Genesis. Volume 2

October 14, 1986. Chicago. The Palace Theater. Night. Lisa couldn't tear her gaze away from the mirrors. She'd thought that after the Genesis mansion, after Barnum's Circus, after the Detroit factory, nothing could surprise her anymore. She was wrong. The mirrored foyer of the Palace Theater wasn't just a room with mirrors—it was a labyrinth. The walls, paneled with glass from floor to ceiling, stretched in both directions, and every step multiplied into hundreds of reflections that lived their own lives. The air here was thick and cold, smelling of old silver and dust, and somewhere on the edge of hearing, something tinkled—like tiny bells that weren't there. They'd entered through a side door—Isabelle had led them past the main lobby, where Christian was still waiting for his mother's call. Now she walked first, and her reflection was the only one that looked normal. The others didn't. Lisa stopped before a tall mirror panel in a cracked gilt frame. It reflected a girl with a sketchbook—her own figure, her own face. But something was wrong. The reflection moved with a delay. Lisa raised her hand—the reflection raised its hand a fraction of a second later. She tilted her head—the reflection repeated the movement, but the lips of the girl in the mirror stretched into a smirk Lisa hadn't made. "Don't look," Isabelle said. "They play. The longer you look, the more they can do." "What can they do?" Lisa asked, not looking away. "Show you what you're afraid of. Or what you want. Or what the Maestro wants you to see." Lisa forced herself to look away. The reflection in the mirror stood for another second, watching her go, then slowly dissolved like smoke. "Are all the mirrors like this?" Max asked. He stood warily, holding his injured hand against his chest. "Only in this wing," Isabelle said. "Here the Maestro... entertains himself. There are still two days until the show, and he's hungry. The mirrors are his toys." "Toys for a monster," Jenny muttered. "Great." They moved on. Lisa counted her steps to keep from getting lost, though in this labyrinth, "lost" was too mild a word. Reflections flashed from all sides—some mimicking her movements, others living their own lives. In one mirror, she saw herself older—a grown woman with tired eyes, holding an empty sketchbook. In another, a little girl sitting on the floor, drawing circles with chalk, the circles flaring and fading, leaving white traces on the glass. "Don't look," Isabelle repeated. "You're an artist. You feel it more strongly than the others." Lisa clutched her sketchbook. She did feel it. Every mirror wasn't just glass—it was a canvas. An unfinished painting. And the Maestro was an artist. A bad, perverted artist, but an artist nonetheless. And that understanding made her nauseous. They passed the last mirror panel and entered a narrow corridor. No mirrors here—only bare brick walls and dim bulbs overhead. Lisa exhaled. "The gallery is further," Isabelle said. "I should warn you: what you'll see there... it's not just portraits." "We already figured that out," Arthur said. "No." Isabelle shook her head. "You only saw the corridor. The gallery is the heart. That's where the oldest ones are. The strongest. The Maestro keeps them as... trophies." She pushed open a heavy door at the end of the corridor. Beyond it opened a hall. It was round. The high ceiling disappeared into darkness, and somewhere up there, a painted dome could be glimpsed, but Lisa couldn't make out the details. The walls—from the floor to where the dome began—were covered in portraits. There were hundreds of them. They hung flush against each other, like cells in a honeycomb, each in a heavy frame with a plaque. There was almost no light here—only a few candles in sconces by the entrance—but the portraits glowed on their own. A soft, sickly, greenish light, emanating not from the paint but from what was trapped inside. Lisa froze at the threshold. Her hand, holding the sketchbook, trembled. "My God," she whispered. "God isn't here," Isabelle said. "Only the Maestro." They entered. Lisa walked slowly, moving her gaze from one portrait to another. She couldn't help but look. It was beyond her strength—as an artist, she had to see. As a human, she couldn't. The portraits were varied. Men and women, the elderly and children. Different eras—she recognized costumes from the twenties, thirties, forties. Different emotions. Here a woman in an evening gown laughed, head thrown back, and her laughter was so vivid Lisa could almost hear it. Here an old man in a military uniform stared straight ahead, and in his eyes was terror—not frozen, but ongoing, like a scream that would never end. Here a boy of about ten, clutching a violin, tears streaming down his cheeks—they moved, rolled downward, and when they reached the edge of the canvas, they vanished and reappeared. "They're still there," Lisa whispered. "Trapped," Isabelle confirmed. "The Maestro takes a moment and locks it away. Forever." "How long?" "As long as the portrait hangs. And they've been hanging for decades." Lisa stopped before a portrait of a young woman holding a baby. The woman was smiling, but her eyes were filled with such despair that Lisa found it hard to breathe. The baby—an infant wrapped in a white blanket—wasn't crying. It stared straight at Lisa, and its gaze was adult. Knowing. As if it had spent a hundred years in that frame and knew something she didn't. "This is Mrs. Elliot," Isabelle said. "Former prima of the theater. She refused to participate in the show. The Maestro took her along with her son." "Her son is still alive?" "In the portrait—yes. Outside—no." Lisa pressed her sketchbook to her chest. She wanted to draw—to remember every face, to capture them so they wouldn't disappear without a trace—but her fingers wouldn't obey. She was afraid that if she started drawing, she'd somehow let them into herself. Or let something out of herself. "Come here," Jenny called. She stood in the center of the hall, before a large portrait in a gold frame. Lisa walked over. It was Julian Fairfax. She'd glimpsed him in the corridor when Isabelle led them down, but now, up close, the portrait seemed even more terrifying. Julian sat in the same chair as in life, but on the canvas, his face was alive. A tear ran down his cheek—real, wet, glistening in the candlelight. His lips were pressed into a thin line, but they trembled—as if he were trying to speak and couldn't. "He's trying to say something," Lisa whispered. "He always tries," Isabelle said. "But there's no voice here. Only... movement." Lisa reached out and touched the canvas. The paint beneath her fingers was warm. Not like a sun-warmed stone—like living skin. She felt a pulse. Weak, uneven, but undeniable. A heartbeat inside the paint. "Dad," Isabelle whispered, her voice breaking. "I'm sorry. I couldn't." Jenny put an arm around her shoulders. Isabelle didn't cry—she just stood, staring at her father, her face as pale as the canvas. "We'll bring him back," Jenny said. "I promise." "You can't promise that." "I can. Because I'm a Brooks. Like him. Like you." Lisa stared at Julian and thought about how art was supposed to give life. But here, art stole it. It was a perversion of everything she believed in. A canvas should be freedom. Here, it was a cage. She pulled out her pencil. Her fingers still trembled, but now it wasn't weakness—it was anger. Cold, sharp anger that demanded an outlet. She opened her sketchbook and began to draw. Not a portrait of Julian—she didn't want to trap him again. She drew a door. Heavy, oak, with cracks in the jamb—the door of the Genesis mansion, behind which they'd first met Crowley. A door you could enter through. And leave through. "What are you doing?" Max asked. "I don't know." The pencil scratched across the paper, leaving quick, jagged lines. "Maybe a key." She didn't know if it would help. But she knew that the Maestro was also an artist. And if she could understand his art, she could find a crack in it. Arthur touched her shoulder. "Time to go. Christian will be back soon." Lisa nodded, closing her sketchbook. She looked once more at Julian's portrait. The tear still ran down his cheek—endless, silent. "I'll come back," she said to the portrait. "And I'll draw a way out." They left the gallery. Isabelle led them back through the mirrored foyer, and this time Lisa didn't look at the reflections. She looked straight ahead, clutching the sketchbook containing the door sketch. When they stepped outside, the night air felt like the cleanest she'd ever breathed. The lake wind stung her cheeks, smelling of salt and wet asphalt, and no sweetish scent mixed with it. "In two days," Arthur said. "We're ready." "Almost," Lisa said. "I haven't drawn the circles yet." "You'll have time." "Yes. I will." She looked back at the theater. The neon sign still flickered. "P"-"L"-"A"-"C"-"E." Palace. Place. Trap. "I'll draw a way out," she thought. "For all of them."