The Obsidian Mirror

by Catherine Fisher

  He looked up. “So I had to have it, Sarah, because I’m even more insane than you. You’re just invisible. I intend to bring my wife back from the dead.”

  Wharton dived out of his bedroom and grabbed Piers as he passed, just as the clock downstairs began to chime twelve. “I have to talk to you.”

  Piers looked worried, less sparky than usual. His lab coat was scorched. “Tomorrow. Something’s wrong…it looks like the gates are open. Maybe it’s just the snow, but…”

  “I know she’s not your niece. I know who she is. What the hell do you think you’re playing at? I have a good mind to phone the police myself right now and…”

  “That’s another thing.” Piers shook his head. “The phone’s dead. The lines must be down. Or…”

  Wharton felt a cold chill in his heart. “Or what?”

  “Someone cut them.” Piers shrugged, his gold earring glinting in the hall lamps. “I don’t suppose you know how to load and fire a shotgun, Mr. ex-army teacher, do you?”

  Wharton stared.

  In that instant the doorbell clanged, loud and urgent.

  “What’s that?” Gideon looked around, startled.

  “Someone at the door.” Jake threw him a towel. “You’re soaked.”

  He was more than that. He was saturated with water, a trickling creature of moss-green and ivy, dirty as a gargoyle, gazing in greedy wonder at the room around him. He looked at the towel as if he had no idea what to do with it.

  “How long since you’ve been in a house?” Jake asked quietly.

  “There is no time with the Shee. There’s just now. And now is always hungry and usually cold.” He wiped his face. Livid moss stains smeared the material. Then he saw the plate of nuts on the table and went straight for it, grabbing and crunching a mouthful.

  Horatio shrieked a horrified protest from the curtain.

  Gideon turned, whipping out a sharp flint blade. He leveled it at the monkey and hissed, a savage, eerie sound. “What monster is that?”

  Jake came and shoved the blade down. “My familiar spirit. You’re eating his food.”

  Gideon stared. “In truth? Your familiar? You’re a sorcerer?”

  Did he believe it? Jake shrugged. “I am a sorcerer of great power. And maybe I can save you from the Shee. But first you have to do exactly what I say.”

  Piers unbolted the front door cautiously and Wharton, behind, leaning on the banister with the shotgun ridiculously aimed at the rectangle of snow, saw a tall red-hooded figure duck inside, wipe its feet, and say, “I thought you’d never answer. I’m sorry it’s so late.”

  She tugged her hood off.

  He lowered the shotgun quickly and came forward. “Rebecca? What on earth are you doing here? However did you get through?”

  She laughed. “It wasn’t easy. It’s coming down in blizzards out there! But I had to warn you.”

  “Of what?” Piers said darkly.

  She tugged off her coat in a shower of snow. “A man and a wolf,” she said.

  Venn walked to the window, looking down. “Call me insane. I am insane. But only the device has kept me alive. We all caught David’s enthusiasm, and we worked like slaves on it. But there were so many setbacks. Losing David was the worst.”

  He turned, his eyes palest blue. “And yet it worked—it worked—even though it cost me my only friend to find that out. A cruel exchange. But now…You’ve seen the damage. Now it’s over. And all hope with it.” He looked at the pistol; but she put her hand on it firmly.

  “Don’t give up. Don’t stop.”

  “I told you, it’s over.”

  “You’ll succeed. I promise you.” It was clear to her, quite suddenly, that she had to keep him alive.

  Her own mission needed this to work. Then, afterward, she would be free to act.

  He stared. “How can you promise?”

  “I can. I know.”

  A bang and a clatter downstairs. Venn flicked a glance at the door. Then he came over to her. “Sarah…who are you? Why are you here?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead she reached into her pocket and touched the diamond brooch. She said, “There’s something I need to tell you. I’m not from this institute. I’m from another place altogether. You need to know about Janus…”

  At that moment the door crashed open. Piers seemed to appear from nowhere. “Trouble. Come now.”

  “Wait!”

  “Can’t wait. Intruders, in the grounds. We need to secure the house.”

  Sarah turned in instant alarm. “Who are they?”

  “Not sure. Man and a wolf, Rebecca says.”

  “Rebecca?”

  Downstairs, shutters were slamming. She raced out and looked over the banister and saw Wharton and the girl she’d seen once before, the tall girl with the car, wedging a great bar behind the front door.

  “Where’s Jake?” Venn roared.

  In the Monk’s Walk, Gideon stared around at the green web and whistled. “But I’m telling you, if Venn comes, I vanish. He’ll tell Summer and then…”

  “Leave Venn to me.” Jake shoved past him. “Listen. You stand there and push this switch when I tell you. Understand?”

  Gideon shivered with elegant distaste. “I don’t trust these devices. The Shee can’t touch metal. They say it has demons inside.”

  Jake ignored him, fastening the snake bracelet on his own wrist with feverish haste. Its clasp was icy, and light. “Okay, okay, I’m ready. Quick. Do it now!”

  The complexity of the machine had daunted him. He had switched everything on and there was a faint hum. So something was working. He ignored the safety web and the charred wires and stood directly before the mirror, hands clenched on each side of the frame.

  “Dad,” he whispered. “It’s me. I’m here. I’m coming.”

  Gideon stepped back warily. “It may not be a demon, but it’s making a howl like a fox in a trap.”

  He could hear it, a terrible cracked, broken whine. He could hear crackles and snaps around him, distant bangs in the house.

  His skin tingled. A charge like fear built up in him. Snow swam in his eyes. The bracelet tightened like a vise around his wrist.

  It was happening.

  The mirror was folding, collapsing in on itself, over and over, like an origami of glass, and into its emptiness was the only way left in the world. He staggered, was dragged a step forward.

  He said, “Now!”

  Did Gideon press the switch? He had no idea. Because everything in his mind was gone, sucked into the dark void, all his thoughts, all his memories. Everything that was him. Until all that was left was his body.

  “Jake!” The yell of anguish came from the door and Gideon instantly leaped back into shadow, snatching his fingers from the magic lights and howling moan of the metal.

  Venn tore through the webbing like a madman, shadows flickering behind him. “Jake. Step back! Now!”

  His voice was sucked down the vortex.

  Jake couldn’t turn. “Can’t. Can’t hold…”

  He let go, but Venn was faster. With a yell of anger he ran across the room and grabbed Jake, just as the whole inner core of the Chronoptika became the utter blackness of a vacuum, the nothingness of infinity.

  Of silence.

  Sarah, breathless, leaned on the stone wall and gasped. Wharton and Piers and Rebecca came racing in behind her.

  The mirror was black and silent. The room was empty.

  Wharton stared. “Did they? Oh my God, they haven’t…No, surely…Jake?”

  Sarah was numb with anger. She whispered something, and for a moment he thought the words were: Me. It should have been me.

  At that moment every light in the house went out.

  If like a crab you could go backward…

  16

  There was always something strange about the boy. He laughed at shadows, he sang different songs. When the other children were merry, he was still and silent. More than anything he loved the music of pipes and viols.

&n
bsp; His mother’s anxiety about the Shee made her stern. He was never to enter the Wood. He was never to stray from the cottage and the lanes.

  But one winter twilight, when the stew was simmering on the fire, she went out to call him, and he was gone. It was said he had been seen hand in hand with a woman in a green dress.

  He was never seen again.

  Chronicle of Wintercombe

  JAKE LAY CROOKED and sore against a slimy brick wall.

  His neck was bent at a painful angle; his right leg was numb. Something was sticky and wet on his fingers.

  He moved, and groaned as pain shot from his ankle.

  “He’s alive,” a voice said.

  Jake froze. His first instinct was to open his eyes, but what he saw made him close them at once and play dead. There were two figures bending over him, and one had a knife. He’d caught the dull glimmer of the blade, the dirty thumb on the hasp.

  He held his breath.

  “Finish him.” Hands grabbed him, hauled him over, rummaged quickly through his pockets and jacket, a quick rough search all over him. He felt something—his watch?—dragged from his wrist.

  “Useless.” A coin jangled on the wet cobbles. “Filthy foreign tin.”

  “Take it anyway. The siller ring will fetch.”

  Jake’s fear was becoming anger. Then, sharp as a squealing rat, a whistle pierced the air.

  “Peelers.” The two men jumped up; Jake rolled instantly to his hands and knees and threw himself at the nearer, grappling for the knife that came slashing at his chest.

  He got one good kick in before a punch cracked darkness into his eyes; when that had cleared, the alley was empty, except for a two-pence coin and a spatter of blood.

  He picked himself up, cursing, and looked around.

  He was in a narrow place, dark, with high buildings on each side. He took a breath and his eyes widened at the stench of the air. A fetid, gagging smell of sewage and old vegetables, of smoke and sweat, it almost made him retch.

  Groping toward light, he peered out onto a tiny courtyard, and his hand felt a few words incised into the stone. He rubbed away soot and black moss to read: SOLOMON’S COURT.

  It sounded familiar. Dizzy, he tried to remember where he had heard the name, but then the whistle came again, urgent and near. A group of black-suited men charged in from the street against a small door in the corner, burst it open, and ran inside, yelling.

  Jake stood still, one hand still leaning on the wall.

  He had to fight against astonishment. Keep calm. He had entered the mirror. He had journeyed. But where was he? He felt so sick, it was difficult to think, and his head throbbed. He took a few steps nearer the door.

  Screams met him; a large woman hurried out, throwing on a shawl, and after her a stagger of wrecks and drunks fled into the night. Was this some sort of raid?

  And instantly the memory of where he had seen the name came back—it was the place Symmes had written of in the diary, the place he had gotten the mirror.

  Was this the same night?

  At once, ignoring his blurred vision, Jake raced down the three steps, past the pentangled doorway and into the opium den.

  It was in chaos. The police—if that’s what they were—were grabbing money and goods for themselves, rummaging in the pockets of opium-eaters too drugged to even notice. The sweet smell of the drug choked the close air. Remembering Symmes’s journal, Jake looked for the back room; he raced across, shoving a man out of his way, and burst in through the dingy curtain.

  The room was empty. Beyond, a back door banged in the wind.

  He made two steps toward it before a hand grabbed him. “And we’ll be taking you down too, sonny.”

  He was swung around. A huge man in a dirty black uniform grinned at him. “See the duds on this! Come and take a look, lads. Here’s a gallimaufry.”

  A few chortling faces grinned through the curtain. “Let me go,” Jake snarled.

  The peeler snorted. “Very good, milord.” He opened his hand.

  It was sarcasm, but it gave Jake an idea. He drew himself up, raised his chin, and fixed the man with a glare. “Take your hands off me, man. Don’t you recognize your betters when you see them. How dare you involve me in this disgusting farrago!”

  Wharton, he thought, would have been proud.

  The man’s face lost its grin. He said, “You mean…Lor love you sir, I…”

  “I shall have you dismissed without pay for this…audacity.” Jake dusted down his clothes. He had too many bruises. Too much dirt for the part. But the man was cringing.

  “I ’ad no idea, sir. In this den—”

  “I’m not here for the opium! I’m looking for a gentleman. His name is Symmes. John Harcourt Symmes. Have you arrested him?”

  “We ain’t nabbed no toff ’cept yerself, Mister…?”

  Jake shrugged. “Jake Wilde. Son of Lord Wilde…Surely you know my father, man? The personal assistant to the Home Secretary?”

  He had no idea if there even was a Home Secretary at this date, but it didn’t seem to matter; he was rapidly understanding that just to be haughty and speak in his crisp twenty-first-century English might be enough. As the peeler looked around hopelessly for help, he pushed past him. “He was here, in this room, minutes ago. It was he who had you summoned. He can’t have gone far.”

  “We come on a nark’s word.”

  “Nark?”

  “Grass. Informer.”

  Jake frowned. Symmes had set up the raid, he would have been ready. He’d have already taken the mirror in the cab. He turned quickly, past the peeler. “I have to find him!”

  “Ah now sir, you can’t just…”

  But Jake was already out in the dingy courtyard. The rattle of hooves made him turn; he saw the quick glimpse of a cab rattle past the archway; saw in the flash of the gaslight a plump, rather smug-looking man settling down inside.

  Jake raced after the cab. Bursting out into the street, he saw it swallowed by fog. He took two steps after it and crashed into a small shape that burst from the alley and grabbed him to stop itself falling.

  He looked down and saw the dirtiest child he had ever imagined. The girl wore a ragged blue dress over trousers and worn boots. She screeched, “Let me go!”

  He dropped her, but the cab had gone; the fog was a silent, greasy swirl. He swore. Then he said, “Listen kid, what year is this?”

  The girl stared. Her eyes widened. “You from the Bedlam, mister?”

  He pulled out the two-pence coin and tossed it; she caught it, bit it, and pocketed it in one smooth move. “Foreign tin and no good.” She grinned. “But as I like yer face, I’ll tell you. It’s 1848.”

  Two years.

  Wrong raid. Symmes had had the mirror for two years. Jake swore again.

  He said, “I don’t have much time. You live here?”

  She shrugged.

  “Two years ago a man came here. A gentleman.”

  She rolled her eyes. “They all do.”

  “Not for opium. He came to buy a mirror. There was someone in the back room, a man with a scar on his face…” He groped after the name. “Maskelyne. Do you know him?”

  For a moment intelligence flashed into and out of her face. Then a yell from the den made her twist.

  “I knows him. And I knows them as robbed you.” She sounded breathless. “As took yer siller. Bail me and I’ll take you to ’em.”

  For a moment he thought she was speaking some foreign language. Then a peeler came out of the door and said, “You! Girl! Come ’ere.”

  The girl snatched Jake’s hand. “Bail me.”

  The peeler came over and grabbed her. “With me, you.” He dragged her away; she screamed, tugging and struggling, a small thin whine of woe that set Jake’s teeth on edge. He shook his head.

  “Siller? What’s siller?”

  Did she mean…silver?

  With a sudden terrified jerk he whipped up his sleeve, and stared.

  The only thing around his
wrist was a bare white ring in the flesh.

  The snake bracelet was gone.

  A small yellow flame cracked and flickered in the darkness and Piers’s high voice said, “Don’t anybody move. I don’t want any injuries. Or accidents.”

  The flame moved jerkily across the blackness of the hall; Wharton heard noises of opening, and then the click of a powerful flashlight beam swept his face. He had a nightmare glimpse of a slot of dark room with Sarah standing in it before Piers focused the beam on the generator.

  “This is our emergency supply. If everything’s in order, we should get…”

  Light.

  A faint, flickery crackle as the overhead lights came back on, the generator erupting into an efficient hum.

  Then it went off, just as abruptly.

  Piers groaned and tried again. Nothing. “I loathe machines,” he hissed.

  Wharton took the flashlight and turned it on the mirror, black and enigmatic in its silver frame. Sarah came and stared into it, and her reflection turned Wharton cold.

  She looked devastated.

  He hurried across. Rebecca, just a voice behind him, said, “But where’s Jake? What happened?”

  “Are you all right?” Wharton caught Sarah’s elbow and drew her gently back.

  She shook her head. Near the glass the air was charged; it felt as if a great surge of power had somehow drained it; and Sarah too. As Wharton held her arm she staggered; he grabbed her and said, “Fetch a chair, quickly.”

  Rebecca dragged one over.

  “I don’t want a chair.” She wished the shaking in her fingers would stop—no wonder he thought she was scared. How was he to know it was dismay and sheer fury. Jake—Jake!—had journeyed.

  “This girl is in shock.” Wharton swung accusingly to Piers. “And I have to say so am I. What has happened to Jake and Venn? Have we lost them too?”

  Piers had lit a candle and was studying the controls. He seemed calm, but Wharton could see the faint sweat on his lip.

  “How am I supposed to know! You’re the teacher, mortal!” He took a breath. “Okay. They both seem to have entered the mirror, apparently only one-fiftieth of a second apart, though only Jake wore the snake. I don’t know what that will mean. They could come back at any moment. Or not for hours.”