Mirrorman

by Trevor Hoyle

  A shudder of ecstatic anticipation rippled through the audience like an electric charge. Despite her hardedged professional cynicism, Mara BeCalla thrilled at the spectacle.

  This was power! To hold the hearts and minds and dreams of people in the palm of your hand! To sway them, make them laugh or cry, to play with them and control them, and see the light of adoration shining in their eyes…

  The fanfare swelled as a figure dressed in black materialised through the billowing smoke. He paused there for a moment, dark eyes in a pale and solemn face, his long black hair sweeping over his collar. A slender hand raised in graceful greeting, he came down the curved stairway to the stage. The trumpets died to a silvery echo in the sudden hush of breathless silence.

  A spotlight stabbed on and circled over the audience, seeking out the honoured and privileged person on tonight’s show. Messiah Wilde stood at the front of the stage, his pointing finger following the beam of light round and round as it swept over the restless sea of heads in the darkened auditorium.

  Suddenly his arm shot out, his finger aimed like a dart. A sigh went up like a swooning breeze. The spotlight settled and narrowed its beam to focus on a girl of about sixteen with long flaxen hair draping her shoulders. Her complexion was unnaturally pale, her eyes wide and glazed as if she were in a waking dream, or else in shock. A clean-cut young man in a dark-blue blazer was helping her out of her seat.

  Over the speakers came the deep bass chords of a guitar, and the audience started to clap in time to the pounding rhythm.

  Messiah Wilde was holding both arms wide in a gesture of welcome. And as if bestowing his personal benediction upon her. In the depths of his dark eyes there was that teasing gleam of sardonic humour that his millions of adoring young fans loved to see. He winked complicitly at the nearest camera, a wink he shared privately with each individual viewer, a bond between the two of them alone.

  ‘Lovebeams from my heart to your heart.’ Messiah Wilde took the girl’s hand as she came up on to the stage, and he pressed it between both of his. Although his accent was unmistakably English, there was a gentler lilt to it, soft and lyrical. ‘On behalf of the Beamers, welcome to our very special guest, the Chosen One on tonight’s show.’ He drew her forward. ‘Will you tell us your name?’

  ‘ Josie,’ the girl said in barely a whisper.

  ‘Would that be Josephine?’ Messiah Wilde faced her towards the camera. Her eyelids fluttered and she almost swooned as his arm encircled her shoulders.

  There was something about the girl, something creepily unreal, that Mara BeCalla found perplexing. Her face was artificially white, her eyes outlined and lips drawn in with an expert’s touch. She didn’t wear T-shirt and bluejeans, or a skirt, like most of the other girls in the audience, but a long, champagne-coloured satin dress and matching satin slippers. In fact, Mara BeCalla realised, the girl’s appearance reminded her very much of a bridesmaid’s. All she lacked was a posy of flowers.

  ‘Your own global television show,’ Graye hissed in her ear. ‘That’s what you want, isn’t it, Miss BeCalla?’

  Mara BeCalla nodded, her eyes fixed on the spectacle below. Fame. Wealth. Power. Yes. She wanted them all. And Grace MediaCorp could offer them to her. Beaming her face and voice into millions of homes around the globe…

  It came to her then, in a flash, why Graye needed her. Watching Messiah Wilde down there in the spotlight, basking in all that female adoration, Mara BeCalla realised that she was required to fill the same role for the young males in the audience. The sexual magnetism of The Lovebeams Show had to appeal to both sexes – and the gays too. For there were, she noted, quite a number of young men in the audience whose eyes were shining in adoration as they followed every move of Messiah Wilde’s lithe body clad in black.

  ‘I believe I now know, Mr Graye, what it is you want.’ She turned to him. ‘And I think I can deliver.’

  Their eyes locked together. Then a faint smile brushed Mara BeCalla’s lips when she saw him nod.

  The deal was done, the bargain sealed.

  2

  Phyllis Keets had yet to put in an appearance at the office – today was her third day of absence. Don Carlson had tried calling her, several times, as had Cawdor, but the phone hadn’t been picked up, nor was the answering machine switched on. They had debated what to do and come up with nothing decisive.

  Cawdor was keenly aware that Don was having one hell of a problem with the whole situation. The crux of it was: who to believe? His partner of eleven years or a faithful employee who had been a rock of probity and a person of impeccable virtue? Maybe the easiest and most obvious answer was that Phyllis had tripped a circuit and was living on the planet Zarg. Trouble was, Cawdor didn’t entertain that scenario for a minute, and neither, he suspected, did Don Carlson.

  It was an effort to drag his mind back to the calculations on the CAD screen flickering before him. With his brain on autopilot, he watched the endless columns scrolling upward, pressing the appropriate keys as and when necessary, without conscious mental activity.

  When three-fifteen came around he almost expected Phyllis to walk in with her dimpled smile, bringing him a mug of freshly percolated coffee. He actually stared at the door, willing it to open and admit her, restoring normality to its proper place and banishing the weird dislocation of events in which he was trapped. After all, if he imagined it hard enough (as he had imagined, too vividly, his sexual assault on her) then it was bound to happen. Simply a matter of willpower. Phyllis would enter the room with his coffee and everything would be fine, just as it should be. The fraught meeting when Don had disclosed Phyllis’s accusation against him never took place. Today was a normal day, the same as any other.

  The door remained closed. No phantom Phyllis appeared.

  All that happened was that a wretched Jeff Cawdor continued to sit before the console, gazing blankly at the rising columns of figures, the passage of time marked by his thudding heartbeats.

  Suddenly, and for no accountable reason, his heartrate quickened. Then it was racing – pounding inside his chest, palpitations making him breathe hard and fast as if from extreme physical exertion. For, right on the edge of his conscious awareness, glimpsed as it were from the corner of his mind’s eye, there hovered a fragment of the dream he had dreamt last night. The most terrible, most frightening dream yet. On waking this morning, a sensation of dread had lingered on, sour as the taste of bile in his mouth. But the substance of the dream, its actual content, had evaporated into space even as he was lying there, staring at the ceiling and squeezing his brain to retrieve it.

  Now, hunched at the console, there flashed an image as clear and sharp as a beam of sunlight caught in a mirror.

  A hot black night on a creaking deck. The gentle lisp of ocean under the stars. A man carries a trussed-up dripping bundle across his shoulder. Beside him pads a ragged barefoot boy with a coil of rope. The man halts at the gunwale, breathing hard, shakes the sweat from his eyes. The boy fumbles with the rope, and then in the silence a soft splash as the bundle is lowered into the water.

  And the ship sails on under a moonless sky.

  It was only a fragment of the whole, Cawdor knew. Elsewhere in the dream lurked deeper, murkier horrors which he sensed with a shiver of repulsion, but which stubbornly failed to materialise. They were locked inside his skull, and he didn’t possess the key to release them. He wasn’t sure he wanted them released. This time it was as though his mind’s eye had deliberately averted its gaze in order to shield him from particular loathsome images far beyond anything he could have imagined taking place in the devil’s own domain, in the very pit of hellfire.

  Cawdor leant back in the chair. His breathing slowed, his heartbeat steadied. Right this minute he could have used the coffee the ghost of Phyllis hadn’t brought in.

  With the orderly processes of thought that suited him to the job of design engineer, Cawdor invariably pursued a methodical approach – the application of logic – to any knotty problem that
confronted him. But logic had no purchase on the shifting, transient realm of dreams. He just didn’t know where to start. Dreams were composed of symbols, he had read somewhere, representing deeprooted hopes, desires, anxieties, fears that the waking mind suppressed. So what were these dreams, these hidden symbols, supposed to mean? What relevance did they have to his life? Why him? Yet applying his famous logic to discover the answers struck Jeff Cawdor as not only pointless but absurd. Like using differential calculus to explain the fragile beauty of a butterfly’s wing.

  He pressed the PAUSE key, then SAVE to back up the work carried out thus far, and pushed the chair on its roller balls away from the console. It was impossible to concentrate with his mind in such confusion and turmoil. Surely somebody somewhere could make sense of what was happening, help him sort out this mess. The constant nagging frustration and feeling of helplessness was driving him crazy. That’s what he needed all right. Help.

  * * *

  Clad in a long swirling white robe, with nothing underneath, Messiah Wilde stepped from the brightness of the elevator into subterranean gloom. The flaxen-haired girl in the satin dress – Josie – lurched against the metal wall of the elevator as she tried to follow, and required the assistance of Messiah Wilde to help her stand upright. ‘Whoops-a-daisy.’ He gripped her by the elbow. ‘You feeling OK?’

  She nodded hesitantly and looked along the bare concrete tunnel stretching dimly ahead. ‘Where are we going?’ The words jostled each other into a single slurred sound.

  ‘Why, I’ve told you already,’ Messiah Wilde said, breathing a small sigh of impatience. ‘You are the Chosen One, and you’re coming with me to the Temple. How many more times?’

  ‘Huh… oh, yes,’ Josie murmured vaguely.

  It was stiflingly humid down here. She had to lean on him as they moved along the tunnel. This was the very lowest point of the sub-basement – five levels below the television studio, nearly 200 feet underground. The main elevator shaft didn’t come this far; the only access was by two small elevators with restricted code combinations. The corps of security guards aside, not many people in the building knew of its existence.

  The tunnel ended in a door thickly padded with fibreglass insulation held in place by wire mesh. Messiah Wilde heaved it open. Even though the chamber was wide and high, the conical ceiling sixty feet above taking up three levels, the atmosphere was if anything even more oppressive. The stench of putrefying vegetation hung on the air like sickly incense. An animal of some kind gave a lazy yawning croak, and there was the sluggish rippling of stagnant water. The smell and the heat and the mysterious unknown of the large dark space made the girl pause on the threshold, and she stumbled forward from a push in the back.

  ‘Don’t block the passage,’ Messiah Wilde chided her, ‘or I’ll be tempted to block yours. Move on, they’re waiting for us.’

  He bared his teeth in a smile. His hand gripped her shoulder, the long tapering fingers digging in. He propelled her forward over the flagged floor.

  Six dark shapes knelt in a semicircle before an altar of large stone slabs, erected to form an ‘M’ ten feet high. The shaven heads bowed in unison, the sound of their chanting a mumbling drone that vibrated the air like the sombre bass chord of a pipe organ.

  In Your tower of granite and glass

  Keep us safe and protected in this world

  Our Saviour and Redeemer Kersh.

  Swaying a little, Josie stood beside Messiah Wilde, his tall robed figure a blur of white in the darkness, his hand kneading the soft muscle of her shoulder. The air was thick, like hot syrup. The monotonous chanting dirge went on, the circle of heads bowing each time the sacred name of Kersh was uttered.

  Warn us of the dangers to our faith

  From unbelievers who seek to destroy us

  Our Saviour and Redeemer Kersh.

  Through Your dreams reach out to us

  And guide us by Your divine wisdom.

  Our ears are ever open and waiting

  For Your thoughts to enter and enlighten us

  Our only Saviour and Redeemer Kersh…

  The voices died away to a silence broken only by the sluggish lapping of water. Heads raised in an attitude of listening, the circle of kneeling figures stared up beseechingly to the altar of stone slabs. For several minutes no one stirred. In the deep silence the smallest whisper would have been heard, amplified by the cavernous chamber.

  But there was nothing.

  The attentive, straining circle listened in vain.

  Messiah Wilde leant over Josie, his mouth close to her ear.

  ‘Aren’t you the lucky one. How many young girls, I wonder, would love to be where you are now, about to experience the sublime ceremony performed by the Messengers of the Fall from Grace? You’re happy, aren’t you,’ he said, an affirmation rather than a question, ‘to have been chosen out of so many. So happy and so … filled to overflowing with gratitude.’

  His hand slipped from her shoulder to the hollow of her slender back. Then it slid down over her buttocks. Josie struggled to resist, but the stifling heat of the chamber was like a soporific gas, making her movements sluggish. Now Messiah Wilde was lifting the hem of her dress, his long fingers touching her thigh. She tried to move away, raising her arm as if to ward him off, and would have fallen over if he hadn’t caught her.

  Messiah Wilde chuckled. ‘Whoops-a-daisy. Not too clever on our dainty little feet, are we, pussikins?’ His voice turned to coaxing sympathy. ‘Oh it’s such a shame, little girl, and you so young and pretty. You know I could eat you? Gobble you up from top to bottom.’ His hand slid lower, his palm cupping and squeezing. ‘Starting here, and lick you all over –’

  A shape rose from the circle, gaunt and austere, and whirled around in its black robe.

  ‘Remember, we require a virgin, not a slut despoiled at your hands!’ Elder Graye thundered. ‘Have you interfered with this child?’

  ‘Not yet. I haven’t had the opportunity.’

  ‘She must be pure and unsullied –’

  ‘I haven’t laid a finger on her,’ Messiah Wilde protested mildly. ‘You think I don’t know the rules?’

  Elder Graye placed the bony claw of his hand on Josie’s blonde head. His long eyelids drooped shut, and his head was raised high. ‘Let not this child harbour unclean thoughts and fancies. Keep her free from temptation and sin so that our Saviour and Redeemer Kersh may bestow his blessings upon us.’

  Messiah Wilde bowed his head and mumbled, ‘All glory to our Saviour and Redeemer Kersh.’ He flicked back a strand of hair. ‘Amen to that.’

  ‘I need to speak with you,’ Elder Graye said. He beckoned to one of the elders. ‘Show the girl our little pets. It will keep her amused.’ He patted Josie on the cheek. She was led away across the dark bowl of the chamber. The two men moved to a leather couch in a small alcove. Graye lifted the top of a cabinet and a bright dazzle lit his face from below, sparkling off bottles and a mirror shelf. He poured drinks, added cubes of ice, and handed a crystal tumbler to Messiah Wilde.

  ‘What does she think will happen to her?’ Graye asked.

  ‘She has no idea. Maybe thinks she’ll get to fuck me and that’ll be it.’ Messiah Wilde smiled as he drank.

  Graye remained standing, a frown creasing his face. ‘Your levity displeases me. Also your behaviour towards these creatures. They are not to be treated as your personal sex toys. I have mentioned this before.’

  Messiah Wilde stretched out his long legs beneath the white robe. On his pale feet he wore sandals of soft kid leather. The robe concealed the puncture marks and broken veins on his thighs. He sighed and said wearily, ‘Don’t you know it’s the sexual bit that pulls in the ratings? If they didn’t have the hots for me, the TV show and all the videos and websites would be less popular than a presidential press conference. “Sex is Power” – that’s the Message, isn’t it?’

  ‘We don’t wish to disseminate the Message to our flock so blatantly,’ Graye said sternly. ‘Our
credo is to beam health and vitality, clean minds and loving hearts. The Message is understood but unspoken – you should know that.’ He swirled his drink, brooding into the glass. ‘The ceremony will have to be delayed.’

  ‘What on earth for? She’s ready.’

  ‘Because there are more important, more vital matters to be dealt with first!’ Graye was visibly trembling, overwhelmed by anger at Messiah Wilde’s nonchalant manner. ‘Why do you suppose we are trying to communicate with Kersh? Already, once in his dreams, he has warned us of Cawdor and the danger he presents. But he hasn’t told us when or how this might happen – under what circumstances. We must learn all we can before Cawdor himself realises the significance of past events.’

  As he took in what Graye was saying, Messiah Wilde’s indolence vanished. His dark eyes became troubled. He said, ‘I don’t see how Cawdor can possibly know anything. How the hell can he?’

  ‘He might not. If the past remains a closed book of blank pages, he will not have any genetic memory of what has taken place. In his ignorance, the future will unfold according to plan, and he will be powerless to change it. But the warning from Kersh must mean something – the threat of disruption, perhaps – and we cannot ignore it. We must act to prevent it.’ Graye’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the glass. His thin breathing sounded like a breeze rustling through dry reeds.

  Messiah Wilde lounged back on the leather couch. ‘Well, I guess that’s your department. I’ve tried, but I can’t hear Kersh the way you and your boys can.’

  ‘No,’ Graye said through thin lips. He finished off his drink in a single gulp and banged the glass down. ‘I shall leave the sexual charisma to you; leave the safeguarding of the Beamers to me. I have a long history of doing precisely that’

  On the far side of the chamber, Josie and the elder were walking slowly along the wall of thick, greenish glass, her slender shoulders enveloped by the flowing sleeve of his black robe.