Obsidian Mirror (26 page)

Gideon came softly and sat next to her. “A place of terror?”

She laughed. “A place where I learned to be invisible. A place of secret experiments and strange procedures. A place where they studied humans, how to make them more than mortal.”

He laughed too. “More than mortal!”

Rebecca shivered.

“But a few of us were stubborn.” Sarah looked up. “We formed a resistance cell. We called ourselves ZEUS because of the coin, and because of the story, the legend in Greek mythology…”

“What legend?” Rebecca asked,

Wharton nodded. “I see. Chronos—that is Time—was a Titan who murdered all his sons one by one. Until Zeus was born. Zeus was the one who defeated Time.” He looked at her. “How many of you were there?”

She shrugged. “Six. Six friends. Angry, disaffected kids with no hope. No plan. Until we found out about the mirror.”

Wharton got up and put a new log on the fire, pushing it well down into the hot red embers. “So you get yourself in here, you make us feel so sorry for you, you lie and pretend, and all the time you want to steal the mirror?” His anger was sharp as a wasp. He stood there and dusted his hands and held her with his annoyingly honest stare.

“Not to steal,” she said quickly.

“Then…”

“To protect it. From Janus ever getting it.”

She glanced at Gideon. He sat in the inglenook, watching the crackling fire. His hands were around his knees, his whole body twisted away from the iron work. He was listening intently.

She hurried to escape the lie, maybe too quickly. “He’s experimented with it. We don’t know details, but we do know that it works and that he’s
journeyed
because…because of the Replicants.”

Wharton said, “All this is fascinating, but…”

“No, please. Listen.” She turned to him, her blue eyes fierce. “This is important. If a journeyman makes a mistake…if you come back at the wrong time…that is, if you come back before you leave…don’t you see?
There will be two of you.
We call it replication. Janus must have done that, because he has at least several Replicants. One of them is here, outside, in the grounds. Now.”

“And the wolf,” Gideon said. “Don’t forget the wolf.”

“He breeds them. They smell out the tracks of a traveler in time.”

Wharton frowned. “But, the snow.”

“Won’t stop him. He’ll use it. He’s already cut the power.”

Rebecca shook her head. “All this…it sounds crazy.”

“Who asked you?” Sarah swung around, irritated. “What are you doing here anyway?”

The tall girl shrugged. “I came to warn Jake…”

“Why?” Sarah said, suspicious. “About Janus? Then how did you—”

“Look.” Wharton’s voice was sharp. “The house is secure. Any minute now Piers will get the lights working. No one can get in. I assure you.”

The crash silenced him.

He stared at Sarah. Then they were both out of the
archway and running down the frosty corridor, under the bells. Hurtling into the hall, Wharton stopped dead, seeing the front door had been burst wide open, the lock still smoking. Snow swirled over the black-and-white tiles of the floor.

Behind him, Sarah said, “He’s inside.” She turned to him, her face pale. “Get to the Monk’s Walk. Quickly. Or we’re finished.”

“Oh, I intend to. But not you.” Wharton blocked her way. “I’m afraid you’re not going anywhere near that mirror, Sarah. Because everything you’ve told us could still be a pack of lies.”

Deep in the lightless house, Maskelyne heard the crash. He had crouched, shivering, trying to rub feeling back into his arms and shoulders for long minutes; then he had explored carefully, opening doors, peering into rooms, working his way silently into the heart of the ancient building, its scents of wax polish and old lavender.

He knew the device was here. In some inexplicable way he could sense its waiting presence, feel its tingling aura in his nerves. The mirror recognized him. He moved toward it, down passageways, up stairwells, treading stealthily down the empty expanse of the Long Gallery.

The crash stopped him, under a portrait of a long-dead
Lord Venn. Someone had forced open the front door. For a moment he heard the blur of anxious voices, then he ran, up a narrow spiral stair that led to the first floor.

He walked stealthily down the corridor and turned a corner.

Piers was waiting for him.

The small man smiled, satisfied. “So. It is you after all.”

He stood in his grubby white coat, the red waistcoat bright under it, his small feet planted firmly. He had no weapon, but Maskelyne knew he didn’t need one. This was no human servant.

He stopped. “You know me?”

“You’re in Symmes’s journal. You’re the one he stole the mirror from.” His voice was conversational. Piers strolled down the corridor. “I’ve seen you on the cameras. You’ve been trying to get in here for months.” He came up to Maskelyne, curious. “Did you
journey
? Did you come straight from that night in the opium den?”

Curiosity. The bright eyes were wide with it. It was the one weak point Maskelyne understood. He let his shoulders slump; allowed exhaustion to cross his marked face. He said, “I’m lost in this time. I just want the mirror. My mirror.”

There was a small blue-and-white ceramic pot on
the wide windowsill. That would do, if he could reach it. Quickly he drew the slim glass weapon from his pocket.

Piers laughed, as if surprised. “That won’t hurt me.” He came right up to it; let the barrel rest against his chest, almost friendly. “I’m not the sort of being that can be destroyed with a weapon.”

Maskelyne nodded. “I know that,” he said. Then he spoke, so fast, so low, the whisper was barely intelligible; a rapid spell in ancient Latin and lost Celtic, the words garbled backward, forward, inside-out, and opposite, a web of knotted sound, a rattle of power.

Piers gasped.

He looked down at himself, howled a syllable of rage, flung out both spidery hands.

Maskelyne sidestepped, made a sigil of his fingers.

Piers was an outline, a glimmer. He was a faint after-image in the air of the corridor. He mouthed curses, but no words came.

Maskelyne took the jar and lifted the lid. It smelled of the ghosts of roses. He stopped the spell, took a breath, and commanded.

“Enter.”

Piers, faint as dust, fixed him with a furious glare. And then he was gone, though Maskelyne felt scorched, as if that wrath had burned right through him.

Hands shaking, he put the weapon away, fixed the lid on the jar, and stood it on the sill. Then he sat down beside it so fast, he felt as if his legs had given way, and put his head in his hands.

He had not made such a dark magic for centuries.

He was surprised to find he still had it in him.

The noise was terrible. Coins fell like rain, bouncing and rolling, rattling on the bare boards.

The thieves were awake in seconds, Moll screeched, and Jake only managed to stop his fall by grabbing the twisted cable so tight, the snake bracelet bit into his hand. Hot rope scorched him.

The men saw him; they swore and yelled. One—the smaller—ran and grabbed the end of the rope and jerked it so ferociously, Jake could hardly hold on. If he fell, he was finished. If they had a weapon, he was finished.

Then Moll struck.

She came out of the ruined wings like a spitfire, kicking, spitting venom. She had some sort of cudgel of wood; she cracked the thin man from behind across the back of his knees so that he staggered and fell, howling. She dragged her weapon up and turned, but the big man was there.

With one backhanded blow, he floored her.

Jake roared with rage. Forgetting safety, he slid down
the rope, hitting the stage so hard, his knees buckled; in seconds he had the thick cable looped around the man’s throat and was hauling him back, throttling, dodging the flailing fists and clutching fingers.

The thief made choking, animal noises; he scrabbled desperately at the rope. Jake clung on, but the man’s strength was too much. With one convulsive jerk he turned, and a knife slashed so close to Jake’s neck, he felt the whistle of air.

Moll yelled, “Jake!”

He leaped back.

Breathless, he confronted the thief. The man tossed the knife into his right hand and plucked another from his back pocket. The blade slicked out. Menacing, grim with anger, he moved in.

“Down, Jake!” Her screech was so shrill, it sounded like the monkey’s. He gave one glance back, then threw himself aside with a yell and the vast stage curtain swept over him like a smothering tidal wave of darkness and dust. For a moment he was drowned in it, and then he had rolled free and she was grabbing him, dragging him up. “Run!
Run!
”

Half blind, he crashed into the ramshackle scenery; through lopsided battlements, through a tilted doorway cut in a cardboard cottage. Behind, the big thief roared and floundered under the curtain, swearing death and revenge, but already they were fleeing
through heaps of painted graves, tombs adorned with skull and crossed bones, through flimsy flats of gnarled trees and fairy rings and a vast sprouting beanstalk.

Moll giggled.

“You’re crazy,” Jake gasped. “He could have killed you!”

“He never. And he won’t.”

She grabbed him away. “Down this way. Smart now.”

A narrow grating in the wall. She had tugged it open and was swarming through; Jake slid after her, feet-first into a pitch-black stinking space, a slit barely wide enough to squeeze inside, descending at a steep angle.

As they scraped themselves down and down they slowed, gasping in the fetid air, until at last they stopped, and Jake heard, far behind, the big man slamming at the tiny grid with chilling rage.

He heard a small creaky sound in the darkness beside him. Moll, it seemed, was laughing.

He realized he was sore, one hand badly rope-burned. But the bracelet was safe. He touched it, in the dark, then shoved it deep in his inner pocket. The thought of how close he had been to losing it forever turned him cold. He gazed up the filthy tunnel.

“How far does this go?”

“Into the gutters,” she said, snuggling up tight to
him. “All the runnels and sewers, the new ones, they all meet down here. This is where the meat-men live, and the rat-boys too. But don’t fret. I knows a way up that will bring us near the posh streets, the ones you want.”

“Why should I want them?”

He caught the glimmer of her grin, patient and knowing. “Because that’s where he lives, don’t he? The one you want. The cully what took the mirror.”

Sarah paced the tiny scullery, furious.

Wharton had been polite but utterly firm. He had taken her arm, marched her in here, and locked the door. She gave a small scream of frustration.
They had no idea what they were dealing with.

She stopped.

Taking a glove off, she pulled the gray notebook from her coat pocket and for a moment, stared at it.

Reluctant, she opened it. The page was covered with the sloping script of Janus.

I’M SORRY, SARAH. MY REPLICANT IS IN THE HOUSE NOW. AND THANKS TO THAT LITTLE SUBTERFUGE OF YOURS, WHICH OF THEM WILL TRUST YOU ANYMORE? THE BLUFF TEACHER, THE LITTLE GENIE, THE REMARKABLY CURIOUS LOCAL GIRL? GIVE UP, SARAH. OR YOUR PARENTS WILL PAY.