Barker, Clive - collection - Books of Blood Volume 06.pdf - ENG - Chlorella

THE BOOK OF BLOOD

(a postscript)

ON JERUSALEM STREET

THE LAST ILLUSION

WHAT HAPPENED THEN - when the magician,

having mesmerised the caged tiger, pulled the

tasselled cord that released a dozen swords upon its

head - was the subject of heated argument both in the

bar of the theatre and later, when Swann's performance

was over, on the sidewalk of 51st Street. Some claimed to

have glimpsed the bottom of the cage opening in the split

second that all other eyes were on the descending blades,

and seen the tiger swiftly spirited away as the woman in

the red dress took its place behind the lacquered bars.

Others were just as adamant that the animal had never

been in the cage to begin with, its presence merely a

projection which had been extinguished as a mechanism

propelled the woman from beneath the stage; this, of

course, at such a speed that it deceived the eye of all but

those swift and suspicious enough to catch it. And the

swords? The nature of the trick which had transformed

them in the mere seconds of their gleaming descent from

steel to rose-petals was yet further fuel for debate. The

explanations ranged from the prosaic to the elaborate,

but few of the throng that left the theatre lacked some

theory. Nor did the arguments finish there, on the

sidewalk. They raged on, no doubt, in the apartments

and restaurants of New York.

The pleasure to be had from Swann's illusions was,

it seemed, twofold. First: the spectacle of the trick

itself - in the breathless moment when disbelief

was, if not suspended, at least taken on tip-toe.

And second, when the moment was over and logic

restored, in the debate as to how the trick had been

achieved.

'How do you do it, Mr Swann?' Barbara Bernstein

was eager to know.

'It's magic,' Swann replied. He had invited her

backstage to examine the tiger's cage for any sign of

fakery in its construction; she had found none. She had

examined the swords: they were lethal. And the petals,

fragrant. Still she insisted:

'Yes, but really . . .' she leaned close to him. 'You can

tell me,' she said, 'I promise I won't breathe a word to a

soul.'

He returned her a slow smile in place of a reply.

'Oh, I know. . .'she said,'you're going to tell me that

you've signed some kind of oath.'

That's right,' Swann said.

'- And you're forbidden to give away any trade

secrets.'

'The intention is to give you pleasure,' he told her.

'Have I failed in that?'

'Oh no,' she replied, without a moment's hesitation.

'Everybody's talking about the show. You're the toast

of New York.'

'No,' he protested.

'Truly,' she said, 'I know people who would give their

eye-teeth to get into this theatre. And to have a guided

tour backstage . . . well, I'll be the envy of everybody.'

'I'm pleased,' he said, and touched her face. She had

clearly been anticipating such a move on his part. It

would be something else for her to boast of: her

seduction by the man critics had dubbed the Magus

of Manhattan.

'I'd like to make love to you,' he whispered to her.

'Here?' she said.

'No,' he told her. 'Not within ear-shot of the

tigers.'

She laughed. She preferred her lovers twenty years

Swann's junior - he looked, someone had observed,

like a man in mourning for his profile, but his touch

promised wit no boy could offer. She liked the tang of

dissolution she sensed beneath his gentlemanly fagade.

Swann was a dangerous man. If she turned him down

she might never find another.

'We could go to a hotel,' she suggested.

'A hotel,' he said, 'is a good idea.'

A look of doubt had crossed her face.

'What about your wife . . .?' she said. 'We might be

seen.'

He took her hand. 'Shall we be invisible, then?'

Tm serious.'

'So am I,' he insisted. 'Take it from me; seeing is

not believing. I should know. It's the cornerstone of

my profession.' She did not look much reassured. 'If

anyone recognises us,' he told her, Til simply tell them

their eyes are playing tricks.'

She smiled at this, and he kissed her. She returned the

kiss with unquestionable fervour.

'Miraculous,' he said, when their mouths parted.

'Shall we go before the tigers gossip?'

He led her across the stage. The cleaners had not yet

got about their business, and there, lying on the boards,

was a litter of rose-buds. Some had been trampled, a few

had not. Swann took his hand from hers, and walked

across to where the flowers lay.

She watched him stoop to pluck a rose from the

ground, enchanted by the gesture, but before he could

stand upright again something in the air above him

caught her eye. She looked up and her gaze met a slice

of silver that was even now plunging towards him. She

made to warn him, but the sword was quicker than her

tongue. At the last possible moment he seemed to sense

the danger he was in and looked round, the bud in his

hand, as the point met his back. The sword's momentum

carried it through his body to the hilt. Blood fled from

his chest, and splashed the floor. He made no sound, but

fell forward, forcing two-thirds of the sword's length out

of his body again as he hit the stage.

She would have screamed, but that her attention

was claimed by a sound from the clutter of magical

apparatus arrayed in the wings behind her, a muttered

growl which was indisputably the voice of the tiger. She

froze. There were probably instructions on how best to

stare down rogue tigers, but as a Manhattanite born

and bred they were techniques she wasn't acquainted

with.

'Swann?' she said, hoping this yet might be some

baroque illusion staged purely for her benefit. 'Swann.

Please get up.'

But the magician only lay where he had fallen, the

pool spreading from beneath him.

'If this is a joke -' she said testily,'- I'm not amused.'

When he didn't rise to her remark she tried a sweeter

tactic. 'Swann, my sweet, I'd like to go now, if you don't

mind.'

The growl came again. She didn't want to turn and

seek out its source, but equally she didn't want to be

sprung upon from behind.

Cautiously she looked round. The wings were in dark-

ness. The clutter of properties kept her from working

out the precise location of the beast. She could hear it

still, however: its tread, its growl. Step by step, she

retreated towards the apron of the stage. The closed

curtains sealed her off from the auditorium, but she

hoped she might scramble under them before the tiger

reached her.

As she backed against the heavy fabric, one of the

shadows in the wings forsook its ambiguity, and the

animal appeared. It was not beautiful, as she had

thought it when behind bars. It was vast and lethal and

hungry. She went down on her haunches and reached

for the hem of the curtain. The fabric was heavily

weighted, and she had more difficulty lifting it than

she'd expected, but she had managed to slide halfway

under the drape when, head and hands pressed to the

boards, she sensed the thump of the tiger's advance.

An instant later she felt the splash of its breath on her

bare back, and screamed as it hooked its talons into her

body and hauled her from the sight of safety towards

its steaming jaws.

Even then, she refused to give up her life. She kicked

at it, and tore out its fur in handfuls, and delivered a hail

of punches to its snout. But her resistance was negligible

in the face of such authority; her assault, for all its

ferocity, did not slow the beast a jot. It ripped open her

body with one casual clout. Mercifully, with that first

wound her senses gave up all claim to verisimilitude,

and took instead to preposterous invention. It seemed

to her that she heard applause from somewhere, and

the roar of an approving audience, and that in place

of the blood that was surely springing from her body

there came fountains of sparkling light. The agony her

nerve-endings were suffering didn't touch her at all.

Even when the animal had divided her into three or

four parts her head lay on its side at the edge of the

stage and watched as her torso was mauled and her limbs

devoured.

And all the while, when she wondered how all this

could be possible - that her eyes could live to witness

this last supper - the only reply she could think of was

Swann's:

'It's magic,' he'd said.

Indeed, she was thinking that very thing, that this

must be magic, when the tiger ambled across to her head,

and swallowed it down in one bite.

Amongst a certain set Harry D'Amour liked to believe

he had some small reputation - a coterie which did

not, alas, include his ex-wife, his creditors or those

anonymous critics who regularly posted dogs' excrement

through his office letterbox. But the woman who was on

the phone now, her voice so full of grief she might have

been crying for half a year, and was about to begin again,

she knew him for the paragon he was.

'-1 need your help, Mr D'Amour; very badly.'

'I'm busy on several cases at the moment,' he told her.

'Maybe you could come to the office?'

'I can't leave the house,' the woman informed him.

Til explain everything. Please come.'

He was sorely tempted. But there were several out-

standing cases, one of which, if not solved soon, might

end in fratricide. He suggested she try elsewhere.

'I can't go to just anybody,' the woman insisted.

'Why me?'

'I read about you. About what happened in Brooklyn.'

Making mention of his most conspicuous failure was

not the surest method of securing his services, Harry

thought, but it certainly got his attention. What had

happened in Wyckoff Street had begun innocently

enough, with a husband who'd employed him to spy

on his adulterous wife, and had ended on the top storey

of the Lomax house with the world he thought he'd

known turning inside out. When the body-count was

done, and the surviving priests dispatched, he was left

with a fear of stairs, and more questions than he'd ever

answer this side of the family plot. He took no pleasure

in being reminded of those terrors.

'I don't like to talk about Brooklyn,' he said.

'Forgive me,' the woman replied, 'but I need

somebody who has experience with . . . with the

occult.' She stopped speaking for a moment. He could

still hear her breath down the line: soft, but erratic.

'I need you,' she said. He had already decided, in that

pause when only her fear had been audible, what reply

he would make.

Til come.'

'I'm grateful to you,' she said. 'The house is on East

61st Street -' He scribbled down the details. Her last

words were, 'Please hurry.' Then she put down the

phone.

He made some calls, in the vain hope of placating two

of his more excitable clients, then pulled on his jacket,

locked the office, and started downstairs. The landing

and the lobby smelt pungent. As he reached the front

door he caught Chaplin, the janitor, emerging from the

Barker, Clive - collection - Books of Blood Volume 06.pdf

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