The Dickens Mirror (49 page)

No, a dream is what you live when you sleep
. Black Dog licked Doyle’s left ear.
A nightmare is what you’re relieved to find, upon waking, your life isn’t
.

“Christ, I had the same dream, man. That bat-shit crazy valley; the fog that rolled in out of nowhere, swallowed us up, and then landed us where there were
things
with …” The knob of his Adam’s apple bobbed as Chad swallowed. “But I don’t remember
you
,” he said to Tony.

“Makes two of us.” Gulping back a strangled laugh, Future Tony coughed more blood. “But I remember Rima. She’s about
the only person from the dream that I do.”

“Yes.” Rima gave the boy a slow nod. “You gave the other Rima a muffler.”

“To keep you warm.” Future Tony’s eyes rested on Rima’s face for a long moment. “You were the only one who felt real to me in that place. After that, I think I don’t remember anything else because I … I d-died.” Blood stained his lips the color of fresh roses. “That’s right, isn’t it? I s-saw you and then all I could think was … 
save
her, do it for
her
, and then …”

“Don’t think of it anymore.” Rima’s eyes pooled. “It’s past.”

“Or prologue,” Black Widow said.

“I think I died, too.” The tip of Chad’s narrow nose reddened. “The snow b-broke up and something grabbed me, pulled me down.
Killed
me. God, it hurt.” He looked at Emma. “Then I woke up. Is that what happened to you?”

“I didn’t have that part of the dream, but now that I see you? I think we met. You and Bode were in a really weird house that showed me stuff I can’t hardly remember.” Emma looked to Black Widow. “That’s how you do it. It’s the nightmare. That’s why the fog has more stops than it did before. The stops are our
Nows
, and we’re linked because we’ve all had the same dream. It’s kind of like we’re infected. You use the dream to home in on us. It’s why I saw you come through the window, and our Tony saw you come after the other Tony through a mirror. Maybe you
knew
about us before but couldn’t
find
us until we had the dream, and then we showed you what we looked like, because Tony looked in a mirror and I saw my reflection in a window. Mirrors and windows are like your eyes into the
Now
. Either the fog travels through dreams—or maybe it’s what
makes
dreams—or
you
follow the dream and make the fog go to that
Now
. But here’s something
I don’t understand.
Our
Tony was sick before the squirmers got him because the other Tony is here. If another Rima was here or a Chad or Bode, they’d be sick, too. If there was another
me
here, I bet I would be. Isn’t that right?”

“These others … yes.
You
, however, I am not so sure.” Head cocked, Black Widow studied the girl. “You are singular, unique in your construction.”

“I don’t know what that means.” Emma actually seemed to grow smaller, the way a flower might wilt under a hot sun. “But if what I said is right, then how come
you’re
not sick?” The girl turned a look down at the man and woman in the far cell and then back to Black Widow. “Because
she’s
here. So you
ought
to be.”

“Well, I must be singular, too.” Showing her teeth, Black Widow slid a sidelong glance to the far cage. “Wouldn’t you agree, darling?”

“Darling?” Emma repeated.

In the cage, the handsome woman opened her mouth but closed it again when her husband squeezed her shoulder and then turned a stony face to Black Widow. “Where’s Kramer?” he asked.

Kramer
. Doyle goggled.
Darling? That man
knows
Black Widow?

But of course he would
. Black Dog snuffled at his neck.
Look at his wife
.

“Kramer? You’ll get your chance. I dare say he’ll be along …” Black Widow broke off as a far wall abruptly wavered much more violently than before, as if Doyle were looking into a vat of mercury into which someone had thrown a large boulder.

“What the hell?” Chad said.

The rock wall glimmered, both puckering and yet expanding.
Then, a figure melted into being. A body was draped over its shoulders. At a glance, Doyle knew this figure wasn’t Kramer, but there was something wrong with this person’s face. Doyle squinted, then gasped,
“God!”
There was a crash of glass on stone. Swaying, Doyle gripped the worktable into which he’d bumbled with quivering arms. “Dear God, what
is
that thing?”

Steady, dearest
. Black Dog actually braced him up.

“It ain’t got a face.” Any wider, and Chad’s eyes would plop from their sockets. “It’s a nothing, it’s a …”

A blank, like the crowd
. Doyle gulped back a surge of vomit.
Like the hag!
The man-thing was brutish, incomplete, only so much unformed clay. Beyond, the rock shimmered again, and then a clot of dismay iced his chest.
No
, Doyle thought, as he watched the girl, face ashen, emerge.
No no no, you can’t be here, Meme, you can’t …

“Oh!” Rima cupped a hand to her lips. Next to her, Emma’s eyes were wide with shock. “No,” Rima said. “
No
. Is he dead, is he …”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Chad said, as the man-thing strode to an examination table and laid out a body with surprising gentleness, cradling the head with a massive hand.
“Bode?”

All Mad Here

“YOU
FUCKS!
” CHAD
screamed. Bode’s long brown hair had come undone, and a black rill of blood slowly wormed from a rude gash on his right temple. “What’d you
do
to him?”

“He’s not
your
Bode, Chad.” Emma sounded as if she was trying very hard not to cry. “He’s ours.”

God, if you’re listening, if there’s any mercy left in this world at all, please
. Doyle watched as Meme slid alongside the man-thing and began to swab away blood from the boy’s face.
Please, get Meme out of here
. He should do something, say anything. Sidle over, touch her, murmur,
Leave this place. Come with me, and I’ll care for you
.

Oh, my dear bricky little Doyle
. Black Dog chuffed.
Then go, quickly, before Kramer returns. Kick the dust from your sandals, rest your head on her breasts
.

“Bode?” Rima clung to her cell’s bars. “What’s wrong with him? What happened? Is he dead? Did you kill him?”

“Do calm yourself. He isn’t, though he ought since he drowned.” It was Kramer, emerging from the rock. He gestured at another man-thing just behind him that had a girl held fast by
an arm. Like Bode, the girl was soaked to the skin. “You may thank
her
for his life.”

“Elizabeth!” Black Widow started forward. “What happened? Is she all right?”

“Stay.” Kramer held up his free hand. “She is not what you think.”

“What are you talking—”

“Oh my God!” It was the handsome woman in the far cell. Scrambling to her feet, she launched herself at the bars. “My
God
! She’s alive!”

“No!” The man was by her side in a second. “You don’t understand.”

“What’s to understand? I always knew she was alive, even after all those months of doctors telling me she’d died, that they couldn’t do a damn thing about the leukemia. I knew they were wrong. I told you that all we had to do was get to another
Now
and find her again.”

“No. Love,” the man said, “it’s not as simple as—”

“Yes, it is. That is
my
daughter.” She held out her bandaged arms. “Honey? Lizzie? Don’t be afraid. It’s Momma. You know your mom, don’t you?”

Mother?
Perhaps it was the way the air wobbled and shimmied, but Elizabeth looked very odd. Her face wavered as if Doyle were peering through flawed glass during a rainstorm. The effect was eerie, as if her features were uncertain how they ought to settle. Yet when Elizabeth looked toward the couple in the far cell, Doyle thought he registered first surprise and then a narrow expression of suspicion, a slight parting of her lips as her eyes settled not on the handsome woman who called herself
mother
 … but the man. Her
father
? Doyle blinked.
That
was
McDermott? If true, this meant that Kramer had known where McDermott was all along.
Or really had been looking for him and only now found him. But how?
Doyle’s eyes snapped back to Black Widow.
The little girl, Emma, said they were all linked by that … that thing they call a nightmare. So Black Widow found the McDermotts through the same dream?

“Sweetheart, listen to me,” McDermott pressed. “It’s not her. It’s a trick.”

Sweetheart. Elizabeth’s mother and his wife
. Doyle swallowed and tasted acid.
That is Meredith McDermott
. But then Black Widow …

“A
trick
?” Black Widow rounded on McDermott. “Oh, that’s
very
good, coming from you!”

“What are you
talking
about? Of
course
it’s her,” Meredith said to McDermott. “I
told
you she was alive. Didn’t I tell you?”

“No.” McDermott tried to gather her. “She isn’t who you remember.”

“My dear woman, you should listen to your husband. Quite astute,” Kramer said. “But then, he always was.”

“Shut up, Kramer,” McDermott said. “Where’s Battle? What have you done to him?”

“Me?” With his half-mask and serpent’s hiss, Kramer looked as innocent as a viper coiled about a clutch of fragile baby birds:
Oh, not to worry; I’ll care for them while you pop out for a pint
. “I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Doyle, then.” McDermott transferred his gaze to him. “Constable, where’s the inspector? I demand to see Battle.”

He knows my name
. Doyle’s insides shriveled. This was like that moment Elizabeth had called him Arthur. How did either that girl or McDermott know him?

“Honey?” Meredith was still calling to the girl. “Sweetheart?”

“Not so fast there.” Black Widow gave Meredith a dark look before turning to Kramer. “What have you done?”

“Doyle, answer me, damn it!” McDermott wrenched at the bars of his cage. “Where the hell is Battle?”

Too many people, too much noise; everyone, plug yer damn cakeholes!
Doyle gnawed a knuckle to keep from screaming. McDermott, in league with Battle … Given what Doyle had discovered, he could see that.

“You’re in no position to demand anything, Franklin. If Doyle is here, I’d say that the good inspector’s usefulness is past. Although your concern does confirm what I’ve long suspected: Battle was your creature, wasn’t he? Solving murders was never his goal.” The doctor tilted his head toward the exam table. “His sole aim was to preserve
them
, wasn’t it? What I don’t understand is why he kept after Elizabeth so, unless it was to make certain that she couldn’t give away your whereabouts, or reveal too much of the process, so that only you would retain the power over life and death? Or … was the unfortunate Battle looking for you, too, waiting on his master to return and wondering what was taking him so long, why you’d abandoned him in this godforsaken place? Well …” Kramer almost seemed to puff up with pride. “Take a good look. I’ve been quite the apt pupil, yes? I am close,
very
close to mastery. All I require is the Mirror, and I will set this world to rights—or leave it for another
Now
where we can be whole.”

McDermott was shaking his head. “The Mirror wouldn’t work for you. It’s not in your nature, Kramer.”

“Both of you can sod all.” Black Widow scythed air with the side of a bladelike hand. “Kramer, what did you mean when you
agreed that Elizabeth isn’t who that woman remembered? Did you …” Black Widow’s jaw went slack. “My God, you let one take control. Damn you, we had an
agreement
.”

“Things have changed,” Kramer said to Black Widow.

“Honey?” Meredith called again.

“Oh? What?” Black Widow bit off the words. “We were to gather these pieces together and
purge
her of them. You said you’d perfected a serum. You promised to get
rid
of them!”

“He can’t,” McDermott said. “You have to trust me on this.”

“Trust?” Black Widow seethed. “
You?
The one man responsible for all this?”

“What’s wrong with Lizzie?” Meredith sounded confused, though Doyle didn’t think she was really listening to the others. Her eyes were only for the girl. “Honey?”

“What about Bode?” Rima said.

“I told you. He drowned.” Kramer aimed a forefinger at Elizabeth. “He was dead until
she
breathed life back into him.”

“You know, guys, it was only CPR.” Elizabeth’s words were toneless yet
burred
a little, as if having the same trouble settling down as her features.

“Don’t be modest. You’re a slip of a girl, and you hoisted the boy from that pool with your bare hands. I’d say that’s a touch … unusual?” Kramer inclined his head toward the last person just now materializing from what had been solid stone. “And there is, of course, your effect on Weber as well.”

Weber? Doyle recognized the general shape of the man’s body, although Weber’s head, still in partial shadow because of distance and grainy light, looked a touch misshapen and off-kilter. Doyle squinted as Weber tottered a little closer. Very unsteady on his … 
Oh
. Gasping, Doyle gripped the worktable
so tightly the edge bit his flesh.
What is this? What’s happening? Rock that moves, doppelgängers, men with no faces
.

And now, Weber.

LIKE THE HAG
, a portion of Weber’s skull pulsed with the undulation of pink brains beneath as a milky white membrane unfurled over a tracery of red capillaries and blue veins. The edges were a quivering bristle of sharp spicules, like miniature darning needles that nosed toward one another, lacing and darting like fingers, the filaments of moist muscle drawing together like the frayed threads of worn socks.