The Crow Behind the Mirror_Book One of the Mirror Wars

by Sean M. Hogan

  “Neither does he,” a man’s voice thundered out, echoing over the sea.

  Sharon turned to the voice’s source.

  Far off in the horizon of the sea, a man in a crimson cloak, red as fresh blood, walked on top of the water. He stalked toward Sharon without sinking or stirring up a single wave. It was if he was some kind of ominous religious deity, the world flattening before his feet.

  “My dear sweet child, you must realize we are all slaves to our natures, our destinies,” said the Cloaked Man. His voice trumpeted out with all the power of an angel’s horn signaling the end of days.

  “Who the hell are you?” she asked.

  His eyes flashed red through the shadows of his hood.

  She inched back.

  The Cloaked Man continued his relentless pace to the island. “I am the one who has mastered the Dreamtime, the first of the Mirror Guardians to obtain the title of Emo-sha, and I’m the one who sent him to find you, Sharon.” He extended his hand and pointed ahead.

  She turned back to the Crow Boy.

  The Crow Boy cast his golden eyes to the ground in response and she got her answer.

  She turned back to the Cloaked Man, a knot swelling inside her throat. “How do you know my name?”

  “I know everything about you and your father, Miss Ashcraft.” The Cloaked Man stopped a few feet from the shore.

  “I don’t care about him.” Sharon stepped back and searched for a way out, but there was no escape on an island. “I just want to go home.”

  “Just like your father, always running. But sooner or later the road runs out and you must face your sins.” The Cloaked Man stretched out his arms, his sleeves catching and flapping with the rising wind. Fire ignited on the tips of his fingers like flames on candlewicks. The flames grew, expanding to fireballs in his hands. He hurled the flames onto the sea—throwing the fire out like dragon’s breath.

  The oily waters were set ablaze, spreading and encircling the island, trapping Sharon in a prison of hellfire, an inferno of demonic heat.

  She threw her arms up to shield her face from the licking flames. “Is that why he left? Because of something he did?” she asked, choking on the rising smoke and specks of glowing red ash.

  “Yes.” The Cloaked Man stepped through the fire, his image distorting with the heat as he reached the island. “And that’s why I had the crow bring you here. To finish what your father started. And here in the Dreamtime you cannot refuse my call.” He raised his hand, clenching his fist at Sharon.

  A sheering pain struck her like a lightning bolt, every cell in her body aching all at once. She lost her balance and fell to her knees.

  “What’s happening to me?” she asked, her pupils dilating to two full moons.

  “It’s a side effect of traveling into the Dreamtime without mastering your soul first.” He stepped to her side, holding up his red crystal for her to see.

  Two bumps poked against the back of Sharon’s leather jacket, growing and pushing up the fabric. She screamed in agony as they ripped out from her back, extending from her shoulder blades and unraveling like a flower in the morning sun to form two large, white, angelic wings.

  “In the real world souls must take on the shape of animals in order to influence that reality. Often taking the forms of insects, fish, and even birds like our friend over there.”

  The Crow Boy’s gaze fell to Sharon, but he gave no other movement or gesture, remaining still as a statue as the events unfolded.

  “The opposite is true here in the Dreamtime. We must change.”

  Sharon crawled over to a pool of water. Her mind growing delirious from pain. She peered down at her reflection and her new wings in her oily distorted image.

  “You could say that you’re switching bodies with your soul.” The Cloaked Man knelt beside her. His glowing red crystal swayed back and forth in the reflection of the oil slick, like a buzzing firefly in the distant night sky. “In a few moments, it will consume you and you will have lost your former self forever. Unless you come with me.”

  The Cloaked Man offered his hand to Sharon.

  Her gaze rose to meet it.

  “Embrace your destiny, Sharon.”

  Her gaze rose even higher, meeting the Cloaked Man’s red glowing eyes that floated in the dark void inside his hood.

  “Help your father complete his legacy.”

  She inched her hand up.

  “Take my hand,” the Cloaked Man roared.

  Sharon reached for his hand—but just as their fingers were about to touch a crow landed between them with a shrieking caw. She stared back with wide perplexed eyes.

  “What is the meaning of this?” asked the Cloaked Man. He stood up and turned to face the Crow Boy.

  The fire snuffed out in an instant. Hundreds and hundreds of crows flew out of the sea. An entire ocean made up of crows erupting like a volcano, their cries deafening, their shrieks cutting into bone. They swarmed around Sharon and the Cloaked Man and engulfed them in a tornado of flapping wings of ink.

  The Crow Boy outspread his dark wings and took to the air. He swooped in and grabbed hold of Sharon’s hand. Together they ascended into the gray sky.

  “What are you doing?” the Cloaked Man yelled as he batted away the enclosing swarm of crows. But it was as futile as batting away sand in a sandstorm. “Stop this insanity. Do you hear me? I said stop. I am your master. I command you to—”

  All at once the surrounding crows fell upon the Cloaked Man. They pecked and tore bits and pieces off him. A scrap of cloth here. A chunk of flesh there.

  Sharon gazed down at the horrifying spectacle as the Crow Boy lifted her closer and closer to the gray sun. She squinted hard, trying to make out the face of the Cloaked Man.

  The crows removed his hood bit by bit, revealing a jawless human skull for a face. No—a mask made of waxed bone, iconic in design, the type of mask one would wear at a costume party.

  Before Sharon could make out more, the crows completely entombed the man with the skull mask. She cringed when a muffled scream leaked out from the coffin of feathered devils.

  Then the casket of furious ink-dipped wings opened in a violent updraft of smoke. The crows flew off, leaving nothing but the skull mask. The mask was left to sink in a puddle of oil.

  She looked up at the Crow Boy and peered into his golden eyes.

  He mouthed something to her, silently, like a mute child.

  They reached the sun.

  Sharon only made out two words before the white light swallowed her. Wake up.

  CHAPTER 16

  Skull Mask

  “DID YOU HEAR ME?” asked the man wearing the skull mask as he knelt down, removed his leather glove, and slapped the Fat Man across the face with it. “I said wake up.”

  The Fat Man awoke with a jarring wheezing cough, the cloth gag wrapped tightly around his head and lodged between his teeth making it difficult to breathe. His trembling gaze immediately rose to the terrifying skull mask. He struggled against the tight ropes binding his wrists and legs—but to no avail. He mumbled something. His voice suffocated out by the gag.

  “What was that?” asked the man with the skull mask, cupping his right ear and leaning in. “I can’t quite hear you.” He removed the gag from the Fat Man’s mouth.

  “What the hell do you want from us?” The Fat Man’s eyes scanned the lavish piano room.

  The room was decorated with portraits of Roman Emperors and their greatest conquests immortalized in golden framed oil paintings. A glided bronze and crystal chandelier with a myriad of candles hung from the ceiling. A massive black marble fireplace stood at the far end near a bookcase and a large cushioned chair. But this beauty could not hide the horror in plain sight. A dozen people lined the wall, most of them the mansion staff, bound and gagged like the Fat Man. And among them were his wife and daughter. They shook like deer surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves.

  “I want nothing from them,” said the man with the skull mask. “I want something
from you. They’re just leverage to ensure your cooperation.”

  The Fat Man cringed—turning his head toward the south wall bookcase.

  The man with the skull mask followed suit, fixing his sights on the bookcase. “Thank you for your cooperation. You have my eternal gratitude.” He rose to his feet. His long highwaymen leather boots clanked along the black and white checkered tile floor. His dark long-tailed embroidered coat swayed back and forth above his ankles. He adjusted his silk waistcoat and straightened his tricorne hat that framed his skeleton face. Grabbing hold of the sides of the bookcase he pushed it aside to reveal a door hidden behind. He turned back to his associate in matching attire.

  A slender man with thick circular glasses that reflected the sun with blinding intensity leaned against the window ledge. His face held a twisted grin that crawled and curled up his cheeks. He flashed his perfectly white teeth wide, showing off their unbridled glory. He wore a bird mask with a long curving beak. A plague doctor’s mask. He fluttered a deck of cards, shuffling them compulsively between his hands and practicing sleight of hand tricks for his amusement alone.

  “Would you like to accompany me, Mr. Glasses?” asked the man with the skull mask.

  Mr. Glasses drew a card from his deck and flipped it to expose the face.

  An image of a black skeleton knight riding a white steed, etched in black ink, graced the face of the card. The ominous knight clutched a long black weathered flag in his boney grip. A pile of pale and naked diseased corpses lay in his wake.

  Mr. Glasses glanced over to his partner in crime. “No matter how many times I draw when I’m with you, Mr. Death. It’s always the same card,” he mused. “It seems misery and misfortune follows you like a stray dog.”

  Mr. Death laughed under his breath. “Misery is relative, my friend. And a true man makes his own fortune.” He opened the door and stepped into the shadows. The darkness was eaten away by the ignition of a torch. The fiery light danced wickedly up and down the grooves and crevices of his bone-white mask. He stepped down the dark hallway, stopping when he found a large wooden chest. He opened the chest and pierced its shadowy innards with his torch. The light exposed dozens of stacked, polished-white, ivory muskets. He brushed them aside and dug out a stack of folded paper.

  “Please tell me that we didn’t go through all this trouble just for some fancy guns,” said Mr. Glasses as he walked up to Mr. Death.

  “They’re not just any guns,” said Mr. Death. “They’re rifled muskets. Our world has nothing even remotely as advanced. Our rather plump hostage is an arms dealer for this country’s military. I plan on taking his job—so to speak. Back home.”

  “So, you intend on changing the history of your world?” asked Mr. Glasses.

  “No, I plan on making it.” He unfolded the paper, grinning beneath his skull mask as its contents were exposed. “And to do that I’m going to need these designs.” He stuffed them into his coat pocket.

  The echoing booms of muskets firing off in the distance rattled the dust off the walls.

  Mr. Glasses stepped to the window and brushed aside the curtains.

  Down below, armed soldiers on horseback stormed through the heavy iron gates of the estate and galloped across the grass field.

  “It seems our poor lookout man has run into a bit of misfortune,” said Mr. Glasses.

  “Well, then, I guess we should thank him for his sacrifice,” said Mr. Death. He dragged out the chest and scooped up the guns one by one, resting them on a rug before rolling them together and binding the ends with rope. “He’s done us the favor of not having to pay him.”

  “You’ll hang for this,” said the Fat Man with a cruel smirk as he struggled against the ropes tied around his waist and wrists. His courage rejuvenated as the soldiers’ voices outside grew louder. “I’ll see to that personally.”

  “I’ve been hanged before,” said Mr. Death, turning. He fastened the rug bundle to his back using some loose rope as a strap. Once he was sure the rope was secure enough to support the weight of the guns he stepped over to the Fat Man. He knelt down to his eye level once more.

  The Fat Man shrunk back.

  “Shot, too. Hell, even been set on fire.” He pulled out his knife and held it at such an angle that the sun’s reflection glared off it. The light stung the Fat Man’s eyes as Mr. Death intentionally beamed it across his face. “But nothing ever seems to stick.”

  The Fat Man’s wife squealed when he pressed the blade to her husband’s throat.

  “What are you?” the Fat Man shuddered.

  “Why don’t you guess?”

  Though her gray wig and elegant purple dress were now ruffled, her composure was not. “You’re nothing but a monster,” the Fat Man’s wife said, sneering as only a royal can, with an air of perfect contempt and superiority. “That’s what you are. And one day you will be punished for your crimes, in this life or the next. That truth is absolute, inescapable.”

  “Is that so?” Mr. Death asked, glancing her way. “Crimes and punishment, the way you talk it’s as if you actually believe there’s some higher authority. Passing judgment and deeming certain actions as either right or wrong on a whim.”

  The Fat Man grimaced in pain as a trickle of his blood fell down the blade. His eyes were consumed by fear, a human skull mirrored back in each dark pupil.

  “All I see are men, terrified men who die pitiful deaths,” said Mr. Death. “There is no higher truth than that.”

  “Sorry to interrupt.” Mr. Glasses flipped open his golden pocket watch. “But it’s time to go.” As if by cue, his words were followed by the crashing of axes into wood. Below soldiers hacked through the front door of the mansion.

  Mr. Death withdrew his knife from the Fat Man’s throat. A long red dripping scratch lay where the blade once rested. The Fat Man would live to see another day. But before he could give out a sigh of relief Mr. Death slapped him across the face one last time.

  ***

  The stagecoach raced across the dirt road with Mr. Glasses at the helm. Soldiers pursued on panting, gasping horses. They fired desperate shot after shot. Their aim was poor and rushed.

  “There are times when a man must bury his past,” said Mr. Death as he sat inside the stagecoach. He loaded his new pistol. “No matter how painful, and let it fade into the sea of distant memories. Or he will always be stuck at that moment. Forever cursed to relive his sorrows and regrets.” He spoke the words more for himself than Mr. Glasses. Not sure even if he could hear him over the thunderous gallop of the horses and the flashing boom of musket fire.

  Mr. Death cocked his gun and took aim at his pursuers. He brought down their horses out from under them with each successive shot. Lives spared on a whim, believing it would be in poor taste to take more human life than necessary.

  Mr. Glasses pulled back on the reigns and slowed the horses to a crawl. They halted before a seven-foot-tall freestanding mirror on the side of the road, polished to an unnatural shine and half hidden behind some bushes.

  Mr. Death stepped out of the stagecoach and onto the dirt road. A bright light shined underneath his coat. He unbuttoned it and reached down his shirt, sliding out his necklace. Two glowing crystals hung from the silver chain, one red and one blue. He placed his hand on the mirror, resting his palm in the center of the glass. The reflection melted to a radiant liquid blue light.

  The sky changed from a vibrant blue to a sickly gray. From a clear horizon with white cotton clouds to a glaucoma-stricken world of dark clouds, raining cruel hail upon the frozen, lifeless soil.

  Mr. Death stepped away from the mirror to the balcony and greeted his home with a long sigh. “I swear it gets worse with every passing day. You’ll never let up, will you?” Beyond the castle walls, ice and snow encompassed the entire countryside, a world of endless white. “I would’ve left for good if I thought for a second you wouldn’t follow.”

  Mr. Glasses flashed into existence before the mirror. “Cutting it a little close this time, aren
’t we?” he asked, taking off his mask and walking up to his partner.

  “Don’t worry, they can’t kill me. No one can.”

  “It’s not you I’m worried about,” said Mr. Glasses. “I’m not like you, Eric, remember?”

  Eric removed his skull mask, glanced back at Mr. Glasses, and smiled.

  “And why—pray tell—are you in such a pleasant mood this miserably cold morning?”

  Eric’s smile widened. “Because I’ve decided to stop running.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Silent Dreams of a Quiet City

  SHARON FELT THE HEAT from the sun across her face and awoke for the first time in four days. Her bedroom smelled of lavender and the sickly-sweet scent of a tropical plant her father had given her for her seventeenth birthday. She couldn’t remember its name. The plant’s odor was so strong it left an aftertaste in her mouth, like she had just consumed a spoonful of sugar. She let go a yawn as a small blue soccer-ball-sized sphere floated past the edge of her bed.

  The blue sphere landed upon her chest, gently nestling below her collar bone. It widened its big black puppy dog eyes and let loose a few barks.

  “Good morning, Sharon,” said the blue sphere. “Pleasant dreams, I hope.”

  “None,” replied Sharon. “I can’t dream when I sleep. You know that, Winston.”

  Winston gave out a whimper.

  Her frown turned upside down. She wrapped her arms around Winston and pulled him in for a hug. “Why did Dad have to make you so damn adorable?” she asked, squeezing with all her strength.

  Winston responded with a vibrating purr before giving one last yelp. In truth, her father wasn’t to blame for Winston’s appearance, despite being the chief robotics engineer of the city. All robots were designed to look this way. Adorable to a fault.

  Sharon got dressed after her shower and headed downstairs with Winston floating after her. She stopped at her father’s doorway. The door was already cracked open. She pushed it the rest of the way.