Kevin was gunning for Ricardo. No two ways about it. That realization settled like a stone in the pit of John’s stomach. Because there was competition…and there was spite. And spite, he’d always found, was a True magician’s greatest enemy. It was spite that caused normal, everyday folks to turn on people like John. It was spite that had ejected him from his work at the hospital. And it was spite, John was convinced, that energetically drew in the bizarre accidents that would be their ultimate demise.
In which case…how safe was it really to be prancing around on a reality show, exposing oneself not only to everyone else’s envy, and criticism, and spite…but to drowning, and potentially dangerous spa treatments, and pruning shears? Best not to think of it. Not in the middle of a timed challenge.
John took a breath, went underwater, and tried to convey a little bit longer to the wood. No images came back to him, and no wonder. The concept was too abstract. He took two dowels as he came up, and compared them. They looked the same. And while he suspected that it was counterproductive to attack the problem both mentally and physically at the same time, the screaming and the commotion was making it impossible to focus on just one or the other.
He dropped a dowel, went under again, and tried to convey the concept of “different.”
No. All the same. In every way that really matters.
He broke the surface with two more wands. Yep. The same, all right.
Two, three more dives, and still the dowels were the same. John checked the clock. Five minutes left. Theoretically, Kevin should leave the pool and gain another time advantage. But despite his wet contact lenses, he was circling Ricardo like a shark. And although both teams had planned to leave the pool at timed intervals, other than the ladies who had stepped out when they were supposed to, the rest of the magicians were sticking with the task in a stubborn game of “chicken.”
John gazed at the splashing, screaming hubbub for a moment, considering whether he should simply get out with whatever wand he had in hand…but then he looked above the fracas and saw the sample board on the wall. The wands were arranged from smallest to largest, like the bars of a cell phone service area. Maybe that was a strong enough visual to go on.
He stared at it for a moment, fixed it in his mind, then took a deep breath, and went under.
A few wands stirred as contestants’ bare feet kicked them up. But mostly, they lay still. Waiting.
John pictured the image of the four wands side by side as clearly as he’d just seen it with his physical eyes, and then he sent it to the wood. He held the image patiently, as long as he could while also holding his breath, in hopes that somewhere the barrier between incomprehension and understanding might break. That his intention might leak through.
Yes.
That’s all? Yes? Yes what? Time was running out.
Another image came to John, a tree with snow on the branches. Yes, some of the lumber in the pool was from the same tree as the lumber on the wall.
He grabbed two random wands, splashed up, and drank a breath of air as he checked them against each other.
The wands he held were still the same length.
He threw them down in disgust.
Longer, he thought, focusing hard on the longest dowel in his mental image. In return, he received flashes of many disjointed ideas. The gentle prick of a bird’s claws. The kiss of the wind. The sound of chainsaws. None of these were good or bad. They simply were.
Another gasp for air, and now the clock had ticked down to the final minute. “That one!” Bev was shrieking. “That one!” and Ricardo and Kevin both dove. John took several deep breaths, and went under himself for the final grab.
As he plunged down and ran his fingers over all the wands, his thumb dragged across the slightly ragged cut edge of the lumber, and a final image occurred to him. The dowels must have been cut on the miter saw from the Zig Zag Cabinet competition…but not one at a time. The saw was massive. The nine hundred short wands would have been cut in huge batches. The ninety medium wands, also. But the nine large wands? The single immunity wand? That would have gone through the miter saw practically alone…or in a pair, if one were to consider the sample on the board.
John sent the images quickly, with no time to spare, of huge stacks of dowels being chopped up in the saw.
Yes.
Then he sent the notion of only a few. The feeling of the metal table on one side and the air on the other, without a stack of other dowels piled on top. The sound of the blade cutting briefly. There was a pause in which he thought he might be understood—and in that pause, he wondered. Maybe he should have sent the image of only two wands being cut—the largest wand, and the sample. But no, that would be silly, to emerge from the pool with the twelve-inch wand. It was impossible, and anyone who did it would be accused of cheating. And all John would accomplish was drawing the sort of suspicion, the sort of lethal malignant energy to himself that he was always so careful to avoid.
He focused on his image of a small stack being cut, and he waited.
Yes—oh, yes.
John’s eyes went to a stick that looked just like all the others. He picked it up, then picked up another at random and compared them.
The first stick was significantly longer. At least half an inch.
John’s heart began pounding.
As his excitement welled in him with a wand in each hand, that elusive gap was bridged, and “yes” made total sense now. The underwater landscape of the wands lit up to John’s inner knowing, most of them aglow with the same intensity. A few, though, glowed brighter. And a very few (like the one in his right hand) glowed bright, as the concept of “longer” was communicated and disseminated.
He had one of the longest wands…in his hand. Now.
Out of the pool then, right away, to secure a time score. He surfaced just as Muriel climbed out and Sue wrapped a towel around her shoulders. No matter, it looked as if Bev, Ricardo and Kevin were going to stay in until the bitter end and attempt to win solely by the size of their wand, so even a few-second advantage might help him. He took a step toward the nearest side just as Ricardo surfaced—with a wand in his hand that shone so brightly to John’s inner senses, its brilliance stunned him.
The twelve inch wand.
And Ricardo, with water shimmering off the hard curve of his shoulder, the chiseled planes of his chest, was perfection itself. Yes, John had wanted that wand. And no, he didn’t for a moment begrudge Ricardo for it. Inside, he felt elated.
Until Kevin erupted from the water a heartbeat later, collided with Ricardo, and sent the wand pinwheeling away from his slippery grasp.
“No!” Bev shrieked, as dramatically as if someone has just been killed. And all at once, John saw she was going to dive for it.
He also saw that she was so ungainly in the water, he had a good chance of grabbing it for himself. Even from where he currently stood, three yards away.
He focused, and he dove.
Underwater was a churning mass of wands and bubbles kicked up by flailing feet. Both Kevin and Ricardo had fallen back, knocked apart by momentum and surprise. But despite all the confusion, John focused, and he looked. And there, shining like an invisible beacon among a half dozen other whirling wands, was the longest of them all.
John was almost upon it when Bev crashed down like a cannonball.
A siren shrilled, audible even underwater, and John got his feet under himself and stood.
“And that’s time, Magicians,” Monty said. “Let’s see your hands.”
John was surprised to see he was still holding anything at all. It was the larger wand…he hoped. He looked to the other three magicians to see what they’d come up with…and saw Ricardo covered in blood. “What happened?” John demanded, striding across the pool while the dowels beneath his feet stilled themselves to allow him to keep his footing. “Are you all right?”
Ricardo stuck his tongue out and touched it gingerly with his first two fingers. “Th’s fine. Bith my thung.”
“Wow,” Muriel said, “it’s bleeding like all getout.”
Kevin surreptitiously prodded at the side of his head. He was bleeding a bit too, John noticed. But only a trickle.
“Everybody just stay where you are and let the pros handle this,” Iain said, striding into the frame with two medics in tow. One of them set up a folding chair while the other came to assist Ricardo out of the pool. “Everyone’s got their tetanus shot, nothing to get worked up about.”
John slung an arm around Ricardo to help him to the side, although Ricardo attempted to brush off the assistance. He was unsuccessful; John was bigger. “Th’s fine,” Ricardo insisted. His chest was striped with stark runnels of blood.
“I got a ding on my head,” Kevin pointed out.
Iain squinted at him for a moment, and said, “Okay, fine, get over here and we’ll take a look. But hand your wand to the production assistant first. We’re not shooting this scene again.”
As Ricardo swung his leg over the side of the pool with John steadying him, he met John’s eyes. So much blood. “I’m otay,” he said.
John gave his arm an extra squeeze, anyway…and Ricardo returned the sentiment with a secret (if bloody) smile.
John climbed from the pool numbly. Accident? He wasn’t even sure if his own definition of the word fit with the one in the dictionary. He was given a black robe and directed to join the rest of the Red Team, who waited off camera, watching the medics. Maybe being voted out of the Mansion wouldn’t be such a terrible thing for either of them. Not if the alternative was attracting spite…which might make a True magician’s fortunes take a sickening little twist for the worse.
“Look at him bleed,” Jia murmured…and she wasn’t referring to her team captain who, it appeared, was receiving no more treatment than a dab of iodine.
“It’s mostly water,” Faye said. “It wouldn’t run down Ricardo’s chest like that if it were dry. But I’ll bet he gets a ton of screen time out of it.”
“Maybe next time you should hit me,” Jia said.
Faye shrugged and said, “I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter 22
SIZE MATTERS
According to the medic who’d stuffed his fingers into Ricardo’s mouth (Bob? Bill? something like that.) tongue injuries did tend to bleed profusely, but thankfully, they healed fast. Good to know. He also hinted that once it did heal, he’d be up for coffee. Or drinks. Or whatever. Thankfully, he didn’t find it odd when Ricardo declined to answer, given that he was covered in blood, and practically choking on moist gauze.
Since it took nearly half an hour before Ricardo could talk without re-opening the cuts, the makeup team descended with their spray bottles and made sure everyone looked wet once again before they heard the results of the challenge.
The magicians stood, tallest in back, with their wet hair attractively tousled, Gold Team in white terrycloth robes, Red Team in black, like exhausted boxers who’d just gone twelve rounds. The scoreboard had been set up against one of the more attractive walls, and a single camera was planted in front of it. Iain gave the signal, and Monty said, “Remember, magicians, whichever team located the longest wand in the shortest amount of time will win an advantage in the next elimination challenge. And, if any magician has located the single twelve-inch wand, that magician will be immune. In addition, the winning team will be having dinner tomorrow…with David Blaine.”
Kevin Kazan made a startled noise that sounded like a cross between a screech owl and a whoopee cushion.
“That’s right. The winning team will get to pick the brain of the world’s most cunning street magic performer…while the losers clean up the mess left behind from the building of the Zig Zag cabinets.”
Iain shoved a PA into the frame, and Monty paused in his reading while the awkward kid with the clipboard whispered in his ear, then scuttled away. Monty appeared to assimilate the “new” information (though Ricardo suspected it had been on his teleprompter all along) and said, “And I’ve just learned that someone may have found the twelve-inch wand. Let’s find out.”
“Monty?” Iain said. “Marlene doesn’t like the way you just said ‘learned.’ Try it again, a little less Aussie.”
“Learned,” Monty murmured. “Learned. Learrrrned. Okay. Got it.”
“Go ahead.”
Ricardo hardly noticed the line being repeated, because seriously? He dry-swallowed around the taste of copper that lingered in his mouth. All that pointing and screaming Bev had done…could she have actually spotted the single twelve-inch wand out of nine hundred and ninety-nine others? And if she did, who had ended up with it? Ricardo? Or Bev? Or that asshole, Kevin?
“Close-up on Faye,” Iain called out, and a pair of handhelds and a jib swung their focus to her.
“Amazing Faye,” Monty said, “you were the first out of the pool. And the length of your wand was…ten inches. That’s the shortest length. If everyone else also finished with a short wand, Red Team will win this challenge.”
Faye shrugged as if she wished she’d randomly grabbed something in the longer ten percent, but she was satisfied enough that she’d at least been the quickest. Her name appeared at the top of the lit scoreboard with a 10 beside it.
Close-ups were directed toward Sue, and Monty said, “Sue, Gold Team leader, you were second out of the pool. Your wand was also ten inches, which means Red Team is still in the lead.”
Ricardo patted Sue on the shoulder as her score was put up. “Good try.” She sighed, and he whispered, “At least you stuck to the plan.” Though they all knew she would have been faster if someone had thought to help her in or out of the pool. But Gold Team had been working with only their own strategy; thanks to Faye, Red Team had had access to both.
Cameras turned to Jia. “Jia Lee, you might have been the third magician out of the pool, but you were the first magician to find a ten and a half inch wand, thereby cementing your team’s lead so far.”
Jia nodded with satisfaction when she saw her score. Iain told Monty, “Put a long pause before the next number. We’ll break for a commercial there.” Cameras moved on to Muriel.
“Muriel Broom, Magic Mansion’s oldest female contestant, was the next out of the pool. Muriel, do you have any idea how long your wand was?”
“Last time I checked, I was more of an innie than an outie.”
Once the crew stopped laughing, Iain said, “Could you give him a more conventional response in case we need to edit that out?”
“What for? It wasn’t explicit.”
Iain sighed.
“Oh, all right,” Muriel said. She looked at Monty, and said with false brightness, “Why no, Monty, I haven’t a clue how long my wand was. But I sure hope I grabbed a nice big one.”
Monty looked like it was paining him to keep a straight face. “Well, Muriel, you’re in for a treat. Because the wand you found measures…eleven inches.”
The startled silence that followed Muriel’s score didn’t even need to be orchestrated by Iain. Once the shock wore off, Gold Team huddled, and Sue said, “Can you believe how lucky that was?”
“What’s that,” Muriel said, “Like one in a hundred odds?”
Bev said, “No, it depends on how many wands you picked up and compared to—”
“Hello!” Iain shouted. “Did I tell you to talk amongst yourselves? Pipe down and get with the program.”
Gold Team sorted themselves back out according to height. Ricardo observed the Red Team from over the top of Bev’s head. They did not look amused. Cameras backed up to include entire teams in their shots. Monty said, “That puts the Gold Team in the lead. The other four contestants were still in the pool when time ran out, and so none of them has a time advantage. The only way another player can take the lead from Muriel is if he, or she, has indeed found the single twelve-inch wand. Any magician who’s done that will also get immunity in the next elimination round.”
Ricardo’s heart began pounding. The way Bev had been screaming in th
e pool for him to pick up a particular wand, he’d had himself convinced that she’d spotted the immunity-wand. But in his haste to grab it before time ran out, his jaw collided with Kevin’s head so hard, it was a wonder he’d ended up with a wand in his hand at all.
“Kevin Kazan,” Monty said, “you were one of the magicians with no time advantage. The length of the last wand you discovered was…ten and one-half inches. I’m sorry. You are not the winner of this challenge.”
Kevin glared at Ricardo.
Monty said, “It appeared that both you and Ricardo the Magnificent were after the same wand,” he turned to face Gold Team, “and that the Math Wizard was the one who pointed it out. Bev, is that true?”
“I believe I saw the twelve-inch wand, Monty. But it’s hard to say. My glasses were wet from all the splashing.”
“Ricardo,” Monty said, “do you think you managed to pick up the wand she was pointing to?”
Ricardo’s heart hammered so hard, he thought his tongue wound would burst open and he’d answer Monty with a spray of blood. But his tongue stayed intact as he said, “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Ricardo, the wand in your hand when time ran out was, in fact…ten and one-half inches.”
Across the pool, a grim smile spread over Kevin Kazan’s face.
“Professor Topaz,” Monty said, “you were also one of the last in the pool, and the wand you selected measured in at…eleven inches. Well done. But Muriel also found an eleven-inch wand, and she’s got a time advantage over you, so unfortunately, you are not the winner of this challenge. Gold Team remains in the lead.”
Magic Mansion Page 18
