take care—if you miss, I shall not.”
The cards were apparently all in Pound’s hands, but with his boss pegged to a target, he was nervous.
“Shoot him, man!” Percival urged. “A monkey could make the shot.”
Garrick spread his arms wide. “Make your shot, Scotsman. Unto dust.”
Pound blinked the sweat from his eyes, wondering how this job had turned into such a dog’s dinner.
“On yer knees, Garrick.”
“Oh, no, I kneel for no man.”
Percival strained against the knives that secured him. “Shoot him, Pound! Pull the trigger.”
“You are weak,” said Garrick mockingly. “A coward!”
Pound fired his pistol and a flute of blue smoke billowed from the barrel. The noise was deafening, and for a moment Garrick’s upper torso was wreathed in a flickering cloud.
When the smoke cleared, Garrick was revealed, hale and hardy, with no changes to his appearance but for the blood on his teeth and the bullet between them.
“Oh, my God,” breathed Pound. “He caught the bullet. This is no mortal man.”
“Shoot again, you fool!” cried Percival. “You hold a revolver in yer hand.”
Garrick spoke between his teeth. “One chance only. Now, you must stand still for my bullet.”
Pound was so confused that his feet were like anchors and tears streamed down his ruddy cheeks. “But you are without a pistol.”
Garrick rubbed his fingers before his mouth as though warming them, then spat out the bullet with such force that it penetrated Pound’s forehead and dropped him where he stood.
Percival realized then how deep in the mire he stood.
“Please, mister. We have cash in our pokes. Take it and let me go. I will be on the next boat to America.”
Garrick’s eyes held no hint of mercy. “I need the name of the man who pulls your strings.”
Percival ground his teeth. “I cannot. I swore an oath.”
“Aha, an oath,” said Garrick, meandering toward the massive target. “That in itself is a telltale sign.”
“I’ll say no more,” said Percival, stubbornly. “Do your worst, you devil.”
“That, sir, is quite an invitation,” said Garrick, removing one by one the knives sticking Percival to the target. “You may have surmised that I was once an illusionist of some fame. Some called me the Great Lombardi, but notoriety bestowed upon me another name.”
Garrick paused and Percival could not take it. “What name? In God’s name, stop toying with me.”
Garrick whipped a covering sheet from a coffin-shaped box stage left. “I was known as the Red Glove.”
Percival’s eyes rolled back and he fainted where he stood, held aloft only by a cleaver and a stiletto.
“You’ve heard the legend, I see,” said Garrick, plucking out the remaining blades.
Percival woke in the box, strapped down tight, bare feet poking from the end. Garrick leaned over him, dressed now in full evening wear, with silken hat and dinner gloves, one white, one red.
“This is my most famous illusion,” he said. “A somewhat irksome truth, as it is the only illusion that ever went fatally awry.”
“Awry?” said Percival, his head fuzzy. “Does that mean wrong, sir?”
“Oh, it does. And do you know what fatally means?”
Percival searched his vocabulary, which consisted of little more than two hundred words, most of them food related. “Dead, sir—is it that someone was killed?”
“You are more educated than you look, Mr. . . . ?”
“Percival, guv’nor.”
“Percival. A good strong Welsh name.”
“Welsh, yes. Perhaps you have Welsh kin and will spare me?”
Garrick ignored the question, drawing from behind his back with quite a flourish a large, wooden-handled, square blade.
“This is the key to the illusion, Percival: the blade. The audience assumes it is a fakement, but I assure you it is of the finest steel and will cut through flesh and bone with barely a stutter.”
And, with great panache and dexterity, Garrick tossed
the blade into the air, caught it, then rammed the tempered steel square into the leg slot, appearing to sever Percival’s feet from his legs.
“Mercy!” screamed Percival. “Kill me and be done. This is torture, sir. Pure torture.”
Garrick clicked his fingers and from somewhere overhead came the sound of an orchestra.
“You must indulge me, Monsieur Percival. I so rarely have need of the old togs.”