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“No,” I said.
“You going to at least count who didn’t show up?”
I hesitated, then leaned against the banister and did a quick count, already feeling a headache coming on. No Armando, but that wasn’t odd. He rarely left his room, or his “kingdom in exile” as he put it. Ngozi had come, which was good. She wore a face mask and gloves, but Kalyani had been working with her—and they’d been going out lately. Like, the actual outdoors.
Let’s see … no Arnaud, he’s probably sitting in his room, oblivious as always. No Leroy. Isn’t he on a skiing vacation? No Lua. Maybe in the yard, working on his hearth? He’d been constructing his own “stone age” house in the back yard, using only technology he could build by himself.
I hastened through the second floor’s hallways to Arnaud’s room. The light above the door was on, indicating that he didn’t want to be disturbed, so I knocked. Finally he answered, a diminutive balding man with a soft French accent.
“Oh!” he said. “Monsieur!”
“How’s the device, Arnaud?” I asked.
“Come and see!” He opened the door, letting me into his laboratory. There were blackout curtains over the windows, since he was frequently developing film these days. Bits and pieces of machinery were neatly laid out on the workbench. A cigar in an ashtray indicated that Ivans had been helping him. He was the only aspect that still smoked.
Taped to the wall was a series of pictures. Winter scenes of the mansion.
“I’ve only been able to get it to go back about six months at most,” Arnaud said, stepping over to a device sitting on the table: a big old-school camera, like the ones you’d see news photographers use in old movies. “Just as you surmised, the flash is the most important part. But I still haven’t figured out exactly how it penetrates time.”
I took the camera, feeling its weight in my hands. A camera that could take photos of the past. The device had been involved in one of my most dangerous cases.
“I’ve now fitted it with instant film,” Arnaud said. “It should work. This dial here? That sets the time focus. It’s most accurate at short range, just a few days. The farther back you go, the blurrier the pictures become. I do not know how the original inventor solved this, but so far, I am at a loss. It is perhaps related to moments blurring together the farther back we try to make the light penetrate.”
“It’ll do, Arnaud. It’s fantastic.” I glanced to the side and noticed a few prints on the ground, each cut in half. “What are those?”
“Oh.” Arnaud shuffled, looking embarrassed. “I thought it would be good to have Armando look them over, as he is the expert in photography. I know physics, but not the taking of good shots. Armando agreed and destroyed several of my photos, as they were not ‘significant’ enough.”
I sighed, then packed the camera in a bag that Arnaud pointed out. Part of me already knew that the device would be ready. I’d been spending evenings in this room, working with my hands as Arnaud instructed me on the repairs. But those sliced photos were new.
I was getting very, very tired of Armando’s shtick. Each of my aspects could be challenging in their own way, but none were so outright disobedient.
I shouldered the camera. “You did well, Arnaud. Thank you.”
“Thank you! I am pleased to hear it.” He hesitated beside the door as I opened it. “Could I … return to France now? And my family.”
I froze. “Return?”
“Yes, Étienne. I understand how important our work here was, and it was truly engaging. But my job, it is finished, correct? I could return now?”
“You want to … leave. Not be an aspect any longer?”
“If it would not be too much trouble.”
“I…” I’d never had an aspect want to leave, other than for a brief vacation. “Let me get back to you. I mean, I won’t keep you here against your will, but the camera isn’t completely finished yet. Maybe … maybe we could work out … for your family to come here … or for you to live part-time back in Nice?”
“Thank you,” he said.
I pulled the door shut, troubled. Wilson walked up, bearing a tray of much-needed lemonade. “Master Leeds,” he said. “I do need to talk to you about a small matter. Insignificant, really, but I don’t want you growing too distracted to…”
I took a long pull on a glass of lemonade, then slung the camera bag off my shoulder. “Would you pack this camera in the car for me, Wilson? I need to talk to Armando. I’ll make time to chat with you then, all right?”
I just … Sandra. I had to keep focused on Sandra.
Sandra had texted me.
I checked the phone again as I walked up toward Armando’s attic room. Nothing more from Sandra, just a few texts from J.C., complaining that his Uber driver had a “Gun-Free Zone” sticker on his car window.
As if that means anything, J.C.’s text said. You can’t simply “sticker” your way out of the Constitution, buddy.
It was followed by: And yeah, I just ate your doughnut.
I shook my head, knocking at the attic door. No response from Armando. Was he imposing “royal auditory sanctions” on me again? I pushed the door open, preparing myself to be shouted at. Armando claimed to be the rightful emperor of Mexico, and …
His room had been destroyed.
And there was blood on the walls.
THREE
Gouges in the plaster, like the claw marks of a feral beast. The bedding had been shredded. Stylish night photographs from cities around the world—Armando’s prize collection—lay in confetti on the floor.
And the blood. Sprays were flung across nearly every surface. Suddenly, I felt thoughts fading from my memory. Knowledge and expertise dispersed like smoke from a snuffed candle.
I’d first gained Armando about eight years ago, when working on a missing person case. A woman had vanished, but then continued to upload selfies with famous monuments—though the security footage showed she’d never been at any of them. I’d used Sandra’s technique, binge-reading about photo manipulation and imagining the information as a reservoir within me. I hadn’t consciously created Armando, no more than I’d consciously given any of the aspects personalities, but he’d been the result. In the early days, we’d joked about his claim to the throne of Mexico, just as I now joked with J.C.
I felt that reservoir leaking away like blood from my veins. I grew cold and stumbled backward, horrified by the scene of carnage inside his room. I couldn’t … I had to …
It was gone.
He was gone. I fell to my knees and let out a low moan that became a cry of agony. A breeze through the room’s open window blew scraps of torn photographs into the hallway around me.
Mi Won was the first to arrive. She gasped, but—ever the professional—went inside to assist anyone who might need her medical skills. The other aspects began arriving in a steady stream, gathering around me, though in that moment … in that moment they seemed to fade into the background. A group of shadows. Mere silhouettes.
“Master Leeds!” Wilson said, rushing up. He passed right through several of the aspects, then knelt beside me. “Stephen? Please. What is wrong?”
Slowly, I let my hands relax. I let out a long sigh, and felt a strange calm come over me. I had to keep control. That was … that was what Sandra taught me.
“Wilson,” I said, surprised at how even my voice sounded, “what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Oh, never mind that! Sir? What is wrong? Why did you cry out?” He peered into the room.
“What do you see?” I whispered.
“Sir? It looks like it always does. Empty guest room. The
bed made with a yellow comforter, tucked in.”
“Pictures on the floor?” I asked.
“No, sir. Would you … like me to pretend there are?”
I shook my head.
“Sir, if I may say, you’ve been most strange lately. More, I mean. More than usual.” The elderly butler wrung his hands. Behind him, his niece stood in the mouth of the attic stairwell, looking at us uncertainly.
“Am I causing it?” Wilson asked.
“Causing it?” I asked, blinking.
“Because of … today, sir.”
“Today?”
“My retirement, Master Leeds. We’ve discussed it. Remember? It was going to be last month, but you asked me to stay on. But sir, today, I’m seventy today.”
“Nonsense. You can’t be…”
Retirement? We’d discussed it?
I could vaguely remember …
Mi Won left Armando’s room and shook her head. The other aspects brightened into full color again, and their worried chattering suddenly filled my ears. Ivy pushed through them, then stepped toward the room. Mi Won grabbed her arm.
“I’m sorry,” Mi Won said. “He’s gone.”
“What kind of gone?” Ivy demanded, then turned toward me. “Justin and Ignacio didn’t just go. They became something else, something terrible. It’s happening again, isn’t it, Steve?”
I hauled myself to my feet, using the wall for support. “I can’t … I can’t keep imagining you all right now. Go to your rooms. Everyone who isn’t on the mission. Ngozi, Ivy, Tobias.”
“Did you want me?” Chin—Chowyun Chin—asked. He was wearing sunglasses as always, no matter the time of day.
“Sandra was always fond of puzzles,” I said to him, “and so I might need to crack some computer codes. I want you and Audrey to stay ready and near her phone. But I think … I think I can only manage a few of you with me today. Please.”
“Sure,” Chin said. “You’ve got those new programs installed?”
I wiggled my phone. We’d been making enhancements.
