Wolf in the Fold, page 35
“Cat?”
Master Wolfe laughed. “I’m afraid the real Cat is my prisoner,” he said. “I’ve been one step ahead of you all along.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Impossible,” Emily managed.
It was Cat. She knew him well, knew his body, knew his scent ... the illusion was so perfect she feared it was Cat. It was hard to think clearly as he held her wrists behind her, grip so tight she couldn’t break it. Cat was strong, one of the strongest men she’d met, and his doppelganger was just as strong. Emily gritted her teeth and tried to cast a spell, feeling the tower’s wards growing stronger. She couldn’t get the spellware to take shape. Even the simplest spell was absorbed into the wards.
The attack on Kuching wasn’t intended to get access to the nexus point, she thought numbly. It was to get access to Cat! If he was replaced ...
Her mind raced. The Hierarchy had sent her chasing the books stolen from Whitehall ... she wondered, suddenly, if one of the books that had never been recovered had belonged to Master Wolfe. The Hierarchy had aided an uprising in Valadon and the rise of a Supremacist regime in Celeste, using both as cover for its own machinations. They’d harvested men, machinery and raw power from Valadon and Celeste, while leaving the rebels and supremacists to stand or fall on their own. The sheer scale of the plan awed and terrified her. They had been one step ahead of her all along.
She forced herself to look at Master Wolfe. “What have you done with Cat?”
“He’s a prisoner,” Master Wolfe told her. “I couldn’t take the risk of breaking the link between him and his apprentice, or you. But he’s very safe and secure ...”
Emily hoped he was telling the truth. She didn’t have any sort of intimate mental link with Cat. Penny certainly didn’t, though she was his apprentice ... could a mimic pick up an apprenticeship bond? Emily had no idea. It had never occurred to her to try. The spells she’d devised to destroy necromancers might be based on mimics, but they were carefully designed to ensure they couldn’t go rogue. She had just wanted to kill her targets, not replace them.
“I’m glad to hear it,” she managed. She channelled as much compulsion into her tone as she could. “You can let us go now.”
Master Wolfe snorted. “Did you really think that would work?”
Emily said nothing. It had been worth a try, although she’d suspected it was doomed to failure before she even began. Master Wolfe would be extremely sensitive to magic and would be extremely self-aware, the kind of person who couldn’t be compelled easily. An arrogant braggart with little self-awareness could be turned into a puppet very easily, unable to escape because the idea he was under someone else’s control was unthinkable; a person who thought before acting, who wondered why he felt compelled to act, was a far harder target. She closed her eyes as Cat shoved her forward ... no, not Cat. The monster wearing his face.
The tower shivered around her. Emily could feel it now, the growing power ... the godly presence, just waiting to be born. Master Wolfe had to be insane to even consider it and yet ... she could feel the power growing and growing, slowly burning itself into the fabric of space-time. If he could get his mind into the presence, into the godly structure ... if he gained infinite magic, he would be a god. His power would be so great he could make things happen by thought alone ... she could perform wonders with her power and if his became so much greater ... what could he do? What couldn’t he do? The presence was so strong it felt inevitable, as if it was reaching back in time to bend the universe to its will. She tried to think as she was pushed through the outer rooms, crammed with machinery she knew to be fake ... it felt like a movie set, one designed to cover something vital, to provide a perfect cover story for anyone who saw the wrong thing and got curious. It was ...
She reached out gingerly. Cat’s hands felt real, but ... there was a faint haze covering them, a faint hint he wasn’t a living, breathing person. She cursed under her breath. Mimics had one weakness and that was that they required vast amounts of magic and life force to function, ensuring they had to kill their victim and risked being overwritten, for a while, by the victim’s personality. If this one didn’t need to kill, didn’t need to lose itself in the stolen personality ... it had done wonders playing Cat, she thought sourly, but it wasn’t perfect. It couldn’t be.
It didn’t get turned to stone, she thought, grimly. Neither the fake Cat nor Serigala had been petrified by the Gorgon. Why not? Was the mimic immune to such spells? Or ... had the Gorgon been working for the Hierarchy? Or ... she ground her teeth in frustration. Too many possibilities, too little time. If I can hack the spellware ...
Master Wolfe led the way into the entrance hall. Caleb and Frieda and Penny lay on the ground, their hands bound behind their backs. Emily felt her heart sink. They’d had no reason to expect treachery from Cat, no reason to think he wasn’t who he claimed to be ... he could have stunned them instantly, if he’d wished, or simply used the local wards to suppress resistance and hold them still until he had them bound and helpless. Caleb’s eyes met hers and they shared a look of horror, before his eyes flickered to Master Wolfe. Emily’s heart sank. Caleb didn’t know Master Wolfe and Serigala had been the same person. He might not realise just how badly they were screwed.
Her eyes lingered on Frieda. There was a nasty bruise on her forehead, and her eyes burned with helpless rage, but otherwise she looked fine. Emily hoped she hadn’t been hit that hard ... all her earlier thoughts came back to haunt her. Worse ... for all she knew, one or all of her friends had been replaced by a mimic. Cat had been copied so perfectly ... she feared, for a moment, they’d all been copied, that they might be actors playing a role until the time came to take off their masks and reveal the truth. Paranoia gnawed at her ... was Frieda a fake? Or Penny? Emily didn’t know her that well, ensuring it would be harder to expose the fake. Or Caleb? They’d shared a bed, he’d been inside her ... her blood turned to ice at the thought of a mimic being inside her, a creature posing as her partner ... rape through deception, with the added twist the rapist might not know what he was or what he was doing. She felt sick. The thought refused to go away. Had they been apart long enough for him to be replaced? Of course ...
“It is almost time,” Master Wolfe said. He spoke with quiet power. “You will all bear witness to my apotheosis.”
Penny glared. “Who are you and what have you done to my master?”
“I am Master Wolfe, and your master is one of us now,” Master Wolfe said. “You will see shortly.”
You will add our biological and technological distinctiveness to your own, Emily thought, numbly. It might have been amusing, once upon a time. It was a nightmare now. How far can you go?
She swallowed, hard. If a mimic didn’t need to kill to copy, how many people had been copied ... and didn’t know it? Someone could have been attacked, copied, and then released with a gaping hole in their memories. There were plenty of ways to erase someone’s memory, plenty of ways to convince them there was no gap ... plenty of ways to use subliminal prompts to push them to devise their own false memories, memories that would feel real even though they were completely fake. The paranoia grew stronger. Frieda had been hit in the head, a blow that might jar some of her memories ... was it cover for a replacement? Or simply having her mind copied? Or ...
Worse yet...had she been copied?
Fuck, she thought, numbly. She’d been a prisoner of the regime. She’d slept in their cell. Had Boswell arranged for her to be copied? He’d been quietly pulling the strings all along. Why couldn’t he? She couldn’t think of any reason. For all she knew, she was already a part of Master Wolfe’s multiplicity. There was just no way to know. If he knows everything I know ...
“Brace yourselves,” Master Wolfe said. “You will bear witness.”
He turned and left the room. Emily gritted her teeth, struggling against the Cat-mimic. It didn’t budge. She risked a glance at his face and shuddered, inwardly, at how dull and dead it looked ... if she hadn’t known what it was, she would still have realised something was wrong. The fake wasn’t pretending any longer. She told herself to be wary, to remember that the mimic was as close to intelligent as any spell could become ... that it could be listening to them even now, ready to catch them if they tried to escape. Master Wolfe hadn’t left them alone. He’d left a perfect guard dog behind.
“Master,” Penny said. “What ...?”
“He’s a mimic,” Emily said. Master Wolfe might have been lying about Cat still being alive. He knew more than anyone else about mimics and how they functioned ... he might have assumed the bond would transfer over, or perhaps come up with another excuse for the bond’s failure. “He isn’t Cat. Not any longer.”
Caleb struggled against his bonds. “Emily, I ...”
“I know.” Emily pressed her lips together, exaggerating the motion as much as possible. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”
The hands holding her wrists didn’t budge. Emily’s skin crawled as she channelled her mind, trying to hack the spellware. The charms were incredibly complex and yet ... she thought she could slip at least something into the network. Master Wolfe knew about chat parchments ... she couldn’t reach the parchments in her pocket, which meant ... she cursed under her breath. They’d been played for suckers, all along. The army had been and gone, retreated under the delusion it had won ... she’d thought the victory was a little too easy. She understood what had been happening now. The ritual had been carving out space for the future god-like entity, channelling power to kick-start the creation of something powerful beyond all imagination ... she could see it now, power infused into their blood and carried to the shell, through multiple dimensions, and then drained into the god. Master Wolfe’s mad scheme might even work ...
I can’t let it happen, she told herself. I can’t ...
Frieda moaned. Emily looked up at the Cat-mimic. “She needs help,” Emily said, quietly. She wasn’t sure what to do. Head injuries were always tricky. “Please let me help her.”
The mimic made no response. Its face was so cold now it was no longer possible to believe it belonged to her friend. It was identical and yet completely different, a mirror image as horrifying as looking into the face of an alternate – and evil – version of herself. Cat had been warm and friendly, for all his flaws; the mimic was just a thing, a construct of soul magic and raw power. It was ... a spell. In the end, it had never been anything more.
Soul magic, Emily thought. If that’s how it works ...
She closed her eyes, drawing on lessons that had been given reluctantly at Whitehall and slightly more willingly at Void’s Tower. Soul magic was deadly dangerous, for all the reasons she’d been taught and many others, and she knew – now – that the dangers had, if anything, been understated. Someone could have their whole sense of self screwed up beyond all hope of recovery, if they were attacked by a corrupt soul mage; someone could be controlled, their personality hollowed out and replaced by something else, or twisted into a monster that had no sense of right or wrong. She had been told she didn’t have to take the oaths, something she’d put down to Void’s influence, but that hadn’t stopped her tutors hammering home the warnings ... or promising to kill her if she stepped over the line. She didn’t blame them. Soul magic might be less spectacular than lightning bolts or toad transformations, but it was still incredibly dangerous.
And the mimic could get into my mind, if I let it, she thought. This could go horrifically wrong.
Memories brushed against her mind as she reached out gingerly. They were odd ... flickering images of Whitehall seen through a glass darkly, a very familiar face looking down at her ... it took her a second to realise she was looking at her own face. She was naked ... she flushed, helplessly, as it dawned on her she was seeing the stolen memories, then again when it occurred to her the mimic had seen her naked. Master Wolfe might have seen her naked ... she cringed, mentally, as the thought refused to die. She didn’t want to think about it. The world didn’t care what she thought.
She pushed onwards, the sluggish memories bubbling around her. There was no trace of the vibrancy she was used to, none of the colours she knew from other times she’d touched someone’s mind ... just a cold grey nightmare, the memories nothing more than briefing notes to the mimic. She sensed a personality moving through the darkened memories, a hunter on the search for prey; she leaned back, trying to hide within the shadows. The presence didn’t seem to be hunting for her specifically, but ...
More images darted through her mind. Girls ... her lips quirked, despite herself, as she realised just how many girls he'd known. It felt wrong to even look at those memories, the impressions somehow managing to be dull and tasteless even though they were as intimate as one could possibly imagine; she rolled her eyes as she saw a girl perform an act she’d always refused ... she shook her head mentally, trying to draw back. It was worse than reading a blue book written by a teenage virgin. The memories were real, yet they were so drained of life they were boring beyond words. She’d read some textbooks written by men who somehow managed to extract the excitement and leave behind nothing, but dull words. Cat’s memories felt just as lifeless.
She pushed onwards, searching for the core of the mimic. It was a presence that felt like a mask, a façade ... the smile on the face of the hunter. It was exactly what it was, but it was also dead and cold and ... she leaned forward, trying to slip her own codes into the soul magic. Cat hadn’t known she could do that, few did. She suspected it was proof she hadn’t been copied. Or Caleb. He knew what she could do.
Hurry, she told herself. The memories bubbled around her. She couldn’t tell if it was intended to distract her or not ... frankly, it hardly mattered. She was running out of time. The first set of commands went in without a hitch, the second ... she cursed as they fell into nothingness. There were limits to how far she could hack the spellware. Perhaps if I reach the core memories, I can ...
Her awareness fell back into her own body. She staggered, nearly falling. The mimic held her upright, its grip so tight she was losing feeling in her hands. She could feel nothing but deadness in its grip now, the human façade – once so perfect – lost in a sea of magic. If her commands hadn’t bedded in properly ... they were doomed. The wards made it hard, almost impossible, to cast a spell.
“Emily?” Caleb sounded grim. “What happened?”
“Tired,” Emily lied. Caleb would pick up on it, so would Frieda, but they were both smart enough to keep their mouths shut. Penny was staring at the Cat-mimic in horror. Emily felt nothing but pity. Penny had been Cat’s apprentice. The idea of her lessons coming from a replacement was terrifying. The fact the mimic had gotten away with it was worse. “There’s much to do.”
She heard thunder outside and shuddered. The storm was back, lightning crashing through the air and striking the tower. She could feel waves of magic falling into the multidimensional structure and being absorbed, saved within the batteries she’d helped design. Master Wolfe had used her innovations, hers and Adam’s, to complete his plans ... she felt the weight of the magiwriter on her wrist, surprised it hadn’t been taken from her. Had he missed it? Or did he think she couldn’t use it?
“It is time.”
Emily jumped. The mimic sounded nothing like Cat now, the voice stripped of all personality and emotion. Penny looked sick ... Emily exchanged glances with her as a pair of iron giants entered the chamber, metal hands reaching out to yank the prisoners to their feet. Emily gritted her teeth as the mimic pushed her towards the door, its grip never slacking. It wasn’t fool enough to let go of her hands. Cat’s memories would have told it all it needed to know about how dangerous she could be. But between the wards and its grip she couldn’t fight or cast spells ...
Frieda staggered, leaning against Caleb. “Emily, I ...”
“Keep calm and focus,” Emily told her. There was no way she could stay upright with her hands bound, nor could Caleb help her. A wave of pure hopelessness ran through her. They were trapped and if her gambit failed ... they were doomed. “Just ... try to focus.”
“My head hurts,” Frieda said. “I can’t think!”
Emily winced. Time was almost up ...
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The passageways twisted in and out of reality.
Emily could feel it, a nightmarish structure built within the warp and weft of space-time, a place where all the normal laws were rewritten to make the impossible possible and the fantastic commonplace. She’d seen pocket dimensions where time didn’t flow, where someone could step weeks or months into the future without being aware of the passage of time outside the bubble, but Master Wolfe’s pocket dimension was an order of magnitude more complex than any of them. It was a private universe trapped within an atom, an entire complex so compressed it was impossible to find, a construction that would have awed her if she hadn’t been so terrified. The sheer scale of the plan chilled her to the bone, the power slopping around through the pocket dimension a grim reminder of what was coming. There was enough power, gathered from Celeste and Valadon and maybe other places, to do almost anything. Master Wolfe was standing on the brink of apotheosis or nemesis and there was very little she could do.
She glanced at the mimic holding her, trying to determine if any of her tricks had worked. Cat’s face was as blank and soulless as ever, no longer even remotely convincing ... a parody of the person she’d once loved, a person who had been as alive as anyone she’d ever met. It tore at her to know that Cat was a prisoner, that the man who’d risked his life to save hers was trapped ... that she hadn’t even realized until it was far too late. A dull sound pulsed through the passageways as they widened suddenly, revealing a single giant piece of metal and crystal placed in the exact centre of a towering chamber. The sound beat and beat like the beat of a drum ... a heartbeat, she realised numbly, the heartbeat of something waiting to be born. Master Wolfe wasn’t so much ascending to godhood as he was donning a godly outfit, one that could take him all the way into the higher dimensions. Emily could feel the body all around her, a shimmering presence echoing back and forth along the timeline ... it was coming into existence, it existed, it had always existed. It was declaring itself to be true, in a manner that left no room for doubt. It was declaring itself to the entire universe.
