The entrance to the park was through the visitor’s center, a glass-fronted building with three sharp white peaks, flaring out like a nun’s wimple. A woman’s body lay facedown on the sidewalk out front, sprawled between a pair of pebble beds with a bullet in her back—the employee they’d gunned down on their way in.
I glanced up the street, past the front doors. The museum shared a block with the Siegel Suites, a three-story motel ringed by palm trees. One look, that’s all I allowed myself, catching the distant glimmer of movement on the motel rooftop. Caitlin and Jennifer were getting in position, laying the foundation for my plan, but the rest was all on me.
On me, and on Canton’s wand. My experiments, my attempts to control its dormant power, had all ended in failure so far. And here I was, about to try again. This time, though, there was more at stake than a little pride: I was betting my life, Seabrook’s, Harding’s, and my brother’s on it.
One of the doors opened, and I stared down the barrel of a gun. A man in a black balaclava grunted at me.
“That’s close enough,” he said. “Your gun. Toss it.”
I took the pistol out with two fingers, nice and easy, and set it on the pebbles.
“And your cards. We know you, Faust.”
I had a vague, fuzzy hope that they might slip up and let me in with my deck of cards, but I knew better than to count on it. Unlike most of the goons I went up against, the Network actually knew who they were dealing with. The cards joined my gun on the ground.
A stiff night wind kicked up. The breeze took my cards and sent them flying, fluttering across the cordoned-off street, forming ribbons at my back as they scattered and danced away.
“What’s with the sack?” he asked me.
“You wanted me to bring Canton’s top hat and his wand, didn’t you? C’mon, I’m not going to wear a top hat in public. Who does that?”
He thought it over, shrugged, and waved me closer with the barrel of his gun.
“Come inside,” he said. “She’s been waiting for you.”
41.
Beyond the visitor center, double doors opened onto the museum lot. The grounds were a loving tribute to Vegas history, a sprawling maze of salvaged signs from the city’s birth through its golden years to today. There was the jagged flair of the Stardust’s marquee, the Arabian Nights spire of the Sahara Hotel, the sleek red lines of the Riviera. Memories of casinos long gone, nothing left of them but siren calls forged from neon and steel.
The signs and the footlights sat dark tonight, shadows under a muddy sky, and the only light came from the strobing police barricade beyond the perimeter wall. My host in the balaclava gave me a nudge with the barrel of his gun, marching me deeper inside.
They had five hostages, not three. Along with my brother, Seabrook, and Harding, a pair of employees sat kneeling and cuffed with zip ties in the heart of a small clearing. They were sweating, but they weren’t bleeding. Teddy was the most disheveled of the bunch, his shirt torn and his face scuffed. He’d tried to fight. I figured he would. My escort in black had a pack of friends. I counted eight heads and eight guns, mostly rifles with a few sidearms in the mix. A couple circled the kneeling hostages like sharks. Another walked the top of a low steel sign, patrolling like a prison guard on a catwalk. They didn’t look nervous.
Teddy’s eyes went wide when he saw me, but he kept his lips tight. I didn’t have time for a family reunion anyway. Ms. Fleiss, back in her human form, was striding my way.
“If he takes one step toward his brother,” she said, “shoot him. In fact, shoot them both.”
Now I had eight muzzles pointing right at me. Fleiss stood before me, imperious.
“That was the plan, wasn’t it?” she asked. “We are aware of some of the wand’s properties. You were going to feign a surrender, lay hands on your brother, and teleport him to safety.”
I let my shoulders sag, just a little. “You got me.”
“And leave the others to die.” Fleiss tilted her head. I watched my reflection in her onyx sunglasses.
“What can I say?” I replied. “I’m ruthless like that.”
“Hand it over. Now.”
I gave her the mailbag. She shook it out between us, opened it with both hands, and peered inside. Then she looked up at me, somewhere between puzzled and irritated.
“What is this?”
“Oh, that’s an empty sack,” I said.
“You’re playing games with me? Now? With your brother’s life hanging in the balance? What do you think you’re doing, Faust?”
“We were already playing a game. Your game, Elmer Donaghy’s, the monsters you both answer to. I didn’t have a choice. You forced me to join in. But here’s the thing: I’ve always believed that if you don’t like the rules of the game you’re playing, change the rules. If you can’t do that, cheat like your life depends on it.”
Fleiss glanced to the closest gunman and snapped her fingers.
“You. If Mr. Faust doesn’t produce the wand and the hat in the next ten seconds, shoot his brother in the left kneecap.”
Teddy had kept his silence, not sure how to play this, but now he shot a nervous look in my direction. “Uh, Dan?”
“We will start with the left kneecap,” Fleiss told me.
“I came here with a gamble in mind,” I said. “Did you know the wand only works when you’re trying to save a life?”
She curled her lips in a sneer. “Yes. And to transport someone away from danger, it only works with direct physical contact. There’s ten feet between the two of you, and unless you’ve developed some remarkable new abilities since we last met, you can’t outrun a bullet.”
“That’s not the gamble I’m making. And it’s not his life I’m trying to save.”
I flexed my wrist, triggered the spring sheath, and Canton’s wand dropped into my outstretched fingers. A spark of raw magic surged along my arm and the wand kicked in my hand like a conductor’s baton.
I touched the bone tip to Fleiss’s heart, grabbed the rim of the sack with my other hand, and pulled it over both of our heads. The canvas billowed down and the darkness swallowed us whole.
*
The first and only time I’d teleported with the wand, it had been almost instantaneous. One moment I’d thrown myself into a locker and shut the door, the next I was bursting out onto a catwalk twenty feet above a firefight.
This time, the darkness in-between lingered. I felt the bag trying to open, straining against my willpower as it struggled to disgorge its passengers. I breathed slow and steady, steeling myself.
Beside me, Fleiss wheeled around, flailing in all directions and clawing at the void.
“Where are we?” she snapped. “Let me go. Let me go!”
“The wand wouldn’t work if you weren’t in danger, isn’t that right?”
“Meaningless.”
“It wouldn’t work if I wasn’t trying to save you,” I said. “If I didn’t want to help you.”
She turned on me, seething. “I don’t need your help.”
A thin gray rectangle opened in the darkness, off to our left. The exit. I wouldn’t be able to hold the bag back much longer before it spewed both of us out into the world again.
“Listen to me,” I said. “Who taught you?”
“What?”
“Simple question. You’re a witch. Who taught you how to use magic?”
“My…my lord did.” Fleiss took a halting half step back. “He created me. He taught me everything I know.”
“Really? Is he a witch?”
Her jaw clenched, her bottom lip starting to tremble. “No, but he knows things.”
“Tell me about one time,” I said. “One memory where he taught you something. I mean, you must remember, right? I could tell you stories for days about when I was learning magic. Tell me one of yours.”
“I don’t…I don’t want to.”
“There’s one thing no magician ever forgets: the first time a spell actually worked. Everybody has a story about that. Tell me yours. What was it? What did you do?”
The fuzzy gray oblong kept growing. Fleiss spotted it. She ran over, hooked her fingers around the edges, and tried to wrench it open.
“He didn’t create you,” I said. “He just stole you. But this is your chance. You can run. You don’t have to go back to him. Let me help you. Let me take you home.”