Cat In A White Tie And Tails

“That’s just it.” Max threw up graceful hands, his long fingers the envy of most of his peers for their dexterity. “I’m a magician, not a PR flack.” He winced internally to think of Temple Barr hearing those words from his lips. “I just want to do my job in peace, without some parasitic imitator trying to ‘expose’ me when he’s getting great notices and rich for doing it.”

“Hear, hear.” Hal pumped a fist into the air.

“Even worse,” Czarina said, watching him with all the shrewdness in her soul, which was considerable, “we think we lost our house magician to an assassination.”

“That’s ghastly,” Max said, “and worth prosecuting. Why haven’t I seen any media on the case? I must have still been out of town when this happened.”

“Out of town, where?” Czarina asked.

“Out of the country, actually.”

“Oh, where? I swear I got a couple cryptic messages from you.” Ramona lifted raven’s-wing eyebrows.

“Did you? I didn’t roam as far as anyone might think. North of the border.”

“Oh, clever,” Hal said. “Nobody looks for anyone up there in Canada but aging Vietnam War protesters. Good show.”

Max detected the triumvirate exchanging flash glances again. His story was holding up because of its very humdrum nature. Why had he said Canada? It had felt so right and reasonable, and wasn’t someplace spectacularly suspicious, not as if Max had claimed to be on the run on the Continent.

“You think someone is bumping off your membership?” he asked. “Someone did die here.”

“The Phantom Mage was a mere hireling,” Czarina said, all heart. “Probably a Cirque reject. That flashy bungee cord swishing around did distract the drinking crowd, but his magic technique was nothing to get excited about.”

“Some of us,” Hal said, “thought he was a spy.”

“Some of us,” Ramona added, “thought he was you. But then he died, or was killed, and you weren’t, unless you’re now a vampire or a zombie.”

“Excellent ideas for my new act, Ramona. ‘The Mystifying Max: Back from the Dead.’”

“We don’t know the Phantom Mage was killed,” Hal said.

“Really?” Max felt his muscles tensing for a rapid getaway. Had they invited him up here for an interrogation and possible extermination?

“He could have gotten careless,” Czarina admitted. “He seemed overconfident.”

“And you never suspected it was me,” Max chided with a smile, an overconfident smile.

The silence was uncomfortable. He’d confronted the weakness in his story head-on, like the Phantom Mage had faced his apparent death, but that crushing impact had been too convincing for any doubt, thanks to Rafi Nadir’s falsely official presence and diagnosis.

Max nodded soberly. “Perhaps the revolving lights of the signs of the zodiac disoriented him. They sure distracted me from my troubles. Did you know you’ve repeated one?”

“Repeated?” Czarina asked.

“I was slow to be served and had nothing to do but watch the mirrored bar-top light show. That’s the idea, I know, but I counted thirteen of those zodiac glyphs going around. It was like counting sheep, only the ram kept showing up, and the fish and the scorpion and the boa constrictor and the lion.”

“You were sure in your cups, my friend,” Hal said, chuckling, “if you were seeing snakes in the zodiac. What’s your sign?”

“I never paid much attention to bar pickup lines.”

Czarina snorted. “You wouldn’t. You’ve never needed to do that. Born between the first day of spring and the anniversary of the Oklahoma federal building bombing and assault on the Waco cult, dates of new life and hope as well as political insanity, you are obviously Aries. That’s a sign of power and fearless strength, a muscular body and mind. You seek thrills and challenge, but you can be deceptive. Am I right?”

“I hope so,” Max said modestly. “At least I was born in the first half of April. All of those traits sounds useful for a magician. So the symbol of my zodiac sign is a—”

“Ram,” Ramona said lustily.

“And the boa constrictor I glimpsed in passing?”

Hal was happy to instruct. “That is Ophiuchus, my Aries friend. The ancients identified it as a constellation. The ‘ophidian’ coils indicate the biological suborder Ophidia or Serpentes, from the Greek ophis: a snake. Some versions of the zodiac do show it, but it’s always been the unlucky thirteen in a set of signs that fit the twelve months of the year. So, despite some tabloid buzz recently when an astronomer suggested it needed to be made room for, it’s a lost sign that we have taken for our symbol of forgotten magic and magical powers.”

“Cool.” Max nodded. “An apt symbol. Best that it stay out of the common parlance. Besides, who’d want to murmur ‘Ophiuchus’ in someone’s ear at a bar when they could whisper Aquarius or Virgo, and roar Leo or Taurus.”

“See, my dear boy,” Czarina said, “you know more of the zodiac than you thought.”

And he also knew why the Synth had adopted a man-crushing snake as its poster glyph.