"And became a teenage spy."
"There are no teenagers in Ireland, north and south, Temple. At least not in those days, and not for centuries before. Children fight that guerrilla war, and pay for it and die for it. I was in way over my head, but I did finally trace the cadre of men who had bombed that particular pub.
All my magic practice proved to be quite useful, after all. Then I turned them over to the British."
Temple propped her elbows on her thighs and put her face in her hands.
"I know. For the fantasy of avenging Sean and purging myself of guilt I put my entire life into a meat-grinder. I didn't even understand yet that the particular bombers didn't matter, that it was a conflict that had been bigger than anybody in it, including me, for centuries."
"How did you survive?"
"I didn't. I ran, to the Continent, and that wasn't far enough. In some circles what I did was considered an accomplishment, because I was finally found and offered a 'scholarship* by...
another organization."
"What do you mean?"
"I can't say much more. There are those who oppose terrorism in any cause, in any place.
Nations, commercial concerns, individuals. They offered me sanctuary; they offered me an education all over Europe, a chance to become a real magician; they offered me a family, and a more positive career in global espionage. Gary was allied with them. One of my first tutors. He could have been killed for that past, and there would be no trace."
"But he was retired, even from his magician career, wasn't he?"
"There is no retirement. I tried, and you saw what happened."
Temple nodded slowly. "I was your retirement."
He reached for her hand. "You weren't very retiring, though. That's why Gandolph has to have a book out; not just because the subject was dear to his heart, and he deserved a life after his many years of service and risk, but some... elements might fear what he would write. If this rather innocuous book on mediums is published, that will lull their suspicions. They will think that was all that was in his mind and his computer files."
"This is insane! You have to go through the rigmarole of publishing an entire book just to mislead someone?"
"Not for Gary's sake. It's too late. For mine. The more normal I can make the life around me, the more chance I've got of escaping the old life."
"But you were a public person, a performer before."
"And that was tolerated as long as they knew where I was and what I was doing. I wasn't a danger to anyone. You're only dangerous when you drop out. I might have tried for a new identity ultimately. That's why I was so unfair to involve you, but I was tired of life on the run, of being aloof from anybody human, from love. I guess I reverted to being a stupid teenager again when I met you, Temple, and that was that."
"No one has ever told me that it takes a stupid teenager to get involved with me."
"You know what I mean. I have no business being with you now. So if you have something...
compelling going on in your life, just tell me, and you'll never hear from me again."
"Oh, fabulous. It's either all or nothing with you. And this noble renunciation doesn't ring very true when you seem fairly obsessed with us getting back to where we used to be ... in bed together."
"Oh, absolutely," he admitted. "In a New Delhi minute. No lies or obfuscations there. I just don't know if I can be there tomorrow, or the next day, or if it's safe for you. I'm tired of other people paying for knowing me."
"And in a way you like it: popping in and out of people's lives like a stage magician, mystifying them, confusing everyone, your friends as well as your enemies."
"Maybe you're right." Max finished his second glass of wine. "We'll find out."
"How?"
"I'm staying this time, Temple. I'm not running again. I may have to lie low. I may have to work some not-so-legal magic, but I'm going to get to the bottom of everything that's worked against me in the past. Do you have any problems with that?"
There was only one possible answer.
"We'll find out," she said.
Chapter 40
The Mother of All Hauntings
I am by no means a fancier of the occult.
I do not wish to see what is not there, and even what is there if it is not readily apparent to the average individual.
I have never been subsumed into the belly of an extraterrestrial vehicle. The only missing time I suffer is when I am snoozing.
I have never walked through walls unless a door or window of some kind had gotten there before me. And I have never walked on water except occasionally in the pursuit of carp, and then only for the tiniest nanosecond.
So I am not enthralled by my recent encounters with things that go bump in the night, apparently having grown myopic in the Afterlife.
Most of all, I am sorry to have been visited by the spirit of the original Maurice. I was really happier not knowing that Maurice is--was--a decent dude I might even have liked in life, with no particular interest in the Divine Yvette, had certain appalling events not come to pass. How am I better off knowing that the yellow-striped dude who struts his stuff on the Yummy Tum-tum-tummy commercials today is a homicidal huckster who has dusted the true spokescat. We are talking a body double with a triple helping of chutzpah.
So, given my distaste for spirit emanations, you will understand that only my great loyalty to Miss Temple Barr could have lured me back to the Hell-o-ween Haunted Homestead on the occasion of the second stance. In television circles this is called a rerun, plain and simple.
However, I got more than I bargained for, least among them the hyste'rical bats bouncing their high-pitched little screeches off my cranium.
Of course the actual goings-on of that event are hardly known to the human participants, who, as usual, missed the main events.
I arrived before the first of the so-called psychics, ready to scout the territory for any unauthorized spooks. My attention was first drawn to someone big in a black catsuit. At first I took it for my esteemed sire, Three O'Clock Louie, but no such luck. Once the little shop of Halloween horrors was closed for the season, the organizers did not need local color any more.
Three O'Clock was returned to his retirement home on Lake Mead. Besides, this new cat is a more impressive dude than my old man, being kept in a cage ... except that an introductory sniff reveals that this is no dude! Her name, I discover after a few gingerly inquiries, is Kahlua and she does a nightly disappearing act at the Oasis.
"So, who's paying the freight on your ruby collars tonight?"
"Colleague of my boss's," Kahlua answers with a quite unnecessary preliminary snarl. (I think she just likes the sound of her own voice.) Like the coffee-flavored liqueur she is named for, Kahlua is strong, dark and heady. Her big green eyes flash toward the catwalk under the roof.
"He is a long, narrow cat all in black, fast as a mongoose and smooth as a velvet glove. I would go anywhere to work with him."
Naturally, I had spotted the Mystifying Max right away, so I never had any delusions about who was pulling strings in the dark wings above the seance chamber. (I feel the word "chamber"
adds a nice touch of the classy macabre to the scene below.)
"So what is on your program tonight?" I ask the lady, who is obviously a primadonna of in-the-body prestidigitation, unlike Karma, who just projects her meddling ditzy little aura into situations that are none of her business.