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

wouldn’t have been surprised if, beneath that unforgiving dress, she had quite the girdle on. There was a certain naive sweetness to her, though of course that might have been just the image she was trying to project.

Ricardo gave John a parting look, and allowed himself to be drawn away by the girl in pink, and into the circle of women who’d evidently adopted him.

The fog parted, and this time the young man who emerged was not wearing a tux. His clothing was likely just as expensive, though, from his stiff jeans to his baseball cap with its brim at a 45-degree angle. Diamonds glittered from his ears, his fingers, his belt buckle, and his heavy gold necklaces. His eyes were hidden by mirrored shades.

Beside John, Fabian sighed and said, “Bling just looks so wrong on white kids.”

John made a noncommittal noise in reply. He’d spent his life in suits. Street wear was hardly his forte.

The gangsta-style magician sauntered past the women and Ricardo and approached Fabian Swan first, with the greeting, “’Sup, man? I’m a huge fan—massive. Kevin Kazan.”

He didn’t offer a handshake, John noticed.

“Thank you,” Fabian said with no particular enthusiasm.

“Pro-fess-or,” Kevin said, nodding at John. “Kickin’ it oldschool.”

John supposed that was a compliment. “Pleased to meet you.”

Without acknowledging any of the other magicians, Kevin Kazan slipped into the group beside Fabian Swan as if he plainly deserved a position at his idol’s right hand, and then turned to watch the arrival of the next magician.

The technicians freshened up the fog, which was beginning to dissipate as the ground cooled, and Jia Lee stepped from the billowing mist in a floor-length red silk gown with a butterfly clasp at the high mandarin collar and a deep teardrop cutout over her cleavage. A black dragon embroidered in shimmery thread undulated down the dress’ right side. Each stride she took toward the group revealed a thigh-high slit in the skirt. Her hair was knotted in a sleek bun, and her Oriental makeup was flawless. Her look was traditional, yes, but also edgy in its severity. She nodded calmly to the group, then took her place by John’s side without a word.

Interesting, he thought, how she hadn’t gravitated toward the other women—though he wasn’t entirely sure what it meant, if anything. Quite possibly, she wished to align herself with the other “name” magicians, like John and Fabian. Certainly, she was the most well-known of the three of them, with her recent theatrical success. She only came up to John’s shoulder, and was probably a third his age. Not that it made her any less intimidating.

The fog released two more “name” magicians: Ken Barron, a middle-aged escape artist who was able to dislocate his fingers and shoulders at will, and Chip Challenge, who’d been working the comedy clubs for years with his Elvis-impersonator magic act. They gravitated toward Jia, though John wouldn’t say she’d ever actually met their eyes. And so the magicians sorted themselves, the unknowns at one end, with Ricardo among them, and the successful performers at the other.

John knew he should have felt grateful to count himself among the successes. Recent conversations with Dick might have suggested otherwise. But with Ricardo just a few feet away, he found it difficult to even care which end of the spectrum he occupied.

Cameramen took a few sweeps of the group, twelve magicians in all, while Marlene called out, “Look at the mansion—look lively,” but all John could think about was Ricardo. If the cameramen captured some fleeting expression of yearning in his eyes when they swung past him, the sight of the mansion was not its cause. Ricardo was.

Marlene said, “Step over here, folks, and arrange yourself around the front steps in a semicircle. If you’ve found a buddy, feel free to whisper to them, hold hands, what have you. The viewers thrive on seeing the chemistry between the contestants.” John glanced down at Jia, who stood rigidly, staring straight ahead. He couldn’t imagine holding hands with her any more than he could imagine high-fiving Fabian. He glanced down the line at Ricardo, who was captive in the middle of a chain of women—the young lady in pink lamé on one side and a pair of middle-aged women on the other. Ricardo met his eye, and gave a small “what can you do?” shrug.

It was good he had allies. Too bad they weren’t the same allies John had somehow begun to cultivate by the mere act of walking across a lawn. He supposed the sight of him holding hands with Ricardo wasn’t quite what the producers had been looking for anyway. Personally, it would have been a huge thrill to make such a bold statement…but professionally, it would have been a disaster. No doubt both magicians could be re-cast in the morning, with hardly a blip in the production schedule, for even attempting such a stunt.

A handsome young man off to the side read from a sheaf of papers while a stylist powdered his brow and arranged his blond hair. A producer spoke with him briefly, then he slipped into the mansion’s front door. That door hadn’t seemed terribly large from a distance, but up close, with a man beside it for scale, it looked easily twelve feet tall. At the sight of that door, the enormity of this strange adventure upon which John was about to embark came clear.

He might not be the hand-holding type, but he did exchange a look with Fabian before the doors swung open, and the handsome young man strode back out and announced, “Welcome, magicians. I’m your host, Monty Shaw, and this…is Magic Mansion!”

Chapter 9

FIRST CHALLENGE

Cameras zoomed in on the host. Still more cameras swooped past the line of magicians. Sue Wozniak, the gift shop girl, squeezed Ricardo’s right hand. Bev Austin, the Math Wizard, squeezed his left. Spiritualist Muriel Broom held on to Bev’s other hand, completing their clique—four strong, a full third of the players, bonded over the horrific morning they’d