The Mirrored Shard (14 page)

“You …,” I slurred, but the horrible room tilted sideways, and I felt the faint impact of my body hitting the dusty Persian carpet.

Madame approached and nudged me with one of her horror-feet. “Don’t worry, my sweet,” she intoned as black whirlpools consumed my vision. “It will all be over soon enough.”

When I woke up, I saw a much less nightmarish version of Madame Xiang standing over me. Her hair was done in short, fashionable curls. My drug-addled mind realized she’d probably been wearing a wig before.

Her makeup, too, was chic and light, though I could see a white rim where she’d wiped off the pancake stuff.

“Awake?” she said, and smiled at me. “Good. Beginning to think I gave you too much.”

I tried to stay calm and see if I was tied up. I wasn’t, but as my vision cleared I saw that Fang stood in front of the only door, arms folded, staring at me impassively. I didn’t see anyone else, and hoped that Conrad and Cal had fared better than I had with the drugged tea. I still felt as if I were seasick on the deck of a ship.

“You …,” I started, but then thought better of it. She was fully aware of what she’d done, and I didn’t have the strength to be righteously angry. Mostly, I was just relieved that I wasn’t back among the Proctors.

“I’ve got good news,” Madame Xiang said, “and I’ve got bad news.” She was still wearing the robe, but she moved normally, and I saw that the bound feet were prosthetic, an illusion furthered by the folds of her robe.

“Good news,” she said. “You and your friends are young and strong. That means Fang won’t just dump you in the bay, or leave you to wander out into the street in a haze and get rolled for your vital organs. There are degenerates out there, you know.”

“And the bad news?” My mouth felt like cotton and my mind felt like someone had used it for batting practice. I wondered what could be coming if
that
was the good news. I didn’t like the way Madame was looking at me, but there was nothing I could do. I was weak and dizzy, and I knew from when Nerissa used laudanum to help her sleep that it took hours to wear off.

“The bad news,” Madame said, patting her curls, “is that none of you have any money. So I’m going to have to make back the time I took with you some other way.”

She gave me a nudge and a sweet, motherly smile. “What were you thinking coming to the Boneyard with no money, dear? It’s positively silly.”

“I …” I licked my lips, trying to work some feeling back into my face. “I didn’t want a reading. I want Crawford—the Death Doctor.”

“That sad drunk?” said Madame. “Why on earth does a sweet girl like you want him?” She stood, removing the robe and revealing a smart narrow-skirted day dress, stockings and subtle gold jewelry. She stepped into black pumps and affixed a small white hat to her hair.

“I lost … someone,” I said. I rolled my eyes around, but I didn’t see Cal or Conrad. I heard a snore, though, and that made me feel a bit better. At least one of them was still alive.

“Oh?” Madame paused, taking her hat back off. “I was going to go meet with the leader of our tong to negotiate a price for the three of you, but now I’m interested. You’re actually going to attempt the doctor’s journey?”

“I have to go to the Deadlands,” I muttered, squinting against the glare of the lights. They seemed to grow brighter with each passing second. “I have to get Dean.” The filter that kept me from blurting things out and that connected sentences was broken, that was for sure.

“And who is Dean?” Madame said, sitting back down. Even Fang seemed interested.

“I love him,” I said. “It’s my fault he’s dead.”

Madame patted me. “I’m sure that’s not true, dear. You’re far too young to be causing misery.”

“I’m the destroyer,” I told her earnestly. I couldn’t shut myself up. Damn these drugs. “I’m Aoife Grayson. I blew up the Engine and I made the world end.”

“Goodness,” said Madame. “I thought that selling you to the tongs would be a great fall, but you’re already as low as you can go.”

She said something to Fang, and he shrugged.

“Old Ones return,” she sighed. “I might be getting soft in my old age, but I’ll take you to the doctor, if you promise me one thing in exchange.” Her playful smile was nowhere in evidence.

“Sure,” I said, feeling incredibly expansive. Why didn’t I do more favors for people I barely knew? I had no idea. The laudanum certainly didn’t.

“If this actually works,” Madame said, “you find my brother and you give him a message for me.” She looked away. “He died on the crossing from Hong Kong. Jammed in steerage. He was always a delicate one.”

“What should I tell him?”

“Tell him I’m sorry,” Madame said. “But it was him or me.”

She snapped her fingers at Fang. “Get them something to wake them up,” she said, “and then bring the car around.” She looked back at me, and I was aware enough now to feel a chill at her perfect but perfectly blank smile.

“Our young lady here has an appointment with the Death Doctor.”

To Speak with Spirits

M
ADAME
X
IANG
’
S JITNEY
was a long Packard that belched steam from under the hood like a dragon as Fang maneuvered it through the crowded streets.

“Do you do this a lot?” I asked Madame. Cal, Conrad and I were crammed in the back while she sat up front. “Drug and rob people?”

“Only the gullible ones,” she said. “I am quite an accomplished medium. My husband and I help the tong often.” She gestured as people leaped out of our way. “I think my abilities scare them quite a lot.”

We rode another few feet in silence, and then Madame turned to me. “And what about you?” she said. “I hear the destroyer has some fearsome abilities of her own.”

“That’s just a story,” I said curtly. I wasn’t about to get into it with a robber medium who worked with a criminal gang. I didn’t want this woman to know I had the ability to
push aside the very fabric of space and time. I was sure the leader of her tong would love the chance to travel via Gate between the worlds.

As the Packard made its way inch by inch through the crowds, the streets went from rutted to mud to barely there, and the character of the Boneyard changed. Where before the streets had been crowded and smelly but vibrant, now people hunched under overhangs, or peered through windows, faces half-obscured by the night.

A rain started, battering the Packard’s roof, and the tidal stench from the mud in the streets smothered all of my senses. Cal coughed and I felt bad for him. It had to be ten times as bad with a ghoul nose.

The houses got worse, too—broken windows, boarded-over doors, women in scant clothing beckoning from upstairs balconies while sharp-faced men guarded the doors and watched the Packard pass, licking their lips with a sort of hunger that made me nervous

At last, we came to a stop, in front of a narrow Victorian row house with a sign across the front announcing it was the Fu Long Junk Shop.

“This is it,” Madame said. She lit a cigarette in a long jade holder and waited for Fang to get out and open an umbrella. “Stay close to me,” she said. “This is the part of Chinatown the
gwai lo
don’t come to. Nobody likes you here.”

“Well, I’m not too fond of the smell, so I suppose we’re even,” Conrad muttered.

Madame regarded him with a raised eyebrow. “You’ve got a sharp tongue, boyo,” she said. “It’d be a shame if someone were to slice it out.”

In spite of the nerves I felt prickling all over my skin, into my mind, down to the deepest spots where my Weird lived, I smiled a little. I couldn’t help but like Madame. She might have been a charlatan and a gangster, but she clearly didn’t give a whit what anyone thought. I’d always wished I could be that straightforward, and let go of the residual fear of saying the wrong thing and inviting scrutiny from teachers or Proctors or whoever was listening.

I climbed out of the car after her and we crossed the street, mud squelching in my boots, and mounted the steps of the shop. Madame rang the bell, jabbing at the enamel button with one of her perfect nails.

After what seemed like hours, as the people in the shadows stared holes in our backs and I waited for one of them to try and follow it up with a knife, I heard clockwork grinding. The door opened, just a crack.

Madame stepped aside and gestured. “I don’t go any farther. A sign of respect—we don’t cross each other’s territories.”

She looked up and down the street, and back to where Fang stood glaring beside the Packard. “In my part of town, the tongs keep order, but around here it’s lawless. Triad country, bad men from Hong Kong and other places. And Doctor Death is the worst of them.” She regarded me, smoke catching raindrops and turning them silver around her head. “You sure you still want this, dear?”

I nodded, looking at the storefront as Conrad and Cal joined me. Cal gave my shoulder a squeeze. “I’m sure,” I said.

“Whoever this Dean is, I hope he’s worth it,” Madame
said, and tripped back to the dry, warm cover of the Packard.

“He is,” I said, as I stepped over the threshold. I didn’t know much for sure, but I knew that.

Inside the shop, junk was piled to the ceiling, and shadows seemed to move and curl on their own.

I thought of Fae creatures like the strix owl that could shadow a person in darkness, appearing and disappearing at will. I thought of the clockwork ravens employed by the Proctors, with their glowing eyes that saw and transmitted everything they flew over back to their masters.

Neither thought helped me take a step forward.

Cal came to my shoulder and inhaled deeply. “Nobody in here,” he said.

I cast around, and saw a green light emanating from the back room. “This way,” I whispered. I didn’t know why I was being so quiet, but it seemed appropriate.

The shadows followed us, and I did my best to tell myself they weren’t really moving, weren’t really alive. Still, my heart skittered in my chest.

The green light was spilling out around the edges of a crooked door and its wavy glass window.

I raised a hand and knocked softly. “Hello?”

“Go away.” The voice that came from within, rather than a baritone or a spectral growl, didn’t sound all that much different from my brother’s.

“Excuse me,” I said, “but we need to speak with you, Doctor.”

I heard a sigh from inside, a long inhale and exhale. An odd, sweet smell tickled my nostrils. It was cloying, almost sticky, and Cal coughed again.

“I said go away,” the voice said again. “The doctor is out. He can’t help you.”

“I lost someone,” I said softly. “You’re the only one who can help me. I know it’s a terrible imposition, but I really do need to speak with you.”

Deciding I had nothing to lose, I put my hand on the knob and twisted. Instantly, I heard a sound like a hundred rats rushing through the piles of junk, the patter and chitter of tiny feet and teeth.

“I said,” the voice snarled, and now it sounded more like the mad scientist I’d imagined,
“go away!”

Conrad let out a yelp, and at the same moment I felt cold rushing up my legs and arms, all over my bare skin.

The shadows flowed over me, into my mouth and nose, cutting off my air and my voice.

It hadn’t been my imagination. They were alive, these things that looked like patches of darkness. Two-dimensional and velvety, they hissed in my ear, chattered in voices too high to understand, and screamed as they wound skeletal fingers through my hair.

We all fell, and I knocked my head against one of the junk piles. The shadows laughed as they consumed the three of us, and just before my air ran out I heard the voice of one in my ear.

He who waits, he who watches, strips your skin, strings your teeth …

Another voice exploded in my ears, giving a loud command
in a language I didn’t know, and the shadows gave a disappointed cry before they skittered back into the mountains of junk.

Hands sat me up, checked my bloody head, and shined a light in my eyes. I flinched and swatted at it.

“Well, you’re alive,” said the voice. It was young but rough, as if the owner had seen more in a short time than he had voice to tell. “But on the other hand, you’re here. What do you think you’re doing, silly girl?”

“I need the doctor,” I groaned. “I lost someone.…” My head was ringing, and my vision swam, but I picked out the face staring at me. I thought he was a vision for a moment, or a Fae, so perfect were his features.

Then he frowned, and the illusion broke. He was human. Delicate-featured and stunningly handsome, but human. The sort of face you expected to see glowing out at you from a lantern reel, not helping you up from a dirty floor in a bad part of town.

“Dr. Crawford’s not seeing anyone,” he said. He went over to a switch and aether hissed, illuminating two globes in a six-globe lamp overhead.

“He has to,” I said desperately. “I need him more than you can possibly know.”

The boy, who despite his authoritative tone didn’t look any older or wiser than me, hesitated as Cal and Conrad got up and brushed themselves off. “Look,” he said. “I’m sorry about all this—”