Clive Barker
Books Of Blood Vol 6
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.