I froze inside the doorway and stared at the scene in front of me. The doppelganger’s eyes were almost swollen completely shut, his face almost unrecognizable, misshapen and covered with bruises and claw marks. His shirt had been ripped off of him, more claw marks tearing open his body, destroying the tattoos and, god, the blood, it was everywhere. His wrists had been tied to the chair, and some of his fingers were swollen and twisted, and his pants for air came out as a kind of terrible, wheezing whistle.
Ussier was staring at the creature grimly, his eyes the coldest I’d ever seen them. His hands were stiffened into brutal-looking claws that dripped even more blood onto the floor. But the creature’s gaze was fixed in terror not on Ussier, but on Kristair, who was standing back, watching impassively.
“Jacob, you don’t want to be here,” Kristair said softly, taking his eyes off the doppelganger for brief moment. His gaze seemed even more ancient than usual.
The creature’s eyes darted toward me, and his jaw worked as a wholly different kind of pain crossed his features. He was totally insane now, lost within whatever world he had created in his head. “Jacob,” he rasped, struggling to stand up, not even seeming to realize how his bonds and injuries hampered him. “Run, they’ve all gone mad. Run, dammit. I’ll find you. I’ll always find you.”
“There has to be another way. Why don’t you just get the answers right out of his mind? You’ve all done that before,” I demanded.
Artemise shook his head. “After what happened to Lisabeth, I’ll only risk it when we need to. For the moment, this is wearing him down.”
Somehow, I just knew they’d never be able to get answers from him by torturing him either. We could spend days, and the doppelganger wouldn’t give up. In that way, too, the creature was like my lover. I touched the picture in my back pocket. Where it counted though, they were nothing alike.
I forced down the loathing I felt for the creature and held up my hand to Ussier to keep him from striking again as I stepped closer. I sensed Kristair’s sudden tension, as if he wanted to snatch me away from the doppelganger, but he didn’t try to interfere.
“Jacob?” the creature whispered. “Jacob, help me.”
“It’s okay.” I steeled myself, moving over to him and cradling his face gently in my hands. “I’m here.”
Tears glittered in its eyes, and the air in the room seemed strung taut with the threat of imminent violence. “Don’t let them hurt me anymore, please.”
I searched its face, trying to decide if it was playing games or if it was genuinely asking for help. “I can stop them, but you have to tell them what they want to know. It’s important; can ya do that for me?”
“I can’t.” Its voice caught on a note of despair. “I can’t, please don’t make me.”
“What’s wrong? Are you afraid? After all the people you’ve killed, the horrible things you’ve done, are you trying to tell me that you’re fucking afraid?” I couldn’t hide the disgust and revulsion, and I lashed out at the creature, furious with its games.
It jerked back away from me, chest heaving as it stared wildly around the room. I yanked the picture out of my pocket and shoved it in his face. “Listen to me, you are not Kristair. The man I love wouldn’t do what you fucking did to those people in the bathroom. Look at it.” I grabbed his chin as he tried to twist his head away. “Fucking look at it, you bastard.”
“Jacob.” Kristair stepped up behind me and laid his hand on my shoulder.
“No, old man, let him,” Ussier said.
The doppelganger snarled, once again trying to rise from his chair. His eyes fixated on Kristair, almost seeming to glow from within in madness. Like a rabid animal. “Get your filthy hands off of him.”
Footsteps sounded, and Kristair stiffened even more in my mind, indignant and protective. “Kayla, turn around and go right back into the kitchen.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Kris. I have just as much invested in this as you do.”
The creature made a soft pitying sound, lowering its gaze in an odd gesture of submission. “Mistress.” I felt him quiver under my hand as shock tore through me and Kristair.
“What did you say?” Kristair demanded, pushing me to the side and stepping in front of Kayla. He grabbed the doppelganger by his throat, shoving him back until the chair slammed into the wall. “What did you call her?”
As much as the creature twisted and bucked, it couldn’t escape Kristair’s hand. After several long moments, Kristair eased his grip, and the creature sagged down, gasping for air.
“Mistress, help me. Jacob?” He looked between Kayla and me, eyes pleading. Though the way he looked at her, with a kind of terrified subservient adoration, was rather sickening to see. Even worse than the way he looked at me.
“Oh sweet Jesus,” I said as Kayla, Kristair and I stared at each other. “You don’t really think it’s her, do you?”
Chapter 24
I STUDIED my doppelganger in the wake of Jacob’s question, my mind whirling. It couldn’t be true. I didn’t want to believe that Nerissa might be behind the madness, but I forced myself to consider the possibility. As disturbing as it might have been. At this point, I couldn’t dismiss anything.
“Who?” Ussier demanded in a hard voice.
“The woman who made me a vampire,” I replied, my heart twisting in my chest. The creature cried out, struggling to stand up again.
“No, she made me! Not you.”
I tightened my hand around his throat again in warning, and he sagged back down again. He seemed to fear me the most, though Ussier had done the majority of the damage to him. He really believed me to be the unnatural copy, not himself.
“How can that be?” Artemise asked. “From what you’ve told me, she was an Ancient herself when she turned you. I thought she had long since disappeared. Didn’t you try to use her journals to track down your own symptoms?”
“I can tell you that she is not dead. I discovered that when I disappeared myself.” If it was her, then it raised many disturbing questions. I looked at Artemise and Ussier. “There are many things that I have been keeping from you because I wasn’t at liberty to discuss them, but if this is true, it changes matters.” I sensed Jacob’s deep worry, and it echoed my own. “I need to know for absolute certain if he is telling the truth.”
I removed my hand from the creature’s throat and stepped back. “Artemise, do you think you can risk delving into its mind?”
“Wait, no! Mistress, I’ve done everything you asked me to. You said he was mine.” The doppelganger thrashed in the chair, his burning gaze on Kayla’s face. “Mistress, you can’t let them! He’s mine,” the doppelganger raged.
He howled as Artemise laid his hand like a net over his scalp, fingers pressing into his temples. “I’ll be fine,” he assured us. “I don’t throw my heart into things as much as Lisabeth does. At least I hope that’s the case.”
Jacob took an involuntary step forward as the creature jerked spasmodically, and I took his hand. He was torn between pity and revulsion, abhorring it for the things it had done, yet drawn to it because of the similarities we did share and the connection it seemed to feel with him. “What the fuck happened to it? Do you think Nerissa really did this shit?”
“I don’t want to believe it.” The betrayal cut too deep. “But it would explain a great many things.”
“Get me a bowl of water,” Artemise ordered in a curt voice. “Preferably a metal one, if they have it.”
Steve left the room as Artemise stepped away from the creature, his cultured features pinched in distaste. The doppelganger sagged, whimpering in his bonds, head lolling to the side. “There isn’t much there to work with. His mind is too fractured as it is and worsening by the minute,” Artemise said, wiping his hand on a handkerchief.
“Were you able to confirm anything?” Ussier asked.
“That this Mistress did create him for the sole purpose of dealing with Mr. Corvin. I gather that along with the Ancient One’s appearance,
he did have some of Kristair’s knowledge and memories, but they have deteriorated as well. The only thing he has left is his want of you, my young friend, and he’ll do anything to get you. He cannot stop himself.”
Steve returned carrying a metal mixing bowl filled to the brim with water. “What do you want me to do with it?”
“Ah, perfect, Mr. Teasia. Set it down on that coffee table. I was able to extract an image of this Mistress from the creature’s thoughts. I trust, my friend, that you’ll be able to tell us if it is the woman you suspect.”
Artemise sat on the edge of the couch and waited for the water to still. He stiffened one finger into a claw and sliced open his palm, allowing the blood to drip and cloud the water. The surface quivered, and Kayla’s face appeared.
“No, dammit,” Steve said harshly, stepping forward in front of Kayla. “I don’t believe it.”
“Patience,” Artemise said smoothly, concentrating on the water as the image changed subtly, Kayla’s eyes darkening, her face maturing until it was Nerissa’s face that stared back at me. “This is the true appearance of the woman he dealt with. Does it mean anything to you?”
My heart sank, becoming leaden in my chest, and my throat tightened. I felt eyes on me from all sides as the silence stretched out, broken only by the creature’s harsh, whistling pants for air and small animal sounds of pain. “It is Nerissa,” I said through numb lips. “There is no other I can think of who would know of her appearance and who would make such personal attacks against me.”
I tore my eyes away, hardening my heart, pushing the ache away. “And it means we have a very big problem on our hands.”
“We’ll discuss it later back at the cabin. You all go,” Ussier said. “I’ll take care of this place so there will be no evidence left behind that we were here.”
Jacob hesitated as Steve wrapped his arm around Kayla’s shoulders and led her out with Artemise following. “Come on, mo chroí, let us leave Ussier to his business. He’s very good at it.”
“He’s going to kill him, isn’t he?”
I paused, struck by the starkness in Jacob’s mental tone. “At this point it would be a mercy. He’s only going to get more confused, lost, and increasingly dangerous with each passing day. I’m not sure what Nerissa did to create him, but I suspect she broke the laws of nature, and he is paying the price as we speak. Some things are just not meant to be.”
“I’m not saying it shouldn’t be done. I’m just saying that it shouldn’t be Ussier that kills him.” I sensed Jacob’s resolve harden, and I shook my head, knowing what his decision would cost him.
“Let it be, Jacob. It doesn’t matter who does the deed. If it will make you feel better, I’ll take care of it.”
“It matters to me!”
I bit back further arguments as much as I wanted to voice them. “As you wish,” I said softly, squeezing his hand. “I’ll wait for you below.” I brushed a mental kiss to his lips and gestured for Ussier, my heart breaking for my lover.
“Are you sure? I can knock him for you.” Ussier said in an undertone, joining me at the doorway. We both looked back where Jacob was studying the doppelganger, who stared back at him with pleading, broken eyes.
“He is sure.” I twined myself deeper into Jacob’s thoughts and turned blindly toward the stairs. I wouldn’t interfere, but Jacob needed me, whether he would admit that need or not.
“Jacob, please,” the creature said behind us. “Don’t leave, too, please.”
“Hush now, I’m here. I’ve got you.”
Aching for Jacob, I opened the door and gestured for Ussier to go on ahead. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“Will you go with me?” the doppelganger asked.
I slipped through the door after Ussier and shut it, missing Jacob’s low murmur in reply. Whatever ability Ussier or Artemise used to make the apartment soundproof kept us from hearing the gunshot, but I felt the shock of it ripple through Jacob. “It is done,” I said.
The vampire lord glanced back up the doorway, his expression reflective. “You have a good man there, Ancient One.”
“The best,” I agreed.
Jacob came out a few minutes later. The stairs creaked as he came down them, and I longed to pull him into a fierce hug, but I resisted, giving him the space he needed. He glanced at Ussier and took my hand. “Ready?”
“Of course.”
“If it’s any consolation, Mr. Corvin, if you hadn’t felt any qualms about this, I would’ve lost all respect for you,” Ussier said. “You went ahead and did what you felt you had to do. Not because that thing looked like Kristair, but because you felt pity for what you saw beneath the glamour. That’s why you can be what I never can. You’re a man and I’m a monster. I’d’ve shot that motherfucker in the face without blinking even as it begged for mercy.” He inclined his head in respect and then disappeared up the stairs.
Jacob let out an explosive breath as Ussier disappeared. “He fucking scares the shit out of me.”
“He has his moments.” I brushed my fingers across his cheek. “Are you okay, mo chroí?”
“I’ll be just fine.” Jacob slipped his hand around the nape of my neck and touched his lips to mine. “I should ask the same of you. You’ve taken quite a blow.”
“I don’t know what to make of it, Jacob.” I closed my eyes and leaned into him, taking comfort in his nearness and giving it back to him. “Things may have been contentious between Nerissa and I often, but in our own way, you could say we loved each other. We were family, even if it was unsaid. I cannot imagine what would’ve made her turn against me like this.”
“You don’t think denying her gift and choosing to become a human might’ve set her off? Because I’m pretty sure she considered you becoming an Ascended a gift.”
“I do not doubt that it angered her. She would’ve thought I was wasting my potential and she never did like it when I defied her, but Jacob, this is an extreme reaction. The things she did… not that she couldn’t be ruthless, I agree that she could, but there was a bond there. And making that creature, that is just madness. She’s not a god. What could she be thinking?”
Jacob rubbed his hand on my back. “Come on. The others are going to start worrying about us if we keep lingering here. We can discuss it between ourselves on the way back to the cabin.”
We emerged back out into the quiet night. A breeze stirred, bringing with it the scent of growing things and dispelling the miasma of blood. Kayla and the other two were already waiting in Jacob’s car, and they remained silent as we got in and Jacob drove off.
Kayla laid her head on Steve’s shoulder. “What are we going to do, Kris? If it is Nerissa, how the hell are we going to stop her? I think Tony rocks and all, but she’s got a lot of years on him and she’s an über-bitch. He’s too damned nice to go up against her.”
I glanced at Artemise, who was staring out the window, but I knew he was listening intently to every word. I reached over and clasped Kayla’s hand. “We will think of something, little one. If there is one thing I’ve learned in the last year, it’s that nothing is impossible.”
“She’s got a good point,” Jacob said in my mind. “Nerissa handled us like we were babies before and that’s when we still had at least a little supernatural mojo of our own. She’s just fucking toying with us. She could’ve killed us any damn time she wanted with a snap of her fingers.”
“That is true. Perhaps she’s not seeking our deaths but punishing us. Punishing me. Death might not be her goal.”
“Which brings us back to asking ourselves what is her goal? Seems to me like she’s making it mighty fucking uncomfortable for you to remain human. If Kayla and I get killed and you become unwelcome in Pittsburgh, where would you turn?”
Something about what Jacob said niggled at the back of my brain. I set it aside to mull over along with all the other questions the creature’s revelation had raised. “My heart says that isn’t the reason why my Mistress is doing this.”
A surge of anger flashed through Jacob, and the tires squealed as he took a corner too fast. “Stop calling her that. She’s never been your mistress, she never will be. She doesn’t fucking own you, Kristair.”
“My apologies,” I said, taken aback by Jacob’s reaction. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Jacob pulled the Camaro over to the side of the road and slammed on the breaks. Kayla gasped and Steve swore as Jacob turned around and glared at me. “Stop being so damned polite. Ever think that your damn heart could be wrong because it’s fucking broken? You’re hurt and you don’t want to believe the worst of her. The truth is, Nerissa was a controlling bitch when I met her, and from what I gathered about your past with her, she was a controlling bitch then.”
Artemise studied the two of us with mild interest. “I hate to break up your argument, but it might be wiser if we get behind walls. This is, after all, shape shifter territory, and they do not look kindly upon those such as me or those who accompany them.”
Jacob cursed violently and tore off the side of the road again. I sensed Kayla’s eyes on me, but I ignored her gaze and stared out of the window. It was impossible to see much in the utter darkness. The headlights would illuminate brief bits of shadowed forest, and then they would be gone again.
“I’m probably going to regret this,” Steve said, “but what do you mean by shape shifters?”
“Were creatures, wolves, bears, big cats,” Artemise replied. “I’m sure you’ve heard the legends.”
“I knew I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”
Silence descended in the car once again, and I went back to my thoughts. I could not deny that Jacob was right in one respect. Discovering that it was Nerissa cut deeply, but I’d have liked to think that I wasn’t in the habit of putting emotion over logic. There was far more going on than Nerissa having a moment of pique over me choosing a different fate than the one she had laid out for me.
There was a brooding heaviness stirring in the atmosphere, something that had been building for months. It set my teeth on edge. I had been so distracted with my investigation, and the more personal it became, the less in tune with my surroundings I’d become.
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