MirrorWorld

43.

Heads shift about randomly, a mix of dark hair and darker-colored abayas. There’s no pattern to the clogged marketplace, just movement as thousands of people buy, sell, and steal for their families. They don’t call the Chor Bazaar the “thieves market” for nothing. There are as many stolen goods being sold as there are pickpockets working the crowd.

My view is from far above the action, a half mile away and sixteen stories up, on the roof of a hotel that provides a line of sight straight down Mutton Street, right in the middle of Muslim-populated Mumbai, India.

I scan the street, looking for my target, who should be easy to spot, despite the fact that all I can see are heads. And motorcycles. Cars won’t fit up the narrow street with all the people, so the vehicle of choice in this part of the city is of the two-wheeled variety. Except for the black BMW parked across the street from the used-instruments shop. It sticks out as obviously as my target will.

“There you are,” I whisper, as a blond woman steps out of the music shop. She has an edge to her. A seriousness that, despite her age and aquiline beauty, says she’s not someone with whom to trifle. Too bad for her; trifling is kind of my job.

I put her head in my crosshairs as she speaks to someone still in the shop.

The dossier I received said she runs a human-trafficking ring, smuggling women out of India and into the Middle East. But she recently expanded her business and now smuggles arms to a variety of terror organizations. Bad career move.

It’s a hard shot. Her head, while squarely focused at the center of my crosshairs, is occasionally blocked by a passerby. I could pull the trigger only to have someone step in front of the bullet.

But this doesn’t frighten me. If the bullet does strike someone else first, the high-caliber round will pass straight through the unfortunate’s head and still find its target. Ignoring everything but my target, I slip my finger behind the trigger, exhale, and squeeze.

“Do you, Josef Shiloh, take Maya Lyons to be your lawfully wedded wife, promising to love and cherish, through joy and sorrow, sickness and health, and whatever challenges you may face, for as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” I say.

The words come fast. Fearless. I love the woman standing across from me. She’s perfect, and I make the promise with no concern about later breaking it.

The minister turns to Maya and smiles. Who couldn’t smile at a woman like this? She’s strong and sharp, like a sword, but also soft and gentle in a way I’ve never experienced. Her black hair, spilling from a bun in curly loops, looks even darker against the stark white of her wedding gown. She smiles at me, and I want this day to be over so the night can begin.

“Do you, Maya Lyons, take Josef Shiloh to be your lawfully wedded husband, promising to love and cherish, through joy and sorrow, sickness and health, and whatever challenges you may face, for as long as you both shall—”

“I do,” she says.

“She can’t even wait for me to finish the question,” the minister jokes, getting a laugh out of the full church. I glance to my parents. My mother’s tears are matched only by those of Aunt Allenby. They hold hands, sisters-in-law who seem more like two halves of the same soul.

Uncle Hugh gives me a thumbs-up, a far less traditional man than my father. Speaking of my father, he actually looks proud, wearing his black kippah hat emblazoned with the Star of David so everyone knows the gentile woman is marrying a Jew. He will welcome religious arguments after the ceremony, but for now he’s happy to be happy.

I clap my hands together and rub them in anticipation. “Okay, who’s got the rings?”

Hanging upside down for any length of time is a fairly uncomfortable affair. Hanging upside down for four hours, inside the ventilation system of a penthouse, sixty-eight stories above Ramat Gan, Israel, is nearly unbearable. But I do it in silence, waiting patiently for the whores in the bedroom below to finish their job. My target lies between them, moaning like a wounded mule.

And then, he’s done. Wants nothing more to do with the women. Shoos them out of the room like he never asked them there in the first place.

I don’t know much about the man, other than that he has close associations within Al-Qaeda, and someone in the company wants him dead, immediately, and disappeared for three days. I don’t know why. I don’t care.

The man stumbles around, mumbling about the whores’ lack of abilities and attractiveness. I nearly laugh when I realize he’s speaking to his own nether regions, which apparently hadn’t performed as hoped. All that mewling was a show, but for whom? The women are no doubt having a good laugh at his expense right about now.

He wanders around the room, clearly drunk and pouring himself another glass. For a man with ties to Al-Qaeda, he’s the worst example of a good Muslim I’ve ever seen. He curses toward the door, his accusatory hand sloshing the drink.

He gasps. Stands suddenly still.

Has he detected me? The air-conditioning flowing past me shouldn’t carry a scent. I’m too careful for that.

No, I decide, it’s them. They’re here. Making my final job a little more difficult. I never had a problem with what I do, or keeping the details a secret from Maya. But in the year since the birth of my son, I’ve had an increasingly difficult time believing that being an assassin, government sanctioned or not, is an acceptable job choice for a father.

So I’m taking care of this last job, retiring from my life as a killer, and joining Neuro Inc., Lyons’s CIA-funded black organization, to help study the creatures I suspect are currently in the room below.

I’m not going in with blinders on. I’ve been part of enough black ops before. Lyons—whose military background and employment at DARPA have been covered up well enough that even my friends in the CIA couldn’t find anything substantial—has given me a way out of this line of work, and I appreciate it. More than that, I’m convinced, like Lyons, that the Dread are a greater and growing threat that needs to be addressed. For the first time since Maya and I married, her father and I have a common interest beyond fishing.

The trick is that the Dread also seem to be interested in me. Lyons thinks it’s because they have no effect on me. Whether or not he’s right, I do see their influence while working. Sometimes they go after my target. Sometimes they disrupt the scene. Sometimes they reveal themselves to me, trying their damnedest to get my knees quivering. This should probably unnerve me, but Lyons believes it gives us a better shot of studying them. My new job description might as well be “bait.”

A shadow flits through the room. My target spins with a yelp as the Dread work him up. Assholes, I think. They’re going to draw attention and delay the op or, worse, send him out the window.

The man drops his glass and bends to pick it up.

A monster flickers in and out of reality, hovering on wings, its four red eyes locked onto the man. When he turns around, my op will be ruined.

What are you? I think, and then drop.

The square ceiling vent clangs open. The man snaps to attention, not thinking to look up. As I descend behind him, I position a noose above his head with one hand and flip off the monster with my other, which is also holding the pulley system’s remote. The Dread flickers and disappears. I slip the noose around the man’s neck and push a button on the remote.

The noose snaps tight as the line is yanked up by the pulley bolted to the inside of the air duct. While the man gurgles and kicks, just two feet from the floor, I unclip from the carabiners holding me upside down and take out a hundred-foot-long roll of plastic wrap. Like a spider, I spin the dying man around, wrapping him in layer upon layer of clear plastic.

In the time it takes him to die, I’ve got him fully wrapped in plastic, head to toe. When he’s done wriggling, I push a button on the remote. The man is lifted into the vent. Once he and the line that had been holding me are inside the ceiling, a thin line attached to the vent cover retracts, pulling it back into place.

Dead and disappeared. That’s how it’s done.

Between the cold air from the air-conditioning and the plastic wrap, the room shouldn’t smell like death for a few days, and, even then, most people won’t think to check the ceiling vent. I pick up an old room-service tray, pile on some plates, and head for the door. Before leaving, I turn the thermostat down and take a look back. There isn’t a hint of the Dread, but I don’t think it’s actually gone. Just hidden. I flip it the bird one more time and leave next week’s crime scene, and my career as an assassin, behind.

“Daddy!” The kid runs like a wide receiver and hits like a linebacker, despite being eight years old and sixty-five pounds. The tackle turns into a hug as Simon, whose undying affection for me is dwarfed only by his never-ending reserve of energy, wraps his arms around my waist and squeezes. I return the embrace and lift him off the ground, spinning him in a circle before depositing him back to the oriental rug in our home’s foyer.

“How was school?” I ask.

“Boring,” he says. “Duh.”

“Duh?” I reach to tickle him but stop when the door upstairs slams shut. I look at Simon. “Where’s your mother?”

“In the basement,” he says.

We both look up. “That been happening more often?”

He nods. “Kitchen cabinets, too. And cold spots in the house. I don’t go in the basement anymore.” He pretends to shiver. “Are you sure it’s not ghosts?”

While I am most definitely sure it’s not ghosts closing doors, making rooms chilly, and turning nights into nightmares for Simon, I’m not about to tell him what it really is. Ghosts would be preferable to the Dread, who have been harassing my family for months. In a few days, it won’t matter. We’ll be living in the Neuro apartment full-time. We would be already if the moving company hadn’t screwed up the scheduling. Not that it’s all bad. We weren’t ready anyway. Boxes waiting to be filled litter the house. Maya’s not happy about the move. Doesn’t know about the Dread, and so my fabricated reasoning—closer to work, to family, and free—doesn’t make a lot of sense. She wants a normal childhood for Simon, but what kid wouldn’t want to live in a top-secret laboratory? She’ll understand when Lyons gives me the green light to tell her everything. “I told you before: the house is drafty. If you’re feeling cold air, that’s why.”

He rolls his eyes. “It’s okay if you’re afraid of ghosts. I won’t tell anyone.”

“You won’t?” I say, reaching out to tickle him again. He shrieks as my fingers find his belly.

Maya appears in the doorway, frying pan in one hand, knife in the other. She’s panicked. On edge. She sees me and lowers her weapons. “Dammit!”

“You swore!” Simon shouts, still laughing.

“Sorry, baby,” I say, and kiss her cheek. She’s been on edge these past few weeks. The Dread taunting is getting to her. Moving will be a good thing.

“I wasn’t expecting you for another hour,” she says.

“I know…”

“But?”

“I have to go back in. Going to be a late night. We’re close to a breakthrough.”

“And then maybe you’ll tell me what you two have been working on?”

“That’s up to him,” I say.

“You’re my husband!”

“And he’s your father, and my boss.” I want to tell her she’s safer not knowing, but that will just make her feel less safe. I suspect that’s the reason why Dread activity in our home has remained docile for the most part. They know I can’t be affected, and they tend to leave the ignorant alone. Until they don’t.

Simon leaves the room, sprinting through the living room.

“I don’t feel safe here,” Maya whispers. “It’s getting weird. Seriously. You know I’m not one to cry ghost, but—”

I point in Simon’s direction. “Did you tell him that?”

“No!” She’s still whispering, but on the verge of not. “You know I wouldn’t. He’s having enough trouble sleeping.”

“Look,” I say, putting on my perfectly calm smile. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

Her laugh is brief and sarcastic. “Easy for you to say.”

I take her face in my hands. “You’re safe.”

“Promise?”

I kiss her lips. “I promise.”

Grass tickles the back of my neck. I smell lilacs. The sky above is nearly intolerably blue, the late-afternoon sun low on the horizon, deepening the tone. Spring has arrived, at last, and I’m at the park with Maya and Simon. I can’t see him, but I can hear him chirping away and laughing when Maya tickles his belly with her nose. The past six months have been transformative for me. I’ve been so accustomed to taking life and watching death that being part of the formation of something new, alive, and delicate never occurred to me as something worth pursuing.

But here I am, lying in the grass, hands behind my head, enjoying… everything.

Simon’s face hovers over mine, the wetness around his smiling, toothless mouth threatening to drip down on me.

“Dadu,” Maya says, doing her imitation of what Simon would sound like if he could talk, wiggling him back and forth. “Dadu, you must hold me now. Hold me, Dadu. Mamma wants to lie down.”

I reach up and take the boy, holding him above me while Maya lies down beside me and snuggles in.

I’m still getting used to all this. I’m not a natural with babies. With gentleness. At first, I pretended he was nitroglycerin. Shaken too hard, he would explode. But I got better at holding him. I treated his dirty diapers like live mines and learned how to disarm the worst of his bombs. But the silly-voice strangeness that possesses most people when holding a child is still foreign to me. I haven’t mastered it yet, but I try, and his smile helps.

“Who’s a funny boy?” I say, lowering him to my face so our noses touch for a moment. Then I lift him back up and repeat. Repetition seems to be the key to eliciting a laugh. They don’t usually find humor in something the first two or three times, but after that each repetition gets a bigger reaction. I repeat the up-and-down motion, saying, “Who’s a funny boy?” three times before he squeals with delight, kicking his legs and flapping his arms, saying, “Ooh, ooh, ooh!” Then he stops, wide-eyed, and turns to watch a dog walk past with its owner, that openmouthed smile locked in place.

While he watches the dog, I turn to his mother and find her eyes just inches from mine. I kiss slow and gentle, interlocking our lips. I hang there for a moment, feeling a crazy kind of closeness that I now share with two people. When we part, I say, “Thank you.”

“The kiss was that good?” she asks.

“For him,” I say, glancing up to Simon, who’s once again trying to fly away as he says “Ooh, ooh, ooh!”

“You helped. A little.” She squeezes my arm, and in that moment I decide I’ve had enough killing. Enough fighting. I might not be afraid to die, but there is no way I want to risk not being around for Simon or Maya. Her father hinted that Neuro might have a place for me. As a fellow company man, he knows what I do, more than Maya does, and if he says I can leave behind my days of violence, I might just take him up on it.

I turn back up to Simon. He’s somehow managed to grab a fluffy white dandelion. He blows on it twice, mimicking what he’s seen Maya do several times already, and then stuffs the thing into his mouth. He looks down at us, a little shocked when his open mouth is suddenly full of clinging debris. The smile fades and tears quickly come. Laughing, Maya and I sit up, working together to clear the dandelion bits from his mouth, while distracting him from the confusing feeling ratcheting him up to a high-pitched scream.

Most of my career, I’ve worked solo, depending on myself more than anyone else. Now, I’m part of a team, and it feels right. More right than anything before it.

With the dandelion cleared away, I lift the crying boy and stand. I put him on my chest, lean his small head on my shoulder, and do what Maya calls the “daddy bounce,” shifting my weight side to side while gently bobbing up and down. Simon quiets quickly. I kiss the back of his head and look down at Maya. She’s got tears in her eyes. Whispers, “I love you.”

I wake suddenly, sitting up in bed. “Maya?”

I’m in a hospital. “Maya?”

She’s not here.

This isn’t a memory. I’m awake. Back at Neuro in the present. I only remember bits and pieces of my previous life, of Maya, but it’s enough.

They have her. My wife. My son’s mother. And I’m going to get her back.