Mirror Image

by Michael Scott

  “Who’s not your father? Who is chasing you, Manny? Who is after you?”

  “He’s got a knife. He’s going to kill me.”

  “You’re safe now, Manny. There’s no one after you now. Tell me who it was. You know who it was, don’t you?” she demanded. “Tell me.”

  Manny’s eyes opened wide. “It was my father.”

  “So, it was your father.”

  “But it wasn’t.”

  “The man looked like your father,” she said patiently.

  Manny attempted to shake her head and then stopped, realizing she was restrained. “No. It was my father. But he was different.”

  “Different? How?”

  “Different. Changed. Not the dad I knew.”

  “He had a knife, Manny. What did he want to do with the knife?”

  “He wanted … wanted to kill me … no…” Her breath died away to a ghostly whisper, and Margaret lowered her head to catch the words. The heart monitor began to trip wildly.

  “What did he want?” Haaren snapped, and the young woman flinched.

  “He said he wanted to sacrifice me. To feed it my blood, to make it whole.”

  “Feed what, Manny? What did he want to feed?”

  “Mother!” Manny’s voice rose to a hoarse shout. “My mother. He said she was dead!”

  Margaret Haaren stopped, her own heartbeat beginning to trip along in rhythm to the girls’. There was no way Manny could know about the death of her mother. “What did he say about your mother?”

  “He said he’d killed her. Said he’d cut her from crotch to sternum, that’s what he’d said. Said she was with someone.” Her fingers tightened convulsively around Haaren’s fingers, blood beginning to seep through the bandages. “Is it true? Is it?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry Manny, your mother is dead,” the detective said slowly.

  “Did … did Dad do it?”

  “I believe he did,” Margaret said quietly. Although she had no idea how he did it.

  Manny lay back on the pillows, eyes closed.

  “It’s not his fault, Manny. He’s not well. He needs our help, yours and mine. Now, tell me, who did your father want to feed?”

  “Not who—what!”

  “What?”

  “The mirror.”

  Haaren frowned. “The mirror?”

  “Yes, the mirror. It has possessed him. Talbott said it was evil, and then it killed him. And it would have killed me,” she added wonderingly. “He was going to kill me and feed my blood to the mirror.”

  “Where is he, Manny?” Margaret Haaren said loudly. “Where is Jonathan Frazer?”

  “He can hear it, he can feel its hunger. It’s making him kill to feed it.”

  “Where is he, dammit!”

  “In the guesthouse. He’s in the guesthouse, and he’s going to feed the mirror. He’s going to kill tonight!”

  Margaret Haaren was already moving towards the door when it snapped open and Officer Morrow’s pale face looked in. She handed the detective a radio. “Emergency feed, patched through from the station.”

  “Haaren,” she said crisply, turning in the doorway to look back into the room, but Manny Frazer was sleeping again, only the rapid movement behind her closed eyelids evidence that her sleep wasn’t peaceful.

  “What’s wrong?” she murmured, stepping outside the room, closing the door behind her. Carole Morrow stared anxiously at her, until Margaret jerked her thumb and the young officer stepped back into the room.

  “We got a report from a member of the public about half an hour ago that a man roughly answering to Frazer’s description was seen to kidnap a young woman at knifepoint. The citizen followed them to Frazer’s house in the Hollywood Hills, where he was picked up by our men for loitering. Our guys didn’t believe his story so we sent a car around to the address where he said the young woman had been taken from.”

  “And?”

  “I’ve verified this myself, ma’am. Everything checks out. I’m so sorry,” he added, and in that moment, Margaret Haaren knew that whatever she was going to hear now would not be good. “Frazer’s got your niece, Helen.”

  “And do we have Frazer?”

  “We’ve searched the house again. It’s empty.”

  “And the guesthouse?”

  “Sealed shut.”

  She was just about to ask the officers to check inside, but something made her stop. “I’m on the way.”

  “SWAT is on the way. Detective, the commander has asked that you stand down.”

  “Understood,” Margaret Haaren said.

  95

  SHE WAS back in the crystal prison, a flat oblong of glass spinning slowly across a gray and dreary landscape. She was spread-eagled in the glass, trapped, her mouth open, screaming, screaming, screaming.

  And there, in the distance, was a towering whirlpool funnel, lightning wrapped, shimmering with color. In the gray silence it exuded a barely perceptible hum, a high-pitched keening. Instinctively she knew that herein were the trapped souls of aeons.

  If the whirlpool had a name then it was Agony.

  There were faces in the whirlpool, hundreds of tiny faces, from all races, from all times, mouths and eyes wide, pleading, begging, crying for release. Close to the top of the whirlpool there were whole bodies of the recently dead circling around, caught in the great tidal pull of the circle, and further down, nearer the bottom, there were only segments of features, partially glimpsed eyes, mouths, tongues, lips.

  She felt its pull, the wrenching deep within her as the crystal prison bucked and warped. It dragged her forward and suddenly she was within the whirlpool, sucked into the funnel, and she was spinning, spinning, spinning, down and down and down, deep into the core of the turgid grayness.

  Now she could hear the song of its captured souls, and this song was Desolation.

  The rectangle of crystal fell further, deeper into the core, and now the partially glimpsed features were no longer human or even animal, but something of both. Here were the creatures of myth, of legend, of faith and fancy.

  Abruptly the grayness was broken by a rain of tiny white lights which streaked past her. Vivid, pulsing with their own inner life, the droplets spattered all around her, calling to her, drawing her down even further, even deeper … until she saw the opening ahead of her. It was a small rectangle, but growing, growing, growing as she rushed headlong towards it.

  There were figures in the rectangle. A man, naked, standing before the opening. A woman, naked, bound and blindfolded lying on the ground behind him. Behind her strange and curious artifacts.

  Recognizable artifacts.

  Antiques.

  The man standing before the opening was … Dear God, it was her father. And he was … he was masturbating and his seed was streaming past her in long thin streamers and elongated globules, drifting back up into the core of the whirlpool. He was feeding the mirror.

  Blood, tears, and semen.

  She came to an abrupt jarring halt.

  She was on one side of the mirror.

  And her father, Jonathan Frazer, was on the other.

  And then a figure stepped past her out of the grayness and looked at Frazer.

  It was the Image.

  96

  HE’D MASTURBATED furiously, spilling his seed onto the glass whilst calling up the image. She had appeared at the precise moment of his orgasm and pressed herself up against the glass, staring at him, her eyes wide with desire, long hair battering against the glass.

  “I’ve got something for you,” he whispered. He glanced over his shoulder at the bound, gagged, and blindfolded young woman. “A virgin. Unsullied, unblemished.”

  The image smiled at him, full lips curling against white teeth.

  “Tell me what to do,” he whispered.

  Feed me. Free me.

  He remembered fragments of the pictures he had seen of Kelley the night he had sacrificed the woman. The copper bowl, the stone knife. But were they necessary? Surely all the image desir
ed was the blood of the sacrifice.

  Frazer stood, leaning forward against the glass, the palms of his hands resting against the glass. In the glass the image mimicked him. He could feel the flesh of his hands against hers, see the way her breasts flattened against the glass. He brought his face close to the mirror, close to the dark-haired, dark-eyed woman’s face. “Tell me what to do.”

  The image’s stone-hard eyes flickered to the bound woman. Feed me. Spread her on the glass. Bring her to the moment of her greatest passion. Then sacrifice her. I will take her life substance, and when she is nothing more than a husk, I shall possess the shell. I shall be made flesh again. Her tongue flickered out and he imagined he felt it brush against his lips.

  “Soon,” he promised, “soon, soon, soon.” He turned to look at the girl.

  “Now, now, now! Feed me. Free me.”

  97

  MARGARET HAAREN sat in her car and checked the magazine on her .40 Beretta, then she chambered a round and thumbed the safety on. She slid the gun in the holster on her hip under her jacket as she climbed out of the car. She had a very good idea that Mr. Jonathan Frazer was going to be shot while resisting arrest.

  The road had been sealed off and the residents of the surrounding houses had been evacuated. A police helicopter whirled above, circling, the strong white beam washing over the house and garden. There were marksmen situated in the homes opposite. Jonathan Frazer was armed and considered extremely dangerous.

  The SWAT Commander was now in charge of this operation. His softly-softly approach was famous—or infamous—and she knew he’d more than likely spent the rest of the night in the van talking to the SWAT team before making any hurried decision, and by that time Helen could be dead. Manny had told her that Frazer would kill tonight.

  Right now the press were starting to arrive. Of course, she’d forgotten about the press. All the local and national news stations were in place: CBS, NBC, KCAL, FOX. They were kept at bay at the end of the street, but now any chance at dealing with this situation quietly was gone. Also, whatever chances they had of taking Frazer by surprise were going down the toilet right now. She watched the Commander appear from the SWAT truck and stride down the road to give an interview.

  Stuart Miller materialized by her side. “What would you say if I told you there was a back way into the guesthouse?”

  Margaret Haaren looked at him and then glanced over at the Commander. “I’d say lead the way.”

  “Shouldn’t we tell someone…” he asked.

  “You just have.”

  * * *

  THE TWO POLICE officers moved through the crowd and walked back almost to the entrance of the driveway. Miller stopped, his eyes moving to the left, the detective following the direction of his gaze. It was just another garden … no, it wasn’t another garden. It was a narrow laneway between the two gardens. The opening was incredibly narrow, barely wide enough for a person to walk in single file down its length. Without a word, she slipped into the leafy darkness, Stuart Miller following her without a sound.

  This was how Frazer had managed to get into the house without them knowing! This was how he’d slipped in and out when he’d chased his daughter. The pathway was almost in total darkness, the only light coming from the houses. She glanced back over her shoulder at Stuart. She could barely see him and she almost missed his nod. She heard the snap as he removed his gun from its holster and held it up by his head. Easing her own weapon free, she carefully ran her hand over the rusty iron gate, eventually finding and pressing the catch. The gate swung inwards without a sound. It had recently been oiled.

  * * *

  THE GIRL WAS spread-eagled on the mirror, arms and legs tied to the four corners. She had struggled and kicked until he had laid the flat of the cold knife against her breasts, promising to cut her deeply unless she stopped struggling. When he’d pressed her up against the glass, she had winced, pulling away from the chill, but again Frazer had used the knife to urge her forward.

  Frazer stood back grinning widely. From where he was standing it was as if the young woman were embracing the image, breast-to-breast, thigh to thigh, belly to belly. He looked into the image’s dark eyes, shivering at the dark hunger he saw there, the longing, the need.

  He came up behind the bound girl and ran both hands down her sides; her flesh, though silky soft, still felt harsh to his fingers, her hair coarse and brittle. She attempted to pull away from him and he stroked the side of her face. “Shhh now, shhh now. This will be an amazing experience for you.”

  Her eyes blazed their loathing.

  Frazer grinned. She was a beast. Cattle to be used. He sank to his knees behind her and ran both hands up the insides of her thighs, finally stopping deep in her groin, his fingers probing, stroking, pressing, rubbing. She attempted to squeeze her legs closed, but he pinched her buttocks hard and she relaxed.

  In the mirror he could see the image mimicking his movement, arousing herself, her eyes locked on his face, her tongue moving lasciviously across her lips. The invitation in her eyes was almost physical.

  Where there had been only dry flesh beneath his fingers, now there was moisture. Deep in the corners of the mirror, he could see the first tentative curls of shifting power begin to twist and weave. He looked at the knife resting by his left hand. At the moment of her greatest passion he would kill her.

  Soon. He could feel her muscles begin to twitch of their own accord.

  Soon.

  * * *

  THE GUESTHOUSE WAS locked—but from the inside this time. Which meant there was someone inside.

  The glass panes in the windows appeared to have been recently painted over, the screens removed.

  Margaret Haaren pressed the side of her face against the door and listened. For a moment she heard nothing and then, faint, muffled, she heard the quiet sounds of a woman panting, the unmistakable sounds of a woman approaching orgasm.

  She stepped away from the door and looked around. She couldn’t go through the door, and the windows were covered. There was a tree overhanging the guesthouse … and she remembered that there were skylights in the roof. If she got up onto the tree, she could look down into the guesthouse.

  Stuart Miller saw her look from the tree to the roof and shook his head. “Don’t even think about it ma’am.”

  “Give me an alternative,” she snapped in a raw whisper.

  “The SWAT team is back there; let them deal with it. They can blow the door, they’ll get your niece out safely.”

  “Good idea. Go and ask the fucking Commander what he’s waiting for. Go get them now … and hurry,” she said, and pushed him away into the darkness. Easing down the hammer on the pistol, she stuck it back in its holster. She waited until she heard the gate close softly behind him and then headed for the tree. She hadn’t climbed a tree since she was a child, but she supposed, like riding a bike, it was something you didn’t forget. Or you fell off.

  * * *

  THE GIRL MIGHT be a virgin, but she was reacting violently to his stroking. Although she was tied to the edge of the frame, she was now actually clutching at it for support while her body bucked and shifted, pressing herself hard against the glass, using its chill as a stimulus.

  Frazer guessed that the image had something to do with the girl’s extraordinary level of arousal.

  And now her orgasm was beginning. Deep shudders were wracking through her body, her buttocks were clenching and unclenching and her stomach muscles were almost rippling. Her breath was coming in great heaving gasps. She started to cry out, short grunting sobs that quickly lengthened, deepened, muffled by the gag. Her head was thrown back and her eyes closed tightly shut.

  Jonathan Frazer stepped back and allowed the woman’s own passion to do the rest.

  He lifted the knife in his right hand and waited. It was only a matter of seconds. But the moment had to be right, it had to be perfect.

  * * *

  MARGARET HAAREN SWUNG from the branch onto the roof of the guesthouse w
ith surprising delicacy for such a heavy woman. She crawled to the nearest skylight. She could see nothing. Gritting her teeth, she crawled, inch by inch to the next. Below her the muffled grunting, moaning sounds had reached a crescendo.

  And then silence.

  * * *

  HELEN. THAT WAS her name: Helen.

  Gripping her hair tightly, Jonathan Frazer plunged the knife deep into her jugular, and then dragged the blade back across her throat. Helen’s shudders continued, but now they were of a different character. She slumped against the glass, and hung there, suspended by the ropes binding her to the frame. The blood from her torn throat gushed onto the glass, warm and salty, steaming, hissing, bubbling.

  The mirror exploded into a maelstrom of light. Jagged streaks of color ran from one edge of the glass to the other. The image reached out to match the position of the young woman tied to the glass. Only now when it pressed itself against the glass Frazer clearly saw the glass bow outwards. He saw its fingers stretch the surface like jelly, and then break through one by one, and wrap themselves around the girl’s face, pulling her close to the glass to where its lips pressed against the glass around the gaping wound in the woman’s throat. Its tongue—long and dark and moist—lapped at the spurting blood.

  Frazer stood behind the woman, pressing her slumped head close to the mirror so that the image could suck at the blood. The image looked at him once, and he shuddered with the promise in its eyes, before it returned to licking, sucking, drawing the last remnants of life from the young woman. Frazer watched it for a moment, and then he too bent his head to the wound and tentatively tasted it with the tip of his tongue.

  * * *

  MARGARET HAAREN’S HAND trembled as she lined up the sights. Almost directly below her, Frazer was bent over Helen who was tied up to a huge mirror. There was a dripping knife in his hand and he was licking at her neck where she could see a bloody wound.

  She took a deep breath, held it, released it and pulled the trigger.

  * * *