♤ 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚒𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 ♤ ʰˣʰ ʰⁱˢᵒᵏᵃ

I. The Circus

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A paranormal circus wasn't really my kind of thing, but I didn't have any performances that evening and an anonymous benefactor had sent me a front-row ticket.

The sparkling white-and-pink circus tent was packed with people. I admit that I can be a bit skittish sometimes, and the macabre costumes of the undead clowns that would roam the aisles startled me an embarrassing number of times, but the show was a spectacle well worth the scares. The acts were at once chilling and captivating. I found myself holding my breath as the vampiric knife-thrower stabbed silver blades dangerously close to her prey, and gasped with the rest of the audience when the ghoulish acrobats clung precariously to each other in their aerial act.

Among the extravagantly dangerous performances, though, the show-stopper was none other than the circus magician.

Tall, lean, muscular, and dressed in a dark-pink, satin suit, the magician didn't look any older than twenty or twenty-one. It wasn't uncommon for young prodigies to enter the performance scene so early, but something about him was different. He exuded a kind of confidence that most wouldn't learn to have until well into their career, and wore a slightly crooked smirk that made him at once charming and dangerous.

As for his tricks, they were nothing short of breathtaking. With a wave of his hand, he turned the flowing purple drapes around the aerial silk dancer into fluttering, small flowers and effortlessly caught the dancer in his arms. He called a volunteer to the stage, whispered something in his ear, and made him dance like a puppet on its strings. At one point he simply walked onstage and snapped his fingers, instantly engulfing himself in deep violet flames that rose high into the air before slowly sputtering out as he took a small bow, completely unscathed.

I rarely found much of a challenge in puzzling out the secrets of other magicians' routines, since my own familiarity with magic usually made it easy to reason out how others would craft their own tricks. The silk turning into petals was a work of clever setup and practiced timing backstage. The volunteer who got hypnotized was most likely planted there. And while a full-body burn was a bold move, these circus performers were probably used to risking their lives daily.

I only began to suspect something was strange when the young magician began to perform a classic stage trick. A slender lady accompanied him onstage and lowered herself into a long wooden crate.

Conventionally, the crate would be placed on a specially designed table, but the table onstage was plain.

The crate was also commonly wide enough to fold the body into, but this one was a tight fit.

The feet sticking out of one side of the crate wouldn't usually move, but these bobbed as the lady adjusted herself.

Mildly impressed, I was beginning to think of what clever trick the young magician had devised when the giant carpenter's saw bit deep into the crate and the lady began to scream.