The Dickens Mirror (28 page)

“To his world, where he began.” Meme put up that warning hand again. “I do not
truly
understand all of it. Kramer has his theories, but even he has only an inkling. Neither of them understand fully, except …” She let that go.

He heard the
neither
and thought,
Who? Who else
is
there?
Then, a mental tap on the shoulder:
The woman?
She was here, in
the asylum, at this moment? Or was Meme talking about those mysterious patients?
When she was speaking with Kramer, Meme mentioned two boys
. From what he recalled, it sounded to Bode as if there were also at least two adults: a man and his wife. “Who? Understand what?”

“How it all works, with the
Nows
, what they call Many Worlds.”

“Many Worlds,” Rima echoed. “As in many of us? More than one?” She eyed the purple glasses with a look that was half curiosity, half dread. “And these let you see … what we really are?” With exaggerated care, she slipped them on and looked up at Meme. “Or who …” Rima’s throat moved in a sharp swallow. Her face went so pale and glassy, it seemed to Bode that he could see clear through. “Who we … we might
not
be?”

“Yes, but I think that is also only a portion of it. Sometimes, I am not entirely sure what I am looking at,” Meme said. “To me, they are … shadows.”

“That’s what I saw,” Bode said.

After another second, Rima pulled the glasses free and refolded first the lenses and then the arms with exquisite care. Her face was unreadable. “That’s why you wanted to see us?” She handed the glasses over to Meme. “Because this doctor knows about another Tony?”

“It is a bit more than that.” Meme paused. “I also know they have a device they have been trying to make work for the longest time.”

“They have more than just the glasses?” Bode asked.

“The panops? Yes.”

“All-seeing,” Rima said. Bode could’ve sworn he heard a tremor.

Meme nodded. “Anyone can use them just as you and Bode did. But not everyone can make the cynosure work.”

“What’s that?” Bode asked.

“Some kind of guide? Like a lantern? Or lens? It is a way of getting to the right world, the correct
Now
.” Meme shrugged. “They have not been able to make it work, and it is of no use to them anyway unless they find another device. Dickens Mirror, Kramer calls it.”

“Dickens.” Bode frowned. Name didn’t ring a bell. “Is that a place? Or some kind of glass?”

“I …” It might have been
I
; Bode wasn’t sure because Emma quickly closed down on whatever was trying to find its way out of her mouth.
Good girl
, he thought to her.
Mum’s the word
.

“No.” Meme favored Emma with a long look. “Dickens is … was … a person.”

“What kind of person?” Bode said, hoping to draw her gaze to him.

Her eyes shifted. “A writer from another
Now
. As I said, they do not truly understand either. They think the Mirror is here in London, but they have not been able to locate it. After today, however, they think they are a step closer.”

“Why?” Tony asked. “What happened today?”

“We all had the same nightmare,” Rima said.

Meme’s forehead showed that small frown. “They have not spoken of that.”

“Then it has to be Elizabeth,” Bode said. “What happened with her. That’s why Kramer’s so keen on keeping Elizabeth in seclusion, isn’t it?”

Meme nodded. “Where he has put her is … quite a different place from the rest of the asylum. It is all part of some kind of test.”

“Test for what?”

“I am not sure. It has something to do with”—Meme seemed to search for the right words—“the manipulation of energy. Kramer calls her the
key
. Some theory about the strongest piece being the actual entity or spirit or whatever that can access the devices. And he is in a hurry, too.”

Entity? Spirit? Piece
, he recognized, though.
It’s what Elizabeth calls her hallucinations
. “Why’s he in a hurry?” Bode asked, then answered his own question. “Kramer must be afraid Battle will step in? Force him to give her up?”

“In part. Frankly, it has all sounded mad as hops. But,” Meme said, her mouth moving a grimace, “as Doctor is so fond of reminding me, I am only an assistant he may make or break. After overhearing about his interest in you”—she inclined her head at Tony and Rima—“I had to be sure that what they were talking about was real and not lunacy.”

Thank Christ, Kramer didn’t know about
their
little Emma here. Bode aimed to keep it that way.
But Kramer calls for an Emma, and then Elizabeth goes nutter and we get ourselves a little girl
. Which did beg the question of
which
Emma Kramer wanted.

“I thought that if you
were
real, it might explain what was happening,” Meme said.

“Why?” Tony asked. “What’s happening?”

“They have him,” Meme said. “The other Tony.”

“What?” they all said at once. “He’s here?” Tony said. “In Bedlam?”

She nodded. “And he’s dying … just like you.”

That Business with Doyle

“NO ARGUMENTS.” BODE
dumped the last body into the pushcart. The sack made a dull
puh
when it hit a thick white mantle of new snow. The false dawn had faded and the wind was up, flinging large wet flakes to plaster faces, clothes, and hair. “I’m not happy, you taking these with you,” Bode said, watching as the cat leapt from Emma’s arms to mince over sacks and wedge itself into a convenient hollow. “You ought to cut and run.”

“I’m not excited either,” Tony said, stumping around to the front of the cart. “But we need as much food as we can grab. For that, we got to deliver our load. There’s method behind the madness, you know.”

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” Rima’s voice was tight. She gave the body Bode had deposited a hard, unnecessary shove. On the cart, Emma straddled her cat and silently repositioned the body, using one of their long pikes. “Because it’s not funny,” Rima said.

“I know that.” Tony was very calm for a boy who’d just heard his doppelgänger lay dying somewhere; might, in fact,
be taking Tony down with him. “But assuming we do get off-grounds, it’s stupid to leave them. ’sides, if someone else comes looking and sees the cart, they’ll know Bode warned us. I’ll tell you what bothers me, too.” Having picked up his harness, Tony looked up from sorting leather traces. “The other Tony. Not right to leave him here. Who knows if maybe we can help? If maybe
I
can?”

“Oh no.” Rima shook her head. “Think, Tony. The closer we’ve gotten to the asylum, the worse you are. More nosebleeds. You’re weaker.”

“And vice versa.” It was Meme, who’d stood quietly by. “That is why Kramer was so keen on getting his hands on
your
Tony. He thinks that the doubles might even cure each other if he can perfect a serum. It is the same as that business with Doyle.”

“What business?” Rima asked.

“A long story, and all rather ghoulish, actually.” Meme shook her head. “Honestly, there are times I think Kramer is quite mad.”

“Oh,
wonderful
.” Sighing, Bode scrubbed fresh snow from his hair. “Rima’s right, brother. You need to lay down distance.”

“That’s just it,” Tony said. “I don’t think any place is far enough. So long as the other Tony is … in this
Now
? I’m cooked.”

“Unless he dies first,” Rima said.

“God, listen to yourself. He’s a
person
. Your other Rima … she cared what happened to him.”

“I’m not her, and Meme said that Rima’s … world? Her
Now
? It’s in ruins. So who knows what’s happened to her?” Sidling closer, Rima made a move as if to rest her palm on his left cheek, then checked herself. “You’re the only Tony I care about.”

“Can you help him?” Out of the corner of an eye, Bode saw Meme give him a curious glance. He wished he’d thought of this
sooner, but it needed to be said. “Can you draw it?” he asked Rima.

Tony answered before Rima could. “I won’t let her. Now that we know about the other Tony, think of what it might do to her if he gets his claws in.”

“What are you all talking about?” Meme asked.

Bode sidestepped the question. “All right then. You three best get on your way. I’ve never been out that far, but once you’re past the criminal wings, there shouldn’t be anything else between you and …” His mind blanked. “Funny … name of the road’s on the tip of my tongue, but …” He shook that away. “Never mind. What I know is there’s open land and then trees, not very thick, and once you’re past, you’ll be closer to Battersea than if you went out the front.” It all sounded vague, as if he were making up a story on the spot. But he suddenly had no mental image of London at all.

“We should all leave right now,” Rima said. “You too, Bode.”

“Nowhere left to run that will be far enough,” Meme said.

“I don’t think I was asking your opinion.” Rima’s jaw clenched. “I appreciate you warning us, I do. But please do shut up now.”

“Here now,” Tony said.

“I don’t
care
.” Rima aimed a fierce glance at Bode. “
Why?
Why risk going back for her? She’s not one of us. We don’t know her. You owe her nothing.”

Bode made a sound as helpless as he felt. “Can’t explain, Rima. I know it sounds half rats, but I got to try.” Running might be the smartest thing.
But I can’t. Saving Elizabeth is what I’m meant to do, why I’m here
. Or was it that he was to save Emma? He didn’t know. Scared him how final it felt: as if it might be the very
last
thing he did.

“Once we get clear, how long you want us to wait at Battersea?” Tony asked.

“Until morning, I guess. If we’re not there, you three cut out. Get as far away from Lambeth as you can. Me, I’d go to the very limits of the Peculiar down south. Once you’re there, you might figure a way to either bypass it or get through. So go on now.” After wrapping Rima in a quick hug, he threw an arm around Tony’s neck and drew him close. “Stay alive, brother,” he whispered. “Be there as fast as I can, and then we’ll get out of here together, I promise.”

“You just hurry,” Tony said.

“Right.” He dropped to his haunches in front of Emma. “You have a care now. Stick with them, understand?” As her eyes pooled, he gave her a light chuck on a cheek. “No crying. Your face will freeze.”

She surprised him, throwing her arms around his neck. “There, there, it’s all right,” he said, tightening his grip around her shaking shoulders. She suddenly seemed so small, like a bird. “I’ll be fine.”

She gave his cheek a ferocious kiss, then said in a murmur only he heard, “Watch out for Meme.”

“I will,” he muttered back, touched that the girl could think clearly enough to care about someone she didn’t know.

Mission

MEME’S LANTERN WAS
smashed beyond repair. In the storeroom, Bode unearthed an ancient nubbin of candle fixed in an iron miner’s pick, not that this meager flame did them much good in the wind and snow. Using their footprints, they navigated back by dead reckoning, a journey that felt like an eternity, though it may have been no more than a half hour before the gray bulk of the asylum glowered from the snow. They’d just crowded in through the kitchen’s back door when Bode turned to Meme. “Thank you. For coming, I mean. You didn’t have to.”

“I know.” Meme’s hair, frosted with snow, tumbled around her shoulders. Flakes clung to her lashes, and the wind had stung her cheeks ruby-red. “But they are your family.” Her mouth moved in a wistful wisp of a smile. “Sounds quite nice.”

“It is. I’d do anything for Tony and Rima. I’d die for them, if it came to that.” Looking at her made his throat tighten. “But what I mean to say is … after what happened in Kramer’s office …”

“It is all right.” Her dark eyes darted away. Snowmelt
glistened on her shawl and made her lips gleam. “Let us not speak of it.”

“But I want to. You deserve a better friend than I’ve been. I’m sorry I didn’t help … no.” He put up a hand. “I know I said it before, but you took a risk for us. What I got to do for Elizabeth … it’s this
pull
, like I got no choice. You had one.”

“You do not know that.” Her eyes sought his again. “The … pull?” She pressed a palm to her chest and then to his. “I feel it.”

His heart shuddered under her touch. He remembered Kramer’s questions, the near-taunting quality of his tone. Meme had risked this for him. He looked down into the girl’s open face and thought,
I could kiss her
. He wanted to; the urge was a sudden ache in his chest; the tug of his attraction, a liquid fire in his thighs. Elizabeth, he had to help and protect. But with Meme, he might press his mouth to her chill lips and kiss her slowly and thoroughly until they warmed; draw his lips along her neck to linger over the throb of her pulse as she gasped and threaded her fingers into his hair; slip his hands beneath her coat and blouse and then … then her flesh. First his hands—roving, touching, stroking so lightly her back arched and strained to meet him—and then his mouth might feather her skin, the soft pillows of her breasts, his tongue pulling a moan from her throat, and then …

You
are
mad
. “We should go.” Stepping back, he tore his gaze from hers, though not before he saw a flicker of some emotion: not disappointment or hurt but confusion, which was almost as bad. He felt a surge of self-loathing.
What are you thinking, toying with this poor girl?
But had he been? He thought of the thousand small signals and Meme, always and forever there, with a word, a slight touch. But he’d been so focused on Elizabeth, his … God, it sounded so stupid … his
mission
, he’d discounted them.

Worry about this later
. Still, it was all he could do not to press her up against a wall, surrender to his desire and her need, and the hell with consequences.

“You ready?” he said.

“Yes,” and she even managed a small smile. “Always.”

THEY DIDN’T SPEAK
again until they’d made their way down a darkened hall to the rear of the front vestibule and an iron door that opened onto wide stone stairs leading down to the first series of tunnels. As he socked in Graves’s skeleton, he said, “There’s something I been meaning to ask. Something about what Kramer said.”