by Russ Linton
“Yeah, Teach, I recall.”
“Edison was an outside influencer, trying to push for pure science over mystical studies. But he blurred the lines more than once.”
“So what did he and this Flagler cat have in mind with all this?” I said scowling as we passed through the dining room again.
I’d used Kitterling’s fancy crib to impress Sheila, sure enough. But this side trip into priceless luxury had gotten under my skin. Had me feeling like I’d betrayed something. Missing home.
Everybody in the trenches talked like this was the life they wanted. Nothing wrong with that, but they came into it knowing just being alive was the real luxury. These folk? Luxury wasn’t an aspiration; it was an expectation.
“I can’t be sure what they intended,” she said. “But whatever we find upstairs will be a legitimate exercise in magic. These aren’t urban legends.”
Preston led us back through the rotunda, ignoring the “public not allowed” signs which barred the stairs. We looped our way up along the three floors and then off down a side hallway. He continued to drop little facts saying, “We don’t normally let people come up here!” his voice getting more and more manic.
“You’re coercing him,” Araceli hissed into my ear.
I shifted the root, wondering if I should direct the power at her. Tell her to chill on me and my savagery.
“Maybe a little. But he’d have given in to your booty eventually. You gonna put that away?”
She stiffened indignantly leaving me to watch her strut on ahead where she put her arm around the kid.
“Are we almost there, sweetie?”
“Getting close,” he squeaked.
She shot me a glare, the lump in my cheek her target.
Signs of the renovation Preston mentioned were everywhere in this hallway. This section hadn’t been updated, the rooms clearly part of the former hotel. Several doors hid behind scaffolding and plastic. At the far end, the hall passed through a breezeway with lead paned glass on either side. Through one was a darkened room, the other a bubbled and warped view of the outside.
We came to a short flight of carpeted stairs that ended at a suite. Despite the root, despite the skin contact with the Alchemist, Preston came up short.
“We’re not renovating this room. I think it’s condemned or something. Besides, they keep it locked,” he said, hopeful we wouldn’t go inside. “And secure,” he added with a whisper, pointing conspiratorially toward the ceiling.
Aimed at the door was something I should’ve expected — a camera with the MiRA logo.
“Maybe you,” she said, placing a finger on Preston’s chest, “should get back to work. We can talk more later.”
He seemed unsure, so I helped him along. “Preston, go downstairs. We’ll be there in a minute.”
“Sure thing,” he said, hurrying away.
When he dipped around a corner, I reached inside the box, grabbed my sword, and slung the container aside. Araceli drew her knives from hidden sheaths.
“Are you going to get the door or should I?” she asked.
Maybe she could pick locks with those slivers of moonlight. Maybe she had a vial of acid to melt the latch. From what I’d seen she could blow the whole door off the hinges too. But not everything needs a magical solution.
“Naw, I got this.” I waved to the camera and landed a Timb directly beside the handle. The aging frame splintered and the door burst open.
A tall-backed chair sat in the middle of the room. Reminded of the wingbacks at the teahouse only this one was worn and threadbare, unlike the rest of the college. Petticoats flared around the bottom and a frizz of hair peeked over the back. A small table with a tea service sat beside it.
“My suitors have become so insistent!” A woman’s voice exclaimed. “So delighted you called on me. Do come inside.”
“Ace,” Araceli whispered, drawing her knives.
“Yeah?”
“I think I know what all the magic was for.” Her quiet voice started to fade like she was getting further and further away. “A prison. For her.”
I whirled to face her. I was suddenly ten feet inside the room. No kicked-in door behind me, only a mirror framed with golden ivy that writhed into place. No backup. No Araceli.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Please, do sit.”
I could see the seated woman’s hand, pale and slender. With a dainty flick of her wrist, a chair across from her scraped the floor and swiveled to face me.
Eight walls and not one obvious exit. Mirrors though? We got mirrors. Hundreds hung on the walls. Ceiling, too. There were hand-held compacts and grand floor to ceiling mirrors with intricate frames of wood, gold, and precious metal. Styles ranged from Victorian to more modern, and deeper into the past. Some were on polished bronze stands depicting Egyptian gods. Others reflected bubbled views like the back of a spoon.
The seated woman’s image splayed around the room in disjointed fragments, her pale blue high-necked dress and layered skirts a puzzle flung across the walls. Views went from crystal clear to distorted to burnished with age. None showed her face, only pieces.
“Don’t be shy,” she said, patting the seat across from her. The vintage Queen Anne had a brown and mauve royal design worn threadbare in an outline of a person’s head and shoulders.
I tried to track the woman from one mirror to the next. I only got a more fractured glimpse. Thin lips here. Gaunt cheeks there. One pale eye looking directly back at me.
No Above or Below that I could sense, Ida was a creation of centuries-old spell work my only expert, Araceli, didn’t fully understand. Feeling out the rules wasn’t my style, but I couldn’t see any other way to get down to business.
“Sure. I could use a swig of tea,” I grunted. “Is that, uh, Assam by chance?”
“Indeed it is!”
“Exactly what I like,” I lied, moving toward the chair. “Got any sugar?”
“Naturally,” the woman said. I heard china clink and caught the scattered view of her plucking the lid off a sugar bowl. “Would you like one lump or two?”
“Make it three.”
I’d almost made it to the chair when I spotted Araceli inside a full-length mirror. Vines and leaves surrounded an oak frame. The inlaid ebony gave off a vibe of dried blood. A royal crest at the top showed a pair of swans bowing their long necks underneath a crown. She was walking the room, knives out, full alert. I tried to find her. Only me and my hostess.
“Sit.”
She wasn’t asking anymore. Time to play tea party. I backed into the chair and felt my way to the seat, unable to take my eyes off Araceli as she wandered between mirrors. As I sat, I held the sword off to one side, angled to the floor but ready to swing.
“What did you do to my friend? Where am I?”
When the woman didn’t answer, I finally looked her in the eyes. Not gonna lie, I hesitated. I’d mentally prepared for some freaky shit. Rotting flesh, empty eye sockets, maybe her hair all draped over her face — that movie stuff everybody expected from ghosts. What I didn’t expect was just how damn normal she looked.
She had a sad face, eyes set deep in the sockets and a puppy dog pout. Her nose and ears were small and her lips a thin frown. The high collar of her dress buttoned all the way up to a heart-shaped chin.
But something in those pale eyes made my skin crawl.
She handed me a cup and saucer. I took them knowing damn well I wouldn’t be drinking any ghost tea. She raised her own cup and sipped, eyes downcast.
I studied her, trying to understand what she wanted. She had this whole formal ceremony going on for a reason. I bought time by going in for another sugar cube. Awkward, because I had to lean the sword against the outside of the chair, hooked in one elbow.
“Dear,” she said, watching me stir. “I don’t mean to be rude, but you’ll rot your teeth.” She smiled. Closed-lipped.
I tapped the spoon on the edge of the saucer. “I got parts in a worse state.”
&n
bsp; “You’re in ill health?” she asked, sipping at her tea, pale eyes boring into my chest.
“I guess you could say that. You?”
“Hmm?” she asked, her eyes finding mine.
That’s what it was with her, her eyes. They almost didn’t have a color. Flat with no spark, they were like the ashes of a long cooled fire.
“What about your health?”
“Oh, I’m quite dead,” she said. “You must be too if you’re here. Or will soon want to be. I’m Ida, by the by.”
I shifted uncomfortably. Magic might’ve pulled me in here, but I hadn’t been killed by it. Not yet. I knew firsthand how being dead felt. The lady here, she knew too. I just needed to roll with this.
What did people do for teatime? Make small talk? How about them Ravens? Of course, she’s going to think I’m talking about the kind that tap, tap, tap on chamber doors. Or the ones who deliver ceremonial ears of corn.
“Do you read, Ida?” I asked.
She glanced forlornly about the empty room. “Do you see any books?”
I smiled awkwardly. Silence here felt deeper than it should with no sounds from the outside world. Araceli passed noiselessly from mirror to mirror. I raised the cup to my lips without thinking. Those dead eyes waited and I stopped.
Araceli glared from a square mirror and shook her head. Could she see me? She wasn’t panicked, but calculating, exploring. She started twisting the vials she carried in their loops while she paced.
“I heard Mr. Sykes dropped by for tea.” I tried to sound jealous.
A faint smile creased her lips. If you had to read her face from a mirror fragment, you’d say she was happy. Full on, the weird eyes defeated any real emotion.
“Don’t be concerned.” She cradled her saucer and stared into the empty teacup. “The rascal only wanted one thing.”
“Oh?” I’d almost taken another sip from the damn cup. “What was that?”
She drew her arms close, face averted, all typical body language to show her embarrassment, but again those eyes turned it dead. I shuddered. Rotting flesh would’ve been less freaky.
“You know.”
“Naw, I really don’t.” Probing for answers here could get the wrong side of dirty.
“Immortality, silly,” she said. Her flat gaze went from me to the teacup. “You don’t like your tea?”
“You called it. Too much sugar,” I said, putting the cup and saucer aside. “What’s all this about immortality?”
She sat her cup down beside mine and took an empty one, preparing a fresh cup while she chatted. “All men of power want immortality. Until they have it.” She shrugged, offering the fresh cup. “Then they don’t.”
“Sykes didn’t figure it out,” I said, remembering the blood-crusted face staring into nothing.
“Whatever do you mean?”
I didn’t know if I had to break this to her gently, but the creepy side of her should be able to handle the truth. “He failed. He’s dead.”
“Who says he failed?” Her empty gaze latched onto mine.
I knew where I’d seen those eyes before. Baltimore PD, my third year on the force, a detective had collared a suspect for the murder of a prostitute. Most of her had been found in an empty field behind a condemned building. I’d been there on the arrest.
Retired postal worker, no family, no friends, when I saw his face I knew he’d killed her. When they found a larder full of corpses under his house, nobody had been surprised. Fifty people, some who’d been decomposing for thirty years. Got to have your hobbies, or whatever.
A drop of tea dribbled from the corner of her mouth and she shied away, setting her cup down. She took a lacy napkin and dabbed at the spill. The cloth came away scarlet.
I peeked into my cup. Brown, clear liquid, no blood. I glanced up to see Araceli waving her hands frantically from a mirror. Her goggles were down. She could see me. The woman gave me her tight-lipped smile.
“Did Flagler fail too? Is that why he did this to you?”
“Henry?” she laughed an almost human laugh. Almost. “Dear no. He did nothing untoward. He loved me. His wife on the other hand.” The first sign of any real emotion and I saw a burning hatred that added the missing spark.
“What about her?”
“She trapped me here. This was her doing.”
Ida had put her kerchief in her lap and gripped the chair’s armrest. Already pale knuckles had gone bone white and wood peeled in thin curls under her fingernails. I felt a loose wobble inside my chest, phlegm fluttering in the clogged airways. The china on the side table rattled. I checked the mirrors to see if Araceli had set some sort of Apocalypse Now plan in motion. She only looked alarmingly about the frames as they shimmied.
I took Ida’s hand. “Ida don’t start geekin’ on me. I’ll get you out of here.”
The tremor stopped. I felt the cold chill of her hand and the creaking of her tendons as she loosened her grip.
“You...you will?”
“Of course.”
“I knew you were different!” Her eyes flicked to my chest. “We are kindred spirits after all.”
I guess consorting with demons or whatever had its benefits. “Truth. So how does this prison work?”
“The binding spell was his wife’s doing,” Ida said, getting more helpful. “My love wanted something else for both of us. To live together blissfully forever.”
Now we’re talking. People stuck between being dead and alive. Humans searching for immortality. I’d seen Kitterling trapped in a dungeon guarded by an undying warden. Could there be a connection? Could this be a way to get him free too?
“And what would I need to do if, you know, somebody is trapped? How do I help them?”
“Well,” she drawled, “You could join them and keep them company. That’s what I tried to convince Mr. Sykes to do.” She frowned. “All he left with was tea.” I let that suggestion hang, not wanting to openly diss her but letting her know she hadn’t quite hit the winning numbers. “Or you could assist in my escape!”
“Jailbreak. Now you’re speaking my language.”
She hopped to her feet, clasping my hand and pulling me along. I casually trailed the hand she wasn’t holding and snatched the Shaw Sword by the tassel. Her eyes searched the mirrors. “First, you’ll need personal items. One of mine and one from my foul captor, that bitch of a wife. Might I suggest the white onyx for her,” she said, indicating a mirror which wavered to show the Edison clock in the ballroom. “Take offense over my adultery, ha!” she spat. “She and Thomas had quite the thing, you know. He made that monstrosity for her, not Henry!”
“Umm, do tell,” I said.
Araceli had followed along, passing from frame to frame, and keyed in on Ida’s every move. I hoped she had a plan, because I was about to get stupid. First, I needed a little more from Ida.
“Oh, Mrs. Flagler was tawdry and cruel. Henry loved his wife and his good friend, Thomas. Had he known about their indiscretions, it would’ve broken his heart. But enough about her. For me, you’ll need this,” she said.
She’d led me to a spot where mirrors hung in a tight cluster. Most were smaller, mounted to stands or palm-sized. She yanked my arm and pulled me closer, pointing at one in the center about the size of her face. Golden, shaped like an open seashell, pearls ringed the outer rim.
“Henry called me his Venus, you see.”
Hanging about head height, the mirror reflected Ida’s face. Her drained face had no color. A spill of blood stained her chin and throat like Sykes laying there dead in his office. Then there was my reflection.
Taller than Ida, the small mirror reflected my upper chest, a scraped out, empty hole. Nothing I hadn’t seen before in the SHU, otherwise, I might’ve lost it. I tightened my grip on the Shaw Sword, held just out of view.
“What do I do once I have these personal items? The clock face and the mirror.”
“The grimoire will tell you all you need to know.” She turned to primp her hair in the m
irror. “You do have it, yes?”
“That it?” I readied my sword.
“That easy, my darling!” she spun with a radiant, open smile, fangs biting against her lower lip. Her soulless eyes showed their first hint of joy. “But you didn’t partake of my tea! So at the risk of being seen as a crass strumpet, I must insist on a nip of flesh.”
She lunged and her eyes went wide in shock.
I’d sunk the Shaw Sword into her chest. Her earlier hatred came rushing back. Ida’s lip curled as she seized the blade with her pale hands. Bloodless fingers flayed open along the sharp edge like cooked catfish.
But the lady wasn’t done yet. She clawed her way up the blade. I rammed the demon slayer deeper. The violent thrust staggered her backward, but she didn’t drop.
Araceli’s face appeared in the fanned-out mirrors behind her, eyes on a peacock’s feathers. Glass shattered. A silvery knife swept Ida’s throat, carving through her high collar and her neck in one swift pass.
Those creepy eyes found one final emotion they’d forgotten — fear. Shredded hands fell from the blade. Eyes blank again, her head tumbled to the floor. I yanked the sword free as her body went limp.
The seashell mirror behind her had been shattered. I saw Araceli’s knife withdraw through the frame. As cracks spread around the punched through mirror, I saw Araceli’s face in the others. She looked like she wasn’t sure if she’d done the right thing.
Glass splintered like thawing ice in the silence. Fissures jumped from one mirror to the next. Could be Tish’s danger sense had been on point.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
San Andreas was about to go off in this funhouse. The fissure crawled from mirror to mirror. I dove into my medicine bag, summoned the Beads of Saint Helen and crushed the leaf between my palms. I swiped my forehead with the sap, spittin’ chants like a freestyle master, and finger painting symbols down my arms right before the shower of jagged glass dropped.
Armored up, I took a knee with my head tucked. Shattered glass pelted my back, dulled through jacket and armor, while it bit and stung exposed skin. I grimaced, but not from pain. What the hell had happened to Araceli? Did she crack to pieces like the mirrors?