The City of Mirrors
Page 36

“Up here, Lish.”
A broad flight of stairs ascended to a balcony. She released the rope and placed her hand against Soldier’s neck. His coat was damp with sweat. She pressed her palm against it with a calming gesture: Wait here.
“Don’t worry, your friend will be safe. He’s a magnificent companion, Lish. More than I even imagined. Every inch a soldier, like you. Like my Lish.”
She ascended the stairs, making no effort to conceal herself—there was no point. What form of creature awaited her? The voice was human, meager in a way, but the body surely wouldn’t be. He would be a giant, a monster of gargantuan dimensions, a titan of his race.
She reached the top. To her right was a bar with stools, straight ahead an area of tables, some overturned, others still set with china and silverware.
Sitting at one of the tables was a man.
Was it a trick? Had he done something to her mind? He was sitting at ease, his hands folded on his lap, wearing a dark suit, a white shirt, collar undone at his throat. Sandy hair, almost red, with a sharp widow’s peak; a slight sag around the jowls; eyes with a certain indefinable intensity. Suddenly nothing around her seemed real. It was all a gigantic joke. He was like any man, a figure in a crowd, no one a person would notice.
“Does my appearance surprise you?” he asked. “Perhaps I should have warned you.”
His voice aroused her to action. She dropped the torch and the sword came out as she strode toward him; she swung it away from her body, cocked her hip, transferring energy to the large muscle groups—shoulders, pelvis, legs—and brought it around, halting its flight just inches from his neck.
“What the hell are you?”
Not a muscle had flinched. Even his face was relaxed. “What do I look like?”
“You’re not human. You can’t be.”
“You might ask yourself the same thing. What it means, to be human.” He tipped his head toward her blade. “If you’re going to use that, I suggest you get on with it.”
“Is that what you want?”
He angled his face toward the ceiling. At the corners of his mouth, daggerlike incisors revealed themselves. They were the teeth of a predator, and yet the face before her was mild. “I’ve been waiting here rather a long time, you know. In a hundred years, you get around to thinking about pretty much everything. All the things you did, the people you knew, the mistakes you made. The books you read, the music you listened to, how the sun felt, the rain. It’s all still there inside you. But it’s not enough, is it? That’s the thing. The past is never enough.”
The sword was still poised at his neck. How simple he was making this, how easy. He was looking at her with an expression of perfect calm. One swift blow, and she would be free.
“We’re two of a kind, you see.” His voice was placid, almost teacherly. “So much regret. So many things lost.”
Why hadn’t she done it? Why had she failed to strike? A strange immobility had taken hold—not a physical paralysis; more a dimming of her will.
“I have no doubt you’re more than capable.” He touched a spot on his neck. “Right about here, I think. That should do the trick.”
Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. All she had to do was pull back the sword and let fly, yet she could not make herself do it.
“You can’t, can you?” He frowned; his tone was almost regretful. “Patricide goes against the grain after all.”
“I killed Martínez. I watched him die.”
“Yes, but you did not belong to him, Lish. You belong to me. The viral that bit you was one of mine. Amy is but one part of you; I am the other. You could no more use that sword on me than you could on her. I’m surprised you hadn’t figured that out.”
She felt the truth of his words. The sword, the sword; she could not move the sword.
“But I don’t think you came to kill me. I don’t think that’s why you’re here at all. I can see it. You have questions. There are things you want to know.”
She answered through gritted teeth: “I don’t want anything from you.”
“No? Then I’ll ask you something instead. Tell me, Alicia, what did being human ever get you?”
She felt disoriented; none of this made sense.
“It’s a simple question, really. Most things are, in the end.”
“I had friends,” she said, and heard the shakiness in her voice. “People who loved me.”
“Did they? Is that why you left them?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think I do. Your mind is an open book to me. Peter, Michael, Sara, Hollis, Greer. And Amy. The great and powerful Amy. I know all about them. Even the boy, Hightop, who died in your arms. You promised him you would keep him safe. But in the end you could not save him.”
Her being was dissolving; the sword was like an anvil in her hand, incomparably dense.
“What would your friends say to you now? I’ll answer for you. They would call you a monster. They would hound you from their midst, if they didn’t kill you first.”
“Shut up, goddamnit.”
“You’re not one of them. You never have been, not since the day the Colonel took you outside the walls and left you there. You sat there under the trees and cried all night. Isn’t that so?”
How could he know these things?
“Did he comfort you, Alicia? Did he tell you he was sorry? You were just a little girl, and he left you all alone. You have always been…alone.”