deliberately … twisted.
Behind Irina’s eyes, within her rigid body, I’m shivering into a billion pieces as I reach out for that strange, dissociative state in which I seem capable of anything.
Felipe’s and Gia’s voices, the contours, textures and colours of the real world, begin to bleach out as I dissolve inwards, fade down, even though concrete reality is in evidence everywhere around me — in the seated figure to my right lifting the teacup to her purple-stained mouth, in the museum-quality furnishings, the lovely costly floral arrangements that already smell, to me, as if they are in a state of advanced decay. My perspective grows hazy and the room, the voices, seem to stretch and warp in different directions around me as if time, space, light, sound, all can yield, all can bend.
And I know that it’s happening again, that I’m actually pulling it off, and it’s no accident. I’m beginning to atomise. I’m following the linkages, the switchbacks, the false trails and complex whorls and spirals, the broken pattern that the Eight have somehow cast me into. As if I am a cave diver, a pearl fisher, seeking a source.
And I find it. All paths lead to a point that cannot be followed further, cannot be unravelled. Irina’s body slumps against the seat back as I reach towards that anchor point and try to pull myself free.
But, though I’m like mercury now, like vapour, some part of me remains knotted tightly in place, tethered to Irina’s body, by some diabolical means I cannot unravel. Though I gather myself over and over with increasing desperation, I cannot sunder the knot that keeps me chained to her. And I know that it is the vital part, the part that is keeping me earthbound.
A small choking sound escapes Irina’s lips.
So small that Gia’s cup pauses only momentarily on its way to her mouth, before she completes the action and leans forward to point at the map spread out before her.
As I rage through the nerve endings and sinews, the flesh, wet matter and bone that Irina is made of, seeking a way out, a flaw, a loophole, I feel Irina’s soul in here, too. Locked away tightly, like a kernel, a hard knot, her soul twisted and turned in on itself, like a mobius strip. To keep it out of harm’s way. To free up this vessel for my use.
And if I am released? I have to hope that her soul will be freed at the same instant. Or the body will die.
Abruptly, the weird sensation of unbecoming reverses, as if I am pulled back by a cord, by an elastic band, and I coalesce again inside Irina’s skin, behind her eyes, as if I am her, and she is me, and there is no gap, none at all, between us.
How long have I been gone? A heartbeat, maybe. Surely nothing more. But I’m breathing heavily and my sudden anguish burns so fiercely and so bright that I must jam my aching left hand inside my coat so the others in this room will not see it glow with that telltale flame that is as corrosive as it is lovely.
But Gia sees that something is amiss — from Irina’s posture? The muscles of her face? — because Gia has sharp eyes and is paid to see everything about her employer.
‘You look so pale!’ she exclaims. ‘What’s the matter, Irina? Are you unwell?’
Unwell?
I have to cover my mouth with my right hand so that the scream building inside me won’t escape and destroy the physical world.
I want to tell them that I was never supposed to be here, that it’s all some terrible mistake. That I’m still paying for something I did once, a long time ago, that I can’t even remember.
And the ones who are making me pay are the eight most powerful beings in the universe, the highest among us all that were first created, the ones to whom all but Azraeil must bow down, because death bows to no one, death is a force unto itself. Only these eight archangels might guess at what is in the heart and mind of our absent creator, for They were formed to be His regents, His princes, and to call us all to order. It is They who have done this to me.
I hear Gabriel’s voice again, as clearly as if he were here, now, in this room: I would rather have been put to the sword myself than endure what you have.
What crime? What crime did I commit to deserve this?
I want to tell Gia all of this, but there’s no point, because she would never understand. Never believe how it could even be possible for a vessel as small, as narrow, as a human body to contain everything that I am, everything that I was before. I’m like a centaur, a gorgon, a harpy. Something ancient, mythical, made up. A cautionary tale, a fable. Unreal.
I’m bent over my burning left hand, struggling to contain the pain, and Gia reaches out to me, but I pull away sharply. When I’m feeling this way, I’m dangerous, and people invariably get hurt.
Once — two lifetimes ago — I made myself a promise that my time would soon come. That one day, not too far away, it would no longer be about just surfing the next wave, just holding on, just surviving; it would be about me. And that time is now. Because staying safe, doing nothing, keeping out of sight, has never been my way. I know it now for a truth. The Eight have forced me to be so many things that I’m not, for far too long.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ I tell Gia and Felipe fiercely through my pain. ‘If I don’t get out soon, I’m going to go mad. You both work for me, right? I hold the purse strings, I call the shots?’
Gia nods, frightened by something in Irina’s expression. Felipe is very still, watching guardedly with his dark, arrogant eyes.
‘So you’re going to start doing things my way,’ I rasp. ‘I’m done with waiting. I don’t care how you do it, or what it costs to make it happen, but I want you to find someone for me and bring him here. Now. His name is Ryan Daley.’
Gia’s unusual eyes widen at the unexpected request, and her dark brows snap together as I rattle off Ryan’s mobile number — committed to memory two lives ago — and the URL for the social networking site Lela Neill befriended him on.
‘Bring him here? Now?’ Gia mutters. ‘With the schedule you have?’ She pulls a slim, black device out of a pocket of her leather jacket and inputs all of the information I’ve thrown at her, jabbing furiously at the device’s seamless face. ‘What if he won’t come?’
‘Make him,’ I snap. ‘Tell him: Mercy is alive and badly needs your help — use those exact words and I guarantee you’ll have his immediate and undivided attention. Book him on the next plane out of wherever he is. I mean it. The next plane. Got that?’
Gia stops tapping for a moment, her eyes mystified. ‘He really is that “important” to you?’ She makes talking marks in the air with her free hand. ‘I didn’t think you were serious. Everything’s always a matter of life and death with you, even when it isn’t. You go through guys like they’re bottled water, like they’re completely disposable. It honestly can’t wait until after we leave Italy? It’d be a lot less complicated to set up.’
I shake my head. ‘Find him for me. It’s the most important thing I’m ever going to ask you to do. Ever. So don’t mess it up.’
Gia’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘But we’ve got three more full days of commitments here in Milan. Final fittings; dress rehearsal; runway show; dinner and afterparty. Even if we get the guy here, like, today, you can’t just walk away from this thing. You’ll never work again. You know that, don’t you?’
I give a short laugh, half-way between amusement and despair. ‘Just get him here, and Irina Zhivanevskaya shall meet her commitments.’
Gia gives me an odd look before nodding and jamming the hand-held device back into her jacket pocket. She turns to Felipe.
‘Irina’s right,’ she says briskly. ‘We need to move. I can go looking for this Ryan guy as soon as we’re on the road. The sooner we leave, the better. We’ll take the route I marked out originally, no arguments. You weren’t Irina’s driver the last time we were here. I know what I’m talking about, so you may as well put the map away.’
Felipe’s eyes clash with Gia’s as he angrily gathers up the road map and shoves it back inside his overcoat along with the status pen. He rises to his feet with barely concealed irritation.
Gia turns to me and says reassuringly, ‘Okay, the deal is: we get through today, then the next day, and one more day after that, and then we’ll go home. It’s nothing, right? We’ll pare back your schedule after this job, I promise. I’ll talk to your management — they’ll have to listen if they know what’s good for them. No sense killing the golden goose, right? And if they don’t? We’ll find someone else who will. You’re Irina. Everyone wants you, everyone loves you. This feeling you’re having … it will pass.’
