Mirror Image

by Michael Scott

  There was evidence aplenty of evil in the world, so was it quite so difficult to imagine that an object should become associated with darkness? There was the infamous Spear of Longinus, the blade that supposedly pierced Christ’s side on the cross. It was notorious in the antiques trade, with “genuine” spears being offered for sale with surprising regularity. But lots of people believed in its power to do good or ill; even Hitler had made every effort to obtain the spear when his troops invaded Austria.

  Jonathan recalled an ugly black-handled knife that Tony Farren had once bought amongst a job lot of Victorian cutlery. The handle had been crudely carved into the likeness of a man and woman copulating. The man was horned, tailed, and cloven-hooved. Within minutes of displaying it in his father’s shop it had been purchased by a collector, who subsequently informed him that the knife had belonged to a famous North of England black magic coven, and there were rumors that it had been used in sacrifices. The collector had gleefully informed Jonathan that he would have paid ten times the price for it.

  But one of the reasons he had put the object out for sale so cheaply and quickly was because he had found it difficult to touch the object without feeling cold, and almost physically ill.

  So, yes: Frazer could accept that the mirror was a focus for something, some power, some sort of negative energy … but that didn’t necessarily make the mirror evil. Surely it was the intent with which the mirror was used? Could it not be used for good as well as evil?

  Talbott had said that it was powerful—he hadn’t said that it was evil.

  Jonathan Frazer brushed at the glass with the palm of his hand, scraping off the black gummy coating. What exactly had Talbott said about the mirror?

  “Once it is fed with human emotions, with blood, sweat, tears, semen, then its powers are limitless. It can show wonders—or terrors.”

  It can show wonders.

  Jonathan reached into his jeans pocket and took out a slender Victorinox Swiss Army knife. Choosing the larger of the two blades, he locked it open. He stared at the blade for a moment and then, gritting his teeth, he jabbed the point into his index finger, hissing with the sting. A tiny bead of blood appeared.

  His hand was trembling as he reached for the glass …

  48

  SHE REMEMBERED the last time she had made love to Robert Beaumont.

  Emmanuelle Frazer twisted on the bed, caught up in the erotic dream. She was half asleep, aware that she was dreaming, yet still conscious of the fact that she was lying in her bed, naked beneath the cool cotton duvet, her left hand resting flat against her breast, the fingers of her right hand moving across and down her belly, teasing herself.

  She had met Beaumont shortly after she had first moved to Paris to study fashion. She was not so naive that she didn’t recognize him for what he was—an opportunist probably, a gigolo occasionally, a con man certainly. But he was also her entrée to a segment of Parisian society that she would never, in normal circumstances, have been able to experience. And if she had to pay for that privilege, then so be it.

  That they should end up as lovers was almost inevitable. She was fascinated by him, the way he looked, the way he moved, the way he dressed. She had never known a man who paid so much attention to his clothing, and he was one of the very few men who delighted in going shopping with her. He took an especial pleasure in choosing underwear for her. He had been the first to comment on her fine bone structure and to suggest that she should shave her head, and although she had initially resisted, they had gotten drunk one night and when they had woken, they had discovered her head had been completely shaved—although neither of them could remember it happening.

  She had never loved him, and he had never loved her. That was an accepted part of their relationship. They got on well together, they eventually lived together, they slept together, and when she had left Paris they had kept in touch, Skyping each other every weekend. When Robert came back to live in Los Angeles with his mother he had asked Manny if she could do something about getting him a job.

  She wasn’t a virgin when she met him, but she was still inexperienced. Her previous boyfriend had been unimaginative and the night she and, as it transpired, he also—lost her virginity, it has been a painful, messy, and altogether uninspiring event.

  But Robert had taught her how her body could respond, he had shown her how to bring herself to orgasm, how to give of herself freely. Often he would just sit opposite, watching her arouse herself with two fingers, and then, when she was close to orgasm, he would come over to her, and press his lips to hers while his fingertips trailed down her body, until they finally closed over her hands.

  And she felt him.

  Had she fallen asleep; was she dreaming?

  She felt his hands on hers.

  She was still in her semiconscious state, she was aware that she was dreaming.

  But she could feel him.

  She dreamt that she lay on her bed with her eyes closed while Robert Beaumont bent over her, pressing his lips to hers, squeezing her fingers with his free hand, urging her on. She was aware of his hairless chest against her breasts, his breath on her face, his lips and tongue, moist and damp against her lips. His hands spread her legs and he moved atop her body, mounting her smoothly. She lifted her legs, wrapping them around his buttocks, pulling him deeper inside her, her long fingers digging into his shoulders …

  49

  JONATHAN FRAZER’S finger left a single dot of blood on the glass.

  Before his eyes, the crimson bead was absorbed into the mirror, leaving a brown flaking spot in its wake.

  Frazer squeezed more blood onto his fingertip and smeared it down the glass, the thin liquid cutting a stripe—like a window—through the grimy coating, revealing, for an instant …

  His wife, Celia Frazer, and a naked muscular blond man.

  Dried flakes of blood seesawed to the floor.

  Jonathan Frazer stared in horror at the glass. What had he just seen?

  Almost without thinking he drew the razor sharp blade across the palm of his left hand. The flesh parted like an unfolding leaf, blood welling into the wound. With his fingers splayed, he pressed his hand to the glass, and rubbed it in a circle, smearing the surface of the mirror with his blood.

  The couple was naked. He was sitting in an armchair, his legs spread and she was between his thighs, his manhood in her mouth, his hands grabbing at her hair, setting the pace, pushing and pulling.

  Dragging his gaze away from the couple, Frazer tried to focus on the surroundings, noting the room’s furniture, the ocean view, a bikini and beach towel tossed carelessly on the thickly carpeted floor. And then he recognized the location.

  It was a physical effort of will to draw back from the mirror.

  Sinking onto the chaise longue, cradling his torn hand, he stared at the glass, his thoughts in turmoil. He had known—deep in his heart and soul—that Celia was having an affair. He had just never admitted it before.

  But what exactly was he seeing in the mirror; surely it was nothing more than his imagination?

  But he knew it was not.

  Becoming aware of the burning in the palm of his hand, he raised it up to look at it in the bad light. The flesh was filthy with the dirt from the mirror, the edges of the long cut encrusted with the slime that coated the glass. But then, as he watched, a scab formed along the edge of the wound, it thickened and hardened before his eyes, and then the edges began to peel and flake away. When he carefully picked away the crust, he found that the cut was completely healed, leaving only a thin black line in its wake.

  His head was buzzing with questions and possibilities as he started for the mirror—and then something stopped him. If he wanted to see anything else, he would need to feed the mirror again. He looked at his hand again: he could feed the glass his blood … but what were the dangers, what were the consequences?

  Only Edmund Talbott could answer those questions. He needed to find Talbott.

  50

  IN
THE Otherworld, the astral body of Edmund Talbott watched the silent whirlpool of power circling above the mirror. Suddenly a shudder, a crimson twitch, rippled through the spinning tornado.

  Red: it had tasted blood.

  Deep in its core, he could see the white threads that ran its length, like thick worms, now pulsating with an ever increasing rhythm.

  White: it was feeding off sexual excitement.

  Someone was feeding the glass, with blood and sex.

  Deeply troubled, Talbott glided away from the area immediately surrounding the whirlpool. Even though he was separated from it by an enormous gulf, he was aware of its tremendous pull, and he knew that it was growing incredibly powerful. It had shown that it was capable of influencing events in the real world, and now it looked as if someone was consciously feeding it.

  It could only be one man.

  Even in sleep, Talbott’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a savage grin. He would kill Frazer without a second thought in order to stop the mirror.

  51

  MANNY COULD feel him in her body, his stomach flat against hers as he strove to drive himself even deeper into her. Sweat trickled down her body and into the valley between her breasts. She was aware of him licking it off, his tongue rough against her skin. His fingers teased at her nipples, brushing, touching, squeezing, pinching—hurting—even as his pounding intensified, swamping the pleasure with the pain.

  Manny Frazer opened her eyes … and looked into horror!

  It was Robert Beaumont who made love—who was still making love!—to her. But this was not the smooth-skinned handsome young man, this was Beaumont’s charred and incinerated corpse, flesh hanging in strips from his skull, his moist tongue a curled stub in his mouth. The fingers that had played with her hard nipples were burnt down to bone, filthy, blackened stumps, some still leaking ichor. His smooth and hairless chest was a slab of raw meat, and his manhood—which had been so deeply inside her—was bloody and fire-blackened.

  And even as she opened her mouth to scream, a part of her mind was attempting to calmly rationalize the fears away. But it was a very small voice, and her fears were very great.

  And when she screamed herself back to wakefulness, she could still feel the rasp of blackened flesh against her skin, could still smell the stench of burnt meat in the air. Her breasts were red, nipples swollen and her groin was bruised raw.

  52

  IN THE Otherworld the whirlpool marking the occult presence of the mirror spun, drifting from side to side, shifting off its axis, tendrils of ragged power spinning out across the astral, dipping down into the physical world …

  * * *

  BAD BILL HAD been living on the streets for nearly ten years. He’d survived so long because he took care of himself, rarely mixed with the other down-and-outs, and didn’t drink or smoke—except in huge binges. He was a quiet unassuming man, good-humored, good-tempered, except when he drank, and then his personality underwent a complete change. And when he was bad he was very bad: and that’s how he got his name. He was forty-two years old, looked twenty and more years older and didn’t confidently expect to live to see forty-four. Nowadays he couldn’t remember why he’d gone on the streets, and that bothered him, but shit, nowadays he sometimes couldn’t even remember his own name.

  Today wasn’t so bad though. It was dry, sunny, and there was no wind, and he found a large discarded cardboard box behind a Ralphs store on La Brea. It hadn’t taken him long to flatten it but now he had to decide where he was going to camp down for the night. There were a few daylight hours left and he remembered a small park just off Curson Avenue: it closed to the general public at sundown. It had been a while since he had slept there, but he’d fallen into the habit of never staying in the same place for more than a couple of nights in a row.

  It had taken the best part of an hour and a half before he reached the tall gates to the park, mainly because the walk was uphill and he had stopped several times to rummage through various trash bins on the way. He’d got some empty bottles and cans, so it hadn’t been a complete waste of time.

  Exhausted, Bill sat on the low stone wall beside a leaf-filled pool and thought about the best spot for the night. It needed to be somewhere he could shelter from the cold and away from any wandering coyotes. There were a few people still in the park, playing with their dogs in the open grassy area. He’d wait for them to go, hide while the park ranger glanced around making sure no one was about, and then, when it was quiet, he’d search quickly through the trash bins. There was always food in park trash—discarded lunches, half-finished drinks. He was confident he’d find something to eat. Then he’d set about finding some place to stay for the night. He knew that the park was an odd shape: a long corridor of lawn, wider at the bottom, narrowing as it rose and then fading into brush and dirt. Giant palm trees and large overgrown bushes surrounded the sloping perimeter. An old drunk he used to hang out with told him that it had once been a beautiful Japanese garden complete with a tea house, shrines, and lanterns. But times changed and everyone and everything got old. All that was left of the beautiful gardens was the dilapidated water feature. It was a good place to stay though; no junkies, no pushers, and far safer than sleeping on a bench or in some dark alleyway.

  Wandering around, he found a perfect spot to set up his box. Back off the track, behind a solid wall of bushes, he’d be invisible and the box and hedge would keep him warm. He took his time searching along the dusty track, but could find no coyote prints, so he reckoned he’d be safe from them, too. Usually, they didn’t bother him, but there were rumors of rabid ones on the loose.

  But when he finally got set up and climbed into the box, he found he couldn’t sleep. He twisted and turned, tense and aching, listening, his senses buzzing. There was an ache in his stomach, a tightness in his chest, and the pain went down into his left arm. Bad Bill staggered to his feet, clutching his left arm with his right hand. He made his way through the bushes, knowing from experience that a walk would ease the pressure.

  He kept to the shadows. It was unlikely that the park ranger would return, but there was no point in taking unnecessary risks. He followed the path that led back down to the fountain. The water had been turned off so there was no misting spray to wet him, and he sat down on the low stone wall, forearms resting on his thighs, head drooping between his knees, attempting to catch his breath. He sat up, breathing deeply, and turned to look into the pool. The water was smooth, polished, a perfect mirror.

  It took him a few moments to realize what he was seeing, and then his rheumy eyes opened wide with something approaching delight. His heart began to trip alarmingly, but he was barely aware of it. His lips curled back from his almost toothless gums as he bent his head to kiss the brackish water.

  The image lured him down, the image of his long dead wife, killed a month after they married. Her death had set him off on the long road that ended on the streets, starving and diseased, but he’d never forgotten his wife. She was then and had always been the love of his life. He frowned, struggling to remember her name. Her name. She’d been called …

  Icy water enfolding his head like a lover, sucking at his mouth, his tongue, lapping at his cheeks, his eyes, pulling him in, pulling him down.

  Bad Bill grew aware of the sensation, the powerful eroticism of the water, the enfolding warmth, the pulse pounding rhythm. It reminded him of …

  Helena! That was her name.

  Bad Bill looked at the water and the image looked back.

  And he remembered the last time he had made love to her, twenty-two years ago.

  Helena.

  * * *

  ABBEY MEYERS HAD been a widow for ten years, since her husband, a retired army general had died suddenly and spectacularly at a regimental reunion. He had been honoring those who served in the war, when he’d simply fallen down, a massive heart attack taking him in a manner and at a time and place which she thought he would have totally approved. He’d been buried with full military honors. Ten ye
ars was a long time, but she still thought of him, especially now, coming up on Thanksgiving and the holidays. The holidays had been their most special time; they had met during the holidays just after the war, they had married the following winter, their first child had been born just before Thanksgiving, and finally, the general had died a few days before the Thanksgiving holiday. There were some nights—like now—when the evenings were chilly, the dark nights drew closer, when she could almost feel his presence around the large house in Beverly Hills.

  This had always been his favorite residence. After his death she had sold off the weekend home in Santa Barbara. She hadn’t regretted the decision; she got out with a spectacular price just before the market collapsed. And there had been no way she could have looked after the large second home, the upkeep would have drained their resources. Maxwell, her son, had suggested that she also put the Beverly Hills house up for sale and move to somewhere smaller. There was no mortgage to pay off and she would get a handsome price for it, but she didn’t really need money at the moment, whereas she knew that Max did and as soon as she sold the house, he’d ask for some. Anyway, it would all be his when she was gone.

  She’d gone through a phase when the very idea of death terrified her. Now, she supposed she almost looked forward to it. She was eighty-four years old, she had achieved all that she was ever going to achieve and, if she were being perfectly truthful, she had really lost interest in most things since the general’s death.

  Abbey Meyers turned the key on the small book-lined study that had been her husband’s favorite room. Here his presence was very strong; sometimes she imagined she could still smell the pipe tobacco he favored. She hadn’t deliberately kept it as a shrine to him—he was far too practical, and so was she. But she had kept it the way she thought he would have liked it. There was still the wall of leather-bound books, still the army trophies, the medals, the awards, the framed photographs. There was his collection of swords and knives in their decorative displays on the end wall above the fireplace. His desk was very much as he had left it, an old Royal typewriter—a collector’s piece now she supposed—still taking pride of place. He had been working on the definitive story of the fall of Berlin when he’d died. It remained unfinished and although she had often thought about completing it from his notes and references, she imagined that other, far more competent historians had already done that work.