Silver Nitrate(104)
She fell to her knees, and Tristán bent down to help her. “Momo,” he said, urging her up.
The hallway, which had been plunged into darkness moments before, now was blazing with light. Ahead of them, standing close to the web of electricity, she could see Alma staring at them. She began walking. The web seemed to move with Alma, sliding forward. Behind them were more tendrils of lightning. They would soon be sandwiched between these webs of electricity, burned to a crisp.
The strain of this magic seemed to be taking a toll on Alma: her hands were shaking and her eyes were wild. But she still had reserves of power and strength that neither Montserrat nor Tristán could counter.
“The film,” Alma demanded.
Montserrat swallowed. From the corner of her eye Montserrat noticed a flutter of movement, a burst of light. She turned her head a fraction and saw the wall-to-ceiling mirror decorating the hallway had a small crack, and when she looked more carefully, she saw a shape—rough, more a blur than anything else—and for one second a slender finger traced that tiny fracture.
She stopped and looked again, staring at the mirror, seeing herself and Tristán and the blinding arcs of light above their heads. Nothing else. Except, for one flickering moment—there, like the flash frame in a film—Wilhelm Ewers in his beige trench coat, his hands pressed against the glass, staring back at her with an expression that almost seemed amused.
Push, he said. Wordless, though. She simply knew what he meant, his eyes narrowing and glancing in Alma’s direction.
The carpet down the hallway was becoming singed from the electricity licking its edges, its threads blackening and unleashing a disgusting smell. If they didn’t die from being electrocuted perhaps they would perish from inhaling noxious fumes.
“Here!” Montserrat yelled and held up the can of film. “You can have it!”
Alma began walking forward, stepping through the taut web of electricity blocking the path ahead of them, sliding through it like a knife, arms extended, making the filaments sing.
“Tristán, help me push,” Montserrat whispered.
“Push what?” he replied. He looked up worriedly at the ceiling lights, which were flickering on and off and giving off sparks.
“The glass.”
“How?”
On the mirror there were now multiple cracks, and Montserrat wasn’t exactly sure what they were supposed to do, so she couldn’t even attempt to explain it to Tristán. Except that her instinct told her that both of them against Alma were no match for the woman, and Ewers wasn’t up to the task, either. But three…a triangle, as Ewers had said. He’d wanted three sorcerers.
It was probably a bad idea to join forces with Ewers for anything, but they were out of options, and she knew Ewers hated Alma. It had been right there, in his narrowed eyes, a searing, long-festering rage. Alma had feasted on Ewers’s magic for many years, and now he intended to pay her back for her impudence.
“Will it to break,” she ordered Tristán.
“Will it how?” Tristán asked in return. His voice was almost a hiss, and they had stepped back as far as they could; they were unable to retreat any farther. Alma had slipped through the mesh of light and now stood mere steps from them, her hair fluttering around her head.
“Tell it to break,” Montserrat said.
“Mother fucker…okay, break. Break, damn it,” he said and clutched Montserrat’s hand while she muttered under her breath.
Alma had extended an imperious hand, and Montserrat felt the sting of a cord of light against the back of her legs, as if it were a whip, making her stumble forward. She gripped the can of film tight.
“Break,” she said.
The crack that had been growing across the mirror gave way, and there was a harsh, sharp sound that made Alma turn her head. She saw the mirror and held her hands up, as if meaning to ward off the spell. But it was too late. In a flash the mirror had shattered, and its shards, rather than rolling to the floor, seemed to explode; they were hurtled away, in Alma’s direction, and embedded themselves in her flesh with a terrible fury.
The woman screamed. Both Tristán and Montserrat fell to the ground, as if pushed back by a powerful gust of wind, away from the flying fragments of glass. The tendrils of electricity all around them glowed a searing white, giving off sparks, before they dissipated into nothingness.
The hallway smelled of burned plastic and wood, the walls were crisscrossed with dark marks, and patches of carpet had been completely singed off. Several light bulbs had simply burned out, leaving the hallway a patch of shadows.
Montserrat coughed. Tristán leaned against a wall with a groan and, clenching his teeth, helped Montserrat to her feet. They shuffled next to the spot where Alma lay on the floor. A fragment of glass had sliced her throat with clinical expertise, and blood welled profusely from the cut. Blood also poured from her mouth, and her eyes stared up at them as she stretched out a hand, as if still trying to reach for the film can Montserrat was carrying. Then her arm fell down limply.
She was dead.
A transformation overtook the body, the skin atop it dissolving as if it were painted on, and then the muscles turned to gelatin, bones poked out from this mess of melting flesh so that the natural process of decomposition seemed to take place in the blink of an eye. A second more and Alma was nothing but a mound of dust, and even this seemed to then break and decay even more, becoming nothing but the faint outline of a body upon a dirty carpet.