Happy Fourth of July from Italy!! I will be here for little over than a week, but that doesn't mean that I'm not writing ;-)
~Mia
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"candidates for initiation must follow a series of commands with blind obedience; for only by taking a leap of faith will their eyes truly be opened to the world of miracles."
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THE CROWD SCREAMED OUT LOUD after Maeve told them what the last act would be.
"That's a lot of excitement for a crime." Jack joked, causing a few of the people to laugh. Maeve shrugged. "I guess we are all a little bit bad on the inside."
"I'm getting excited." Henley smiled. "What about you people!" The crowd roared in agreement with more energy than they did before. As Maeve was walking down the stage, she high-fived Henley, who was going the opposite way.
"Alright." Danny walked to the left side of the stage. "Who here has a bank they would like us to rob?" Almost everyone had their hand up, which surprised Maeve. "Wow, that's a lot of vendettas."
"So we'll choose one at random then." Danny added. "My associates will make sure they are random, right?" Maeve walked to the other side of Danny, waiting for the other three to do their sleight of hand to make sure they get the person they chose.
Maeve gave him a brief nod. "We definitely will."
"In Jack's bowl, there are section numbers." Danny told the crowd. "Jack would you please?" Jack walked over to Maeve's side of the stage and held the ball out for her. "M'lady."
The crowd awed at this and Merritt jokingly went along. "Aww how sweet." He then resumed his judgy stare towards Jack. "Remember what I said, kid."
Maeve rolled her eyes before taking the ball out of his hand. "Thank you Jack." She looked at the ball before announcing, "We are looking at...Section B."
"Where is Section B?" Danny asked and the people in Section B stood up in their seats, shouting out for the attention. "Hmm." Maeve looked at Danny with a clever smirk and tapped her chin. "Section B isn't a number."
Danny glared at her and didn't answer as he turned towards Merritt. "Merritt, can I get a row please."
Merritt tossed the ball towards Maeve and she caught it. Danny frowned, which made her laugh and hand him the ball. "Here ya go, buddy."
"You guys are so mean." He mumbled before looking at the ball that was secretly hidden in Merritt's sleeve. "We are looking at...row number 5."
The people in the 5th row cheered loudly as they all waited for Henley to give Danny and Maeve her ball. "Hen!" Maeve called out. "Please give us a random seat." She tossed the ball towards them. Danny picked it up and looked at the ball. "Lucky number 13!"
"B-5-13!" Maeve called out. "Where are you?" The spotlight shined on Etienne Forcier, the man that the horsemen have been following for months to get their trick to work. "Sir, please stand up." Etienne stood in his row with a shocked expression on his face and one of the ushers handed him a microphone.
"Can you confirm for us that this is indeed your seat?" Danny asked as he held up the three ping pong balls. "B-5-13?"
The three numbers in his hand were enhanced by the jumbo screens all around the room. "Yes." He answered. Danny threw the balls to the side. "Okay, wonderful."
"Now, could you please tell us your name and the name of your bank?" Maeve asked kindly, although they already knew.
"Well." Etienne started. "My name is Etienne Forcier and my bank, it's Crédit Républicain de Paris." His French accent was prominent when he spoke.
"French." Danny pretended to be surprised. "Okay, uh, we were hoping for something a little more local, a kind of a mom-and-pop credit union with no security."
"Ah." Maeve smiled at Etienne. "Vous êtes français, oui?"
"Oui Madamoiselle." Etienne replied back smiling. That caused the entire room to go silent.
Maeve nodded. "Hmm. Qu'est-ce qui vous venez à Las Vegas?" Etienne though for a moment before responding. "En vacances je suis venu voir votre spectacle."
"Aww." Maeve pressed her palms over her chest. "Merci beaucoup. Je suis honorée."
"God I love you." Jack blurted, which made the crowd break out in whoops and hollers. Maeve blushed and Merritt rolled his eyes. "Okay lover boy, that's enough."
Maeve shook her head with a smile on her face before turning to Danny, who had no clue what they were saying. "He came from France to see us perform. How sweet is that!"
"You speak French?" Danny asked, completely ignoring what she said. A few people in their seats let out chuckles.
Maeve rolled her eyes. "It's called high school. Maybe if you went you would know too." The audience laughed as Danny scoffed. "I went to high school, I just studied Spanish."
"Is that so?" Maeve looked at the crowd with a sly expression and smirked. "Puedes decirme una cosa que tenga sentido en español?"
Danny was at a loss for words as Maeve pointed her thumb at him. "J. Daniel Atlas everybody." Maeve gave him a sarcastic applause, the audience following shortly after with cheers of their own.
Danny groaned. "Why do you have to always out me?"
Maeve shrugged to the crowd. "It's a family thing. Okay, Monsieur Forcier, s'il vous plaît venir à la scène." Etienne got up and started walking to the stage when Maeve added, "I told him to come up to the stage, Danny."
Danny nodded. "Right, well, a promise is a promise. Let's rob his bank everybody."
"While he does that," Danny added. "There is someone here tonight that without whom we would just be five magicians working the circuit, trying to, well, trying to get here."
"You may know him from the many companies and billboards he slaps his name onto." Maeve chuckled, causing laughter to erupt from the audience. "He's our friend, our benefactor, Mr. Arthur Tressler!"
"Please stand up for us Arty."
The horsemen all clapped for Arthur as he stood up and waved. "The only man with the Queen's cell phone number." Merritt jokingly added.
"Actually, Art, stay standing for us." Danny ordered. " I wanted to say that when we came to Mr. Tressler, we promised that, as a unit, we could be the biggest name in magic."
"So we wanted to say 'thank you'." Maeve added. Henley agreed beside her. "And by the way, you notice on the sign out front - we made sure we put your name on top."
"If you turn out to be as good as you think you are, my dear girl, that won't be necessary much longer." Arthur smiled at all of them. Maeve took a quick look over her shoulder to see Merritt hypnotizing Etienne, just as planned.
"We haven't done our closure yet, Arty." Maeve smiled up at him. "If you keep watching, you can decide for yourself. Arthur Tressler everybody!"
The crowd did one more round of applause before the horsemen started their final act.
"Thank you." Danny clapped his hands. "And of course, once again, the Cardianal of Clairvoyance, Merritt McKinney."
"Thank you." Merritt smirked with his hand on Etienne's shoulder and motioned to Jack. "What lover boy here is bringing onto the stage is what we in the magic world call a teleportation helmet."
Jack walked up on stage with a helmet that Maeve and Henley designed to look like it can do cool stuff when all it does is light up and communicate with the five horsemen.
"You will need to wear this, as it will allow you to literally fold through space and time to your bank in the...8th?" Etienne motioned for him to go one more up. Merritt nodded. "9th areondissiment."
"Now, once you are there, we will be able to speak with you through this helmet." Merritt instructed as Jack placed the helmet on Etienne's head, it fit perfectly. Just as planned. "Oh my god that's beautiful." The audience had a nice laugh before quieting down to listen.
"It has the added attraction of being very stylish." Merritt added. "You can thank Maeve and Henley for that." Jack turned on the helmet as Merritt asked the crowd. "Isn't that a beautiful piece of headgear?" In response, the crowd applauded with Merritt and Jack.
Etienne thanked the crowd as the continued to clap, waiting for the trick to happen. "Before you go anywhere," Danny walked up to him and held out a deck of cards. "Could you please pick a card, any card-wait not that one."
Etienne laughed and picked another one. "Just an American joke." Danny muttered before projecting his voice. "Okay, now show it to your friends in section B, but not to us."
The horsemen walked around him covering their eyes to make sure he thinks that they don't know what card it is. Danny handed him a pen. "Now if you could just sign your name there. In English, if possible."
"Now put it in your pocket." Etienne slipped the card in the right pocket of his white blazer.
"And now for one tiny detail. Ready Maeve?" Henley pulled out a dark purple cloth as Maeve took it and spun it around from the inside. All of a sudden, she disappeared and the large cloth revealed a machine. It stood in the dead center of the stage where everyone could see it. The crowd gasped and cheered for the illusionist.
"Tada!" Maeve walked back into the spotlight from the crowd of people watching their act. "Now, Etienne, please step into the cockamamie contraption." Merritt led Etienne onto the machine. "And I'll step off it."
Jack and Danny went to the machine to pull down the fabric lining around Etienne. Henley held the button and waited for the countdown. "It's 11:50 P.M here in Vegas, that's 8:50 A.M in Paris." Merritt mentioned. "You're bank opens in less than 10 minutes."
"Are you ready?" Maeve asked Etienne. He gave her an excited nod. She then turned to the crowd. "Let the fun begin!"
"One."
"Two."
"Three." Henley pressed the button and the top and bottom of the machine pressed together in the middle, creating a loud bang that echoed through the Vegas room.
The crowd gasped in worry. "What the fuck?" Merritt looked around and acted confused. The horsemen pretended to have no idea what happened as they continued to let the audience think that Etienne was squished in between the metal.
"Etienne?" Henley called out.
Maeve looked at Danny. "It wasn't supposed to happen like that, was it?"
"I liked that little French guy." The tension lightened up at Merritt's comment. "Where'd he go?"
"Wait a second." Maeve pointed to the screen. "There he is!" The crowd relaxed, cheering for the man on one of the jumbo screens.
"Hold on a second for me, everyone." Maeve quieted down the crowd so that the Horsemen could hear Etienne and he could hear them. "This is Daniel Atlas." Danny spoke to Etienne. "Can you hear me?"
"Are you okay?" Danny asked one more time.
"Yes."
"Perfect." Danny replied, slightly relieved. "What do you see in there?"
"Money." The screen showed Etienne picking up about 60 euros. "Is this real?"
"Yes, about 3 million euros or so. Okay here's what we're going to need you to do." Danny started. "I want you to take that card that you signed out of your pocket and I want you to take the ticket stub from tonight's show and I want you to put it in the middle of the money."
The screen showed Etienne taking out the signed card and the stub before placing it in between the two stacks of money.
"Okay now I'm handing you over to Maeve." Danny turned to me and nodded.
"Bonjour, Etienne." Maeve looked at the screen. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes."
"Okay, good." Maeve started pacing around the stage. "On the side of your helmet you should feel a button. Don't press it just yet."
"That button activate an air duct that connects Paris to Las Vegas." Maeve mentioned before giving him the 'go' signal. "Okay now you can press it."
"All right now, Etienne, hold on tight." Jack walked over to Merritt. "You might feel a bit of a vacuum." Merritt chuckled in the background from his comment.
"Wait, do you hear that?"
There was rumbling coming from above the horsemen and they all looked up towards the ceiling. Immediately, millions in euros started raining down from the air vents. The audience erupted in cheers and stood up to grab the flying pieces of paper.
Jack had the biggest grin on his face while Merritt let out a laugh.
Maeve saw Jack and ran towards him as fast as her heels would let her; Jack doing the same. She immediately jumped into him arms and he spun her around in circles.
When Jack put her down, Maeve couldn't help but press her lips to his. Jack was surprised, but began kissing her back. When they broke apart, the people in the crowd whistled for their encounter.
"Wow." Jack breathed.
Maeve couldn't help but giggle at his response and kissed him one more time. Grabbing her hand, Jack led Maeve up the four steps and onto the main part of the stage with everyone else.
"Thank you everyone!" Danny waved at the crowd.
"We are the five horsemen!" Maeve, Jack, and Henley shouted in sync. Henley raised her arm up high. "And good night!"
Merritt did one last wave to the audience. "Good night!"
Maeve took Henley's hand as Danny took Jack's and Merritt took Danny's. They all held up each other's hands and bowed down to the audience around them.
Maeve wrapped an arm around Jack's waist as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "And thank you for helping me ask Maeve out!" That caused Maeve to smack him on the arm in embarrassment. Jack only smiled down at her and pressed a kiss to her temple.
The cheers around them were deafening, but they seemed to drown out when they were together. Pulling apart, Jack kept his forehead pressed to Maeve's. Both of their hearts were beating so fast.
Together, the horsemen waved at the people one last time before walking behind the curtains, ending the show.