The Book of the Dead (8 page)

“Enjoying the show so far?” Edgar tucked the flask back into his jacket’s breast pocket.

“Oh yes. And it’s a beautiful venue, too – I’ve never been to the Coliseum before.”

Edgar made no reply, and they stood in silence for a few moments. Marjorie felt like she should be making more of an effort to be pleasant and sociable, since he had been treating her more than kindly, and scrambled to keep the conversation going.

“Have you performed here?” she asked.

Edgar’s face fell. “No,” he said, after a moment. “I… mostly do smaller events.”

“Like what?”

His cheeks reddened. “Well, you know, there are so many, I tend to forget, but – oh, look, the lights are dimming. We should… we should go back in.”

Marjorie fell in behind him as he trotted back to their seats. She felt bad, she hadn’t meant to make him feel ashamed, though she didn’t see exactly what was shameful in being a hobbyist at something like magic. Maybe his distress was related to his friend being such a legend. Hoping it would do something to dispel the tension, after they took their seats she leaned toward him.

“How do you know Zupan?”

Again, Edgar got that confused, faraway look in his eyes. “I can’t recall,” he said slowly. “Isn’t that funny? But we’ve known each other for a long time. Terrible good friends, he and I, that’s why… why I brought him to your party.” He raised his hand to his breast pocket, slowly, like he was moving it through water. “Did I mention we have backstage passes, for after?”

“How lovely!” Marjorie’s enthusiasm was genuine. She’d never been backstage at a theatre. Maybe Mrs. Quildring’s requirement that she spend time with Edgar before getting a peek at her collection wouldn’t turn out to be a waste of time after all.

Edgar had gone all quiet again, and Marjorie was just contemplating what next to say when the lights went down – all of them, even the footlights – and the same bizarre, prickly feeling she’d experienced last night once again made her shudder. Then, from behind the curtain, there was a popping sound and bright bluish-white light streamed from the sides of the red cloth, and down the middle, where it would part. Marjorie squinted; she could have sworn she saw the faint outline of a tall, skeletally thin man wearing some sort of elaborate headdress.

After the blaze dimmed the curtain parted, and for a moment the phantom of the tall man remained – but when the real figure on stage moved, stepping forward with his arms outstretched, though it was only Zupan in a formal evening wear the remaining illusion was just as unbelievable. Lightning appeared to be shooting from each of his four fingers and his thumb, writhing like white serpents reaching up to lick the vaulted ceiling of the Coliseum. Zupan’s top-hatted head was bowed forward, and as he reached the edge of the stage, he looked up. From his wide eyes flowed yet more lightning, and when he opened his mouth, a massive bolt shot out, drawing gasps and screams from the audience.

With a dramatic sweep he lowered his arms, closing his eyes and mouth at the same time. The theatre went completely dark. Marjorie clapped along with the rest when the footlights came up, though the applause was more sporadic, hesitant than for the film. Everyone seemed more confounded than impressed by Zupan’s first trick.

This proved to be the case for most of his act. Unlike many magicians, he used no equipment beyond a few handheld objects – a glass sphere threaded with silver glyphs that, when he held it above his head, glowed bright enough to cast shadows like a forest all over the walls and people, a flugelhorn that emitted mist that changed color with the tone, a tiny blue bottle full of something that turned to cobalt flame the moment he dripped it onto the stage with an eyedropper, a white pigeon in a bronze cage that he bewitched with a touch, and without a cry of pain submitted to having its beating heart plucked out and replaced with a candle, whereupon it flew about, shitting wax all over the audience. He spoke but little, making no claims beyond avowing the reality of what he showed them, and how instead of presenting illusions, he was sweeping them away.

“Remarkable,” murmured Edgar, his eyes shining like a child’s. “I’ve never seen such
magic
– never knew anything like it could be done.”

Marjorie, distracted, ceased applauding for a moment. “You haven’t seen his act before?” she asked, over the din. That seemed queer, if they were such good friends.

Edgar never got a chance to answer. As he turned to face her, cloudy-eyed once again, there was a powerful crackle from the front of the theatre. Question forgotten, Marjorie gaped, heart pounding, to see Zupan suddenly standing atop a small pyramid that had not been on stage a moment before, dressed in the robe and headdress she’d thought she’d seen at the beginning of his act. The headdress was Egyptian, of the
nemes
-style made famous by Tutankhamun, except that Zupan’s looked to be of no real substance, comprised instead entirely of chryselephantine electricity. As were his robes, Marjorie realized, when as he began to descend the pyramid one bolt of crackling energy moved strangely, momentarily revealing a flash of flesh that left her blushing. She kept her eyes on his face after that. He was naked under the garment – if garment it was.

“For my next trick,” he intoned, “I require a volunteer from the audience. A brave volunteer, I must specify – and one, hopefully, familiar with certain rites known to the ancient peoples of Egypt.”

Marjorie dreaded his gaze as it raked over the audience. She knew that unless Zupan had been listening in to her conversation the previous evening, there was no way he could know her interest in matters Egyptian… but just the same, after his queer displays that evening, mind-reading didn’t seem so very unbelievable. Thus, when one of the tendrils of light jetted out from his heart and touched her on the forehead with a faint thrill, like static shock, Marjorie wasn’t entirely surprised – just alarmed.

“Go,” hissed Edgar. He looked almost
jealous
, to her surprise. So did most of the audience. She stood, dazed, and begged the pardon of those sitting between her and the aisle, making her way toward the leftmost steps to the stage with trembling legs.

Zupan greeted her solemnly, kissing her hand like he had the night before. She tried not to let her eyes slip downward, acutely aware of his nakedness now that they were so close.

“Miss Olenthiste joins me in a sacred ritual tonight,” he said, holding her hand aloft as if declaring a simultaneous victory. “Tonight, my delightful assistant had no idea that journeying to the theatre would be her
final trip
. For tonight, she leaves us not by cab or by car – but by spirit journey down the Nile, to stand before Osiris and have her heart weighed against a feather. Are you ready for this, Miss Olenthiste? Are you ready to
cross over?
”

Marjorie knew it was all an act, but all the same, his words put the spook on her. Still, the audience was clearly enjoying the spectacle, and she hated to disappoint them. She nodded, but was too nervous to speak.

“Then come with me,” he said, and led her up the steps of the pyramid.

Once they were atop the structure, she noticed that four cages had appeared on stage below them, each with a creature trapped inside. The three larger cages sat on the stage itself; the smallest, atop a pedestal table. It contained a hawk, and the other three she recognized as a baboon, a jackal, and – was it possible? A small man-like creature, pale-skinned as a mushroom and just as puffy. She knew then that Zupan’s trick would involve something having to do with mummification, as these creatures represented the four sons of Horus, the guardians of sacred human organs in traditional Egyptian canopic jars. Zupan confirmed her theory by explaining exactly this to the audience as he produced from nowhere the hilt of an ancient-looking knife.

“Are you ready,” he murmured. The hairs on the back of her neck all stood up. “Are you
sure
?”

“I think so,” she murmured back. “It’s just… just a trick, an illusion – right?”

Zupan smiled at her, his eyes dark limpid pools, comforting and yet somehow satyric, mischievous. “Your belief makes it real,” he said. “Shall we give them a show?”

Before she could answer, a blade of pure light erupted from Zupan’s dagger hilt, deadly sharp and yet ephemeral. Marjorie trembled but he steadied her, moving behind her and grasping her around the waist with his free hand. She was again very aware of his being largely nude, but had no time to think about it – he brandished the knife and then plunged it into the fleshy area just above her right hip, and then slid it upwards and along the area under her ribcage. She gasped; the sensation was not so much painful as peculiar. Peculiar, too, was that she felt anything at all. It was all supposed to be an illusion…

Marjorie gasped.
Something
, some part of her, flopped onto Zupan’s waiting palms, translucent as a jellyfish and colored like afterbirth. He held it delicately in both hands as he began walking back down the steps of the pyramid. Marjorie, horrified and fascinated in equal measure, found she could not move, had no power to control her limbs whatsoever. This was for the best, however, as she could not actually faint when Zupan released the horrible pale man-thing and it accepted whatever Zupan had taken out of her into its sharp-toothed maw, chewing and swallowing each bite thoughtfully.

The moment it finished its bizarre meal the thing froze and – in a flash of lightning,
disappeared
– only to be replaced with an alabaster canopic jar, the head of which was the exact likeness of the creature.

Zupan cried out, “Thus, Imsety!” and bowed deeply… but the audience did not applaud. They looked, instead, revolted, and began to murmur and shift as he repeated the process three more times, with the baboon, jackal, and hawk consuming and being transformed by ghostly illusions of Marjorie’s lungs, stomach, and large intestine.

“The ancient Egyptians knew that proper mummification cannot occur until the four organs are removed,” Zupan told the audience, as he walked backwards up the pyramid, creepily sure-footed. “Then the body may be wrapped, dried, so that the person may live forever in the afterlife once the
ka
– the soul – has returned to the body in the sight of Osiris. Therefore, my assistant is now ready for her final voyage. Aren’t you?”

Marjorie found she could nod – and did. She was uncertain, but no harm had come to her so far. The only consequence of Zupan’s strange actions was her feeling slightly light-headed, but that might have been stage fright, being up so high, or realizing she was no longer frozen in place.

Zupan was now holding held a large bolt of rough linen cloth and, kneeling, began wrapping her legs together at the ankles. Marjorie blushed at the indecency, but quickly enough he moved up her legs, binding them together, then wrapping her arms at her sides, her neck, and then her face.

“You kept your heart, for your judgment,” he whispered in her ear, as he tucked the end of the binding somewhere behind her head. “Do not be afraid. If there is nothing you leave this world wanting, it will be lighter than Maat’s feather.”

Marjorie briefly imagined the treasures waiting for her in Mrs. Quildring’s collection – and how, when she told the tale of how she’d submitted to everything this night, even public mummification, the woman
better
cut her a deal. Then Marjorie felt a sensation like thunder sounded, screamed, and knew no more.

She came to in Zupan’s dressing room. Someone had put a pillow behind her head and under her knees so she was resting comfortably on the couch. She felt fine. Really good, actually – euphoric, almost, like the time her grandmother had given her some Bayer Heroin for a toothache.

Unfortunately, given the conversation occurring as she returned to consciousness, that sense of peace left her quickly. Before she opened her eyes she heard Zupan speaking in a louder tone than she had yet heard him use. He was talking to – arguing with, really – Edgar. Over
her
, of all things.

“You just had to wow her like that, didn’t you?” Edgar sound really angry. “I… we… things were going well, even coming to your show and her knowing I’m a magician and… oh,
bushwa
!”

“I don’t see why you are so put out,” replied Zupan, who, she noted with relief, had donned his suit once again. “I needed an assistant, so I chose your friend. I daresay she won’t forget this night any time soon, yes? But you are not pleased?”

“No, I’m not pleased!”

“That was not my intent.”

“Well! Now all she’ll talk about when I take her back to Auntie’s is
you
,” said Edgar bitterly. “I liked her, you know. She was all right, for being frumpy and boring.”

Any goodwill Marjorie had for Edgar disappeared, like one of Zupan’s tricks.
Boring
! The nerve! All she’d done was try to talk about him and his interests. So much for the rules in that one issue of
McClure’s
she’d read on how to behave on a date!

“You’re no prize yourself,” she said, still reclining on the couch. When both gentlemen turned to her, surprised, she sat up, glaring at Edgar. “I don’t know who you think you are, but your company wasn’t the most pleasant, either.”

Edgar sneered at her. “I know very well you weren’t ever interested in my company. Well, trust me, I’ll make sure you never so much as
see
that disgusting mummy you were using me to get at.” He turned to Zupan. “I was going to bring her back stage, you know, impress her, show her a good time… thanks a lot, you oily little bohunk. But you always had all the advantages. Manners and a three-letter mustache, that’s what woman want.”

“Stay,” urged Zupan. “It is a misunderstanding.”

Edgar looked to Marjorie. Marjorie shrugged, not really interested in prolonging his stay.

“So long, Marjorie.” Edgar tossed two backstage passes onto the carpet. Zupan twitched as the door slammed behind him. Then he turned to Marjorie, and smiled shyly.

“I am sorry.” He shrugged. “I did not realize, did not mean to upset him. And it turns out you had a stake in all this?”