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“The person in C10, please stand,” Brent said as a woman stood up shyly. “Would you reach under your seat and see if anything is there?”
The woman folded up her seat and retrieved a white envelope from the bottom of it.
“Would you bring it to me, please?” Brent coaxed.
She brought it to the stage, where Brent took it, thanked her, and asked her to return to her seat. Brent ripped an end completely off and asked this volunteer to hold out his hands. He hit the envelope, and a card fell into the audience member’s open palm. The assistant looked at it and smiled, then held the signed card up for all to see as the audience went wild.
“Thank you. You may keep that as a souvenir,” Brent said as the man returned to his seat. “I have one more effect I want to share with you—”
There was a pop like a small explosion, and Pro found her hand went to her service weapon. One of the lights in the illuminated sign hanging from the backdrop must have blown as the remaining lights flickered. She relaxed and took her hand out of her jacket.
Brent looked back to the crowd. “Nothing important, folks, just a—”
He stopped as the audience was “oohing” and “aahing.” He turned back to the sign as a line began to appear over the logo in what looked like fresh blood. Then, suddenly, the lines linked together to form a word: Murderer. The blood began to drip onto the floor as it flowed out of the sign.
Brent went as pale as a sheet. He looked at the audience and then walked off-stage. The curtain closed quickly, and the lights shifted.
Shaut pushed his way through the front curtain. “Hey, hey, sorry, folks, but one of the tricks went off early. That was an effect for later in the show, and we’ll have to cut it now.”
He looked over the crowd with a stuck-on smile, and Pro couldn’t help the feeling that this explanation was a lie. She looked around the audience to see if she could find Max once again.
“He ain’t telling the truth, is he?” Luther murmured to Pro.
“That’s what my instincts tell me,” she answered as she continued to observe the room.
Shaut went on to perform a trick directly in front of the curtain. He had the audience raise their hands up, and selected a man in the third row. The man came up on stage and Shaut did a trick with two brightly colored balls made of sponge. The ball disappeared from his own hand and appeared in the grip of the volunteer.
When the subject went to return to his seat, Shaut insisted he wanted to give the man a present. He then offered the man a watch, and the volunteer looked at his wrist to find that the watch was his own.
The man smiled and shook his head in amazement as he sat to applause from the impressed crowd. Shaut ducked his head behind the curtain, then returned out front with a relaxed grin.
“It appears the show will go on! Our next act is the first lady of sorcery, Adrianna Gray!”
He stepped toward the wing as the curtains opened to reveal a sequined covered table and something resembling an old-fashioned set of stocks that would hold someone in place.
Adrianna hit the stage in a sparkling gown, and Pro sat up to take notice, deciding the illusionist must have slipped on a set of undergarments that held everything in place tightly and pushed everything else up. Her chest was so accentuated, Pro was surprised she didn’t fall face forward onto the stage.
As music played, Adrianna took out three large silver rings from a bag that lay on top of the sequined table. The music shifted to a slow, hypnotic theme, as she held up the rings and showed them one at a time. She moved forward to the front of the stage and spun one ring at the tips of her fingers, and with a tiny ting, it joined to one of the other rings.
She showed the linked pair, and then turned and brought the first ring up the arm all the way up to her shoulder. With a smile to the audience, she let it slide back down her arm and it re-linked with the ring in her hand.
As the routine went on, slowly and with an unexpected deftness, she linked and unlinked the rings in several amazing ways, finally forming a chain of all three. As the music moved to its climax, she held the rings up with her hands covering the places where the metal met, and with a flick of her wrists, two rings slid individually down her arms, leaving a single ring between her hands. It was a stunning finish to a strong routine, and the audience applauded loudly.
She bowed and then moved to the stocks. “It is often that a magician saws a lady in half. I think this is unfair, and I would ask a brave man to help me by allowing me equal time in sawing a man.”
A large gentleman raised his hand and Adrianna called him up to the stage. The man towered over Adrianna, in spite of her heels. She had the man kneel down, to which she quipped, “One of my favorite positions to have a man.” She then placed him in the stocks by removing the top part of the wooden frame.
Once he was secured, she picked up a newspaper that bore the headline, “MAGICIAN GOOFS, CUTS OFF MAN’S HEAD,” and after showing it to the audience, placed in on the floor where the big man could read it.
“Now we’ve had enough blood on stage tonight, so try to keep yours in your body, all right, sir?” she quipped.
She then pulled out an electric jig saw with a scary looking twelve-inch blade. She slammed a battery pack into the back of it and pressed the trigger a few times so that it growled ominously.
Then she inserted the blade in a track in the top of the stock and started it up continuously. It made loud grinding sounds as she pushed it across, over the man’s neck and out the other side, where the audience could see the twelve-inch blade was still attached.
A quick unlocking of the wooden enclosure and the man was on his feet, taking a bow with Adrianna. As he left the stage, Adrianna joked, “Don’t look up at any high buildings too quickly. We don’t want anything coming loose.”
For a finalé, Adrianna pulled out a clear bowl of water, a Chinese fan, and some tissue paper as music played. She ripped the tissue to pieces and put them in the water, then held them aloft, dripping wet. She squeezed the water from the paper as the music built to a crescendo. She opened the fan, and as she waved it, dry confetti filled the air like a snowstorm.
