The more we talked, the more information poured in from the rest of The Shade. Not everybody was accounted for. There were people missing—among them was not just Isabelle, but Richard, Voss, and Chantal, too. I had a feeling I’d hear plenty of other familiar names by the end of the day. The investigation was in its early stages, and there was so much ground to cover.
Zane and Fiona stormed onto the beach. Luckily for them, they’d been holed up inside the training halls with several daemon soldiers they’d brought over from Neraka. The portal leading back to their world—and all the others, for that matter—had been magically disabled. While the comms had been restored, access to and from The Shade was still restricted, courtesy of the clones’ weird and otherworldly magic. The witches were going to take care of that, but it would take some time. They already had their hands full, since the hospital had been blown to smithereens, and there were plenty of Shadians in urgent need of medical care.
“Please, tell me it’s not true,” Fiona said, her voice trembling as she reached us. “Please, tell me our daughter didn’t just walk through a shimmering portal!”
Derek had already notified Soph’s parents through the comms system, and they were both understandably terrified. Zane’s eyes sparkled red with rage as he stared at the spot where the footprints disappeared. He knew it was where the shimmering portal had been.
“I can still smell her,” he said.
“How do we go in after them?” Lethe asked, a muscle ticking in his jaw as he held Elodie close. The human was doing everything in her power not to break down, but she was clearly hanging by a thread at this point.
“We find another shimmering portal,” Phoenix replied. “But we don’t yet have the magic or the technology to predict where one will appear next.”
“Or if it’ll appear,” Blaze added. “What if the clones got what they wanted, and that’s it?”
“I highly doubt it,” Soul said. “There’s more to this than we currently know. As far as The Shade is concerned, I recommend you stay on high alert and devise a way to scan the island for new shimmering portals. Have a team on standby and ready to go in at any moment. Hopefully, Thayen’s group will find their way back here before you send anyone else through a portal.”
“You don’t think it’s over?” Zane replied.
“Absolutely not. Call it instinct, call it whatever you wish, but I’m willing to bet you all the gold and riches in the world that there will be more of these clones coming. Nothing points to the contrary.”
“Not even their complete withdrawal?” the daemon king insisted, raising a skeptical eyebrow. I tried to look away from the gold threads that covered his horns in a decorative fashion. He was about two heads taller than everybody else, yet the current situation had taken the edge off his massive presence. Much like the other Shadians, he was a parent whose child had run off into another, unknown realm.
“Nope,” Soul shot back. “This was but one operation. I’ve seen similar patterns before, in faraway worlds that no longer exist. The spying through Isabelle’s clone. The systematic infiltration and, in this case, collection of DNA material. The assassination attempts against Astra. The covert-ops-style effort to get her back. The entire operation of sowing confusion and sieging strategic points throughout The Shade. I’m telling you, it’s nowhere near over. It’s only just beginning.”
The Time Master appeared beside him, startling us both. “Dude. Some notice would be nice!” I snapped, then rushed to hug the Reaper, for he was one hell of a sight for our sore eyes. “I’m so glad you came.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t think to pop over here sooner, before I even noticed you’d not been in touch recently,” Time replied. “I should’ve been more… proactive, I suppose. It’ll piss Death off that I left my post for this, but…”
“Hey, better late than never,” Soul said. “And trust me when I tell you that you’re of more use here than anywhere else. I suppose Kelara has brought you up to speed already.”
Time nodded. “Yes. And the first thing we need to do is set up a verification operation. Every single person in The Shade must be checked. Every original must be marked in a way that the clones cannot copy. I’ve got a few spells in mind for that, but none are truly infallible unless we have a better understanding of what they know and what they can do in terms of magic.”
“Still, it’s worth a shot,” Derek interjected. “We’ll do it. We’ll organize checkpoints across The Shade and start testing people.”
“Have GASP officers ready to apprehend any identified clones. I’ve summoned Sidyan, Seeley, and Nethissis for this, as well. That gives you six Reapers to work with, and I suggest we bring the Daughters over from Eritopia to help supplement the spirit testing operation. With Astra and Viola temporarily gone, you need the Daughters because they’re also capable of checking a soul’s veracity. Besides, if all of them put their heads together, they might figure out a way to detect portals before they open, too. It’s worth a shot.”
“There’s something else you all should know,” Soul added. “Two of the clones trapped us in death magic. They wanted us out of the way, basically. I reckon they would’ve destroyed us if they could—”
“But they couldn’t,” I said. “That’s encouraging. It means their knowledge of death magic is limited, along with their power to use it. So, we’ve sort of got that working for us.”
“Did they say anything else worth noting?” Derek asked.
Soul and I shared every single detail we remembered from that encounter, but not much else stood out. In the end, each of us presented a threat towards the clones in one way or another. And each of us had come here to find a way to defeat them.
A plan was starting to take shape, but we were in the dark about many other important details, including where the missing Shadians had been taken. We agreed that they were probably in the same realm as Thayen and his crew, abducted by the clones. The worst-case scenario had them dead and stashed away somewhere in The Shade, but no one dared say it aloud. For good reason, too. Who would even want to imagine finding their child’s body?
These were difficult times. The only upside was that we’d seen enough of the clones and their methods to build up a more accurate profile. Derek and Sofia stayed close to one another, both concerned for Thayen’s safety. I couldn’t stop myself from trying to encourage them.
“Thayen’s more than capable of taking care of himself,” I said, then looked at Lethe, Zane, and the other parents present. “They’re all strong and resourceful. You’ve taught them well, and their will to live is strong. I have faith in your children, and I hope you do, too.”
Phoenix sighed heavily. “It’s not that we don’t trust them. It’s that we know almost nothing about the enemy they’re dealing with.”
And that was the real problem. We were facing an unknown that could kill more people than it already had. I wasn’t sure if Death would grant us more authority to support the Shadians. I wasn’t even sure we could get more Reaper boots on the ground here. I only knew that, for the time being, we had to make do with what we had, while hoping that Thayen’s crew and the other missing Shadians would be okay. The clones were masterful at sowing chaos and snatching people.
And their work, like Soul had argued, was nowhere near over.
Thayen
We spent a few minutes on this strange silvery beach, staring at a Shade that wasn’t ours. The more we stayed here, the weirder it felt. We certainly didn’t belong here, and we knew it deep in our bones. It was as if this replica island was telling us that we weren’t welcome. That being said, we had no immediate way of getting out of this place, and Claudia’s clone was still somewhere nearby, her strong scent teasing my nostrils.
“I think she went up that path,” I said, pointing to where we’d come from in our Shade. The trail was there, identical to the original but infinitely darker. Shadows danced between the giant redwoods—maybe bushes swaying in the wind, or wild animals, or maybe other clones waitin
g to catch us and tear our heads off. Either way, we would have to go through there.
“Well, since we’re here,” Jericho replied, only half joking. Astra had healed his arm completely, and she looked a whole lot better than she had twenty minutes ago, prior to the shimmering portal opening on the other side. She’d definitely been onto something when she said she could recharge herself, so to speak, in that passageway. There had to be some kind of energy that filled her reserves to the brim. It was written on her face—in her pink cheeks and vivid, almost black eyes. I found comfort in knowing we had her at full power again, because we were about to tread through dangerous and mysterious territory.
We could use all the magic and power we could muster.
“Come on, let’s go,” Soph said as she walked toward the path. We stayed close together, careful of everything around us. The deeper we went into the woods, the harder it became to focus on only one thing at a time.
The startling similarity was just one of the aspects that threw us off. The unsettling feeling that came with it was the second. By the time we reached the small clearing where, in the real Shade, Dafne and Jericho had fallen when injured by metal arrows, I realized that we were in way over our heads. Every single detail in this place had been modeled off our world, and each second we spent here made me shudder.
“If we consider this to be the source of the clones, which it most likely is, then we’ll need to be ready for an entire society of them, mimicking ours,” Astra whispered. She gave me a sideways glance. “Is Claudia’s double nearby? Do you still smell her?”
“Yeah, we’re on the right track,” I replied.
“I think Astra is onto something,” Jericho said. “Just like they infiltrated us, we’ll have to… you know, infiltrate them.”
Lights flickered somewhere in the woods to our right. We stilled, holding our breaths for a second before we hid behind one of the trees. Dozens of clones were coming through a shimmering portal, and similar glimmers could be seen farther still. Multiple portals were opening, and even more clones emerged, coming back from our island. As soon as the coast was clear, we kept moving, my nose sharper than ever.
We reached the edge of the Vale. For a while, none of us could do anything. We just stared at the sight before us. It was a mirror image of the real Vale, though faded in color. Once again I had the feeling that whoever had made this place had been pretty cheap on the pigments. But every line and every shape, every single person walking the streets of the Vale, was identical to those we’d left behind in The Shade.
They seemed normal. Going to different places, talking and laughing among themselves. The shops were open. The bistro terraces were bustling with mixed groups of humans and supernaturals. I recognized Hazel and Tejus and a few others from GASP, and it took a surprising amount of effort not to raise a hand and say hello. My instincts had been briefly fooled by the exquisite similarities.
“Jeez… this takes the term ‘creepy’ to a whole new level,” Dafne murmured.
“Claudia’s clone is in here somewhere,” I said. “We absolutely have to find her before she delivers what she took to whoever ordered her to take it.”
“Look, over there.” Soph, pointed a finger ahead. Up the main street leading toward the cloned Vale’s town center, Claudia’s doppelganger was casually walking, her rich, curly blonde hair flowing down her back. No one in her vicinity seemed bothered by the blood on her hands. Given that this whole dimension was just a massive dollop of freaky, it no longer surprised me.
We calmly followed her through the town center, careful not to draw any unwanted attention. I did notice some of the clones staring at us—particularly at Astra—but nobody said anything. “Got to keep our conversations to a minimum,” I mumbled. “Smile when we’re smiled at. Play it cool, if we’re to blend in.”
“I never thought the day would come when we’d be the ones acting like clones,” Jericho said, his gaze darting left and right as we moved through the increasingly crowded plaza.
Claudia’s clone looked over her shoulder. She saw me first, and the corner of her mouth turned upward. I froze because she was smiling. She knew we were here, following her. “Hold on,” I whispered.
She stopped and turned around, her head cocked to the side. Pressing a finger against the side of her neck, lips moving, she seemed to be talking to someone. Chills burst through me as I instinctively caught Astra’s wrist and stopped her from going any farther.
“Claudia’s clone is one cold-blooded bitch,” Dafne said.
No one else seemed to notice what was going on, but the horn sounded loudly enough to make us all cringe and gasp. It was way more powerful than what we’d heard in the real Shade, and it also had a robotic voice attached to it, howling across the fake Shade. “The pink-haired half-Daughter is here. She must be captured and killed. Immediately. This is not a drill. Find the pink-haired half-Daughter and kill her.”
And just like that, the entire wrath of hell broke loose. Every single eye was trained on us, while Claudia’s clone kept grinning. She fumbled through her pocket and showed us what I assumed she’d lifted off Isabelle’s double. It looked like a small object, the size and shape of a single die. I’d never seen it before, and I had no idea what purpose it served. But it was gone and far out of our grasp.
Footsteps rushed across the cobblestone. Astra grunted as she pushed out a massive barrier, then bolted away from the plaza. We dashed after her, speechless and terrified. The move had thrown many of the clones back, but only for a moment. By the time we reached the Vale’s border and entered the redwood forest again, there were throngs of them running after us.
“At the risk of… repeating myself… we’re really screwed, aren’t we?” Jericho breathed as we darted through the woods.
“You can say that again,” Dafne replied, racing him down a secondary trail.
Yes, we were screwed and then some.
Astra
(Daughter of Phoenix and Viola)
Every atom in me quivered as I ran. Somebody wanted me dead so badly that they’d sent a horde of clones after me. Claudia’s doppelganger had certainly facilitated my discovery, and the worst part was that we couldn’t go after her anymore.
No, we were zooming through the redwood forest, our heels burning as the murderous masses chased after us. They weren’t saying anything, and that just made this whole affair creepier. No order, not even a whisper or a mob-like cheer. They were so well trained and so focused on their mission that nothing else mattered.
“Head for the Port,” Thayen advised. “I know we were going to take Isabelle’s clone there for relative safety, but I think we’re the ones who need it now.”
“Yeah, the fake Shade’s layout is likely identical to ours. There should be dungeons down there,” Jericho replied.
Soph scoffed. “What really annoys me is that none of us thought to pack some invisibility magic. It sure would’ve come in handy right about now.”
“Not really,” Thayen said, his voice breaking as he jumped over a gnarly root I’d just hopped past. “They’ve got red lenses and stuff. They know our methods and protocols.”
The robotic voice could still be heard, loud and high-pitched. “Catch the pink-haired half-Daughter. Kill her. Catch the pink-haired half-Daughter. Kill her.” It was playing on repeat, and the clones were more than happy to obey. There was no time to think about anything other than safely making it back to the Port.
My grandparents’ doubles threw barriers at us, but I responded in kind with twice as much. The pulses were shooting out of my hands like rippling balls of energy, bouncing back and slamming into different clusters of hostiles. Thayen, Jericho, Dafne, and Soph had already learned to duck whenever I launched one.
The sound of the clones’ footsteps was so close that I could almost feel them breathing down my neck, their deadly intentions seeping through my soul and chilling me to the bone. Fireballs flew past our heads. Redwoods came down like defeated giants, aiming to crush us und
er their massive trunks. But we were fast. At least we had that working for us.
The darkness grew ahead, and I couldn’t see much, even with the strong pink glow in my hands. New sounds emerged. Low growls that sent my senses spiraling into disarray, my fight-or-flight instinct blaring in the back of my head. Whatever these creatures were, I doubted we could engage them in combat.
“What the hell is that?” Dafne croaked, the alarm in her voice painfully obvious.
“I doubt it’s anything good,” I said.
We were finally putting some distance between us and the clones, but something else was running along the narrowing trail. Shadows swished past us. Branches broke. Heavy paws hit the hard ground, tumbling toward us.
The fear was so powerful, so intense, and the darkness so heavy and suffocating. I screamed just to ease some of the tension, releasing enough pink light to illuminate a fifty-yard radius around us. What it revealed made me scream even louder. Between the trees, black figures with enormous backs and claws ran toward us. Their eyes glimmered blue as they snarled and quickly fell back, overwhelmed by the light. They didn’t like it.
“Holy smokes!” I heard Thayen exclaim.
“Don’t stop!” I cried as the glow faded around us, and the creatures resumed their frantic race to take us down. “We have to keep moving!”
We didn’t have any other choice. Jericho cast repeated series of fireballs left and right in a bid to slow down the nightmarish fiends. Behind us, albeit about a hundred yards away, the clones were still in hot pursuit, relentless and eerily quiet.
Ahead, I could see a faint light in the distance. The closer we got, the better I could discern the black figure standing in the middle of it. “What the…” My voice trailed off as it raised a hand, pointing somewhere to the left.
A Shade of Vampire 88: An Isle of Mirrors Page 22