Caitlin Kittredge - The Mirrored Shard

“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—”

“After those things attacked us, the least you can do is let me talk to him,” I pleaded. I held his eyes, black and glowing as the rest of him. “Please.”

“Dammit,” he sighed. “All right, all right. I’m a sucker for a girl with a sad story.”

He went to the door and rapped hard. “Doc, it’s Chang. Your stupid ass almost let these nice people get devoured, so we’re coming in.”

“I’m in a bad way!” the doctor shouted. “Leave me alone!”

“And whose fault is that?” Chang snapped, pulling out a ring of keys and unlocking the door. “Go in,” he said to me. “But he won’t be able to help you. He can’t even help himself.”

The three of us filed in, and I almost choked. The cloying smoke was worse in here, and I could feel it land on my skin and hair, sticking to every bit of me.

At one point the room had been a warren of back offices, half walls of polished wood dividing it into four sections. Postboxes took up one wall, and green glass lamp globes hung from the ceiling like delicate sea creatures.

Two of the cubes were piled with the sort of junk that my father kept in his workshop, which was reassuring. The doctor and my father dabbled in the same sort of worlds after all, and dealt with the same sort of creatures.

One cube held an office awash in papers, crumpled, crushed, ink-stained and scattered everywhere.

The last held a lamp, a table, a cot and a man in a suit several sizes too large for him. He lay on the cot, his arm over his eyes. Empty brown bottles crowded the bedside table, and a long, carved pipe lay at his side like a loyal pet.

The smell got worse the closer I came to him, and I crouched because there was nowhere for me to sit.

“Doctor?”

“Well, I’m not President McCarthy,” he grumbled. He looked me over, and his bloodshot eyes and sunken cheeks reminded me of some of the patients at my mother’s last madhouse. Worn down, hopeless, just trying to escape into their own minds. It was a look I’d hoped never to see again.

“I need your help,” I said.

“Oh no,” said the doctor. “I’ve never heard that before. Not once, in all the time I’ve been conducting séances.”

He picked up a bottle and I caught the same bitter tang that had infused the tea Madame served us. The doctor took a swig of straight laudanum and didn’t even flinch before flopping back on the bed.

“Well, I can’t do it anymore. My Spiritualist hoodoo battery’s dead. Find someone else to commune with Great-Aunt Martha.”

He started to roll over, but I stopped him. “That’s not what I want,” I said desperately. “I know what you practice isn’t hoodoo. I need your science. I need to get to the Deadlands and bring my friend back. He’s not supposed to be dead. It wasn’t his time.”

The doctor looked at my hand, and then at me. Then he laughed, his bitter, acidic breath stinging my eyes. “The Deadlands?” he barked. “You think you’re going to just pick up your skirts and waltz in there?”

I bristled. How dare he make light of this, of what I’d lost? “Something like that,” I ground out.

“Then, girlie, you’re even dumber than you look,” he told me. “Now go away and let me sleep.” He jerked his jacket out of my grasp and rolled over. A moment later, a deep snore emanated from him.

I stood, my hands shaking. I fought the urge to grab one of the bottles and smash it across his skull. That wouldn’t help anyone, especially me.

Instead, I just left, kicking over a stack of papers as I went. They slid and slithered into the darkness that swallowed up the rest of the room.

Conrad and Cal waited for me, Conrad impatient and Cal worried. “Did he—” Cal started, but I shoved past him, through the junk and the dust, and out the door.

I collapsed on the stoop, letting the rain disguise my tears.

This was it. This was my only chance to save Dean, and it was a dead end. I should have known, given that it was information that came from my mother. Nobody else, not even my father, who I usually regarded as the smartest person I knew, could help me now.

I stayed there until I was thoroughly cold and soaked, and probably would have sat there even longer, watching the bums pick through the trash and the evening women call to one another from balconies, but the door opened and Chang came out.

He spread out an oilskin coat carefully before sitting next to me. “Told your friends you probably needed space,” he said. When I didn’t respond, he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry,” he continued. “But I did tell you.”

“You did,” I agreed. I swiped at my cheeks and sniffed hard. No need to let complete strangers know I was a blubbering mess. “So is he always this friendly or did he really take a liking to me?”

Chang chuckled and stared out at the rain. “He had an accident about a year ago. Bad one. It knocked something loose in his mind and he’s been getting worse ever since. I try to care for him when I can. I used to be his lab assistant. Hired me right out of the university. I thought he was crazy, but there aren’t many laboratories willing to hire, you know”—he made quotes with his fingers—“ ‘one of those Chinamen.’ ”