by Michael Dahl
“Recognized him?” Charlie said. “I can still hardly see him.” He rubbed at his eyes with his fists.
Bingham let the camera hang from a strap around his neck. Then he picked up another camera that was also hanging from his neck. This time, it was a video camera. He switched it on. “Did either of you know the missing boy?” Bingham asked in a deep newscaster voice.
“Wait, are you filming us?” Ty asked, backing away.
“Of course,” Bingham said. He followed Ty with the camera. “Don’t you want to be on TV?”
“No!” Ty said, hurrying behind the wardrobe. “Especially not with Hitchcock. It’ll ruin my reputation.”
“Your name is Hitchcock? You mean like the scary movie director?” said Bingham.
Charlie nodded. He sometimes got tired having to explain his last name to people.
“That could be an angle for my story,” said Bingham. “You see, it’s just like a Hitchcock film. Some unsuspecting person disappears, and then—”
“Uh, he’s a student at Blackstone Middle School,” Charlie said as the reporter pointed the camera at him. “The kid who disappeared, I mean. I don’t know him, though. Paul something.”
“Paul Juke,” Ty said, jumping out from behind the wardrobe. “His name’s Paul Juke. He’s in my technology class.”
“Great,” Bingham said. “Let’s get something out to the station. They can have an interview on the air in two minutes.”
“An interview?” Charlie said. “Just because of a magic trick?”
“Of course!” said Theopolis in his booming voice.
Everyone turned to look as the magician came into the storage room, still wearing his mysterious black robe. “Because this was no simple magic trick.”
Bingham excitedly turned the little video camera on himself. “This is Joey Bingham with an exclusive story,” he said. “We have here the magician himself, the master of demons, the man responsible for the missing boy’s magical disappearance.”
Then Bingham crouched in front of Theopolis and aimed the camera at him.
“Mr. Theopolis,” the reporter said. “Tell us: where is the boy?”
Theopolis smiled. “I can produce the boy at any time,” he said. “I am in complete control of the dimensional shift that has occurred.”
“The what?” Ty said.
Theopolis fixed him with an evil glare. “The demons under my power can alter dimensions,” he said in a rough whisper. “If I so desire, they will take a piece of our dimension and move it to another dimension. That is what they have done.”
“And you can bring him back any time?” Charlie said.
Theopolis nodded gravely.
“Then do it,” Charlie said.
Theopolis threw his head back and laughed. Bingham was getting the whole thing on video. “I will, young man,” the magician said. “At tonight’s performance. Then the world will see that I am the greatest—and indeed, the first ever—real, true magician in history!”
“This is ridiculous,” Charlie said.
He and Ty were in the office behind the front desk of the Abracadabra Hotel with Annie Solo, the girl who often worked at the registration desk. She sat in the chair closest to the TV and twirled her glasses between her fingers.
Ty leaned back in the big chair in the corner. “I don’t know, Hitchcock,” he said. He put his hands behind his head. “Theopolis is pretty amazing. He proved he can do real magic.”
“He did not,” Charlie insisted.
Annie nodded. “He did,” she said, still staring at the TV. The news was showing Joey Bingham’s interview with Theopolis for the fifth time that afternoon. “He nailed the trapdoor shut. It had to be demons.”
“Dimensional shift,” Ty said.
Charlie rolled his eyes.
“I think it’s real,” Annie said. “I think it wasn’t a trick at all. I think it was real magic. I truly believe that.”
“You’re crazy,” Charlie said.
“I’m with Annie, Hitch,” Ty said. “Am I crazy too?”
Charlie swallowed. They might be becoming friends, but Ty was still the scariest kid in eighth grade. He decided to ignore the question.
“Okay then. Prove us wrong, Charlie,” Annie said.
“That’s my plan,” Charlie said, standing up. “Come on, Ty.”
“Why should I?” Ty asked, leaning back in his chair.
“In the name of truth?” Charlie suggested. “Because uncovering mysteries in this hotel is what we do?”
Ty crossed his arms and stared at Charlie.
“Because I helped you solve two mysteries already, so you owe me?” Charlie said. He grinned sheepishly.
“He’s got you there,” Annie said. “Without Charlie, you’ll never get that bike you’ve had your eye on.”
Charlie smiled at Annie. The Slamhammer—which Ty was really close to being able to buy—would convince him.
“Fine,” Ty said. “Where do we start?”
“Theopolis’s room,” Charlie said. “Let’s go.”
* * *
“Master Hitchcock. Master Yu. Where are you two headed?” Brack asked as Charlie and Ty stepped into his elevator.
“To see Mr. Theopolis,” Charlie said.
“Thirteenth floor,” Brack said. “Yes.”
“It’s so weird that he’s on the thirteenth floor,” Ty said. “No one stays on the thirteenth floor!”
“Why not?” Charlie asked as the elevator started its slow climb. “Actually,” he added, “I guess I’ve heard that before.”
“Some hotels don’t even have thirteenth floors,” Ty said.
“That’s true,” Brack said. He shrugged. “It’s an old tradition, and lots of old-time magicians are very superstitious,” he said. “Many of them believe that the number thirteen is a sort of bad luck number.”
“Yeah,” Ty said. “That’s because it is.”
“No, it isn’t,” Charlie said, rolling his eyes. “That’s ridiculous. It’s just a number. Numbers aren’t bad luck.”
“Some would disagree with you, Master Hitchcock,” said Brack. “Some say the number itself has bad magic in it,” he explained. He pulled out his watch again and considered it. “I always thought it had something to do with time.”
He popped open the watch. “The last hour of the day is twelve,” he explained, pointing at the watch face. “Perhaps a thirteenth hour seems unnatural, and so therefore the thirteenth number seems unnatural.”
The old man turned to face Ty. “Have a close look,” he said. He held out the watch to Ty, and Ty leaned close.
“Yup,” he said. “It goes up to tw—”
But he was cut off, because suddenly a fine stream of water squirted from the center of the watch, soaking Ty’s face.
“Hey!” Ty said, covering his face. “What gives?”
Charlie couldn’t help laughing. “Good trick, Brack,” he said. “But—I looked closely at your watch earlier today. It was definitely not a joke watch. I could tell from the shine that it was real, old metal.”
“Indeed,” Brack said.
He reached into the pocket of his coat and produced the real watch.
The two were nearly identical, Charlie noticed. Anyone would have been fooled.
“I had this one specially made,” Brack said, “just so my two watches—the real antique one and the fake, practical-joke one—would look almost exactly alike. Only an expert—or you, Mr. Hitchcock—would be able to tell them apart.”
The old man giggled as the door opened on the thirteenth floor. “In fact, I’ve squirted my own face more than once by accident,” he said. “Anyway, here you are.”
“Thanks a lot, Brack,” Ty said, wiping his face.
“Yeah, thanks,” said Charlie, and the boys stepped out.
The ha
llway was completely dark. “Hey, is this right?” Charlie asked. “The lights are all off!” He turned back to the elevator, but the doors were already closed, and the elevator was already heading back down to the lobby.
“Let’s go,” Ty said. “Theopolis is in room 1305, I think.”
“Isn’t it weird that it’s so dark here?” Charlie asked, looking down the gloomy hallway. “It feels so creepy.”
Ty shrugged. “Not really,” he said. “I mean, no one but Theopolis is staying here.”
They walked slowly down the dark hall. Only the little lights on the walls offered any light at all.
“No one else is staying on the floor?” Charlie asked.
“Nope. Theopolis requested this floor,” said Ty.” Otherwise we’d never even bother offering it. Everyone insists on staying somewhere else because of the whole thirteenth floor thing. I told you. Magicians are superstitious.”
“Why would Theopolis ask to stay here?” Charlie said.
“According to Annie, he said the floor has a lot of power,” Ty said. “Power he would harness for his magic.”
Charlie laughed. “Oh, that makes sense,” he muttered.
“All right. Here we are,” Ty said, stopping. “Room 1305.”
Room 1305 was a corner room. Some light showed under the door. Charlie knocked.
“Mr. Theopolis?” he said.
The door swung open. “It is I!” Theopolis declared grandly. “The Great and Powerful Theopolis!” He raised his arms toward the ceiling and waited.
Ty and Charlie looked at each other.
Abruptly, Theopolis lowered his arms and looked behind them. Then he frowned. “Say, Joey Bingham, that reporter from the news show. Isn’t he here with you?” he asked. The boys shook their heads.
“Oh,” said the magician. Then he went to the couch and sat down. He grabbed the remote for the TV and starting clicking through the channels.
After a second, he looked back up at Charlie and Ty. “You’re still here, I see. Well, come on in, then,” Theopolis said. “Did you need something?”
“We were, uh, hoping to look around,” Charlie said. “We, uh—”
“We work at the Abracadabra,” Ty chimed in. “So, you know, we need to make sure everything’s going all right. You know, with your hotel stay.”
“You mean you’re looking for the missing boy?” Theopolis asked, grinning a little. “Look all you want. You won’t find anything. But keep it down. I’m trying to watch bowling in here.”
He picked up a bowl of chips from the table and started munching away.
It didn’t take long to search the suite. Charlie and Ty went over every floorboard and wall panel, looking for hidden switches and doors. They found nothing.
When they had both searched high and low, they met in the bedroom and talked quietly so that Theopolis wouldn’t hear them.
“There’s only one bedroom,” Ty said. “Weird.”
“Why is that weird?” Charlie asked quietly, so the magician wouldn’t overhear.
“Well, the hotel has normal rooms, and it has suites,” Ty said. “This is a suite. It has a living room, and it has a separate bedroom. But all the suites I’ve ever seen have two bedrooms.”
“Hmm,” Charlie said. “Maybe the thirteenth floor is different, and you never knew because you hardly ever come to the thirteenth floor. Since no one stays here, I mean.”
“Maybe,” Ty said.
Charlie and Ty headed back to the living room. “So, it seems like everything is on the up-and-up,” Charlie said.
Theopolis snorted. “If you mean you didn’t find the boy, I know that, of course,” said the magician, munching away at his chips. “That’s because he’s in a magical realm right now. He’s not here in the hotel.”
Theopolis had his feet up on the coffee table now, so his robe was a little open at the ankles. Charlie noticed he had on a pair of jeans underneath his dark robe.
The Great and Powerful Theopolis didn’t look so powerful now, lounging on his couch with potato chip crumbs on his chin.
The boys closed the door behind themselves and headed back toward the elevator.
“Well, I guess that was a waste of time,” Ty said. “We didn’t find any clues about the missing kid at all.”
“Maybe not,” Charlie said, “but it’s never a waste of time to investigate every possibility.”
“Wait a second,” Ty said, grabbing Charlie’s shirt. “Listen.”
Charlie held his breath. “I don’t hear anything,” he whispered.
“I do,” Ty said. He put his ear to the wall. “It sounds like a TV is on.”
Charlie listened at the wall too. Something roared on the other side.
“Okay, now I hear it,” he said. “But it’s probably just Theopolis. Remember? He was watching TV in his room.”
“He was watching bowling,” Ty pointed out. “This sounds like . . .”
He paused, listening. Then he nodded, a smug look on his face. “Yup, it’s Alien Cyborg Attack Part Seven. I’ve seen it at least a hundred times. This is the part right before the Cyborgs disembark from—”
“I believe you,” Charlie said.
“So where’s it coming from?” Ty asked.
Charlie looked around. He glanced up ahead at the door to room 1307. “The TV must be on in there,” he said.
Then he knocked on the door. “Hello?” he called. “Anyone there? Paul?”
“There’s no way any guests are staying in this room,” Ty said. “Annie would have told me. Theopolis is the only guy on the floor. So whoever’s in there watching the movie, it isn’t a guest. I guarantee it.”
“Is anyone in there?” Charlie called again.
There was no reply.
Ty and Charlie looked at each other and said at the same time, “Passkey!”
“It’s in the office,” Ty said as he stabbed the elevator call button. “Come on.”
Ty twirled the key chain with the hotel passkey on it as the elevator climbed back up to the thirteenth floor. There were three of them in the elevator, but this time the third wasn’t Brack.
“Thanks for letting me tag along,” said Joey Bingham. “This will be quite a scoop if the missing boy is in room 1307. The whole city is talking about Theopolis’s performance.”
Ty tapped the golden railing inside the elevator. “I don’t understand why Brack isn’t in the elevator,” he said. “He’s always in this elevator.”
There was a ding as the elevator reached the thirteenth floor. The doors opened, and the three of them stepped into the hallway.
“Hello!” a voice said. Charlie spun around and there was Brack, standing in the open doors of another elevator.
“Hello,” he said, smiling. “I guess I’m not quite where you expected me to be, huh?”
“What are you up to, Brack?” Charlie said.
“Nothing, nothing,” said Brack. “There’s more than one elevator in this hotel. Sometimes I like to check out the others. Get a different view on things. Good luck with your case.” He slipped back into his usual elevator, closed the doors, and was off.
“That was weird,” Charlie said.
Ty laughed. “Brack is weird,” he said.
The boys and the reporter rushed to room 1307. The sound of the movie was gone.
“Totally quiet now,” Ty said as he fumbled with the passkey. He opened the door and the three of them rushed in . . .
. . . and tripped over the coffee table in the total darkness.
“Watch it!” Ty said.
“Who’s on my head?” Charlie squealed.
“Get off my camera!” shouted Bingham.
Ty managed to reach a lamp and switch it on. “I’d say there’s no one staying in this room,” he said.
It was empty. There were no suitcases i
n the room, none of the towels had been used, and the beds were made. Charlie noticed there were two bedrooms in this suite, unlike Theopolis’s.
Ty picked up the room phone and waited a moment. “Hey, Annie,” he said. “Has anyone checked into room 1307 recently?” He didn’t have to wait long for a reply.
“Thanks,” he said, and hung up. “Like I said. No one. She didn’t even have to look it up. No one ever stays on this floor.”
“Besides Theopolis,” Charlie said. “But why him?”
“Because of the power,” Ty said. “Like I told you.”
“Okay, okay, the power of the thirteenth floor,” Charlie said, trying not to roll his eyes, “but what other normal human reason might he have?”
The reporter snapped his fingers. “No prying eyes!” he said. “And no eavesdroppers.”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” Charlie said. “It would be easy to hide the boy on this floor, but on another floor someone might notice.”
“So let’s look around,” Ty said. “Maybe he moved him, and the TV will be on in some other room.”
But the three didn’t make it more than few feet from 1307 before there was a great flash of light, a booming crash like thunder, and the deep evil cackle they had begun to associate with Theopolis’s magic.
At the end of the hall, in front of the door to the emergency stairs and the ice machine, there appeared—in a billowing cloud of smoke—a demon.
The demon was huge and purple and muscular, with great twirling horns on its head, and huge claws and cloven feet. Its tail swung violently behind it.
“Who dares disturb Theopolis?” the demon bellowed, its voice echoing through the dark halls of the thirteenth floor.
“We’re sorry!” Bingham said. He dropped to his knees and covered his face. “Please don’t hurt us!”
“You must stay off this floor!” the demon shouted. The walls seemed to shake. “The thirteenth floor is rich with power, but it can destroy simple mortals like you!”
Lightning flashed through the hall. Thunder boomed. The demon roared.
Ty, Charlie, and Bingham sprinted for the elevators. They stabbed at the call button. “Come on, come on!” Ty said. “Hurry, Brack!”
