by G A Chase
Sere watched intently to see if he showed any hint of recognition. “Do you know who I am?” You little doppelfucker, she wanted to add.
“Of course. You’re Sere Mal-Laurette. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
Sere glared at the professor. “This doesn’t mean anything.”
He didn’t respond to her. “Andrew, please have a seat and put your hands on the computer pads.”
The teenager did as instructed but with a slight hesitation. “Am I in trouble?”
“Not at all. I just need to run a quick diagnostic test. This won’t hurt a bit.”
“He’s going to bolt,” Bart whispered to Sere.
As predicted, when the professor looked down at his keyboard and started the procedure, Andy sprang from the chair and raced for the door.
“Shit!” Sere yelled. “Can’t you zap him or something?”
The professor switched the screen from camera view to external map. “I was going to perform a hard reboot, but that boy is a wily one. I did get just enough data from the connection to show he’s been manipulating the resets. Looks like you were right.”
“Fat lot of good that does me now.”
The old man dialed in a tracker program that kept a red target painted on the running boy. “He won’t be returning to my lab. That should at least make your metaphorical power plug vulnerable.”
She tried to calm her anger. “He knows too much. I can’t let him run around free in hell. He’ll just head straight to Marjory Laroque with everything he knows. They have to have some way of communicating. How do we kill the little fucker?”
The man continued staring at the computer as if unable to comprehend how wrong he’d been to trust his own creation. “I’m afraid it will have to be done in hell. He has no connection to life.”
“And he’s not likely to make the jump across dimensions again.” Sere grabbed Bart’s hand. “Come on. I’m afraid we can’t wait around for Kendell to make a diplomatic approach to Dooly Buell. Looks like I’m going to need Doodlebug a lot sooner than I’d hoped.” She turned back to the professor. “Joe worked up two helmets that allowed us to communicate while on the road. If I get one to you, do you think you could use the technology to rig up a way for me to talk to the doppelgänger once she’s back in hell?”
“I’m sure I can.” For the first time that Sere could remember, the old man looked genuinely sorry.
When they returned to the Scratchy Dog, Sere saw a scrawny young woman sitting with Kendell at the bar. A large half-eaten pizza loaded with every type of meat Sere could imagine took up the width of the counter. From the lightly used napkins in Myles and Kendell’s hands, it was clear they’d only taken token slices while the girl was devouring as much of the pizza as she could shove into her mouth.
Kendell slid off the stool. “This is Dooly Buell. As I said earlier this morning, she wasn’t hard to locate. We were just starting our conversation.”
“Can I get a beer?” Dooly said with her mouth full.
Though the girl was clearly underage, Sere doubted it would be her first beer—probably not even her first beer of the day. She nodded at Myles. “You can consider it one for me if it eases your bartender sense of honor.” She took the seat Kendell had vacated. “I need your help.”
The girl looked up from her slice of pizza and turned slightly away with intense distrust in her eyes as if Sere were trying to steal her food. “You’re not some pervert, are you?”
Sere wondered how similar the girl’s life on the streets had been to her doppelgänger’s time in hell. “There’s nothing sexual in my request. We’re not going to hurt you.” She wished she would be able to give the same assurance to her double. “Really, all you’ll need to do is wear an ACE bandage for a while.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“How about we don’t kill you,” Bart blurted out before turning to Sere. “I’m sorry, but the fact that this girl’s double killed Joe is making it hard to just stand here as if you’re talking to some lost child.”
“Oh yeah?” The girl sprang off the chair like a cat who’d been squirted with a water bottle. “I’d like to see you try. Big brute—think you can bully anyone smaller than you.”
“Okay, that’s enough.” Kendell stepped in front of the fireball of a girl.
Sere put her hand on Bart’s bulging bicep. “We need her.”
Dooly picked up another slice of pizza but never took her eyes off of Bart. “Who’s this Joe person, anyway? One of your lovers?”
Bart took a couple of controlled breaths before turning to Sere. “And I thought you were a handful. I’m going to step outside for a minute.”
“What did he mean by my double?” the girl asked once Bart was safely outside.
Sere eyed the bottle of Jameson behind the bar. If she was going to earn the girl’s trust, she would have to reveal more than she found comfortable. She gave Myles a quick glance, and he took the hint, grabbing a shot glass and the bottle.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Sere said.
Dooly remained standing as if challenging Sere to say the wrong thing. “Try me.” The girl’s attitude hadn’t diminished with Bart out of the room.
Sere downed the shot. “Fine. I come from hell. Not some cutesy town that thought the name would be funny—I mean the actual hell. My father was the devil. Every person you know in New Orleans has a double down in that dimension. Some of those doppelgängers, like yours, have broken free. How’s my story hitting you so far?”
Doodlebug shrugged. “I’ve heard better bullshit, but I like your conviction.”
“Your double killed a friend of ours—Joe. So we’re all just a little on edge around you.” Sere pulled her knife from her boot and set it on the bar. “Like Bart, I’d just as soon slice your throat to see what happens to your double as ask for your help. But we all need your double to return to hell for a mission, and that means we need you.”
“Lost me,” the girl announced as she grabbed the beer from the bar as if she were about to leave.
“I want your double to kill someone for me.”
Dooly finally sat back down on the stool. “Now you’ve got my attention.”
Sere reached under her hair to her shoulders, pulled the two katana swords from her back, and set them on the bar next to her knife. “More specifically, I want her to behead the little twerp.”
Dooly Buell’s eyes remained fixed on the gleaming blades. “What do you need me for?” The question was less belligerent and more curious than her previous inquires.
“Your double will do all the dangerous work, but I need to convince her that she can return to our dimension once she’s done. That’s where the bandage comes in. Connecting you two will provide her a lifeline, literally. You should know, though, if she gets into trouble, she might draw on your energy. We’ll keep you safe until she returns so if anything goes wrong we can disconnect you.”
The girl recovered her composure and took another drink of her beer. “I still haven’t heard what I get out of it.”
“What do you want?” Negotiating wasn’t something Sere wanted to drag out.
“Give me one of those swords, and show me how to use it.”
Sere had to respect the practicality of the request. A girl living on the streets could use some self-protection. “Sounds fair. The other one is headed to hell with your double for the decapitation. After your double does her job, I’ll let you have one and teach you both to use them.”
“And I want to meet her.”
“Out of the question,” Kendell said. “There are paranormal forces you can’t understand. It’s too dangerous.”
Dooly ran her hand along the edge of the sword. She pulled her fingers away and stared at the blood trickling from the cuts. “So you’ll let me drink and give me a lethal weapon, but meeting my twin is off-limits? You people have some fucked-up ideas about what’s dangerous.”
Sere leaned her arm against the bar. “I haven’t even met
the woman who supplies my body image.”
“Wait,” the girl said. “You’re saying you’re one of these body doubles?”
“We’re called doppelgängers. And yes, I am one.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Kendell said.
“Prove it.” Dooly pushed the sword toward Sere.
“Fine.” Sere picked up the blade and made a deep three-inch-long cut in her forearm.
“Jesus! I didn’t mean for you to cut your fucking arm off. Are you crazy?” The girl edged away from Sere on the barstool.
Sere let the cut bleed to prove that she hadn’t pulled a fast one. She had to demand that Dooly stay focused on the wound. “Look.” Sere pulled the sides of the cut open for the girl’s inspection. “Touch it if you want.”
“Why would I? So you cut yourself. That doesn’t prove jack shit.”
Sere let go of the wound. The flesh snapped back together like it was made of Velcro. She then grabbed a napkin from the bar and wiped away the blood. The freshly healed arm didn’t even have a pink line where the cut had been. “How about now?”
Dooly poked at the nonexistent wound with her dirty grease-covered fingers.
Thank God I heal up fast and am not susceptible to germs, Sere thought.
“And my double can heal like that too?” the girl asked.
“She can with your help. A simple cut like this one, and you wouldn’t even notice her use your energy. If my enemy were to cut off one of her arms or stab her in a vital organ, you might feel a little woozy while wearing the bandage. That’s about it. If all goes well, we’ll only need you for a few days. Right now, I just need to be able to tell your double that you’re on board.”
Dooly grabbed the last piece of pizza. “You’re a fucked-up chick, and I dig that.” She aimed the slice at Kendell and Myles. “Word on the street is these two can be trusted. That monster asshole outside, however, better keep his grubby paws off me.”
Sere could only imagine the hassles the girl must have endured as a teenager living on the streets. “You don’t have to worry about him.”
“Says you.” The girl drained the last of the beer from the glass. “So I get two days of pampering in a nice hotel room, including food and beverages. You give me one of those swords and teach me to use it. And all I have to do is wear a bandage while you run your little make-believe computer game?” She shrugged as if she were considering the offer. “I guess we can give it a try. Anyone tries anything funny, though, and I’m out of there. I do have friends who will be checking on me.”
Sere didn’t doubt Dooly’s support network for a minute. She picked up her knife. “I’ll get you what you want. Just don’t make me regret not killing you.”
45
Chapter 17
Sere tossed a sword and headband on the grass at Doodlebug’s feet. The day had already been interminably long. First there was the trip back to the professor’s lab with the helmet and Dooly, then they had to wait until he had whipped up the paranormal connection. Then she and Bart had spent a couple of hours getting out to Joe’s half-sunken school-bus cache to retrieve his speedboat. Motoring out to Sanguine’s old cabin in the swamp should have been restful, but all Sere had wanted to do was pull the boat onto some hidden island so she could explore more sexual positions with Bart. By the time they made it out to Sanguine’s island, Sere was in no mood for the demon version of Dooly’s snarky attitude.
The doppelgirl touched the hilt of the sword with her toe. “You’re going to let me defend myself before killing me? Living in this world has made you soft.”
Sere warmed up by twirling her matching sword like it was a baseball bat and she was on deck. “I need to see if you’re truly skilled or if killing Joe was a fluke.” She couldn’t believe that Joe would have been duped by someone who didn’t know what they were doing, but he would have been the first to tell her that lucky amateurs were sometimes more dangerous than the best-trained assassins.
Doodlebug reached down for the blade without breaking eye contact with Sere. “And what about your friend in the trees, holding the shotgun?”
“I don’t intend on losing my head. He’s my fail-safe in case something unfortunate happens. Show me what you’ve got without killing me, and we’ll talk. Now put on the headband.”
The girl aimed the blade at Sere. “Fuck you. You put it on.”
Sere could tell this was going to be a long night. “Without you wearing one, it wouldn’t work on me. Now, put the damn thing on like a good little doppelgirl. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”
Doodlebug kept her sword pointed at Sere and reached down for the sweatband. “This thing looks like part of a fucking ’80s Halloween costume. What’s it supposed to do—zap me if I don’t behave?”
Sere pulled her hair away from her head to show the earpiece. “Testing your fighting skills is only part of the experiment. If this technology works, it could keep you from disintegrating. Now, stop delaying the inevitable.”
The girl dropped the tip of the sword to her feet as if she were thinking up another question. When Sere lowered hers in exasperation, however, Doodlebug took a step forward and sliced through the air with the blade as if swinging a tennis racket.
Sere saw the feint coming a mile away. By tilting her blade up at an angle over her head she deflected the attack without turning away from the demon. Doodlebug had put so much of her small body behind the swing that she’d left her stomach undefended as her blade sailed over Sere’s head. Sere swung her sword toward the girl’s torso. Like Joe during training, she didn’t show any mercy. She drew the blade deep into the girl’s flesh, exposing ribs and organs.
Doodlebug fell to the ground. “So you are going to kill me. Just get it over with.”
“Shut up,” Sere said. Sympathy hadn’t been a part of her combat training. “Get off the ground and face me. First rule of fighting: don’t feel sorry for yourself.”
“Fuck you.” The demon girl rolled to her back and looked like she was about to cry.
Was I ever this much of a drama queen? Sere wondered. “Get up right now. You don’t want to get dirt in your wound, or it won’t heal correctly. Second rule: keep your wounds clean.”
Doodlebug held her arm across a cut that would have killed a normal person and struggled to stay out of the dirt. “You fucking cut the muscles.”
“This is the last time I’m saying this. Get up!” Sere began to understand Joe’s impatience during her early training sessions with him. “If that attack is the best you’ve got, you’re no use to me.” She took her sword with both hands and raised it over her head for the decapitation.
The girl quickly doubled up over her sliced abdomen and worked her way to her knees. By the time she struggled back to her feet, the cut was no more than a red line across her stomach. She looked at her abdomen in confusion. “How?”
“I’m not here to explain things to you.” Sere brought her blade back to the attack position. “This is a test, and you’re failing.”
Doodlebug raised her sword with one hand on the handle and the other on the blade as though she’d watched too many martial-arts movies. “Fine, bitch. Let’s do this.”
Sere knew better than to take the girl for granted. She tried an over-the-shoulder attack that the girl easily parried. Unlike Doodlebug’s initial attack, however, Sere kept her weight centered, allowing her to be set for the countermove. The girl tried the same response that Sere had used but found Sere’s sword at the ready.
“Copying my strategies is fine for training, but I hope you’ll be more imaginative than just parroting what I do. Show me you’ve got something more in that head of yours than simply your doppelgänger instincts.”
The swords started flying and crashing like a samurai battle to the death. What the girl lacked in training, she compensated for with creativity and cunning. After half an hour of swinging the blade, Doodlebug dropped her sword and fell to her knees. “I can’t go on.” She struggled to catch her br
eath enough to form the words. “Just kill me if you’re going to do it. Why do you have to torture me?”
Her pleading made Sere consider the offer. She swung her sword as if getting ready to fulfill Doodlebug’s fear. “Rule number three: you are not tired. Your body is a machine. So long as there’s energy to run it, you can go on indefinitely. Tired is for humans. Now, pick up that sword. Weapons aren’t to be discarded until you’re dead. And don’t ever ignore rule number one. Feeling sorry for yourself will only piss me off.” She could hear Joe telling a young Sere exactly the same thing.
The battle raged uninterrupted for three more hours. For each slice to the shoulder or leg that Doodlebug landed, Sere cut the girl deep to the stomach or chest. Sere’s cuts healed nearly as fast as the blades clashed. The girl wasn’t as fortunate. From the professor’s lab, Sere was getting updates on Dooly’s ability to supply Doodlebug with healing energy. Both real and doppelgänger were struggling with their new connection. But at least Joe’s communication wavelength worked as intended.
Finally, Bart fired the shotgun into the air. “That’s enough, Sere. You’re just showing off, and it’s getting boring.”
Sere held her blade out toward Doodlebug in case the girl had any bright ideas of fighting during the imposed truce. “Not bad. Not great but good enough to decapitate the demon I’m sending you after.” She didn’t feel tired. Instead, the blood that pumped through her oxygen-deprived muscles powered her up like jet fuel. She felt ready to take on all of hell’s demons single-handed.
“So I win your approval?” Doodlebug had drool running down her chin. Her eyes were demon red, but she’d never turned into the unrestrained animal combatant that Sere had encountered with other doppelgängers.
“Rule number four: you don’t need and will never get my approval. Learn to be like that sword—the weapon proves its worth but doesn’t expect recognition. However, you have won the position of my champion in hell. I’m sending you back to kill someone for me. Consider it payment for having murdered Joe: a life for a life.”