Successors (33 page)

“What just happened?” Cori asked.

Belus returned the Ethan and grabbed at him, but his hands separated into disjointed images.

He looked at his hands away from Ethan and they were fine. As he reached to touch Ethan, his hands separated into dozens of jagged pieces like the replications in a broken mirror.

“Ethan has fragmented. His mind, his body, and his energies are shattered—ripped apart by me worming my way in. If he manages to finish you off, he’ll return to his former self, with the addition of a hefty broken heart.”

Cori’s hands slipped on the glass, feeling her hope slip away. Belus whipped around and looked at the mirror with a scowl on his face. For a moment she thought he might see her, so she banged on the glass again. “Belus! I’m here!”

“He can’t see you,” the reflection enlightened her. “Right now he is just figuring out how stupid he was for not recognizing the gigantic mirror as a potential problem. Not that he really would have. I exude an innocuous atmosphere wherever I go.”

“You son of a bitch.” Cori lunged at him. If Belus couldn’t save her, she might as well save herself. Her efforts had high expectations, but the outcome was lacking in climax. She fell through his image much the same as Belus did with the real Ethan.

“It’s a waste of energy. You're only a reflection.”

“I'm the reflection.” Cori scooped herself off the floor.

“Yup. Soon after your death, the remainder of your essence will be drawn into the mirror with me. You'll be trapped. Forever.”

“Why? Why are you doing this?”

“I'm a mirror demon. It's kind of my thing.”

“But why? Are you evil? Or just an asshole?”

“Everything in the universe craves something. Some crave food. Some crave blood. Some crave the fear and self loathing of others.”

“You need pain to live?” she asked.

“No, I just need it to enjoy living.” He laughed manically.

68

Danato wasn’t one for believing in precognitive ability, even though a good number of his prisoners were psychic. However, when the alarms went off, he seemed to know that it had something to do with Ethan and Cori.

He raced out of his office to the gym, where the alarm pitch indicated the problem would be. Somewhere in his office was his cane, but he didn’t have time to acknowledge his pain. When it really counted, he could block it out, even if he did pay for it tenfold after.

When he reached the gym, he did a quick assessment of the scene. Ethan was straddling Cori's unconscious body, his hands on her neck. The guards had already arrived and were facing away from the assault. Belus was frantically pointing. “Shoot the mirror!”

The guards didn’t question the order. They were happy to shoot anything that wasn’t human. They positioned themselves before the mirror and the lead man gave a grunt more appropriate to hiking a football. The men locked their rifles into their shoulders and prepared to fire on the mirror.

“STOP!” Danato’s voice boomed through the gym.

The guards holstered their weapons in unison. Belus looked over at Danato, prepared to object, but then stopped as he realized his error.

“It's too late!” Shooting the mirror would only destroy the portal. If Cori was unconscious, she was already inside of the mirror. She would be stuck there without any hope of extraction. As it was, if they didn't resuscitate her soon, she could get trapped between the mirror and her body. She would be left in a perpetual coma. 

Belus let out a growl for his sluggishness mind. “Mirror!” he yelled, already running toward Danato at the entrance.

“The kitchen!” Danato shared his epiphany and ran out the door ahead of him.

With long limping strides, Danato fought through his pain to gain the speed he needed. Just down the hall from the gym, he pushed past the swinging doors of the cafeteria kitchen. His abrupt arrival shocked the stout flour-covered women within. “We need a mirror!” he shouted.

“Anything reflective,” Belus amended as he arrived behind him.

The women scrambled about to find something. They started picking up cookie sheets and stainless steel bowls, but they were all scratched, or greased and floured.

Finally, one woman let out a eureka shout and ran to the cupboard. She pulled out a long rectangular box. “Tin foil!” she yelled and tossed the box to Belus, who in turn tossed it to Danato.

He leapt out the door in a dead sprint, his limp temporarily abated with the help of pure adrenaline. When he got back to the gym, he pulled the foil roll from the box and called a guard to hold the other end. They pulled it out across the length of Ethan’s body and set it beside him. In the loose reflection, Ethan’s image was strangling Cori, just as in the other reflection.

The guards lined up, blocking the far mirror so all that was reflecting Ethan was the tin foil. As the spell broke, Ethan looked at his true reflection, the reflection that showed him murdering Cori.

“Now!” Danato yelled.

Three guards toppled onto Ethan, pushing him off Cori and pinning him down. Three more began doing CPR on her. Danato stared down at her lifeless body and blue lips, calculating the minutes she had without oxygen. It seemed much too long.

69

From within the mirror, Cori cheered as she watched the men save her. She gave Ethan’s reflection an
in your face
look before returning her attention to her rescue. Belus and Danato stood back, letting the guards do their CPR. She hadn’t realized how well-trained they all were until then. They must have had their comrades put in danger often, to be so organized in such complete chaos. She started to understand why it was so important for the men to respect their leader. You would have to be someone particularly special to lead them.

Her stomach knotted as he heard them say they couldn’t find her pulse. She just assumed that she would be saved. Wasn’t that how it worked? CPR magically brings everyone back to life.
Right?

“Oh, I just hate this part!” Ethan's reflection clenched his fists. “Will she? Won't she? How long can the brain go without oxygen?”  

Cori watched Ethan struggled against his captors, not in anger, but concern. He looked to each of them as they held him back, begging them to tell him what he had done. One of the men flanking him repositioned his hand so he could squeeze his shoulder, but he looked away when Ethan’s eyes begged him for answers.

“
What's the technical definition of death anyway?” The reflection asked knitting his hands excitedly.

Cori could see the guards were getting increasingly more frustrated the longer the worked on her. They searched for a pulse and checked for breathing between rounds.

“
Is it when the heart stops or when brain function stops? Oh, I can't take this drama!”

“Shut up you idiot! If I have to spend eternity with you, I will find a way to kill you!”

Finally, one of guards picked her up her body and barked for the others to hold the door for him. He carried her out of the gym, taking a bevy of men with him to clear the path. She assumed they were taking her body to the infirmary where the doctors and nurses could stabilize her with more aggressive methods.

Cori placed her hands on the window as if she might be able to step out of the mirror and chase after her body. Her hands were starting to look translucent. She looked at Ethan’s reflection. He frowned at her, confirming her hopes. She was being called back to her body. “Ha!” she mocked him. “Seeing that look on you face is making my life worth living.”

While she waited for her exit, she watched the remainder of the scene play out through the mirror. Danato looked sad—even sadder than she would have anticipated. She knew he had a soft spot for her, but she was getting a glimpse of what he really felt.

Belus looked downtrodden, but in an entirely different way. He was looking at the mirror and shaking his head, as if he had just wrecked Dad’s car and was waiting for him to arrive and bitch him out. She hadn’t had much interaction with him, but she got the impression that whether
Daddy
bitched him out or not, he was going to be kicking himself for this mistake for a long time.

Danato limped over to Ethan. His leg must have hurt, because he winced with each step. He stopped in front of him and motioned for the guards to release him. Instead of rising, Ethan groveled in front of Danato, as an abject servant to his king.

“Is she…” Ethan looked up, trying to find his answers with Danato. Ethan’s eyes were blanketed by tears.

If Cori had been surprised by Danato’s reaction to her potential death, she was floored by Ethan’s. He looked like she imagined she looked after Vince died.

He’s dead.

Was that possible? Could he have felt that strongly about her?

“Danato…” Ethan wasn’t fully able to voice his questions or remorse, but there were no equivocal sentiments in the room. Danato reached out a hand to Ethan.

Belus took another step forward from the other side of the room in case he needed to protect him from Danato. Ethan took his hand and stood.

Ethan had shot up nearly two inches since his arrival at the prison, lessening the difference in height with Danato, but today, the shame bending his back and lowering his head left Danato towering over him once again.

“I wouldn’t…” Ethan tried to explain. “I love her. You know that.” Cori felt her heart clench. It wasn’t anything she hadn't suspected, but it was the first time she believed it might have been more than his hormones talking. She didn’t know how to deal with that statement.

“I know,” Danato said softly. He lifted Ethan’s chin to look at him and then embraced him. Ethan held onto him like he was the only thing saving him from falling off a cliff. Danato’s monstrous hand patted his back and he mumbled something that sounded remarkably consoling.

Cori was surprised by that. She had expected no less than a voluminous rage from Danato. She thought he would be spouting out the errors of his ways, but he wasn’t. She should have realized that in the nine months of her absence Danato would have changed too. They were less like employer and employee, and more like father and son.

The image faded away, and she realized it was her slipping away, back to her body.

70

Danato arrived home to a darkened house. The sun was just setting, leaving the house in a pink glow. He had spent the remainder of the day checking into the mirror that was in the gym. Belus had given him continued updates on Cori, mostly because he recognized his concerns, but also he suspected Belus felt guilty about not questioning the mirror earlier.

Danato wasn’t sure why he hadn’t investigated the arrival of the mirror. Mirror people had the ability to broadcast benign intentions even as they plotted evil deeds in the mind. It wasn’t unheard of that Belus had simply been influenced by the mirror. In any case, he wasn’t mad… at anyone. Except perhaps himself.

The mirror had no effect on Danato since he had never been exposed to it. So, what was
his
excuse for not recognizing Ethan’s behavioral changes? Cori and Ethan had always had issue with one another. They bickered and bitched like siblings. They chided each other like an old married couple. However, the last few weeks his behavior to her had been hostile.

As easy as it would be to blame Belus for the event, it was Danato who had lived with Ethan for over a year. He should know him better than anyone. He should have recognized the danger and dealt with it immediately.

Danato found Ethan in the dark house, sitting with his head down on the dining room table. He looked up at Danato with sallow eyes. He couldn’t tell in the dark, but he knew the whites must have been bloodshot.

He stood up, eager to hear the news. Danato had sent him home shortly after the incident. He let him know that they had gotten her breathing again, but he hadn’t called in any further reports to him. He wasn’t intending to be cruel, but he thought it was important that Ethan feel the full ramifications of his deceit.

“Your friend Duke has taken full responsibility for the mirror,” Danato said. Ethan’s eyes pulled away as he finally realized where the core of the incident started. “He was unaware the mirror had any power. I’m not going to charge—”

“How is she?” he asked impatiently.

Danato took a moment to hang up his coat before answering. “The physical damage is reparable. I imagine we will see her up and about in a day or two. The nurses are insisting we leave her be to rest tonight. Belus and I are planning to visit her in the morning. We will offer her an explanation regarding your actions, and express how mortified you are. We decided, however, that you should wait to see her until she is back on her feet. Can you accept that?”

“Yes, if you think that’s best.”

“We both do.” Danato continued to speak for both Belus and himself, as if having the majority vote would make the advisement sting less. Then Danato headed to his room.

“Don’t you blame me for this? Aren’t you going to punish me?”