Mirror Image (9 page)

They were alone in the elevator as it began its descent. The sensation of dropping was pronounced and even the boy fell quiet.

“Look straight ahead, don't look down,” Edmund had advised, and of course, everyone had looked down, seeing their reflections in the floor.

Beware the image, it will steal your soul away.

Edmund Talbott opened his mouth to scream a warning, his hand scrabbling for the emergency stop, his eyes locked onto the reflected images.

The elevator immediately ground to a halt, lurched and settled. As he watched, he saw their reflections in the fortified glass change, alter, become something else, something hideous, flesh slewing off muscle, muscle liquefying away from bone, hair lengthening, falling out, features twisting, turning, changing.

Skeletons.

One reached out and touched the wall, mimicking his movement, mouth opening in a parody of a cry. Another, the female—Elizabeth—pressed both hands to her stomach, the bony fingers disappearing into the cavity, her dress folding in around them.

Beware the image …

And the elevator fell.

It plummeted twenty-seven of the thirty stories, pulling free of its moorings almost immediately, smashing the frail cocoon off the heavy office windows. Glass—supposedly unbreakable—shattered, showering the occupants with razor sharp shards. Hands locked rigidly around the handrail—later the rail would have to be cut out of his hands because of his unopenable grip—Edmund Talbott could only watch as his wife and son were smashed repeatedly against the glass walls of the elevator, rolling in the slivers of glass that had burst in through the rent in the glass close to the roof and along one wall. Skin was flayed from muscle, flesh torn open to the bone. At some point, close to the ground, the metal hawsers, which had been hissing upwards as the lift fell, became entangled around the falling elevator tube. They sliced through the fortified glass with ease, snapping it in half, catching Edward's tiny body, mangling it before his father's eyes. Edmund squeezed his eyes shut and when he opened them again, both bodies—Elizabeth's and Edward's—were gone, tossed out like trash. Before the elevator finally exploded across the London sidewalk he still had the presence of mind to commend their souls to God and was strangely glad that at least they would all die together.

But he hadn't died, though in the eighteen months that followed, he wished time and again that he had.

It took the London fire department nearly four hours with cutting equipment to free his body from the wreckage. Men who had worked on some of the most horrific accident cases for most of their adult lives turned away at the mangled mess. He should have been dead. The fact that he still lived was a miracle … or an evil joke. Both legs were broken, multiple breaks which practically guaranteed that he would never walk again. Only two ribs remained intact, most of them having impacted inwards, puncturing or tearing most of the internal organs, collapsing both lungs. Arms, wrists, shoulders and collarbones were shattered. Jaw, nose, cheekbones, and skull were fractured.

And his flesh, especially around his face, had been flayed by the countless thousands of pieces of glass.

Months later, one of the plastic surgeons had handed him a jar filled with glittering specks. There was a scrawled note on the side of the jar in red ink, “2234.”

“That's how many pieces of glass we took from your flesh,” he said simply. He had tilted Edmund's face slightly, looking at the ruin, and then smiled ruefully. “Well, you'll certainly never look in a mirror again.”

But Edmund Talbott had made the same promise to himself a long time before that. One moment of weakness had destroyed everything he loved. Then, ten years ago, he had thought revenge impossible. He had been weak and ignorant, but a decade of research had given him certain knowledge.

And he would have his revenge.

He swore it.

 

15

J
ONATHAN BLINKED,
rising up from a dream in which he saw himself reflected in endless mirrors, fading away to blackness in every direction.

“Hi Dad, how are you feeling?”

Jonathan Frazer opened his eyes and looked at his daughter sitting beside his bed. He wondered how long she'd been there, wondered how long he'd been asleep. The room was dark, hazy, as if it was late afternoon.

He reached out and took her hand, turning it slightly, looking at her long and slender fingers lying against his soft palm. Her fingers tightened over his, squeezing slightly. There was sympathy and understanding, too, in her deep blue eyes, concern without the impatient pity he had seen in his wife's face.

Emmanuelle Frazer was eighteen. She was a stunning classical beauty, large-eyed, fine-boned, whose resemblance to her mother was slight, although she was the very image of her grandmother, Jonathan's mother, who had been a great beauty in her youth. One of Manny's features had been a mane of thick black hair, and he'd been horrified when she returned from Paris with her head shaved in what he called a skinhead, but which she insisted was a Number Two haircut, which left a slight fuzz of hair across her skull. It was, she had assured him, quite the latest fashion, and he had to agree that, while he didn't particularly like it, it did emphasize her high cheekbones, and her huge blue eyes.

“How are you?” she asked again.

“OK. I've felt better. You heard?”

“I heard,” she said shortly.

“What did your mother tell you?”

Manny shrugged. “She said there'd been an accident; that the detectives are still looking into it.” Her fingers tightened on her father's hand. “It's scary, Dad, two people dead within days of one another.”

“It's something to do with that scarred man,” he muttered.

“What scarred man?” she asked, frowning, her forehead and the skin on her almost bald head crinkling comically. “Mom said nothing about a scarred man.”

“Before … before Diane's accident, this big ugly guy came around asking about that mirror I bought in London.”

“Hang on, hang on a sec, Dad. What mirror? Remember, I've been away. I don't know what's been going on around here.”

Jonathan attempted to sit up in the bed, but every muscle in his body protested and he lay back with a groan. “You remember I told you about the mirror I bought in London at some auction house. Tony was working on that mirror when it fell on him.”

She nodded slowly, unsure where this was leading. “You mentioned something about a mirror.”

“There was a break-in last night…”

“Mom told me about that.”

He nodded slowly. “I'm convinced it was the same guy who was here today—he gave me this little present last night.” He touched the ugly purpling swelling in the center of his forehead.

“How did he get in?”

“The police think he might have had a set of keys—possibly Tony's.”

“Why Tony?”

“His keys were not among his belongings. And you know he's had a long term relationship with a man about ten years younger than himself … well the young man didn't attend the funeral, nor has he been seen for the past few days.”

“You think something might have happened to him?” she asked, almost breathlessly.

“I don't know. All we know is that he's not around, and that possibly Tony's keys were used to open the door, because the lock wasn't forced.”

“And then the dog was killed?”

“That's right. The same person who hit me, killed the dog. The police speculated that it must have been someone of immense strength, because he had managed to snap the dog's head back, before slicing open its throat. So today, when this big ugly guy—must be the ugliest man I've ever seen, terrifically scarred—turns up at the guesthouse wanting to buy the mirror, you don't need to be a genius to work out that they're one and the same man.”

“Could he have killed the dog?”

“No doubt about it. He was tall—six three or four—with huge shoulders, broad chest, massive arms. He could have taken care of the dog without even breaking into a sweat.”

“And he wanted the mirror?”

“Yes, he said it was a family heirloom, and it had been sold by mistake.”

“Was he English? Did he have any sort of accent?”

Jonathan frowned. “He was English. But I can't quite pinpoint the accent. I'd more properly describe it as posh or maybe studied, as if English was not his first language and he'd learned it later in life. Everything about him was intimidating. I was beginning to wonder what was going to happen when Diane appeared. She was holding a hammer.”

“A hammer? And what was she going to do with it?”

“I don't really know. I'm not sure she knew either. The scarred man left then, but we both knew he'd be back. I tried to call the police from the phone in the guesthouse, but it wasn't working. I didn't have my cell on me. So, Diane locked herself in while I came up to the house to make the call.” He stopped and swallowed hard. “I was on my way back down when I heard her scream.” His fingers tightened on Manny's and she winced. “When I got to the door, it was still locked and all I could do was look inside. I could see her. She was lying on the floor before the mirror…”

“Was she dead?” Manny's fingers tightened on her father's damp hand.

“Her throat was sliced wide open.”

“How?” she whispered.

“I don't know. The detectives are thinking suicide. But nothing's been confirmed yet, they're waiting for the autopsy report.”

“Suicide? That's not Diane.”

“I know.”

“And you think the scarred man is involved?”

“I'm sure of it. I know the police are certainly interested in him. And the mirror's involved also,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“How? In what way?”

“I don't know. But there is something about it. Something special.”

“Is it especially valuable?” Manny asked.

“No. Not really. It's a big ugly slab of dirty glass.” He smiled crookedly. “Diane never liked the mirror, she said it was bad luck.” He laughed shakily. “I'm beginning to wonder if she wasn't right.”

 

16

T
HE DOOR
had been replaced by a temporary, ugly piece of unfinished plywood held in place by crude hinges and secured by a chunky padlock. The remains of the old door, which had been hammered open by the police, lay propped up against the side of the guesthouse, the shattered timbers bright against the stucco exterior.

Manny lifted the shiny new key she had taken off the ring behind the kitchen door and slid it into the padlock. It popped open. She had already disabled the alarm from the panel in the kitchen, but when she stepped into the long dim room and pulled the door closed behind her, she discovered that the alarm hadn't been reconnected to the new door.

There was a peculiar smell in the room, not the usual sweetly pleasant smells of fresh wood shavings and the newness of leather, but a different, sharper odor. There was the scent of blood, too, the smell heavy and cloying on the dry atmosphere, and she could distinguish the sharper stench of urine and the heavier odor of excrement.

Wrinkling her nose, she made her way to the mirror. It was a tall pale rectangle in the shadows. Having heard so much about it, she just had to see the artifact that had been responsible either directly or indirectly for the death of two people.

And she was disappointed.

She had expected something different, something more impressive, maybe with an ornate, heavy gilt-edged frame with intricate carvings, but instead it looked just like an ordinary mirror—a little larger than most perhaps—in a plain wooden frame with time faded opaque glass.

There was a rust brown stain on the concrete floor close to the base of the mirror, and it took her a few seconds to realize that she was looking at Diane Williams's blood. She was surprised that she could look at it quite so dispassionately.

Moving closer to stand directly in front of the glass, she stared at it impassively, hands on hips, head tilted slightly to one side. Her own reflection was barely visible behind a patina of dirt. There were clear streaks in the glass, bright speckles at the bottom as if the mirror had been washed with liquid; more of the liquid had run down from the top, long clear strips bright against the grime.

Manny stepped forward and peered into the glass.

And then something—no, someone—looked back!

For a moment she thought her heart had stopped. The image had lasted a second—less than a second—a brief flickering that might have been a face or could just as easily have been her imagination. The face had been superimposed over her own, coal black eyes matching hers exactly, the same high cheekbones, though she had the impression that the image was slightly rounder, fuller. Full, red lips, like her own. And hair. Automatically, she ran her hand over her rasping scalp. That was the chief difference: the image had had a full head of wavering, twisting, wreathing black hair.

A deep convulsive shudder ran through her, breaking her concentration, losing the picture. She shivered, suddenly cold, goose flesh along her bare arms and legs. She stepped away from the glass, reluctant to turn her back on it.

Maybe it was some of the marijuana or cocaine she'd done during the college year. She had read that some of that stuff could linger in your system for years, and that something—light, a smell, a sound—could set it off again. A flashback. Maybe that's what it was, some sort of residual after-effects of the drugs.

She was almost at the door when she sensed the presence standing behind her. She felt it as a disturbance in the air, the hint of male muskiness, sweat …

She screamed and at the same time flailed back with the point of her left elbow as she'd been taught in self-defense classes. It caught the figure dead center in the chest, dropping him to the ground. She spun, fists clenched, all her fear now transformed into anger, pumping adrenaline … and discovered her father, red-faced and gasping on the floor.