Two

On the stage, Prometheus’s illusory flames flickered and grew. High above, Dorian’s hands flailed wildly at his sides.

I held my breath and considered what sort of distraction I could create to prevent people from noticing a three-and-a-half-foot gargoyle crashing into the audience.

Before I could act, Dorian caught hold of a metal railing and steadied himself. He stood perfectly still. If anyone looked up, they would assume he was simply a stone gargoyle. A carving that resembled the “thinker” gargoyle of Notre Dame de Paris, with wings folded behind broad shoulders and small horns poking out on top of his head, was certainly an odd choice for a catwalk decoration, but everyone knew theater folk were an eccentric bunch, right?

I swallowed hard. How could he be here? Dorian knew how important it was that he not be seen. It was difficult enough to keep his existence a secret without him appearing above the crowd of a sold-out show.

I also understood the impulse. The gargoyle was homesick. He couldn’t resist the lure of a magic show with posters showing a classic performance more reminiscent of Belle Époque era Paris than dot-com era Vegas.

Persephone pointed a red-tipped finger at Prometheus. The fennel flames extinguished. Like a phoenix rising from the flames as it renewed itself, a metal tree sprouted from the top of Prometheus’s head, pushing through his spiky crimson-tipped hair. The trunk inched upward, and green leaves emerged from the trunk.

“What are you doing?” Prometheus sputtered, holding onto his head as if the roots of the tree pained him as the metal branches continued to grow. “Fire is supposed to bring death and destruction, not renewal.”

“Is it not all connected?” Persephone replied. “Your fire fed the soil for this tree to grow. This is your own doing.”

Prometheus moaned as the mechanical tree grew slowly but methodically until it was over a foot high. Prometheus shook his head, causing a few of the false leaves to fall to the stage floor. In place of the leaves was an orange. Persephone walked across the stage, the tail of her black tuxedo flapping behind her, and plucked the orange from the two-foot tree now sitting atop her partner’s head. This illusion was one that Jean Eugène Robert-­Houdin had created—as Dorian must have realized too. That’s why we were here on opening night. I wanted to see a classic stage show like the ones I remembered from a distant past, from a happy time that had been far too brief. I couldn’t fault Dorian for wanting the same thing, especially since the gargoyle had a stronger connection to the great magician than anyone.

The posters hadn’t been misleading. The suspense here was much more subtle than most modern shows I’d seen, building slowly and holding our attention with wonder rather than demanding it with glitz.

Of course, I couldn’t tell my date that I’d actually seen the illusion performed by its original inventor well over a century ago.

Perhaps coming here tonight had been a bad idea. Perhaps it had all been an awful idea.

I couldn’t worry about that now. I was too terrified that someone would see Dorian. I felt the warm pressure of the heavy gold locket I wore on a chain around my neck. I couldn’t let this happen. Not again.

It was times like these I felt foolish for thinking I could have a normal life here in Portland. But I was so tired of running. Finding a community where I fit in seemed too good to be true. As did meeting a man whose herbal gardening skills rivaled mine and was handsome and intriguing to boot. Max Liu was dangerous for the same reason that he wasn’t dangerous. He was simultaneously alluring and safe. A rational detective who’d learned the teachings of his grandmother, an herbalist and apothecary in China. He was in his early forties, single after his wife died years ago. Losing her caused him to live his life in the present rather than the past, and part of this mantra made him avoid all talk of the past. It was one of the reasons it was easy to spend time with him. He didn’t push me to open up about a past I could never make him understand.

But I knew Max and I would never work in the long run, because even if he accepted me for who I was, he would continue to age naturally while I never would. Yet, I could imagine myself comfortably settling into life with him and the many friends I’d made here in a short time.

Persephone bantered with the crowd while she peeled the orange she’d plucked from the miraculous orange tree. This wasn’t as elaborate an illusion as Robert-­Houdin’s original, but the audience was captivated. Persephone threw the peeled orange into the audience. A young man I knew caught the fruit.

“It’s real!” he shouted, holding up the orange.

My young neighbor Brixton was attending the show with his friends, sitting several rows in front of me and Max. Dorian had gotten both of us excited about the classic magic act, and Brixton had convinced his friends Ethan and Veronica to attend the show.

Fourteen-year-old Brixton was the one person in Portland who’d learned my secret and Dorian’s. It hadn’t been on purpose, and I’d been terribly worried about it at first, until events that winter had cemented his loyalty. At first he’d tried to convince Ethan and Veronica that he’d really seen a living gargoyle, but that was long behind us. I hoped.

“May I ask,” Persephone said, “if there is someone here tonight who would like to escape from Prometheus’s trickery? I can send you away to the Underworld, where you will be safe.” She paced the length of the stage, the spotlight following her deliberate steps. “In this early part of the evening, the spirits are only strong enough to carry one of you. I’ll do my best to protect the rest of you. A volunteer?”

“Brixton volunteers!” Ethan shouted, raising Brixton’s arm for him. Brixton snatched it back and scowled at Ethan.

“Thank you, my young friends,” Prometheus cut in, “but in this modern age, unfortunately I must insist on a volunteer who is at least eighteen.” The mechanical orange tree was now gone from his head. I didn’t see it anywhere. We’d all been paying attention to Persephone.

“How about closer to eighty?” The spotlight followed the voice and came to rest on two elderly men. A bulky man with gray hair and huge black eyebrows was grinning and pointing at his friend, a skinny throwback to the 1960s in a white kurta shirt and with long white hair pulled into a ponytail.

Persephone ushered the smaller man to the stage and asked him his name.

“Wallace,” he said with a calm voice that struck me as out of place on the dramatic stage. “Wallace Mason.” He wore the Indian-style cotton shirt over faded jeans and sandals. While most of the audience had dressed up, he looked like a man who thought the embroidered neckline on his shirt was dressing up.

Persephone continued an easygoing patter with the crowd, the spotlight remaining on her while Prometheus prepped the man. A minute later, the stage lights flickered. As they did so, an astringent scent assaulted my nostrils.

“The spirits are ready,” Persephone said. “They have sent ether to carry my friend here to safety.” She raised her arms, and Wallace Mason began to float. His white hair fell free of its ponytail and flowed past his shoulders. As his feet left the stage, the image of a flowing evening gown appeared over his clothing. The audience laughed.

“Forgive the spirits,” Persephone said. “They think women are most worthy of saving.”

I knew what was happening. I’d seen various versions of the Floating Lady illusion over the years. All of them involved someone—or their image—hovering high above the stage. Unfortunately, it was the worst possible illusion for keeping Dorian hidden from view. One of the audience members was sure to spot him.

The theater plunged into darkness. All that was visible was the ghostly, floating form of a confused man—and, for anyone who looked up, the shocked gargoyle above him.

A ripple of murmurs from the crowd followed. I looked around to see what people were looking at. When I looked back up, Dorian was gone.

I jerked my head around, searching for the gargoyle. Since a hefty stone gargoyle hadn’t crashed onto the stage or into the audience, that meant Dorian must have freed his foot and scampered to safety. I hadn’t imagined his presence, had I?

Max put his hand on my arm. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “He’s not going to fall.”

I tensed, then realized Max was talking not about the missing gargoyle but the volunteer floating above the stage.

“I’m just tired,” I whispered back. Max knew how hard I’d been working lately. He was under the illusion I was busy with my job and fixing up my crumbling house, not my true actions of working to save Dorian’s life. Lying to those you care about is one price to pay for immortality.

I forced my shoulders to relax. Once Max’s attention was back to the illusion, I looked up, toward the spot where I’d seen Dorian earlier. There was still no gargoyle. Only the ghostly image of the volunteer in a superimposed evening gown. Wallace Mason’s floating image reached the catwalk—and disappeared into the ether.

The lights went out again. A moment later, Prometheus and Persephone stood in the center of the stage, the volunteer in between them. The magicians took his hands in theirs, raised their arms above their heads, and gave deep bows. I applauded enthusiastically, clapping as much for Dorian’s escape as for the illusion.

During the brief intermission, I excused myself to use the restroom, when in truth I wanted to make sure there was no sign of Dorian. I knew Dorian, so I knew the types of places he liked to hide. There was no balcony in this theater, so I went to the adjacent alley but saw no sign of him. Hitching up my dress, I climbed the fire escape to the roof. No sign of him there either. I hadn’t found him when the sound of accordion music wafted up through the vents, signaling that it was time to return to our seats. Where was Dorian? I reached my seat as the lights were falling.

“I really wish you’d leave your cell phone on,” Max said, looking slightly annoyed.

“Didn’t you see the signs in the lobby? Using a cell phone here is punishable by death.” At least that got a smile out of him.

For the rest of the act, the magicians told the story of Persephone’s powers as the Goddess of Spring Growth, who possessed the ability to bring the dead back to the living. A good story is one of the secrets of a successful magic show. Illusions are simply tricks if they don’t tell a story. Persephone & Prometheus’s Phantasmagoria was a dark fairy tale. The magicians knew how to lead their audience where they wanted them to go. I wished I could relax and enjoy the show.

When the lights went up at the end of the performance, I turned to Max, trying to think of how to excuse myself to look for my living gargoyle.

Max and I had met that winter, the very day I moved to Portland. It was now the start of spring, and Max had missed the first blooming flowers while he’d been out of the country in China to celebrate his grandfather’s 100th birthday. When he’d returned a few weeks ago, there had been a change in him. He said he’d been busy with a case at work, but was that all it was? Going to the magic show together was our first date in over a month. But if Dorian was stuck somewhere because of his unmoving stone leg, unable to make it home …

“How about I make us a pot of tea back at my place,” Max said. “I brought back some oolong tea from China with a flavor that’s the most perfect blend of peaches and honey I’ve ever encountered.”

The warmth in his dark brown eyes as he talked about one of his passions made me temporarily forget about Dorian. Max’s straight black hair flopped at an angle over his forehead, reaching past his eyebrows. The unkempt look was sexy, but also unlike him. What had happened in China?

“I’m really tired,” I said. “I know we haven’t had a chance to catch up much—”

“Yeah, you’ve been distracted for half the night.”

“I’m sorry, Max. I—”

“It’s okay, Zoe,” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Besides, I’m sleep-deprived from a case I’m working.”

I looked down at the green silk dress I hadn’t worn in years. I’d pulled it out especially for this evening that I’d wanted to be special. The dress was one of the few items of clothing that hadn’t been ruined when part of my roof collapsed during a brutal winter storm, only saved because it had been in storage in my Airstream trailer. The material was only slightly disheveled from my rooftop jaunt. I’m used to being careful with clothes, a habit from a time when they weren’t so easily replaced. Max had dressed up too, in a slim-fitting black suit and the black-and-white wingtips I loved.

“It’s supposed to be a gorgeous weekend,” I said. “Why don’t you come over for a barbeque in my garden tomorrow afternoon?”

At that suggestion, Max’s withdrawn expression transformed into a genuine smile.

And so it was that instead of staying out with a man with whom I could never be completely honest, no matter how much I wanted to, I went home to a crumbling house where I hoped a gargoyle with a failing stone body would be waiting for me.