Magician's Fire (13 page)

“It would have been fine if you'd got Herbie out—he could back us up. But he's still trapped here, isn't he? He'll be too scared to say a word! Same for all the performers! So that leaves just us, a bunch of kids—and it's just like you said before, Harry. No one's going to take our word for it. Not the police, not anyone else. At most, someone might ask Wesley a few questions, but do you think he'll have any trouble thinking up something to cover his tracks? Not one bit! It's a hard one all right…” Her thumbs twiddled even faster. “Mind you, I'm not saying it's impossible…”

Definitely
not
impossible
. Leaning against the dressing room's crumbling wall, Harry realized that little bits and pieces of a plan were flying around in his thoughts, waiting to be put together so that this business could be sorted out once and for all. They were getting clearer all the time, those bits and pieces, and yet he decided to ignore them completely, just for now.

He felt his eyes narrow and his teeth grit with the concentration of doing so. Given everything that had happened recently, it seemed important that he approach things a bit differently this time. He let his eyes open and glanced down at his left fist to remind himself why.

Knuckles white, it was still clutching the twisted remains of the Princess Moldo spectacles. Slowly, he turned to his friends and spoke.

“Let's do this together, shall we?”

Harry hid in the backstage shadows, Billie squeezed next to him, Arthur huddled behind. Out on the stage, the evening show was underway. Bruno the Strongman had just finished his act and was loping toward the wings with a mournful expression.
But
all
the
performers
look
miserable
, thought Harry—the pearl-diving dancers, the juggling acrobats, the man who told jokes while dressed as a parrot.
Why
wouldn't they, with nothing but a desperate future of slaving at the Cruel Theater of Wesley Jones awaiting them?
Screwing his eye to the tiny hole in the backstage wall, Harry peered out at the audience and listened to the excited muttering.

“Herbie Lemster! He's back, and no one knows how!”

“The police never solved it. It's a darn mystery!”

“I was there that night. Vanished into a puff of smoke, he did!”

“Dark forces, that's what they say! It's the only explanation.”

The rumors raced about. They built in volume until they almost blotted out the applause that accompanied the next act, the juggling acrobats. The audience settled down to watch, but clearly, from their faces and the continued muttering, they were thinking only of Herbie Lemster, due to appear at any moment.

“Wesley's plan's working nicely, ain't it, Harry?” Billie peered through another hole.

“Certainly is,” Harry muttered. “Arnold's slapped up a few posters outside announcing Herbie's return. Plus, I saw Wesley wandering about the audience just before the show, chatting and laughing—”

“Getting the rumors started!” Arthur butted in. “He's told the newspapers too—plenty of journalists in the audience. I saw them come in. All of New York has been talking about Herbie, and now he's come back out of nowhere! Wesley isn't just going to keep his terrible theater going; it's going to be more successful than ever and—”

“Pretty smart plan.” Billie swung around from her spy hole. “But Wesley Jones ain't the only one who's cooked up one of
those
, is he?”

She pointed at the sheet of paper in Arthur's hands. It was covered with three different types of handwriting, all spiraling in different directions, a mass of scribbled words and diagrams. It had been Artie's idea that they each write their different ideas down, and the result was something of a mess, but every last scribble had fit onto one page, and Arthur was proudly holding it in his hands. Billie reached out and took hold of a corner of it. Harry grabbed it too. It hovered there, gripped in their three hands.

“Let's just do it, shall we?”

They raced through the shadows. Unseen, they glided past Bruno, the pearl-diving ladies, and a couple of the Cossack dancers, all looking as down-trodden as ever. Arriving in the corner of the backstage area by the huge piece of wooden seaweed, Harry rooted through the collection of ropes, chose one, tossed it into Arthur's arms, and headed off with him into the dark. Hurrying through the gloom, he spotted the most mournful-looking figure of all, trudging toward the stage.

Herbie. What a broken man he looked to be. His gray hair drooped, his body shivered, and his suit was still damp and creased after his time imprisoned in Wesley Jones's cage. Harry remembered the terror of the old magician down there, and he looked hardly less frightened now, tottering through the wings, forced to perform once again. A dreadful sight, made even more terrible by the sound of a familiar voice wafting gleefully from the stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we come now to the main business of the evening. The miraculous return of Herbie Lemster, our resident magician!” It was Wesley Jones, out on the stage, the pink top hat twirling as he boomed out his announcement. “Many of you may have heard of the strange events of last night. Purple smoke, an inexplicable disappearance! Sadly, ladies and gentleman, I am unable to shed any light on the affair. It will be a mystery that will grip and baffle this city for years to come, I venture.”

A wink over the hat's rim. “What I can say is, however unexplained his disappearance, Herbie is with us once again. Puzzle for yourselves, if you will, about his vanishing. But here he is, ladies and gentlemen!
Here
he
is
!
”

The applause was tumultuous. The audience cheered, and there were even shrieks as the old magician went shuffling on. Harry was deep in the backstage gloom, but he could still make out the stage—and he had never seen anyone look as miserable as Herbie taking up his position, nor had he ever seen anyone as gleefully happy as Wesley Jones as he marched into the wings. Chuckling, the theater manager handed his hat to Arnold, who was smirking and also looked pleased about the business.

Harry shifted his gaze to Billie, as she wandered out of the shadows and strolled up to the two villains.

“Excuse me?” She propped herself casually against some scenery. “Don't suppose you've seen a boy around here, have you? Harry's his name, and he's a good friend of mine—”

Arnold lunged for her, and Billie was running as fast as she could. Harry watched her tiny outline hurtling away from the wings toward him. Arnold and Wesley were close behind, but Billie raced through the dark, her glue-spattered smock flapping as she gathered speed. What would she call this latest adventure of hers when she told the story? The Wesley Jones Theater Dash, maybe? Harry watched her speed past him, vanishing through a doorway into the props room, which was where they had carefully agreed she should run.

Even though it was a dead end.

“You won't get out that way, kid!”

Harry saw Wesley and Arnold, their faces grinning as they closed in on the doorway. He heard Billie scrabbling about in the props-crammed room.
Caught
in
a
trap
. But who was? Billie or them?

“Ready, Harry?”

“Ready!”

A rope was pulled tight across the doorway, level with Arnold's and Wesley's knees. Harry held one end, while Arthur gripped the other on the opposite side. The two men slammed onto the props room floor, and Billie skipped over them, not particularly seeming to mind as she trod on Wesley's hat, squashing it pancake flat, and on Arnold's hand, producing a high-pitched yell. She was out of the room. Still clutching either end of the rope, Arthur and Harry slammed and locked the door.

“All went rather smoothly,” Arthur said.

“Nice work,” Billie agreed.

“Ready for the next part, Artie?” said Harry.

“I'll just finish off a few rewrites,” Artie muttered, flipping over the sheet of paper and jotting some more as they hurried back toward the stage. Applause roared as Herbie completed the first part of his act. Harry could see him out there, his frail arms holding up the glittering knives that had been magically hurled at him, his face staring sadly as the audience howled. A miserable sight.

But with a jab of his pencil, Arthur was ready, and Harry unhooked the rope that held the curtain, sending it thundering down. The audience gasped with dismay, and Arthur and Billie marched onto the stage, leaving Harry waiting in the backstage darkness.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement to make!” This was Arthur's big moment, and Harry watched him leap to the front, the sheet of paper fluttering in his hand. “Fear not, Herbie's act is not over! Indeed, it has only just begun. Never in your life will you have witnessed…”

“Who are you?”

“Get off the stage!”

“Kids! What're two kids doing up there?”

A
tricky
start
, thought Harry. But his friends had expected that. And it wasn't as if anyone was actually going to stop them, was it? From his position in the wings, Harry glanced around and saw the other performers standing there, too astonished to do anything, while all that could be heard of Arnold and Wesley was some faraway hammering on a door. Meanwhile, out on the stage, Billie was nudging Artie, keeping him going.

“Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourself for the shock of your lives! You will not be seeing Herbie's usual tricks. No poisonous spiders and flowers! No bicycling over deadly spikes! No, what you are about to witness is more startling by far! For you are about to see with your own eyes, hear with your own ears…” Arthur yelled the last few words at the very top of his voice. “
The
truth
behind
the
disappearance
of
Herbie
Lemster!
A tale of trickery, malice, and attempted murder!”

Silence.
Nicely
timed
, Harry thought, and he saw that Arthur looked pleased too, folding his speech up and sliding it into his pocket with a tap. A few more seconds went by and still not a sound from the crowd. Even before the show, they had been obsessed with rumors of Herbie's vanishing.
That'll be nothing compared to now
, Harry decided, and darted through a doorway, running up a corridor that ran parallel to the auditorium.

“If you want to find out more, follow us!” Billie's voice echoed through the theater. Passing a doorway, Harry glanced back through it and saw his friends leaping from the stage. Another doorway, and he saw the two of them running up the aisle through the audience, who seemed trapped in silence, gaping at them. But then Harry heard a seat thudding up, followed by another and another. Behind his friends, he saw members of the audience, all around the auditorium, stumbling toward the aisle.

“The secret of Herbie's disappearance? Tell us!”

“What is it? I demand to know!”

“Is it dark magic? Like everyone says it is?”

“Follow them! Don't let them get away!”

Harry took off again. He slammed into the foyer and flung open the door that led up to Wesley's office. Racing upstairs, he heard Billie and Arthur's voices echoing behind him, along with hundreds of other voices, a thundering wall of shouts and gasps and demands for information.
They
won't be disappointed
, he thought, as he flew along a final corridor, slammed into the office, rummaged under the mantelpiece shelf, and sent the marble bulk lurching to the side.

He leaped through into the dark. Flying down the spiral stairs, he splashed into the icy water. Over by the wall, he tugged at a lever, making the water swirl, and then he waded toward the cage. He slid the door open and slammed it shut behind himself. A flick of his wrist sent the key flying from the lock, plopping into the water, far away. Harry felt his heart throb with the memory of his last experience with this terrible device but ignored it. He grabbed the end of a rope that he had positioned earlier, running all the way over to the lever by the stairs, and tugged it. The lever clanked to the left and the cage began grinding down into the swirling black water again.

“Behold, we are in the office of Wesley Jones himself!” Harry heard Billie's voice, close now. “The respectable theater manager. But all is not as it seems!”

“Out of our way!”

The crowd was clattering down the stairs, the darkness echoing with their cries. Mouths fell open, eyes bulged, and a lady near the front fainted but was picked up and carried along. The entire staircase groaned as more than a hundred people peered around the gloomy place, with its throbbing pipes, swirling water, and single flickering candle.

“What is this place?”

“Look at the speed of that water!”

“Who would build something like this?”

“In a theater of all places!”

“What's that over there? It's…a cage!”

“It's
moving
!”

“Sinking, you mean!”

“And there's someone in it!”

“A
boy
!”

The darkness shuddered with their screams. The crowd was in the water, surrounding the cage, yelling at it, pulling at its bars. Harry spotted Billie and Arthur in the water too, screaming loudest of all, all part of the plan to create the most panicked atmosphere possible. Harry saw the rigid faces, the screaming mouths. The cage kept grinding down. The water was up to his neck, but hidden beneath its surface his fingers were reaching for that snapped-off arm of the Princess Moldo spectacles…

“Save him! Save him!”

“Stop the machine!”

“Who put him in there? Who would do such a thing?”

“What about the theater owner? It was his office up there, wasn't it?”

“Just get the boy out!”

“I can't! It's locked!”

“Stop it sinking someone! Stop it!”

“Look!”

The cage door slammed open. Harry shot up through the foaming water, gasping for air. Two more ladies fainted, collapsing on the stairs, but no one noticed, too astounded at the sight of Harry clambering out of the water and onto the top of the cage. They also seemed astounded by the words that raced out of his dripping mouth.

“It's time for you to know the truth…about Wesley Jones!”

Again, the story flew out of him. The last time he had told it, he had been recovering in the cobweb-strewn dressing room, and it had been a bit of a muddle. But the words racing out of him now were far clearer. Carefully, precisely, he had been prepared by Arthur, who had jotted down exactly what he should say so the whole affair would be presented in the easiest way possible. Harry had memorized every word and, from the look of the audience's faces as he reached the speech's end, those words were having the desired effect.

“And so, Wesley Jones imprisoned me. He left me here to die! But I escaped! I escaped, and here I am now to tell the truth of Herbie Lemster's disappearance…and of the Cruel Theater of Wesley Jones!”

“Wesley Jones! Stage Manager Arnold! Find them!”