Percival obliged, his voice becoming more tremulous with each note, dissolving entirely into a terrified, burbling scream as Garrick took hold of the head box and sent it twirling across the stage.
Percival’s last sight was his own receding torso and the wiggling tips of his fingers, straining to be loose from their bonds.
Garrick could have told him that it was all done with mirrors and prosthetics, but a good magician never reveals his secrets.
He danced a quickstep jauntily across the orchestra pit bridge.
“‘Pay us a visit,’” he sang, deciding to sing high for the last phrase, “‘The Battering Raaaaaaams.’”
And he thought, I intend to do just that.
The magician stamped on a powder bomb hidden beneath a patch of carpet in the center aisle and disappeared in a magnesium flash and a ball of smoke.
Golgoth Golgoth
THE BATTERING RAMS' HIDEY-HOLE. ROGUES' WALK. LONDON. 1898
It had occurred to special agent Chevron Savano that she might be the victim of some massive sting operation. There were files from World War II that told stories of prisoners in war hospitals who had been convinced that the war was over by English-speaking enemies and allowed themselves to be debriefed, but they were high-ranking prisoners and the operations were hugely expensive. She was barely more than a FBI wannabe with a tin badge. No one was going to go to such fantastic lengths for the piddly secrets in her brain.
Any lingering doubts that she might not actually be in nineteenth-century London disappeared the moment Chevie emerged from the dungeon into Otto Malarkey’s den of thieves, cutthroats, and wastrels.
Riley grabbed her elbow.
“Agent . . . Chevie, let me be the mouthpiece in the Rams’ Hidey-Hole. I know these people.”
“Relax, kid, I can talk for myself.”
Riley’s expression was pained. “I know. Your impetuous nature seems to land you in hot water no matter what the era.”
“It’s psychology, Riley,” said Chevie defensively, though she knew it was only half true. “You wouldn’t understand it.”
The Battering Rams’ Hidey-Hole did not seem much like a hole, nor did it seem like they were hiding from anyone. The storeroom’s rickety stairs opened into the entire ground floor of a wide house with no dividing walls to hold up the ceiling, which sagged alarmingly and would have collapsed entirely but for the brick chimney breast. The grand room was crammed with so many lifelong thieves that such a concentration of criminality would have been difficult to achieve elsewhere outside of a prison compound.
Animals roamed freely through the hall, including chickens, hounds, and actual rams, tangling their impressive horns to the encouragement of the two-legged Rams.
There were several makeshift stages constructed from barrels and planks where burlesque ladies sang drinking songs or street conjurers ran thimble games. At least four parrots hid in the crystal chandeliers, swearing in as many languages. “Wow,” said Chevie, feeling the room revolve kaleidoscopically around her. “This is unreal.”
“Say nothing,” Riley hissed. “I may still be able to slip us out of here.”
He dodged between a monkey and its handler to catch Malarkey. “Mr. Malarkey, Your Majesty. I have some conjuring skills. Doves, rabbits, that kind of thing. Think of a card, any card.”
Malarkey strode into the center of the room. “No. We agreed on a bout, lad. Save yer politicking. Wasn’t it you who suggested I bet on the battling lady?”
This was a good point.
“Yes,” admitted Riley. “But that was . . .”
Malarkey stepped over an unconscious sailor clutching a roasted leg of pork. “That was when you was belowdecks in the killin’ basement, with blood on the floor and waste seeping through the walls, and you thought you would spout off whatever it took to see the light of day, but now you see said light of day and are thinking to yerself, Maybe I can stall poor old simple Malarkey and finagle a way out of here for me and the pretty lass.” Riley had a shot at arguing. “No. I have genuine top-notch skills. Watch.” He snatched a vicious dagger from the belt of a nearby sailor and jammed it between the ribs of a man who, for some reason, wore a striped swimming costume. The blade stuck but did no apparent harm.
“See?”
“Not a bad effort,” said Malarkey. “But I have my mind set on a fight.” A thought struck him and he stopped abruptly, turning to Chevie. “Do you know the Marquess of Queensbury Rules?”
Chevie was stretching out her shoulders. “Nope. Can’t say that I do.”