by Sara Beaman
I push my head under the water and jam the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. I stay under, unbreathing, until I fall asleep.
***
And then I’m back in the elevator at SpiraCom, staring up at the mirrored ceiling as I head from basement to sub-basement. A chime sounds; the doors open. Out in the bare concrete hall with the white-painted walls, Richard is waiting, a mild smile on his thin lips.
“Hi Kate,” he says.
“Hello Richard.”
“Kate sounds so serious. May I call you Katie?”
“Only if I can call you Dick.”
“You can call me whatever you like,” he says, smiling.
I groan. “Never mind. I take it back.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I step out into the hallway. My heels click loudly on the floor. I look down, startled.
“Oh God,” I say. “I’m dressed like Mirabel, aren’t I?”
“You look both stylish and business-militant,” he says.
I kick the heels off and leave them by the elevator. I start walking towards the commissary out of habit.
“How are things?” he asks.
“I’m sure they could be worse,” I say.
“How is Julian?”
“In what sense?”
“How are you two getting along?”
“Not great. He doesn’t trust me.”
“And what about Jennifer? How is she?”
Is he intending to sneer through that smile or is it just me?
“She’s fine,” I tell him. “What’s with the twenty questions?”
“Debriefing. Where are you?”
“Julian’s estate.”
“Looking for Aya?”
“Yes. Well—waiting for her. She probably had to wait out the day somewhere, so she won’t be here for a while.”
“If she’s coming there at all.”
“Right.”
Richard cocks his head to the side. “Interesting that Jennifer didn’t stay in New York and try to track her, don’t you think?”
I frown. “Yeah.”
“And, down in Desmond’s crypt, when you rose from the dead… she seemed surprised?”
“What? How do you know that?”
Richard shrugs.
“You can read my memories?” I ask, horrified.
“It was a lucky guess.”
I narrow my eyes. I wish I could tell whether or not he’s lying. Why couldn’t Mnemosyne have given me telepathy?
“You’ll have to take that up with her.”
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Reading my thoughts, jackass,” I say. “So—what are you trying to tell me about Jennifer?”
“I have a theory about her,” he says. “I think she’s what we call a blood ascetic. That means she—“
“I know what it means,” I tell him. “You think she doesn’t drink blood? Seriously?”
“Well, she was under deep cover, wasn’t she? And all that happens to Wardens when they stop drinking is they lose their ability to manifest.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “She threatened to seal me earlier.”
“Did she?”
“Yes.”
“I bet she was bluffing.”
“Well, if you’re right, so what?” I say. “She’ll just have to start drinking again. How else are we going to find Aya?”
“Hm. Unfortunately, it won’t be that simple.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Aya has the amulet.”
“So?”
“It makes one invisible to Wardens,” he says. “Their surveillance abilities, that is. Not their eyes.”
“What?”
“It makes the wearer—“
“I heard what you said, it’s just—well, how the hell am I supposed to find her, then?”
Richard shrugs. “Adam might be able to help you with that one. It’s not my area of expertise.”
“Where is Adam, anyway?”
“Busy. Being briefed.”
“For what?”
Richard grimaces, sucks in air between his teeth. “Sorry. He asked me not to tell you.”
“He did? Why?”
“I’d rather not speculate.”
I grit my teeth, close my eyes, and take a deep calming breath.
“I can tell I’ve hit a nerve,” Richard says. “Let’s talk about something else. How did Julian react to the video?”
“The security footage? I guess he believed what he saw…”
Did he? He’s an illusionist himself, and he’s not stupid.
“You’re right,” Richard says. “He isn’t.”
I glare at him. “Seriously, is there any way to block you out? Tin foil or something? Because it’s not cute.”
“Sorry,” he says without a scrap of sincerity. “But it’s an interesting question, isn’t it? Did he really believe what he saw? Or was he just playing along?”
“Why would he do that?”
“You’re a competent woman. Take an educated guess.”
I frown, thinking. “He can’t prove anything either way. If I didn’t know Adam was with you people, I wouldn’t know what to think.”
Richard nods.
“Maybe Julian’s cooperating because he wants to know what’s going on,” I say.
“Maybe,” Richard says. “Keep your eyes open.”
He opens the swinging door to the commissary and holds it for me as I walk inside. The commissary is barely more than a snack bar, just a handful of overcooked offerings on a buffet, a plastic tub of stale bagels, and a juice dispenser next to a stack of styrofoam cups. I sit down on a swiveling stool attached by its base to a table. Richard sits down across from me.
“I hate all this subterfuge, all this layers upon layers shit.” I slump forward; the sleeves of my pantsuit jacket dig into my armpits. “I hate feeling like everyone is lying to each other.”
“This is as straightforward as assignments come,” Richard says. “All you have to do is find something.”
“I don’t want an assignment at all.”
“Don’t you care about what happens with Mirabel?”
I fold my arms across my chest. “Don’t play that card with me.”
“I’m not playing a card! The amulet matters. If Mirabel were to find it—“
“She’d be able to hide from the Wardens,” I say. “Big deal.”
Richard takes a breath and looks away. He seems to consider whether or not to say something.
“That’s not all it does, is it?” I ask.
“I can’t confirm or deny that.”
“Come on, Richard. What good does it do to leave me in the dark?”
“Not my decision,” he says. “Sorry.”
I stand up. “Do you have anything useful to tell me or not? Because if you don’t, I have better ways to use my time. Like sitting in Adam’s suite and staring at the wall. Or combing my hair.”
“Of course I do. Sit down,” he orders.
I comply.
“I told you not to let me give you commands,” he says.
“I’m still working on that.”
“How, exactly?”
I shrug. “Thinking about what you told me before.”
“Was it hard for you to understand?”
“No,” I say, defensive, “just hard to implement.”
“If you want my advice,” he says, “I don’t think a song will work for you after all.”
“Why?”
“You’re tone deaf.”
“I am not!”
“You have a strong internal voice, though, so a mantra should work,” he says. “Maybe a prayer? You religious?”
“I’m half Jewish, but I’m not really observant…”
“What about poetry? Do you like it?”
“I guess.”
“What poets do you like?”
I try to think of one, but at the moment, the only name that comes t
o mind is Shel Silverstein.
“You need a phrase you can hold in front of yourself like a shield,” he says.
“I get that. I know what a mantra is.”
“Think of something. It’s better if it’s personal and easy to recall.”
“All right,” I say. “How will I know when to use it, though?”
“Good question!” he says with condescending enthusiasm. “See, most compulsives have a tell. Their voice changes, or they stand up taller, or narrow their eyes—something like that—right before giving a compulsion.”
“What’s yours?”
He laughs. “Oh, I overcame mine a long time ago. But I’ll tell you what Julian’s is.”
“I’m listening.”
“He lowers his chin and juts it out,” Richard says, demonstrating. “Like this. Adam claims his voice gets deeper and quieter, but I haven’t actually noticed that myself.”
I nod, making mental notes.
“He’s tough to predict, though,” Richard continues. “He likes throwing commands into the middle of long sentences. He tends to make them sound like polite requests.”
“You sound like you’ve spent a lot of time with him.”
“I have,” Richard says. “He used to be my mentor.”
“Really?”
“It’s not relevant. Let’s work on something else. Something concrete,” he says. “Not Compulsion, though. You’ve stalled out on that. Illusion.”
“Okay.”
He stands up. “Manifesting a convincing illusion is a lot harder than giving a command,” he says, pacing slowly. “It relies heavily on your aesthetic sense and your ability to concentrate.”
“Aesthetic sense?” I wince. “I’m not an artist.”
“Well, you’ve got as long as you can keep yourself alive to become one,” he says. “But we’ll worry about that later. For now, let’s work on defense. Breaking away from illusion.”
“All right.”
In an eyeblink Richard has been replaced by Julian. He’s shorter, slighter, with a larger nose, a bit of an overbite, and lighter hair. Even his suit has changed; now it’s wrinkled and worn, with paint stains on the trousers.
“Katherine,” he says in Julian’s voice, bowing his head a little as if in greeting. And then, to himself, “I can’t imagine him calling you Kate.”
“This is creepy,” I say, uneasy.
His smile widens.
“Just tell me what I’m supposed to do,” I say.
“Look at me.”
“I am looking at you.”
“I mean look at me critically,” he says. “Even the best illusions have something slightly off about them. Like poor rendering in a video game, or—this is a better analogy—a warped point in a piece of pottery. If you hit it just right, focus your attention in the warped spot, it’ll break. The illusion will no longer seem plausible. Your brain will refuse to accept what it’s being told to see, and your natural senses will take over.”
“Anyone can do this?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “Only Illusionists like you and I can.”
I nod.
“Well?” Richard says.
“Well what?”
“Start looking. I’ve made an obvious mistake, just to make things easier on you.”
I stare at him as he rotates in place, striking various poses. I scour him with my eyes, looking for defects, but all I see is an uncannily accurate clone of Julian.
“You’re looking for a flaw,” he says.
“That’s what you told me to do!”
“Perhaps what I said was misleading,” he says. “Hyper-perfection is the more common error. We illusionists want things to be completely symmetrical, rather than slightly askew, but that’s not the way the world is. In real life even Rorschach blots are a bit off.”
I look at him again, examining his frame, his clothing, his shoes and hands, his hair, his face. He smiles, revealing slightly crooked teeth. Even the creases and splotches in his suit are mismatched.
I stand up and walk behind him. The chrome of the buffet catches my eye. In its distorted reflection, I’m standing beside Richard, with his pressed suit and his girl hair.
“Thanks for the helpful tip,” I say, turning back to see that he’s resumed his normal appearance.
“What I said was true,” he says. “It just didn’t apply to this particular situation. You need to learn to think laterally, to ignore me when my advice doesn’t apply.”
“What I’m hearing is that you get off on playing mind games.”
He smiles. “Doesn’t everyone?”
I scoff.
“Kate, you can resent me all you like, but no one is going to make this any easier on you in the real world,” he says. “When we talk again I want you to have a mantra ready. In the meantime, why don’t you try to find out why Julian dumped you in Adam’s suite?”
“How am I going to do that?”
“For God’s sake. Go out into the fucking catacombs and use the information I just gave you!”
“I don’t know what I’m doing yet!”
“Figure it out.”
He removes the red-stoned ring from his left hand and disappears.
“Richard?”
No response.
“God damn it,” I say to myself.
I force myself awake.
The Second Coming
I push my hand and shoulders out of the bathwater, pull the stopper and climb out of the tub. After drying off and wrapping my hair in a towel I walk into the bedroom, ready to pick up my dirty clothes from the floor and put them back on. But no—my clothes aren’t on the floor. They’re gone. Someone came in here and took them while I was in the bath? Oh, God, weird. And what the hell am I going to wear now?
The door on the wardrobe is ajar. Inside, someone left a number of dresses hanging on the rack. I see socks, underwear and bras in a drawer they left cracked open. Where is this stuff from, I wonder? Did they just have it on hand? I pull a blue dress off the rack and hold it in front of myself, checking my reflection in the mirror that hangs on the inside of the wardrobe door. The dress is girly. Too girly. There are ruffles on the hem and the sleeves. Looking through the other drawers, I find sweaters, tights, and nightgowns, but no jeans, no shirts, nothing practical.
Sighing, I try on the blue dress and some underwear. It’s all too snug. The hem of the dress is too short for someone of my height, and I can barely move my arms, the sleeves are so tight. I take it off and put on another dress, grey with white stripes. It doesn’t look much better, but at least it’s more comfortable.
My eyes drift to the pencil drawing in the frame on the bedside table. I pick it up and give it a closer look. It’s beautiful but stylized in a way that seems different than the paintings in the labyrinth, which makes me think it’s not Julian’s work. Somehow it seems to capture Adam’s personality better than a more accurate rendering would have. Whoever drew it must be really talented.
I squeeze my hair, then pull the towel off my head. Leaving it on the floor, I pick up my boots, pull them on and lace them up. I go back into the bathroom, brush my teeth, comb out my damp orange hair and stare at my bare face in the mirror.
I wish I could find the flaw that would break this particular illusion.
I guess I should go do what Richard told me—try to find my way in the labyrinth. Maybe I’ll find myself a mantra instead. Adam has a lot of books…
No. What am I afraid of? Clenching my fists, I walk through the bedroom and the sitting room to the door, and out into the labyrinth I go, to look for rendering errors.
Putting my face close to the corridor wall, I examine the wood grain of the paneling. I take a look at the long, thin Persian rugs on the floor, gently worn but still elegant, fringe bunched in haphazard clumps. I look at the paintings, at their hand-carved frames, at the brushstrokes on the canvases, all of which still smell faintly of turpentine. I look behind each painting to find slightly darker patches of paneling, where
the light hasn’t faded the surface of the wood. I look at the lamps mounted on the wall, at their little flameless-candle bulbs inside bells of frosted glass. Even the glass, hot against my hands, has little air bubbles inside, scattered in an asymmetrical constellation. The top of each bulb is coated with dust.
The more I look the more strongly I feel that there is nothing to find. No overly-perfect flaws. This place is as real as real can be. I’m no longer sure it’s an illusion at all. And if it is, of course it’s flawless. Julian has been working on it for over a century. Why would Richard think I could undo it in mere minutes?
I haven’t gone far enough for the labyrinth to shift behind me, if that’s even how it works; looking back, I can still see the door to the suite, almost hidden against the wall. I decide to go back inside and think. I’m not giving up, I tell myself—there’s just no point in beating my head against these walls.
Back inside the suite, I peruse Adam’s library. It contains mostly technical books that look like they were written for the multiple-doctorate crowd. I guess he left them here to collect dust after he moved out. I wonder why he didn’t take them to his own place. Maybe he lost interest in this stuff, now that he’s a vampire with magical powers. Honestly, I can’t imagine being interested in it in the first place.
I look for something that might contain a phrase I can use as a mantra. Richard said it ought to be something personal, something easy to remember. I’m going to have a tough time with that first qualification. Before the years I lost at SpiraCom, I always read a lot, but mostly nonfiction—not the stuff of meaningful catchphrases. In fact, thinking about it, the closest thing to a mantra I can recall off the top of my head are advertising slogans, and I am not using “melts in your mouth, not in your hand” as a word shield against mind control.
The best I can find among Adam’s dry offerings is a British Literature textbook. I pull it off the shelf, sit down cross-legged on one of the couches and open it. I flip through an abridged version of Great Expectations and stumble upon “The Second Coming” by Yeats.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;