Chapter Forty-Three
Jack and Tobias returned to the Yard just after dawn, successful in both convincing Mr. Finnegan to let her perform at the Egyptian Hall later that night, and in getting the major newspapers to add her challenge to the Conjurer as an advertisement on the front pages of all of the Sunday morning papers.
A fact that should ensure Thomas Clorren saw it and hopefully, wouldn’t be able to resist being in attendance at the performance.
As soon as they’d caught up Sera, Cordy, and Sergeant Kellerman on what they’d achieved, Jack had all but crawled into Tobias’s office and collapsed on his sofa, promptly falling asleep, not even caring that she was in London’s largest police station, surrounded by hundreds of police officers.
Perhaps it was the thought that Tobias was there, and she knew he wouldn’t let anything happen to her, that had allowed her to feel so comfortable to sleep.
Not to mention she’d been exhausted from the running around they’d been doing and the stress of Mrs. Thompson being taken.
But as her eyelids drifted shut, for the first time, she hadn’t dreamed about a thing.
It had been several years since she’d had a dream-free sleep.
Who would have thought it would have been at Scotland Yard that that would ever happen?
“Jack,” Tobias’s voice whispered into her dreams.
She blinked her eyes open, and a soft smile spread across her lips as she looked up into Tobias’s deep-gray eyes.
Eyes in which she could lose herself. Dream Tobias was deliciously handsome; Cordy had been right about that, though he did look tired.
She reached up and entwined her fingers in his hair, pulling his head closer to hers, her lips pressing against his in a leisurely kiss that sent shivers through her body. “I love it when you’re in my dreams.”
“Jack, wake up!” Sera’s voice intruded on her dream.
But she didn’t want to wake up; she wanted to keep Dream Tobias close to her.
Dream Tobias pulled away from her a few inches and grinned down at her. “A good morning to you too.”
She blinked again as Sera came into focus behind Tobias’s head and then she saw Sergeant Kellerman and Cordy on the other side too. Sera was frowning and the sergeant and Cordy were both grinning just like Tobias was. Why were they in her dream too?
Mortification flooded her as she realized she wasn’t dreaming at all.
She closed her eyes tightly and pressed her lips together, unweaving her hands from Tobias’s hair and pushing against his chest. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”
“No, it’s not.” Tobias chuckled as he straightened from where he’d been bent over her, obviously trying to wake her.
Suddenly, she bolted to a sitting position. “Oh, my God, what time is it?”
“It’s nine in the morning,” Tobias said. “The exact time you asked to be woken.”
“I don’t even remember that.” She rubbed at her eyes, trying to clear away the sleep that had gathered.
“You can sleep for another few hours, if you’d like? Tobias murmured. “We don’t have to get to the theater to set up until later.”
She shook her head. “No. We need to plan out everything in detail. That is how illusions are done effortlessly. Nothing is left to chance. We cannot leave anything to chance against Thomas Clorren.”
“All right, as long as you’re sure.” Tobias nodded, holding his hand out for her, which she took and used to come to her feet.
“I’m sure.” The current of energy that jolted into her fingers from his touch was electric.
Quickly, she let go of his hand and walked over to the open window to breathe in some of the crisp morning air.
The last thing she needed was to be distracted by feelings.
Especially now, of all times. “Did the papers print the challenge?”
Sergeant Kellerman stepped forward, already holding several newspapers under his arm as he handed them over to her. “Every major paper in London has put the advertisement on their covers.”
She took the papers and quickly glanced down at their covers, seeing the advertisement on each.
“You’ve certainly announced your return to the living with a flair your father would have been proud of,” Sera dryly commented.
That was certainly true. Her father had loved the spotlight, especially being featured in the papers. “Tonight, I will honor his memory on the stage and then we catch the Conjurer. No ifs or buts or maybes. Mrs. Thompson’s life depends on our plan working.”
“Exactly what is the plan?” Cordy asked, twisting at the ring on her finger as she glanced anxiously at Jack.
“First, we need to get to the theater and check what props are there that we can use for both illusions, then if there’s anything else we need, Sergeant, you and your men can procure them for me.”
“What will we do then?” Cordy asked, her hand waving between her and Sera.
“You’re both going to be practicing with me up on stage.”
“We are?”
“Yes. For the first illusion, Cordy, you will be my assistant.”
“Your assistant?” Cordy blinked, suddenly looking rather nervous. “As in, being up on stage with you while you perform in front of hundreds of people?”
“Yes, you’re extremely personable and chatty, which is just what is needed for the Mystery of Maguire Illusion,” Jack replied.
“What? And I’m not personably or chatty?” Sera asked with a raise of her brow.
“No. You more often wear an expression on your face that’s intimidating.”
“Something I’ve happily cultivated over the years,” Sera said with a grin.
“Which is just what is needed for the second illusion, the Burning Lady.”
“I’m not going up on stage to play the role of your assistant,” Sera replied.
“No, you’re not,” Jack agreed. “You will be the magician and I will be the Burning Lady.”
“Excuse me?” Sera’s jaw dropped open. “I don’t know how to do magic.”
“I’ll teach you what you need to know,” Jack replied. “But for the Burning Lady, it’s imperative I’m the one who drops through the trap door.”
“For the Conjurer to kidnap you, correct?” Tobias stated blandly. “That is your plan, isn’t it? Get him to abduct you?”
Jack sighed. “You know we need him to take me so we can find where he’s keeping Mrs. Thompson.”
“And what if he doesn’t take you but kills you instead?” he asked, his jaw clenching tightly shut. “Have you thought about that?”
“He won’t kill me, at least not straightaway.”
“How comforting.” Tobias didn’t sound happy in the least.
“He’s killed in extremely elaborate ways thus far, and as he’s said, I’m to be his grand finale. He needs to take me to do that, so he’s not going to simply kill me. He’ll want to toy with me first and do his best to make my death into a spectacle. Especially now that I’ve challenged him.”
“She’s right.”
Everyone turned to the doorway of Tobias’s office and saw Dr. Morton standing at the threshold, with a piece of paper in his hand.
“Charles, what’s going on?” Tobias asked.
“You were correct, Inspector.” Dr. Morton sighed deeply before holding out the paper to Tobias. “My friend Dr. Patterson, or at least the man I thought of as my friend, is indeed Thomas Clorren.”
Tobias took the note from the doctor’s hand and read it aloud, “‘By the time you read this, my friend, my path to revenge will nearly be complete and you will have learned of my true identity: that I am Thomas Clorren, now the Baron Denton, and also ‘the Coffin Conjurer,’ as the press have dubbed me. I know you won’t understand why I have done what I’ve had to, but I’ve always admired and respected you, and I wanted you to know that it was all done to serve a far greater cause than myself.
I am not the monster they have been calling me.
I am a crusader, and my destiny is to show the world that magic is an abhorrent fraud in a fool’s paradise.
I will expose its deceit while vindicating my parents as I seek revenge against the Maguires, on this, the twentieth year after they were responsible for destroying my own family.
So please forgive me, my friend, for the work it has given you and will still leave you with, but the road to triumph is paved with sacrifice.
And sacrifice is what must be made in this grand finale that my Jack of Hearts is forcing upon me tonight. Yours in friendship, TC.’”
“How was this delivered to you, Doctor?” Jack asked.
“It was left on my desk in the mortuary, and Bernard hasn’t arrived to work yet to ask when it was put there,” the doctor replied.
“And you still think he’s not insane, Charles?” Tobias asked.
Charles exhaled deeply again. “I honestly don’t know what to think anymore. The man I’ve known for years isn’t the man I thought him to be. Instead of saving lives like we were taught, he’s destroying them. If there’s anything I can do to be of use and help catch him, I will.”
“It might help having you on hand tonight, Charles,” Tobias replied, glancing back to Jack. “Your skills a doctor might be of use, particularly if things don’t go according to plan.”
“Of course. Anything to assist,” the doctor replied with a hearty nod.
Jack felt like rolling her eyes at Tobias’s overly pessimistic attitude, but he wasn’t wrong; a doctor would potentially help, especially if they found Mrs. Thompson and she was hurt. “All right, then, let’s get to the theater and get everything set up.”
They would have to make sure everything was timed to perfection; Mrs. Thompson’s life depended on it.
*
Seeing the newspaper advertisement had enraged him at first. After all, how dare his Jack of Hearts challenge him like this? Saying he, the Conjurer, was a charlatan and not a true magician at all.
Nonsense! He had trained for hours, day and night to be everything his father never could, and to make his parents proud, yet here she was declaring in print that she’d taken issue with him trying to deceive the public about magic!
He hadn’t been deceiving anyone; he’d simply been showing them all the truth behind magic.
After he’d read the first paper, he’d felt like stabbing the newsboy for selling such lies, and he’d only just restrained himself. He’d had to, for he couldn’t slip, not this close to his ultimate triumph, when his plans would finally come to fruition.
Of course, he knew her challenge would be a trap to try to catch him, and that the Egyptian Hall would be crawling with police.
But what she didn’t know…what none of them knew, was that her trap would in fact be a trap of his own.
What none of them knew, not even the new owner of the Egyptian Hall, was a secret that had been built underneath the Hall.
A secret that only Maguire, the old Hall’s owner, and Thomas’s own father had known.
A secret that Thomas now also knew too. A secret that no one would be expecting and would deliver his Jack of Hearts to him on a Goddamn platter.
Challenge him, would she? He started to laugh at the thought but quickly covered it with a cough. He couldn’t draw any undue attention to himself, especially now.
But inwardly, he grinned. The fact that she and the inspector thought they knew who he was, let alone that they could trap him was ludicrous.
He’d been ten steps ahead of them the whole time, and he was still ten steps ahead of them now.
The very fact that they thought they could outsmart him and try to disrupt his plans, only played into them more.
They would be gifting him the Jack of Hearts as a sacrificial offering, and they had no idea they were doing it.
It really was laughable. They could never fathom how driven he was.
How patient he’d been after first finding out that she had been alive five years ago.
Five years to plan and prepare before instigating his ultimate revenge against the last living Maguire.
Fitting that it was during the twenty-year anniversary after his world had been ripped out from under him.
Twenty years of making sacrifices that none should ever have to make.
Of being robbed of his birthright. Of having to pretend to be someone else for all that time.
Finally, the sacrifices would come to fruition.
Finally, he would avenge his father and mother’s ruin, and justice would befall his Burning Lady, the last Maguire.