Carrie Vaughn - Kitty's Greatest Hits

“Lydia, you must try to remember. Where did it go?”

The shadow in the mirror took on red eyes. Again and again, the claw tore through her throat, and she fell before she could make a sound. That was all she had, all she could give Amelia. The corpse, its gaze still locked on her, blinked again, and a tear slid from the outside corner of its eye, down its cheek.

Amelia sat back and clenched her hands in her lap. What was she doing here? Abusing the dead for no good purpose. She fancied herself a wizard, an arcane scholar, a demon hunter. She’d traveled the world to learn what she knew. It all should have been good for something.

She touched Lydia’s face and closed her eyes. “Sleep, Lydia. Leave this world. May the next treat you better.” In her mind, she closed the door, slid shut the bolt. The mirror was a mirror again. She snuffed the candle with her finger.

Then she heard footsteps on the porch. Perhaps Lydia had had time to scream after all.

The rumble of a carriage and horses came up from the road beyond. More steps on the porch. Her heart in her ears, Amelia was too shocked to move, so when the men opened the door, they found her kneeling by the body with blood on her hands and the occult circle drawn around her.

Cañon City, Colorado, Four Months Later

Doors, passages, worlds. A skillful magus could travel between them by his thoughts alone, or so Amelia had read. In the East she had seen orange-clad monks who could stop their own breathing by meditation and seemed to be dead, but they awoke safely.

Did she believe a person could travel between life and death? Pass through that iron door and return unharmed?

The bricks of the prison where she was housed were old enough, at least by this country’s standards. Their roots stretched into the earth. They had seen forty years of life and death. They had passages and portals the wardens did not know about. Lying on her canvas cot at night, she traveled them. She bound together a bit of candle and a lock of hair and burned them until neither remained.

Would it work?

The iron door was open wide, gaping like a mouth.

They had cut her dark hair short and put her in a poor cotton dress, a bleached gray prison uniform. They had let her keep her boots, thank God. These boots had traveled the world and were well broken in, comfortable. At least her feet were not sore. The boots would walk her to the scaffold. She could travel between worlds, but not escape a steel-barred prison. A sore irony.

The day was blustery, a wind pouring from the mountains, carrying dust and the promise of rain. For now the sky was hazy, washed out by an arid sun. A crowd of spectators had gathered, all men in proper suits and hats, hairy mustaches making their frowns seem fiercer, more judgmental. They were all no doubt horrified at what she’d done. What they thought she’d done. The bastards had no idea. They would truly be horrified if they knew what lived in the world, dime-novel monsters they could not believe.

She stood on the platform. A man tied her hands in front of her. A noose hung. Part of her wanted to look away, but part of her studied it. She had seen men hanged, but had never seen a noose from this angle, so close. The knot had been tied correctly. She had never seen a woman hanged.

Her thoughts were scattered, her mind already partway gone. Not through the door, but into a little room she had built beside the door with hair, candle, and incantation. She would fool that iron slab. Doors and rooms existed between life and death.

The candle, the hair. The light, her life.

How had it come to this? part of her wailed. Her parents had been right, she should have stayed home, married the unremarkable suit they’d put in front of her. Too late, the scientific part of her mind reprimanded. She followed this path of her own free will and she must continue on. When the path seemed to end, you blazed a new trail through the wilderness.

“Amelia Parker, you have been tried and convicted for the murder of Lydia Harcourt and sentenced to death according to the laws of the state of Colorado.”

She cleared her throat and tried not to sound nervous. Her voice came out halting anyway. “Lady Amelia Parker. I’d prefer my title entered into the records, if you please.” Her throat closed, and she swallowed. Just a little longer. Stay focused on that room beside the iron door.

“ Lady Amelia Parker, do you have any last words?”

“None whatsoever. Thank you.”

“Then may God have mercy on your soul.”

Closing her eyes, she left the scaffold. It was a strange feeling. She merely thought, Breathe out. Breathe it all out. Focus on the small symbols she had built, make them real, go there. Light, life, the room beside the door. Then she was watching a slim waif of a girl standing on the scaffold. It was her, pale and despairing. She’d hardly eaten for days and it showed. The prison dress hung limply on her. Hood over her head, rope around her neck. Still she could see. Was pleased the body did not tremble. But the executioners had to guide it into place, as if the person was no longer truly conscious.

The floor dropped with a creak and a snap, and everything went dark.

Cañon City, Colorado, The Present

Cormac took another step forward in line and tried not to think too hard. This place was built on routine, rhythm. If he let himself fall into it, the days flew by. He’d be out of here in no time, if he could keep up the rhythm and not let anything—anyone—knock him out of it. He made sure not to get too close to the guy in front of him—big guy, beefy shoulders, white, tattoo-covered—and tried not to think of the guy behind him—shorter, wiry, which probably meant he was quick—breathing down his neck. Cormac didn’t look at anyone, didn’t meet anyone’s gaze. Let himself be carried by the rhythm. He’d pick up his tray, his plastic utensils, find a place to sit where he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone, and eat to keep himself going for another day. Try not to think about the way the orange jumpsuit didn’t fit right across his shoulders, or the way this place smelled like fifty years of bad cooking.

He had his tray in hand when a shove hit his shoulder. Because he’d been expecting it, the tray didn’t go flying.

He didn’t have to look to know it was the guy behind him, the scrappy freak who’d tried to stare him down before at meals or out in the yard. It wasn’t an accident, though if Cormac confronted him the guy would say it was. More than that, he wouldn’t apologize; he’d turn it around, accuse Cormac of trying to start something, then he really would start something—a fight to knock him a few pegs down the pecking order. Cormac had seen this play out a dozen times. The black guys had their gangs, and they picked on the Latino gangs who picked on the white gangs who picked on everybody else, spouting some kind of superiority shtick, which was a riot because they were all locked up in the same cinder-block box wearing the same prison jumpsuits. Even their tattoos blurred together after a while. Cormac didn’t try to keep score.

He turned his head just enough to look at the guy, whose eyes were round, whose lips were snarly. The collar of his jumpsuit was crooked. He was bristling, teeth bared, like he was getting ready to jump him. But Cormac didn’t react. Just looked at the guy, frowning. Cold. The big mistake these jokers made was thinking Cormac cared about his rep, cared about the pecking order, wanted or even needed to join up for protection, for friendship, for some sense of belonging. Like they were all some pack of wolves, he thought with some amount of irony.

They stood like that for maybe a full minute until the next guy behind muttered, “Hey, move it.” Cormac only turned back around when the scrappy freak ducked his gaze. No need to get excited, no need to say a word. You just had to keep to yourself. He wasn’t here to make lifelong friends or be the boss of anyone.