The City of Mirrors
Page 196

As he raised the sword, Amy covered her head. A crack, followed by a grinding sound and then the thump of something heavy hitting the floor. A wet stickiness splashed the side of her face and, with it, a rotten smell, as if a door had blown open onto a room of corpses.
“Oh, for the love of God.”
The viral was still on its knees, its headless torso folded forward to the floor. Dark, rhythmic spurts were convulsing from its severed neck, forming a glossy pool on the floor. Fanning was staring at the front of his pants with revulsion. His suit, Amy realized, was rotten and threadbare. It hung on his body with the unstructured looseness of rags.
“Look at this,” he moaned. “This is never going to come out. They’re like pets, the mess they make. And the stink. Just god-awful.”
It was absurd, all of it. What had she expected? Not this. Not this whirlwind of instantly changeable moods and thoughts. This man before her: there was something almost pathetic about him.
“Well, now,” he said, and smiled nonsensically. “Let’s get you to your feet, shall we?”
She was hauled upright. Fanning stepped forward; from his pocket he produced a handkerchief, flapped it open with a flourish, and dabbed the blood from her face. His eyes seemed both close and far away, peculiarly magnified, as if she were observing them through a telescope. On his cheeks and chin was a dusting of whitish beard; his teeth were gray, dead-looking. He hummed tunelessly as he went about this chore, then took a step back, lips pursed, brow furrowed, examining his handiwork with a slow nod.
“Much better.” He regarded her at uncomfortable length, then declared, “I have to say, there’s something very appealing about you. A certain innocence. Though I’m guessing there’s more there than meets the eye.”
“Where’s Peter?”
His eyes widened. “She speaks! I was beginning to wonder.” Then, dismissively: “Not to worry about your friend. Delayed in traffic, I expect. As for me, I’m glad the two of us can have this chance to talk amongst ourselves. I hope this doesn’t seem too forward, but I feel a certain kinship with you, Amy. Our journeys are not so very different when you think about it. But first: where, pray tell, is my friend Alicia? This specimen of overgrown table cutlery tells me she’s around here someplace.”
Amy didn’t answer.
“Nothing to share on the subject? Have it your way. Do you know what you are, Amy? I’ve given it a lot of thought.”
Let him talk, she told herself. Time was what she needed. Let him use the minutes.
“You’re…an apology.”
Fanning said nothing further. The virals held her fast. He stepped away toward the train tunnels, where he resumed his original position, gazing forlornly into the blackness.
“For a long time, I wanted to kill you. Well, perhaps not ‘wanted.’ You can’t help being what you are, any more than I can. It wasn’t anything personal. You were merely a symbol, a stand-in for the thing I hated most.” He turned the sword in his hand, studying the blade. “Imagine it, Amy. Imagine the folly of the man. He actually believed he could make everything all right, that he could atone for his crimes. But he couldn’t. Not after what he did to Liz. To me, to you.” He looked up. “She was nothing to me, the other one. Just some woman in a bar, looking for a night of fun, a bit of company in her lonely little life. I regret that intensely.”
Amy waited.
“I thought I could forget about it. But that was the night. I see that now. It was the night the truth of the world opened to me. It wasn’t the woman that did it. No, it was the child. The little girl in the crib. Do you know that I can still smell her, Amy? That sweet soft odor that all babies have. It’s practically holy. Her little fingers and toes, the smoothness of her skin. Her whole life was in her eyes. All of us begin that way. You, me, everyone. Full of love, full of hope. I could see it: she trusted me. Her mother lay dead on the kitchen floor, but here was this man, come to answer her cries. Would I give her a bottle? Change her diaper? Perhaps I would pick her up, take her on my lap and read her a story. She had no idea what I’d done, what I was. I felt so sorry for her. But that wasn’t the reason. I felt sorry because she’d had to be born in the first place. I should have killed her right then. It would have been a mercy.”
A silence caught and held. Then:
“I see from your expression that I appall you. Believe me, I appall myself sometimes. But the truth is the truth. There’s no one watching over us. That’s the cold heart of it, the grand delusion. Or if there is, he’s the cruelest kind of bastard, letting us believe he cares. I’m nothing, compared to him. What kind of God would allow her mother to die like that? What God would let Liz be all alone at the end, not the touch of a hand or a single word of kindness to help her leave her life? I’ll tell you what kind, Amy. The same one who made me.” He turned toward her again. “Your friends on the boat will be back, you know. Don’t be surprised—I know all about it. I practically watched them sail away from the pier. Oh, maybe not soon. But eventually. Their curiosity will get the better of them. It’s simple human nature. All of this will be dust by then, but here I’ll be, waiting.”
Do it, Alicia, she thought. Do it, Michael. Do it now.
“What do I want, Amy? The answer is quite simple: I want to save you. More than that. I want to teach you. To make you see the truth.” His expression darkened. “Hold her tightly, please.”