Glasshouse - Charles Stross [52]
“Kay? Cass?” I ask.
She looks at me. “R-Reeve?”
It’s dark, and I can’t be sure but there’s something about her heavy eye shadow that makes me think of bruising. Her dress would effectively conceal signs of violence if Mick’s been beating her. “Are you all right?” I ask.
Her eyes turn toward the entrance. “No,” she whispers. “Listen, he’s—don’t get involved. All right? I don’t need your help. Stay away from me.” Her voice quavers with a fine edge of fear.
“I promised I’d look for you in here,” I say.
“Don’t.” She shakes her head. “He’ll kill me, do you realize that? If he thinks I’ve been talking to anyone—”
“But we can protect you! All you have to do is ask, and we’ll get you out of there and keep him away from you.”
I might as well not have bothered talking to her: she shakes her head and backs toward the door, her shoes clacking on the stone floor. Behind the veil, her face isn’t simply frightened, it’s terrified. And the white powder on her cheek isn’t quite enough to conceal the ivory stain of old bruising.
Mick is waiting outside. If he sees me emerging after Cass, he’ll probably go nuts. And I’m beginning to wonder if I’m right about her. When I called her Kay, she showed no sign of recognition. But would she? Kay is an alias, after all, and with her being just out of memory surgery, and me not being Robin but Reeve in this hall of mirrors—if after these tendays someone called me Robin, would I realize they were talking to me at first?
I glance around frustratedly, wondering if there’s a back exit. I’m alone in the Church nave. It’s not my favorite place, you understand, but right now it lacks the almost palpable sense of hostility it exudes when we’re all herded together in our Sunday best, wondering who’s going to be today’s sacrificial victim. Waiting for Mick to lose interest and leave, I walk around the front of the big room, trying to get a new perspective on things.
I’ve never been forward of the pews before. What does Fiore keep in his lectern? I wonder, walking toward the altar. The lectern, seen from behind, is quite disappointing—it’s just a slab of carved wood with a shelf set in it. There are a couple of paper books filed there, but no robocatamite to account for Fiore’s peculiar mannerisms. The altar is also pretty boring. It’s a slab of smoothly polished stone, carved into neatly rectilinear lines. The symbols of the faith, the sword and the chalice, sit atop a metal rack in the middle of the purple-dyed cloth that covers the stone. I look closer, intrigued by the sword. It’s an odd-looking thing. The blade is dead straight, with a totally squared-off tip, and it’s about a centimeter thick. With no edge on it and no taper it looks more like a mirror-polished billet of steel than a blade. It’s got a basket hilt and a gray, roughened grip, suggesting a functional design rather than a decorative one. Something nags at me, an insistent phantom memory stump itching where a real one has been amputated. I’m certain I’ve seen a sword like this before. There are faint rectangular grooves in the outer surface of the basket, as if something has been removed. And the flat “edge” of the blade isn’t quite right—it shines with the luster of fine steel, but there’s also a faint rainbow sheen, a diffractive speckling at the edge of my gaze.
I break out in a cold sweat. My blouse feels like ice against the chill of my skin as I straighten up and hastily head for the small door that’s visible on this side of the organist’s bench. I don’t want to be caught here, not now! Someone is having a little joke with us, and I feel sick to my heart at the thought that it might be Fiore, or his boss, Yourdon the Bishop. They’re playing with us, and this is the proof. Who can I tell? Most people here wouldn’t understand, and those