Magic Mansion by Jordan Price (best fiction books to read .txt) 📕

the other magicians did or not. Iain’s was the only voice that fed through his monitor.

“Okay,” Iain said. “This is a one-shot stunt—no do-overs. Meaning, if you cry uncle, you’re disqualified, you lose, and that’s that. Understand?”

John gave a thumbs-up.

“There’s an hour’s worth of sand in there. If it all pours out, it’ll be waist-high, so there’ll be no problem keeping on top of it. In all likelihood, one of you will unlock your door before then. It took our stunt coordinator fifteen minutes—and we even added more keys after that, just to make sure no one would get buried too deep. But if does take all of you longer than an hour to locate a key, don’t worry. There’s plenty of ventilation. It’ll just turn into a dig-off at that point. Any questions?” There was a pause, and then Iain said, “There’s thirty keys total in every hourglass, but you only need one. They’re all the same. Anything else?” Another pause while another magician presumably asked something. “The gravity boots are fastened with heavy duty hook-and-loop tape. You need to tear out of them.”

“Who can hear us?” John asked.

“I can hear you. Monty can. And so can everyone at the soundboard. Chances are, unless you’re talking to Monty, we won’t use much of your audio in the final cut—in our test run it sounded like a bunch of breathing—but we will want some, so keep the pottymouth to a minimum. That means you, Kazan.”

Beneath all his gear, Kevin postured.

“Everybody ready? Okay, we’re rolling. Action.”

Chapter 39

SANDS OF TIME

“It’s time for Magic Mansion’s final challenge,” Monty said with requisite flair and drama, “where our top four magicians compete for the chance of a lifetime—a European tour, and a quarter million dollars. Not only are they facing one another. They’re also going up against…the Sands of Time. Each magician chose one of the eliminated contestants to strap them in—so let’s get to it. Magicians, hold out your arms. It’s time for your straitjackets.”

John held out his arms, and Ken wrapped the canvas garment around his front and pulled the sleeves over his hands. The expression on Ken’s face was startlingly intense, and he dressed John with plenty of brisk yanks and tugs…though all the pulling in the world at this point wouldn’t affect the final fit of the straitjacket, not until the buckles were fastened. However, it would look extreme.

“These are regulation straitjackets,” Monty said, “just like Houdini would have used.”

Unlikely. These weren’t nineteenth-century period straitjackets—they were new. But they were the same as the one John had practiced with, and that’s what mattered. He grabbed some slack in the right armpit with his left hand, crossed his dominant arm over the top, and inhaled deeply to make himself bigger.

He needn’t have been so cautious. Casey had been twice as fastidious about strapping him in firmly, although Ken Barron made a much bigger show with all his yanking, pulling and grunting. The only one louder than Ken…was Sue.

She forced the straps on Kevin Kazan’s straitjacket so tight, she was flushed and gasping with the effort.

“Yo, take it easy, girl,” Kevin said, voice muffled by the respirator, as she tightened the strap that came up between his legs. “I’m gonna lose a nut.”

“Too bad. You picked me so I couldn’t work with Ricardo—and now you’ve got me.”

Plenty of John’s friends threw around the word “karma,” but he’d never seen it materialize quite so instantly as it did for Kevin. As far as John was concerned, it couldn’t happen to a better person.

“All snug, Magicians?” Monty said. “Then step into your hourglasses.”

The hourglasses might look convincing from afar, but up close, they were a bizarre combination of steel and plexi. The sand compartments were octagonal, with the flat sheets of safety glass held to a frame by brackets and bolts. The more utilitarian parts were hidden from the camera by a decorative trim painted garishly in red and gold. From John’s vantage point, however, the interior of the hourglass looked like a giant cluster of hardware.

The structure that joined the two hourglass halves was an elaborately-rigged piece of equipment. L-brackets held a central disc in place that divided one half of the hourglass from the other. Openings in the disc would control the flow of the sand. Gravity boots were affixed in the center, so sand would pour down all around the upended magician. No doubt the visual effect would be stunning. Still, John’s anxiety was screaming for him to opt out of the challenge, to stay on this side of the plexi and let the other magicians put their fate in the stunt coordinator’s hands. But Ricardo was one of those magicians, and if Ricardo was going through with it, so would he. If there was any spite to be drawn, it made the most sense to give it more targets upon which to expend itself.

John stepped carefully into the glass enclosure and lined up his feet with the gravity boot cuffs. A stunt tech strapped him in firmly. He looked at Ricardo. A stunt tech was strapping him in, too. Everything would be fine. The techs knew what they were doing. Ricardo gave John a small nod. Wrapped and strapped in yards of canvas and padding, it was the only thing he could really do—other than relaying a message to him through the soundboard. But no, he’d told John how he felt before the stunt. It was enough. John nodded back.

The glass door clicked shut behind John, and his eardrums flexed. While the hourglass might have been ventilated, John still felt like a firefly in a mason jar. Sweat broke out on his forehead and back suddenly, as if it had been waiting for the signal of that click to spring forth. John reminded himself he wasn’t claustrophobic. And within the hour, hopefully less, someone would win or lose the competition. At that point he would be free—and not just of the giant bug jar. Really and truly free.

“Ready, kids?” Iain