Mirror Image (11 page)

The big man looked up into the heavens, gauging the time. He folded his arms and leaned back against the wall, watching the way the moonlight moved across the bare floorboards, the light still distinct even through the newspapers.

Talbott closed his eyes, concentrating, trying to remember the layout of Frazer's guesthouse, orientating on it, fixating on the mirror in relation to the windows, then determining the fall of the moonlight. Finally, he relaxed, shoulders slumping; providing everything had remained untouched, the mirror was out of the direct moonlight—and anyway, there'd be no one in the room to see anything.

*   *   *

S
HIMMERING MOONLIGHT MOVED
down the length of the long room, gradually illuminating each of the screened windows in turn before moving on. It was close to three in the morning before the luminescence finally reached the mirror. Liquid silver ran down the length of the glass, bringing it to startlingly brilliant life. A trembling shadow drifted down the length of the tall glass.

Jonathan Frazer opened his eyes and looked at a wall of shining light. And then he discovered that shapes moved within, ghostly, flickering images wrapped around with smoke.

They were real enough to touch.

 

19

S
MOKE, THICK,
gray, almost glutinous, coiled and twisted around enormous pillars. Lower down, closer to the floor, tendrils of dank mist rose up through the cracked and shattered slabstones. Water dripped in the distance, the sound echoing hollowly through the high-ceilinged chamber. There was water on the floor, large shallow pools washed silver in the vague light, and the walls were streaked green with fetid moisture. The air felt damp, heavy, cloying, tainted with excrement, seaweed, and fish.

The cloaked and hooded figure moved through the swirling mist, seemingly unconcerned with the chill or the odors, moving confidently across the maze of broken stones and the other, less easily identifiable, debris that littered the ground. There were natural potholes strewn around the huge echoing chamber, as well as other, man-made traps. Even if someone managed to breach the outer security defenses without raising an alarm, they would have to be very lucky indeed to make it past this sanctum without succumbing to one or other of its lethal snares.

Moving deeper into the huge chamber there were sounds, distant and indistinct, occasionally broken by a rasping shriek that might have been metal on metal. There was light, too, an archway illuminated by warm golden light, incongruous in this dark and dreary place. A gossamer wind carried newer, though possibly even less pleasant odors, overlaying the stench of the place.

Two men suddenly appeared out of the shadows, the wan light running off their leather jerkins, sparkling on the swords and knives in their hands. Their faces were flat, impassive, eyes wide and unblinking, pupils tiny. Their lips and tongues were black.

The hooded figure stopped and straightened, throwing back the hood, shaking out a mane of thick black hair, coal black eyes regarding the two men impassively.

The two men stared at the woman, their mouths slack, dark saliva running onto their chins, into their beards. She stared them down, knowing that even though they had been trained to accept her, they could still tear her apart if she showed the slightest fear or hesitation.

Without a word they both saluted with their swords and stepped back into the shadows. They were effectively the last line of defense and even if an intruder managed to get this far, it would be impossible to pass them. They were twin brothers, taken from their mother at the moment of their birth and trained in the same way hunting dogs and pit bulls were trained—beaten, starved and tortured—until they were completely loyal to their master. Narcotics kept them docile and obedient, especially the weed that had originally been brought back by the knights returning from the Crusades.

The woman moved into the arched doorway and stopped, unwilling to intrude now, knowing that the work was at a very delicate stage. When he was finished, he would notice her.

There had been some improvements in the place since she had last been here. Equipment had been brought in, there was a table and chairs, a brazier. And the mirror. She caught herself looking at it, staring deep into its grimy depths before she realized what she was doing and tore her gaze away, forcing herself to concentrate on the room. The chamber was actually below the level of the Thames in a rotting wharfside warehouse, surrounded by filthy slums. And even in this overcrowded disease-ridden part of the city, the building remained unoccupied. People who entered its dank interior—homeless people, vagabonds, some of the women who plied their trade on the wharf—had been found dead in the street the following morning.

The building was cursed. As simple as that.

The woman smiled. How primitive these peasants were; how easily controlled. A few dead bodies and they spoke of curses. Yes, the building was cursed, but the only curse on it was the two half-human creatures. This might be the age of discovery and invention, and men might write about the Americas and the Indies as if they had actually been there, they might admire the new weeds, the fruits and the vegetables coming back from the New World, but in all their quest for knowledge, they were ignoring a greater, larger, far more mysterious world: a world of magic and power.

There was a man in the center of the room, tall, thin, a shock of red hair and beard emphasizing his pale skin, highlighting his green eyes. His clothes had once been white and cream, but now his silk shirt and hose and pale doeskin boots were soiled with the filth of the place. His hands were on his hips and he was looking at the floor.

Without turning around he raised his left hand, fingers crooked, calling her forward. She moved through the debris littering the floor to stand beside him, her arm moving around his waist, her head resting on his shoulder. “Kelley,” she murmured.

The man ignored her, staring at the floor. There was a pit at his feet, ten feet deep by ten feet wide. Thick iron bars, already speckled by rust even though they were barely weeks old, had been set into a stout wooden frame, which in turn was bolted to the floor.

And deep within the pit was a man.

The woman leaned forward to look down, taking care to lift the hem of her dress and long cloak off the floor. “He is young?” she said. It was difficult to make out his features or age in the dim lighting.

The tall red-haired man lifted the lantern from the table and held it high, shedding yellow light into the pit. There was a quick scrabbling movement as the rats scurried for cover and the young man came to his feet. He was naked, his pale body patterned in bruises and scrapes, covered in filth. His hair was thick—filthy now with grease and straw—but there was a distinctive bald patch in the center of his head.

“A cleric!” she said, delighted.

“A cleric,” the big man nodded. “He believes I am the devil.”

She smiled, showing long yellow teeth. “He is almost right.”

The big man smiled humorlessly. “I wonder what he will make of you.” His accent was flat, dull, almost crude.

“And he is a virgin?” she asked.

The red-haired man shrugged. “Who can tell these days? But he is young, fanatical, not the type to give himself to the sins of the flesh.”

“Wash him,” she said, turning away.

Kelley shouted aloud in a guttural language not unlike Gallic and one of the guards appeared. He pointed to the terrified man in the pit and spoke again in the same harsh tongue. The brute looked into the pit for a moment and then moved away, returning moments later with an enormous bucket of water which he dumped unceremoniously over the man below. The prisoner screamed with shock and surprise: the water had been pulled from the Thames and was freezing.

“
Aris,
” Kelley grunted. Again.

More water was emptied down onto the young man. He was now shivering so badly he could barely stand, and the water had turned the floor of the cell into a quagmire.

Kelley unlocked the heavy hasp lock and pulled back the gate. The dead-eyed guard dropped the ten feet into the sodden mire of straw and filth and hauled the cleric to his feet. Although he was barely conscious, he attempted to strike the guard with his fists. The guard slapped him once, a single blow that rocked his head from side to side.

Kelley lowered a makeshift ladder—a length of wood with pegs set on either side—and the guard climbed up, the cleric tossed over one shoulder.

“Anseo!”
Here. He pointed to the long wooden table that had been set up before the mirror. The guard dumped the young man onto the table. His head thumped against the wood.

Kelley and the woman stood on either side of the table and looked down, examining him critically. He was perhaps seventeen years old, physically perfect, all his limbs, fingers, and toes intact. His back teeth had gone, but his eyes were unclouded by cataracts, the whites reasonably clear, tainted around the edges by yellow. His armpits and groin were free of growths or nodules and there were no cankers or pustules on his penis. Perhaps this one was a virgin. They had been unsuccessful on two previous occasions: both young men had been diseased.

Kelley looked at the woman. “Well?”

“Well enough.” She looked around as she unhitched her cloak. “Fetch me some more water—and not that swill you were drowning him in,” she snapped. “Proper water, hot, too, if you have it.”

Kelley stared at her for a few moments longer, his long, delicate face impassive. She was just beginning to wonder if she'd gone too far when he suddenly nodded and walked away.

She busied herself preparing the narcotic, a mixture of henbane, wormwood, and hashish from the east, diluted in brandy. Crouching beside the young man, she allowed the mixture to trickle between his lips and down his throat. He coughed once and she saw his throat working as he swallowed the liquid.

Kelley meanwhile had returned and stood behind the woman, a wooden bucket of tepid water and a half dozen rags in his hand. “Well,” he said eventually, when she had managed to feed the youth the entire mixture. The woman raised her hand for silence, and then she laid her head on his chest, listening intently for his heartbeat. It was slow, but strong and steady. They had killed two people experimenting with the strength of the mixture. Finally, she looked up, eyes blazing, and nodded.

Kelley handed her the bucket and cloths and stepped back. Not normally an excitable man—he had lived his entire life suppressing his emotions—but he could feel the blood beginning to pound in his veins now. They were close, very close. He could feel it.

The young man opened his eyes.

*   *   *

T
HERE WERE MEMORIES
of fear and pain, of hunger and thirst, of cold and wet and … fear. His overwhelming memory was one of fear.

He had been …

He had been praying in the Church of St. Saviour in Southwark, when he'd become aware of a cloying stench and then something rough—a burlap sack—was thrown over his head. Blows on his body, kicks …

And the pit! He remembered the pit! Adrenaline surged through his body and he sat up straight—only to fall back down again as bruised, stiffened muscles refused to obey him. His head pounded against wood.

The woman came to him then. A beauty, an angel. She had rescued him from the pit and taken him … taken him where?

Was he dead?

Had he died and gone to heaven? He was warm and dry and the filth was gone from his body. He felt rested and relaxed, at peace with his surroundings. Floating.

Now the woman was bending over him, raven tresses brushing his face, tickling along his chest. He felt their touch with a strange intensity, and then he realized he was naked.

A man should not show himself …

The woman's lips brushed his face, his forehead, his lips, her hair now moving across his skin like trailing fingers.

And then—to his horror—he felt his body begin to respond! No angel this: a demon, a succubus. He attempted to lift his arm, but it barely responded. He opened his mouth to cry out, but the woman pressed her mouth to his, and he shuddered as he felt her tongue against his, licking at his lips. She straightened and allowed the cloak she'd been wearing to drop from her shoulders. She was naked beneath.

The young cleric attempted to squeeze his eyes shut, but he could still feel—exquisitely—the woman climb onto the table beside him, he could feel her breasts against his skin as she stretched herself along the length of his body. He attempted to pray, but the demon was whispering words in his ear, foul, obscene words that managed to arouse him ever further. He shrieked aloud as he felt the woman's moist flesh envelop his, and he knew then that he was lost. He was dead and damned. He was in hell. That is why he could not pray, that is why he could not concentrate on the holy images.

Opening his eyes, he saw the woman sitting astride him, her hands on his shoulders, moving rhythmically, her eyes closed, mouth open, tongue moving across her moist lips. He watched the movement of her breasts, fascinated by the sweat tricking down between them, curling across her flat stomach. She suddenly stopped moving and opened her eyes … and then he discovered that he had taken up the rhythm, moving inside her. He was lost now; a damned soul. The woman smiled triumphantly. Almost of their own accord, his hands moved up to her hips, across her stomach to cup her breasts. He felt … he didn't know what he felt. He had never experienced this before. He had never been with a woman before.

And, for the first time in his life, he knew why men sinned.

He was moving frantically now, and the woman had to clutch his shoulders to remain atop him, her nails digging deep into his flesh. His heart was pounding, the veins in his forehead and neck visibly swelling, and his face and chest and thighs were bathed in sweat. He was dimly aware—as the tingle began deep in his groin—that the woman had looked past him, and nodded, but he was too far gone in his passion to stop even if he wanted to.