What other realms are there?

Chisholm’s group suggests that the Warlock might try to open up the gates of hell. Our minds are so wide-open on this, we actually had a team of researchers try to track down the remaining parts of Hitler’s corpse, and the graves of anyone else we would expect to find in “hell.”

Hell. Hell and fire. Fire is one of the remaining elements. It sounds like it might fit. I keep asking how.

My big fear is that he might send us on so many wild-goose chases, we’ll end up spread too thin. The gates of hell bring up the notion of not just fire, but also brimstone. Brimstone was an ancient word for sulfur. Of course it would turn out that Texas is one of the world’s biggest suppliers. We’ve got teams checking sulfur-processing facilities for anything unusual there.

Our minds have been bouncing around from one possibility to the next. I’m going insane with permutations. I have to hold myself back from relaying to Knoll every idea that strikes me.

I come back to the idea of hell and fire. I used to perform an illusion called the Cremation. Two muscular assistants would seal me inside a metal coffin that was then set on fire. I was supposed to escape before I burned to death. The twist was the coffin would fall open and reveal a skeleton. After the audience reacted in horror, I’d appear in the back row of the auditorium. I never liked it conceptually. I argued with my father and grandfather about the logic of the effect. Whose skeleton was it supposed to be if I was alive? It was a logical leap nobody cared about except me.

There are at least a half dozen other illusions involving fire. They split into two themes: endurance and resurrection. Walking on hot coals, surviving in an oven, putting a hot poker on your tongue all imply an invulnerability to fire.

Resurrection illusions, like the Cremation, involve a kind of rebirth. Someone gets consumed by the flames, only to reappear unharmed. A phoenix effect of sorts. There are hundreds of versions of these ideas.

For what it’s worth, I’ve already e-mailed Knoll and Ailes my thoughts on these specific concepts. I still don’t know if they fit the Warlock’s MO. He could burn down a church full of people and have them or their twins appear elsewhere and it’d still look like a trick compared with the spectacles he’s already accomplished.

He’s thinking so much bigger than we are and he wants us to know this. We’re here in Texas at his invitation: Come watch me kill.

I look out my window at the storm clouds gathering overhead and try to imagine, if anything were possible, what would he do?

What would I do?

My phone rings. It’s Knoll.

“We found the girl. And she’s alive.”

53

ROSA MARTINEZ and her mother are very confused by what’s going on. Knoll had Agent Johnson and a female agent named Keener go to the mother’s house disguised as a couple and explain the situation to avoid arousing suspicion. They took her to pick up Rosa from her high school, presumably to help tend to her ailing grandmother. The goal was to get the two of them away from the house as quickly as possible in the event the Warlock already has them under surveillance.