2. Pelican’t
Pelican’t
The magician was falling.
Or rather, he sensed himself falling, down into infinite darkness. But there was no “down” in the Void. No down or up, no north, south, east, or west. In the Void there was only infinite descent. The unending sensation of stepping off a curbstone and into eternity.
He screamed.
His scream pierced the nap of Elias Shaw, who lifted his head and sighed. “Goddammit. Here we go again.”
Rubbing sleep from his eyes, Shaw gazed around the room.
In one corner sat a heavy oak receptionist’s desk with no receptionist. On the desk, a heavy rotary phone that never rang, an appointment calendar with no dates, and a mug of pens with no ink.
Along the perimeter sat thirteen uncomfortable chairs, the kind that cordially disinvite people from sitting on them for too long.
Adorning the corners were lamps with no bulbs and dead spider plants in beige macrame planters.
A long, low table in the center of the room was home to a collection of magazines written in indecipherable languages.
Based on his thorough study of the illustrations, he surmised the magazines were variously devoted to vegetarian cookery, underwater hockey, interior design for lighthouses, and the care of Nigerian dwarf goats.
The walls, like the planters, were beige.
The only jolts of color were a collection of motivational posters, tacked awkwardly here and there.
Be a pelican, advised one poster, not a pelican’t.
A photo of a man standing atop an iceberg was captioned simply, ACHIEVEMENT!
Beside the receptionist’s desk, a poster declared, You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!
The room had two doors on opposing sides. One door opened to the Void beyond. The other door was behind the desk, and where it led, he didn’t know. Shaw had been in this waiting room for almost a century, and the door had never opened. He’d come to hope it never would.
Outside, the magician continued to scream.
“Fine,” he muttered. “Another roommate, exactly what I need.” Pushing himself to his feet, Shaw straightened his tie, buttoned his jacket, and combed his hair into submission with his fingers. Then he strode to the far door and stepped out into the infinite dark.
The magician continued screaming his fool head off. He was falling and he’d keep on falling until either his sentence in the Void had been served or someone chose to help him. Around him, translucent creatures writhed and twisted, their worm-like bodies wrapping around his limbs like living ropes.
“Jesus Jumping Christ, look at this mope.” Shaw knew the type all too well: sparkly tuxedo, ridiculous cape, hair pomaded to oblivion.
One of those stage magicians who thought sequins would compensate for a lack of actual talent.
The only unusual element was the rabbit cage clutched in his arms. Even in the depths of cosmic punishment, this mope wouldn’t let go of his props.
The poor bunny was bouncing around inside the cage like dice in a cup while the Void creatures tried to slither through the bars.
Shaw felt significantly more empathy for the bunny than the man.
Reaching out, he snagged the magician by the scruff of his glittery cape, yanking him toward the waiting room like a longshoreman hauling cargo. Crossing the threshold, the magician was still thrashing, still screaming, still slapping at things no longer there.
“Get them off! Get them off me!” He dropped the rabbit cage and fell to his knees, frantically brushing at his arms and chest. “They’re everywhere! I can feel them crawling—”
“Hey!” Shaw grabbed him by the shoulders. “You’re safe now.”
The magician’s wild eyes gradually focused. He looked around the beige waiting room, then down at his arms where nothing crawled. “I . . . they were . . .” He shuddered violently. “Those things . . .”
“Yeah, them Void Leeches are a real treat, ain’t they?” Shaw tried not to smirk at the man’s mortified expression.
“Void Leeches?”
“Dunno, that’s just what I call ’em. Hell, I probably screamed for a week straight when I first got here. Those leeches gobble up panic like kids eat candy.”
The magician scrambled to retrieve his rabbit cage, clutching it protectively. “Good God!” he gasped as he took in the space. “What—where—how—”
“Welcome to purgatory, kid.” Shaw dusted himself off as he surveyed his unwelcome guest. “You got a name?”
The man struggled to his feet, which was initially challenging as his cape was tangled around his legs like seaweed.
When he’d composed himself, he stood fully upright, lifted one arm high above his head, then bowed low.
“I am Maximillian the Magnificent, at your— Wait a minute.” He stared at Shaw, sudden recognition dawning.
“Wait a minute! You’re . . . No, you can’t be! ”
“Can’t be what, sport?”
“Elias Shaw?” Max’s voice was barely above a whisper, equal parts awe and disbelief. “The Elias Shaw?”
“Well, I’ll be damned. They still talk about me on the outside?
” Shaw dropped back into a chair, propping his feet on the coffee table.
Back when he was a free man, he would’ve lit himself a smoke right about now.
Alas he’d run out of coffin nails about ninety-seven years ago, so he removed a deck of cards from his jacket pocket and began a series of complex practice shuffles.
“So you heard of me? After all this time.”
“Every magician worth his salt knows about Elias Shaw and Upson Burke III. Burke, he had everything: old money—hell, ancient money, probably—and all the magicians’ council connections you could imagine. And you waltzed right in and cleaned him out. I mean, that’s what people say.”
Shaw grinned. “I convinced the pompous prick that he’d triple his money with a land investment in Florida.
Of course, I’d actually just cast a spell to make 10,000 acres of the Okefenokee swamp look like prime beachfront property.
Which I thought was a pretty damned good trick.
Come to find out, Burke didn’t find it very funny at all.
So I skedaddled, got caught obviously, and ended up here with a so-called life sentence. ”
“But, sir, if you don’t mind . . . what I never understood was, why pick him? Anybody could’ve predicted that he’d bring the entire council down on your head. Literally any mark on Earth would be easier than Burke.”
“Of all the chickens in the henhouse, as it were, why pick the biggest rooster? Is that your question? Well, Max, he hurt someone I loved very much—that’s why.”
“Who?”
Shaw shook his head. “No chance. New topic, please. Say, why don’t you sit down, Max? You’re making me tired standing there.”
Max gently set down his rabbit cage and took a seat. “So, you got sent here in 1924, is that right?
“No, ’26,” he corrected.
“You haven’t aged at all! You don’t look a day over thirty.”
“Time doesn’t exist in the Void, so as far as I’m concerned, I ain’t a day over thirty. I’ve got no connection to the calendar anymore. Why, what year is it now out there?”
“It’s 2026, sir.”
Shaw let out a long whistle. “Great Caesar’s ghost, a whole century, that’s a lot .
. . Vivi must’ve passed on by now. That was my partner, Miss Vivi .
. . We worked the rackets together all over Chicago.
She’d reel in the chickens and I’d skin ’em.
Made me sore as all hell, taking a powder way I did .
. ..” He sighed sadly. “Anyway, 2026, huh? You all coasting around in flying jalopies and whatnots?”
“Afraid not, sir. No flying cars yet.”
“Bah. Well, what the hell is the point of it all, if you don’t have flying cars?”
“Where exactly are we? This appears to be some sort of . . . office?”
“Waiting room.” The older man gestured vaguely at their surroundings. “Limbo with magazines.”
“The Void has a waiting room? But why?”
“No clue, kid. When I first got dumped in this cosmic hoosegow, I was out there, just like you were. Some fella pulled me in here. Before I even got his name, he was gone, and I’ve been stuck in this dump ever since.
Still, while it ain’t exactly a mansion in Newport, it beats falling through space forever with leeches trying to crawl up your nose.
” Shaw leaned back, studying his guest with the calculating gaze of a cardsharp sizing up a mark.
“Question is, what’d you do to piss off the council badly enough to earn a one-way ticket to nowhere? ”
Max’s face went through a series of expressions—surprise, fear, indignation, and finally a kind of theatrical defiance that would have been impressive if it weren’t so fake.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he declared with wounded dignity.
“I am a legitimate entertainer. Maximillian the Magnificent has never—”
“Cut the act, champ. Nobody ends up in the Void by accident. You pissed off the council—you must have. So, what’d you do? You either crossed the wrong magician, or you helped the wrong witches.”
The newcomer sighed. “Oh, all right. It was probably the latter, but I’m not completely sure.
I know the witches had Quentin—that’s my furry friend here.
I must’ve done something to get him back, but I don’t know what, because this ridiculous place has some sort of a spell cast over it where you can’t remember what happened there. And no, not Las Vegas.”
“Huh,” Shaw said thoughtfully. “You couldn’t mean a little town called Oak Haven, could you?”
“You’ve heard of it?!”
“I have, actually. I helped out a coupla dames from Oak Haven one time. Don’t recall exactly when that was, but as I say, I don’t recall exactly when anything was.
Whole concept of when isn’t really my bailiwick anymore.
But I do recollect they told me about that forgetting spell they got.
Quite a pip, sounds like. I could’ve used a forgetting spell myself, once or twice. ”
“Wait, you’re saying you helped them? But you’re a magician!”