My Hero (21 page)

 

Hamlet opened his eyes.

He expected to see the ramparts of Elsinore. He expected to hear the sound of frantic voices and running feet, the flicker of torches in the courtyard below, the confused echo of shouted orders.

No such luck.

What he did see was a dark, rather cluttered room, furnished in the late Victorian style, with dark, solid furniture, gaslamps and VR picked out in bulletholes on the far wall. In the corner, some obscure scientific apparatus hiccupped quietly to itself.The walls were lined with leather-bound books.There was a healthy fire crackling in the grate,
and on the mantelpiece a slipper stuffed with tobacco.

‘Remarkable,' said a voice from the armchair.

He looked up, and saw a long, thin man with a sharp nose and a high forehead, wearing a silk dressing gown and smoking a big, curved pipe. He had a horrible feeling he knew who it was.

‘From your appearance,' said the man, ‘I deduce that you are somehow connected with the theatrical profession. The traces of makeup just below the hairline and the rather eccentric boots are conclusive on that point. From your general demeanour, I gather that you left the place you have just come from in something of a hurry, probably,' he added, after a moment's consideration and a puff of blue smoke, ‘in fear of your life. The colour of your hair and the set of your cheekbones imply Scandinavian descent, and I would venture to suggest that you are a Dane. The manner in which you arrived here is also,' the man said, and smiled crookedly, ‘most suggestive. However, the hilt of a broken sword in your right hand puts the matter beyond any semblance of doubt. Your Highness,' he added, with mock deference. ‘And how stand matters at Elsinore?'

Despite his other preoccupations, Hamlet was impressed.

‘Cor,' he said. ‘You worked all that out just by looking at me?'

The man nodded. ‘Elementary, my dear Hamlet,' he said.

 

In the hallway of the house there was a looking-glass.

Regalian, out of breath from running fast, stood in front of it and stared. Yes, he said to himself, a great big mirror with an ornate frame hanging over a mantelpiece. I remember now. This is exactly what it looks like.

‘Your hair needs combing,' observed the Scholfield.
‘Apart from that, what's the big deal? I thought we were meant to be—'

‘Shut up,' Regalian ordered. ‘We're here.'

‘Yes, I know we're
here
,' the gun replied. ‘But I thought we wanted to be somewhere else.'

Regalian smiled thinly and pointed. ‘Somewhere else is that way,' he said.

‘Don't be silly, that's just a wall,' the gun said. ‘Maybe you're thinking of ghosts. In case you weren't aware, you're not a ghost. Trust me, I know about these things.'

Regalian thought for a moment, and then started to unbuckle the gunbelt.

‘Here,' whined the gun, ‘what the hell do you think you're—?'

‘I've got to go back and get the others,' Regalian replied, laying the belt on the mantelpiece. ‘You can stay here. Won't be long.'

The gun squirmed in its holster. ‘Here, you can't do that. What are you doing that for?'

‘Because,' Regalian snapped, ‘I've had enough of you to last me a trilogy, that's why. Now shut up or we'll leave you behind.'

‘Eek!' The gun wriggled and, with a frantic effort, managed to slide out of the holster, edging its way in millimetre stages towards the mirror. ‘You can't leave me here on my own,' it wailed, ‘they're all nutcases in this book, I'll end up as a paperweight.'

Regalian reached out to replace the Scholfield in its holster but somehow it eluded him and made a phenomenal spasmodic leap, two inches at least, towards the surface of the glass. It miscalculated, hit the frame and cocked itself. Regalian grabbed again - it was like trying to catch a goldfish in a bowl - missed and connected with the trigger. There was a loud bang.

‘Strewth!' Regalian exclaimed.

The recoil must have edged the gun right up against the glass, because the gun wasn't there any more. But its reflection in the mirror was.

‘Hey,' Regalian shouted, ‘how did you do that?'

Just this once, the gun made no reply. Cursing under his breath, Regalian reached into the looking-glass, scrabbled for the revolver and flicked it back through the glass . . .

And found himself looking at his reflection in a mirror. But his reflection was holding a Scholfield revolver and he wasn't. And then there was just the Scholfield, lying on the mantelpiece on the other side of the glass.

‘Oh
hell
,' Regalian whispered.

He reached out and put his hand on the surface of the mirror. It felt smooth, cold and depressingly solid. Which is, of course, exactly how mirrors do feel, in the real world.

‘Marvellous!' he growled. ‘Oh that really is completely fucking marvellous. What the hell am I supposed to do now?'

He turned and looked around, examining the room. It was large, well-furnished and cosy. A glass-fronted book-case by the fireplace housed a complete set of the works of Carson Montague, also known as Albert Skinner.
Oh Christ!

For every entrance an exit. For every exit an entrance.

He turned back, but the mirror was gone. In its place was a window, with a bullet-hole in it, and in his hand he noticed the Scholfield, with a little wisp of smoke drifting out of the gap between the cylinder and the barrel; and, beyond the window, a man in dungarees shaking his fist and pointing at a shattered cucumber frame.

 

‘Freeze!'

Skinner did as he was told. In the big looking-glass
directly in front of him, he could see the bounty hunter's face; not to mention the long, black Colt revolver in his right hand.

Christ
, he said to himself,
I know you. Goddammit, yes!

‘Okay,' the bounty hunter continued. ‘Turn around, real slow, and keep your hands where I can see them. And if you was having any fancy ideas about making a grab for that gun on the mantelpiece . . .'

‘The thought,' said Skinner truthfully, ‘never crossed my mind.'

‘Hoy,' Titania hissed under her breath. ‘Who is this idiot?'

Skinner sighed. The only thing that puzzled him was why he hadn't thought of it before.

‘Titania,' he said wearily, ‘I'd like you to meet my hero. Slim, this is Titania, Queen of the Fairies.'

‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma'am.'

‘I last saw Slim,' Skinner went on, ‘in a mirror. Well, a window, to be precise, but it was being a mirror at the time. I shot him. I think that's why I'm here. Isn't that right, Slim? I have the horrible feeling,' he went on, ‘that he's my alter ego. You know, the part of me I don't like. In fact,' he continued, ‘he's probably the reason why I used to find it difficult to look myself in the eye in the shaving mirror every morning.'

‘Gosh,'Titania said. ‘It's a funny thing, but when people give me these simple, logical explanations I always end up more confused than I was to start with. What does he want, exactly?'

Skinner shook his head. ‘Whatever it is,' he said, ‘I don't want to know about it. Hey, Slim.'

‘Yeah, partner?'

‘What the hell
do
you want anyhow? I mean, there's got to be a reason, hasn't there?'

Slim laughed, briefly and without humour. ‘Reckon so,'
he said. ‘Now why don't you-all just use your brains while you still got them?'

‘Hell, Slim, you know me,' Skinner answered. ‘Never was any good at plots.'

‘Sure enough,' the bounty hunter replied. ‘It's 'cos I ain't through with you yet, bud. Not by a long way.'

He raised his hand, pointed the Colt and fired.

It would be an exaggeration to say that the whole of Skinner's life flashed before his eyes, because he'd had a long and interesting life and there simply wasn't time. He'd got as far as his sixth birthday party, when Jenny Mason ate too much jelly roll and was sick on Mom's new carpet, when he realised he was still alive.

He turned round. The bullet had hit the looking-glass dead centre, and all that remained of it was a few splinters of glass tucked into the edge of the frame.

J
ane let herself in through the front door, dumped her portable WP and sagged into an armchair. It had been a long, long day.

In retrospect, the police had been quite reasonable considering the fact that she had offered no explanation at all for her presence in the building apart from saying that she'd been researching for a book down in the sewers and had got lost. They had left her with the distinct impression that she'd been suffered gladly, but they'd let her go. Eventually.

As for what had happened to Hamlet, she had a theory about that, and she was horribly afraid it was correct.

Still, she reassured herself as she put the kettle on, if I'm right it does mean he's back more or less where he belongs; or at least, back with his own kind. Kind of his own kind. In any event, beyond her help, which was all that mattered as far as she was concerned.

When the coffee was made, she broke into a new packet of chocolate digestives, curled up on the floor in front of the fire and reached into her bag for the book she'd been reading on the train. Not exactly her usual thing, Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle; but it had been the only book on the bookstall that didn't have a naked female on the cover, and she had to admit, she'd forgotten how readable the old things were, once you'd got into them.

The book fell open at the place she'd left off. She read:

Jane closed the book with a shudder. Her first reaction was, No, the hell with it, it's out of my hands now. Let the little creep find his own way home; or he can stay there, get a job and a mortgage, just like the rest of us. She threw the book into a corner, folded her arms and tried to think of something else.

Tried, and failed. But somehow, in some weird system of logic that she couldn't hope to understand, he was her responsibility. Because, if she didn't help, nobody else would. Because . . . Because.

Later, though. First, she was going to have a bath, a toasted ham sandwich and a good night's sleep, and that wasn't negotiable.

And, in due course, she slept.

Still fast asleep, she sat bolt upright in bed and swore. ‘Not you as well,' she shouted. ‘Go away!'

The dream of Skinner clenched its fists in rage.
You goddamn lazy bitch
, it ranted,
I'm stuck in this lunatic asylum and you want to go back to sleep? Jesus, lady, if you don't get me outa here, I will personally make sure you never sleep again.You hear me?

‘Hold on, now,' Jane mumbled. ‘I thought all that was under control. Haven't you been through the looking-glass, then?'

‘Don't you talk about Regalian like that.'

‘Us?'

‘What,
the
Titania? As in ill-met by moonlight, proud? The one with the donkey?'

‘What's she doing there, for God's sake?'

I don't know, do I?
Skinner exploded.
It's your goddamn book!

Jane lay down again, turned her face to the pillow and growled like a tiger. The dream stretched out an incorporeal hand towards her shoulder, but he was, after all, only a dream.