Page 17 of Illusionist
“Then watch closely.” His voice drops to something almost intimate. “Because the only thing more dangerous than your desires...”
The lights cut out again.
“...is denying them.”
When the spotlight returns, he's gone. The crowd erupts in applause, and I realize my hands are gripping the edge of my seat hard enough to hurt.
That has to be Elias Vale. The height, the presence, the way he commanded the space—it matches everything I've pieced together about the man who owns this operation. I make a mental note of his build, the way he moves.
The drums start again, faster this time. Three spotlights illuminate the ring simultaneously, revealing a man who probably doesn't fit through normal doorways.
The strongman.
He's massive—muscles carved so precisely they look like they've been sculpted from marble. Dark skin gleams under the lights, his chest bare except for chains wrapped around his torso like decoration. Or restraints.
But it's the mask that stops my breath. Horizontal bars of black and gold, positioned across his lower face like a cage. Like he's something dangerous that needs to be contained.
He breaks a chain with his bare hands. The metal shrieks as it parts, and the crowd loses their minds. He's performing a standard strongman routine—bending steel bars, lifting impossible weights.
I'm cataloging details for my report when the next act enters.
The knife thrower.
Lean and agile, he moves like water. His mask is all sharp angles, pointed like his knives. Thick black hair falls over his forehead as he produces knives from seemingly nowhere, spinning them between his fingers before launching them at a rotating target board.
A woman from the audience volunteers—or gets volunteered by the ringmaster, I can't tell—and stands against the board while the knife thrower outlines her body in blades. Each throw lands within an inch of her skin. The crowd holds its breath, and I find myself following suit.
He takes a bow, and the woman practically runs back to her seat.
Then comes the animal tamer.
He leads a lion into the ring. A goddamn lion. The beast moves with lazy grace, completely at ease with the man at its side. The tamer wears a mask with horns curving up from the temples. It looks animalistic, demonic, pagan.
The lion performs tricks I didn't know lions could do—jumping through hoops, standing on pedestals, even rolling over on command. But what strikes me is the relationship between man and beast. The tamer never uses a whip, never raises his voice. He guides the animal with hand gestures, with movements that don't even look like commands.
An enormous bear shambles into the ring next, and the crowd gasps. The tamer handles it with the same gentle authority. When both animals sit at his feet like massive house pets, I realize I've been holding my breath again.
The fire eater comes next.
His mask resembles a furnace grate, and he opens it to eat torch after torch, exhaling plumes of fire that lick the tent's ceiling. The heat reaches even where I'm sitting. Someone behind me swears softly.
The ringmaster reappears between acts, his voice weaving it all together. He introduces each performer with reverence, but there's something else in his tone. Pride. The kind you have for family, not employees.
A man materializes from the shadows at the ring's edge. Slight build, ethereal presence. His mask looks like acalavera—the ornate skulls from Día de los Muertos, beautiful and unsettling in equal measure.
The fortune teller.
He doesn't speak. Just produces a deck of tarot cards and begins laying them out in patterns only he understands. The ringmaster selects someone from the audience—a middle-aged man who climbs into the ring looking equal parts excited and terrified.
The fortune teller reads three cards. His light gray eyes never leave the man's face. The words he's saying make little sense to me, bringing up people and events in the man's life, but the volunteer's expression shifts from skepticism to shock to something like grief before he stumbles back to his seat.
The crowd murmurs, uncertain whether they witnessed entertainment or something more real.
Then the lights drop again.
When they return, two figures stand in the center ring.
The illusionist steps forward first. Tall, sleek, wearing a mask like a skeleton's grin. Blue eyes are visible above the mask that covers his mouth, sharp and calculating. I'd bet everything this is Silas Crowley. Same height as Vale, similar build, similar hair color.
