The Mirrored City (30 page)

“Shannon was controlling you somehow. She kept saying she needed help. She was controlling everyone here except me and Moon Girl.”

Heath massaged his forehead. He knew he’d lost time, maybe a few seconds. He didn’t like the idea of anyone being in his head. That was going to be a problem, and he needed to be ready to do what was necessary. Lyta wasn’t going to like the solution. Few things could drive Heath to a murderous rage, but the loss of control of his own body was a death sentence.

Bejia woke from her trance and quickly hastened to shut the barred door to Rancis’s room. The lock had been ripped out of the wall. “Ohan, may his light shine forever, protect us! There is darkness and dark magic all around!”

“You didn’t tell me your girlfriend could use people like sock puppets,” Heath said sharply.

Bejia gasped in horror. “Shannon is your…
girlfriend
?”

“Yes.” Heath shot her a withering silver glare. “That’s the most shocking thing about that sentence.” He spun on Lyta. “I want answers. Now.”

Lyta stammered, “She’s never done this before. She can see and feel through other people’s bodies, but she has to have touched them at least once. Shannon had control of the whole asylum. She couldn’t have touched everyone. Oh, Heath, she was so scared. We have to find her.”

“We’re not doing anything,” Heath snapped. “She took control of my body. What happens if we get in a fight and I turn into a scared teenager? We need a way to block that. Why didn’t it work on you or Moon Girl?”

“Victoria gets violent when people touch her,” Bejia offered.

Heath paced in a tight circle. “So Shannon can link to people who’ve touched people
she’s
touched. Bejia, I assume you have contact with everyone here.”

She nodded. “Yes. This is
evil
power we’re dealing with. We have to tell the Patriarchs. They’ll know what to do.”

“They’ll call me or someone like me.” Heath smiled. “I’m an Inquisitor. I know what to do.”

Bejia seemed relieved. She said, “I saw something. When… it was happening.”

“What?” Lyta asked.

“It was dark and cold… underground I think. There were bars and I could hear rats scurrying. It smelled like death.”

“This place have a basement?”

“No one goes down there,” Bejia said. “A long time ago they used to house the most dangerous madmen and cut them open, trying to find the source of their insanity. Ibiq Qaadar, may Ohan preserve him, declared the practice unholy, and it’s been shut down for decades.”

Heath smacked his forehead. “A condemned dungeon for psychopaths. I should have known.”

Lyta said, “If this is built the same as the one in Dessim, I know the way. I’m going with or without you.” She walked toward the stairs to the ground floor.

He knew better than to try to stop her. He didn’t like going in blind, and Lyta could probably handle herself. He focused on building a wall around his mind like he’d learned to do when he had trained to hunt Binders. It wasn’t reliable, but he wasn’t about to be caught off guard again.

Heath ripped off his disguise, revealing his black leather battle armor and springblade gauntlets.

He followed Lyta as she pushed her way past guards and anyone else too slow to get out of her way. They all gave Heath a wide berth when they saw his silver eyes. The only thing more terrifying to some of these people than a black man was a black man who wielded the power of lightning.

Lyta pushed through to a kitchen area and spotted a door. A couple of surprised inmates stared at them as they went through the door and down a curving flight of stone steps. The exposed masonry was rough to the touch and looked older than the construction above.

They emerged into a storage pantry. Lyta marched over to a section of wall that had been bricked over.

She turned to Heath. “It’s behind here.”

Before he could ask
how the
hells does a three-headed monster walk through a sealed wall?
Lyta was breaking it down with her bare hands. It fell apart like something a child would build with blocks, kicking up a cloud of gray dust. The passage beyond yawned into total darkness.

“Hold up. Let’s get some light,” Heath said. He raised his hand and called forth a sphere of lightning. He could never manifest the power to create anything complicated, like Jessa’s rapier. Not that he needed to. He preferred his springblades.

They made their way down the dark corridor. The flickering blue light from Heath’s hand cast long quivering shadows. It wasn’t a steady source of illumination, so it made everything look like it was moving out of the corners of their eyes.

“Shannon!” Lyta shouted.

Heath tapped her arm. “Don’t yell. If it knows we’re after her it might kill her.”

“Because a ball of lighting doesn’t announce our presence,” Lyta retorted.

“Can you see in the dark?” Heath asked. “I didn’t think to ask. But then you’d tell me, right?”

“You said you didn’t care what I was.”

“Until you were immune to whatever whammy Shannon put on me. Now I’m very interested. What the fuck are you, Lyta Ibazz?”

“Why are you being like this?” Lyta asked. Her smoky eyes narrowed.

“I don’t like people in my head,” Heath said. “I don’t like it when I’m not in control. Never have.”

“She’s just scared. She didn’t mean to upset your fragile male ego.” Lyta shook her head. “If she
can
control it, she won’t jeopardize me by taking you out of the fight.”

Heath said nothing and continued walking.

They passed several cells. The side of the cell facing the hallway was all steel bars, affording no privacy. Inside were narrow rotting cots and manacles hanging from the wall—standard decor for a dungeon.

They walked on for a ways and came to a sturdy wooden door. It was probably locked with some serious security, judging by the massive keyhole. He’d never know for sure because Lyta reduced it to splinters, brushing it aside like it was a beaded curtain.

Dead torsos hung from hooks on the end of thick rusty chains. Some looked fresh, others had been there a while. Lyta gagged at the awful putrid odor of the corpses, but Heath had long learned to deal with the smell. In the center were tables littered with organs and rusty surgical instruments.

The right and left sides of the room were occupied by two barred cells side by side.

Heath examined the contents of the table and flipped through a leather book filled with intricate anatomical drawings. Two bodies, a man and a woman, were bound together at the wrist. The female body was flayed, and they were posed identically, like someone looking into a mirror. He realized the pictures were diagrams for the grisly tableaus that had been cropping up. He grabbed the book and slid it into his belt.

“Shannon?” Lyta called out.

A muffled sob came from one of the cells. Lyta and Heath hurried over. At first the cell seemed empty, but then Heath noticed a shape huddled in the corner behind a cot turned on its side.

Lyta ripped the bars off and cast them aside. Heath followed her as they entered. Lyta screamed, a long blood-curdling wail that echoed through the dark forgotten place.

A skinless woman with blue eyes gazed up at them pitifully from the corner. Her muscles were exposed, covered in rivulets of crimson blood. The striations of her tissue were marked with blue runes that looked like ancient Patrean cuneiform. She was shivering.

Heath bent down and reached for her shoulder. She moaned pathetically and tried to curl farther into the corner.

“I can help you,” Heath said.

Lyta watched anxiously as Heath put his hand on Shannon’s shoulder. It felt slimy. He called his Light, and golden energy instantly flowed through Shannon’s body, illuminating every fiber of her muscles. He dismissed his lightning to focus on healing her. The fact that she was still alive and conscious spoke to a tremendous amount of fortitude.

Rank and file Patreans could survive grievous injuries better than humans, so it made sense. Sweat formed on his brow as he sent his Light through her, directing every last drop of power he could into her body. Although his Stormlord abilities were inexhaustible, his powers as a healer were pulled from a limited reservoir. He hoped it would be enough.

Her skin returned in growing golden patches over her body. Once, Heath had grown himself a new set of eyes. This was infinitely more taxing. The light sputtered and faded, leaving them in darkness.

“Shannon?” Lyta said softly.

“Lyta,” came Shannon’s reply.

Heath called back his lightning. Shannon was naked and bald, but she appeared whole. The new skin was thin, and her muscles and veins were faintly visible beneath the surface. He had no more Light to give. “We need to get her to Bejia.”

Shannon wept and stood slowly, examining her body. “Thank you so much.”

She turned to embrace Lyta, but Heath held up his hand. “Careful. That skin could break pretty easily. It was all I could do.”

Lyta beamed happily. “I can wait.”

“They took my skin,” Shannon said. “And when I didn’t die, they left me here to rot.”

“Who’s they?” Heath asked.

“The one who was in charge never said anything. They wore a cloak to hide their face. The three-headed man took my skin. There was something
familiar
about it.”

“We need to get out of here,” Lyta urged.

Heath turned and led the way out of the chamber. Lyta tenderly took Shannon’s hand and followed. Shannon had difficulty walking. Her body had been through an extreme trauma, and his healing barely scratched the surface. That she could stand on her own was nothing short of a miracle.

He briefly forgot his anger about what she’d done to him upstairs. It was hard to see her as a dangerous monster in her present condition, shivering and in pain. He’d once witnessed as Daphne skinned a warlock, repeatedly healing him to start the process over again. It was not an easy thing to watch, but after a few days of watching, Heath didn’t feel anything when it was his turn to take over. Neither did the warlock.

The walk back seemed shorter than the way in. A dim shaft of light from the storage room was faintly visible through the rough opening Lyta had made in the stone. He was thankful for the readymade exit, but something nagged at him.

That nagging sensation materialized in front of him in a whirling cloud of darkness. The shambling monstrosity wore a thick rotting patchwork cloak with three hoods that concealed its face. It made no sound but crouched, ready to pounce.

“Teleporter!” Heath shouted. He had tangled with one of them in Rivern, and it had made short work of Sword.

Heath threw his hands out and filled the hall with lightning, striking the creature in the middle face. The raw fury of Creation flowed from him in a torrent of power. It didn’t fade or diminish but grew stronger as he forced more into his blast. The thing lit up from within, dull red flashes illuminating its internal organs as it shuddered: ribcages and spines and hearts all joined together in a crazy jumble.

It burst apart in a shower of guts and bone.

Heath lowered his hands. “That was
much
easier than I expected.”

He regretted the words as two halves of the creature picked themselves off the ground and vanished in vortices of black energy.

“Fuck,” Heath said.

He looked at the charred remains, seeing bird heads, patches of human skin with thick black hair, long stretches of entrails, and an arm that looked like it came from a child. A charred head rested amid the gore. Three faces were sewn onto it, two human and one dog.

“Where did it go? I can’t sense the creatures.” Shannon sounded scared but was remarkably calm given the circumstances.

Lyta held Shannon protectively. “We won’t let them get you again, my love.”

“Come on ladies,” Heath said. “We need to get somewhere safe.”

“It can teleport,” Lyta insisted. “Nowhere is safe.”

“Let me worry about that,” Heath said.

The chimera wasn’t his fight. He needed information he could leverage against the houses. What happened next wasn’t his concern. Lyta could make a valuable asset, and Shannon, if she could be controlled, could win the war against Nasara.