Mirror Image (21 page)

Image
.

A twisting strand of reddish-purple color about three quarters of the way down the length of the mirror.

Image
.

Patches of oily color on the glass, irregular circles dotted around the mirror, clustered close to the top and middle, reds, purples, blues, and greens predominating.

Image.

A face.

Image
.

A face.

Image
.

The moonlight sliding off the glass, the topmost corner washed in darkness.

Image
.

A blank slab of glass, revealing nothing except the night.

*   *   *

J
ONATHAN FRAZER CAREFULLY
examined the photographs he had downloaded onto his computer. The pictures had been taken every five minutes, the ten frames representing the vital forty minutes when the activity had occurred on the glass. The digital voice recorder had been useless, he had one hundred and twenty minutes of hissing static, and—despite his best intentions—he had fallen asleep, so the Canon had been useless.

He had transferred the video data to his movie program, then fast-forwarded through the sequence, stopping and rewinding to watch moonlight run down the glass and off it again. He missed it the first time, and it was only on the second viewing when he slowed the machine to a frame by frame examination at the point when the moonlight began its inexorable slide down the glass, that he spotted the shifting swirls and circles of color on the glass.

And then the face in the glass.

Freezing and zooming, he stared at the grainy image of the face before him. It fascinated him. It was a fragment, nothing more, the shadowy outline of a nose, the twist of a mouth, indentations of eyes, a blur that might have been hair. He placed some glossy photo paper in the printer, pressed print, and waited for the eight by ten photograph to appear.

And it was familiar. But familiar in the way that any such photograph would have been, the features could have been almost anyone's. The video image, because of its fractionally better quality, was slightly sharper, but the image was no more distinct.

Finally, he pulled away from the computer screen, rubbing dry, sticky eyes. There was a dull pounding at the back of his head, and when he looked at the clock, he was surprised to find that it was close to one-thirty.

There was a yellow legal pad by his side, and he looked at the notes he'd made. They were little more than ideas and random thoughts gathered from the images he'd remembered from his dreams. And what if they weren't dreams; what if they were more?

John Dee.

He recognized the name: a magician or something in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. He'd been her spy in some of the continental courts.

Kelley.

He didn't know the name, though if he was associated with Dee he shouldn't be too hard to trace.

The woman.

Nameless, though he had a perfect image of her: long face, up-tilted black eyes, rounded cheekbones, yellowish teeth, full lips. And then there was her hair, thick and black, that was her distinctive feature, and he was a little embarrassed when he realized that he also knew that she had full, heavy breasts with small dark nipples and thick dark pubic hair.

The mirror.

That was just as important a player in this game. The mirror was the key … either the mirror or the woman. But in his own mind they were interchangeable.

 

45

T
HE BEVERLY
Hills Public Library was quiet, afternoon sunlight streaming in through the high windows, catching the spinning dust motes. This portion of the library was virtually deserted, only two other people besides Frazer and the librarian in the enormous long rectangular room. The atmosphere was dry, the odor of leather and aged paper and the slightly sickly sweetness of preservative on the air. The librarian nodded to Frazer, who was a regular visitor to the library where he researched into the history and background of some of his more expensive artifacts. Although it would have been far easier to do research online, he preferred having solid paper references when he sold a piece.

Ignoring the computerized catalog, which he still found totally bewildering, he began to work his way down through the bookshelves, not sure what he was looking for, picking titles at random, checking the indices for references to Dee, and finding several, but nothing of any real use. There were some listings for Dee's own works, which he noted, but wasn't sure if there was any point in looking for them: they seemed to be mathematical or astronomical texts.

He was considering going back to the catalog when he rounded a bookcase and almost collided with an old man, white-haired and stooped with age. A heavy leather-bound book slid from his grip and clattered to the floor. “I am so sorry, excuse me.” Frazer stooped and lifted the book, brushing his hand down the length of the spine, surreptitiously checking it to see if the ancient-looking binding was cracked.

Majister Johannes Dee.

The title stopped him cold. Ignoring the old man's outstretched hand, he opened the title page.

Majister Johannes Dee, Wim van den Berg, Antwerp, MDCX
.

He quickly translated the Roman numerals into 1610. That meant it was written two years after Dee's death in 1608. There was a wood engraving of Dee facing the title page and Frazer felt his heart begin to pound. It was the man in his dream. The same long face, the same tall, thin man.

“How weird. I was just…” he began excited, and then he stopped, looking at the old man in horror. The bent back had straightened, the tired, slack, and wrinkled face seemed to become animated and when he had stretched to his full height, which was fully four inches over his own six feet, Frazer found himself staring up at the scarred face of the nameless man.

“The book is full of lies and half-truths,” the scarred man said easily, smiling at Frazer's surprise. “In reality, Dee was far more interesting than many give him credit for. The occultist tag has somewhat tarnished his reputation.”

“Who are you?” Frazer whispered, anger beginning to replace his fear.

The big man grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to one of the small tables. “Sit down, Mr. Frazer. I did say we would meet again,” he said pleasantly.

“Who are you? How did you come to me in the hospital that night? What do you want the mirror for, what did you mean about it affecting my daughter?”

“So many questions.” The big man smiled. “I suppose you are entitled to answers.” His coal-black eyes stared into Frazer's face. “I would ask you not to go to the police with the information I am about to give you. But once I tell you what you want to know, I don't think you'll be going to the police, anyway.” He placed a broad hand in the center of his chest. “I am Edmund Talbott, which might not mean very much to you. However, you might be interested to know that an ancestor of mine, called Edward Talbott, changed his named to Edward Kelley, also spelt Kelly, and was employed by Doctor John Dee. So you see, the mirror is an old friend of the family.”

“What do you want?” Frazer asked quietly.

“The mirror. What I wanted from the beginning.”

“Why?” Frazer was gazing at Talbott with fixed intensity.

“Because it is mine by right of inheritance if nothing else, and because only I can control it.”

Frazer continued to stare at him, saying nothing, realizing that Talbott would tell him more if he wasn't pressed.

“Let me tell you what you saw, Mr. Frazer … was it last night, or the night before? You saw Doctor John Dee, and his assistant Kelley—though Kelley was more than just an assistant—and a woman, a mysterious dark-haired woman. Did you see Kelley and the woman feed the mirror with blood? If you didn't then you will at the time of the next full moon. That is when the mirror is at its strongest. Its power waxes and wanes with the moon, when the moon is full the images are at their clearest, then they fade as the days pass. Although I should add that once moonlight had touched the glass, it remains active even at the dark of the moon or when the moon is occluded.”

“How did you know what I saw in the mirror?” Frazer asked in a whisper, glancing around. There was a young man at the end of the aisle, but he was absorbed in a book.

“Because I have seen them, too. It is one of the most powerful images in the mirror, it is always the first to surface. When I first looked into the mirror, that was the image I saw. The more often you look, the more sights you will see. Paris during the Terror, Florence during the Medici reign, Rome during the days of the Roman Circus. There are said to be other, stranger sights to be glimpsed in its surface, but I have never seen them.”

“What is this mirror? Who is the woman?”

Talbott's smile was bleak. “The woman appears in most of the images. She changes in small and subtle ways, although she is usually nameless and long black hair is common to all images of her. I think perhaps she is an ordinary woman whom the mirror has taken over, absorbed, possessed, if you prefer. I don't know what the mirror is: but it is powerful. Men have died to possess it, men have died to protect it.”

“And you, what is your interest in the mirror?”

“My family have—with some exceptions—protected the mirror down through the centuries. Edward Talbott-Kelley was one of those exceptions. He attempted to exploit the mirror's powers. And its powers are tremendous. Once it is fed with human emotions, with blood, sweat, tears, semen, then its powers are limitless. It can show wonders—or terrors.”

Jonathan Frazer looked up suddenly, aware that the young man had moved closer and was staring openly at the two men, his head tucked unnaturally into his jacket. When he looked back there was a twisted smile on Talbott's lips.

“Company, I see.” The big man stood up, his chair scraping on the industrial carpet. “We will speak again, Mr. Frazer.” The young man was moving purposefully down the aisle, a walkie-talkie now clearly visible in his hand.

Edmund Talbott rested both his huge fists on the table and leaned across to stare into Frazer's wide eyes. “Beware the image, Mr. Frazer, it will steal your soul away!” He turned as the young officer grabbed at his right arm with his left hand. Talbott pivoted, his left hand coming up, fingers straight, locked and rigid. They caught the young man in the precise center of his chest, delivering a tremendous blow. He collapsed forward onto Frazer without a sound, driving them both backwards onto the floor.

By the time Jonathan Frazer climbed out from under the young man, Talbott was gone, and the young officer was dead.

 

46

“P
EOPLE DIE
around you Mr. Frazer,” Margaret Haaren said tiredly. She glanced up at the clock on the wall of her office. It was twenty to ten. “Let me tell you about the man who died today,” she continued, when Frazer said nothing. “He was twenty-eight years old, married with a two-year-old little girl.”

“He only hit him once,” Frazer said wonderingly.

“That's all that was needed. A massive blow to the solar plexus can kill. In this case, it ruptured both sets of ribs, driving them into the lungs…”

“I tried to give him artificial respiration…” Frazer whispered, tears starting to leak from his eyes.

“I know that Mr. Frazer,” the detective said, her voice softer. “And the officer's last radioed report said that you seemed to be held against your will,” she added. What she didn't add was if the dead officer hadn't said that, she would have held Frazer as an accessory to murder. “And you have nothing to add to your statement?”

Jonathan Frazer shook his head. He had told the police that the man had demanded money, threatening to burn down his house and his store unless he received a hundred thousand dollars. He still wasn't sure why he'd told the lie—except perhaps that he didn't want Talbott captured just yet.

He wanted answers, and only Talbott could provide them.

Or the mirror.

Frazer abruptly realized he had stopped breathing.

The mirror could provide answers: if it was asked the correct questions.

The idea was so obvious.

So simple.

He looked up at Margaret Haaren. “If you're finished with me, Detective, I'd like to go home. I'm very tired.”

“Go home, Mr. Frazer. Get some rest; tomorrow is apt to be a long day.”

But Frazer was staring through the office window at the thin sliver of moon that was just visible behind rapidly moving clouds. Talbott said that the mirror would remain active even if the sky was clouded over.

“I don't need to tell you to stay in town, do I, Mr. Frazer?”

“I am going nowhere. Except home.”

As he hurried down the police station steps, he found his desire to experience the mirror's images almost frightening in its intensity.

What was it Talbott had said: beware the image, it will steal your soul away! Looking up at the sliver of moon, he realized that he was glad he didn't believe in such things.

Well, maybe he hadn't. But now …

Now, he was beginning to believe.

 

47

J
ONATHAN FRAZER
stood before the mirror, fascinated and fearful.

A couple of days ago he would have laughed at Talbott and then suggested he see a psychiatrist. But that had been before he'd seen vivid images of sixteenth century London, before he'd talked to a man who wasn't there, before three people he'd known had died before this mirror, one of them burnt to a crisp. Spontaneous combustion might be what they were calling it, but only a supernatural agency was capable of reducing a man to charred bone, and he didn't care what anyone else said.

He reached out tentatively, running his fingertip down the greasy glass, staring hard at his shadowy reflection in the mirror.

He had never been an overly religious man—he attended church at Christmas and Easter—but he didn't think he believed in a God or a Devil or Good and Evil. Myths and legends, culled together from a dozen other myths and legends. Nothing more. But over his years in the design business he had come across curious artifacts and relics which reputedly had the power to perform miracles. He had handled a Russian icon which visibly trembled with power and was almost too hot to hold, even on the coldest days. He had seen a blind Italian boy open his eyes and see for the first time when Padre Pio's bloody glove was placed on his forehead. He had attempted, but failed, to buy the glove. Some things were not for sale.