The City of Mirrors (81 page)

The Chrysler Building.

The corridor collapsed; darkness folded over him again. But now he knew: the night in which he dwelled was false. The sun was still up there. Above the cloud of dust it shone, bright as day. If he could get to the sun, if he could somehow lead Fanning into its light … 

But this thought was lost as a great force gripped him, like a vortex. Its power was colossal. He felt himself being pulled, down and down and down. What lay at the bottom he did not know, only that when he reached it, he would be forever lost. Somewhere distant, his body was changing. Racked with convulsions, it hammered on the pavement of the broken city. Bones elongated. Teeth showered from his gums. He was sinking into a sea of everlasting darkness in which no trace of himself would remain.
No! Not yet!
He searched for something, anything, to hold on to. In his mind’s eye, Amy’s face appeared. The picture was not imagined but taken from life. They were sitting on his bed. Their faces were close, their hands entwined. Teardrops hung upon her eyelashes like beads of light.
You get to keep one thing,
she told him
. What I wanted to keep was you.

Was you,
thought Peter.

You.

He fell.

The pain in Michael’s leg exploded. Removing the glass had peeled the skin back like the rind of an orange, exposing the fibrous, subtly pulsating muscle beneath. Another backward reach above his head produced a long, silk scarf. He twirled it into a thick rope and tied it tightly around the wound. The fabric was instantly saturated. Was he doing this right? He wished Sara were here. Sara would know what to do. The things that came into your mind at a time like this: the brain was not kind, it had no sense of fairness, it taunted you with thoughts of the things you did not have or couldn’t do.

The noise outside had subsided as the destruction marched north. The air had an unnatural chemical smell, bitter and burnt. For the first time since he’d awakened on the street, his mind went to Alicia, the look on her face as the water crashed into her and swept her away. She was gone. Alicia was gone.

From the street, a crunch of glass.

Michael froze. The noise came again.

Footsteps.

Pushing with her heels, Amy scrambled backward. “Tim, don’t! It’s me!”

“Don’t call me that!”

She had lost him; the spell was broken. In his eyes, the look of white-hot fury had returned. Suddenly Fanning raised his head. A new emotion came into his face, one of unanticipated pleasure.

“And what have we here?”

It was Peter. The transformation was complete; his body, sleek, powerful, had joined the anonymous horde.

“There’s a good fellow.” Fanning lips pulled back into a smile, showing his fangs. “Why don’t you join us?”

Peter moved toward them through the rubble, legs bent, arms held away from his body. His steps seemed uncertain; his back and shoulders rippled with an undulating motion, like a man stretching after a long night of sleep or adjusting himself inside a new suit of clothes.

“Allow me, Amy, to make a point.”

With a flick of his wrist Fanning tossed the sword, handle first, to Peter, who snatched it robotically from the air.

“Let’s see who’s in there, shall we?” Fanning strode toward him, straightened his back and tapped the center of his chest. “Right about here, I should think.”

Peter was staring at the sword, as if puzzling over its function. What was this alien object in his hand?

“Come on, now. I promise I won’t move a muscle.”

Peter took another step forward. His movements were jerky, as if the parts of his body could not completely coordinate. The muscles of his arms and shoulders tightened as he attempted to lift the blade.

“Getting heavier, I see.”

Another step and Peter stopped. He was within striking distance now. Fanning made no effort to defend himself; his batlike face radiated confidence, almost amusement. The sword, at a forty-five-degree angle to the ground, refused to rise.

“Here, let me help you.”

With the long-nailed tip of his index finger, Fanning guided the blade to a horizontal position. He moved slightly forward until the point made contact with his chest, just below the sternum.

“One good thrust should do it.”

A growl of effort rose from deep in Peter’s throat. The seconds stretched, every part of his body drawn taut. A pop of air expelled from his lungs; he melted to his knees, the sword clanging on the pavement.

“You see, Amy? It is simply not possible. This man belongs to me now.”

Like the viral in the hall, Peter had bowed his head in abject surrender. Fanning placed a hand on his shoulder. It was as if he were patting an especially obedient dog. “Do me a favor, won’t you?” Fanning asked him.

Peter raised his head.

“Would you please kill her?”

Michael pushed backward from the window on his palms, leaving a wide trail of blood on the floor. There was more than one viral out there, he could sense it; they were like wraiths, there and not there, shadowy figures gliding and shifting in the dust.

Searching. Hunting.

Once they found him, he wouldn’t make it two steps. He scooted to the rear of the room, where there was a long counter and, behind it, a doorway half-hidden by a curtain. As he slipped behind the counter, the floor began to shake again. The feeling gathered in intensity like a revving engine. Clothes racks toppled. Mirrors shattered and burst outward. Chunks of plaster severed from the ceiling and detonated on the floor. Curled into a ball, arms wrapped around his head, Michael thought,
God, whoever you are, I am sick of your shit. I am not your plaything. If you’re going to kill me, please stop screwing around and get it over with.

The shaking subsided. From all up and down the street, Michael heard the crack of windows popping free of their frames and crashing on the pavement. The virals still lurked out there, but maybe the commotion had put them off his trail. Maybe they were cowering in some dark corner, as he was. Maybe they were dead.

He peeked around the counter. The place looked like a wrecking ball had hit it, nothing left intact except for a free-standing, full-length mirror, which stood anomalously on the right side of the room like a bewildered survivor surveying the wreckage of some terrible catastrophe. Angled slightly toward the front of the store, the mirror’s face gave him a partial view of the street.

A pod of three emerged in the murk. They seemed to be drifting aimlessly, looking around as if lost. Michael willed his body into absolute stillness. If they couldn’t hear him, maybe they’d pass him by. For several seconds they continued their confused wandering, until one of them stopped abruptly. Standing in profile, the viral rotated its face from side to side, as if attempting to triangulate the source of a sound. Michael held his breath. The creature paused and angled its chin upward, holding this position for another several seconds before swiveling toward the storefront. Its nose was twitching like a rat’s.

Peter stepped toward her. There was no point in trying to get away; the outcome would be the same. Time had given up its customary course. Everything seemed to happen in a manner both rushed and strangely sluggish; her vision had narrowed, the city around her fading to a collection of shadows.

She was crying, though not for herself. She couldn’t have said what she was crying for; her tears possessed an abstract quality of sadness, though something else as well. Her trials were ended. In a way, she was glad. How strange, to put down life like a heavy load she had been too long forced to carry. She hoped she would go to the farmhouse. How happy she had been there. She remembered the piano, the music flowing forth, Peter’s hands resting on her shoulders, the joy of his touch. How happy they had been, together.

“It’s all right,” she murmured. Her voice felt distant, not quite her own. It spilled from her lips on shallow, rapid breaths. “It’s all right, it’s all right.”

Peter positioned the sword so that the tip was pointed at the base of her throat. The gap narrowed, then stopped, flesh mere inches from steel. His head cocked to the side; in another second he would strike.

“Well?” Fanning said.

Their gazes met and held. To know and be known: that was the final desire, the heart of love. It was the one thing she could give him. A huge force was bursting open inside her. It was a kind of light. She would have beamed it straight into his heart if she could.

“You’re Peter,” Amy whispered, and went on whispering, so that he would be hearing these words. “You’re Peter, you’re Peter, you’re Peter …”

The blood,
thought Michael.

They can smell my blood.

He wasn’t sure he could stand, let alone run. He had painted a road of red on the floor, leading them straight to him. He pressed his back against the counter and drew his knees to his chest. The virals had entered the store. He heard a kind of wet snuffling, like the noise of hogs rooting in mud; they were sucking the blood off the floor. Michael felt a weird surge of protectiveness.
Hey,
leave my blood alone!
On and on went their lascivious slurping. So intense was their focus that Michael began to think about the curtained door. What lay beyond it? Was it a dead end or was there, perhaps, a hallway that led deeper into the building—to the street, even? The doorway was only partially concealed by the counter. For some interval of time, depending on how fast he was able to go, he would be exposed.

He peeked around the corner, using the angled mirror to survey the room. The virals, on their hands and knees, were busily pressing their mouths to the floor, their tongues swirling like mopheads. Michael scooted down the length of the counter so he was as close as possible to the door, which was positioned ten feet behind him and to his right. If he could move the virals to the opposite corner of the room, the counter would obscure him completely.

Michael unwound the scarf from his leg. The fabric was bloated with blood. He formed it into a ball, tied off the ends to hold the shape, and rose on his knees, keeping the top of his head just below the lip of the counter. Pulling back his arm, he counted to three. Then he lobbed the scarf across the room.

It impacted the far wall with a splat. Michael dropped to his stomach and began to crawl. From behind him, he heard scurrying, then a series of clicks and snarls. It was better than he’d hoped; the virals were fighting over the rag. He slipped beneath the curtain and kept going. Now he couldn’t see a goddamn thing. He crawled another few feet, until he was away from the door, and attempted to rise. The instant the foot of his injured leg touched the ground was one he was pretty sure he would always remember. The pain was simply spectacular. He reached into his shirt pocket and removed a box of matches. Fumbling in the dark, he managed to remove one without dumping out the rest, and scraped it on the striker.

He was in a narrow hallway of high brick walls that led deeper into the building. Metal racks of empty hangers lined the walls. The air was clearer here, less dust-choked. He pulled the kerchief down from his face. An opening to his left dead-ended in a small room of curtained booths. He looked down; drops of blood had followed him like a trail of crumbs. More blood sloshed in his boot. The match burned down; he flicked it away, lit another, and went on.

Eight matches later, Michael concluded that there was no way out. Branching hallways always led him back to the central corridor. Who designed a building like this? How long before the virals’ interest in the rag exhausted itself and they followed the blood?

He came to a final room. It appeared to be a kitchen, with a stove and sink and cabinets lining two of the four walls; in the center was a small square table covered with open cans and plastic bottles. Two brown-boned skeletons lay on a cratered mattress, curled together. In all of New York, these were the first human remains Michael had encountered. He crouched beside them. One of them was much smaller than the other, who appeared to be a grown woman, with a desiccated tangle of long hair. A mother and her child? Probably they had holed up together during the crisis. For a century they had lain here, their last loving moment captured for all time. It made him feel like an interloper, as if he had violated the sanctity of a tomb.

A window.

It was covered by a cage, hinged shutters of crisscrossing wire, held in place by metal bars bolted to the wall. The two halves were joined with a padlock. The match burned down, scorching his fingertips; he flung it away. As his eyes adjusted he realized a faint glow was coming through the window, just enough to see by. He looked around the room for something to use as a lever.
Think, Michael.
On the table was a butter knife. The floor lurched again with a single, horizontal bang. Plaster dust rained down. He wedged the knife into the curved arm of the lock. His hands felt cold and slightly numb, at the edge of his ability to command them; the loss of blood was catching up to him. He tightened his arms and shoulders and twisted the blade, hard.

It snapped in two.

That was it; enough already. Michael was done. He sank to the floor and braced his back against the wall so that he could see them coming.

Peter was standing in a field of knee-high grass. The color of everything was peculiar, possessing an unnatural, off-kilter vividness that accentuated the smallest movements in the landscape. A breeze was blowing. The land was perfectly flat, though in the far distance mountains jostled the horizon. It was neither day nor night but something in between, the light soft and shadowless. What was this curious place? How had he come to be here? He searched his memory; only then did he realize that he did not, in fact, know who he was. He felt vaguely alarmed. He was alive, he existed, yet he seemed to have no history he could recall.

He heard the sound of running water and walked toward it. The action was automatic, as if an invisible intelligence were piloting his body. After some time had passed, he came upon a river. The water moved lazily, murmuring around scattered rocks. Leaves spiraled in its current like upturned hands. He followed the river downstream to a bend where it gathered in a pool. The surface of the water was still, almost solid-looking. He felt a peculiar agitation. It seemed that within the pool’s depths lay an answer, though the question eluded him. It was on the tip of his tongue, yet when he tried to focus on it, it darted up and away from his thoughts like a bird. He knelt at the edge of the pool and looked down. An image appeared: a man’s face. It was disturbing to look at. The face was his, yet it might as well have been a stranger’s. He reached out and with his index finger broke the surface. Concentric rings bloomed outward from the point of contact; then the image reassembled. With this came the sense, distant at first, but growing stronger, of recognition. He knew who he was, if only he could manage to recall.
You’re … 
It was as if he were attempting to lift a boulder with his mind.
You’re … you’re …