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

Crew came and blotted down John’s hair, then gave him a hand to a dozen chairs arranged in three rows of four where, in the back row, Bev and Fabian were waiting. Fabian, John was pleased to see, looked damp, but very much alive. John sat beside his new friend while a stylist gave his hair a comb, a quick tousle, and a spritz of hairspray. “Damn fish went up my nose,” Fabian muttered. “I can hold my breath three minutes, easy. If I could do it again, I’d do it without the fish.”

_____

If there was one thing Marlene would never have anticipated, it was the oldest female contestant coming out of the first round in the lead without even touching a drop of water. Before the challenge, Muriel Broom would have been her pick for one of the first magicians to pack up and leave the mansion. But she didn’t mind being proven wrong. The executive producers had presumed a man would win the competition, for instance. Thanks to talent, and stubbornness, and plain dumb luck, Magic Mansion really could be anyone’s game.

Muriel Broom trouncing Fabian Swan proved as much.

The second tier of magicians lined up: Chip Challenge on the end in his Elvis sunglasses, Jia Lee beside him, then Ricardo the Magnificent and his ever-present cheesy smile, and next to him, the ventriloquist, Charity Young…and her creepy puppet. Or dummy. Or figure. Or whatever the hell she was supposed to call it—Marlene could never remember.

Through Marlene’s headset, Iain asked, “Do you want us to have Chip take off his sunglasses?”

“That’s okay, leave ’em on. It’s his trademark. Besides, it might be kind of funny.”

Iain allowed Chip’s glasses to stay. They did look pretty funny, on Marlene’s monitor. A camera swept by as the magicians put their heads in position. Chip with his sunglasses. Next, Jia, serious and calm. Next, Ricardo, no longer smiling. And next, Oscar.

That was the ridiculous puppet’s name.

Marlene tapped her headset. “Iain? What the hell does Charity think she’s doing?”

“I’ll talk to her.” Some static, and then Iain said, “She’s claustrophobic. Says we can do it as a gag—have the dummy in the box instead, and she’ll pull him out early and play it up, gasping for air, whatever.”

“That’s just weird.”

On the monitor, Iain turned so he was facing away from the contestants, cupped a hand over his mouth, and whispered to Marlene, “If we do it that way, it’ll give everyone else someone to hate. Think how cheated they’ll feel if she gets away without doing the stunt.”

It would make for some interesting footage. But Charity Young wouldn’t be the only one the contestants would hate if Marlene allowed it happen. “And where does the puppet doing her challenges end? No, we’ve got to keep up the pretense of fairness here. Put that damn thing in her chair and start the timers.”

Charity Young was not a particularly attractive woman. She was pushing thirty, and carried an extra dozen pounds that she camouflaged, not particularly well, behind a glitzy silver track suit. Her makeup was heavy, but the features behind it were ungainly, with long, horsey teeth and eyes that always looked nervous.

There was something “off” about her voice as she argued with Iain in the monitor, informing him that under no circumstances would she put her head in that box. It took Marlene a moment to realize what it was: she’d never heard Charity’s actual voice before. Because whenever they spoke, Charity would hold up Oscar and move his stiff little mouth, and deliver whatever it was she wanted to say in a silly falsetto.

“Look,” Iain told her, “just put your head in the box—”

“I won’t—”

“—and the minute the timer starts—”

“I can’t—”

“—hit the red button, and you’re outta there.”

“B-but I can’t.” Charity’s chin trembled.

“Do it,” Iain said, “or you’re disqualified.”

Marlene smiled. It was the type of decision he would have normally saddled her with to make her look like a bitch, but he’d actually made it himself. She checked the time. Half past midnight. You could practically set your watch by Iain’s temper.

Charity glared at him mulishly, until Ricardo put a hand on her shoulder and said, “Think of how far you had to come just to get here. You can’t throw it all away now. It’ll be okay. Just do it for a second, and it’ll be over before you know it.”

Charity handed the puppet to an assistant as if she was giving up her firstborn child, then treated Iain to one more parting glare, and said, “Fine. I’m ready.”

It was more like five seconds before she hit the panic button, with cameras swarming all around her. No doubt in edits they’d draw out those five seconds, showing them in the intro, the outro, and before every commercial break, until the audience was seeing them in their sleep.

“Good job, Charity,” Marlene said, microphone off, to the empty production trailer.

Based on the experiences of the first group of magicians, fewer in the second wave opted to be nibbled on by fish. Only Chip Challenge hit the mega-charge fish button, but he was so out of shape that even with his timer running at double-time, his score was still one of the lowest: fifty-nine seconds.

Ricardo, who immediately pressed the water-only turbo-charge button, held his breath underwater for just over three minutes. It gave him an adjusted score of four minutes thirty seconds. And Jia Lee managed three minutes as well—though she’d done it dry, so her score stayed low.

Marlene took a few deep breaths as the contestants joined the others in the chairs. That two-minute statistic the writers had fed through Monty couldn’t possibly be right. She’d been holding her breath along with the magicians, and she couldn’t manage to go more than forty-five seconds, tops, without breathing. Though she supposed having a quarter mil at stake would make all the difference in the world.

Chapter 11

PICKING TEAMS

Ricardo was pleased with his performance in the first challenge.