11:55 P.M.
He had shown her everything behind the scenes, a hidden and mostly subterranean complex of tunnels, trapdoors, elevators, flying rigs, suspension systems that could hold an elephant steady twenty feet above the stage floor. They had visited his menagerie of blue-eyed tigers and snow-white lionesses, and other lissome felines that were a combination of leopard and lion.
Eden, having regained her normal tongue and a measure of self-assurance after consuming most of the wine from the bottle she had with her, was unimpressed.
"That's genetics," she said of the crossbreeds. "I know a little something about genetics." She leaned against an unpainted concrete wall, eyes simmering in subdued lighting. "Now tell me your real secrets, Magic Man."
"Like what?"
"Like how you raise blood lust to the level of insane murder in an otherwise average, well-behaved teenage kid like Jimmy Nixon. And, like, where do shape-shifters come from—f'r instance, that saber-toothed baboon I met in the pasto—the, y'know, 'cause you were there too, don't deny it; the Pope-astolic Palace."
"Interesting mutation. I never know what I'm going to get. That's the fun part. So it was a saber-toothed baboon you destroyed?"
"Damn right I did!" Eden said, leering with pride. "'N with little help from my own brand of magic." She held up the bottle to a work light in the tunnel outside the menagerie, sized up with a squint the inch of dark wine remaining, and drank it unsteadily, the rim of the bottle clicking against her front teeth. A few drops dribbled off her chin.
The magician watched her with the same forbearance, mild amusement—and continued skepticism—that he had shown Eden for more than an hour. "C'mon" she said, lowering the empty bottle and issuing a challenge, "if we're gonna have a true, lasting relationship, gotta level with me. Hey! Speaking of the relationship, have to call you something. What do you suggest? Linc? Or, no, more appropriate, how about Morrie? You get it, don't you? Short for Mordaunt."
"Linc will do for now, Eden."
"'Kay. So, Links. How 'bout another bottle wine? I am really starting to get loosed up here, no shit. That's how you want me, right? Purrrrfeckly relaxed." She hiccupped and smothered a giggle with the back of her free hand, stealing a glimpse of the face of her watch as she did so.
"Maybe later," the magician said indulgently. "Why not take a break from the booze for now? You're sweating. I don't care for that. I don't like having women who sweat around me. Which they tend to do, onstage, when we've got flames going—"
"Just like in hell? Oops, my bad. Sorry. Listen, about sweating. That's what my glands are used to doing. Pour out the juice. I played basketball since I was in third grade, you know. Sweat's just bodily essence. If a man I happen to like sweats, it turns me on. That's something personal I'm letting you know, Links."
"There's a great deal about Eden Waring I'm eager to learn. But we have many years ahead of us."
"Kind of warm in this tunnel. Keep the animals cozy, right? Keep your animal warm too, Links? The one I heard so much about, came sniffing 'round my bed at Shungwaya. Scary son of a bitch. So let me in on it. The big secret. How can you take ordinary human beings, make them into monsters?"
"If you know how to stimulate the pineal body and the endocrine system by the use of spectrochrome therapy, human evolution can be accelerated to warp speed. The trigger is then implanted in the brain through the time-honored power of suggestion."
"Human evolution? Devolution, I'd call it," Eden said wisely.
"Whatever. They serve our purpose, luv."
She wagged a forefinger at him, face going slack; but her eyes were frightened. "Nuh-uh! Changed my mind. 'Clude me out.'
"But I need you. It's a most interesting experiment in genetics, Eden. I'm so looking forward to seeing just what it is you give birth to three days from now."
She jerked away from the wall as if she had been stuck there, lurched toward him.
"I'm scared! Why can't it just be you and me, Links? You and me."
"Because what you see as Lincoln Grayle is only an insignificant part of who and what I really am. We want to realize, in the person of a child, what is most powerful in each of us."
Eden tried to snuggle against him. He resisted the thrust of eroticism with a grimace of displeasure, but couldn't prevent her hand from clamping onto his penis.
"Isn't this good enough?" she said, whorishly kneading the brute sausage. "It's what I want, Linc. Give it to me, please? Right here. Now. I am so ready!"
"I'm not. It can't happen when—unless I—and you need to sober—"
Eden became dead weight on his arm, as if she were having a spaz attack. When he tried to hold her up off the floor she recovered with all of the nimble footwork that had made her a star point guard and, squaring up to him, smashed him full in the face with the butt of the empty wine bottle. His nose shattered and his head was driven into the wall behind him. Blood flew as his lungs emptied.
She hit him again, backhanded, and the bottle broke against a wedge of cheekbone before he hit the floor rolling, just beginning to feel the awful pain.
Eden stood astride him momentarily, still holding the jagged neck of the wine bottle, his blood dripping down her face.
"I believe I could use some fresh air," she said, perfectly lucid. "You'll find me on the terrace—Links, honey."
She walked away, steady after a first stagger-step, wiping blood off her face and trying to keep her gorge down. She headed along the tunnel toward the freight elevator that would take her to stage level. Wanting to scream but she couldn't get it out of her throat. The adrenaline rush was rapidly burning the alcohol out of her blood. She thought she could make it. Outdoors, the cold night air. But his blood. A little of it had passed her lips. She spat and spat.
As Eden ran into the large elevator, big enough to lift an elephant, she heard the roaring of the mutant big cats in their menagerie cages. She felt a livid itch on her lower lip and knew she was about to break out in hives.
Something entirely different from the magician whose face she had just ruined would be rising from the bloody floor of the tunnel, finding her spoor.
Eden looked at her watch again.
Showtime was eighty seconds away.
If she lived that long.