by G A Chase
A water moccasin swam along the top of the river and slithered onto shore.
“Hello, my friend. Now, what would make you leave the comfort of your den at this hour? You look a little too well-fed to be out hunting.” She quickly snuck into a bramble between the far side of the cabin and the river. The dock continued to bob quietly, leaving a small trail of disturbed water as it remained anchored against the flow. The marsh grass that hung onto the beat-up Styrofoam floats waved with the current. A clump let go and drifted downstream.
“So that’s where you are, you clever little demon.” Sere wanted to abandon the gun, pull out her knife, and dive in for a good fight, but that would constitute reckless action. “You can’t stay under there forever.” Like her, the doppelgänger needed to breathe. And though Joe’s helmets were impressive, she doubted they were designed for use underwater.
The water moccasin undulated up the small incline to Sere’s feet and lifted its head toward her shotgun. “Not a bad idea. Where there’s one of you, there’s often a whole nest.” She ejected one of the shotgun shells, crushed the plastic casing, and heaved the pellets over the dock. “I wonder if there’s something more dramatic out there.” Popping another shell out of the gun, she skipped it over the water. It submerged halfway across the river.
Ripples disturbed the surface, indicating that the aquatic animals had heeded her call. She ran along the riverbank and jumped onto the dock before the demon had a chance to figure out her attack. “Run or fight. Either way, I’ll be ready for you.” She aimed the shotgun around the water at every sign of movement.
The dock rocked so hard to the side that Sere lost her footing and pulled the trigger, sending shotgun pellets into the brush. She grabbed the cleat to avoid tumbling into the water but lost her gun over the side. So you want to play dirty? Fine by me. She pulled hard at the brass fitting to get her feet under her. In one catlike launch, she was crouched upright with her knife in hand ready for whatever presented itself.
The demon swung up from the edge of the dock. Instead of attacking, however, it pulled the motorcycle helmet off. Long tangled strands of black hair fell over the doppelgirl’s shoulders. “Don’t kill me.”
She raised her hands, but from the bent shoulders and elbows, Sere could tell the stance wasn’t completely submissive. The plea of leniency could easily transition to a claws-out attack.
Sere bent low. Her knife gleamed in the moonlight. “You killed my friend. You don’t belong here. I have no reason to show you mercy. You don’t get to live.”
The girl kept her arms wide. “You above all people know existence is cheap in hell. I’d say I was sorry about your friend, but sorrow and friendship are two human experiences I couldn’t possibly understand.”
Sere gripped the knife handle so hard her forearm ached. Joe’s knife. What could be more fitting than slicing that doppelwhore’s throat with his Ranger blade? “You’re nothing more than a demon from hell. And now I’m sending you back.” She dove at the demon, expecting some form of countermove.
The doppelbitch rolled to her side like a gymnast and narrowly escaped Sere’s slashing attack. She came back up to the same hands-wide stance she’d started with. “I don’t want to go back there. The harvesters are running the place. Just look at my face.”
Sere struggled to keep her demonic side in check. Every instinct, human and otherwise, argued for a swift decapitation of the conniving demon. “You killed Joe.”
The demon pulled her swamp-plastered hair from her face. “Will you please just fucking look?”
Gritting her teeth, Sere gazed at the demon, tracing the youthful, round, feminine face. “You’re the waif I saw in hell during my dream. So what?” The night in hell’s version of the French Quarter, fighting a harvester, was only one of many nightmares Sere would just as soon forget.
“I helped you escape.”
There was nothing worse than a demon who would change a story for her own benefit. “You did not help me escape. You didn’t do a damn thing except tell me help was on the way. I could have figured that out on my own when Lefty woke me up. You just watched me do battle then used Sanguine’s name to manipulate me.”
“You want the truth? Fine. You seemed like someone worth knowing. I’d never seen anyone outfight a harvester. But I wasn’t lying about the goddess. Sanguine took care of those who lived in hell’s gutters before she was abducted. Without her, I had nothing to lose in trying to escape.”
Sere began to see the connection. “Kendell watches over the homeless in life, and Sanguine must have done the same for the matching doppelgängers in hell. That still doesn’t earn you a place among the living.”
“I can help you.”
“Like you did out in the swamp?” The knife in Sere’s hand seemed to be begging to be put to use against the demon waif’s throat. “You killed my friend then ran like a little chickenshit demon.”
“Had I stayed, you’d have killed me, and your friend would have ended up in the hell you’re trying to send me back to.”
Sere turned the knife as she thought, So those souls are in hell. “Start talking. If I don’t like what I hear, you’ll lose your head before you finish the sentence.”
“Other than your friend, has my contingent killed any humans?”
Beginning your defense by using Joe is a ballsy start. “Not that I know of,” Sere said.
“They won’t. Not until they have their personally groomed pet.”
“And how would you know what the most powerful family in New Orleans is up to? You and your real are gutter punks. If you’re bullshitting me again, I’ll slice that little head off that scrawny neck.”
The girl had the same wide-eyed hungry look of desperation as the street kids who hung around the Scratchy Dog. “After you left hell, rumors about a way out spread. Then the first escapee proved it was possible for even a soulless doppelgänger to make it through hell’s gate. When our escaped brothers started reappearing as memoryless drones, however, it wasn’t hard to guess someone was sending them back. My contingent was handpicked for this mission. We were told if we killed to not eat the victims’ souls when they died—be they our reals or strangers.”
The knife felt like an extension of Sere’s hand, itching to be thrust into the doppelgirl’s throat. “You eat their souls?”
“That’s how we hide them from the loas of the dead,” the girl said so matter-of-factly that Sere wondered how much of life her real had spent in New Orleans’s gutters.
“So what happens to the soul? You just shit it into hell?”
“Do I look like a fucking science major?” the girl said. “How am I supposed to know what happens? I know I don’t take shits, but then, I doubt you do either.”
“Fine,” Sere said in exasperation. “If this recent horde was so well organized, how did you end up a part of it?”
“Isn’t it obvious? They needed someone who could identify you. Or did you think they were just going to capture anyone who fell into their trap on the highway?”
“So you pointed me out. That is all the more reason for me to end you here and now.” Sere edged forward on the dock.
The girl kicked Sere’s helmet over to her. “I could have captured you. I didn’t. I could still let you enter the cabin and find what my contingent left for you. But I won’t. I’m siding with you, and if that means you cut off my head, so be it. I’ll return to hell as another mindless drone. But you should know there aren’t as many empty shells in hell as there used to be. We’re learning that we’re not our reals. Self-awareness is like a disease, and it’s spreading. And in case you didn’t already know, you were patient zero.”
Sere couldn’t help having been the first conscious doppelgänger. Others were responsible for her condition. They’d have to take the blame for the living demons as well.
“Your dimension isn’t my problem. At the moment, you are. Your story had better get a hell of a lot more beneficial fast if you want to keep that head on your shoulders.�
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“I’m telling you all this so you’ll believe me. I’m not trying to hide anything.” The girl got down on her knees.
“Just distract me while your pack of three head down to the city,” Sere said.
“That was a game you lost the minute you headed north instead of standing guard in New Orleans.”
Sere knew the girl was right, but that only made her want to slit the doppeldoll’s neck all the more. “What do you know about what they intend to do?”
“As you said, I’m just a gutter punk. I only know what they told me. I wasn’t to commit any souls to hell, and Devlin was to be taken to New Orleans at all costs.”
Sere couldn’t afford to waste any more time. Bart would be headed to the cabin at any minute, and if he stepped into the trap, there was no telling how much more time would be consumed saving him. She stood up from her attack stance. “If I don’t decapitate you, what am I supposed to do with you?”
“I’m still of use to you. The paranormal wraps you use to access your real have been laid under all of the doormats. One wrong step, and you’ll be knocked out. Let me stay here until you get back so you can prove what I’m telling you is true. I promise you, I’m on your side.”
If what the girl said was a lie, Sere wasn’t about to leave the demon with Joe’s arsenal. A large wave rocked the dock just before a loud thud from the bottom announced the return of her beloved alligator. “Lefty! Good boy.”
The giant gator lifted his head from the river and set it on the dock like a rowboat pulled partway out of the water. He had her shotgun gently cradled between his open massive jaws. Not a tooth mark could be seen on the wooden butt.
Sere grabbed the waterlogged weapon. Though it was useless, she aimed it at the girl. “This animal from hell is my friend. He’ll take you to a cabin deep in the swamp. Behave, and he won’t eat you.”
The girl leaned forward on her knees and patted the monster on the head as if he were a little bunny. “He’s so cute. I’ve never had a pet before.”
Sere’s exasperation got the better of her. “He’s not yours, and he’s not a pet. He’s a ferocious demon-eating monster, and you’d be wise not to forget it.” Lefty rolled onto his back in the river and offered up his scaly chin to be scratched by the girl. “You are not helping, mister,” Sere yelled.
The little demon rubbed the gator’s massive jaw. “He’s so soft.”
Sere couldn’t take any more. “Do what I want, and he’ll let you play with him. Disobey me, and he’ll chew you up like a doppelgänger-shaped gummy bear.”
The girl turned to face Sere. “Since you are going to let me live and accept my help, would you mind using my name?”
Shit. The only demon who’d escaped hell that Sere addressed by anything other than her list of doppelcurses was Monty, and he’d managed to infect Fisher with his presence. “Fine, what do you want to be called?”
“Doodlebug.”
Sere waited until Lefty had swum the little demon out of sight before turning to Joe’s cabin. She still wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing by letting the girl live. The sound of Bart’s Ducati pulled her attention from what she’d done to what was ahead of her. I need to see what Joe has for me.
She ran up to the front of the cabin before Bart had time to bust the door down. Though the paranormal wraps wouldn’t have any effect on him, she couldn’t be sure those were the only traps the demons had set. “How did it go at the bar?” she asked.
He finished taking off his helmet, gloves, and jacket. “Edie knows what to say to Fisher. He hadn’t called when I left. I hope you’re right about him figuring out our message.”
“How’d she take the news about Joe?” Sere almost hated to ask, but hearing that the barmaid had lost her shit over the man’s death might relieve some of the built-up anxiety that sat like a boulder in Sere’s stomach. Someone needs to mourn him.
Bart shrugged. “Edie has a lot of lovers. She doesn’t get close to any of them.”
“Joe and Edie were not lovers.” The words came out of Sere like an accusation.
“Look, she was sorry to hear about his death. Is that what you want me to say? She hardly knew Joe. Even if they’d had sex, she still would have hardly known him. You can’t expect a woman to go all brokenhearted over a passing flirtation.”
Sere made a quick assessment of Bart’s pants and shirt to make sure conveying the message was all he’d done with Edie. Though she knew she was being foolish, the memory of seeing him fuck the barmaid wasn’t easy to shake. “I suppose you’re right, and we really don’t have time to discuss Edie’s dating habits. Joe’s cabin is booby-trapped, but it shouldn’t affect you. Once you’re in the door, pull the rug up and disconnect the bandage. I need to grab whatever it was that Joe left for me, then we need to get down to New Orleans.”
He gave her a sideways stare. “So you were just hanging out here, getting some early-morning sun, while you waited for me?”
“Nope. I’ve been dealing with that remaining doppelwhore that escaped our grasp.”
Bart frowned and nodded. “That was a woman? Interesting. I don’t see any demon gore on you.”
“I let her live.”
He leaned back against the side of his motorcycle as though she’d hit him with a stun gun. “For the love of God, why?”
“She convinced me she was still of some use. If she isn’t, simply extinguishing her will be too good for her. I’ll take my time to make sure she suffers physically the way I’m suffering emotionally.”
“Remind me not to get on your bad side.” He opened the door and pulled out the strip of cloth with two fingers as if it were a dog’s pee rag.
Walking into Joe’s cabin was even more emotionally wrenching than straddling his motorcycle. “Why is it so cold in here?” Sere rubbed her arms.
Bart opened the sliding glass door at the back of the room and disposed of the second paranormal trap. “That’s probably your reaction to Joe’s death. People experience loss in different ways. Though it could also be the result of these hidden cloths.”
I don’t have time for this emotional nonsense. Sere headed for the bedroom while doing her best to ignore the hurricane of emotions that swirled within her. After pushing the small bed out of the way, she pulled up the loose floorboard. Between the joists was a black leather satchel with her name embossed in gold on the front. She sat on the bed, opened the bag, and pulled out an envelope with her name on it.
If you’re reading this, I must be dead. That means you’re probably also in trouble, so I’ll dispense with the emotional baggage. In this briefcase, you’ll find information on all of my worldly possessions. They’re yours now. I’ve also included letters of recommendations and introductions to anyone I thought might be helpful to you. Use them wisely. If your destination is New Orleans, I’d recommend starting with former Chief of Police Gerald Laroque. You’ll need to follow my instructions about reaching out to him. Though his loyalty is to his sister, he’s not about to let the world burn down on her account. In case I didn’t get a chance to tell you, I’m proud of you and always have been.
“Fuck you, Joe.” She stashed the page back in the envelope and closed up the satchel.
Bart peeked in the doorway. “Did you say something?”
She blinked back the tears and waved at the soft-leather briefcase. “Just another mission from Joe.”
Bart sat close beside her. “We’ve been rushing around since the moment he died. I know discussing emotions isn’t your strong suit, and even losing people you barely know weighs heavy on you. Joe was so much more than just a mentor.”
She casually brushed her hand over her eyes to wipe away the tears that threatened to gush out of her. “You’re not helping.”
“I just want you to know you’re not alone. I could never fill the hole Joe left, and I’m not trying to.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “But I am here for you. I’m not going anywhere.”
I can’t deal with this right now. In
stinctually, she leaned against his side, wishing she were able to explore the emotional connection he was opening to her. “I need your skills, knowledge, and strength more than ever. You have to realize how vulnerable that makes me and how much I hate being dependent on anyone.” She pulled out of his embrace, got up, and grabbed the satchel. “We need to get riding. First, I need to swing through Myers to exchange that Blackbird for my Triton.”
He nodded as if understanding her need for action to tap down the flood of emotions that threatened to drown her. “Yep. That high-performance bike isn’t going to do you much good in stealthy operations if everyone knows about it. Plus, it won’t work worth crap in stop-and-go traffic.”
She breathed a little easier at being able to refocus on the job ahead, even though a part of her wished they could snuggle on the bed all day and see where their emotions took them. What she really needed was some time to think. “You should head on down to the city. We need to find out what Fisher is up to. My detour won’t take long, and we can’t afford to waste any more time.”
Though she didn’t want to keep anything from Bart, it seemed unwise to share her plans with him. Setting up a meeting with a member of the presumed enemy’s family—and one who’d been in charge of the city’s police department at that—was something he might object to.
40
Chapter 12
Like a creature of the night returning to its lair, Sere pulled the Blackbird into Madeline’s garage just as the first rays of dawn cast shades of yellow and orange on the wispy clouds high overhead. Her snakes were lounging on the gator-skin saddlebags strapped to the Triton like two old men on a front porch with nothing better to do. She couldn’t believe it had only been thirty-six hours since she’d ridden out with Joe. Off in the corner, his old BSA motorcycle sat like a relic destined for a museum.