Mirror Image

by Michael Scott

  Closing her eyes to the sensation, Celia allowed herself to drift. It wasn’t her fault she was having affairs, it was Jonathan’s, if he’d paid her as much attention as he’d lavished on his precious antiques …

  63

  THE BLOOD had already begun to turn sticky and tacky by the time he reached the guesthouse and settled himself before the mirror, squatting about a foot away from the glass. With infinite care he uncorked the glass jar and the dry air of the guesthouse was immediately tainted with the meaty copper stench of blood. Lifting the bottle, he poured the thick liquid—now black and tar-like in the wan light—onto the sponge. The pale cratered bath sponge turned dark and heavy, and he immediately pushed it against the glass, squeezing it when it touched the surface, liquid snaking down the glass in twisting runnels. He rubbed the sponge in a quick circular motion, slicing through the grime, opening a window at about eye level. Wincing with the pain in his left arm, he reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a small color photograph of Celia and held it up before his face, squinting in the dim light at the vague picture. He dropped the sponge and splashed blood directly from the glass beaker across the glass, creating a shallow arc that dripped blood down its length. Jonathan Frazer vigorously rubbed the blood onto the mirror, concentrating intently on Celia, squeezing his eyes shut in an effort to visualize her clearly, to see her face, her eyes, her hair … but the picture wouldn’t come. How could you live with someone for so long and not be able to visualize their face? When you stopped seeing them, he realized, when you stopped looking at them. He opened his eyes and looked at the photograph again. It had been taken late last year at that skiing resort she’d gone to in the French Alps. She was wide-eyed, smiling, looking tanned and relaxed: the way she always looked after lovemaking.

  A rainbow flicker shivered the length of the glass, blue and red and green.

  Frazer lowered the picture and quickly threw more blood onto the glass.

  The second ripple moved far more slowly down the mirror and coalesced around the spot where he’d rubbed in the blood. The colors and twisting shapes reminded him of oil on water, and then, as he watched, the thick black blood disappeared, absorbed into the mirror, leaving tiny dark flakes in its wake.

  There was a small amount of his blood left and he was just about to throw it onto the glass when Celia Frazer’s face appeared.

  It was the face in the photograph, wide-eyed, smiling, tanned, relaxed, but larger, life-sized, three-dimensional.

  It was staring at him.

  And then the eyes blinked.

  The mouth twisted into an ugly smile, showing long yellowed teeth. The eyes blinked and the head dipped, until all he could see was the top of her dyed ash-blond hair, the roots black and coarse. Then the head came back up again and grinned at him, the mouth working to form his name.

  Jonathan.

  Frazer fell back away from the mirror, flinging the sponge at the image in the glass. His foot struck the glass jar, sending it crashing against the frame, the bottle shattering, blood staining the wood.

  The face in the mirror leered and grimaced. It was still Celia’s face, but subtly altered, changed. The tanned skin had assumed a leathery appearance, the eyes seemed deeper in the skull, further apart, the cheekbones more prominent, the teeth longer, the expression mocking, long moist tongue licking lasciviously at cracked lips.

  He understood, on some deep unconscious level, that it was still Celia he was looking at, but now he was seeing another aspect of her, as if the mirror had stripped away layers of deceit and subterfuge, revealing her true character.

  The face abruptly shrunk in size, falling away from him, drawing him forward, until his face was inches from the glass. The spreading oil of colors obliterated everything and then twisted, and shifted, curling into shapes, resolving into a series of tiny pictures which fluttered past like wind-blown leaves. There were images, faces, pictures: a woman, a naked body, an infant, a face with long waving hair, Celia’s face convulsed in ecstasy, Edmund Talbott’s, Manny’s, a tanned youth, blood, and flames. Abruptly they stopped and solidified into one image on the glass.

  He was looking into a bedroom: a hotel bedroom judging by the furnishings and decor. The angle was low, a few feet off the floor, and looking directly onto a bed on which two naked figures writhed together, arms and legs locked around one another. He frowned, wondering what he was supposed to be seeing, and then he heard the high-pitched gasping pants of a woman approaching orgasm.

  It was Celia’s voice.

  A smile of something like triumph locked onto his face, pulling his lips back from his teeth. The experiment had worked … was working. He pressed up close against the glass, staring deep into it, wishing he could be closer to the bed, trying to make sense of the angle, wondering how he was seeing them, trying to make sense of it in relation to his own position in the room. He looked around; what was missing from the picture of the room? And then he suddenly realized that he was looking through the dressing-table mirror!

  The woman’s gasps had now been augmented by a man’s panted grunts, and Frazer was forced to sit, watching and listening to the couple reach their orgasm together and then finally collapse in a heap on the bed, where they lay breathless and gasping for a few moments, until the woman rolled out of the bed and approached the mirror.

  Maybe he had been hoping—desperately hoping—that his mind had been playing tricks with him, and that it wasn’t Celia who’d been in the man’s arms, making love to him with an abandon and energy she’d never shown with him. But it was Celia, the smile of sated satisfaction back on her lips now, her skin flushed with the after-effects of orgasm.

  Bitch, bitch, bitchbitchbitch, fucking bitch.

  She sat and peered into the mirror—looking directly at him—and then she stretched out her hand to reach for him.

  In his rage, Frazer pressed his hands flat against the cool surface. Then he slapped at the mirror, the crack of flesh off glass sounding like a blow.

  64

  CELIA USED to think that all the talk about multiple orgasms was so much nonsense, but tonight she’d had several in quick succession. She supposed everything was possible with a considerate lover, and while Colin might be many things—brash and arrogant, ignorant too, not terribly well-educated—he had an instinctive understanding of how to treat a woman, where to touch, when to kiss, how to lick, and what to suck.

  Reluctantly, Celia Frazer swung her legs out of the bed, and padded toward the bathroom. She wanted to stay in bed with Colin, to feel his arms wrapped protectively around her, but two bottles of wine and a bout of energetic lovemaking were not compatible: her bladder was about to explode. She made a note: go to the bathroom before making love.

  A flicker on the dressing-table mirror caught her attention. She stopped and looked behind her at the bedroom wall, wondering what was reflecting off the glass, making the shimmering rainbow patterns on the surface of the mirror. She could see nothing obvious. She leaned forward, looking deeper into the glass, frowning now. There were shadows in the glass. Shapes. Faces. Dear God—one of them looked like her husband. She was reaching out to touch the surface of the mirror with her fingertips …

  When the glass exploded outwards!

  Celia Frazer screamed, reeling away as razor sharp slivers dug into her naked skin, gouging at the flesh in her face …

  * * *

  AND JUST OVER three hundred miles away, Jonathan Frazer howled with delight as his slut of a wife reeled away from the glass, her flesh nicked and torn, four long scratches running down the right side of her face, under her chin and into the soft flesh of her shoulder.

  Looking exactly as if someone had clawed at her!

  65

  A DOT, a spot, a circle of white in the distance.

  Growing.

  Expanding.

  Moving.

  Taking on shape, shadows appearing, planes forming, becoming a face, wide-eyed, opened-mouthed, terrified. Screaming.

  * * *
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  EMMANUELLE FRAZER AWOKE with the scream ringing in her ears, and then realized that the scream had been hers. She came bolt upright in the bed, both hands pressed to the side of her face, staring wildly around her.

  Where was she?

  Her last memories were of leaning over the fountain, feeling herself falling, the hand grabbing her, and the face of the ugly scarred man.

  The scarred man.

  The scarred man was sitting in a chair facing her, elbows resting on the arms of the chair, fingers laced together. He was wearing a black polo neck sweater with black pants and, with his dark eyes fixed on her face, he looked positively evil.

  She scrabbled for the thin blanket that covered her, dragging it up to her chin. “Who are you? What am I doing here? How did I get here?”

  “You’re like your father,” he said quietly, “he asks too many questions, too, without waiting for an answer.” He stared at her for a moment, and then he said quickly, “I am Edmund Talbott, and I saved you from falling into the fountain. You are safe here.”

  Manny wasn’t quite so sure about that.

  “You know my father?” she asked.

  “In a manner of speaking. We have met a couple of times. Has he not spoken to you about me?”

  She started to shake her head and then the fragments fell together. “You’re the big scarred man who wanted to buy the mirror,” she whispered, horrified. “You killed Tony, Diane, Robert and those policemen.” She was too shocked to even be frightened.

  “I killed the police officers, that is true,” he nodded gravely, “but none of the others. The image killed them.”

  Manny nodded gravely. She was in the presence of a madman, and all she had to do now was to humor him until he fell asleep and she could escape. There was only one door in the dingy room and he was sitting right beside it. There was a newspaper-covered window to her left but she had no way of knowing what was on the other side. It could be a blank wall for all she knew, or they could be six stories high.

  She looked at the man—Talbott?—noting the lines of the scars and wrinkles on his face, figuring that he must have been handsome once, before the accident or whatever had so badly scarred him. She wondered why he didn’t have plastic surgery.

  “The scars are memories,” he said suddenly, frightening her. He smiled at her horrified expression. “When people look at me—and I mean really look, not a quick glance—they usually wonder two things, how I got the scars, and why I keep them and not use plastic surgery.”

  Manny nodded. Keep him talking. While he was talking he was calm and reasoned.

  “I got the scars in an elevator accident. I keep them in memory of my wife and son who died in that accident.”

  “Oh,” she whispered, wondering if it were true. “That’s … that’s terrible…” She had tried to inject empathy into her voice, but it came out flat and unemotional.

  “I attempted to meddle with something I could not control. And it didn’t like it.” He touched his face. Talbott stared intently into her eyes and then added, “But at least I knew what I was doing … or attempting to do. Unlike you.”

  “Me!”

  Talbott stared at her impassively.

  “Look, I really don’t know what you’re talking about!” she snapped. Mistake, mistake, mistake, she thought, always agree with them.

  “The mirror,” he said quietly.

  “The mirror?” She looked at him blankly and then said very softly, “The mirror. What about the mirror?”

  “Why don’t you tell me about it,” he said maddeningly.

  “Look mister…”

  “Edmund Talbott.”

  “Look Mr. Talbott. I know nothing about this mirror. I’ve seen it, it’s in my father’s guesthouse. And three people that I knew have died around it.”

  Talbott brought his fingertips up to his lips, palms of his hands pressed together. His finely developed senses told him that the girl was telling the truth, and yet he had seen the whirlwind in the Otherworld feeding off sexual energies that were undoubtedly female. Was it possible that the mirror was using her without her knowledge? It was unlikely, and yet not impossible. There was so much about the mirror and the images that it controlled that he did not know. The last person in his family to have a full understanding of the mirror had been his grandfather, whose knowledge of the occult was extraordinary, and who had counted many of the modern figures in the occult revival amongst his students. The stroke that had robbed him of most of his faculties including speech and the power of his hands had been a terrible tragedy, or so Talbott had thought until he discovered that before the stroke his grandfather had been talking of putting down the history and the legends surrounding the mirror onto paper. Then he realized it had been no accident of fate: the mirror had somehow caused the stroke.

  “Have you ever seen—or experienced—anything strange or curious around the mirror?”

  “What do you mean, strange or curious?”

  “Tell me what you think I mean?” he said coyly, unwilling to lead her on.

  Manny considered for a moment. “I don’t like it, if that’s what you mean … it’s … it’s creepy. And I saw a face in it once,” she admitted almost reluctantly.

  Talbott nodded. “What sort of face?” he asked gently.

  She closed her eyes, remembering. “A woman’s face … a … a woman’s face.” She opened her eyes again, shaking her head. “That’s all I can remember. Why? What is it about this mirror? Is it haunted?”

  He shrugged, a wry smile stretching the scars on his face. “Yes, no, I don’t know. It is evil, it attracts evil, it disseminates evil, that is all I know. It is ancient and deadly.”

  “I don’t see what all this has got to do with…” Manny began, but Talbott held up a hand, stopping her.

  “The mirror works through people, controlling them, using them to feed its appetite. It shows people things, sometimes it shows them what they want to see, more often than not, it shows them what they most fear. You may or may not choose to believe this, but I think you’ve seen enough over the past couple of weeks to know that what I’m telling you is the truth. And you will also admit that your father has been acting strangely of late?”

  Manny suddenly nodded. “I thought this might have something to do with Dad. Yes, he’s been a little odd, but then strange things have been happening around him…”

  “… ever since he bought the mirror,” Talbott finished for her.

  “So what are you saying to me? Are you telling me that this mirror has some sort of control over my dad, that it’s possessing him?”

  “No, I’m not saying that at all,” Talbott murmured. He was watching the young woman carefully, wondering how much to tell her, wondering how much she would accept. Usually, the young were always so open to ideas.

  “I am saying that your father is seeing things in the mirror…”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Whatever he most wants to see, whatever he fears most. I don’t know. He will keep going back to the glass again and again, feeding it, becoming addicted to the images.”

  “What do you mean feeding it,” Manny asked suddenly, the significance of the words suddenly sinking in.

  “The glass is dirty, grimy, greasy. Only blood will clean the glass, only blood will fire the images. Blood and sex.” He saw the sudden coloring on her cheeks, and pressed on. “The intense emotion of orgasm can also fire the mirror. But I think perhaps you know something of this, eh?”

  “I think I want to go home,” Manny said, suddenly.

  “Why, what have I said that frightened you?”

  “Nothing. Shit! Everything you said frightened me. Magic fucking mirrors, blood, sex, images; you’re a crazy person!”

  “I’ll not deny that. But everything I’ve said to you is the truth.” He came suddenly to his feet and crossed the room to stand towering over the girl. “Now someone has been feeding the mirror with blood, and if it is not you, then it has to be your father. Bu
t someone has also been feeding it with sexual energy—and that is you, I believe.” Manny started to shake her head, but Talbott pressed on. “But you see, since you know nothing about the mirror, I can only assume that you’ve been doing this unknowingly. Have you been having strange dreams lately, erotic dreams?” he asked suddenly. He saw the answer in her eyes and continued relentlessly. “Usually the female is a willing part of the conspiracy, giving freely of herself, deliberately feeding the mirror. But not you. You’re so close to your father, so close to the mirror that I suppose it was only natural that you should be caught up in it.”

  “I have been having … strange dreams,” Manny admitted in a whisper, “erotic dreams. When I wake up I realize, I’ve … I’ve…”

  Talbott patted her shoulder. “I know. I know,” he said quietly. He straightened and crossed to the window, peering out through a tiny nick in the newspaper across the silent streets in the general direction of the Hollywood Hills. Even in his waking state, he could still feel the vague disturbance in the Otherworld.

  “What can I do? Can you help me? Can you help my father?”

  Edmund Talbott turned back, shaking his head slightly. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. He looked down at the pale-faced girl, wondering if it wasn’t too late for them all.

  He glanced at his watch. It was three-thirty. “Was your father going out tonight?”

  She shook her head. “He rarely goes out.”

  “Where is your mother?”

  “She got a bit fed up with Dad—or at least that was her excuse—and went up to Lake Tahoe for a little break. She said she’d come back when all this was over and done with.”

  Talbott nodded thoughtfully. At least that was one less problem to take care of. “You know there are police watching your house. They’re watching for me,” he added unnecessarily. “Can you get me back to the house posing as a boyfriend?”