Magician's Muse (19 page)

“… all ready for tonight.” Genevieve’s voice rose with excitement. “I can hardly believe it’s going to finally happen. All the planning and preparation leading to this amazing night.”

“You’ll be the amazing one in the family from here on,” the other woman said warmly. She sounded younger than Genevieve.

“I’ve wanted to have my own act for years. I’m tired of being ignored, considered merely the magician’s wife. Even when I assist him, I’m only another stage prop. But thanks to you, all that will change,” Genevieve said. “I never would have had the courage, much less the skill. You’ve taught me so much.”

“I shall rejoice in your success,” the other woman said. “Did you find the herbs I described?”

“Yes—exactly where you told me.”

“And the girl?”

“She’s eager to do what I ask.” Genevieve laughed. “I made sure of her loyalty by having Grey lean on her. I’m not comfortable with Grey’s methods, but since he wants my influence with Arturo to ensure that he wins the competition, he’s been very helpful. Jade was so relieved when I showed up and whisked her away.”

I covered my mouth so I wouldn’t gasp. Grey working with Genevieve? I could hardly believe it, and leaned against the door, straining to hear more.

“Clever Genevieve,” the other woman praised her. “The art of persuasion is a subtle form of illusion.”

“Jade is so grateful, and she trusts me completely.”

“But can we trust her? She seems different … almost like she is a different person. I am puzzled and wrought with unease. I think she sighted me yesterday.”

“Impossible! No one knows about you except me.”

“I certainly hope you’re right. Much is at stake tonight. Nothing must go wrong.”

“It won’t. You’ve taught me so much, and I am confident all will go smoothly. I’ve already crushed the herbs, so all that’s left is to slip them into her drink.”

“Mix it right before you give it to her. Are you positive she’ll drink it?”

“I told her it would be fruit punch. She doesn’t suspect a thing.”

“Excellent,” the other woman said approvingly. “Now all that’s left is the finale, where you’ll …”

Her words were fading along with her footsteps as she moved farther away from the door. I think Genevieve replied, but I could only hear a faint murmur of her voice. I had to know more. So I carefully grasped the knob and twisted, slowly, until there was a soft click. The door inched open.

Leaning forward, I peered through the crack. Genevieve’s back was to me as she bent over the table I’d sat on during practice, her hand clasped around the goblet I’d drunk from. When we rehearsed, it had been filled with water—but what would I be drinking during the performance?

Not fruit punch …

I leaned in closer and my gaze swept the room for the other woman. At first I didn’t see her, but suddenly there she was, beside Genevieve—her shining copper hair and almost glowing skin a starling contrast to Genevieve’s fair skin and coiffed blond hair.

“The words I’ve taught you and the jewels will burn with powerful energy,” the copper-haired woman was saying. “Once she’s dead, we’ll make magician history.”

I covered my mouth, stunned, staring at this woman.

I could see right through her.

Zathora.

It didn’t take a math degree to add up who was supposed to die on stage.

Well, count me out of here.

I backed up and practically ran down the stairs. I didn’t have a plan but I couldn’t stay here one more minute—not when the woman I thought was a friend wanted to kill me, and her accomplice was already dead.

How could I have been so wrong about Genevieve? If I didn’t have the ability to see and hear ghosts, I wouldn’t have found out a thing. Genevieve had totally conned me—even her aura hadn’t given her away. But at least I found out in time. And, if I hadn’t taken Jade’s place, Jade would have been in danger without even knowing it. She would have been led to the stage altar like a sacrifice victim.

But I had learned the truth in time to get away. I sent a grateful thanks to Opal, Nona, Velvet, and all my psychic mentors.

I stepped outside and the chilly wind slammed into me. The weather had changed; dense white-gray clouds churned with stormy fury. I inhaled the acrid warning of rain and clutched my shivering arms. Please let me escape before the sky opens up and attacks, I thought.

The wind whipped harder and I wished I had my jacket, but there was no turning back.

“Once she’s dead, we’ll make magician history.” The memory of these words taunted me, urging my feet to move faster.

But why was Genevieve plotting to kill me? How could she expect to get away with it? The brotherhood may guard their secrets, but I doubted they’d approve of murder. Watching someone die was
not
a magic trick.

Or maybe I’d misunderstood what I’d heard, and my “dying” was simply part of the act. I had practiced how to faint so it looked like I had fallen into a deep sleep. But sleep wasn’t the same as dead. When Zathora gave her infamous final performance, she hadn’t planned to die on stage; she’d expected to create a miracle of bringing herself back to life. Was that Genevieve’s plan? To create the illusion of killing me, then bringing me back to life? How would Genevieve prove I was dead? Parade my lifeless body for the audience to examine? Not if I had anything to say about it!

But what ticked me off even more was all the fainting practice Genevieve made me do when she knew I wouldn’t need to fake it. If I drank the poison, my fall would be the real thing.

So
not going to happen.

Genevieve could cancel the show or drink the damned poison herself.

Wind buffeted against me as I hurried farther away from the cottage, too angry to feel its sharp chilly bite. I turned onto the path that had brought me here yesterday. Pine needles crunched beneath my feet as the gravel path turned to rough dirt, and some of the anxiety in my heart eased when I saw the gleaming white dam in the distance.

Freedom was so close …

I heard the bark and something slammed into me. Knocked down, I couldn’t breathe. Something large pressed on top of me. Gasping, I looked up just as a slobbery doggy tongue licked my face.

“Oooh! Get off!” I groaned.

“Sorry, but Roscoe gets so excited when it’s time to take our walk.” Frank stood over me, his wrinkles crinkling in a smile. He bent down with his hand out and I thought he would offer me a hand up, but instead he just pulled on Roscoe’s collar.

“Keep him away from me.”

“He just doesn’t know his strength. Don’t be mad. Come on, let’s walk.”

“Walk?” I pushed myself off the ground, my palms stinging with red gravel marks. “Are you serious? Just look at the sky, it’s going to rain soon.”

“Roscoe needs his walk.”

“And a little rain never killed anyone,” a sardonic voice cut in.

He’d moved so silently, I hadn’t heard him come up beside us. But now I could feel his predatory aura. “What are you doing here?”

Grey shrugged, his pale brows arched as if amused. “Taking a walk. Henry isn’t feeling well so I’m going with you.”

“Glad to have you,” Frank said cheerfully. “The more the merrier. Right?”

I refused to reply “right,” since everything about Grey was wrong.

“It’ll be fun … Jade,” Grey said, with a mocking grin just for me. Then he stroked his cloak, running his fingers over the place where his knives were hidden under the fabric. A subtle but very effective threat.

I started walking.

* * *

Grey stayed uncomfortably close, his keen gaze keeping track of me at all times. I even tried Jade’s trick of bumping into Frank so that Roscoe broke loose. I sprinted off as if I planned to chase the dog, then turned in the opposite direction, toward the path I knew would take me back to the road. I’d made it only a few yards before a silver missile buzzed passed my head. A knife lodged itself into a patch of yellow wildflowers, narrowly missing me.

“Sorry,” Grey said as he came over to grab his knife.

“Yeah, sorry you missed.”

“I never miss.” He rubbed the knife on his cloak. “Were you going somewhere?”

He knew I had tried to escape and I knew that he knew. Why bother to pretend? I turned my back to him and hurried to catch up with Frank and Roscoe.

As I followed the graveled path, I felt Grey’s eyes boring into me. Watching to make sure I didn’t try to escape.

It started to pour just as we reached the main house, and I was drenched in the short distance to the cottage. Despite the rain, I didn’t lose all hope for escape. Once Grey left me, I’d sneak out again.

But Grey didn’t leave me; he led me inside the cottage and stayed. He took Genevieve aside and whispered in her ear. I didn’t need to be psychic to know that he was warning her not to let me out of her sight. And while Grey went off to his private work room, Genevieve stared at me in a new, suspicious way. Then suddenly she had chores for me to do.

When I finished alphabetizing her bottled spices, she gave me a large wooden box full of crystals, from pinky-small to palm-sized and glittering in shades of mauve, yellow, lavender, and translucent. She kept checking on me, warning me not to drop the precious stones. I was careful, but I was also watching her from the corner of my eye as she filled a box with candles, matches, rolls of fabric, and the goblet.

When she announced she was leaving to set up for the performance, my blood chilled. Time was running out—and so was daylight. I tapped my fingers on the table, watching Genevieve, mentally urging her to leave so I could do the same.

But as she walked out the door, Frank strode in, leading Roscoe. He made up some lame story about needing help grooming Roscoe. But the look he exchanged with Genevieve on her way out told the real story. He was there to guard me.

Sure, I could outrun him. But when he casually mentioned that Grey was close by “if we needed any help with Roscoe,” my escape plans died.

So I followed Frank and his curly dog upstairs to the workroom. Grooming Roscoe wasn’t hard work, but it was messy. Fuzzy dog hair kept flying in my face and even up my nose.

Holding the leash with one hand and batting away flying fur with the other, my mind wandered … not very far, just downstairs to the front door that led to freedom. I had to get out of here before dark! If I didn’t escape soon, I wouldn’t get another chance. But with Grey close by, how could I sneak away? I couldn’t run faster than he could throw a knife. And there was Josh to consider too. It would be really easy for Grey to eliminate his competition with a knife “accident.”

Roscoe squirmed, nearly slipping from my grasp. But I was quick and held him tight.

“Thanks, Jade,” Frank said, smiling at me. But beneath his smile, was he a friend or foe? I suspected he had a strong loyalty to Grey and the brotherhood.

I wished for someone loyal to me … like Dominic. If he knew I was in trouble, he’d come after me. He’d send his animal posse out searching until they found me and I was safe back at home. But he was in worse trouble, probably locked in a jail cell, sinking into depression. I couldn’t feel his energy—it was as if he was beyond reach far, far away. I ached with loneliness.

The only friend I had here was Josh. But even if I did ask him for help, he’d never believe that I’d overheard Genevieve plotting with a ghost. And no one knew where I was—except Jade. Already a day had passed and she hadn’t kept her promise. Perhaps she never meant to.

And it hurt to know that Genevieve was willing to sacrifice me for a magic trick. Even worse, she’d conspired with Grey in a form of bad cop/good cop. The betrayal hurt more than it should, given that I’d only known Genevieve a day. I decided that when she asked me to change into my costume tonight, I would refuse. No more would I be her willing victim.

I would
not
go on stage and drink poison.

Frank snapped me out of my thoughts. “Jade, could you bring Roscoe a bowl of water?”

Nodding, I walked to the sink. I was moving on autopilot now, an almost peaceful numbness settling over me.

As water spilled into the sink, my gaze swept over to the cabinet where I’d organized bottles of spices earlier. When I cleaned things up, I’d noticed the flowers she’d gathered in the morning discarded in the garbage. Or, I’d thought they were flowers, but now I realized that their purpose was much more deadly—and from the golden-green fragments left behind, I was sure she’d already crushed the potion.

Staring into running water, visions and sounds sailed me back into time …

In the dank depths of an old building, a whisper carried beyond life and death—and was heard. A shadow slithered from smoke, reaching, stretching, until a distinct shape emerged. Slender arms and legs, dark sapphire eyes, copper hair dancing with the flames, and a dazzling jeweled wand in her hand.

“Who calls Zathora forth?” the shadow woman demanded.

“I do.” A red-robed figure pulled back her hood. Genevieve. “I have read your diaries and letters. You stunned and confounded the chauvinistic world of magicians with your most astonishing last performance.”

“Do you mock me?” Her eyes blazed with bitterness. “My legacy was failure; the living are unaware of my great achievements.”

“But I know your greatness,” Genevieve said in excited fervor. “You succeeded where all other magicians failed—you discovered how to bring the dead back to life. Reveal the secret to me and I’ll make you more famous in death than life. Magicians will honor you.”

“Honor won’t suffice,” the shadow woman hissed. “But I shall reveal what you request, not for fame but for vengeance. Be warned, though, for secrets are not given freely—the cost of life is death. On Solstice night, bring forth a comely young maiden with no knowledge of her sacrifice.”

“A sacrifice?” There was hesitation, then Genevieve nodded. “Agreed.”

“Our bargain is sealed. My secrets will be yours—when the girl dies.”

The scene shifted, rushing forward in time.

I saw myself on stage, my fake red hair tumbling against my glossy gown. Red candles glowed in a circle around a raised altar, not the hard metal table I’d used for practice. And glittering crystals were strung on a canopy above the altar, sparkling with tinkling song. I moved forward slowly, as if in a trance, on an ornamental rug designed with stars and half-moon symbols that were similar to what I’d seen on Henry’s cane.

Cloaked magicians watched with silent skepticism. Beside me on stage, Genevieve glowed like an angel, pale and beautiful as she wielded a jeweled wand: Zathora’s Muse. She waved the Muse over a goblet of red juice and smoke billowed from the cup. A ghostly figure swirled in the smoke, eyes glittering and red lips pursed with satisfaction. “At last,” Zathora whispered. Dark-crimson smoke reached out like strangling fingers, pressing against my throat, choking me and—

“Where’s that water for Roscoe?”

Frank’s voice snapped me back, but even after I gave the dog his water and resumed holding his leash, the vision haunted me.

The vision raised as many questions as it answered. But one thing was clear. Genevieve was not my friend. She was willing to sacrifice me—Jade—to achieve fame.

I could
not
go on stage tonight.

I glanced over at the trash can littered with golden herbs, the natural poison that Genevieve would sprinkle into my juice. There had to be a way to save myself … but I couldn’t think of anything.

And hours later, when the world was dark with night, Grey came for me.