The first thing that the magician noticed was the set piece. Not gaudy golden finery as was becoming the trend at most establishments or even a simple curtain, to hide the mess of backstage but instead a forest set. Pine trees framed the scene, above which floated clouds- few of which were actually visible through the haze of the bar. Beside the area midstage where he and Charlie stood was an easel with one of his posters, seemingly a last minute touch to assure the audience that this was, indeed, a magic act.
The scene was sloppy and strange, managing to throw Maxwell off for the first few seconds of the performance. Somehow, it felt as though he was no longer in San Francisco, 1906, but in some other world, alien to his own.
Charlie, the professional that she was, took these moments to introduce him to the audience. Maxwell recovered quickly, the sound of applause tugging him back into reality.
He bowed to the audience, once, twice, then held up his hands as though he actually wished to discourage the crowd's clapping. This would be his biggest act throughout the entire evening.
"Thank you very much. You are too kind."
He flashed a quick grin to Charlie, a signal that all was swell again, then positioned himself for the first trick. The Codex Umbra. Maxwell could feel it's weight pressing gently in his sleeve as he whirled his hands around in classic misdirection. With a puff of a cleverly concealed mixture of chemicals he had purchased from a vendor a few towns back, he let the book fall out into his open hand.
There was nothing expressly magical about this part of the show yet Maxwell loved it all the same. Finding the Codex Umbra had made feats of the most astounding type simple- if not easy- and rarely required an ounce of illusive skill. There were times that, despite all his recent success, Maxwell missed the challenge of traditional trickery and so, though it didn't bring the applause, he couldn't help but incorporate it into his act.
Waggling his fingers (an extra touch of theatricality that the magician loved just as much as the trick), Maxwell allowed the audience a dramatic pause to wonder just how exactly he did it. He stole a gaze to Virginia Vanderbilt to make sure the act was hitting home- but, to his shock, her eyes weren't even on the stage.
Instead, they were directed in a full-on glare to the mobster who, seated beside her, had, rather boldy in the magician's opinion, decided to drape his left arm over the heiress's shoulders.
Fool! He was ruining all their chances!
Technically, there were a couple more illusions and little sleights-of-hand to whet the audience's appetite before Maxwell moved on to the real deal. But, by then the performer quickly realized, there was no telling what Boss Nihlson would have done. Nor what the railroad mogul's mood would be.
So instead, the Amazing Maxwell handed his lovely assistant the Codex Umbra with a flourish and a meaningful, almost desperate look. She seemed to understand and skipped to the next sequence of the act, flipping to one of the more alluring pages of the book and holding it up so that all the audience could see.
That seemed to catch both Nihlson and Vanderbilt's attention! The mobster even pulled his arm from the heiress's shoulder so that he could lean in to better view the horrors inside the Codex. Meanwhile the railroad mogul bit her lip, a mixture of fear and excitement darting across her face until at last she gave in to her curiosity and followed suit.
Charlie flashed Maxwell a triumphant grin and, before any one person could get too close a look at its pages, she held the book up a few feet from his face.
The magician flipped through a few pages then raised his eyebrows as though he'd spotted something particularly interesting. Though, at this point, he actually knew these particular incantations by heart, from trial (and a whole lot of error) he had found a show resonated a lot more when it had some sort of storyline to it.
The Amazing Maxwell stroked his chin for a moment then placed one spidery finger about midpage. He whispered the strange shadow words under his breath.
Then, in one fluid burst of motion, he tore a cascade of darkness, absolute living darkness across the stage. There was utter silence as the shade fizzled away into the bright electric lighting then a cacophony of murmurs. Maxwell could even catch a couple of them from the stage: "W-What was that?" "Amazing trick!" "How did he do it?"
The glow from the magician as he heard that praise could have faded any shadow beast. But before the audience's minds could settle down, supply some sort of rational explanation for what he was doing onstage, Maxwell launched into another series of incantations.
The shades danced across the stage, swirling around he and Charlie like coal dust. He told them to leap and they leapt. He told them to fly and they flew. He told them to circle around them like a whirlpool might and they followed his command to every syllable.
Maxwell grinned. He had never felt more powerful than when he was on the stage, surrounded by the shades of his own creation.
Meanwhile his assistant tentatively reached out her hand and grabbed a little of the shadows, swishing them around in her palm before letting them fall through her fingers. Like honey, the darkness oozed to the floor in a slow, steady drip-drip-drip and puddled at her feet.
The awe on Charlie's face was not an act as she glanced back over- first to Maxwell then the audience.
The magician waved an appreciative hand, and the crowd began to roar in recognition of the brave young woman who'd dared to touch the night beside her. Maxwell smiled, a little wistfully but without regret. As much as he loved it, the praise couldn't be all for him.
And, of course, Charlie enjoyed the audience's acclamation as much as he did.
She mimed surprise at all of the applause then finished with a dramatic bow and a cheeky wink that probably made half of the human sea in front of her wish they were the one on stage instead of Maxwell. The roar of the crowd rose at least ten decibels.
The magician clapped his own approval. One of the things that had always impressed him about Charlie was how easily she took to the stage. Despite having claimed to never have acted before, the young woman could play the audience like a well-tuned piano. For Maxwell, who had spent a good portion of his career trying not to let the people before the stage unnerve him, this was practically miraculous.
Then again, the magician thought, as Charlie tilted the Codex back into his view, the two of them were in the business of making miracles.
His fingertips buzzed as he turned another few pages. At this point, he was getting to the incantations that he had not yet memorized. And though he hadn't ever had the chance to discover what would happen if he mispronounced a word, he doubted he'd want to find out.
At last he found the passage that he desired. The words of summoning for one of Them- the sharp-toothed creature that the Codex had labelled "Terrorbeak." This was a trickier piece of magic so Maxwell took his time as he let the words flow from his lips. The audience might settle a little- but in the end, their shock was well worth the couple of dead moments.
Sure enough, there was a huge collective gasp as the fanged creature emerged from the book. The crowd could not look away as it writhed in the air, bending back and forth like a beached fish. Then eventually, it too, dissolved away into the lights of the stage. Though Maxwell was certain he could find a way to keep them there longer, the solution hadn't yet come to him.
Thankfully, the creature itself was enough of a crowd-pleaser that, at the moment, it didn't matter.
The applause seemed to last minutes on end, heating up any time Maxwell or Charlie tried to step away or continue the act. "What do we do?" the stagehand appeared to mouth. The magician gave a slight shrug. "I suppose we wait." he mimed back.
And so both performers did, letting the cheers and clapping wash over them until it was time to, again, begin the act. Or, at least, that was how it was supposed to go.
About thirty seconds in to the overflow of praise, Charlie elbowed Maxwell again, this time in the spine. Masking the jolt of pain (the stagehand had quite the arm), he turned his gaze slightly to the side so that it rested gently upon her face.
Charlie dipped her head a little, eyes moving as though they were locked on some unknown subject. Maxwell followed her gaze and nearly doubled over in horror.
For Virginia Vanderbilt, railroad heiress and key to their success, was pulling herself from her chair and delicately pressing herself through the crowd toward the exit. Boss Nihlson followed her but the mogul raised her hand threateningly as though to slap him whenever he got too close.
It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened.
Maxwell felt a wave of frustration wash over him. This whole time, all their act had been a set piece, background music really, for the mobster to harass this woman. It was humiliating- and yet still, at the end of the evening, the magician had to answer to Nihlson. Or rather his rage. The gangster glanced up toward the audience and drew his hand over his neck in one clean motion.
The message was clear.
Stop the heiress in her tracks or prepare for the figurative cement nap. In the edges of his vision, Maxwell could see the color leach from his assistant's face as though it had been doused in bleach. Only the tips of her cheeks remained red, the flush of the same anger that the magician felt coursing through his veins.
It wasn't their fault that anyone could spot a mile away that the mobster was just another gold-digger. And yet the two performers would be the ones to pay the price.
Well.
Not if Maxwell had any say in it.
As the applause slowly faded to a close, his brain had already begun to whir with a curious idea. One that, if they pulled it off, might be able to solve both problems at once.
Ms. Virginia Vanderbilt would be too awed by their performance to make a move for the exit, thus pleasing the mobster. And perhaps, just perhaps she'd be so amazed she'd want to hire them for herself. No longer would the Amazing Maxwell be performing at juice joints and speakeasies. The next stage of the tour would be for a ritzy circle of rich relatives and socialites.
The magician's fingers buzzed just thinking about it, and with an almost manic energy he returned, once more to paging through the Codex. At last, finding the precise passage he wanted, Maxwell glanced back up to the audience in order to assure Virginia Vanderbilt was still there. Sure enough, the railroad heiress was still a few feet from the door, attempting to explain to a couple of intimidated mobsters exactly why she had to leave. He flashed Charlie, who was still somewhat confused by this sudden burst of energy, a triumphant grin. She flicked her eyebrows, a verifiably I'm-not-exactly-sure-what-you're-doing sort of gesture, but then gave a slight nod.
Maxwell let out a quick gust of a breath. She was onboard.
The magician spun to face the audience, arms flung wide in as ostentatious a manner as he could possibly manage.
"Ladies and gentlemen," He declared. "Do not look away- do not even blink-for at this moment, I, the Amazing Maxwell, shall attempt to pull shadows incarnate from this mysterious tome."
And just at that very moment, almost as though some unknown entity had sensed his words, the lights in the nightclub flickered. The magician paused a moment, a slight chill running through his bones. He glanced at Charlie and could tell, by her own nervous expression, that she had felt the same thing.
All the same, the show must go on. Once the words were out of Maxwell's mouth, to go back and attempt another trick- well, it would be humiliating at the very least and deadly at the most.
Sending what he hoped was a reassuring look to his assistant, the magician took a deep breath. He was the one in control. Not the shadows. A flicker of lamplight, though unnerving, was just that. A flicker.
The Amazing Maxwell returned his attention to the act.
Beginning with a gentle tug to the sleeve (an obvious bit of misdirection to quiet the minds of those who could not stand the unexplainable), he pulled his arm back with the theatrics of a vaudeville performer and whispered the incantation. Before his very eyes, the pages of the Codex Umbra turned hazy like liquid smoke, becoming, if the passage was accurate, a portal to another world.
Maxwell could feel the pressure of something, something large and almost fearful building in his chest. He was actually going to do this. To pull from the pages of a book a being from another world.
For a moment, he hesitated, eyes flitting to Charlie. She had clenched her teeth on her lip, an act of anxiety he had rarely seen in the flapper- yet her face was a mirror of his own determination.
With one fluid movement, he pushed his hands through the- formerly solid -pages of the Codex. From the crowd came an audible gasp and, out of the corner of his eye, Maxwell could see Virginia Vanderbilt's mouth hanging open.
Perfect.
Inside the pages of the book, he wriggled his fingertips, trying to gain a feel for this strange new world. They moved slowly- almost as though caught in a tub of molasses- and were chilled by a strange, almost familiar cold. The shadows! The magician pulled his hand tight into a fist and started to pull.
Despite the incantation, the shades did not come easily from their page-marked world. They almost seemed conscious (a truth Maxwell had long suspected) as they thrashed and twisted, trying to pull themselves loose from his iron grip.
The magician was, by no means, a strong man but the determination borne from years of struggle made up for what his body lacked. He did not let go.
Seconds which seemed like centuries passed as he wrestled with the shades. The audience, though the performer dared not turn his head away from the Codex to observe them, seemed to sit in a shocked silence. Virginia Vanderbilt, Boss Nihlson- none of them- said a word as they gazed upon the stage. Even Charlie, who had seen so many of the magician's tricks throughout the past few months, was frozen with rapture.
He pulled harder.
Almostā¦
there!
Finally, as though they had chosen surrender, the shadows eased their resistance. They seeped gently through the pages of the Codex, an oily purple pooling gently upon the binding. With the grace and drama accumulated from years of pulling rabbits out of hats, the Amazing Maxwell tugged the shades from the pages and, with a triumphant roar, held them up before the crowd.
The applause was deafening.
Men in fine suits whooped and hollered like children. Mobsters clapped as though their hands were on fire- particularly the two that had came to threaten them earlier. And Charlie-first Charlie flashed him a relieved sort of smile. But then she was clapping too, gloved fingers coming together like petals on rosebush just before the twilight.
In those few moments, everything in the Amazing Maxwell's world was utterly perfect.
The best his life had ever been.
He really should have known it wouldn't last.
It started with a gentle twitch, the movement of something that before had been inanimate, squelched between his fingers. The magician ignored it, barely even noticing the change above the roar of the crowd. But Charlie did.
Maxwell could see her eyes widen, a split second warning just before-
The pool of darkness shuddered in his grip, pressing itself into the shape of a hand- a hand that now bound his wrist like a shackle. The magician writhed and flailed but this time, he was the one who could not escape.
Someone in the audience screamed. Dimly, in the parts of his brain that were not yet dominated by panic, Maxwell realized that it might have been Virginia Vanderbilt. He turned to the crowd, ready to assure them that there was nothing wrong, that this was all part of the act when the shadow hand suddenly released its grip on his wrist and latched onto his forehead. Its long spindly fingers bound his skull like a vise, the kind that was rumored only to exist in mental hospitals.
The effect was immediate. Between his temples, an intense pain suddenly flared to life, forcing the magician to his knees. And though he cried out, above the relentless pounding of his head, Maxwell couldn't tell if anyone had answered his pleas.
"Charlieā¦" he might have murmured, but his vision swam and he must have been losing consciousness- for the audience flickered in and out, replaced by a hazy... unending sort of magician gritted his teeth, preparing himself for whatever kind of hell had followed the shadows here.
And then, somehow, the pain was gone.
...
Tentatively, the Amazing Maxwell pushed himself off the hard stage floor. On all sides of him, he could hear a cacophony of fear and anger, losing itself from the lips of what had formerly been an adoring audience. The magician was faintly aware that Virginia Vanderbilt was probably gone, having left them moment the shades began to move, and that Boss Nihlson would soon be coming for him and Charlie. But just like the shadows pooling at the edges of the stage, the thought could not become solid in his mind.
He groaned, attempting to pull himself to his feet but a gentle pair of hands, so unlike the one that had tried to kill him a few moments ago, nudged him back down.
"Maxy...what happened?"
The magician's head flew toward the sound of her voice, stopping just as his eyes met those of the assistant..
"I don't know," he rasped, "They just came and-"
But he never got to finish.
Charlie's eyes widened. There was no act now in her fear as she tore her gaze from Maxwell's down to the stage in front of them.
The Codex Umbra.
It lay on the ground, innocent as any cheap stage prop- but with one exception. An impossible wind roared down from the rafters of the nightclub and tore the book open, pages fluttering like a whirlwind in its wake. The magician could spot glimpses of margins long marked and passages not yet explored- but for less than seconds as the Codex almost passed them over. Almost, Maxwell thought, almost as though it was looking for something.
Then- just as soon as it began- the storm faded.
Magician and assistant held their breath as the book flipped through those final few pages. Though the din from outside the nightclub was noisy and raucous, the emptied seats and abandoned booze indicated that they were the only ones still inside.
The only ones who hadn't- or couldn't perhaps- ran away when they saw the horror.
The only ones, that was, if you were not counting the shadows.
The final page turned, and a cold pit formed in Maxwell's stomach as he saw the passage the Codex had finally come to rest on.
"No." he whispered, "No please."
But it was too late. From the portal the magician had called just moments before emerged dozens of shadowy hands, thin and wraithlike, reaching out for the two of them. Charlie screamed- a heartbreaking sound- and Maxwell fought to find the hand that had touched him so gently earlier.
It was no use. He was tossed back and forth like a rag doll, rendered utterly powerless in the wake of the shadows' fury. First They pulled him up into the air, letting him tumble free a moment in what almost appeared to be sadistic enjoyment. Then They let him hover above what had, less than five minutes before, been an awestruck crowd. A taunt, perhaps?- it had to be.
But where was Charlie?
For a moment, Maxwell wrenched himself from the shades' grasp and let out a wild scream.
Her name.
Just meters away, he could see the flapper, trapped in another set of icy fingertips. She turned around, a look of shock then recognition tearing across her face. And at last- nothing but darkness.
Though the magician couldn't know it then, this would be the last time he'd ever see her so.
