As the performance came to a close, the audience filed slowly out of the auditorium, but Bruce and Alfred made their way forward. They offered a few words of apology as they progressed against the flow of the crowd toward the exit. When they reached the stage, Bruce and Alfred went around to the left, climbed a short set of stairs, and entered a door at the top.
Backstage was oddly quiet. Bruce had fully expected to find a hornet's nest of activity with stagehands hurrying here and there in an attempt to clear away the props and equipment used by the magician. Instead, he and Alfred found no one backstage. The main lights were off, leaving the area drenched in gloom. If not for the distant glow emanating from the open door of a dressing room, it would've appeared abandoned.
"Strange," Bruce muttered, navigating his way past the clutter of ladders, boxes, mobile spotlights on wheeled stands, and the spider web of ropes keeping the stage lighting and curtains suspended in their proper places.
"A fairly good show," Giovanni's voice said from within the dressing room as Bruce and Alfred approached. "I think we may need to incorporate some new elements. Someone is bound to get suspicious if they see our act enough times."
Bruce halted immediately, and Alfred did the same. The pair held perfectly motionless while listening intently.
"I don't know," replied the voice of the woman who'd been on stage for the performance. "We seem to be doing alright so far. They won't catch on simply because they believe in the mystery of illusion. It's all it is to them, and since their minds are made up, all evidence to the contrary will be disregarded."
"It only takes one," Giovanni countered.
"If you need something new in the act, how about me?" suggested another voice. It sounded feminine, but Bruce could discern little else.
"I've already told you no," Giovanni said firmly. "You don't have the proper training yet to do what we do."
"Dad," protested the new voice in a pleading whine. "Magic is what our family does."
"It makes no difference," Giovanni countered. "I say when you're ready to learn more, and that time has yet to come."
"Fine," the female voice replied sullenly.
Before either Bruce or Alfred could react, a teenage girl departed swiftly from the dressing room and ran into them. With her shoulder length hair the shimmering black of a raven's wing, the blue-eyed girl was a smaller version of the woman who'd appeared on stage with Giovanni during the performance.
"Dad!" the girl yelled, and Giovanni instantly appeared in the doorway.
"How long have you two been here?" Giovanni questioned.
"A few minutes," Bruce answered simply.
"Come in," Giovanni invited, stepping back from the door.
Bruce went in first, followed by Alfred, Giovanni, and the teenage girl who'd bumped into them outside.
The moderately sized room held two mirrored dressers, a pair of cushioned chairs flanking a low table on the right side of the room, and a screen on the left side of the room for dressing behind. A trio of moving trunks protruded out from behind the screen, stacked beside an equal number of matching suitcases. Because of Bruce's training, he looked the room over for things he might use as a weapon or defensively should the magician prove hostile.
"For what purpose did you come here?" Giovanni questioned.
"I was hoping for instruction in being an escape artist," Bruce responded.
YOU ARE READING
Bruce Wayne
FanficWhat does it take to be a hero? Orphaned at a young age, Bruce Wayne is plagued by nightmares of his parents' murder. His quest to fight against the fears in his own mind will lead him to discover the hero he can become. This is not a story about...
