The Mirrored City

by Michael J. Bode

  Maddox peered at Heath. “You always know what to say. That’s your thing isn’t it, Inquisitor? Tell me, were you always this good at manipulation or did you learn it from Daphne? Because I’ve bought that bullshit once before.”

  Heath sighed. “Growing up on the docks, I was a violent man. I put so many people in the river I stopped counting. Daphne showed me another way, to use words to achieve my objectives. But what needs to happen now is not about negotiation. I warned her to stay out of my business. She needs to pay for what she’s done here and what she did to you in Rivern. You’re owed blood.”

  Maddox drank. There was no mistaking his feelings. As the Sword, he had harbored love toward the assassin. But Maddox, on his own, pretty much hated the guy. Still, they had a friend in common who needed help. “Fair enough.”

  “We need to get back to Freedom House. I have allies who can help us.”

  “Fine.” Maddox snatched a bottle from behind the bar.

  He was about to yell back to Titus when he noticed a glowing shard of crystal next to the Libertine’s wine glass. A raw prismite shard that size was worth a small fortune. More than all the liquor in the bar itself.

  “Damn right, you respect my bartender,” Maddox grumbled as he took a swig from the bottle and left the bar.

  Heath snuck Maddox in past the staff in the lobby by distracting the attendant on duty. He slipped his way upstairs to the suite on the second floor, knocked in the pattern Heath had mentioned, and waited for the door to open. After a moment’s pause, the door creaked open.

  A blue-eyed Turisian woman with a thick halo of curly black hair peered out from the opening. “Who are you?”

  “Maddox,” he said. “I’m a ‘friend’ of Heath’s.”

  “He mentioned you.” The woman let him into the suite.

  A bald woman with vivid blue eyes reclined on the bed, picking grapes out of a large wooden bowl. “Who is this, Lyta?”

  “He’s the one Heath calls Sword or Maddox.”

  Maddox walked in and chugged from the bottle he carried. “Guides, you could be Soren’s twin sister.” The resemblance was unmistakable; she was as beautiful as Soren had been handsome. Even with no hair.

  She perked up and slid off the bed. “You know my brother?”

  She reached out for Maddox as she approached. He held up his hand and pushed her back gently with his seal. “Back off, lady. I don’t want to know what happens when you touch me.”

  He spun on Lyta, remembering Daphne’s warning. “So what’s your deal? Are you the Protean?”

  She crossed her arms. “I am Lyta. This is my lover Shannon.”

  “Pleasure to meet you. I almost slept with your brother,” Maddox said, starting to finally feel the effects of the alcohol.

  “Oh… How is he?” Shannon asked.

  “Kidnapped by a religious zealot who has abandoned her religion to pursue zealotry full time.”

  “The Abbess?” Lyta asked. “I defeated her.”

  Shannon’s blue eyes were wide with excitement. “What’s he like? Is he special?”

  “Not the sharpest tool in the box,” Maddox said and then regretted it. He could be a mean drunk. “He grew up badly. Not much education. He lived on the streets for a while. Ended up working in a whore house, or whatever you’d call the Palace of Keys, as a doorman. His gift was more of a curse.”

  Shannon frowned. “Hmm. I would have thought a life in Dessim would be better than Baash. But no matter, I have wealth.”

  “Some wealth,” Lyta added. “Which grows smaller by the day.”

  Maddox shrugged. “Baash is a sanctimonious cesspool of ignorance, but it’s clean and no one goes hungry as far as I can tell.”

  “A valid point,” Lyta agreed.

  Shannon replied, “Well, that may be the unfortunate case that some people are treated poorly in Dessim. However, in Baash all women are treated like chattel.”

  The door to the room opened, and Heath strode in, smiling. “I hope Maddox is behaving himself with you ladies.”

  “Perfect gentleman,” Maddox slurred. “We were just discussing—”

  Shannon folded her arms. “How women are treated like property. Also, men are always interrupting us.”

  Heath slapped his hand on Maddox’s shoulder. His pleasant buzz evaporated as Light flowed through his body, replacing euphoria with harsh reality.

  Heath whispered in Maddox’s ear, “I’m glad there are no longer secrets between us.”

  Maddox shook the empty bottle in his hand.

  Heath addressed them. “Daphne has given us her location. It’s an Inquisition safehouse, but it’s poorly defended. We have to assume that is no longer the case and she has set a trap. She also knows I would anticipate this, so there is no predicting what will happen in there. Unfortunately, there is only one entrance into the inner sanctum through the storefront. She’ll spring her trap when we all enter. She knows Maddox’s and my weaknesses. By now, we should assume she knows something of Lyta’s. That leaves you, Shannon.”

  Shannon raised her chin. “Whatever it takes. We need to hurry.”

  Maddox said, “We don’t need to hurry. Sword can’t die, and Soren is already dead if she wanted to kill him.”

  “No!” Shannon said. “I know he’s alive.”

  “I agree,” Heath reassured her. “From what Maddox told me on the way over, Soren’s ability is too useful in her quest to eradicate the Stormlords. She wants to see if he can mimic my abilities so she can use him as a countermeasure. Her main objective will be to subdue me and use Soren as a weapon against Jessa.”

  “Why would Soren help the woman who captured him?” Lyta asked.

  Maddox piped up, “Daphne can be very convincing, especially to people who are vulnerable.” He looked to Heath. They had both been victims of her indoctrination in different ways.

  Heath looked at his feet. “She’s dangerous. Our objective is to get Soren out and give me a clean shot at her. She thinks she’s stood toe to toe with a Tempest, but I don’t think Satryn was even trying to kill her. Daphne’s smarter than us, though, and we shouldn’t underestimate the lengths she’ll go to.”

  “She’s not smarter than I am. Let me go back to the Magesterium and get another Fire Seal,” Maddox said. “I can melt stone when I’m pissed off. We won’t even have to go in.”

  Heath raised an eyebrow. “They already saw you get one. If you show up missing permanently bound seals, it will raise questions about your immortality—unless you want to reveal that knowledge to the world. I won’t stop you.”

  Maddox tapped his foot. “No.”

  Heath continued, “We need to strike fast. Daphne is counting on us to be impulsive. If we take too long, she’ll know we have a plan and she’ll change the venue.”

  Lyta asked, “We have a plan, right?”

  Heath grinned. “Always.”

  THIRTY

  Skin Walker

  SHANNON

  The lips you kiss will never be mine

  though they may twine from time

  to time—

  It’s just an altered state of mind—

  sublime

  and passing, boldly as it came

  into the oblivion of memory.

  —THE SUCCUBUS, AUTHOR UNKNOWN

  SHANNON CLOSED HER eyes and let her senses wander. Most of her awareness was drawn to Baash. Everyone she had ever touched was like a node floating in a vast emptiness around the city. Heath was the closest. Lyta remained invisible to Shannon’s secondary senses. But she had worked with the homeless of Dessim and had a few connections there as well. She reached her senses out to a beggar woman around the corner from Freedom House.

  The woman shook as Shannon assumed control. She felt every ache in the woman’s frail body. Her lungs felt burned and her breath was shallow. She scrambled to her feet, shambling past the beggars next to her and out onto the street. She glanced at her reflection in a mirror that had been set in one of the shrines that encrusted the
streets.

  Her wizened eyes had gone completely white, just as Lyta described in the Asylum. Shannon could control a body but could not hide the effect.

  A pair of Patrean sentries patrolled the streets. She shuffled over to them and brushed against their skin. She released her primary awareness from the old woman’s body and drifted into the soldier as a passenger. It was like moving from room to room in a vast estate, except each room had its own windows. Each chamber had a different decor to it.

  The Patrean body was sturdier. Although the guard was female, her body felt strong and hardy. Her partner continued walking beside her as they made their rounds. Shannon watched the streets through borrowed eyes. Street performers sang and played instruments. Children ran through the streets, shrieking.

  Over her shoulder she spied the Archean sky ship, which was still a point of interest for the public.

  “Where are you now?” Heath’s voice sounded in Shannon’s ears.

  She struggled to reply. It was difficult controlling her own voice without speaking through her vessel. Distantly, she heard herself mutter, “On patrol. Heading toward the bookshop.”

  “What’s wrong with her eyes? This is creepy as fuck, Heath,” the repellant mage said.

  Lyta’s voice replied, “Shannon’s power is a tremendous gift you would do well to respect.”

  “Whatever.”

  Shannon followed her host’s partner as they walked the streets of Dessim, eyes drifting to a clothing shop that had a beautiful blue and black lace dress in the window. She made a mental note to buy one later. As her partner turned to patrol the restaurant district, she took control for an instant, reaching out and brushing her hands against a young man in shabby shoes selling a basket of flowers.

  Going from Patrean to human was a jarring decline in physical stamina. Her people were engineered to be stronger and healthier. Humans were born however they were born, for good or ill. She knew every inch of his body, and the scrawny flower seller had inherited little to recommend him. But as a vessel, he could weave his way through the streets to the bookstore.

  She brushed her hand against any pedestrian in reach. Each touch created another node for her to explore. Her perception bled out across the city, moving from body to body as they touched each other. Shannon lost herself in a sea of sensation.

  “Where are you now?” Heath’s voice interrupted her meditation.

  Shannon replied, “Everywhere. I’m surrounding the bookstore.”

  “Can you send someone in?” Heath inquired gently.

  “Man or woman?” Shannon asked.

  “Woman,” Heath replied. “Daphne is a strong fighter, but she underestimates women, especially younger women. The prettier the better.”

  Shannon felt out through her matrix of connected bodies and chose one who was willowy and beautiful. She was like Lyta, but with straight black hair and lighter skin. Shannon focused all of her senses into the one body and let the others wander off.

  “Where are you going, Sasia?” another young girl called.

  Shannon found her voice in the appropriated skin. “I have to do something. I’ll catch up with you.”

  She stepped toward the bookshop and tried the knob. The sign said closed, but the door opened and she stepped inside.

  The interior of the bookstore was trashed. Books lay on the floor amid shattered tables. The door to the back room was where Heath said it would be. She marched toward the back like she was looking for assistance.

  “Hello?” she called out softly.

  A furious racket of screams and smashing wood erupted behind the door, like someone was rolling an end table down a flight of stairs during a shouting match.

  Heath’s voice, almost too distant to hear. “What’s happening?”

  Shannon swung the door open and looked inside. She froze in the doorway.

  A dark-skinned woman in glowing armor was slashing furiously at a piece of the chimera looming over her. The moldering shreds of the cloak flapped about as the creature danced around her pounding with its fists. It had one arm covered in pustules and another arm was skeletal with a fleshy hand on the end of it.

  “Shannon? Talk to me.”

  She looked around the room. It was another library with a floor covered in a circle of arcane-looking runes. They were glowing red.

  She glanced around furtively. There. A young man cowered behind a stack of books. His eyes were blue as the sky and wide with fear.

  “Soren,” Shannon called out. “Run!”

  The battle paused as all three of them looked at her. The hooded thing screeched from behind its obscuring cowl, but she could imagine what kind of horrible face lurked there. Daphne’s scarred face was puzzled; her brow was sweaty and her eyes registered panic. Soren ducked behind the books, trying to make himself as small as possible.

  The chimera, or one third of what was left of it, took the opportunity to swat the side of Daphne’s head and hurl her against the runes on the floor. The room exploded in red light, knocking Shannon flat on her back. The body couldn’t move.

  She retracted her senses to the next available host. It was like the lights in the room went out, and she moved to another part of her domain: a stocky man shopping for boots in an adjacent shop. She bolted out the door.

  The shopkeeper yelled, “You have to pay for those! Thief!”

  She ignored him and tore around to the bookshop. Sasia’s body lay limp and convulsing on the ground. She stepped over it and peered into the room. Daphne lay face first on the floor, twitching. The chimera was gone, and the glowing runes were just plain white chalk.

  The pile of books Soren had sought for refuge was scattered. Her brother was nowhere in sight.

  “The creature was here. Daphne is hurt, and Soren is gone,” Shannon reported through her own body.

  “What about the Sword?” Maddox asked.

  Shannon looked around. She saw a scabbard on Daphne’s hip. A jeweled Sword hilt rested in the sheath with a silk scarf wrapped around the Sword handle. “It’s here.”

  “Grab it,” Maddox insisted.

  “Don’t touch the hilt,” Heath cautioned. “Grab the blade or use something to pick it up with.”

  Shannon nodded, realizing only afterward that no one could actually see her doing so. “I’ll get it.”

  She made her way over to the Abbess. “A magical red light went off. She’s twitching, and there’s another girl who was hit. Will she be okay?”

  “Yes,” Heath said. “It’s a nasty spell, but I know exactly what she used. It will wear off. You need to get back here with the Sword before it does.”

  “I should just kill her,” Shannon said.

  “Shannon, don’t.” Lyta’s voice, full of concern.

  “You killed people, Lyta,” Shannon said. “She kidnapped my brother and put him in danger. I’m protecting my—our family.”

  “It’s not like killing Fodders. She’s a real person.”

  Shannon’s chest tightened. Her mother was a Fodder. They weren’t the same under the law, but how was it right to value one life more than another?

  Heath’s voice. “She was my mentor. I will tell you the same thing she told me. ‘I can’t ask you to be a killer. There is no going back from it, but you will face no judgment from me or anyone for doing what needs to be done. This decision will define you for the rest of your life. Are you someone who does what’s merciful or someone who does what’s just?’”

  Maddox’s voice. “But you had already smoked a fuckload of people before the Inquisition, Heath.”

  “Those were crimes of passion and greed. To kill with purpose is to become the hand of justice and shape the world.”

  Maddox’s voice. “Guides, just pinch her nose and cover her mouth. I don’t agree with Heath on any of his bullshit, but in this one particular case, you’ll be doing the world a favor.”

  Shannon knelt down beside Daphne’s shivering body. Her face was bloody, her eyes rolled back in her head. “I wonder i
f I can stop her heart if I take control.”

  Lyta pleaded, “Please… don’t. Just take the Sword. You don’t want blood on your hands. You’re too good for this.”

  “They’re not my hands,” Shannon mused out loud, examining her meaty palms. She cared nothing for the woman on the floor, truth be told. But because of her, that horrible creature had Shannon’s brother.

  Still, she hesitated. Ohan was the god of life and healing. Though her prayers were seldom sincere, she had been taught from birth to embrace peace. She had learned to show love to her fellow believers above all others, but that love would also make faithful of the heretics. War and murder were things conducted by soulless Patrean proxies like the confessors who plied their trade in torture.

  She suddenly realized she could do whatever she wanted without consequence. She could be anyone at any time, and no one would ever trace it back to her. She was more powerful than she ever imagined and she held a life in her stolen hands.

  Two long roads lay ahead of her, leading in vastly different directions.

  “Fuck it,” Shannon swore for the first time in her life. “I’ll make my own path.”

  She reached toward Daphne…

  Shannon’s head slammed against the wall, sending red shockwaves of pain through her skull. Blood dripped into her left eye as the flash of lightning blinded her and the sound of booming thunder rumbled the floor. She pressed her hands to her bleeding face.

  “Chimera!” Heath screamed. “Maddox, Lyta, hold it still!”

  “Trying,” Maddox grunted.

  Another crash of broken furniture.

  Lyta growled, “Get the fuck away from her, you—”

  “Where did she go?” Heath asked urgently.

  “It’s a fucking teleporter. How the fuck should I—”

  Silence.

  “What’s happening?” Shannon asked. Her head hurt, and the pain was too intense, too sudden to focus. Everything had happened so fast.

  “Shannon.” Heath ran over to her. “Get behind me. I need you to sense where—”

  Silence.

  Shannon shut her eyes as tightly as possible. She knew she was alone. And then she sensed she was not alone. A hand brushed against her head. She could feel long fingernails, but too many fingers to be a human hand. She was on her own, and she needed to fight.