Another summer had come to an end and he was glad. Summer had always been her favorite time of year.

Hunching his shoulders under the black flannel overcoat that was a perfect match to both the approaching night and his mood, he sidestepped to avoid a headlong collision with two young ladies of fashion—faces rosy from the chill, giggling at trifles—and stumbled over a hidden crack in the sidewalk. Before he could catch himself, his shoulder glanced off a man in a sporty houndstooth jacket.

“Hey! Watch it, bub.”

It was the standard response of the affluent Upper West Side dweller, so he took no notice. New York ers, he’d come to understand, were proud of their boorish behavior and took delight in showing it off. As a New Yorker himself, residing as he did on 113th Street, he would have been well within his rights to counter the suggestion with a comparable reply, but an instant later, the man in the hound’s-tooth recognized him with a great, and boisterous, outpouring of unmitigated respect.

“Oh, my God . . . Mr. Houdini, I’m . . . I apologize, sir. My fault entirely. Please forgive me.”

Houdini nodded, mouthing words that never quite managed to reach his lips, and tried to move on—all too aware of the sudden silence as those who a moment before had been individuals intent only on making their way home for the night, became a crowd.

“It’s him!” A young feminine voice circled momentarily above the others like a bright bird. “It’s really him!”

“Saw your show last year, sir. Wonderful, absolutely won—”

“Thought he was taller than that!”

“Do a trick!”

“Oh, yes. Give us a trick!”

And then the voices condensed into one. “Trick! Trick! Give us a trick!”

A trick . . . that’s all they thought he could do. To them, he was just another stage magician; more well known, perhaps, but no different from any street corner sleight-of-hand hustler who’d mastered the skill of palming peas and moving walnut shells.

“Here, someone grab his hands!” Someone yelled and another someone did just that. Grabbed his hands and held one while shouting “There now. Used to row for Princeton and still have a fair grip, I warrant. Let see you get out of this!”

The crowd—mob—howled in delight and he heard, somehow, another voice bray that if the Great Houdini could get out of handcuffs “—a man’s grip shouldn’t be a problem.”

Houdini took a deep breath and stared at the man holding him. It was Houndstooth, grinning, his eyes alight; his hand tightening until Houdini felt the bones of his wrists grind against one another.

“Go on,” the man coaxed, “get free.”

So he did.

Dislocating the bones of his hands and folding his flesh in upon itself, he slipped free and stepped back just as one of New York’s finest began dispersing the crowd with less than gentle admonishments.

Houndstooth gaped, loose-jawed at Houdini and raised hands that were still clenched, holding nothing but air.

“My God . . . he did it.”

There was little of the crowd remaining, but the police officer waited until what applause there was had faded before apologizing for their behavior.

“Sorry, Mr. Houdini. Would you like me to accompany you, sir?”

Shaking his head, he pulled his hat’s brim lower over his eyes. “That won’t be necessary, officer. My destination is just up the street, but thank you. For everything.”

“My pleasure, sir. And may I say that I took my family to see your last performance and, well, sir, it was marvelous. Good night, sir.”

Houdini watched the officer fade into the dim autumn twilight before turning toward the elegant brownstone two doors away.

It had been almost a full year since the publication of his Margery pamphlet for Scientific American in which he exposed the famous Chicago medium for the cheat she was . . . and lost forever, he thought, a dear friend.

Almost a year. Another year.

Mameh. One more year, making eleven that she’d been gone.

Houdini took a deep breath and forced the thought from him. He couldn’t allow himself to appear vulnerable tonight . . . especially not tonight. And especially not in front of the man who had requested his presence.

The note had come on thick velum edged in gold, the envelope addressed in a masculine hand. The words were kept to a minimum.

ACD: Arthur Conan-Doyle. Sir Arthur—the man whose friendship he’d thought lost forever. The man, though brilliant and practical, apparently still believed it was possible for the dead to commune with the living.

“As if a thing were possible,” he whispered to remind himself that it wasn’t. For if the dead could pierce the veil she would have already done so.

The wind shifted and tugged at his coat. Straightening his shoulders, he took the envelope from his pocket and checked the address against the polished brass numerals of the brownstone he now stood before. Lights shone in the front windows, the lace curtains casting golden spiderwebs across the twin stone lions that guarded the stoop. Houdini patted one as he ascended. The cut-glass porch lamp illuminated the small, thin gold ring on his little finger as he reached for the ram’s head doorknocker. It had been his mother’s and was the only thing he had left of her.

The only thing he would ever have, despite the Englishman’s supposed proof.

The butler who answered the door nodded a greeting as he took Houdini’s hat and coat, then immediately led the way to the dark-paneled drawing room where his one-time friend sat staring into the coals of a dying fire. Only the firelight moved in the room; the man himself could have been carved from marble. The butler, well-trained, cleared his throat before announcing, “Mr. Houdini, my lord.”

My lord. Houdini brushed a finger across his lips to hide the smile. How like the man to preserve aristocratic ceremony in a rented brownstone.

“Harry. I’m glad you’re here.” Houdini watched an elderly man in maroon brocade push himself to his feet with the use of a silver tipped cane. It had been only been a few years, but in that time age seemed to have crept up on the man like a strangling vine.

And how old do I seem to him? He asked himself as their hands met in a firm clasp.

Sir Arthur’s smile faded a moment later when his gaze fell on the torn breast pocket of Houdini’s suit coat. “Still in mourning, I see.”

It wasn’t a condemnation, merely a fact. Houdini nodded and was the first to break the clasp.

“Always, Sir Arthur. You’re looking well.” Small talk—safe and polite, just the sort of thing to test the water. “The newspapers made no mention that you were in town. Doing research for a new book?”

The Englishman smiled, but shook his head and motioned toward a chair opposite the one he’d just left. “Research, yes, but not for a book of fiction. No, this time I’m here for you, Harry, to give you immutable and inexorable proof of the spirit realm.”

“So your note stated.” Houdini tried to keep his emotions in check as he sat, but could already feel the rush of blood pulsing beneath his collar. “Immutable? Inexorable? You mean, of course, indisputable, don’t you, Sir Arthur? I would have thought, after all that has happened, this particular subject was dead between us.”

“Marvelous pun,” Sir Arthur chuckled over his shoulder. He was bending over a small round table, pouring sherry into two fluted glasses. “You should have been a writer, Harry.”

“I am.”

Sir Arthur handed Houdini a glass, finishing his own before he returned to his chair. “Ah, yes, those . . . articles for Scientific American. I understand your reasons behind it, but still maintain my original position that the poor lady was nervous and so wanted to impress you, that she . . .”

Houdini took a sip to keep from offering his position. Again.

“. . . made a mistake in judgment. I am still convinced of her ability, but Margery is not the reason I sent that note.”

Houdini lowered his glass. “If the proof you’ve mentioned in any way relates to this lady, you will forgive me if I—”

Sir Arthur waved him back into his chair. “No, Harry, it’s not about Margery, though perhaps, one day, we may discuss her again. The proof I have will convince even a skeptic such as yourself . . . Ehrich.”

The glass slipped from Houdini’s fingers, bleeding its last drop into the thick Persian rug at his feet. Ehrich was her pet name for him; no one else called him that, not even Bess.

Mameh.

“How?”

But again the Englishman waved. “Do you confirm the name, Harry?”

Houdini sat back in the chair, folding his hands into his lap to conceal their trembling. “Yes. But that’s an easy thing to find out, Sir Arthur.”

“I didn’t think it would be that easy, Harry. So—”

Leaning forward, Sir Arthur reached into the breast pocket of his brocade smoking jacket and pulled from it, as slowly and carefully as any theatrical illusionist, an embroidered silken handkerchief.

Houdini closed his eyes, but could still see the tiny blue forget-me-nots that decorated one corner above the lavender-hued initials: C. W.

Cecelia Weiss.

“Did this belong to your mother?”

The room swam momentarily when he opened his eyes, and he watched his hand, a pale and shaking thing, take the handkerchief and carry it to his face. The scent of Arlequinade, his mother’s favorite perfume, filled his head. It was her hankerchief, the same one she had embroidered a year before her death; the same one he himself had placed beneath her hands as she lay in her coffin. It was the last thing he’d done before they closed the lid.

How could anyone have taken it?

“It is hers, isn’t it, Harry?”

“It is.” Houdini caressed the gossamer material between his fingers. “Where did you get it?”

A wide smile bristled Sir Arthur’s silver walrus mustache as he rapped the tip of the cane into the rug’s thick nap. The sound was as hollow as a dying heartbeat.

“Then it’s true . . . it’s true! It is your mother’s!”

Houdini vaulted to his feet, the delicate cloth now crushed beneath the fist he shook before the Englishman’s still smiling face. “I asked you where you got it!”

“From a man, Harry. A spiritualist.”

“A grave robber, you mean!”

“Harry, please, sit down and listen.”

When it was obvious that Sir Arthur wouldn’t continue until he did, Houdini took a deep breath and forced himself to comply. Sir Arthur nodded.

“A month ago in London, at the home of Lord and Lady Bancroft, I watched the man I have just mentioned pull that handkerchief from thin air. He was sitting in a chair surrounded by a dozen people, myself included. No one was near enough to touch him or be touched in return. It was—”

“Magic,” Houdini said and, before Sir Arthur’s eyes, made the handkerchief disappear and then, a moment later reappear. “Sleight-of-hand is the first trick every magician learns, Sir Arthur. And if that is the basis of your proof—”

“It’s not, and do give me some credit, if you please. I have watched you and others perform enough to know the difference. And this was different, Harry. A moment after the handkerchief appeared there was a voice—disembodied, floating in the very air around us—a woman’s voice. A voice that sounded very much as I remember your mother’s to be.”

“Good God.” Houdini didn’t even attempt to stop the laughter that came from his lips. Or minimize its sarcastic tone. “Hand magic and a recorded woman’s voice which may or may not have been—”

“Your mother—the voice gave us a message for you, by name, Ehrich. I apologize for the pronunciation.” Sir Arthur cleared his throat and, finally, had the good grace to appear contrite. “The message is, ‘Nit azoy gich, mine zun.’ I’m afraid I don’t know what it means.”

Houdini looked down and gently opened his hand. “It means, ‘Not so fast, my son.’ It was the last thing my mother said to me before I got on the boat for Europe. I’d run down the gangplank, you see, to give her one last kiss and almost slipped. She scolded me for it.

“She’d whispered to me, Sir Arthur. No one, I thought, had heard it. Who is this man?”

“His name is Yeildgrave.”

“As ludicrous a stage name as ever I’ve heard, but an appropriate one for a grave robber.” Chuckling low in his throat, Houdini folded the handkerchief and tucked it into his vest pocket. “I’m sorry, Sir Arthur, but if that’s your proof, it can be easily explained. A stolen keepsake, an overheard conversation between mother and son and a willing actress to record the supposed spirit’s voice. My well publicized crusade against such counterfeit mediums has, I assure you, brought many similar challenges, but, I am surprised that you were taken in by such a pitiful display, Sir Arthur. The man only did his homework, that’s all.”

But the Englishman only shook his head after each point Houdini had made. “No. It was more than that, Harry. I was there, I saw the handkerchief simply appear as if by—”

Houdini extended his seemingly empty hand, twisted his wrist to one side and, a moment later, held the fluted wineglass that had fallen to the rug between his fingers.

“As if by magic, Sir Arthur.” Handing the Englishman the glass, he stood up and dipped his head in a modified bow. “That’s exactly what it was, stage magic, nothing else; and no more evidence of the spirit world than was Margery’s nimble foot tapping upon the ‘spirit box’ beneath my chair. You were taken in, Sir Arthur, as easily as a barefoot boy at his first carnival. This Yeildgrave is nothing more than a drawing-room charlatan preying on the earnest gullibility of his betters. He’s a fraud.”

A sudden chill whispered against the back of Houdini’s neck.

“I find that word . . . offensive. Sir.”

The voice was deep and mellow, the accent educated and cultured, a nearly perfect imitation of a native-born Englishman; and one that had undoubtedly convinced Sir Arthur that he was a kinsman. Houdini, however, caught a faint, but familiar inflection beneath the genteel veneer, and answered as he turned.

“Meu a-s¸i cere iertare, domnule.”

The man was standing just beyond the room’s threshold, his features shadowed from both the firelight and room’s shaded incandescent lamps, but Houdini saw the pale, long-fingered hands clench momentarily.

“Apology accepted,” the cultured voice replied.

“You—” Sir Arthur was on his feet, moving past Houdini toward the newcomer, the sherry glass still in his hand. “You speak—”

“Romanian,” the man answered and stepped forward. “I have an ear for languages, Mr. Doyle, and speak many.”

A response—clever, witty, and caustic—died on Houdini’s lips as Yieldgrave stepped into the light. The man was a walking corpse. Gaunt to the point of emaciation, his flesh was the color of curdled cream; the deep blue of his velvet dressing gown only serving to deepen the hollows that engulfed his coal-black eyes. Only his lips showed color. Red as fresh as raw meat.

Houdini involuntarily leaned back when the man offered his hand. He’d seen this before, both in his homeland and then in the slums his family first called home in America. The man was dying of consumption.

Houdini’s flesh crawled when the long, cold fingers closed around his own.

“I am Lord Yieldgrave, and I’m honored to meet you, Mr. Houdini,” the man, obviously having overhead Houdini’s comment about his name, smiled as he bowed. “I have watched your career for many years and am familiar with your latest . . . talent, that of spiritual investigator. It will therefore be an indescribable pleasure to become the single flame that enlightens you.”

Houdini broke the grasp and moved quickly toward the fireplace to keep from knocking the man down. His anger more than made up for the fire’s lack of warmth.

“By robbing more graves?”

A tiny touch of color bloomed above the man’s cheeks cavernous cheeks. “I have never robbed graves, Houdini. While in communication with your mother, she gave me that memento, the same way she whispered those wor—”

“FRAUD!”

Houdini had no memory of moving from the fireplace or of striking the man, but a moment later he stood—legs braced, fists clenched—and looked down at Yeildgrave’s smiling face. A small, bloodless slit at the left corner enlarged the man’s already wide mouth by a fraction of an inch.

“Harry! What have you done?” Muttering apologies, Sir Arthur helped Yieldgrave to his feet and, after noticing the sherry glass still in his hand, offered to get the man something much stronger.

“Thank you, no, Sir Arthur. I do not communicate with those particular spirits.” With a courteous nod, Yieldgrave brushed aside the older man’s attempts at solace and again his full attention to Houdini. “I underestimated you, Houdini, but be assured that will never happen again.”

Houdini’s fists trembled with the desire to strike again. “You will never have the opportunity. I’ve seen enough to know what you are, Yieldgrave.”

“No,” the man chuckled, “I don’t think you do.”

“Oh, I think—”

“Enough!” The sherry glass snapped in Sir Arthur’s hand as he took a step forward. “This man is my guest and you will treat him with the respect or—”

“Hush.”

It was but one word, softly spoken, but Sir Arthur stumbled back as if struck.

“I can fight my own battles,” Yieldgrave said, but to Houdini, not his host. “As I’ve said, I have watched your career with something less than the usual boredom I feel when viewing . . . the population at large. You are an excellent performer, Houdini, but you’ve let that one talent grow into arrogance and conceit. And now you’ve donned the mantle of defender to protect men and women against—how did you put it? Ah yes, against their own ‘earnest gullibility.’ Generally, I would never have bother myself with such a petty matter—or man—but I’ve decided to make this city my home . . . and even the tiniest of thorns will, after a while, become an irritation.”

Yieldgrave leaned forward until Houdini could see himself reflected in the man’s black eyes.

“And you, magician, could very well become such an irritation. Therefore—” Yieldgrave stepped back and walked with a graceful stride to the fireplace. “It is my . . . obligation to convince you not only of the communication between the living and dead, but of my own remarkable talents in that respect. And I have no doubt that once you’ve witnessed it, you will become my greatest supporter.”

Houdini tried to speak, but a sudden constriction of the throat made it all but impossible. The only sound he could produce was a thin, weak murmur of disgust.

“Think of it, Houdini, after you write another pamphlet, expounding upon the wonders I alone can show you, it will be an endorsement that shall welcome me into every drawing room and parlor, private club and salon in New York.

“You wish to say something?”

Yieldgrave smiled as he blinked those empty, black, hollow eyes and Houdini felt his throat open with a gasping sob.

“Then prove it. Now!”

Yieldgrave laughed, hands clapping in delight as Sir Arthur, blinking as though he’d just woken from a deep sleep, cleared his throat.

“No, Harry. Not now . . . not here.”

Houdini nodded, with a smirk. “Yes, of course. How insensitive of me. You undoubtedly haven’t had time to set up your illusions.”

A flush came to Sir Arthur’s cheeks, but Yieldgrave still laughed. “There are no illusions, Houdini, no tricks. That is your realm, not mine.”

“Then why don’t you convince me now?”

“Because, Harry,” the Englishman said, glancing from Houdini to Yieldgrave and back again, “you would think exactly as you do now, that I had planned this evening in retribution for your attack on Margery. No, Harry, Lord Yieldgrave and I want no doubts whatsoever in your mind, so, with your permission, we would like to hold the se’ance at your home. On the day and time of your choosing.”

“My home?”

Sir Arthur nodded. “It’s the only way you will be convinced. Invite as many or as few people as you like and pick the room to be used. That way you can be sure that nothing has been tampered with. Lord Yieldgrave and I shall appear at the appointed time and not a moment before. Are you agreeable to that, Harry?”

Houdini though a moment before nodding. “Yes, Sir Arthur, I am most agreeable. Shall we say tomorrow night, then? Eight o’clock.”

Yieldgrave bowed. “Tomorrow it will be . . . and I promise you, Houdini, an evening you will long remember.”

The first message had arrived at dawn, the second an hour later and the third only moments before Houdini, still tying the sash of his dressing gown, walked into the morning parlor for breakfast. Bess waited until he’d finished his cup of coffee before handing him the notes. They were written in the same hand and on the same stationery as the one he’d received the previous night.

“From Sir Arthur,” he said in response to his wife’s silent, but obvious, curiosity.

“Oh.”

He tried not to smile as he set the cards down next to his plate and reached for a slice of toasted bread. But he did count—slowly—and managed to reach six before Bess cleared her throat.

“Well aren’t you going to look at them? I mean, the first did wake cook.”

Which explained the toast’s charred surface.

Using a butter knife against the sealed flaps, he opened all three before reading the notes in order of arrival.

Houdini carefully slid the last note back into its envelope, before placing all three into the pocket of his dressing gown with a chuckle.

Bess, still in the role of indifferent observer, casually glanced at him over the rim of her teacup. “Sir Arthur sent a joke?”

“More along the lines of a hook, dear one,” Houdini said and began scooping eggs onto his plate. He had no intention of taking so obvious a bait. “He’s attempting to play on my sense of the theatrical. Oh, by the way, I’m going to be hosting a small gathering here tonight after supper. Will that be all right?”

Her smile then, at the table, and later while she helped him clear the dining room after the meal, gave him his answer.

She didn’t even raise an eyebrow after he confessed the nature of the “gathering,” but continued to place chairs as he directed—against the walls facing the single lattice-backed armchair he’d placed beneath the crystal chandelier at the room’s center.

“There’ll be no tricks tonight,” he told her, winking as the first of his guests arrived. “None.”

He’d originally thought to view the performance alone, but, since he’d already anticipated publishing another pamphlet which exposed Lord Yieldgrave as the fraud he was, Houdini thought more collaborative observers would be best. Impeachable witnesses, better still, so he chose carefully from among their many friends. The final list included his personal doctor and his wife, their rabbi, the police commissioner, the deputy mayor, and a very prominent newspaper reporter who was, among other things, one of his greatest admirers.

Houdini didn’t attempt to conceal his smile. As Yieldgrave himself noted, it most certainly would be an evening to remember.

At half-past the hour only three dining chairs—the ones reserved for Bess, Houdini, and Sir Arthur—and the seat of honor remained empty.

When the doorbell rang a few minutes later, Houdini waved Bess away. “Seat yourself, my dear, I’ll attend to this myself.”

As well rehearsed as any performance line, Houdini had begun his welcome speech as he opened the door, bowing courteously to the two figures standing beneath the glow of the porch lamp. It was only after he looked up that his smile faded.

Normally robust and ruddy of cheek, the Englishman leaned heavily on his cane and seemed to breathe with great difficulty. Pale and trembling he appeared . . . withered. Stricken. Yieldgrave, on the other hand, had blossomed into full health. His face had filled out and glowed with vitality. His lips remained their unnaturally bright coloration.

“Sir Arthur, you look . . . Are you all right?”

Houdini stepped aside as the Englishman limped forward, ashamed that he hadn’t made the effort to reply to reply to the morning’s messages. It hadn’t been a ploy nor theatrics—the man was clearly ill.

“What? Oh, yes, yes . . . just a . . . Just caught a chill, is all. Nothing serious, I assure you.”

It was an unconvincing performance, made even more so by the man’s refusal to give up the white silken scarf he’d wrapped around his neck.

“No,” he said, bringing his hand to his throat when Houdini reached for it. “Best keep it on.”

But it was the look in the man’s eyes that spoke of something beyond mere illness.

“Of course. We’re in the dining room, Sir Arthur. Please go right in. And ask Bess for a glass of port—for the chill.”

He nodded, mechanically, then nodded again and mumbled something that sounded like appreciation, but continued to lean heavily on his cane and look back toward the doorway.

It was then that Houdini realized Yieldgrave was still on the porch.

“I am rather old-fashioned,” he said. “Will you invite me in, Houdini?”

Sir Arthur made a small noise in his throat as Houdini opened the door farther. “Yes, of course. Please come in.”

“Harry . . .” Houdini’s eyes met those of the Englishman as Yieldgrave swept into the brightly lit foyer. “I . . .”

“Ah,” Yieldgrave said, placing a hand on the Englishman’s shoulder, “I hear voices. The more the merrier, isn’t that the saying? Why don’t you go in to them, Sir Arthur? We shall be along in a moment.”

It hadn’t been a command, but Houdini saw the older man tremble as if struck, then hurried away.

“I shouldn’t worry about him,” Yieldgrave said, drawing Houdini’s attention. “I believe he spent a bad night. Now, shall we go in?”

Houdini took the man’s coat and top hat and set it on the sideboard besides Sir Arthur’s before motioning the man toward the dining room. “You’ll find all in order, I suspect,” he said when they reached the near-sterile room. “But do tell me if you require anything else . . . draperies, mirrors . . . darkness.”

Yieldgrave took the empty chair in the middle of the room and casually crossed his legs.

“No smoke or mirrors, Houdini. You’re the illusionist, not I. As for darkness . . .” He glanced up at the sparkling crystals above his head. “The more light the better. I want none here to think me . . . a fraud.” Seemingly satisfied, he nodded. “Would you be so good, Sir Arthur?”

Voice trembling, Sir Arthur stood and formally introduced Lord Yieldgrave to Houdini’s guests, giving a slightly lengthier version of the tale he’d told the night before.

“. . . will have absolute proof, not only of the world which exists beyond the shroud of death, but that Lord Yieldgrave is, without question or doubt, the . . . greatest spiritualist in the world.”

Houdini almost applauded the performance, but Yieldgrave took it as his due.

“Thank you, Sir Arthur,” he began. “Now, were this a ‘normal’ se’ance, I would ask that the lights be lowered and all of us clasp hands so that we might form a mystical circle to better ‘commune’ with the spirits. That, my friends, is trickery, as I’m sure you’re all aware, due to Mr. Houdini’s relentless . . . investigations in this area. Also, were this a mere deception, I would, upon its conclusion, ask for gratuities.”

Yieldgrave sought Houdini’s eyes and nodded. “But that again is the mark of . . . charlatans. There is a saying older than almost time itself, ‘exigo infidus, verum exsisto solvo’—‘sell lies, but truth must be free.’ I will not accept payment for what I do here tonight.”

“Then what are you after?” Houdini’s friend, the reporter asked.

“Only the privilege of being invited into your homes. Now then . . .” Yieldgrave looked around the room. “Can I take it there is no servant lurking nearby who will suddenly burst forth through a conceal door to act as a ghostly intruder? No strings attached to gramophone recordings of howling winds and blaring trumpets? No hidden pockets or flash powder?”

Houdini’s answer came as a low growl. “None.”

“I thought not, but considering your profession, I wanted to make certain your guests knew that nothing that happens here tonight was anything less than real. Let us begin.”

A heartbeat later, the faint scent of Arlequinade perfume filled the room. Bess gasped from behind cupped hands.

“Harry!”

“Hush, Bess, it’s nothing. It’s—”

Yieldgrave lifted one hand and for an instant the lights seemed to dim slightly.

“Ehrich?”

The voice came from nowhere and everywhere, and then the air next to Yieldgrave’s chair began to shimmer. Soft whispers and gasps followed as a form—small and pale—began to materialize.

“Ehrich? Mein zun . . . is it you?”

The whispering stopped as Houdini pushed himself forward, clutching the upholstered armrests of the chair to keep himself from running toward the tiny, white-haired figure.

She was exactly as he last remembered seeing her, dressed in the high-collared, long-sleeved gray moire’ gown that had been her favorite from the moment he had given it to her. The one she had been buried in.

“Oh God, Harry . . .” Bess’s voice was so low that for a moment Houdini thought he’d thought the words himself. “It’s mama.”

“No . . . It’s not possible.”

“Ehrich? Mein zun . . . is it you?”

Houdini felt the floor shift beneath his feet as he turned. Smiling, her hands reaching out to him, she took a step forward. His mother.

“I’ve missed you so much, my son. Why did you leave me? I was so alone.”

Houdini’s eyes burned as she began moving toward him, the soft rustle of her dress filling the stillness as her perfume filled his head.

But there was something else . . . something beneath the sweet scent . . . something dark and rank and decayed.

“It’s not real.”

“Ehrich, vos zogt ir? It’s me, Mama. Come here. Come my little boy and let me hold you. It’s been so long. Give Mama a kiss.”

As has happened the night before, Houdini didn’t realize he’d moved until he felt her in his arms, the mingled scents—perfume, decay, face powder, grave dirt—filling his head as she—his mother—brushed his cheek with her cold lips.

“My dear little boy,” she whispered. “My sweet angel. I’ve missed you. Let mama kiss you . . . let me . . . just give my boy . . . a kiss . . .”

A cloud of stinking mist enveloped him as she pulled him close.

“NO!”

A hand gripped his shoulder and hauled him back at the same moment his mother . . . the image of his mother changed . . . reshaped itself into the visage of a feral beast . . . a monster. Blackened lips curled back to reveal elongated fangs as sound filled the room. Shouts and prayers and the scrape of chair legs against the floor and . . .

“Harry! Harry, for God’s sake! Help me!”

Staggering, his hand going to his throat to find his collar ripped away, Houdini watched Sir Arthur struggle to drive the silver tip of his cane into Yieldgrave’s chest. Or what had been Yieldgrave a moment before. As with his mother, or whatever it had been, Yieldgrave’s face transformed from man to beast, feline—no, batlike in aspect—the inch-long fangs yellow and dripping a viscous saliva that glistened against the Englishman’s hand.

“FOOL! YOU DARE CHALLENGE ME?” The face a monster’s, the voice a man’s.

“Not possible,” Houdini whispered.

“Harry!” Sir Arthur yelled. “This is our only chance! HELP ME!”

Without thinking, for rational thought would have stopped him, Houdini rushed forward and added his strength to the older man’s. Black viscous fluid overflowed the gaping jaws, as the cane, awash with gore, pierced Yieldgrave’s chest. Houdini gagged and backed away as the tip exited through the chair’s lattice back.

Behind and around him, hoarse cries and groans of horror filled the very air of the room as those he had been invited to partake in the unmasking of a charlatan witnessed something that went beyond all understanding. The sounds in the room changed as the man, the creature, slumped forward over the shaft of the cane, a decomposed corpse.

Houdini stared at the nightmare and prayed he’d wake up. “My God. What was it?”

“I tried to tell you.” Sir Arthur grabbed Houdini’s arms for support. “My . . . my messages this morning. Last night . . . last night Louise came to me and . . .”

Sobbing, the older man slowly removed the scarf from around his neck. The swollen wounds looked like the bite of a giant snake.

“Vampire, Harry. He’d turned her . . . years ago and only now . . . only . . . He was waiting, you see, for his chance. And he found it. Through me.”

Sir Arthur collapsed to the floor, taking Houdini with him.

“Forgive me, Harry . . . please, forgive me.”

Houdini held the older man as he would a child, rocking him slowly back and forth. “Hush, it’s all right. We . . . killed it. It’s over.”

“No,” the whisper came, “it’s not. You—your mother is still out there. Don’t you understand what he meant? Harry . . . Ehrich, she’s still out there.”