Behind The Mirror ( The Glass Wall Series - Prelude to Book 1 ) (2 page)

He could tell Ajax wasn’t convinced. Ignoring the animal, he strode into the adjacent chamber and stood before his mirror once again. It took him several moments before he could focus enough to bare his soul.

All at once, the silvery surface leapt alive with images of humans, so many that he could not read any of them, their fate lines jumbled together like a hopelessly entangled ball of string.

Overwhelmed, he stepped back, breaking contact with the mirror.

Obviously, his choice had already changed his own fate, inextricably weaving it into the sea of humans swimming across his mirror.

Taking a deep breath, he gathered his thoughts and faced the mirror once more, prepared this time for the vast numbers of humans leaping through the glossy surface. He frowned at how many he would soon have to encounter.

With great patience, he cleared his mind, focusing deeper, and the images finally fled to reveal one.

Sydney.

Dressed in faded jeans and a large green sweater, Sydney sat on a wooden bench in a white room with her arms folded tightly. She was speaking to a woman who looked very much like her, only older.

“You’ll be fine, Maya.” Sydney reassured. “It will stick this time. I’m sure of it.”

Maya burst into tears. “What kind of a mother am I?” She sniveled. “We’ve only been in Seattle for a few months, and here I am again, a wreck, Sydney! A complete wreck! How could he just leave me like that?”

“Because he was a jerk,” Sydney replied, a bit woodenly.

“It is time to go now, Maya.” A woman wearing a badge that read “Anne – Pacific Northwest Drug and Alcohol Rehab Center” laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. “Your daughter will be fine. She has her phone. You can contact her any time.”

“I’ll be fine.” Sydney rose to her feet, sticking her hands in her back pockets. “Go and get better, Maya.”

With a tearful farewell, Sydney’s mother shuffled away.

Rafael frowned a little. They were mother and daughter, but hadn’t even hugged goodbye. He studied Sydney’s face. At first glance, it seemed expressionless, but upon closer inspection, he saw the small tremble of the bottom lip and a squint of the eyes that revealed volumes.

She was hurting.

A wave of compassion swept over him, quickly followed by one of surprise that he had been so distracted by the scene playing out before him that he hadn’t noticed the fate lines above her head. Startled, he stared closely at them.

Her blue fate line stood apart from the others surrounding her, vividly pulsing above her head, but it was no longer alone.

Another, weaker blue line flowed away from her.

Rafael rose to his feet. What did it mean?

Eagerly, he traced the line, leaving Sydney’s image behind as he followed it through the countless threads of others. Trusting his instinct, he sifted through innumerable possibilities.

Suddenly, a flash of blue surged across the mirror, not the Blue Thread of Fate, but a blue house.

The line clearly led to the house.

As Rafael focused on the house, the image in the mirror morphed to show a fairly large room filled with cardboard boxes.

A pleasant brown-haired woman was speaking on the phone as she walked in what was apparently her living room but instead resembled a small warehouse. “That will be great, Neelu. I’ll look forward to seeing Sydney tomorrow. Now I really have to run! My eBay bid is going to end in two minutes, and I can’t miss these Hook, Line, and Stinker toilet games. I need four more boxes of them!”

Rafael arched a cool brow.

Setting the phone down, the woman ran through her living room to a computer sitting on a white plastic table. She let out a huge sigh of disappointment.

Rafael gathered that she had failed to procure her desired goods. Tapping his arm a bit impatiently, he searched for the Blue Thread.

It was still there, hovering in the living room.

His frown deepened.

The front door opened, and a tall, very bald man wearing army fatigues entered the house.

The woman looked up at him with a bright smile. “Time for the neighborhood crime rounds, Al?”

“Yep!” The man walked to the computer table and kissed the top of her head. Reaching over to snag a large flashlight from one of the boxes, he added, “Betty, that house across the street still hasn’t sold. I’ll take Tigger for a look, just to make sure everything is safe.”

The back door slammed, and a tall teenage girl with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail appeared. A bit sweaty, she carefully swung a lacrosse stick over her shoulder as she tried to tiptoe past them unnoticed.

“And where do you think you are going, Grace?” Betty queried in an amused voice.

Grace’s shoulders stiffened. Sheepishly, she joined them in the living room. “Uh … Hi, Mom, Dad.”

“I got a call from your school today.” Betty continued calmly.

Grace tensed. “Yes, Mom?”

“Sister Ann mentioned you are answering your exam questions creatively again.” Her mother was obviously struggling to keep a straight face. “You can’t just play sports, dear. You have to study, too.”

Al frowned, but the eyes with which he surveyed his daughter were more indulgent than anything else.

“I couldn’t remember the right answers ...” Grace cleared her throat.

“Well, when the problem asks you to find ‘x’ that doesn’t mean to circle it on the page, honey.” Betty smiled.

Al’s firm lip twitched a little.

“And the answer to ‘Write a paragraph to explain the concept of eternity’ is not ‘Take this class’.” Her mother’s voice was gently stern.

At that, Al gave a guffaw of laughter.

“I’ll try harder, Mom.” Grace grinned.

“Well, you must be a good example, dear.” Betty gave her daughter a warm hug. “Tomorrow, we’ll have a new family member. A girl about your age named Sydney. She’s had a hard life, honey, so you’ll have to be patient with her.”

“Cool!” Grace’s eyes lit. “That’ll be fun!”

“The two of you can study together.” Al growled fondly at his daughter as he strode to the closet, kicked off his army boots, and selected a pair of odd-looking tennis shoes. One of them had a small antenna protruding out the back. Bending down, he picked up the end of the shoelace and spoke into the aglet. “Testing 1-2-3. Do you copy, Betty?”

Betty jumped as static burst from a pair of high heels sitting on top of another box. Picking one of them up, she held the heel close to her lips, “Yes, dear. I’ll monitor while you do the rounds.”

Al nodded in satisfaction. “These Sneak-Ears with Private-Eyelets haven’t failed me yet! I’m going to have to give this product a great review on their website!” Quickly putting them on, he stepped outside and gave a sharp whistle. “Tigger!” he called.

Rafael watched with interest as a large, brindled bloodhound lazily lifted his head from where he sprawled in the driveway behind a bright yellow Ford pickup truck with oversized wheels. The dog wagged the tip of his tail before promptly dropping his head back down on the cement, as if even that much effort had completely exhausted him.

Rafael smiled.

As Al stomped across the street to inspect the empty house, Rafael lightly touched the thin gold bracelet on his wrist. He’d turned the automatic thought-pattern recognition off, preferring the manual controls. “The house across the street is free,” he noted. “Buy it. And get all of the necessary furnishings. Car. Clothing.”

As he watched, the Blue Thread suddenly moved. Dropping his wrist, he concentrated once more on the thread, sifting through countless images reflecting in the mirror.

At last, he knew he was on the right trail. The thread was growing darker, stronger. Could it be Melody? Was it someone simply touched by Sydney’s Blue Thread, or was it, unthinkably, a new Blue Thread?

Surely, there was not another one!

Furrowing his brows in concentration, he followed it for what seemed an eternity until all of a sudden, a new scene burst across his mirror.

A rock concert.

The crowd was screaming, hordes of girls were straining forward, trying to grasp the figure leaping and prancing on stage.

Rafael eyed the form with a sinking heart.

The Blue Thread ended above the singer’s head. It was pulsing and strong. And it was a new Blue Thread of Fate, almost as strong as Sydney’s.

This did not bode well for any of them.

Now there were two Blue Threads—two chances for the ultimate disaster to befall them. Even if Sydney chose the correct path, there was a chance this new threat might not.

With a heavy sigh, he concentrated on the rock star belting out his tunes as fireworks exploded behind him. He was tall, dark, and muscular, possessing everything to make the entire concert hall of girls swoon at his feet.

And he looked vaguely familiar.

Scowling slightly, Rafael concentrated on the black leather-clad figure and as the young man’s face splashed across the mirror, he fell back with a curse.

Jareth!

The new Blue Thread of Fate was Jareth, his counterpart Fate Tracker.

* * *

Rafael wasted no time.

There was no longer any question of
if
he should return to Earth. Instead, it was a question of how fast he could get there.

Quickly changing into a more suitable Earth fashion, he whistled for Ajax.

“Call Harmony and ask her to set up our entrance to Earth,” he said crisply to the dog. “And notify Zelphie and Marquis that I may need them soon.”

“Marquis?” The Doberman’s lip lifted distastefully.

Rafael knew that Ajax disliked his father, Marquis. Oddly, part of him understood the animal’s distrust. Marquis had always been aloof, untouchable, choosing to spend his time researching in the laboratory instead of interacting in his son’s life. At first, Rafael hadn’t thought much about the odd fate lines swirling about his father’s head, but of late, the lines had taken suspicious turns.

Rafael walked to the wall and touched it.

A small compartment slid out of its smooth surface, revealing a small gray cube. Picking it up, he held it to the light.

The gray cube held his research, secret findings he had shared with no one. He didn’t know whom to trust, after discovering his father and many other high-ranking officials were involved in “The Inner Circle”, a society so secret that most in the lands thought it merely a myth. He had yet to discover their purpose, but he knew in his heart that it was far from good.

“If something were to happen, Ajax …” Rafael murmured thoughtfully, staring at the cube before shaking his head and sliding it back into the wall. “See that Harmony gets that, will you?”

“No!” the Doberman growled in response, standing on full alert and baring his shiny white teeth again. “I will not, for I will see that nothing happens to you!”

Rafael grinned. Reaching down, he fondly stroked the animal’s soft black fur. “Then I will see you on the morrow, in Seattle.”

As the dog barked a farewell, Rafael took a deep breath, and not allowing himself to think, lest he second-guess his decision, phase-shifted to Earth.

Phase-shifting, or merely
shifting
as they called it now, was the preferred method of travel. His kind had learned the method of focusing their energy to change dimensions, to travel from one location to another in a blink of an eye.

Shifting to Earth was not as different as he thought it would be. He had expected to feel something unusual when he stood on the soil of the forbidden planet, but he experienced nothing, save a wave of annoyance upon hearing the screeching of electric guitars and the sound of thousands of girls screaming.

He’d studied humans for years, their culture, mannerisms, speech, habits, and countless other things, in order to mingle with them undetected should the need ever arise. He honestly had never expected it would.

A little cautiously, he stepped around mounds of crates at the back of the stage and peered through the massive black curtains to where Jareth was strutting on stage. The singer wore an outlandish black outfit of shredded leather and chains that suited him well.

“Hey, buddy, got a pass?” A burly man accosted Rafael, laying a hand on his arm.

Rafael tensed and bowed. “A pass?” he queried politely.

The man blinked before scowling. “Then get out. You can’t be here.”

“You are incorrect.” Rafael brushed the man aside as inconsequential. “I have business here. Be gone.”

The man’s brows lifted, and he reached for his walkie-talkie.

Expelling a small breath of annoyance, Rafael drew his pen-shaped silver trion, spoke a single word to the weapon, and the man toppled forward into his arms, falling into a deep sleep as he fell.

Dragging the man behind several large crates, Rafael quickly set him down and returned to the black curtains just as Jareth strode off stage.

They nearly collided.

Jareth leapt back, sweeping his long dark hair out of his eyes as they widened in astonishment. “Rafael? What brings
you
here?”

They hadn’t spoken in several years, and their last meeting had ended in bitterness. Rafael folded his arms, recalling Jareth’s insults from long ago, but they all faded into insignificance now that he saw the Blue Thread pulsing brightly over Jareth’s head. He felt sick at heart that he must inform Jareth of this new danger, even as part of him felt it justly deserved after the comments he had made over Sydney. “We must speak privately.”

Jareth eyed him suspiciously before giving the curt order, “Follow me then.” And he set off through the crates in a jingle of chains and creak of leather.

After a moment, Jareth led him to a tiny, dark dressing room. Safely shutting the door behind them, he leaned forward, touched Rafael’s arm, and phase-shifted, but not before transmitting the destination to the golden bracelet circling Rafael’s wrist and speaking a single word, “Follow.”

Rafael shifted too.

He found himself standing in a high tower, overlooking a boisterously loud city. He moved to get a better look out the window. It wasn’t even dark yet, but neon lights of every color already twinkled below him.

“Las Vegas.” Jareth nodded with his chin. “I find it easier to hide here. It was easier to cover mistakes in the beginning, by claiming to be magicians. But I’m sure you are here for other reasons than to find out how I have survived these past few years!”