Beyond the Reflection’s Edge (45 page)

Mictar took a breath and sang again. This time, he belted out what seemed to be a tune, but it carried no real melody just a hodgepodge of unrelated notes that further thickened the air. Red mist formed along the floor, an inch deep and swirling. As Mictar sang on, the fog rose to Nathan’s shins, churning like a cauldron of blood. With the door partially open, the dense mist poured out, but it wasn’t enough to keep the flood from rising.

A security guard yanked the door wide open. With a pistol drawn, he waded into the knee-high wall of red. Dr. Gordon and Clara followed, but when the sonic waves blasted across their bodies, the guard dropped his gun, and all three covered their ears, their faces wrinkling in pain.

The window shattered. Mist crawled up the wall and streamed through the jagged opening. The floor trembled. Cracking sounds popped all around. The entire room seemed to spin in a slow rotation, like the beginning of a carousel ride.

“Nathan!” Dr. Gordon shouted. “He’s creating a dimensional hole! He’ll take us all to his domain!”

“How can he? There’s no mirror!”

“He can stretch one of the wounds that already exists.”

The spin accelerated, drawing Nathan toward the window. “How do we stop him? He’s electrified!”

Dr. Gordon staggered toward Nathan, fighting the centrifugal force, but he managed only two steps. “Neutralize his song!”

Nathan leaned toward the center of the room but kept sliding away “I don’t have my violin!”

The outer wall collapsed. Fog rolled out and tumbled into the expanse, six stories above the ground. The floor buckled and pitched, knocking everyone to their seats. While Nathan pushed to keep from being spun out of the room, the nurse’s
body slid across the tile and plunged over the edge with the river of red mist.

Too weak to fight, Nathan slipped toward the precipice. He latched on to the partitioning curtain and hung on with all his strength.

Mictar took a quick breath and sang on.

The bed’s side table bumped against Nathan’s body. The pen fell, bounced off his shoulder, and disappeared in the fog. Still hanging on to the curtain with one hand, he looked up at the wobbling table. The radio! With his free hand, he shook the supporting leg and caught the radio as it fell. With a quick twist, he turned the volume to maximum.

Now playing a Dvořák symphony, the radio blasted measure after measure of deep cellos and kettle drums. Trumpets blared. Cymbals crashed. Violins joined in and created a tsunami of music that swept through the room.

As if squeezed toward him, the mist swirled around Mictar’s body. His song weakened. He coughed and gasped, but he managed to spew a string of obscenities before finally shouting, “You haven’t seen the last of me, son of Solomon!”

The mist covered his head and continued to coil around him until he looked like a tightly wound scarlet cocoon. The room’s spin slowed, and the cocoon seemed to absorb the momentum. Mictar transformed into a red tornado and shrank as if slurped into an invisible void.

Seconds later, he vanished. Everything stopped shaking. Nathan turned off the radio and crawled up the sloping floor to where everyone else crouched. Dr. Gordon latched on to Nathan’s wrist and heaved him up the rest of the way. His voice stayed calm and low. “Well done, Nathan.”

Kelly threw her arms around Nathan from one side and Clara did the same from the other. “Don’t ever leave me alone again,” Kelly said, “not for a single minute.”

Sirens wailed. An amplified voice barked from somewhere
below, but Nathan paid no attention to the words. He just pulled his friends closer and enjoyed their embraces.

Tony, sitting on his haunches in front of Nathan, clenched his fist. “Now that’s what I call taking out the trash!”