HARBINGER Deliver Us to Evil by Ralston Duncan

Author:Ralston, Duncan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

Marcus leaned against the dressing room door while Billy Wonders unzipped his sequined jumpsuit and stepped out of it. He wore a black t-shirt and boxer briefs.

"All right, what's the secret?"

The magician caught his eye in the wide mirror. "Secret?"

"How'd you do it? Those tricks. How'd you float over the audience? How'd you know my name?"

"It's no secret, brother. You simply have to let the scales fall from your eyes."

Marcus shook his head. "Is that a biblical reference?"

Billy Wonders grinned in the mirror and slipped into a pair of black jeans. "I wish you could have seen your face when I sat down beside your black ass. At first you were like, 'Who the hell is this corny-ass fool?' Then you looked like you shit your damn pants."

The magician chuckled and unzipped his boots.

"Come on, man. What's the trick?"

"The trick is to make it look like it's just a trick. That's why I wear this bargain basement Rick James jumpsuit. If those people out there believed what they saw was real magic…" He shook his head. "We wouldn't be having this conversation. Or if we were, it would be during visiting hours at the loony bin."

Marcus looked at the magician with suspicion. "Are you trying to fucking tell me that shit out there was real?"

"Why is that so hard for you to believe?"

"Because magic isn't real."

"What makes you so sure of that?"

"Sanity. Sanity does."

"Then what did you just see out there? Explain it like I'm five."

"Somebody told you who I am—"

"That is the truth. But that's not what's troubling you."

"Who told you?"

"You're deflecting the issue. You want to know how I flew over the heads of the audience to your chair with no wires. So ask me. Ask me how I did it."

"Fine. How did you do it?"

Billy Wonders grinned. "I just spoke the magic words."

"Magic words," Marcus repeated.

"Words have immense power." Billy Wonders swung a leg over the chair and sat, resting his arms on the back. "We learn that from a very young age. And just changing how you say them, even something as simple as the inflection, effects how powerful they are. Saying something in anger makes it more potent than when it's said in indifference, right? You say something with love and it can tear down walls. I'm sure you remember the first time someone who wasn't your mama said 'I love you.' Or the fear you felt when you said it first."

"I don't think I'm following you."

"When you're a kid, you realize certain words have more power than others, right? Curse words. Derogatory words. You might try to push the boundaries of what you can get away with saying. One time—" He chuckled wistfully. "—Big Mama was baking cookies and she let me eat a little bit of the dough out of the bowl. I remember I said something like 'Goddamn that's a good cookie,' like how I heard my older brother's friends would say sometimes. 'Goddamn this and goddamn that' when the adults weren't around.

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