“Hold the line!” I shouted, ignoring the sick exhaustion that came with too many adrenaline rushes and from leaning too hard on my pyromancy. If we didn’t hold here, we’d be worm food. Literally. And if I died now all my black karma would ensure that I reincarnated as a blobfish.
The melee team joined the fray, hacking and slashing to protect the shooters. Nothing in the world tore it up like a hungry werewolf. Rafe went to town, ripping and biting with appalling manners. Erik and Hanzo hacked and slashed their way through any worm that slithered too close. Even Gavin got in on the action, flailing around with his fireplace poker and shrieking that he was too young to be eaten.
The last surviving myxini squirmed out of the flames and smashed through our barrier of shelves, tables, and heaps of bizarre knickknacks and strange bric-a-brac. Rafe leaped on its back. He savaged it with werewolf teeth and claws but went flying when the thing knotted up and slimed him off.
The giant hagworm lunged for Gavin, trying to latch its huge mouth onto his chest and bore its way through him. I shouted a warning, but Gavin was as good as meat…until Tiffany shoved him out of the way and opened fire point blank down the monster’s throat with both pistols. Erik appeared next to her an instant later, bellowing his berserker war cry as he swung his axe and severed the hagworm’s head. The head tumbled through the air, and I lit it up with a stream of flames, transforming it into something that resembled an arc-welded marshmallow.
An unnerving stillness fell in the battle’s aftermath. Flames crackled and snapped from a few small and completely incidental fires, sending black smoke to curl along the ceiling and dancing shadows across the walls. Everyone was breathing hard, every face tense and strained. The stink of blood and smoke and patchouli from an incense holder I’d accidentally melted lingered in the air.
“Clear?” I called out.
“Clear!” came a half dozen replies.
Finally, thank God. “Triage time. Who’s hurt worst?”
No one answered. Even the women on my team liked to play hard-ass soldier of fortune, probably picking up bad habits from the testosterone junkies. I still had that nasty gash on my side, turning my fatigues tacky with blood. The wound sent a blazing bolt of pain through me every time I moved.
“Fine,” I announced. “I’ll be the wimp and go first. Hanzo, toss the katana and pull on your medic booties.”
Medic booties were purely metaphorical, but Hanzo did as I asked without complaint. He carefully pushed aside the tear in my fatigues to examine the wound. His healing aura slipped across my skin, tightening down the surrounding blood vessels, slowing and then stopping the blood loss with accelerated platelet accretion before repairing the tissue. Heat and cold alternated around and inside the wound, along with itchiness and the weird sensation of skin stretching. While he worked, I leaned against a broken bookshelf and stared at the wreckage and the mangled corpses of hagworms.
The myxini had crawled up through the sewers and threatened a local legendary landmark—a doughnut shop that served Nyquil-glazed doughnuts and doughnuts shaped like voodoo dolls. The Zero Dogs were called in to end the threat, but the infestation had been far larger than intel had claimed. We’d had to fall back and fortify ourselves inside a curio shop called Dead Cat Antiques. Only in Portland would a shop owner run with a name like Dead Cat Antiques, taking the catchphrase “Keep Portland Weird” to the edge…and then straight over the cliff.
Even though the damage to the shop was extensive, at a glance it was hard to tell if the strange junk scattered everywhere was in a better or a worse state after a few thousand rounds of ammunition, attack spells, berserker rages, and Mai’s pet army of needle-spitting furry things. These were bizarre items that screamed eccentric—stuff no one but the uber rich or the completely tasteless would ever buy. Gaudy harlequin masks, teacups carved out of what looked to be bone, a stuffed unicorn penis, a chair built of petrified squids, rocking horses, the severed paw of a lemur, a barrel organ. Russian dolls wearing gas masks. Cowboy hats made out of dragon scales. Boots that had no soles but were liberally decorated with sequins and spell runes. Really weird stuff.
“Thank God we saved that doughnut shop,” Gavin said, holding a smoking piece of twisted metal that appeared as if it had once been a vintage Magnum P.I. television tray. He stumbled to a shattered display window and yelled at the building we’d been deployed to protect before being forced to hole up here. “I loved being live bait so you can continue your righteous mission of dispensing marriage licenses and bacon-covered maple fritters!” Then he started singing “God Bless America” at the top of his lungs.
“Stow it, Gavin,” I said with more good humor than I actually felt. “We’re getting paid, and no civvies got eaten by the slime-o-pedes. That’s win-win.”
His lip curled. “They aren’t related to centipedes, Captain. They don’t have any legs. You might’ve noticed that as they were trying to, I don’t know, eat us alive.”
Gavin. Always with the melodrama. I frowned and enunciated every syllable. “Slime…oh…pedes.”
The name was stupid. I knew it. Everyone knew it. The hagworms had been revolting on a whole new level, one that the zombies and goblins and self-aware robots we usually fought couldn’t compare with. They needed a stupid name to dull the horror’s edge.
“Captain,” Tiffany said, her voice disarmingly soft for the succubus in combat armor who had, only minutes ago, been blasting down worms like some two-fisted demon of death. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but don’t you have a date tonight?”
I rubbed my temple and glanced at my Suunto Vector watch. My big date plans with Jake had been so far derailed by the attack of the giant hagworms. Though we hadn’t missed our reservations at the Portland Stratosphere Grill yet, time was quickly running out.
Rafe had shifted back from werewolf into his human form. Which meant he stood there as naked as the day he was spawned, not bashful in the slightest, with all the ink-work tattooed across his flesh canvas exposed to the world. “Yeah, Captain,” he said, waggling his bushy eyebrows. “Valentine’s Day. You don’t want to miss your chance for freaky-deaky.”
I waved a hand at the broken curios and dead monsters. “Had enough freaky for this deaky already, thanks.”
“Don’t worry,” Sarge rumbled, giving me a rare smile which, taken with his red pupils and jet-black irises, made him appear even more disconcerting. “We got this locked down, Captain.”
I hesitated. There were still after-action reviews and paperwork for the city to complete. “I can’t just bail. Reports to fill out. Some accidental fires still burning. Public relations that need spinning.”
“Details.” He shrugged. “Go have fun for once.”
“Yes!” Mai pumped her fist and nearly dropped the furry alien she’d been cradling like National Enquirer monster-baby-fodder. “Go have a wild time. Do things you’ll never forget!”
Gavin flung the smoking piece of TV tray out the broken window. “Yeah, don’t mind us. We’ll just be here, slogging through all the viscera and hagworm slime. Feel free to frolic and face-suck and celebrate your corporate whore of a revenue-generating mall-iday.”
“I see what you did there,” Rafe said, narrowing his eyes. “Switched out the holy of holiday with mall, making something that…sounds really stupid.”
“I think it’s a wonderful holiday,” Mai chided. The fuzzy creature in her arms made a noise like an electric can opener. She kissed it over the eyes that protruded from the top of its head. “See? Mr. Gongoozle especially enjoys the kisses.”
Gavin eyed the creature as if it might chomp a chunk off him if he strayed too close. “Valentines used to be unique, handmade verses of love, until they transformed into mass-produced commercialist sappy-disposable-trash cards. The roses murdered every year refer to the holiday as the annual St. Valentine’s Day massacre. It’s a media-hype celebration as emotionally satisfying as chewing a candy wrapper.”
Rafe laughed. “That’s because you never ge
t laid. Sexual frustration’s a terrible thing.”
Leading the Zero Dogs had taught me the value of a deep well of patience. Unfortunately, my patience had all the depth of a rain puddle. This time I managed to take a calming breath, grateful for olfactory burnout, and sigh it out slowly. I concentrated on recapturing the excitement I’d felt this morning, before the day had gone off the rails. Hell, I even had a Valentine’s Day card for Jake, and I’d made it myself. Today. In the short lulls between waves of slim-o-pedes. Because I’d lost track of what day it was and hadn’t bought a standard Hallmark version in time. I hoped he mistook the bloodstains for decorative flourishes.
Even though everyone but Gavin clearly wanted me to go, I still hesitated. I wasn’t used to leaving things to other people, although Sarge was perfectly capable of handling the situation in my absence. Tiffany, grinning, made shooing motions at me. Her boyfriend, Erik, wrapped an arm around her and gave me a rare smile.
“Have fun, Captain,” he said. “You deserve it.”
“Yeah, but what about—”
“Go!” nearly everyone shouted in unison.
So I gave up and went.
CHAPTER TWO
The wind blew cold and without ceasing as I trudged up what felt like the thousand-and-first stair to the double doors of our compound. I was glad to be home. Weariness acid-etched its way into my bones, and I stank like the aftermath of a forest fire crossed with a butcher shop’s garbage bin. Exhaustion had hit me hard on the drive here, and now that I felt like sledgehammered shit, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for a week.
But it was Valentine’s Day.
Jake was in town, we had plans, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. He was US Army Special Forces, Operational Detachments Alpha 2nd out of Fort Bragg in North Carolina. He was a barrier mage who belonged to a paranormal military unit of Green Berets sent around the world to handle asymmetric threats. Between his active deployments and my paying jobs with the Zero Dogs, we didn’t get a lot of face time. So no matter how tired I might be, time with him was more important.
Besides, I’d been looking forward to this for days. Jake would be waiting inside, dressed for our impending date, and I grinned in anticipation. He was taking me to the Portland Stratosphere Grill, a high-end restaurant on the thirtieth floor of the U.S. Bancorp Tower. Great food. Stunning view. Excellent male company. Though Jake had flown in this morning, I hadn’t been able to see him for long before we got the call to stop the hagworm invasion. Truth was, I’d missed him something wicked in the last few weeks, enough to form elaborate stratagems for today. Yes, those plans involved red things. Wine and lacy lingerie foremost among them.
Thinking of him put some hustle in my steps as I climbed the rest of the stairs. I used the bio-scanner to unlock the double doors, and they automatically swung inward with a soothing whoosh. The foyer and living room were both a mess, but that was standard operating procedure around here. No matter how much I paid, cleaning services always quit after a month or so of dealing with us, and mercenaries were appalling at housekeeping.
Jake was nowhere to be seen. I’d hoped he’d be there to greet me when I came in, but I hadn’t called on my way home because my cell phone had been destroyed in the battle, upping my total to six phones ruined so far this year. He was probably upstairs getting ready for our big fancy date. Special Forces operator or not, he took more time in front of the mirror than I did. I gave him nonstop flak for it, but damn did the guy look good in a suit.
I headed for the staircase, more determined than ever. Those damn slime-o-pedes weren’t going to ruin this girl’s Love Holiday any more than they already had. It would be all positive energy from here on. I planned to take a scalding shower, get dressed in whatever fancy clothes I happened to own that weren’t dry clean only, and then indulge in some quality face time with my man.
Jake wasn’t in my suite of rooms either. I even checked the closet and under the bed on the off chance this was some strange covert ops version of foreplay.
My heart began to bang in my chest like an off-center washing machine. A bad feeling haunted me as I searched, growing stronger the longer I went without finding him. I used the office line to dial his cell phone but was shunted straight to voice mail. I called Sarge to check if Jake had shown up at the battle scene downtown looking for me. Sarge hadn’t seen him. A few minutes later I discovered Jake’s cell phone on an end table in the living room, the ringer muted but the phone fully charged.
My unease tilted toward panic. I walked the entire compound, searching for him. The place was empty except for Stefan, our daylight-impaired vampire, still sleeping snug in his vault, and Quill, our new “spiritual advisor”—a Buddhist goblin who had been busy meditating in the conference room.
Quill stared at me, his gray goblin eyes wide. He was a red cap. That meant he was short, wrinkled, with stringy gray hair covered by a floppy woolen hat soaked in blood, but he broke from the mold in his choice of kasaya robes. “He left already, Captain—”
“Damn. I knew it. He got a call from Fort Bragg. Probably terrorist yetis or something, right?”
“He left…with you.”
I waited a full three counts, trying to decide if I’d heard him correctly. “With me.”
“He left with you about thirty minutes ago.” Quill clasped his hands together, his knuckles white. “I saw him leave. You were both dressed for your date.”
Cold seeped down my body and pooled in my guts. “What else was I doing?”
“You were very happy.” He took off his red cap and began to turn it nervously in his hands. It squelched and squeezed out droplets of blood. Red caps needed to keep those hats wet with blood or they’d die. Since Quill was a pacifist, I bought him pig blood to soak it in. Although he still felt guilt over the pigs, I had no such qualms about a lifetime supply of bacon. He blinked at me and chewed his lip before continuing. “You were…effervescent.”
“Effervescent.” I tried to remember ever feeling effervescent and came up blank. Then I tried to remember feeling happy. I think I’d fit in roughly ten minutes of happiness with Jake right before I’d caught the job on the slime-o-pedes.
“You were elegantly dressed, with your hair done up.” Quill glanced at my hair, a tragic victim of helmet-head and sweat, and then at my fatigues and body armor, both filthy and blood-spattered. His expression grew more bewildered. “You had face paint—uh, makeup. Perfume. A beautiful evening gown.”
“I’m not sure I own an evening gown,” I said as my thoughts ricocheted through my brain. Was this some sort of alternate dimension bleed? Or shape-shifters? Maybe alien body snatchers…except I was still right here, wearing the correct skin. I touched my face. I was wearing the right skin, wasn’t I? I grabbed the goblin by the front of his robes. “Quick, what do I look like?”
He flinched but kept his voice soothing, as if speaking to a volatile lunatic. “Um. You look like a human…um, female. Perhaps a bit tired. You should lie down, maybe?”
I waved his suggestion away. “But am I me?”
“I think so…”
“I have to be,” I muttered. “No one else would be crazy enough to do this for a living. The smells alone would scar a person forever.” I looked back at Quill. “Where did Jake and this Other Me go?”
“Um…a date? I understand Valentine’s Day is significant for human love rituals.” Quill blushed as if embarrassed by the implications. Right now I was far more concerned that Jake had gone missing with someone who looked exactly like me. Perhaps a me from another timeline. A doppelganger with fancier clothes and a hair stylist. The way my life usually went, I’d have to destroy her before she murdered me and completed her nefarious attempt to steal my identity.
Regardless, I needed more intel before I made my move. I glanced up at the unobtrusive security camera mounted on the wall. I had the whole mansion wired. Time to see what this man-stealing hussy really looked like.
* * *
She looked ex
actly like me. Only better.
I stared at the security camera footage on the office computer, watching Jake escort a woman with a perfect professional coif job and an exquisite strapless black evening gown as she flowed gracefully along in four-inch heels. She carried a tiny designer handbag, while I favored handbags big enough to hide guns and ammunition.
“I can’t believe he didn’t notice that wasn’t me,” I said.
“She is showing more cleavage than you usually do, Captain,” Quill volunteered. “Perhaps that’s why. I understand males love breasts.”
I grunted—the only answer a statement like that deserved. On the screen, one camera feed showed my doppelganger pull Jake into a passionate kiss after he held open the door of his truck for her.
“He’s sucking face with Evil Me,” I said to no one in particular. “Can’t he taste the difference?”
My palms were clammy, and my pulse hammered in my temples. They broke the kiss, and Jake touched her face, gently. I recognized that smile. He was so tender with her that it twisted my heart. When I tried to swallow the jealousy, it burned going down like a drain-cleaner-martini.
Someone squeezed my elbow. I glanced down to see Quill staring at me, his expression sympathetic. “The First Noble Truth,” he said. “Life is suffering. Life is pain. We must—”
“Life is a pain in my ass,” I growled, cutting him off before he could go any further down the Buddhist catalogue. Quill only nodded sagely, as if I’d spoken something transcendent.
I scrolled back through the security footage to my doppelganger’s arrival. I watched on various camera feeds as she walked through the open gates and waltzed into my house as if she owned the place. Jake had clearly been delighted by my appearance and outfit, which made me feel guilty. Maybe I should do more to make myself presentable. At least when he was in town.
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