Mirror Image

by Michael Scott

  Frazer reached for her, forefinger tracing the outline of her breasts through the glass, moving upwards along the line of her throat, touching her lips. Her tongue darted out, licking at his fingertips.

  And he felt it!

  Like a cat’s tongue, harsh and rasping, it sent an electric spark through his entire body. He spread his hand on the glass about her face, pressing hard into its surface. It felt soft, almost resilient, palpable, like flesh.

  And then the woman began to lick his hand, tiny pointed tongue darting, flicking at his skin, arousing him almost unbearably. He lifted his hand, looking at it in wonder—the blood had vanished, the image had licked it off.

  Jonathan Frazer stepped forward, over the body of the hooker and pressed himself to the glass, willing himself through. The image mimicked him, molding her body to his, her eyes wide with longing, mouth open, breasts heaving. His own orgasm took him suddenly, shuddering through him, exhausting in its intensity, his fluid splashing onto the glass where it was absorbed into the mirror. The wash of ecstasy was so powerful that he felt the world spin around him and shut down in blackness.

  * * *

  FRAZER AWOKE AS the cold light of day unmercifully illuminated the room. He was stiff and shaking, his body wracked with shivering, and there was an iron bar deep in the pit of his stomach, bile in his mouth.

  The woman’s corpse was a gray and twisted thing curled around the base of the glass. There was surprisingly little blood, and the body looked like nothing more than an empty sack. Disposing of it would not be a problem.

  He came slowly to his feet and approached the ancient mirror, reaching out to run his fingers down the length of the glass. It looked brighter, cleaner this morning, his own reflection in it seemed crisper, sharper. Its surface still felt slick and greasy, but most of the speckling had vanished.

  Pressing both hands to the glass, he peered into it, attempting, wanting to see something—anything—out of the ordinary, but all he saw was the dim reflection of the cluttered room behind him.

  No matter.

  He had established contact—physical contact—with the woman in the mirror, the image. Blood had given her substance: he would give her enough blood to make her whole.

  78

  EMMANUELLE FRAZER opened her eyes.

  And knew immediately that something was wrong …

  * * *

  THE ROOM WAS dark, cold, the blankets covering her were coarse, rough, and foul-smelling. She sat up with a strangled shout, blankets falling away, revealing breasts that were heavy and painful, nipples large and dark. There was movement beside her and in the wan dawn light she saw an old gray-haired, gray-bearded man roll over and look at her.

  This was a dream.

  This was a nightmare.

  “Mistress?” he asked, his accent strange, guttural, rural.

  She had seen this man before, in her dream, this man and the red-haired, red-bearded man.

  “Mistress?” he asked again. “Is it time?”

  “Aye,” she murmured. “Find Kelley.”

  She could hear herself speak, the words pounding in her head. This was a dream. This was a nightmare. And she had no control over it.

  The old man—his name was Dee, she realized—threw back the covers and hurried from the cold room, a vaguely comical figure in his long soiled night-shirt. She swung her legs out of the bed more slowly, gripping the edge of the coarse, rustling mattress with one hand, her left hand resting on her swollen belly, wincing as the child kicked and kicked again.

  Aaah, the agony of the past nine months, to feel her body change so, her flesh becoming misshapen as the thing grew inside her like some foul parasite, robbing her of everything she possessed, her rather dubious beauty, her dignity, and her ability to control men. Who would look at a pregnant woman, an ugly deformed creature?

  But it would be worth it—it had better be.

  Kelley had sworn … and thus far he had delivered on all of his promises.

  And now the door was opening and the red-haired, red-bearded Irishman was in the room, his eyes aflame, a rare smile on his lips. “It is time,” he hissed, “I told you it would be tonight.”

  He had; he had prepared a natal chart and had been able to predict the moment of the child’s birth almost to the hour, but then he had even chosen the night for her to become impregnated by the old fool, Dee.

  “Where’s Dee?” she whispered.

  He jerked his head upwards. “Gone ahead to prepare the room. Can you walk, or will I carry you?”

  “I can walk,” she hissed. She was not completely helpless. She wrapped a cloak around her nakedness and strode from the room with as much dignity as she could muster. However, half-way up the stairs to the tower room where the mirror was kept, she had to stop as the birth pangs twisted her almost double, and Kelley had swept her up in his strong arms and carried her effortlessly up the rest of the way, murmuring softly, telling her that it would be soon now, so soon, and then they would have accomplished everything they had worked so hard to achieve: absolute power for him, immortality for her.

  And there was a price to be paid, but that was only right and proper: everything in this life had to be paid for. That was what had convinced her that Kelley’s offer had been genuine in the first instance. If he had told her that he could make her immortal with no cost to herself, then she would have known that she was being used. She was earning that immortality now. She had earned it over the past nine months.

  “The child is mine,” Kelley reminded her, his breath warm against her ear.

  “You think I want it?” she asked indignantly. “What about Dee?”

  “Once the child has been given to the mirror, Dee will be ours, a puppet to be used and controlled by our will. There is nothing we will not be able to accomplish. Absolute power…”

  “And immortality,” she added.

  “Forever and ever…” he said and kicked open the door to the tower room. “Is everything prepared?”

  “All is in readiness,” Dee said eagerly.

  A couch had been positioned directly facing the mirror, water bubbling in great copper pots over the blazing fire, clean linen towels piled on the wooden table beside the couch.

  Dee had wanted to bring in a midwife from the local village to assist with the birth, but Kelley had been against it: too many questions, too much gossip, he had argued. What would the villagers say if they heard that a child had been born in the topmost room of Dee’s house, in front of a huge mirror, with Kelley in the background, chanting the proper incantations? Not even the queen would be able to save him from the resultant scandal.

  Kelley had midwived women before; he would do it.

  The contractions were regular now, deep and powerful, and she barely made it to the couch before the waters broke.

  Manny Frazer opened her mouth and screamed.

  She was the woman, seeing what she saw, feeling what she felt, aware of her thoughts.

  And yet she was apart.

  She felt she was hovering somewhere in the background, behind and to the woman’s right, calmly looking on.

  The dream and the nightmare inextricably entwined.

  The room resembled a scene from hell. Wild shadows capered across the walls. The only illumination came from the blazing fire, roaring up the chimney when Kelley, his hair and beard metallic in the firelight, worked the bellows. Dee hunched before the mirror like some warped demon, muttering incantations.

  The ripple that flowed down the glass was like oil on water, twisting, curling rainbowed, vaguely metallic colors.

  A flickering began deep in the core of the glass, a twisting, shifting, pulsing ball of light that throbbed in time to the woman’s contractions.

  On the couch facing the mirror, the woman screamed in the agony of childbirth, copper colored skin bathed in blood red sweat. When the blood came just before the birth of the babe, it ran black in the light. She saw a distorted reflection of herself in the glass. The warped glass had tu
rned her flesh yellow, twisted her legs, turning them into something like an animal’s, her full breasts looking flat and wasted, while her face was a parody of a skull. Only her hair was alive, coiling, twisting, turning, winding around her face with some bizarre life of its own.

  The woman looked down through her spread legs at Kelley. Hunched before her, he watched her with an expression that was almost feral, eyes wide, lips parted. He was chanting solidly, lips barely moving, grunting a monotonous mantra, calling, promising … promising … promising. He eagerly reached for the bulbous head when it appeared, his touch surprisingly gentle, pulling the child towards him, turning the body, drawing it out, and then finally—triumphantly—holding it up by its feet. It was a girl; but that was no surprise, they had known all along that it would be a girl. The child opened her mouth and wailed, the sound pitiful, like a seagull’s mewling, the tiny noise almost lost in the room, swallowed up in the roar of the fire and Kelley’s chanted grunts.

  The images in the mirror went wild.

  A face appeared, and then another and another and another. Countless faces, some no bigger than a fingernail, others the size of a palm, male and female, young and old, eyes wide, mouths open, silently crying, calling, shouting, screaming, pleading. When the child was finally birthed, sliding out into Kelley’s bloodied hands, the mouths closed, the countless eyes fixed on the bloody bundle between the woman’s legs. Their terror was palpable.

  Kelley lifted the child in his hands, still attached to the mother by the umbilical cord, and turned to face the mirror. The mouths and eyes opened again, and then began to dissolve, fading away, like melting ice or wind-blown dust until only one face remained, tiny and sexless, close to the center of the mirror. The mirror rippled and the face altered subtly into that of a woman. It was so perfect it looked like a mask with its bronze-gold skin, jet black hair and huge green eyes. As it grew larger, approaching the surface of the mirror, the rest of its perfect naked golden body appeared from a gritty milk-white background. When it was life-size, it reached for the squalling child with both hands, fingers long and slender, black fingernails pointed and curved.

  Kelley smiled at the golden image, lifting the child even higher.

  Manny screamed in horror when she saw him produce the knife.

  Deftly, surprisingly neatly, he snipped the umbilical cord, spattering the mirror with blood. The image touched the score of tiny droplets on the glass, and they vanished, drying to a dry crust and flaking away as she brought her fingertip to her mouth and sucked.

  The image reached for the child again, but Kelley shook his head …

  … and her face twisted, turning ugly, beast-like for an instant, hair boiling around her head. And then, abruptly, she was gone.

  Kelley turned away from the mirror and wrapped the child in a pure linen cloth, cleaning its face and eyes with the corner. He leaned over the woman. “Your daughter, Mistress.”

  The flesh was soft against her breast, the babe’s mouth opening automatically, and she could actually feel a surge in her breasts before the milk came. The baby girl latched onto her nipple, and the release that followed was almost orgasmic in its intensity.

  “I don’t want it,” the woman hissed.

  “For appearance sake,” Kelley murmured, eyes drifting up to where Dee had left the fire and was hurrying towards them. He straightened and smiled. “You have a daughter, sir.”

  Dee looked at his wife with the baby now sucking at her breast. He ran his fingers through his wife’s thick sweat-damp hair and kissed her forehead. “Our child,” he whispered. “A child of the New Age.” When he looked up, his eyes were bright with unshed tears. “A child of magic.”

  Kelley nodded, face twisting into a parody of a smile. “A magical child indeed.” He touched Dee’s arm. “Let us leave your wife to rest.”

  As soon as the two men left the room, the image returned. The golden skinned, black haired woman pressed against the glass, staring hard at the sleeping woman and the child. The hunger in her eyes was almost tangible.

  And then she looked up … behind and to the right of the sleeping woman.

  She’s looking at me!

  The image looked at Emmanuelle Frazer and her lips twisted in a wide smile. Her thick black hair suddenly battered itself against the glass, coils and strands striking hard against the surface of the mirror. Her large green eyes caught and held Manny’s, and the young woman reeled back with the almost physical blow. The woman’s mouth was working, mouthing words, and she was pointing to the child … and to the knife.

  Manny shook her head violently. No.

  The creature smiled and the planes of her face subtly altered. She was still golden and beautiful, but her burnished flesh was now dulled and tarnished, her eyes seemed to have sunk deeper into her face and her cheekbones looked sharper. She had been golden and innocent; now she was ancient and exuded a palpable aura of evil. Her mouth twisted and she spat at Manny, green slime dribbling down the surface of the glass.

  But by now the nameless woman was awake, staring in horror at the figure in the glass. Instinctively, she clutched the babe to her bosom and screamed, the sound tearing from her throat. The image instinctively spat at her too—and a gobbet of the green fluid passed through glass and splattered onto her face, searing into the flesh to the right of her eye.

  Manny screamed with the pain, the fire in her face.

  And awoke.

  * * *

  MANNY RESTED HER forehead against the cool glass of the bathroom mirror. She was bathed in sweat, her bathrobe sticking to her skin, and yet she felt cold, chilled through to the bone. She looked at her face again …

  The skin from the corner of her right eye, almost down to her jaw bone was red and raw, leaking a pale watery pus.

  79

  THIS WAS only Toni’s third night on the street, and she was still terrified. Her two friends who also worked the streets told her that only the first night was the hardest and then after that it got easier. But the second night hadn’t been any easier and she was absolutely petrified with the prospect of another customer tonight.

  Frankie, who lived in the apartment further down the hall, told her that she should be able to get three or four johns a night and if the clients wanted the “works” at one hundred bucks for an hour, that would mean she was earning four hundred dollars for a mere four hours work per day, not bad. Go for the big bucks while you’re still young and pretty, she’d advised, forget the hand jobs or the oral.

  The first night she’d managed one guy, a hand job. She’d been shaking, but he’d been drunk and hadn’t noticed. She’d been so sick, so ashamed afterwards that she’d gone right back to the apartment and washed herself again and again, imagining she could still smell him—stale sweat and beer—on her skin.

  The next guy on the second night had been so nervous that she felt almost sorry for him, and again, she’d washed and washed herself, scrubbing away the smell, knowing she could never erase the memory.

  She hated it, she’d never be able to get used to it, not the way Frankie or Joey did. But she had to do it, she needed the money desperately.

  It had started when she lost her job—and she’d been lucky that they hadn’t pressed charges, but she supposed it would have cost the store more to sue her for stealing several T-shirts. And it couldn’t have happened at a worse time: she was four months pregnant and just beginning to show. Maybe that had been another reason the store manager hadn’t pressed charges, simply dismissed her on the spot without a reference. Without a reference she stood absolutely no chance of finding another job. And she was too proud to return to her Kansas hometown, she didn’t want to see the disappointment in her parents’ eyes.

  She’d borrowed some money just before the baby was born. None of the regular lending agencies would give it to her, and she ended up dealing with a “private finance company.” Later, when it was too late, she realized they were little more than loan sharks. When they’d asked her if she was working, s
he’d lied and said yes, and they’d never checked. When they discovered that she couldn’t pay back the loan, they’d become very upset. Now a guy was coming around every day demanding money, threatening her, and the last time he’d deliberately turned and looked at the baby as he told her that people who didn’t pay him always had bad luck.

  She’d spoken to Frankie, telling her the story, hoping—but not asking—that she might help her out, give her some money. She knew Frankie had plenty of cash; the older woman had her hair done twice or three times a week, and always wore the latest fashions. Frankie hadn’t been any help though—except to make the suggestion that she go on the streets. Toni had immediately dismissed the idea out of hand, until Frankie had started to tell her how much money was to be made from it, and as long as you were careful and picked the right clients and didn’t go with any crazy looking guys, never got into a car with more than one person and avoided some of the sleazier bars, you’d be all right. Oh, and you always made sure to take your pill and you didn’t do it with guys who wouldn’t wear a condom.

  Toni owed over three hundred dollars; it had started out at one hundred and fifty, but the interest mounted up rapidly. Frankie had pointed out to her that three nights on the street at three clients a night would take care of her problem and leave money left over to buy herself or baby Stephanie a present. And you never knew, maybe she’d end up liking it. Frankie knew women who only did it on weekends or mid-week, just for a night or two, earning themselves enough money to carry them through to the next week. And yes, some husbands knew about it: but if you were trying to claim unemployment benefits with a couple of kids to bring up and a mortgage to pay and the bills just mounting up, what other way was there to earn money … except maybe go out and rob a bank.

  Toni knew she’d never like this. She enjoyed sex, but only with someone she loved, or at least thought she loved. But there was nothing pleasurable in this. This was a necessity.

  She hadn’t even dressed “whorishly” and yet she felt as if everyone knew what she did, and everyone was looking at her. She’d come into the bar tonight with Frankie and though she’d been here nearly two hours—and Frankie had been in and out with three different guys, and she charged fifty bucks—so far no one had shown the slightest bit of interest in her. Maybe she looked just too respectable. No one wanted respectable these days.