The Midnight Palace - Carlos Ruiz Zafon [70]
As she regained consciousness and felt the bruises the struggle had left on her body, Sheere realised that what she could see around her was not part of a dream. She was inside a long deep room, flanked on either side by rows of windows which let in enough murky light for her to be able to make out the wreckage of what seemed to be a narrow lounge. The broken skeletons of three glass lamps hung from the ceiling like withered branches. The remains of a cracked mirror shone in the half-light behind a counter that once might have been part of an elegant bar.
She tried to sit up. She worked out that the chains binding her wrists behind her back were fastened to a narrow pipe, and instinctively understood where she was: inside a train stuck in the underground galleries of Jheeter’s Gate.
Straining her eyes, she scanned the mass of fallen tables and burnt debris in search of a tool that might help her free herself from the chains. The interior of the carriage didn’t seem to contain anything but the useless remains of scorched objects that had miraculously survived. She struggled, but only managed to make the chains tighter.
Two metres in front of her a black shape that she had taken to be a pile of rubble suddenly turned towards her. A luminous smile on an invisible face lit up in the darkness. Sheere’s heart skipped a beat as the figure came within a breath of her face. Jawahal’s eyes shone like embers in the wind and Sheere detected the acrid penetrating stench of burnt petrol.
‘Welcome to what remains of my home, Sheere,’ he murmured coldly. ‘That is your name, isn’t it?’
Sheere nodded, paralysed with terror at the presence before her.
‘You don’t have anything to fear from me,’ said Jawahal.
The girl held back the tears that were fighting to escape; she wasn’t going to give up that easily. She closed her eyes tight and breathed deeply.
‘Look at me when I’m talking to you,’ said Jawahal in a tone that froze her blood.
Slowly Sheere opened her eyes and realised with horror that Jawahal’s hand was getting closer to her face. His long fingers, protected by a black glove, stroked her cheek and delicately pushed away a lock of hair that had fallen over her forehead. Her captor’s eyes seemed to turn pale for an instant.
‘You look so much like her …’
Abruptly the hand withdrew like a frightened animal, and Jawahal stood up. Sheere noticed that the chains at her back were loosening and suddenly her hands were free.
‘Get up and follow me,’ he ordered.
Sheere obeyed meekly and let Jawahal lead the way. But as soon as the dark figure was a few metres away amid the wreckage, she turned and began to run in the opposite direction as fast as her stiff muscles would carry her. She stumbled through the carriage towards the door that led to a small open-air platform connecting to the next coach, then placed her hand on the blackened steel handle and pushed hard. The metal went as soft as potter’s clay and Sheere watched in astonishment as it transformed itself into five sharp fingers that grabbed her wrist. Slowly the door panel folded in on itself until it took the form of a shining statue on whose smooth surface Jawahal’s features emerged. Sheere’s knees buckled and she keeled over in front of him. As Jawahal lifted her in the air she could see the fury in his eyes.
‘Don’t try to escape from me, Sheere; very soon you and I will be one being. I am not your enemy. I am your future. Come over to my side, otherwise this is what will happen to you.’
Jawahal plucked a broken wineglass from the floor, put his fingers round it and squeezed hard. It melted in his fist, dripping through his fingers in globules of liquid glass that fell onto the carriage floor, creating a blazing mirror among the debris. Jawahal let go of Sheere and she fell only centimetres away from the smoking mirror.
‘Now do as I say.’
SETH KNELT DOWN TO examine