Mirror Image (22 page)

There was evidence aplenty of evil in the world, so was it quite so difficult to imagine that an object should become associated with darkness? There was the infamous Spear of Longinus, the blade that supposedly pierced Christ's side on the cross. It was notorious in the antiques trade, with “genuine” spears being offered for sale with surprising regularity. But lots of people believed in its power to do good or ill; even Hitler had made every effort to obtain the spear when his troops invaded Austria.

Jonathan recalled an ugly black-handled knife that Tony Farren had once bought amongst a job lot of Victorian cutlery. The handle had been crudely carved into the likeness of a man and woman copulating. The man was horned, tailed, and cloven-hooved. Within minutes of displaying it in his father's shop it had been purchased by a collector, who subsequently informed him that the knife had belonged to a famous North of England black magic coven, and there were rumors that it had been used in sacrifices. The collector had gleefully informed Jonathan that he would have paid ten times the price for it.

But one of the reasons he had put the object out for sale so cheaply and quickly was because he had found it difficult to touch the object without feeling cold, and almost physically ill.

So, yes: Frazer could accept that the mirror was a focus for something, some power, some sort of negative energy … but that didn't necessarily make the mirror evil. Surely it was the intent with which the mirror was used? Could it not be used for good as well as evil?

Talbott had said that it was powerful—he hadn't said that it was evil.

Jonathan Frazer brushed at the glass with the palm of his hand, scraping off the black gummy coating. What exactly had Talbott said about the mirror?

“Once it is fed with human emotions, with blood, sweat, tears, semen, then its powers are limitless. It can show wonders—or terrors.”

It can show wonders.

Jonathan reached into his jeans pocket and took out a slender Victorinox Swiss Army knife. Choosing the larger of the two blades, he locked it open. He stared at the blade for a moment and then, gritting his teeth, he jabbed the point into his index finger, hissing with the sting. A tiny bead of blood appeared.

His hand was trembling as he reached for the glass …

 

48

S
HE REMEMBERED
the last time she had made love to Robert Beaumont.

Emmanuelle Frazer twisted on the bed, caught up in the erotic dream. She was half asleep,
aware
that she was dreaming, yet still conscious of the fact that she was lying in her bed, naked beneath the cool cotton duvet, her left hand resting flat against her breast, the fingers of her right hand moving across and down her belly, teasing herself.

She had met Beaumont shortly after she had first moved to Paris to study fashion. She was not so naive that she didn't recognize him for what he was—an opportunist probably, a gigolo occasionally, a con man certainly. But he was also her entrée to a segment of Parisian society that she would never, in normal circumstances, have been able to experience. And if she had to pay for that privilege, then so be it.

That they should end up as lovers was almost inevitable. She was fascinated by him, the way he looked, the way he moved, the way he dressed. She had never known a man who paid so much attention to his clothing, and he was one of the very few men who delighted in going shopping with her. He took an especial pleasure in choosing underwear for her. He had been the first to comment on her fine bone structure and to suggest that she should shave her head, and although she had initially resisted, they had gotten drunk one night and when they had woken, they had discovered her head had been completely shaved—although neither of them could remember it happening.

She had never loved him, and he had never loved her. That was an accepted part of their relationship. They got on well together, they eventually lived together, they slept together, and when she had left Paris they had kept in touch, Skyping each other every weekend. When Robert came back to live in Los Angeles with his mother he had asked Manny if she could do something about getting him a job.

She wasn't a virgin when she met him, but she was still inexperienced. Her previous boyfriend had been unimaginative and the night she and, as it transpired, he also—lost her virginity, it has been a painful, messy, and altogether uninspiring event.

But Robert had taught her how her body could respond, he had shown her how to bring herself to orgasm, how to give of herself freely. Often he would just sit opposite, watching her arouse herself with two fingers, and then, when she was close to orgasm, he would come over to her, and press his lips to hers while his fingertips trailed down her body, until they finally closed over her hands.

And she felt him.

Had she fallen asleep; was she dreaming?

She felt his hands on hers.

She was still in her semiconscious state, she was aware that she was dreaming.

But she could feel him.

She dreamt that she lay on her bed with her eyes closed while Robert Beaumont bent over her, pressing his lips to hers, squeezing her fingers with his free hand, urging her on. She was aware of his hairless chest against her breasts, his breath on her face, his lips and tongue, moist and damp against her lips. His hands spread her legs and he moved atop her body, mounting her smoothly. She lifted her legs, wrapping them around his buttocks, pulling him deeper inside her, her long fingers digging into his shoulders …

 

49

J
ONATHAN FRAZER'S
finger left a single dot of blood on the glass.

Before his eyes, the crimson bead was absorbed into the mirror, leaving a brown flaking spot in its wake.

Frazer squeezed more blood onto his fingertip and smeared it down the glass, the thin liquid cutting a stripe—like a window—through the grimy coating, revealing, for an instant …

His wife, Celia Frazer, and a naked muscular blond man.

Dried flakes of blood seesawed to the floor.

Jonathan Frazer stared in horror at the glass. What had he just seen?

Almost without thinking he drew the razor sharp blade across the palm of his left hand. The flesh parted like an unfolding leaf, blood welling into the wound. With his fingers splayed, he pressed his hand to the glass, and rubbed it in a circle, smearing the surface of the mirror with his blood.

The couple was naked. He was sitting in an armchair, his legs spread and she was between his thighs, his manhood in her mouth, his hands grabbing at her hair, setting the pace, pushing and pulling.

Dragging his gaze away from the couple, Frazer tried to focus on the surroundings, noting the room's furniture, the ocean view, a bikini and beach towel tossed carelessly on the thickly carpeted floor. And then he recognized the location.

It was a physical effort of will to draw back from the mirror.

Sinking onto the chaise longue, cradling his torn hand, he stared at the glass, his thoughts in turmoil. He had known—deep in his heart and soul—that Celia was having an affair. He had just never admitted it before.

But what exactly was he seeing in the mirror; surely it was nothing more than his imagination?

But he knew it was not.

Becoming aware of the burning in the palm of his hand, he raised it up to look at it in the bad light. The flesh was filthy with the dirt from the mirror, the edges of the long cut encrusted with the slime that coated the glass. But then, as he watched, a scab formed along the edge of the wound, it thickened and hardened before his eyes, and then the edges began to peel and flake away. When he carefully picked away the crust, he found that the cut was completely healed, leaving only a thin black line in its wake.

His head was buzzing with questions and possibilities as he started for the mirror—and then something stopped him. If he wanted to see anything else, he would need to feed the mirror again. He looked at his hand again: he could feed the glass his blood … but what were the dangers, what were the consequences?

Only Edmund Talbott could answer those questions. He needed to find Talbott.

 

50

I
N THE
Otherworld, the astral body of Edmund Talbott watched the silent whirlpool of power circling above the mirror. Suddenly a shudder, a crimson twitch, rippled through the spinning tornado.

Red: it had tasted blood.

Deep in its core, he could see the white threads that ran its length, like thick worms, now pulsating with an ever increasing rhythm.

White: it was feeding off sexual excitement.

Someone was feeding the glass, with blood and sex.

Deeply troubled, Talbott glided away from the area immediately surrounding the whirlpool. Even though he was separated from it by an enormous gulf, he was aware of its tremendous pull, and he knew that it was growing incredibly powerful. It had shown that it was capable of influencing events in the real world, and now it looked as if someone was consciously feeding it.

It could only be one man.

Even in sleep, Talbott's lips peeled back from his teeth in a savage grin. He would kill Frazer without a second thought in order to stop the mirror.

 

51

M
ANNY COULD
feel him in her body, his stomach flat against hers as he strove to drive himself even deeper into her. Sweat trickled down her body and into the valley between her breasts. She was aware of him licking it off, his tongue rough against her skin. His fingers teased at her nipples, brushing, touching, squeezing, pinching—hurting—even as his pounding intensified, swamping the pleasure with the pain.

Manny Frazer opened her eyes … and looked into horror!

It was Robert Beaumont who made love—who was still making love!—to her. But this was not the smooth-skinned handsome young man, this was Beaumont's charred and incinerated corpse, flesh hanging in strips from his skull, his moist tongue a curled stub in his mouth. The fingers that had played with her hard nipples were burnt down to bone, filthy, blackened stumps, some still leaking ichor. His smooth and hairless chest was a slab of raw meat, and his manhood—which had been so deeply inside her—was bloody and fire-blackened.

And even as she opened her mouth to scream, a part of her mind was attempting to calmly rationalize the fears away. But it was a very small voice, and her fears were very great.

And when she screamed herself back to wakefulness, she could still feel the rasp of blackened flesh against her skin, could still smell the stench of burnt meat in the air. Her breasts were red, nipples swollen and her groin was bruised raw.

 

52

I
N THE
Otherworld the whirlpool marking the occult presence of the mirror spun, drifting from side to side, shifting off its axis, tendrils of ragged power spinning out across the astral, dipping down into the physical world …

*   *   *

B
AD BILL HAD
been living on the streets for nearly ten years. He'd survived so long because he took care of himself, rarely mixed with the other down-and-outs, and didn't drink or smoke—except in huge binges. He was a quiet unassuming man, good-humored, good-tempered, except when he drank, and then his personality underwent a complete change. And when he was bad he was very bad: and that's how he got his name. He was forty-two years old, looked twenty and more years older and didn't confidently expect to live to see forty-four. Nowadays he couldn't remember why he'd gone on the streets, and that bothered him, but shit, nowadays he sometimes couldn't even remember his own name.

Today wasn't so bad though. It was dry, sunny, and there was no wind, and he found a large discarded cardboard box behind a Ralphs store on La Brea. It hadn't taken him long to flatten it but now he had to decide where he was going to camp down for the night. There were a few daylight hours left and he remembered a small park just off Curson Avenue: it closed to the general public at sundown. It had been a while since he had slept there, but he'd fallen into the habit of never staying in the same place for more than a couple of nights in a row.

It had taken the best part of an hour and a half before he reached the tall gates to the park, mainly because the walk was uphill and he had stopped several times to rummage through various trash bins on the way. He'd got some empty bottles and cans, so it hadn't been a complete waste of time.

Exhausted, Bill sat on the low stone wall beside a leaf-filled pool and thought about the best spot for the night. It needed to be somewhere he could shelter from the cold and away from any wandering coyotes. There were a few people still in the park, playing with their dogs in the open grassy area. He'd wait for them to go, hide while the park ranger glanced around making sure no one was about, and then, when it was quiet, he'd search quickly through the trash bins. There was always food in park trash—discarded lunches, half-finished drinks. He was confident he'd find something to eat. Then he'd set about finding some place to stay for the night. He knew that the park was an odd shape: a long corridor of lawn, wider at the bottom, narrowing as it rose and then fading into brush and dirt. Giant palm trees and large overgrown bushes surrounded the sloping perimeter. An old drunk he used to hang out with told him that it had once been a beautiful Japanese garden complete with a tea house, shrines, and lanterns. But times changed and everyone and everything got old. All that was left of the beautiful gardens was the dilapidated water feature. It was a good place to stay though; no junkies, no pushers, and far safer than sleeping on a bench or in some dark alleyway.

Wandering around, he found a perfect spot to set up his box. Back off the track, behind a solid wall of bushes, he'd be invisible and the box and hedge would keep him warm. He took his time searching along the dusty track, but could find no coyote prints, so he reckoned he'd be safe from them, too. Usually, they didn't bother him, but there were rumors of rabid ones on the loose.