Real Magic (32 page)

"And that ended your problem."

Dominic nodded but he didn't seem to see Duncan anymore. He spoke with a bitter tongue as he told the rest of his story. Duncan watched the magician disappear into memories as dark and mysterious as any performance he ever gave.

Dominic began drinking after that show. He had sent those men to a fate unknown. While he felt justified, the horror at his own darkness formed a fist inside him — a fist that pounded and pounded at his chest, trying to burst free, to spread its terrible poison throughout his soul. Only the oblivion of alcohol quieted it down.

As the show traveled on, as time passed, Dominic grew adept at performing his show while intoxicated. Sooner still, he became adept at performing his life while intoxicated. He continued to go out on stage, but he found no joy in the wowed audience, and he stopped performing the Door of Vanishing altogether. More often than he dared to admit, he spent his nights wallowing in tears, unable to drink away the faces of those men.

"I'm not a killer," he told Duncan. "I can't be one. Look at what it did."

Then came that final show. They were in some little Pennsylvania town — even when sober, the towns all blurred together — and he had been having a particularly rough patch with those ghostly faces haunting him every night. Awake and in his dreams, he saw their eager expressions as they laughed and stepped through into the darkness. That morning, Wilkinson came to him and asked that the Door of Vanishing trick be included in the show.

"It's a real draw," he said. "And we're hurting. We announce that you're going to do the Door of Vanishing trick, and we'll have nothing but full attendance. We'll clean up."

"I can't do that trick anymore."

"If we don't make some serious money, I'll have to start letting people go. You want me tell your friends they'll be losing their jobs because you're too sauced to do your job?"

Dominic tried to argue more but Wilkinson demanded the trick be included. If the trick wasn't performed, The Amazing Verido would be finished, and Wilkinson would make sure nobody hired Dominic again. But there was no need for that final threat — nobody would hire a drunk like him anyway. This was all he had left.

He agreed to perform the trick. While Wilkinson went all over town publicizing the inclusion of the Door, Dominic felt the ghosts surround him with their bone-white fingers, clawing at him, wanting to pull him through the Door and into the Hell they suffered. Though the sun had barely risen, Dominic guzzled a fifth of vodka.

It had been long enough since the last performance of the Door of Vanishing that he knew he should rehearse the whole thing a few times with his assistant, but the mere thought of seeing the Door sent him from one bar to the next. The day slipped away, and he continued to drink. Nobody recognized him in the bars, and at one point, he saw his reflection and did not recognize himself. He had lost so much weight, and his eyes — he had the very same look as the man who had handed him the Door to begin with.

When he finally stumbled backstage, Wilkinson was fuming. He was late. If not for the need to get Dominic dressed and ready for the stage, Wilkinson probably would have fired him right on the spot.

"I wish he had," Dominic said. "I wish he had thrown me out and kept that lousy, cursed thing."

But the audience stirred and rumbled, and Wilkinson knew he had no real choice. If he didn't send The Amazing Verido on stage, if the audience didn't get to witness the Door of Vanishing, there would be a line of angry customers demanding their money back. Crossing his fingers and praying to the Heavens, Wilkinson had Dominic cleaned up and thrown onto the stage.

Though drunker than he ever recalled being, Dominic managed to work his way through the show, saving the Door for last — partially as a show-stopper, and partially in the hopes that some magic might whisk him away from all of this. But no magic arrived.

Laura wheeled out the Door, and he went through the routine that he had perfected long ago. For the tiniest moment, a sliver in time that froze before his eyes, he had the notion that he might make it through the performance without any trouble. All might be well.

"I remember it clearly," he told Duncan. "I stood there speaking to the audience of far off lands where I had supposedly traveled to learn the secrets of magic, and while I did this, my assistant wheeled the fake Door behind the set piece. And for that moment, it all had been going so smoothly. And then ..."

"Then what?"

He licked his dry lips. "I don't know when it happened. I was so drunk, I don't recall making the signal. Maybe I was reliving the horrible night I sent those men off. Maybe I didn't make the signal at all and my dear Laura made the mistake. I don't know."

"She switched the doors," Duncan said.

Dominic nodded. "I didn't know. I would never have had that boy and his mother on stage if I had known. I swear I thought Laura had kept the fake door. I asked the boy to check out the Door and I watched him — eager and joyful and so in love with his Mama. He hurried to his place and she came to my side. I gave her a little nudge towards the Door and I watched that boy's face, his astonished look when she disappeared. He was so excited. Every gleeful utterance drove me deeper into the floor. I knew right away what had happened. And, Lord help me, I actually considered sending the boy after her — so he wouldn't have to live with the horror that would follow. But I told you that I'm no killer. I couldn't willfully do it. So, I ended the show, and I watched him from the wings.

"He sat in the front row, an empty seat beside him, and he waited. And he waited. And he waited. It didn't matter that I had swallowed more alcohol than many men drink in a lifetime, I was sober and devastated. I kept watching him, praying that he would give up and run away, but after the place had cleared out, he still sat there, waiting. I went to the boy and told him to leave. I figured he had a father somewhere or maybe a brother or sister. He wouldn't budge. I screamed at him, I think. I don't know exactly, but eventually I lied. Told him his Mama was waiting at home. That little tyke got all happy and sprinted out of the theater."

Dominic finished his beer. "After that, I was done. I had to get out of there as fast as I could. I cut the Door in half so nobody could use it and I ran. Shacked up with a gal I met during my travels. Turned out I had a son I didn't know about and she wanted to dump him on me. Didn't even occur to me that the cops would be after me, but when I figured that much out, I did what I had to do to vanish from the world. I love my son, but since I'm admitting the truth here, I'll tell you that I took him on with me out of selfish reasons — figured the cops were looking for a man, not a man and his boy."

"Huh," Duncan said. "That's a bit different than Wilkinson's version."

The corner of Dominic's mouth rose. "I'll bet. That man never liked the truth very much."

"He said you had more than one door you used."

"I had several fake doors, but that was the real one."

"Then you don't have another? Because I came through one, so there has to be more than the one you cut apart. And I need to find it. I have to. It's the only way I'll ever get back. And I have to get back."

Dominic set his beer on the table with a precise motion as his brow furrowed. He clambered to his feet and stepped passed Duncan. "Come with me," he said and headed out the back door.

The dead tone in Dominic's voice chilled Duncan, but he followed anyway. Getting away from the house, away from Freddie, sounded like a good plan. It would buy them time, at least.

Dominic walked straight toward the barn, and with every step, Duncan saw that barn as something evil. Bits of old horror movies played out in Duncan's mind — movies that had yet to be made.

When they reached the structure, Dominic paused with his hand on the latch. He didn't say anything, never looked back, just halted. Whatever awaited them inside the barn, he seemed to want to warn Duncan but could not find the words. Duncan was about to say something when Dominic yanked open the door and stepped in.

If Freddie had not been waiting back at the car, Duncan might have left at that moment. The side of him that always could read people told him to run. But the rest of him said that he had to go forward, see this thing through. Because if he ran, he would never be able to stop. The answers he sought were here.

To run away meant abandoning any hope of home, and without home, he would just keep running from one bad situation to another, ruining anything good on purpose in order to force him to run again. He knew that life in one form or another. It wore a man down, convincing him that he was an adventurer but taking more of his heart each day until the man woke to find that the years had gone, that he had become old and alone and no longer strong enough for another adventure, another run. He had seen that sad, longing, hopeless look in Pappy's eyes but until this moment, he had never understood it.

That won't be me,
he thought and stepped into the barn.

As his eyes adjusted to the dusty light, his jaw dropped open. He stood there, mouth agape, unable to process the sight before him.

Doors.

A hundred at least. Probably more. They hung from the rafters, leaned against the walls, piled up in towers with narrow alleys between. Each one covered in bizarre symbols. No two the same.

"When I left the show, I thought I was done with all this. But about a year later, I read an advertisement for a new magician and his Amazing Door of Disappearance. I had to con the man into a card game and cheat him out of the Door. Others I found long forgotten in basements and attics and elsewhere. I'd read the obituaries, I made inquiries, over the years I became quite good at finding these things. In a way, I think they sought me out."

Finding his voice, Duncan said, "Which one is mine?"

Darkness clouded Dominic's eyes. "I'm afraid you don't understand. I've learned from those who owned these Doors and gladly gave the burden to me. I've learned all about them. Every Door is a unique passageway to a specific time and place. One way only. There might be a door that'll get you close to when and where you came from, but the odds that it's one of these is highly against you. And since the only way to find out if it is what you want is to go through, well ..."

Duncan's legs shook and he fell to his knees. "All for nothing." Breathing became difficult and his chin moved up and down but no words left him. The Doors seemed to close in on him. Endless rows of Doors. Endless places and times to go. But never where he wanted.

"I'm sorry. I truly am. You're not the first person I've met who has gone through a Door and tracked me down. I'll say to you what I've said to the other few. Just because your old life is gone, doesn't mean life itself is gone. I don't know what the world was like where you came from, but this one ain't so bad. And, since you know about the Door, you can help me find them, store them here, make sure others don't suffer the same fate as you."

Duncan lifted his head. One Door after another entered his view, each one taunting him with the false promise of a way back to 2013. He could try. After all, one of them probably did get him home — or close to home. The rest, however, did not. With this many doors, the odds were against him. If he picked wrong, where would he end up? When? At least in 1934, there were cars and phones and a life that was antiquated but recognizable. What if he ended up in 1470 or 1212? What if the only people around were Native Americans who had yet to see white men? Or he might end up even further back. What if he stepped through a Door and found himself facing dinosaurs? The downside went too far down to take the risk.

Dabbing at his eyes, Duncan accepted Dominic's hand and stood. "I don't know what I'm going to do, but thank you for the offer to help."

"I understand. It's a lot to think about."

"Yeah."

The barn door opened and a deep voice said, "Well, well. Looks like I found something special."

Nelson Walter entered the barn. Lucy, Victor, and Dominic's son followed. Brandishing his .38, Freddie brought up the rear. Walter could not hold back a boyish grin, but Duncan saw nothing childlike in the man's excitement. He only saw a demon capable of horrific violence. He only saw the coming death of the woman he loved.

 

The summer heat stuck to every breath.
Sweat trickled down Duncan's back, but he couldn't be sure if that came from the heat or his nerves. Walter held a handkerchief and constantly patted his balding head.

Despite the Doors hanging around them, Lucy looked straight at Duncan. He wanted to leap across the barn floor and sweep her into his arms. He wanted to beg her forgiveness for all the trouble he had caused and apologize for things he had yet to even consider. Anything to keep her heart beating for him. But she turned away.

Vincent looked at the Doors in disbelief. Different styles of doors from different time periods, each with unique markings, yet all equally dangerous. Even Freddie appeared impressed, though he returned his focus to the three hostages.

"Look at all those Doors," Walter said, stepping around the barn like a conqueror inspecting a newly won city. "Unbelievable. Even though I've always known they existed, to actually stand here in front of them. And so many. I never imagined there were so many."