by G A Chase
She pushed open the large, heavy, oak-and-glass doors and stumbled outside. At the feet of the bronze statue of Baron Malveaux, she fell to her knees. Instead of a platoon of off-duty cops descending on her with automatic weapons, Sere saw the beat-up, vintage VW bus with Bart, Polly, Kendell, and Myles pouring out of it like some vaudevillian movie scene.
Bart was the first to reach her. “Where are you hit?”
“In the back on my side. It was a normal bullet. Don’t worry about me right now. There must be cops swarming out there in the dark.”
He lifted her onto his lap. “There were. They’re gone now. Fisher ran his magic. The city has a website for normal people to hire off-duty cops. When Fisher discovered that the bank had hired them all to appear in full dress, he knew something was up. Early this afternoon, he hacked in and changed the end time of the contract to twelve fifteen a.m. We were parked a block away, waiting for them to leave. You nearly plowed into the last one guarding the door.”
Kendell held a blue jar next to Sere’s fist. In her other hand, she held a pair of hemostats. “We’re going to get this demon-capture activity down to a science.”
Polly knelt next to Sere’s other side. “Show me where you’ve hidden the cell phone. The three of us need to work in unison. I’ll shut off the connection. You’ll open your hand. And Kendell will grab the pellet with her hemostats and put it in the bottle. Then we’ll see about getting that bullet out of you.”
Sere lifted the side of her dress. “It’s strapped to my thigh. And there’s four of us, not three. Doodlebug is holding onto the demon’s tail in hell.”
“Right,” Polly said. “On three.”
At the end of the countdown, Sere opened her hand. “Let go, Doodlebug. We’ve got the bastard on this side.” The demon moved from Sere’s palm to the blue jar as easily as a maximum-security prisoner being escorted in chains to his new cell. When Sere opened her eyes, however, it wasn’t the calming brown eyes of Bart that she gazed into. It was the driving rain of hell.
“What’s happening?” Jennifer’s terrified voice made Sere roll to her side. She had the woman’s hand clasped in her long white glove.
13
“I’ll get you out of here,” Sere said to Jennifer with more conviction than she felt.
Doodlebug towered over them with scythes in hand. “You two both need to get off your asses and follow me. The harvesters will be on us any minute.”
The soaking-wet ball gown seemed even more ludicrous in hell than it had in life, but Sere had fought in worse conditions. Blood continued to seep from the wound in her side. “I’ve still got the bullet in me.”
“Then you’d better leave the dress on for now.” Doodlebug pulled out the katana sword and tossed it next to Sere. “Get up and be ready to fight like a warrior. We’ll deal with your booboo later.”
In spite of the pain and danger, Sere had to smile at getting a taste of her own medicine from the doppelwarrior.
Jennifer stood, keeping hold of Sere’s hand. “Let me help you up.”
Sere grabbed the sword and got stiffly to her feet. “With you in your robe and me with the bullet, we’re not going to be able to move very fast.” She turned to Doodlebug. “I assume you’ve got a safe house somewhere close.”
“It’s only a few blocks, but every step will be treacherous.” She looked Jennifer over from her bed-flattened hair down to her fuzzy white slippers. “First, we need to know our limitations.” She swung the sickle, dull end first, toward Jennifer’s stomach. The blade passed right through her like a knife cutting through fog.
Sere grabbed the homemaker’s hand even tighter and glared at Doodlebug. “You don’t think that was a little risky?”
“How many people do you know who physically stumbled into hell without a lot of magic involved? Looks like you two are joined at the wrist until we can send Jennifer’s soul back where it belongs.” Doodlebug scanned the streets as if she were in a war zone and had dallied too long out in the open. “We need to get moving. Follow me and keep a sharp watch. The harvesters have gotten pretty creative at finding hiding spots. We’ll stay toward the middle of the streets.” She looked at the woman in the bathrobe. “Try not to fall into any of the potholes.”
“How did we get here?” Jennifer whispered to Sere as they splashed through the torrent of water that cascaded off the stone promenade.
“Do you remember me warning you about our coffee conversation?” Sere couldn’t be sure that was the reason for their current dilemma, but the implication wasn’t a complete lie.
Jennifer grasped Sere’s hand like a child afraid of getting lost at a carnival of horrors. “What does that mean? What happens to me if a harvester gets to you? If I’m just spirit, why can I feel the pavement under my feet and water soaking me to the bone?”
“All good questions for later. Right now, we need to work on staying alive.” Sere pulled the woman into the middle of the street and struggled to keep up with Doodlebug, who was already little more than a silhouette in the rain half a block ahead.
Though Sere had been free of hell for less than a year, she hadn’t fully appreciated how cushy that time had been. Even in the hurricane-driven rain, the bugs, animals, and demons of hell found ways of getting around. She slashed her sword down hard through the water at something that grazed her foot. The darker red of blood spread into the lighter tones of the flooded street.
“What was that?” Jennifer asked in a quivering voice.
“No idea.” Sere pulled harder at the woman’s hand. “In hell, the rule is slice first and don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.” She scanned the street ahead, but instead of seeing the silhouette of their savior, she saw a ragged black blanket coming at them like a sheet ripped from a clothesline. “Duck!” Sere dove to the ground and pulled Jennifer over her.
The harvester’s curved blade sliced so close to Sere’s head that she was certain she’d lost some of her hair. With Jennifer rolled away from the action, Sere raised her sword to deflect the next strike. The blades clashed in a spray of sparks.
“What do I do?” Jennifer cried.
“Stay down, and don’t let go of my hand.” Sere tumbled forward while maintaining her grasp on Jennifer. Fighting one-handed and with a bullet inside her felt like being an alligator thrashing to get at its hunters before they delivered the lethal shot.
Instead of swinging the black blade at Sere, the harvester sliced at Jennifer’s outstretched arm with surgical precision in an attempt to separate the forearm at the elbow. The blade passed through the exposed limb without creating injury. “So, you’re another ghost searching for body parts?” the wraith hissed.
The demon barely got the words out before Doodlebug crossed her two swords against his neck. The desiccated head fell at Jennifer’s feet.
“Get that thing away from me!”
Sere had to hang on tightly to the woman’s hand to prevent her from running off screaming into the storm. “You’re okay. Pretend this is just a bad nightmare. They can’t really hurt you.”
“But they can hurt you,” Jennifer said. “If I lose you, I’ll be even worse off than if they hurt me.”
“Focus, ladies,” Doodlebug said. “If you two are going to cower in the street all day, I’m going to have to change my tactics.”
“She’s right,” Sere said. Being in such close contact with her real had weakened her warrior resolve. “Keep your mind on what we want—to make it to safety—and stop fixating on the dangers.” She hauled Jennifer back to her feet. “The only way to get through this is to work together.”
Sere had never been so glad to be leaving the Quarter in her life.
“That’s where we’re headed.” Doodlebug pointed her curved blade at a towering hotel across Canal Street that looked as dark and vacant as every other building in the Central Business District. She jetted across the streetcar tracks and wove between the dark forms of cars and trucks that drove at full speed toward pedestrians like bowl
ing balls aimed at doppelgänger pins.
Sere did her best to follow the doppelgirl’s lead, with Jennifer in hand. “We’re almost there.”
The three of them hurtled through the slowly opening glass doors. Water filled the lobby, making the patterned carpet look like a scene under a fish tank.
“Are we safe?” Jennifer asked in a trembling voice.
“Safe as we can be,” Doodlebug said.
“Who are the stiffs?” The homeless man blended in so well with the garbage in the corner that Sere hadn’t seen him until he spoke.
Doodlebug set her swords on the reception desk. “Friends. How are the patrols going?”
The man struggled to his feet, bringing half of the garbage with him as his clothing. “There’s more harvesters out than I’ve ever seen. I brought the first squad back across Canal. Second squad was headed toward Esplanade.”
The doppelwarrior put her fists on the hips of her camo pants. “So your plan is to just abandon the Quarter to the harvesters? Tell me you at least got more of the gutter punks and homeless out of harm’s way.”
“We lost three to their blades, and another one is missing an arm. Something has those wraiths riled up.” From the lascivious way he ran his eyes over Sere, then Jennifer, the dude could have been a rapist sizing up his next victims. “You wouldn’t happen to know why that is, would you, fresh meat?”
Doodlebug stormed between Sere and the homeless man. “They’re under my protection, Donald. Spread the word. Anything happens to either of these two, and you all will be back on the streets without the benefit of my swords.” Doodlebug headed for the bank of elevators without waiting for a reply. Once the doors closed with the three of them inside, the tautness in her muscles eased. “I’ve never seen the water this high in the lobby before. Hurricane Agnes is angry about something. Every time the storm increases, it puts everyone on edge.”
Now that they were inside, Sere noticed the lights were on but dim enough not to be noticed outside of the building’s tinted windows. “What’s with the fancy digs? Your real is a gutter punk. I would think you’d consider a room so high off the ground as exposed as living in a bird cage.”
From the creaking of the elevator as it came to a stop, it sounded like the cables had rusted nearly in half. Doodlebug stepped out of the cab as if there was nothing to worry about and opened the grand double doors to the suite. “Not to state the obvious, but doppelgängers are based on people who wander New Orleans. Each of those reals has to be here long enough to justify the work of creating a double.”
“So no tourists?” Jennifer said as she followed Sere into the once opulent suite.
“Exactly. All the warehouse condos, Creole townhouses, and historic cottages are teaming with residents—both past and present—but the upscale hotels are mostly vacant.”
Sere nodded her approval of the tactical advantage as she looked at the wall of blown-out windows. “Now you have a bird’s-eye view of the Quarter while maintaining the secure perimeter of an empty building. But how did you get electricity?”
“You really have been away from hell for too long. The more we become sentient, the more ways we find to be useful to each other. Even the fucking harvesters collect body parts because they can be sold at the French Market.”
Jennifer shivered at Sere’s side. “For the love of God, why?”
Doodlebug laughed. “Do you really need to ask? I get enough from Dooly to know how your world works.” She looked Jennifer over as if inspecting her for defects. “You might not have had any plastic surgery done, but I’m sure you know women who have. Imagine if those friends of yours didn’t have to guess at what they’d look like after the procedure—if they could inspect the merchandise beforehand.”
Jennifer’s hand trembled in Sere’s. “You mean they pick the body parts they want like meat from a butcher’s counter?”
“Exactly like that.”
Sere couldn’t see how such a procedure would work. “But those modifications can’t last. Once the doppelgänger body gets another update from the professor’s equipment, it returns to its natural state.”
Doodlebug paced in front of the bed. “So long as the original doppelgänger body exists, any small part that’s removed from it and is grafted onto another doppelgänger body will maintain its shape by receiving the main transmissions meant for the original body. The professor’s updates transfer to the new host body.” She headed to one of the blown-out windows in the living room. Though the storm continued to howl along the building’s concrete projections, the rain only misted the room’s interior. “Of course, if the original doppelgänger dissipates, or their real leaves New Orleans and their doppelgänger spirit gets shelved, the body part dissolves, leaving a gaping hole in the recipient, necessitating an emergency call to a medic harvester.”
Jennifer sat on the soggy bed. “If you’re safe from the beasts here in this hotel, why wouldn’t everyone just leave the Quarter?”
“The reals for my doppelgänger army are homeless people who camp out along Canal Street. If my people stray too far from what’s going on in reality, they miss their updates.” Doodlebug nodded toward Sere. “That was never an issue with you. Hell’s technology tracked you from the moment you were placed in that body.” She turned back to the storm. “And now that I’m of some use to you, I have the freedom to deviate from Dooly Buell’s life on the street.”
“What about the squads the guy downstairs talked about?” Jennifer asked.
“If they’re too scared to return to the actions of their reals, they’ll start desiccating.”
A cold shiver went up Sere’s spine and across her arm, causing Jennifer to shake uncontrollably. “So that’s how harvesters are created?”
“Yep. As we became more self-aware, a desire grew to strike out on our own. For every harvester my army decapitates, there are five doppelgängers who think they can cheat curfew.”
“So like the harvesters, there are electricians you can hire?” Sere asked, hoping to change the conversation. Jennifer already had enough hellish information for her growing nightmare.
“Hell-based technicians would be a better term,” Doodlebug said. “The original power plants were flooded early on in the storm, but the power that creates the doppelgängers can be tapped into by anyone who knows what they’re doing.”
Jennifer got off the bed like she was ready to leave. “I think I’ve had enough of my tour of hell.”
While on the prowl, Sere could distract herself from her injuries, but now that she was safely in the hotel room, the wound needed to be addressed. “We have to deal with this one step at a time. I can’t do much good with this bullet in me. We’ll need to get to the professor’s lab so we can call in. Once he knows where I am and that Jennifer is with me, he can project his cache of information on her to reconstruct my body. The repair is going to take some time, however, as her soul is in hell.”
Doodlebug continued to stand at the hole in the wall like a centurion keeping watch. “Those offices are clear across the French Quarter. We could work around the area—though with all the storm damage, it would take a lot longer. I’d offer to dig the slug out of you myself, but Dooly Buell never was much of a biology student.”
“Don’t look at me,” Jennifer said. “I can bandage a skinned knee, but that’s about it.”
Sere squeezed the woman’s hand. “You’re only barely in this reality as it is. If I lost consciousness, we’d both be screwed.”
Doodlebug turned from her post and started ripping the sheets off the bed. She then tore them into strips. “Sounds like you’ll have to travel injured. At the very least, we can clean you up and stop the bleeding. I’ve also got some more hell-appropriate attire.”
Sere held Jennifer’s hand as Doodlebug loosened the corset’s cord. She had a wad of torn sheets in her free hand to plunge into the bullet hole once she was free of the dress.
“Well, that would explain why you haven’t bled out,” Doodlebug said as she
peeled the once semi-glamorous gown off Sere. “The metal stays must have slowed down the bullet. I can see it embedded in your flesh.” The girl’s grimy finger prodded the hole in Sere’s side. “I can almost reach it, but once it’s removed, you’ll probably start gushing blood.”
Blood loss was not an option—Sere needed all the strength she could muster if they were to sneak across the Quarter. “Until we’re at the professor’s lab and he can conduct my healing, there isn’t much point in digging out the slug.” She held the cotton fabric to her side. “Just wrap me up.”
Doodlebug circled the long strip of cloth around Sere until it looked like she was wearing a mummy-inspired tank top. “That should work for your upper half. I’ve got baggy jeans or army fatigues.” She passed her hand through Jennifer. “I’m afraid I don’t have anything fit for a ghost.”
The housewife pulled the belt of her bathrobe tightly around her midsection. “We all have our superhero costumes. Mine just makes me look like a mom.”
Sere snagged the jeans from the chair. “I may not know much about motherhood, but I know a heroine when I see one. Help me get into these, and we’ll work on getting you home.”
While Jennifer helped getting Sere ready for battle, Doodlebug pulled out her arsenal of weapons. “Grab whatever you fancy.” She stashed two sickles at her sides in her belt and the old flintlock pistol against her back. She then picked up two daggers for good measure.
Sere grinned at how similar she looked to Bart when going into battle. “I see you believe in being prepared.” She picked up the katana that she’d used while training under Joe. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she’d crossed blades with her mentor. Though the doppelgänger who’d killed him was standing right in front of her, being in hell again reminded Sere of how much Doodlebug had to endure to survive.