The Master of Illusion

Your fondest wish can come true! There's just one catch.



London, 1889. It's London's year of magic. 'Marco the Magnificent' and 'The Master of Illusion'-the world's two greatest magicians-are locked in a magic war. They challenge each other with increasingly impossible acts, thrilling the public that flocks to their shows. But a death occurs onstage. And inexplicably, 'Your Fondest Wish,' one of the acts in the magic show Phantasmagoria, begins to predict the future as well as the past! And for the first time in his career, Scotland Yard medical examiner and psychic Dr. William Scarlet experiences nothing in his visions but blackness and emptiness . . . and the presence of evil.



Suddenly, the autopsies he's performing begin to reveal a mysterious illness that ages people prematurely and kills them with astonishing speed. And why do the clues keep pointing to 'Your Fondest Wish'? What is the link between the onstage illusion and The Methuselah Plague . . . are people literally dying to participate?



As his investigation approaches its climax, Scarlet must confront the killer at the grand finale on the closing night of Phantasmagoria-when he faces a power that's literally like nothing on earth.