"What're you doing?" Clury yelled, his words echoing off the glass.
"You've got my guns. What's the problem?" Janek bellowed, circling, then doubling back.
"Why are you moving?" Clury's pockmarked cheeks skipped across the silvered surfaces.
"I don't want to get shot." Now Janek could not distinguish between the genuine Clury agd the counterfeits.
"You will be shot if you don't stand still." A thousand Clurys aimed Janek's Glock.
"What're you going to shoot at, Clury?" Janek said, walking faster.
"Me or one of my clones running around in here?"
Clury leveled the Glock in the opposite direction. Or at least Janek hoped so-there was the possibility that Clury had him in his sights.
"Go ahead, shoot me if you can," Janek taunted. He liked his tone. It built up his confidence. He wanted to distract Clury, make him forget about using Gelsey as a shield. By focusing on Clury and ignoring her, he hoped to cause Clury to ignore her too.
"Stand still or I'll blow up your girl."
Janek laughed. "She's not my girl. And you won't blow her up." As he moved clockwise around the room, his mirror- twins moved in all directions. He felt as if he were revolving at the center of a rapid counterwhirling merry-go-round.
"Don't push me!" Clury looked confused as his eyes scanned the images skimming across the gleaming walls.
"Too much glass in here. Blow her up and you'll kill us all." Janek paused. "Maybe that's what you want." Janek, dancing, knew that if he stopped, Clury would shoot him down. "No, I don't think so,' he added.
"You're not the suicide type. You're a killer, Clury. But a bomb's a coward's weapon."
"Bullshit!" Clury twirled like an enraged bull.
I've got him now!
"Yeah, a coward's game. Wait till no one's looking, then set it up.
Back off, crouch down, watch it blow. Can't do that in here. You'll be sliced to ribbons."
Clury fired the Glock. Janek winced. The explosion, rebounding off the glass, echoed harshly in his ear. On the other side of the Great Hall a mirror panel shattered, then fell in pieces to the floor.
Janek crouched, pulled out his left ankle Beretta, fired back across the Great Hall as he rose. Then he was off again. Across the room a clone of Clury splintered and crashed.
Clury let go of Gelsey's leash. The moment he did, she ran to one of the walls. Now the three of them were separated, their images crisscrossing on every mirror.
"Don't stand still!" Janek yelled to her. "Move!
Move!"
A thousand Gelseys nodded at once. A thousand dreamsisters began cavorting through mirror world.
Clury fired at Janek again.
I can't Waste ammo returning shot for shot. He's got two of MY pistols, maybe another of his own.
Janek was also aware that this game of hide-and-seek could not go on too long. Concealment among the mirror figures was possible only as long as everyone moved. Once one of them slowed or stopped, he or she would become a t. The end game would be determined by fatigue.
"Get out of here!" Janek yelled to Gelsey. "Take off that damn pack and run!"
Clury laughed. "She can't take it off. And if she runs out of here I'll blow her up."
Gelsey's eyes, a thousand pairs, gleamed with fright. It was the same frightened look Janek had seen when she was booked-the panic that seized her when she was not in control.
No choice now. I've got to kill him.
Janek fired across the room. As Clury ducked, a panel bearing his image broke into shards. Janek saw Gelsey run to one of the walls, then, head down, push her tied hands against a mirror. When the panel sprang open, she crawled into the blackness. The panel shut after her.
Janek heard it click.
"Fuck! Where'd she go?" Clury, panicked, fired four times in four different directions, wheeling 90 degrees between each shot. Sheets of glass splintered and crashed to the floor in different parts of the Hall. Janek watched as four Janek clones. broke and fell.
He, of course, knew exactly where Gelsey had gone: into the chamber of the Minotaur. if I stop he'll stop, just to get off a good clean shot.
Janek rushed along the walls, watching his likenesses whirl around.
Suddenly he stood still. Then, assuming combat stance, he held out his pistol in both hands. Clury stopped, too, took careful aim. They fired together. Mirrors shattered at either end. They fired again.
More panels crashed. Janek became aware of something skidding across the floor but knew he mustn't turn to look.
Clury fired again. Janek fired back. At the end of the third volley, Clury cried out and fell.
Get to him before he sets off the bomb!
Janek ran forward, pistol outstretched, while Clury, bleeding, groped for his module.
Janek fired at his leg. Clury yelled in pain, but still had enough strength to grasp the module from the floor.
Kill him!
Janek, stepped closer, fired. This time he hit Clury in the stomach.
Clury rolled over, clutching his unit. Janek squeezed his trigger but his pistol was empty. Clury grinned. Janek leaped upon him. He had wrestled him over, was lying beneath him, his own back against the floor, when he felt the blast.
All he would remember afterward was the tremendous sound followed by a hard -shower of silver shards. He remembered pain in his hands and the feel of Clury's blood, warm, viscous, spurting upon him. He remembered the foul smell of Clury's body and the multiple images of himself that filled his eyes, broken images all around the wrecked room, reflecting his fear, pain, despair. He remembered thinking: I can lie here now and watch myself die.
Later, when he understood that only his hands had been cut, that he was lying beneath a badly bleeding dead man covered with slivers of shattered glass, that the blood all over him was not his own, he wriggled free, sat up, peered around dazed at the wreckage and saw nothing but broken mirrors. The mirrored ceiling had fallen in, exposing the catwalks, which, he was surprised to see, were still intact. Most of the stage lights were still on, illuminating the debris, and many of the wooden frames that had held the mirrors stood undamaged.
Gelsey!
She had been harnessed to the bomb. Had she gotten loose? He turned to look for the chamber of the Minotaur. Surveying the wreckage, he understood that the bomb had exploded someplace else. Then he remembered, in the midst of the shoot-out, seeing the backpack skidding across the floor. So, she had gotten loose and emerged from the Minotaur's den to heave it away.
Pulling himself to his feet, ignoring the wounds on his hands, he made his way through the rubble to seek her out amid the broken glass. He found her finally within what was left of the little room. She was dead yet her body was unmarred. One of Clury's bullets had torn into her chest.
He sat beside her, hugged her to him, and then he wept for her, the loss of her, the loss of her art to the world. He wept for a long time, until he heard the sirens. Then he let her go, walked out of the ruins of the maze and thought: The mirrors are all broken now.
It was cold and clear the day Gelsey was buried in a small, sparse cemetery near Richmond Park where many carnival workers were entombed.
Walking to the site, his hands still wrapped in bandages, Janek noticed a headstone marking the grave of his father's friend, Walter Meles.
Erica Hawkins attended, along with her gallery staff, several art collectors, a girl named Tracy, Netti Rampersad and the members of Special Squad. During the brief service a flock of crows broke from a tree, then streaked across the New Jersey sky.
After the burial, Janek and Netti spoke.
"Mendoza's being extradited to Texas on capital-murder charges," Netti said. "I've withdrawn from the case. I've decided to give up criminal-defense work, too."