Mirror Image (29 page)

She sat and peered into the mirror—looking directly at him—and then she stretched out her hand to reach for him.

In his rage, Frazer pressed his hands flat against the cool surface. Then he slapped at the mirror, the crack of flesh off glass sounding like a blow.

 

64

C
ELIA USED
to think that all the talk about multiple orgasms was so much nonsense, but tonight she'd had several in quick succession. She supposed everything was possible with a considerate lover, and while Colin might be many things—brash and arrogant, ignorant too, not terribly well-educated—he had an instinctive understanding of how to treat a woman, where to touch, when to kiss, how to lick, and what to suck.

Reluctantly, Celia Frazer swung her legs out of the bed, and padded toward the bathroom. She wanted to stay in bed with Colin, to feel his arms wrapped protectively around her, but two bottles of wine and a bout of energetic lovemaking were not compatible: her bladder was about to explode. She made a note: go to the bathroom before making love.

A flicker on the dressing-table mirror caught her attention. She stopped and looked behind her at the bedroom wall, wondering what was reflecting off the glass, making the shimmering rainbow patterns on the surface of the mirror. She could see nothing obvious. She leaned forward, looking deeper into the glass, frowning now. There were shadows in the glass. Shapes. Faces. Dear God—one of them looked like her husband. She was reaching out to touch the surface of the mirror with her fingertips …

When the glass exploded outwards!

Celia Frazer screamed, reeling away as razor sharp slivers dug into her naked skin, gouging at the flesh in her face …

*   *   *

A
ND JUST OVER
three hundred miles away, Jonathan Frazer howled with delight as his slut of a wife reeled away from the glass, her flesh nicked and torn, four long scratches running down the right side of her face, under her chin and into the soft flesh of her shoulder.

Looking exactly as if someone had clawed at her!

 

65

A
DOT,
a spot, a circle of white in the distance.

Growing.

Expanding.

Moving.

Taking on shape, shadows appearing, planes forming, becoming a face, wide-eyed, opened-mouthed, terrified. Screaming.

*   *   *

E
MMANUELLE FRAZER AWOKE
with the scream ringing in her ears, and then realized that the scream had been hers. She came bolt upright in the bed, both hands pressed to the side of her face, staring wildly around her.

Where was she?

Her last memories were of leaning over the fountain, feeling herself falling, the hand grabbing her, and the face of the ugly scarred man.

The scarred man.

The scarred man was sitting in a chair facing her, elbows resting on the arms of the chair, fingers laced together. He was wearing a black polo neck sweater with black pants and, with his dark eyes fixed on her face, he looked positively evil.

She scrabbled for the thin blanket that covered her, dragging it up to her chin. “Who are you? What am I doing here? How did I get here?”

“You're like your father,” he said quietly, “he asks too many questions, too, without waiting for an answer.” He stared at her for a moment, and then he said quickly, “I am Edmund Talbott, and I saved you from falling into the fountain. You are safe here.”

Manny wasn't quite so sure about that.

“You know my father?” she asked.

“In a manner of speaking. We have met a couple of times. Has he not spoken to you about me?”

She started to shake her head and then the fragments fell together. “You're the big scarred man who wanted to buy the mirror,” she whispered, horrified. “You killed Tony, Diane, Robert and those policemen.” She was too shocked to even be frightened.

“I killed the police officers, that is true,” he nodded gravely, “but none of the others. The image killed them.”

Manny nodded gravely. She was in the presence of a madman, and all she had to do now was to humor him until he fell asleep and she could escape. There was only one door in the dingy room and he was sitting right beside it. There was a newspaper-covered window to her left but she had no way of knowing what was on the other side. It could be a blank wall for all she knew, or they could be six stories high.

She looked at the man—Talbott?—noting the lines of the scars and wrinkles on his face, figuring that he must have been handsome once, before the accident or whatever had so badly scarred him. She wondered why he didn't have plastic surgery.

“The scars are memories,” he said suddenly, frightening her. He smiled at her horrified expression. “When people look at me—and I mean really look, not a quick glance—they usually wonder two things, how I got the scars, and why I keep them and not use plastic surgery.”

Manny nodded. Keep him talking. While he was talking he was calm and reasoned.

“I got the scars in an elevator accident. I keep them in memory of my wife and son who died in that accident.”

“Oh,” she whispered, wondering if it were true. “That's … that's terrible…” She had tried to inject empathy into her voice, but it came out flat and unemotional.

“I attempted to meddle with something I could not control. And it didn't like it.” He touched his face. Talbott stared intently into her eyes and then added, “But at least I knew what I was doing … or attempting to do. Unlike you.”

“Me!”

Talbott stared at her impassively.

“Look, I really don't know what you're talking about!” she snapped. Mistake, mistake, mistake, she thought, always agree with them.

“The mirror,” he said quietly.

“The mirror?” She looked at him blankly and then said very softly, “The mirror. What about the mirror?”

“Why don't you tell me about it,” he said maddeningly.

“Look mister…”

“Edmund Talbott.”

“Look Mr. Talbott. I know nothing about this mirror. I've seen it, it's in my father's guesthouse. And three people that I knew have died around it.”

Talbott brought his fingertips up to his lips, palms of his hands pressed together. His finely developed senses told him that the girl was telling the truth, and yet he had seen the whirlwind in the Otherworld feeding off sexual energies that were undoubtedly female. Was it possible that the mirror was using her without her knowledge? It was unlikely, and yet not impossible. There was so much about the mirror and the images that it controlled that he did not know. The last person in his family to have a full understanding of the mirror had been his grandfather, whose knowledge of the occult was extraordinary, and who had counted many of the modern figures in the occult revival amongst his students. The stroke that had robbed him of most of his faculties including speech and the power of his hands had been a terrible tragedy, or so Talbott had thought until he discovered that before the stroke his grandfather had been talking of putting down the history and the legends surrounding the mirror onto paper. Then he realized it had been no accident of fate: the mirror had somehow caused the stroke.

“Have you ever seen—or experienced—anything strange or curious around the mirror?”

“What do you mean, strange or curious?”

“Tell me what you think I mean?” he said coyly, unwilling to lead her on.

Manny considered for a moment. “I don't like it, if that's what you mean … it's … it's creepy. And I saw a face in it once,” she admitted almost reluctantly.

Talbott nodded. “What sort of face?” he asked gently.

She closed her eyes, remembering. “A woman's face … a … a woman's face.” She opened her eyes again, shaking her head. “That's all I can remember. Why? What is it about this mirror? Is it haunted?”

He shrugged, a wry smile stretching the scars on his face. “Yes, no, I don't know. It is evil, it attracts evil, it disseminates evil, that is all I know. It is ancient and deadly.”

“I don't see what all this has got to do with…” Manny began, but Talbott held up a hand, stopping her.

“The mirror works through people, controlling them, using them to feed its appetite. It shows people things, sometimes it shows them what they want to see, more often than not, it shows them what they most fear. You may or may not choose to believe this, but I think you've seen enough over the past couple of weeks to know that what I'm telling you is the truth. And you will also admit that your father has been acting strangely of late?”

Manny suddenly nodded. “I thought this might have something to do with Dad. Yes, he's been a little odd, but then strange things have been happening around him…”

“… ever since he bought the mirror,” Talbott finished for her.

“So what are you saying to me? Are you telling me that this mirror has some sort of control over my dad, that it's possessing him?”

“No, I'm not saying that at all,” Talbott murmured. He was watching the young woman carefully, wondering how much to tell her, wondering how much she would accept. Usually, the young were always so open to ideas.

“I am saying that your father is seeing things in the mirror…”

“What sort of things?”

“Whatever he most wants to see, whatever he fears most. I don't know. He will keep going back to the glass again and again, feeding it, becoming addicted to the images.”

“What do you mean
feeding it,
” Manny asked suddenly, the significance of the words suddenly sinking in.

“The glass is dirty, grimy, greasy. Only blood will clean the glass, only blood will fire the images. Blood and sex.” He saw the sudden coloring on her cheeks, and pressed on. “The intense emotion of orgasm can also fire the mirror. But I think perhaps you know something of this, eh?”

“I think I want to go home,” Manny said, suddenly.

“Why, what have I said that frightened you?”

“Nothing. Shit! Everything you said frightened me. Magic fucking mirrors, blood, sex, images; you're a crazy person!”

“I'll not deny that. But everything I've said to you is the truth.” He came suddenly to his feet and crossed the room to stand towering over the girl. “Now someone has been feeding the mirror with blood, and if it is not you, then it has to be your father. But someone has also been feeding it with sexual energy—and that is you, I believe.” Manny started to shake her head, but Talbott pressed on. “But you see, since you know nothing about the mirror, I can only assume that you've been doing this unknowingly. Have you been having strange dreams lately, erotic dreams?” he asked suddenly. He saw the answer in her eyes and continued relentlessly. “Usually the female is a willing part of the conspiracy, giving freely of herself, deliberately feeding the mirror. But not you. You're so close to your father, so close to the mirror that I suppose it was only natural that you should be caught up in it.”

“I have been having … strange dreams,” Manny admitted in a whisper, “erotic dreams. When I wake up I realize, I've … I've…”

Talbott patted her shoulder. “I know. I know,” he said quietly. He straightened and crossed to the window, peering out through a tiny nick in the newspaper across the silent streets in the general direction of the Hollywood Hills. Even in his waking state, he could still feel the vague disturbance in the Otherworld.

“What can I do? Can you help me? Can you help my father?”

Edmund Talbott turned back, shaking his head slightly. “I don't know,” he said truthfully. He looked down at the pale-faced girl, wondering if it wasn't too late for them all.

He glanced at his watch. It was three-thirty. “Was your father going out tonight?”

She shook her head. “He rarely goes out.”

“Where is your mother?”

“She got a bit fed up with Dad—or at least that was her excuse—and went up to Lake Tahoe for a little break. She said she'd come back when all this was over and done with.”

Talbott nodded thoughtfully. At least that was one less problem to take care of. “You know there are police watching your house. They're watching for me,” he added unnecessarily. “Can you get me back to the house posing as a boyfriend?”

“Why?”

“I asked your father to cover the face of the mirror with a black cloth. But I don't think I can trust him to do that.” He dug his hands into his pockets and pulled out the cans of black paint. “I want to get close enough to the mirror to do the next best thing.”

Manny nodded, looking at the cans in horrified fascination. She didn't tell Talbott that she felt almost physically sick at the thought of spraying the mirror with black lacquer paint.

 

66

N
OW …

Now …

Now …

NOW!

It had tasted his blood, savored it, felt his touch upon the imprisoning crystal. It had turned his dreams, his fears, into reality, allowed him a taste of power, given him a glimpse of possibilities.

And the blood had been good, so good; almost fresh, still bright with energy.

The whirlpool of energy whipping through the Otherworld began to vibrate, to shiver with trembling energy. Vivid reds, vibrant greens, sulphurous yellows, cut across the placid astral landscape and a deep violet stain spread across the grayness, twisting, turning like a coiling cloud, dispelling the Otherworld's drabness. Fragments of the whirlpool began to break away, lurid clouds flashing across the plain, spinning curls of lambent color. But deep within the core of the whirlpool of power the twisting energies latched onto the presence before the crystal cage, feeding it, as it had fed them. It had never been so close to freedom before.

It called up the image from its memory.