Nevermore (18 page)

At length, he relaxed. Time ticked on. Isis sat motionless, a center of calm. Her hands stroked the incredible carving she held like a pet. Rosy light glimmered on her serene features. Houdini thought she looked like the carvings of saints he’d seen in European cathedrals. He felt his mother’s beatific presence surging within his breast.

A violent tremor seized Isis. Her back arched from the force of the spasms. She clung to the crystal skull as her body trembled and ropelike tendons appeared on her straining neck. A rasping raven-croak rattled out of her throat.

Here it comes, Houdini thought, watching her with his raptor’s intensity. What came was something the magician never expected.

His mother’s voice burst from Isis in a guttural rush of rapid-fire German, the pent-up words escaping like steam through a safety valve. “Ehrie.… Mein Ehrie… . Kannest du mich horen, mein geliebter Sohn?”

“Mama…?” Houdini’s emotions overcame his reason. She called him by his childhood nickname. “Bist du das, Mama?”

“Aber. Ja, ja … ich bin bei dir, Ehrie. Ich werde immer bei dir sein.”

Overwhelmed by a joyous flood of love, Houdini found it difficult to speak. The voice was his mother’s, exact to her slight Hungarian accent. He asked if she could see him. She told him she no longer had sight and tried to describe empathy beyond understanding. She remained with him always, her spirit linked to his. It was impossible to explain with words. How can you tell a blind man what “blue” is? She knew danger surrounded her son like an angry cloud. She had to warn him. Danger, Ehrie …

He asked if she’d tried to use Lady Doyle as a medium. Isis relaxed. She smiled and spoke with Cecilia Weiss’s voice, quoting an old country folk saying he remembered his mama telling him as a small child in Appleton, Wisconsin. Something about how you can teach a dog to roll over but only a cow gives milk. Houdini had never been sure exactly what it meant.

If he didn’t look at Isis, he felt his mother there in the room beside him. The intensity of his love coursed through him like a narcotic. He wanted so badly to believe in the illusion. Watching Isis, he marveled at the simplicity of her performance. His logical nature insisted on thinking of it as performance and illusion. The voice sounded perfect. She’d done her homework, the nuance and details all right on the money.

Isis sagged. The German she spoke slowed and slurred into an unintelligible growl, like a distant radio station fading out of reception.

No! Don’t go, Mama! Houdini reached across the table and grasped the delicate hands clutching the crystal skull. “Blieb, Mama! Bitte geh nicht fort!”

Opal Crosby Fletcher opened those clear jade eyes that seemed to see so much. “Oh, dear,” she said in her own voice, sweet and pure as a child. “How very powerful.”

Houdini blinked, his face etched with grief. The pain in his eyes seemed almost palpable. “Ma…?” His mouth hung open after the first despairing syllable.

“What’s wrong?” Isis stood up. “Are you all right?”

The magician cursed himself. The moment he began to doubt, his mother was lost to him. “I’m to blame,” he said, tears starting in his eyes.

Isis came around the low table and knelt before him. She took hold of his hands. “There’s no blame,” she said. “Only fear …”

“All my fault,” he blubbered, tears streaming, his breath coming in hysterical gasps.

“Don’t …”

The magician’s overloaded emotions got the best of him. He slid off the chair and collapsed sobbing into her arms. She hugged him, crooning soft noises, and he wept helplessly on her breast.

“There now… . Let it out…” She gently massaged his temple. “Let all the poison and fear flow out.”

At length, his pathetic sniveling came to a stop. He dried his eyes with his handkerchief and blew his nose. “She was really here,” he said in wonderment. “My sainted mother …”

Isis felt him tremble and averted a second onslaught of crying by kneading the knotted muscles in the back of his neck. Her fingers felt remarkably strong for someone who looked so frail. “She’s always with you. Every minute of every day,” Isis murmured softly in his ear. “There’s no death or separation in the realm of the spirit.”

“I wish I could believe that,” Houdini sighed. He closed his eyes. “You’ve got magic fingers. Thought my head was gonna bust apart.”

“Belief is all there is. It’s all that stands between us and nothingness.” Isis eased her hands under his jacket collar. “Here. Take off your coat. You’ll be more comfortable that way.” There was no complaint as she eased him out of his rumpled worsted jacket. At her direction, he moved to the center of the thick wool carpet, stretching out on his stomach among the swirling multicolored arabesques. She slipped off his shoes and knelt beside him. “Feel better…?” She worked her fingers up and down the bunched muscles along his spine.

“God, yes …” He surrendered to her gentle, powerful massage. How did she know him so well? She somehow anticipated his thoughts, expressing concern for his every need. Her touch seemed nothing short of enchanted, all his tension dispelled by her skillful manipulation. And she must have a good heart. Why else would Mama choose her as a medium?

Houdini moaned aloud with pure animal pleasure as Isis went to work on his taut shoulders. Conflicting thoughts crowded his consciousness. Maybe she’s faking. Gotta keep a healthy skepticism alive. Even so, how can her motives be impure when she had Mama’s blessed voice so perfectly right? Every inflection. His nickname. Every …

Houdini drifted off into a deep, dreamless slumber. For the briefest moment, he fought the impulse to sleep, a strong survival instinct warning him of the danger inherent in unconsciousness. Unable to resist as a rising tide of darkness flowed around him, he felt drugged, numb; his limbs leaden, his mind a blur. Even the distant crooning of Isis worked as a soporific. Letting go completely, the magician disappeared in the black sea of night.

He had no idea how long he was out. Opening his eyes, he experienced a sudden surge of panic when the world remained dark. He reached up and touched a silken mask bound across his eyes.

“Don’t take it off.” By the sound of her voice, Isis spoke from the far end of the library. “Not yet. I’ll tell you when.”

Houdini lay quite still, wondering what made him obey her gentle command. Something else was different. He wore a silk robe. Feeling the smooth cool fabric against his bare limbs brought the incredible realization that she had undressed him while he slept. “What have you done with my clothes?” he demanded.

“Don’t worry, Osiris, they’re safe. Martha is ironing out all those wrinkles.” Her musical voice sounded closer now. “You looked so uncomfortable, sleeping completely dressed like that.”

Houdini sniffed. The air smelled strangely fragrant with incense. He thought of frankincense and myrrh and remembered the smells in the European churches he’d visited; thick aromatic white smoke streaming from the swinging censer. Another odd smell, sweet and oleaginous, he recognized as melting wax. What the hell was going on here?

“All right,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper, “you can take off the mask now.”

The magician pulled the band of cloth from his eyes, blinking in wonderment and disbelief. At first, he thought he saw stars. Hundreds of candles had been arranged around the commodious room, their tiny flames bright as a flight of fireflies in the gloom. Glittering on every possible level and surface; on the floor, on chair seats and tabletops, staggered along bookshelves, in a line over the mantel; they transformed the formal library with their mysterious dazzle.

Propped on his elbows, taking it all in, Houdini watched Isis approach from the far end of the room, her face startlingly painted. The left side gleamed chalk white (white as a geisha, white as a clown, white as death) while the right side had been done in vivid green, like the absinthe she drank earlier. The colors met in a straight line dividing her features down the bridge of her nose from forehead to chin. Both shocking and weirdly beautiful, the whole effect framed by a glossy oval of black hair gleaming with candlelight. The bizarre makeup distracted his attention from the diaphanous chartreuse chiton she wore.

She swept toward him, a carved wooden casket the size of a cigar box in her hands, her limber body clearly visible through the sheer apple-green fabric. He caught his breath at the sight of her rose-tipped breasts and the small, dark delta of her sex.

In spite of his world travels and long experience in show business, the magician was in reality quite naive and unsophisticated in carnal matters—a bit of a prude, if the truth be known—a man who had never once visited a brothel or cheated on his wife, not even stolen a single kiss from the legion of chorus girls he’d worked with over the years. He never used profanity and blushed when told off-color jokes. The utter novelty of the lust gripping him added greatly to his excitement.

Isis settled beside him, seeming to float. The pale, transparent green gown wafted about her like tangible smoke. “Relax,” she said, opening the carved lid of the sandalwood box and removing a blue orb-shaped flask. She poured a small amount of warm, scented oil into her cupped hand, smoothing it across his chest with gentle circular motions. Houdini sighed and closed his eyes. “Good … good … ,” she purred. “Just relax …”

Her touch felt different from when she massaged him earlier. More a caress this time. Her fingertips lightly traced the tepid oil over his flesh, circling his nipples, which tightened like tiny wrinkled raisins in anticipation. When she pinched them, an electric shock shuddered through his body all the way to his arching toes.

She hummed as she stroked him, a throaty, aimless melody more a low animal moan than anything musical. The magician drifted in the primal sound. His body tingled with pleasure. It felt so good. He never wanted it to stop. Her hands swirled across his abdomen, spreading a scented sheen of oil. She moved down over his thighs and his body glistened in the candlelight. All resistance ebbed away, any thought of protest vanished, he surrendered to her completely.

“Stay still,” she whispered, smoothing oil along his erection. Both her hands urged its straining length up inside as, straddling his loins, she lowered herself upon him. He opened his eyes with an astonished gasp. Seeing her without the gossamer gown added to his pleasure: her slender, girlish waist and the nubile uplift of young breasts. Bucking upward, he reached out his arms to draw her into a grateful embrace. “Be still,” she repeated. This time it was an order.

She pushed his hands away, forcing his arms to rest along his sides. Making him lie inert, his head back against the bold Moroccan pillow she had settled there while he slept, she rose and fell above him, rose and fell, rose and fell, all in a slow, steady rhythm much more natural than the usual energetic frenzy of his marital coupling.

Houdini had never made love in this manner before, the woman riding on top. At first, he felt odd remaining so quiescent, the passive partner for once in his life. Gradual delight overcame his reluctance. He closed his eyes again, letting go at last of any impulse to dominate, feeling the moist, sliding motion become an undulant, rippling grip unlike anything he’d ever experienced.

Opening his eyes, he saw Isis with her head bent back, her hands on her breasts, the rosy nipples caught between grasping fingers. She no longer moved. Her pelvis pressed tightly against him, vaginal muscles contracting in some totally inexplicable manner.

Again, his eyes closed. Not even his wildest adolescent dreams had imagined such sensations. Sex never ranked as a high priority in his life. He knew only the tender moments shared with Bess, but didn’t think of them now or of his wife. Houdini had been transported beyond thinking.

The magician heard Isis moan and looked up at her reddened neck and grimacing, painted face. She started to climax, the contractions grown so powerful they almost forced him from her body. Her moaning built to a wild animal howl as a pulsing flow of warm fluid fountained out of her vagina, flooding around him onto his belly. Utter delirious astonishment triggered the beginning spasms of his orgasm. He groaned in mindless ecstasy.

At this moment, Isis groped blindly in the sandalwood box beside her, feeling for a carved ivory dildo, greased with Vaseline, its hollow interior filled with heated milk. Taking hold of the smooth, slippery shaft, she reached behind her and pushed its full length into Houdini’s rectum. The magician screamed as he came and came and came, his back arching, his brain skyrocketing into exploding pyrotechnic oblivion.

P
OE SMILED AT
S
IR
A
RTHUR
Conan Doyle. Much more than the mere ghost of a smile, a mocking irony twisted the misty lips; the sardonic arching of his bushy tangled eyebrows suggested eternal cynicism. Sir Arthur thought those eyebrows resembled nothing so much as fat black caterpillars crawling across the poet’s high-domed forehead. An unfortunate comparison putting him immediately in mind of worm-eaten corpses wrapped in grave-tattered winding sheets.

The knight sat in the front room of his suite in the Bellevue on Broad Street several blocks off Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square. An open notebook rested on his lap. It was that gray hour before dawn when even the birds were not yet awake and the busy world remained blunted by a sepulchral stillness. The specter faced him from the corner of the room farthest from the darkened window. Sir Arthur learned from past experience to keep his distance. Like a mirage, the manifestation faded and vanished if approached too closely.

The Conan Doyles had been in the City of Brotherly Love for three days of a projected eight-day visit and, in spite of his hectic lecture schedule, Sir Arthur was up every morning before daybreak waiting for Poe’s supernatural appearance. He had not been disappointed. The ghost materialized, bright and early, the very first day.

When Sir Arthur described the ghastly murders committed in Manhattan, detailing how the killer duplicated crimes Poe had created in his fiction, the ghost opened wide his moonbeam mouth in a caterwaul of chilling laughter. And as he laughed, he slowly dissolved, whirling away like wisps of smoke in an icy wind until nothing remained but the disembodied laughter, a terrifying echo seeming to resound from the very bowels of hell itself.