CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT
Amelia perched in the dress circle while the tarps formed a makeshift cocoon that kept out prying eyes. It made a perfect view of Lydia Soulwright's final performance.
The blue canvas blotted out everything but the essentials – Lydia's simpering face, the crowd's vacant stares, those gleaming bottles on the prop table. Below, Lydia Soulwright pranced and preened about healing energies and spiritual vibrations. Half an hour ago, Lydia had told her that tonight was about enlightening and consciousness awareness, but the old fool couldn’t resist the urge to throw a little crystal ball nonsense in there.
Although Amelia had to admit, her sister-in-alchemy knew how to work a room. She weaved new-age word salad that the audience gobbled up like deep fried horse shit. They hung on every syllable - all those desperate divorcées and bored housewives aching for a glimpse of the divine in their Hamburger Helper lives.
Just drink the Goddamn water already
Such simple vessels for such profound change. The sodium pentobarbital would work fast at that dose. Three minutes to unconsciousness. Another two to complete respiratory failure. By the time the audience realized their precious medium had genuinely crossed the veil, the fifth element would be secured .
Just a sip. That's all it would take. One sparkling mouthful and Lydia would ascend to a higher plane. The ultimate disappearing act, with Amelia there to catch her soul on its way out the door.
Spirit into spirit. As above, so below.
Lydia's voice drifted up from the stage. ‘I'm sensing... someone's mother? She's showing me a garden. Roses, I think. Does this mean anything to anyone?’
A dozen hands shot up. Of course they did. Everyone had a dead relative who liked flowers.
Amelia had sat through enough of these performances during her time in the Order. Watched Lydia serve up the same cold-reading nonsense to roomfuls of desperate marks. Your loved one is at peace. They want you to be happy. They're always watching over you.
Basic fishing expeditions dressed up as profound revelation .
The psychic prowled the stage in bare feet with one bejeweled hand pressed to her temple. ‘The spirit is getting clearer now. She's showing me... a birthday. Something about a special cake?’
More hands. More gasps. More idiots paying sixty bucks to be told their dead relatives remembered their birthday preferences.
Amelia leaned forward. Lydia had been spouting nonsense for fifteen minutes straight now, so surely her throat would ache for relief soon. Lydia’s hands fluttered and dipped, then her fingers grazed the bottle tops in an accidental tease.
Come on, you hack. Shut up and drink.
Down below, Lydia launched into another spiel. Something about the Akashic records and vibrational frequencies. The crowd oohed like trained seals. Amelia ground her teeth until her jaw ached. Her scar tissue tingled beneath concealer that suddenly felt thick as paste.
A flurry of movement at the prop table. Lydia lunged for the bottle. Amelia’s breath caught in her throat, but then Lydia changed course at the last second and grabbed a handful of fairy cards instead.
Damn it to hell.
Lydia turned back to her audience with the cards in hand. ‘Wait... there's someone else coming through. A young man. Does anyone here recognize the name... Michael?’
The show had been running fifteen minutes. Much longer, and the timeline would be thrown off. She'd calculated everything down to the minute - dose, absorption rate, metabolic factors. The longer Lydia delayed, the more variables entered the equation.
No hands went up, so Lydia backtracked. She dropped the cards to the table and lunged for the water again. This time for keeps.
This was it. The moment when theory became reality, when ancient wisdom bloomed into modern miracle. Amelia's hands trembled as she gripped the balcony rail. Her reflection ghosted in the brass: a face transformed by four elements, waiting for the fifth to complete the sequence.
Lydia raised the bottle. Stage lights caught the water inside and turned it to liquid crystal.
Yes. Come on. Do it.
The audience sat transfixed, unaware they were about to witness real magic. Not the cheap parlor tricks Lydia trafficked in, but genuine transformation. The kind of profound change that medieval alchemists had only dreamed of achieving.
Lydia tilted her head back .
Abracadabra, sweetheart.
Amelia could hear the water touching her friend’s lips. She could imagine it gushing down her throat while the sodium pentobarbital worked its magic on the internal organs.
This must have been what an out of body experience felt like, because Amelia lost herself to the hallucination. For a moment she was elsewhere, and the world stopped making sense to her rational brain. The world took on new tones and colors, and she was almost certain that she was hearing things not part of this world. This was transcendence. The ultimate alchemical goal. It was overwhelmingly blissful, and Amelia had to question whether or not she was still on earth, in this theater, because the scene in front of her had changed.
Lydia Soulwright was no longer alone. Two additional bodies had joined the stage, and in one blink, they were standing at either end of the platform. And in the next, they were tackling poor Lydia Soulwright to the ground.
The water bottle arced through the spotlights, spinning end over end before shattering against the floorboards.
Amelia's reality cracked with it.
No. No. Dear God, no.
The crowd erupted. Lydia squawked in most unenlightened outrage shrieked. Her microphone caught her body hitting the floor and blasted feedback through the speakers that felt like ice picks in Amelia's skull.
Sodium pentobarbital soaked into the floorboards, carrying her dreams of perfection with it. The product of months of planning, of careful measurement, of precise timing - all of it destroyed by whoever the hell these two men were.
What the hell was going on?
This isn't happening. I'm dreaming, hallucinating. Or else I've finally achieved gnosis and transcended this mortal plane entirely.
But no. The Gramercy remained stubbornly solid around her. This was real.
Amelia gripped the handrail so hard she thought her bones might shatter. One of the men marched Lydia offstage while another addressed the audience without a microphone. Amelia couldn’t hear what he was saying, but something about him looked familiar. She’d seen that pair of eyes and smooth forehead yesterday.
The fake Felix.
Pure fury blazed through her nervous system. Who the hell did this guy think he was? Scratching her perfect plan, denying her the consummation she so deserved? She was going to find them, clasp her hands around their necks and squeeze until something snapped. To hell with poison. These people needed to die regardless of the method.
Instinct screamed at her to run. There was a fire exit at the end of the row.
Get out of here, recalibrate, finish the ritual later.
She might have screamed. Might have wept in frustration. But then a voice behind her turned her blood to ice.
‘Freeze. FBI.’