“Not today,” he whispered back.
“What do you mean? What did you do?”
“She can’t hurt me anymore. I’ll explain in the cab.”
Peter gave MJ a parting look. The young blogger was on her iPhone trying to retrieve the clandestine videos she’d shot of him. She’d spent a great deal of time composing her exposé, and it seemed a shame that it had all been erased in the amount of time it took to strike a keyboard. She slapped the table in anger and looked across the room. Their eyes locked. If looks could have killed, he would have been six feet under pushing up daisies.
He waved pleasantly and headed up the stairs.
31
Lying in bed that night, Liza asked, “Is your life always this exciting?”
“Hardly,” Peter murmured, his eyelids heavy.
“Will it go back to normal soon?”
“Boy, I sure hope so.”
“Can you look into the future, and make sure? My heart beat’s still racing.”
“Ask me tomorrow, okay?”
Liza rested her head on his chest and stared at the grisly images on the flat-screen TV. They were halfway through season two of The Walking Dead, one of the better zombie shows in recent years. They had come to the series late, and rented the episodes from Netflix. They were both hooked on the show, only Liza didn’t like the fact that in the first season the zombies had staggered around with wooden legs, while in the second they ran like deer. She was thinking of going online to post a negative comment about it.
The episode ended with a zombie getting its head shot off, just like all the other episodes had. Peter started to ask Liza if she wanted to watch the next episode, when he realized she was fast asleep. She looked like an angel, and he kissed her forehead.
“Thanks for not running away,” he whispered.
He killed the TV and the picture was reduced to a tiny blip, which hung there for a while before vanishing. The bedroom fell dark. The day had started out lousy but ended well. While he hadn’t stopped the shadow people or found Dr. Death, he’d reunited with Liza, and that was all that mattered. Alone, there was only so much he could accomplish. But with Liza by his side, just about anything seemed possible.
He didn’t really understand it. He’d had plenty of girlfriends before Liza, but none of the relationships had been this deep. She was more than just his lover and soul mate. She was also his assistant, and with him almost every waking moment of every day. His previous assistants had found him too demanding, and had all quit. Not Liza. She’d embraced the challenge of performing on stage every night. It was hard work, and to her credit, she’d never once screwed up a trick.
He did eight shows a week, fifty-one weeks a year, along with a few dozen private events sprinkled into his schedule. Liza had been with him for two years, and not made a single mistake. Had she ever dropped a prop or forgotten a cue? Had she ever not floated perfectly in midair, or not magically jumped out of an empty box when she was supposed to?
He couldn’t remember a single time when she hadn’t been perfect. Not one. But that was impossible. Everyone who performed magic made mistakes. It was part of the business, and there was no getting around it. It was how you learned, and grew.
Yet Liza didn’t make mistakes. Not any that he’d been aware of. The matinee this past Saturday was a perfect example. She’d been hidden inside the secret compartment of the Dollhouse illusion when the shadow person had kidnapped her spirit and taken her into the future. It had been a hair-raising experience that would have sent anyone else to the hospital. Not Liza. Not only had she escaped from Dr. Death, she’d also ended the trick correctly, and taken her bow beside him.
He decided that he was being irrational. Liza made mistakes just like everyone else, and he just wasn’t catching them. Love was blind that way.
A noise from downstairs lifted his head. A tinny clanging sound. His hand instinctively touched the five-pointed star hanging around his neck. Then he checked for the star around Liza’s neck. It was there as well. They were both protected.
He slipped out of bed and into his bathrobe. The floor was cold to his bare feet. Down the stairs he went to the first floor, the noise growing louder with each step. His destination was the living room, where Butch sat on the mantel banging his toy cymbals. He touched the hidden switch behind the panda’s neck and the music stopped.
The main keypad for the security system resided in the foyer. He checked it. The place was locked up tight. No intruders had slipped in. At least, not any human intruders.
He inspected the downstairs rooms, expecting to see his favorite things smashed to bits, or at least the illusion of that. But that wasn’t the case. Each room was how he’d left it before going to bed. In his study the computer was turned on, the screen saver of Harry Houdini hanging upside down in a straitjacket lighting up the darkened room.
His last stop was the kitchen. The pantry doors were wide open. He stuck his head in to see if any food items were missing. He clearly remembered closing the pantry doors before coming to bed. Had the shadow person reopened them?
If so, why?
He knew a thing or two about ghosts and spirits. The longer they remained stuck on earth, the more cranky and mean they became. If a ghost or spirit stayed too long, it turned into a destructive force, capable of all sorts of mayhem. The shadow people had impressed him as these very types of destructive forces. Yet their behavior was also strange. One had thrown a shoe out the window at him, while another had raided his kitchen pantry.
Cold air danced around his bare legs. Icy, invisible fingers touched his skin. He felt himself drawn to the other side of the kitchen and stood at the window facing the courtyard. The courtyard was his private sanctuary, and contained a wrought-iron table and two wrought-iron chairs. When the weather was warmer, he and Liza ate breakfast there and split the newspaper. His breath fogged the window. Liza’s chair was now occupied by a shadow person. A piece of its face was visible, and a piece of its hand. It was the same evil spirit he’d encountered in Grand Central.
The shadow person lifted its hand in a macabre salute. Peter felt his blood start to boil. How many times were these damn things going to invade his home? The only solution was to destroy every last one of them, and he was more than ready to do that.
The back door had a variety of locks. He opened each of them and stepped outside. From the foyer, the security system started to wail. He decided that was a good thing. Liza didn’t need to be sleeping while a shadow person was lurking around.
The shadow person floated out of the chair, its body a quivering mass. It almost seemed frightened of him. A psychic could get rid of an otherworldly spirit through physical force. It wasn’t pretty, but dealings with the dead seldom were. As he grabbed it with his hands, its essence turned to a vaporlike substance, and slipped out of his grasp as if melting away.
“No, you don’t.” With the tips of his fingers, Peter pinched the visible piece of flesh on the shadow person’s face, and held it tight. It felt like worn leather.
“How do you like that?” he said triumphantly.
The shadow person wiggled and squirmed, but could not escape. He made his other hand into a fist. The shadow person let out a tortured sound as if begging for mercy. Could it be reasoned with? He was willing to give it a try. He spoke where its ear should have been.
“Leave me and my friends alone. If you don’t go away, I’ll destroy you. Do you understand?”
“Peter, who are you talking to? What’s going on? Why is the alarm ringing?”
Liza stood in the doorway with a sleepy expression on her face. She wore one of his dress shirts and her favorite Garfield slippers. She stepped outside.