Time's Divide (The Chronos Files Book 3) (8 page)

He glances around at the others he selected. “The challenge comes at the end of the show. When they bring out the crate, you’ll come onstage. Houdini’ll most likely joke around a bit, then he’ll climb in, and we’ll close the lid. Each of you steps forward in turn. Two nails each—we ain’t got all night.”

He slips back through the stage door, and I sink down into my chair.

Kiernan comes back about ten minutes later and takes his seat. “Good work.”

I snort. “Don’t give me that. I heard you back there.”

“Just seeding the crowd. A time-honored practice among showmen and politicians alike. When you get up there, make sure you’re at the front of the line, before they close the crate. I slipped a few bob to the guy at the back and told him to yell out ‘Ladies first,’ so I’m guessing it won’t be a problem.” He runs his eyes over me quickly and then pauses to give my breasts a longer look. There’s no lechery involved, however—it’s like he’s debating their effect. “Take off the cape thing and leave it here.”

I give him a scathing look and then reach behind me to unclasp the lace bolero. Once it’s off, I fling it into his lap. “Happy now?” I ask.

His mouth tweaks upward slightly, and I can’t help but think that this new Kiernan would give Charlayne’s friend Bensen some competition as the master of understated facial expressions. In Bensen’s case, I had the sense that it was just his nature. Kiernan, on the other hand, has rarely tried to hide his feelings from me—good or bad, mutual or not. Or if he’s tried, he’s never been successful. Now, it’s as though everything he does and says is an act.

Then the curtain goes up, and I turn my attention to the act on the stage.

Houdini’s two female assistants—one of whom is his wife, Bess—shackled and chained him well over ten minutes ago. Then they pulled a curtain around him so he could contort in private and retreated to the side of the stage.

A twenty-first-century audience would have yawned and walked out long ago, but the people in the Hippodrome stare intently at the curtain that hides Houdini. A few read the theater program while others chat softly with their companions. The rest have their eyes glued to the stage, waiting. The piano player’s selection of music seems designed to build anticipation. Every now and then there’s a collective intake of breath as Houdini’s elbow or some other body part bumps against the fabric. Mostly, however, they just watch and wait.

A bright blue light is visible above the curtain and through a few areas along the bottom, but I’m pretty sure that no one besides Kiernan, Houdini, and I can see it. I’m not really sure where Kiernan is, in fact. He mumbled some excuse and left before Houdini first came onstage.

This is Houdini’s fourth trick of the evening, with each clearly designed to build momentum for the main event. The first act was a card trick, followed by something called Metamorphosis. Houdini’s hands were tied, then he was placed in a large bag and locked inside a trunk. Bess pulled a curtain in front of herself and the box. Next, we heard three quick claps, and when the curtain opened, Houdini was out of the box and Bess was inside, tied in the bag.

The third bit was an escape from a milk can filled with water, a trick that Houdini began performing a few years back. I remember seeing that one on some TV show I saw a long time ago,
Inside the Magic
or something like that, so I know the secret. The top of the can isn’t welded on. He just pushes upward and climbs out.

Suddenly the red curtain flies open, and Houdini struts toward the audience holding the chains and shackles triumphantly above his head. He started out in a tuxedo, gradually stripping down during the various acts to the black tank suit he’s now wearing, much like the one Kiernan wore at Norumbega.

Houdini’s eyes are dark and piercing, easily his most distinctive feature. Although he’s not tall, his frame is muscular. Dark hair is parted in the middle, and some attempt was made to slick it down in deference to current fashion, but it doesn’t seem to appreciate the efforts to tame it.

Before this trick began, Houdini had a few volunteers inspect the gear, making sure the chains were real and he wasn’t hiding a key somewhere. One of them looked inside his mouth, and another examined the medallion around his neck. It’s attached to a leather strap and tucked into the top of his swimsuit. Of course, to everyone else in the audience, the key looks like a plain bronze disk, wafer thin, of no possible use in an escape.

What puzzles me is that I’ve yet to see the blue light from his key disappear. In the first two escapes, it was cloaked by the box and the milk can, but this time, I could see the light above and below the curtain. Houdini never blinked out, even for a second.

The crowd applauds, complete with whistles and cheers. Houdini bows a few times, then nods toward his assistants, extending the applause to them. They curtsy, and once the noise dies down, Houdini hands the chains to Bess. Then he walks toward the audience, standing perfectly still until everyone is silent.

“Ladies . . . and . . . gentlemen,” he begins, his voice loud and clear, with a hint of an accent I can’t place. “I take great pleasure in having you here tonight to witness this next escape. Some have claimed that my talents are supernatural, but I assure you they are based on skill and athleticism alone, with no help from the great beyond. Other claims, however, are even more troubling than those of supernatural assistance. As many of you may be aware, a certain . . . party . . . here in Eastbourne has stated that I am a fraud.”

He pauses as a mix of boos and laughter ripples through the room. “These individuals apparently do not accept the word of your police who publicly attested that I escaped from their jail this past Monday. These men insist that the escapes you have witnessed tonight are stage trickery and sleight of hand. And they believe they have devised a container that can contain . . . the great Houdini.”

His eyes travel across the first few rows as he continues. “They have issued their chal—” He startles when his eyes reach my seat. What’s confusing is that he’s looking directly at my face. He doesn’t seem to even notice the medallion, despite the fact that it’s front and center on my now mostly exposed chest. He stares at me for several seconds, his eyes never once veering down toward the CHRONOS key.

When Houdini recovers, he raises his arms, looking out over the audience. “They have issued their challenge, and I will meet it this very evening.”

The lighting changes, and two men wheel a large box to the center of the stage. The younger guy has a coil of rope flung over his shoulder. Houdini introduces them as Cornwell and Son, the builders who issued the challenge in the paper, and then says, “I don’t suppose anyone happens, just by chance, to have a hammer and nails?”

Everyone laughs. About a third of the audience raises a hammer.

“Excellent! The people of Eastbourne come prepared.”

I take that as my cue to move to the side of the stage. None of the other volunteers have begun to line up, but they start moving when I do. The twelve men follow, forming an orderly line behind me. It seems that Kiernan was right to assume that his bribe was unnecessary.

Houdini gives me a nervous glance and then looks back out at the crowd. “This young lady seems very eager. Are you certain you can strike a nail, miss?”

The audience snickers, but I just nod and climb the four stairs up to the stage before I lose my nerve.

On a strictly logical level, I know most of the people in the theater aren’t actually staring at me. Almost all of them are watching Cornwell and Son as they tie up Houdini.

But my mind doesn’t operate on a logical level when I’m onstage, and my body seems to go on strike. I have to remind my lungs to pull in a breath, but my nerves are on full alert. I feel every single eye in the auditorium physically touching me, crawling all over me like ants on a candy bar.

As the men tie the final knots in the ropes, Houdini nods toward the left side of the stage where we’re standing. “I want to thank these members of the audience who have agreed to assist me in this challenge. Your actions tonight will help clear my good name. For these two gentlemen are mistaken. I am not a fraud, not a charlatan, not a fake. I am the one, the only, the
original
Houdini.”

Just as I’m wondering how he’ll get into the crate with his legs bound, the younger man grabs Houdini’s shoulders and the older one grabs his feet. They hoist Houdini up and begin to lower him into the crate. As soon as he’s inside, they reach behind the box for the lid.

“Wait!” My mouth is dry and it comes out as a croak, so I try again. “Wait!”

The men pause, holding the lid a few feet above the crate. Now everyone in the theater really
is
looking at me.

I gulp and rush forward, dropping the hammer and nails. “A kiss! I want to give Houdini a kiss for luck.”

The audience is howling now. Houdini sits up in the crate, his dark hair and widow’s peak making him resemble Count Dracula. He glances into the auditorium, where a bulky guy who is probably a bodyguard is hurrying down the outside aisle toward the stage.

But the audience is clearly eating this up—it’s probably the Edwardian equivalent of a girl throwing her panties on the stage at a rock concert—and Houdini’s inner showman wins out over his sense of caution. He shakes his head once, very distinctly, and the bodyguard pulls to a halt three rows from the stage, still watching me but not advancing.

Then Houdini smiles at the crowd. “What do you think?”

Someone yells, “Kiss her!”

“It would be very ungallant of me to refuse,” he says, and then continues in a stage whisper, “but only on the cheek, dear. My wife is watching.”

He’s definitely correct on that point. Bess is standing in the wings looking straight at me. But her eyes aren’t fixed on my face. She’s staring at the CHRONOS key.

Leaning forward slightly, I brush Houdini’s cheek with my lips. I make sure he sees the folded note before I tuck it inside the front of his suit.

And then I run from the stage, down the steps, and straight up the aisle to the exit. As much as I’d love to stay and do my part for women’s rights, if I swing that hammer right now, I’ll miss the nail and smash my thumb.

The street is empty now, probably because most of the residents and tourists are inside the Hippodrome watching Houdini. I head back the way we came, toward the ocean, picking up my pace both because it’s cold and damp and because I want as much distance as possible between me and that stage.

Kiernan catches up to me before I’m even a block away and tosses me the lace cape. “Well, that was an interesting spectacle.”

I catch the cape and pull it over my shoulders, glaring at him the entire time. “He has your damned note. Are you happy? I hate being on stage.
Hate
it.”

“Really?” He looks genuinely surprised. More to the point, for that brief moment, he looks
genuine
. He looks like the Kiernan I know.

“I’ve hated it since I was a kid. What—your Kate never told you that?”

He doesn’t answer, making me wonder if his Kate somehow dodged stage fright. Maybe she didn’t stumble over her lines in that stupid play—or maybe the other kid never got the flu in the first place.

It’s a rare occasion for me to mention something about myself that Kiernan doesn’t already know, and it’s clearly caught him off guard. And while his mask is down, I want some answers.

“Okay, I did my part. Now it’s your turn. What have you been up to for the past six years?” I’m tempted to add that he should start with whatever it was that turned him into a total jerk, but I decide to keep that bit to myself.

“You’re not done yet, Kate. You still have to convince him to give us the bloody key. That was the final act of the show, so you need to get over to the Queen’s Hotel and—”

“You mean
we
need to get over there. You’re coming with, right?”

“No. As I said before, he’s more likely to give it to you than to me. His guards and I already had a run-in in Edinburgh. That’s why I stayed at the back tonight. It’s why I’m wearing this stupid mustache.”

“I don’t think he’s using the key, Kiernan. The light—it never disappeared, even for a moment, when he did the escape behind the curtain. And you’re the one who’s been researching him. If you expected me to do this alone, why not bring me in earlier so you could brief me?”

“Playing triple agent doesn’t leave much time. You knew Houdini was coming up, so why didn’t you bother to research him yourself?”

“When?
When
could I have done that, Kiernan? You may have had six years, but things have been kind of hectic the past few days—and yes, it’s still days for me since we were at Norumbega. On top of that, I’ve only had a few hours of not-exactly-peaceful sleep since I left you in Georgia.”

I draw in a deep breath, planning to continue my rant, but I stop mid-inhale and stare at him, adding together the bits of odd behavior he’s displayed since showing up outside Mom’s hotel room. There’s only one reason for him to have cut things this close. He needs help getting the key, and he doesn’t want to spend any more time with me than absolutely necessary. But why?