Magic Mansion

by Jordan Castillo Price

  John stayed right where he’d landed—on the lawn, back on his elbows, as if he’d just been relaxing on a deck chair, sipping a mojito, and levered up a few inches to check out the pool boy. His heart hammered so fiercely that the pulse pounding in his ears blotted out the rest of the sounds in the yard, as if the water tank from the first night’s challenge had been placed around his head again to narrow down his auditory landscape to the beating of his own heart.

  “Holy crap. You’re bleeding.”

  John made out the words, but they sounded muted. Distant. And then Ken flung down the sharp tool and knelt beside him.

  John caught the sweet tang of alcohol on Ken’s breath.

  “It’s okay,” Ken said, possibly speaking loudly. “Just a scratch.”

  The sound of Marlene’s voice threaded into John’s awareness, and he supposed it meant his cognizance was synching back into speed with the rest of the world again. And he also supposed he’d be well and truly afraid once he remembered how to think.

  Ken’s face was ashen. “I am so sorry.”

  John touched the spot on his cheekbone before he even realized it stung. Cameras swarmed. Marlene pushed through them. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” John’s voice sounded like his own—maybe. Yes, he supposed it did.

  “It was an accident,” Ken said, backing away. “I mean, I can’t even say for sure it was the shears. Could have been something else—a briar, or maybe a sharp twig that snapped back at him.”

  Marlene’s frown lines intensified as she scowled at John’s face. He touched his cheek again. His fingers came away sticky. Clotting already. It really wasn’t that bad.

  “I’m calling in a plastic surgeon,” she said.

  “Marlene,” John protested.

  “You’re a performer. I don’t take a facial injury lightly on someone who makes his living with his appearance.”

  Well. Since she put it that way. She slipped an arm through his elbow to march him over to the standby medics, ordering up a specialist on her phone by the time they were across the lawn. No less than three handhelds jockeyed for position as the medical technician flooded the small wound with a sterile solution and began cleaning off the blood.

  Maybe Kevin’s bats wouldn’t be the headlining melodramatic commercial bumper after all.

  The plastic surgeon was there within fifteen minutes—this was L.A., after all—and he took a good look at the injury with a magnifying light that made sparkles dance in John’s peripheral vision. “You’re dark-complected. Do you scar easily?”

  “No.”

  “Any keloids?”

  “No.”

  “Prior surgeries? Anything I can look at to get a sense of…?”

  “None.”

  The surgeon glanced at John’s forearms as if surely there would be a scar or two present to give him away—after all, one didn’t spend as many years on the planet as John had without picking up a souvenir or two—but there were none there for him to see. The worst damage was on John’s lower legs. Coral. Driftwood. A broken bottle buried in the sand that nearly cost him his small toe. But those scars were not only ancient, they’d been the results of injuries that were a heck of a lot more severe than this new scratch on his cheek.

  Marlene, who had been wrangling the rest of the magicians, rematerialized in John’s spotty vision once the magnifying light just under his eye was switched off. “Does he need stitches?”

  “No. I put a clear sealant over the wound—”

  “How about one of those butterfly bandages? That would look kind of tough.”

  John almost laughed at the notion of being called “tough,” though he supposed he was still too dazed to properly react.

  The doctor said, “It’s really not deep enough to warrant—”

  “But it wouldn’t hurt anything,” Marlene said. “Right?”

  “Of course not.” The surgeon gave a you’re-the-boss nod and pulled a butterfly suture from his kit. He applied it just below John’s eye without shrugging or apologizing in any way. Though John suspected he might have wanted to.

  Chapter 17

  RED TEAM ELIMINATION

  An unmanned camera on a tripod was in the ballroom with John where he rested up from his big injury and attempted to pass the time by reading a magazine. He could have gone back to his room, but the dorm-style 4-bed layout reminded him too much of his college days. Not that those were bad days. Many of them, in fact, were rather good. Just that they were so long past, it seemed disingenuous to go through the motions now.

  It felt strange to sit outside the action, with the sounds of the outdoor filming carrying on just beyond the window. He supposed, were he a heavier drinker (like a certain member of the Red Team) he might be tempted by the proximity of the decently-stocked bar. But John had always preferred to have company and conversation with his liquor.

  As well as…other things.

  As John realized he’d just entertained a notion which, while perfectly natural, had been scarce in his repertoire of thoughts lately, he marveled at the idea that Ricardo hadn’t even needed to be present to elicit the unexpected flush of desire. The mere thought of him could start John’s pulse pounding as surely as a sharp implement swung at his head.

  “Professor Topaz?”

  John looked up from the tedious issue of People and found the object of his fantasies there, framed in the archway as surely as if he’d just been summoned, clutching shopping bags in both hands. He wore black trousers, a gold vest and a rose-colored silk shirt with billowy sleeves, and his Gold Team medallion glinted as if a lighting team had arranged for a spotlight to hit it just so. His posture was straight and tall, like he was about to use the bags for balance while he strode across a tightrope, head high, and smiling.

  He looked absolutely radiant.

  “Oh my God…what happened to your face?” Ricardo’s smile vanished; he dropped the bags and sprinted across the room. The soles of his dress shoes slid the last few feet across the polished marble. “Are you okay?”

  John stood, and mouthed the word “camera.” Once Ricardo nodded to show he’d understood, John said, “It’s just a scratch.”

  Ricardo planted his hands on his hips. His hair—the makeover team had done something to his hair, something subtle, but even more flattering…which John wouldn’t have even thought possible. John stared at Ricardo’s hair. Ricardo stared at the butterfly suture. And when the pull between them reared up, it was heady and strong, overwhelmingly strong—so strong that John repeated, “Camera,” this time nearly aloud.

  Ricardo narrowed his eyes. The late afternoon light hit them just so and lit his irises the color of the stormy Pacific, and the undertow of his nearness began dragging at John yet again—this time so intensely it pulled him forward a full step.

  Ricardo took a step forward too, and now their chests would be touching, if either of them leaned in…and it was taking all of John’s focus to resist doing just that.

  Ricardo parted his lips, and wet them with the tip of his tongue. John felt himself groan. “Camera,” he said—aloud now—and a heated look flashed in Ricardo’s eyes… just before the Mansion trembled.

  Not a quake, nothing quite so obvious. A mere flicker. A twitch.

  Above the camera rig, rotten lath in the ceiling gave way with a creak and a sigh, and plaster hunks rained down upon the equipment as surely as if the building itself had aimed them there.

  The corner of Ricardo’s mouth quirked.

  “Control yourself,” John forced himself to say. Because if anyone were to ask him in that moment what he actually wanted, it would have been to see Ricardo, beautiful Ricardo, saying To hell with it all! and letting the dams burst wide, and allowing the full force of his True power to surge forth.

  But instead, Ricardo merely touched his fingertips to John’s wound, and cocked his head, and said, “Do you realize how close this came to your eye?”

  With Ricardo’s nearness singing
through his veins, John managed to utter, “It’s nothing. It’s fine.” And before they could say anything more, the room flooded with crew, and then the rest of the Gold Team trooped in laden with shopping bags filled with styling products, and then Iain with his cell phones and his perpetual annoyance. But even as Ricardo turned away, the headiness of his touch lingered, and John decided that despite the risk of discovery, and despite the chaos his ill-advised action had caused…despite everything, that single brush of Ricardo’s fingers had been worth it.

  ___

  Once the dust settled, the plaster was cleared, the ceiling was shored up and the handhelds were once again making their lazy circuit around the ballroom, Ricardo lined up with his teammates and watched the Red Team troop in. While it was true that no magician on the opposing team was a jovial, smiley sort of performer, it seemed to Ricardo that tonight they were particularly angry.

  Gold Team had debated whether or not to buy their competitors anything on the shopping spree that followed the salon visit—but Faye had insisted that when the chefs on Out of the Frying Pan brought home token gifts for their opponents, it had been viewed not as gesture of inclusion, but one of condescension.

  Ricardo was glad enough to not feel pressured to buy anything for that jerk, Kevin. And no one needed to know he hadn’t picked out the pearlescent gray bow tie for himself. Having something to give John once their part of the shooting had wrapped would be the perfect ice-breaker, and so really, the afternoon had been as full of “win” as Ricardo could possibly have hoped.

  “Take a look at you,” Monty exclaimed in his cute Aussie accent as he strode by the Gold Team on his way to his mark. “Very spunky.” He gestured to include the whole team, though Ricardo noticed it was actually Sue who’d caught his eye. Eliza Watt, stylist to the stars, had managed her crew with an iron fist. She was apparently a big fan of “lowlights,” which made Sue’s dark blonde hair glow like warm honey. Even Bev had been convinced to try some…once she was informed she had all the fashion sense of an ex-nun.

  Faye had refused everything but a facial and a deep condition, and her red dye-job now looked a bit tacky compared to everyone else’s fancy refinements. Everyone but Muriel, actually, who’d been game to go along with a rather bizarre addition of glittery blue filaments in her long gray hair and an extreme eyebrow wax that left her looking somewhat surprised.

  It had been a relief when Ms. Watt pronounced Ricardo’s hundred-and-fifty-dollar haircut, “Not bad,” though she did tweak it (herself, no less) with some micro-adjustments she claimed would accentuate his eyes. Maybe she knew what she was talking about. John sure seemed to like what he saw.

  Luckily, the rest of the Gold Team was smiling just as wide as Ricardo, so he didn’t need to tone it down. It felt good to be happy. In fact, it felt awesome.

  Especially when John’s eyes met his across the room, and John’s gaze softened. He didn’t quite smile, but Professor Topaz had never been an ebullient kind of guy. No, the Professor was intense. And that was even hotter.

  “Greetings, magicians,” Monty read from his teleprompter. “Some of you spent the afternoon being pampered, while the rest of you endured a day of grueling labor. Hopefully the lesson you’ll take away from today’s events is how critical it is to win these challenges.

  “Keep that in mind tonight, when you’ll be able to strategize for the next challenge, which I’ll announce in just a few moments. First, though, I have some sad news for you. The Red Team’s punishment is not quite finished.”

  Ricardo felt their anger surging through the room like a pressure change in an airplane cabin, though not one member of the Red Team had so much as moved. In fact, they were preternaturally still. Except for Kevin Kazan, who’d narrowed his eyes.

  “Will the two members of the Red Team who lost the Metamorphosis Challenge please step forward?”

  Fabian stepped forward stiffly—though it was difficult to tell if that stiffness represented anger, or the residual effects of the deep-tissue massage, or the day he’d spent wrangling weeds. Ken was stricken.

  “I’m sorry to say that the audience has voted one of you out of Magic Mansion.”

  As much as Ricardo reminded himself that the whole point of a competition was to eliminate players, it still managed to surprise him. Each and every time.

  “The magician who will be leaving tonight is…Ken Barron.”

  Ken closed his eyes, and he swallowed so hard that his Adam’s apple rose and fell, casting a distinct shadow on his sinewy throat. Even from across the room, Ricardo swore he could feel the man’s heart breaking.

  “Thank you, Ken,” Monty said—compassionately, though of course he’d probably been told to say it that way. “It’s time to say goodbye.”

  For a moment it seemed as if Ken had frozen to the spot, and despite his dismissal, would continue to stand there, throat working, until the same burly security guard who’d escorted Charity and Oscar up for their luggage and out to the parking lot might come in and flank the escape artist now, too. But then one of the stolid Red Team magicians broke rank.

  John stepped forward and placed a hand on Ken’s shoulder, with his stern expression shifting to one of regret. Although John was tall and slim and austere, it looked easy enough for him put his arms around Ken and offer comfort. It seemed as though he might speak, but then Ken’s shoulders shifted, and he hugged John back, tightly, and words were no longer necessary. They clasped one another fiercely, but only for a moment.

  John’s decision to embrace his eliminated teammate caused a ripple of compassion to spread through the Red Team. Fabian turned to Ken and hugged him too, though it was more of a manly clap-on-the-back type of gesture. Jia stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek, and finally Kevin, possibly the least inspiring team leader that ever existed, gave Ken a hearty handshake, followed up with a salute.

  “Spare me,” Sue muttered. “Kazan can’t even say goodbye without looking like a douchebag.”

  As one, the Gold Team waved at Ken while he walked past them on his way across the ballroom, and Ricardo did his best to not allow his expression to convey his relief that, in this round anyway, it wasn’t a member of his own team heading out that door. And that farewell wasn’t something he’d had to say himself.

  “Okay, kids,” Iain barked, jolting Ricardo out of his sobering turn of mood. “Form a group in front of the fireplace so you can all hear the next thing Monty tells you loud and clear.”

  The taller magicians fell toward the back, Ricardo and the Professor drawing together like magnets in the center. At least it hadn’t been John to leave—as hard as it was to say goodbye to Ken, who’d wanted to win so badly it was palpable, Ricardo consoled himself with the fact that John was still there.

  Though he wanted to slip his hand into John’s so badly it physically ached to keep himself from doing it.

  Once a stylist smoothed out a wayward tuft of Monty’s hair and then got herself out of the range of the cameras, Iain gave the go-ahead, and Monty turned his dazzling smile toward the magicians, and began.

  “Your next challenge involves another traditional cabinet trick: the Zig-Zag Lady. Though since we’re more of an equal opportunity type of show, for your stunt, it’ll be known as the Zig-Zag Cabinet. The way this trick is traditionally performed, the magician places his assistant inside a three-sectioned box. Cutouts in the front of the cabinet reveal the assistant’s face, fingers and toes. After a wide blade is slipped horizontally between each of the segments, the center section is slid to the side, creating the illusion that the assistant has just been sliced in three.”

  Faye, who was standing directly in front of Ricardo, said, “Yes,” under her breath. No doubt, given the number of years she’d put in as an assistant, she’d done the Zig-Zag Lady countless times. And no doubt she was good at it. The crux of the trick involved the assistant turning only her body sideways and sucking in her middle, and then some clever painting and foreshortening to make the blades look as if they s
ank into the box much farther than they actually did, and the cabinet segments to look more drastically misaligned than they actually were.

  But Kevin Kazan answered her with a leery, “Huh,” as if he didn’t think it was going to be that simple. And though it galled him to admit it to himself, Ricardo suspected Kazan was right. There would be a twist. There always was.

  “But here’s the twist,” Monty said brightly, as Ricardo steeled himself against sighing, groaning, or rolling his eyes. “Not only will you be responsible for performing the illusion….”

  “Hold the pause,” Iain said, as the cameras circled the magicians intently to capture their budding unease. Ricardo held his breath and steeled his expression into one of polite interest, though he noticed that Muriel and her surprised eyebrows were drawing more than their fair share of attention from the handhelds. Once all the contestants could be represented as sufficiently awed by the “cleverness” of the program, Iain said, “Okay, lights.”

  He signaled to the gaffer, who fired up a bank of lighting, and suddenly a tarp-covered bulge was the central focus of the set. Ricardo hadn’t even noticed it until the lights hit the canvas. Had he made the mistake of assuming it was just leftover cleanup from the ceiling incident—or had he been too busy ogling John to care about it one way or the other until it was pointed out to him?

  Either way, it was sloppy. And Ricardo, who’d spent most of his life in a state of keenly focused awareness, was disturbed he’d failed to notice a detail that prominent—too prominent to technically be called a “detail.”

  Iain called out, “Do the reveal.”

  A couple of grips picked up the edge of the canvas. One camera was trained on the pile. The others continued swarming the magicians. The grips heaved off the canvas, revealing a stack of plywood and lumber.

  Maybe it really was something to do with the ceiling repair, and Iain had just gotten his tarp-covered piles mixed up. But then Fabian made a low chuckle in his throat, and Ricardo decided that although he didn’t know what it was supposed to mean, it wasn’t all just some sort of crazy mistake.