Drake raised his arm. The helicopter eased in closer to the rooftop and started to descend. The downdraft from the blades whipped Alice’s hair into a froth. The roar of the engine swamped all other sound.
“Magic time,” Alice said quietly.
Houdini leaped from her shoulder where he had been perched. He sprang straight at Zara’s throat, becoming visible the instant he lost physical contact with Alice.
For Zara, the moment must have been surreal, Alice thought. Without warning, a fierce creature with four eyes and a great many teeth was suddenly flying at her out of midair. She screamed and stumbled backward.
Houdini landed, drawing blood.
Zara screeched and clawed wildly at him.
“Down, Houdini,” Alice said. “Now.”
Houdini bounded out of reach of Zara’s flailing arms, landing nimbly.
Drake was on Zara before she could aim the pistol. He snapped the mag-rez out of her hand. She crumpled, screaming in frustrated rage. She pounded her fists against the rooftop.
Drake looked at Alice.
“Good trick,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said. Her pulse was pounding. She scooped up Houdini. “But I think I prefer the old knives-in- the-box routine. You always know where you are with knives. Bullets, not so much.”
“We’ll keep that in mind for our next trick.”
Three men wearing FBPI jackets charged out of the stairwell, heading for Zara.
Zara rose slowly to her feet. She stared at Drake in disbelief. “You’re blind in daylight. You can’t see without your special glasses. You’re day-blind, damn you. I destroyed your talent.”
“You altered my talent,” Drake said. “You didn’t destroy it.”
“You’re psi-blind!” Zara shrieked.
She flew at him. Alice watched, cold with shock, because she knew what was going to happen next.
Drake waited until the last possible instant and then he stepped out of Zara’s path. She shrieked again and tried to change course, but it was too late. Carried forward by her own momentum, her knees struck the edge of the low parapet. She toppled forward and flew over the edge of the roof.
Her scream echoed forever, a shrill, keening counterpoint to the drumbeat of the helicopter blades.
And then it was over.
The helicopter settled onto the roof. The pilot shut down the engine.
Alice hurried to Dr. Metford and peeled the tape off her mouth.
Metford took several deep breaths. “There was a heavy sedative in that syringe. She said she planned to use it on you so that you wouldn’t be able to pull any of your tricks. Once she was in the clear she was planning to push you out of the helicopter. She wanted to use you to hurt Mr. Sebastian.”
“Yes,” Alice said. “We assumed that might be her plan.” She reached down to help Metford to her feet. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Metford stood, clearly shaken. She stared at Drake.
The guard, the hospital administrator, and the two orderlies who had emerged from the stairwell stared at him, too.
“Sorry for staring,” Dr. Metford said. “But we were under the impression that you were day-blind.”
Drake fixed on her with his silvery eyes. “Hasn’t anyone ever heard of contact lenses?”
“Crystal contacts?” Dr. Metford said, dumbfounded.
“Something the techs in the Sebastian labs have been working on for me for a while now.” Drake’s jaw tightened. “They’re prototypes. Not the most comfortable things in the world to wear. If you don’t mind, I need to find a nice dark place where I can remove them.”
He went toward the shadowed stairwell.
Dr. Metford looked at Alice.
“He’s going to remove the crystal contacts and put on the other pair of special sunglasses that he brought with him today,” Alice explained.
Dr. Metford’s brows rose. “He knew that Zara Tucker would demand that he destroy his first pair?”
“He knew how she would stage her big scene today. He’s got a talent for business negotiations.”
“Obviously there’s a reason the business world calls him the Magician,” Dr. Metford said.
Alice smiled. “Yes.”
Chapter 48
“YOU KNEW THAT IF SHE SAW ONE LAST OPPORTUNITY TO take revenge that she would try, even if it meant her own death,” Alice said. “That’s why you stood so close to the edge of the roof.”
“I thought there was a high probability she would risk everything at the end, yes,” Drake said.
He drank some of the whiskey in his glass. Alice swallowed some more of her wine. They were on the sofa in the living room of Drake’s town house in the Old Quarter, feet propped side-by-side on the low black lacquer table in front of them.
It was late. Midnight was approaching. Drake was not wearing his sunglasses. The glow of the Dead City Wall was at full force, illuminating the narrow streets and rooftops of the Quarter. The eerie green radiance flooded the living room with paranormal shadows. The only other light came from the fire that burned in the hearth.
The remains of the rich, chunky soup and the sandwiches that Drake’s housekeeper had prepared earlier were on the table in front of the sofa. Houdini had done his best to deal with the leftovers but now he was sprawled flat on his back on the sofa between Alice and Drake.
“You could have been killed,” Alice said. She took a meditative sip of her wine. “You were standing very, very close to the edge.”
“I should have done something permanent about Zara on Rainshadow,” Drake said. “But it would have involved too many other people. Harry, Chief Attridge, Charlotte, Rachel, you.”
“We would all have kept your secret.”
“I know,” Drake said. “But I did not want to put that burden on others who have enough secrets of their own to protect.”
“Now I’m the only one who knows for sure that what happened to Dr. Z was not entirely an accident.”
“Are you okay with that?”
“No,” Alice said. “No, I am not okay with that because you could have been killed with that damn fool bit of strategy out there on the rooftop.”
Drake looked briefly startled by the fierceness of her reaction. “It wasn’t that risky.”
“Yes, it was, and I want your promise that you will never, ever do anything that dumbass again.”
“Dumbass?”
“Yes, dumbass. I’m sure there were other ways of taking out Tucker. You did not have to put your own life on the line.”
“It seemed like the simplest and most effective strategy at the time.”
“Don’t you dare talk to me about strategy. We were staging a trick. Magicians don’t like it when the box- jumper decides to improvise.”
“When I saw Tucker there on the roof, I knew that she would keep coming at you until she was stopped,” Drake said. “She realized that if she could hurt you, she would have her revenge against me. Sooner or later she might have been successful. I could not allow that.”
“I realize you felt an obligation to protect me. I appreciate that. However—”
“Don’t say that.”
She frowned. “Don’t say what?”
“Don’t say that you appreciate my need to protect you.”
