MirrorWorld

15.

“Who’s here?” Shiloh asks, looking confused. She starts whipping her head back and forth, like people might slip into the room through the solid walls. “Is it them? They’ve come back!”

The fear building inside this woman is like nothing I’ve seen before. Her face contorts to impossible angles, twisting her beautiful face into some macabre visage of a medieval gargoyle. She hooks her fingers and rakes her nails up her legs, scratching the skin. As she lifts the johnny, revealing her thighs, I see long scars that match the new scratches. She’s done this before, and harder.

“No, no, no, no,” she repeats the word over and over as she tears at her legs.

I take her face hard in both hands. She gasps and stops. “Listen to me,” I tell her. “I will keep you safe.”

She seems to weigh the validity of this statement and comes to a verdict. With a sneer, she growls out the word, “Liar,” and then screams and flails until I let her go. “Liar!”

A shadow outside the bedroom window returns my thoughts to the impending intrusion. I would like to know how they found us, but there isn’t time for questions that neither I nor Cobb will have the answer to.

“Stay with her,” I tell Cobb. “If she hurts herself, throw the blankets over her and restrain her.”

“And if they come in?” he asks.

“They won’t be looking for you.” I pat the plastic encased syringe in my pocket.

“Right. What are you going to do?”

I give him a smile that reflects my unnatural inner calm. “Probably something crazy.”

I leave the room, lock the door, and close it behind me. Shiloh’s screams fade as I run back to the garage. I have just seconds, maybe a minute tops, before the house is infiltrated. I have no idea exactly what I’m up against, but I have little doubt they’re going to start the attack with gas, and / or flash bangs. They know what I can do. They won’t risk a fair fight.

Neither will I.

I quickly find the plastic bin labeled WINTER and tear it open. A few seconds of rummaging provides what I need: a ski mask, ski goggles, and a scarf. I run across the garage, where a pristinely maintained riding mower is parked. On the seat is a pair of noise-canceling headphones. I snatch them up and run back the way I came.

On my way to the living room, I don the ski mask, goggles and headphones. I make a pit stop at the kitchen sink. The tap runs fast and cold, quickly soaking the scarf, which I then wrap around my face three times. Movement outside the kitchen window turns my attention outside. The yard is empty, but shadows in the surrounding woods shift unnaturally.

I head into the living room, which has windows on three sides. They’ll note the movement and know I’m here, but it’s bright outside. They won’t see my alien-looking headgear.

Waiting for the action to begin, I look down at my hands, relaxed and open.

And empty.

Damn. I didn’t get a weapon. My mind picks through the garage, remembering a baseball bat, garden tools, and a number of chemicals that could have been used as improvised weapons. There are also knives in the kitchen, which is closer.

But I don’t move.

Instead, I make fists.

“I am crazy,” I whisper, and the first window shatters.

A canister punches through the kitchen window, filling the sink with shards of glass. It looks loud, but I can’t hear a thing. White smoke quickly fills the kitchen and dining room. When I see smoke swirl around me, I turn around and find a second canister behind me. It came through a living room window, and I didn’t hear it. I could pick it up and hurl it back out, but I embrace the shroud of white, protected from the chemicals now filling the home.

Breathing steadily, I wait for the second phase of the assault to start.

Windows shake. Somewhere in the house, a door has been beat down.

The floor beneath my feet shakes. Someone heavy is running through the home. Before I see him, a small object the size of a pill bottle shatters another window. I clutch my eyes shut, cover them with an arm and open my mouth. The force of the explosion slaps against my body, but it’s not enough to harm me. With my mouth open, the pressure against my lungs has minimal effect. But flash-bang grenades aren’t supposed to cause bodily harm. They attack the senses, primarily hearing and eyesight, both of which I’ve managed to shield.

I pull my arm away from my eyes just in time to see a goliath of a man set upon me. He’s dressed in all black, covered in tactical armor, and wears a gas mask over his face. I could pummel his body all day long and not do him any real harm. Curiously, he’s not carrying a weapon.

Smart, I think, and sidestep the man’s open arms. If they’d sent him in with a weapon, they would have basically been arming me. Whoever is in charge of this operation must know that.

One thing is for sure: the big man is not the brains of this outfit. Pulled past me by momentum, he careens into the heavy coffee table and snaps downward, face-planting against the couch. The cushions and armor absorb most of the impact, but he’s dazed and confused. While rumbling feet approach from behind, I casually reach down, unclip and yank the man’s headgear away. He snaps rigid, flips over, and claws at his face and throat. Whatever is in the air, it isn’t fun. He closes his eyes and falls unconscious. Not dead.

A second black shape slips out of the fog. Then a third and fourth. They come at me without hesitation, working as a group. Each is a skilled fighter, but they’ve opted to go without armor, giving them greater range of motion and superior speed while sacrificing protection, which they could use.

The first man attacks with a chop. It’s directed at my neck and would have put me down if I didn’t see it coming. I duck, but not enough to avoid impact. His hand strikes the side of my head, near the top. It’s some of the thickest, strongest bone in the human body. His fingers snap. I can’t hear his scream of pain, but he reels back, clutching the hand.

The second man leads with a punch. The fist slips past my head and leaves his midsection open. A quick knee to his gut stumbles him back.

Attacker number three stops in his tracks. At first, I think he’s taking stock of the situation or waiting for his injured teammates to collect themselves and rejoin the fight. He’s either smart or chicken. When he puts two fingers to his ears, I realize there is a third scenario. He’s receiving orders.

I have no intention of allowing him to fulfill those orders. A quick leap back plants my feet atop the coffee table. The backward motion confuses the man just long enough for me to jump forward and up. He tries to defend himself, but it’s not only too little too late, it’s a really bad idea, because I’m not throwing a punch. I’m kicking. Hard. The forearm he’s blocking with snaps. I don’t hear the sound, but I can feel it in my foot—resistance and then not. The man topples back into the haze.

His partner, the one I struck in the gut, takes his place. Punches and kicks come with brazen ferocity. But like his comrade with the broken fingers, I don’t always avoid the blows. After his seventh swing, I appear to be on the ropes, but since I feel no fear, there is no such thing. Fear is subtle that way. I only back down if I choose to, not because I’m compelled to.

A subtle shift in his stance reveals he’s about to kick. I jump back, just before he does, putting all of my weight onto the back of the living room’s reclining chair. The hard footrest swings out with the strength and weight of a giant’s foot. With one foot sailing through the air where my head should have been, the man doesn’t see the chair bottom snap out. But he sure as hell feels it when the slab of wood slams into his kneecap, repositioning it three inches above where it’s supposed to be. He drops to the floor like he’s been shot.

I stand on the chair, looking for the man with broken fingers. If he’s any kind of real fighter, the break will just slow him down. But there’s no sight of the man.

The windows all around the living room shatter. Someone shot them out.

A breeze kicks up.

The chemical fog begins to dissipate. I glance up. The ceiling fan has been turned on. Do they think fighting me in the clear will be any easier? When the haze dissipates enough for me to see the kitchen, I have my answer.

Ten men, all armed with assault rifles, fill the open-concept doorway. The red beams of their laser sights are visible in the lingering miasma. Each is locked onto my body. Behind them I see Cobb looking concerned and Shiloh, held in place by two more armored men. They seem oblivious to the fact that she’s weeping and shaking. I want nothing more than to set her free, but there isn’t any amount of fearlessness that can escape this shooting squad. So I lower my guard and wait for the mist to subside.

I allow the three injured men to limp from the room. The big man on the ground behind me is still out for the count. I turn slowly sideways, like I’m preparing to take a fighter’s stance, but keep my body relaxed. Moving slowly, I dig into my pocket.

The smallest of the armored men lowers his assault rifle and takes a step forward. He lowers his weapon and pulls off his mask.

Katzman.

He speaks. I can’t hear him, but I can read his lips. “You can still come in alive.”

I remove the headphones.

“You can still come in alive,” he repeats. “But I would prefer to kill you, so please, by all means, decline the offer.”

“You won’t kill me,” I say.

“Sure about that?” he asks.

I’m not, but there’s no way to see that on my face. “Pretty sure.” I lift the plastic syringe case in my left hand. “Because you need this.”

Katzman eyes the syringe and seems to be weighing his options. A measure of calm seeps into his eyes. He reaches out a hand. “Please. Give it to me and you can just walk away. It was a bad idea to bring you in, and I’d be happy to see you leave.”

I consider the offer. It’s a fair trade. My life in exchange for the mystery syringe. But one look at Shiloh’s face, now placid from the effects of a sedative, whittles my options down to one. With the last of her lucidity, she looks me in the eyes and mouths the words, “Find Simon.”

Simon? The name is as foreign to me as an alien world. I file it away for later and turn my attention back to Katzman, whose patience is wearing thin.

“Take it,” I say, tossing the plastic case to Katzman.

By the time he catches it, realizes it’s empty, and looks back up at me, I’ve already depressed the syringe’s stopper all the way down, emptying the liquid into my thigh. Katzman says something, but I can’t make out the words.

My mind is exploding.