There was a metallic groaning sound. I jumped as the monstrous metal face began to move, creaking as it spoke. “I open for no man but Gohei Katsura.” The voice rumbled through the hallway.
“Well that’s convenient,” Gabriel said. “That’s me. So open up.”
“You speak the truth and yet also you lie,” the sculpture said, its voice a metallic whine. “You are Gohei Katsura, but you are not Gohei Katsura.”
“Does any of us really know who we are?” Gabriel said offhand. “The mystery of identity and existence and all that. Come on now, we’re on a schedule here.”
“I cannot open for half of Gohei Katsura.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course he’s - ” I started to explain, but Gabriel slapped a hand over my mouth.
“Do you have a riddle or something we can solve?” he asked the sculpture instead. “That’s more traditional, yes?” He looked at me. “Why did you invent something with a mouth? This is tedious.”
“I didn’t...I don’t...” I stammered. If only Rhys was here. He could fix this.
No, Rhys wasn’t going to help me anymore. My bravado burned. That crazy woman could find Camille at any moment. My dad could be here any moment. I didn’t have time for this. “Just open already!” I snapped, my voice echoing loudly off the metal barrier.
“I only...open...for....” the sculpture tried to repeat, but the metallic voice dropped pitch and faded out. The sculpture began to twist and melt, somehow becoming even more grotesque. A more echoing groan began, that of gears turning deep within the door.
The iron door cracked open, and I beheld a stairway leading down, walls, steps, and ceiling all of iron.
“Excellent!” Gabriel said, patting my head. “Well done.” He paused at the top of the steps, looking down. “Well done,” he echoed, subdued. Then he shook his head, and began the descent.
We followed the stairs down, our footsteps ringing metallic in the near-darkness. Oil lamps hung overhead, flickering lowly.
“You should know,” he said abruptly, “now that you’ve broken the seal, that what we’re looking for is my body.”
I hesitated on the steps behind him. “What?”
“This form is...on loan,” he said, glancing back at me. “The best of a bad situation.” At the base of the stairs he paused with his hand on the latch of another iron door, with a barred window. “I’ve lived a century with a face I despise, waiting for you.” He smiled at me, but there was no warmth in it. “Once I have my real body back, and I’m fully myself again, that’s when things will get interesting for you and I. The important thing - the only thing you need to remember - is that this is the best chance she has,” he said, “I wanted to do it differently, but I ran out of time. That’s the problem with mortals,” his lips quirked. “Time. It’s not ideal, but this is the only way I could think of.”
Gabriel lifted the latch and pushed. The door swung open with a grating creak.
The soft sounds of someone stirring came from inside. “Who’s there?” a weak voice called.
My eyes widened. “There’s someone in there?” I whispered to Gabriel.
“How would the door have put it...it’s me, but it’s not me,” he said, mouth twisting, and pushed me through the thin opening.
The cellar was as large as one of the science labs at school, and every inch was made of solid iron. In the center was a cage about twenty feet square. Inside it stood a pale, haggard man with emerald green eyes and long, scraggly pine-green hair. I’d seen him before somewhere...Where had I seen him...
The look on the man’s face was pure horror as he stared at Gabriel.
“What a hell this would have been,” Gabriel said, looking around at the dark metal room. “No sun. No earth. Not a thing green or growing. I do believe I would have gone slowly insane, and withered to nothing. Maybe even died. That
The emerald eyes of the man behind the bars burned.
“I see you’ve fared a bit better than I would have,” Gabriel commented. “Found yourself a little minion, have you? Has he been bringing you little presents?” He looked at the books, magazines, and comics in neat stacks around the cell.
The man remained silent, expression guarded.
Gabriel shrugged. “Details. You know what the really disappointing thing in all this has been? Not being able to use your powers. I kept hoping I’d figure them out, but it appears that’s part of the spell. I mean, I hadn’t had time to work out all the kinks of the body switch. I’d only just discovered the spell when you sprung this stupid trap on me. It really was the back-up plan’s back-up plan. But you should be grateful the body switch represses powers. If I could use yours, well, I wouldn’t be here right now. And you probably would have gone insane if you had access to mine, trapped in this hole for a hundred years...from a certain perspective, it’s like I did you a favor.”
The man’s mouth pressed into a hard line.
“Perhaps not, you’re right,” Gabriel said with an exaggerated sigh. “The world has changed, hunter. It’s not the place it was when I left you here, if you haven’t already gathered that from your imp book club,” he said, glancing at the stacks of reading material. “The humans have forgotten us completely. They don’t believe in anything but their own ingenuity anymore. Except for a few. Your own students, in fact. The Uminos have gone far, far beyond their original purpose in your absence. I might have egged them on.” Gabriel shrugged. “Meanwhile...in the Afterlands, the Ryans are in Angwar preparing for a final war. They’ve almost closed their grip on the other kingdoms. The ferals of Farpeak are all that stand between them and total dominance. You know how those Ryans are, they just can’t ever be satisfied with what they have. But with no more traveling mirrors, we’ll be safe until another Mirrormaker gets their act together.”
My heart thumped. Rhys’s powers were problematic, but Dad had made blades of the school windows as if it were nothing. I had no idea what he was capable of, not anymore.
“So. Why am I telling you all this?” Gabriel asked the man, his voice turning cold. “What is the point of giving your enemy any information at all?” He gave a little smirk. “Because you care too damn much. Oh, wait ‘til you see what Meredith and I have been up to. You’re going to love it.”
The green-haired man’s lip curled into a snarl.
Gabriel and Meredith? Working together? What was he saying? And his tone had become so cruel, so devoid of empathy. My head swirled with information. Had I made a horrible mistake?
“She’s still around, of course. Back to murdering people left and right when the mood hits her. No one really knows how to stop her, after all.” Gabriel faked a realization. “Oh wait, you do. Well I should let you out, shouldn’t I, so you can stop her from terrorizing the villagers? Just like old times.” He lifted a long cord from around his neck - from it hung an ancient skeleton key.
The man backed up slowly, unsteadily. He eyed Gabriel with deep distrust as the key went into the cage’s padlock.
“I’m letting you out, hunter, aren’t you grateful?” Gabriel taunted.
“What’s the benefit to you?” the other man spoke at last, his voice creaky with disuse as the lock clicked open.
“You say that like I think only of myself,” Gabriel said, opening the cage door. “Can’t I just offer you a helping hand?”
He reached out and grasped the other man’s hand tightly, a rune on his palm suddenly flaring to brightness.
Swirls of energy arced between the two men - bright, stabbing bursts of acid green flowing from Gabriel to the green-haired man, and pinwheeling, icy blue whorls moving the opposite direction, almost like the energies were combating each other even as they barreled past to a new destination.
Or, if what Gabriel had said was true, an old destination.
As the energies balanced, both men collapsed. Gabriel was the first to snap awake, reaching up for the padlock, key in hand. Was he going to lock the other man back inside after all?
Then I remembered - that wasn’t Gabriel. Not anymore.
Gabriel - in his pale, starved, green-haired body, leapt at the other man, tackling him to the floor. He curled a hand around the other man’s throat. “Who am I kidding?” he said, grinning wickedly. “You know me too well.” A sickly green light pulsed under his fingers.
“No!” the man shouted, but then made choking noises even though Gabriel took his hand away. A spiky, acid
