Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

“Inner sanctum. Midnight Louie’s out and prowling. Your path is unobstructed.”

“Except for you.”

“Oh, don’t let me stop you. Not that I think I could. Or would. I’m an ex-actor. We all shared close quarters in my heyday. Want me to yell hey when the day is dawning?”

“You are an unnerving woman.”

“Thanks! Now I need my beauty sleep, which you won’t notice the results of unless we meet in daylight. Ta-ta.”

The woman stretched out an arm to turn off the lamp and roll herself into the sheets. Max was now night-blind. Again. He felt his way to the bedroom door, which was indeed shut, and eeled inside.

Temple was asleep. His frazzled nerves suddenly smoothed out. She always loved being awakened in his own special way.

He slipped into the sheets beside her, managing not to awake her. His fingers barely touched the familiar contours of her face. It turned toward him, in her sleep, the way a sunflower follows the sun that names it.

She was rousing now. In the sense of awakening.

“Max,” she muttered.

“Yes,” he said. “Shhh”

“I had a dream. You were falling!”

“Falling here. Into your arms.”

“No! A long, long way. Max!”

She was way too lost in some nightmare. He pulled her into his arms, but she was still falling, her arms and legs jerking and flailing.

“We’ll crash,” she cried. Under his fingers, her face was a spasm of furrows.

He couldn’t erase them. Eradicate the dream. Overcome her fears with the mere nearness of his presence. Not anymore. His fingers felt her eyelashes batting like bird wings.

She struggled up in the bedclothes, sitting.

“Max? You’re really here?”

She still sounded drugged with sleep.

“Really.”

“There’s something I’ve got to tell you. What? Oh. Yeah. That white witch is at the New Millennium.”

“White witch?”

But he knew whom she was referring to, and he had known for some time that Shangri-La had hooked up with the Cloaked Conjuror, although their professional alliance hadn’t gone public.

Temple just didn’t know that Max knew so much more than she did about Shangri-La. Another thing he knew: Shangri-La hated him for some unknown reason. A lot of women seemed to. The late Kathleen O’Conner, Molina. Thank God for Temple.

“CC calls her ‘Shang.’ ” Temple yawned. “Thought you’d want to know. I can’t seem to reach you anymore.”

He leaned back with her, against the pillows, uneasy about carrying a concealed load of knowledge and keeping it from her. “It’s okay. I know now.”

She was still murmuring sleepily. “Shoulda grabbed her by those horsey locks and demanded my ring back.”

“She can’t give it back. Molina has it now, remember?”

“Right, Molina. Another wicked witch. Don’t let the wicked witches get you, Max.”

“Speaking of locks, aren’t yours a whiter shade of pale?”

“The teen reality TV show mavens made me dye it platinum. What started as an undercover job stuck me with a dye job.”

He chuckled as she nuzzled into the pillow of his chest, drifting off again.

“I want a different dream, Max. No falling . . .”

So did he.

Temple tossed and turned onto her side. Away from him. Still stressed in her sleep. Dreaming disaster. Hurting.

Max felt his jaw clench. Pushing anything physical now wouldn’t be sexy, but intrusive. When she’d needed him lately, he’d been committed to his various secret lives. Now that he was here and ready, she’d obviously been up late drinking wine with her aunt. Maybe talking about him. Complaining. One sure thing was that he’d lost his last magic midnight touch. He didn’t want to be her bogeyman. And he sure as hell didn’t want to be her sleeping pill!

Max slipped away, like the dead part of night. He even made it past her guard dog of an aunt undetected this time.

He still had his skills, if not his will for using them.

He’d gone over to the Dark Side. For the time being. Best to leave the creatures of light and hope to themselves.

He’d phone Temple tomorrow. In daylight. Maybe. If he had time. Meanwhile he had other promises to keep. Bad ones to dark forces. All in the name of ultimate light.

Spider Men

An hour and a half later, Max was literally out on a limb.

He was garbed in magician’s black: spandex tights, turtleneck, black gloves, black-masked spandex face to match his black hair and bleak expectations.

He was suspended high over the New Millennium exhibition area, a spider on an invisible web, clinging to the network of rosin-treated cables that formed a high-tech web over the entire space.

He felt like a cyberspace creature, some gaming entity loose on a hidden grid.

He’d entered this bizarre, deserted world by the lighting service tunnel. Painted matte black, light hoods studded the ceiling like black holes. They were cobras, poised to strike with shafts of illumination when turned on, ready to run through their preprogrammed schedule once the show began.