Grim

by Thea Atkinson

  I wasn't expecting to see such a look of hunger across his face, and especially not under the circumstances, but he covered it so quickly, averting his gaze to the bed, I doubted I had seen it at all. I started working the Johnny gown down Sarah's shoulders and that was when he finally came to life.

  "Nice to see you in the game," I said to him. "Help me with this."

  Sarah seemed to understand what was going on and did her best to let us work her hospital gown off of her and replace it with my shirt and jeans. I knew from experience, she wouldn't be embarrassed about either of us seeing her in her underwear. Back in the day, she had pranced around in them plenty, almost daring people to tell her to get dressed.

  I, on the other hand, wasn't quite as confident about my own body. But this wasn't the time nor the place to worry about that. I pulled her gown on over top of my underwear and smoothed it down over the front, focusing hard as I looked at her face.

  I had no idea what exactly I had to do in order to get my new, mad reaper skills to work and so I did the only thing I could think of. I concentrated hard, focusing on the way her eyebrows looked like dove wings over her eyes. I took in the black fringe of hair and reminded myself she was really a blonde but that she would want to be brunette if she had a choice. Then I smoothed down the gown over the front of my body and looked up at Callum.

  "How do I look?"

  "Like you're trying to open a jar of pickles," he said.

  I think the creature laughed at me.

  I groaned. This wasn't working. Maybe I'd misunderstood Azrael. I tried to bring to mind everything he'd said. Nothing is certain. To me that meant Sarah's death wasn't fated. That meant the doppelgänger would be anxious until the time came. It might be antsy. It might make mistakes. It was obviously watching us pretty intently, trying to work out what we were doing. Since it wasn't attacking, it no doubt was recovering what energy it had lost when it had razored through Callum's chest.

  But there were been one other thing Azrael had said that stuck in the back of my mind even though I hadn't known what to do with it at the time. He'd said that as part of my new role, I would take on aspects of those supernatural creatures I reaped. That one thing I had counted on was being able to somehow glamour myself into looking like Sarah. My entire plan depended upon it. I could hear the nurse outside the door, talking to Faye, and telling her it was time for Sarah's sedation. There wasn't much time.

  Regardless of whether or not I looked like Sarah, it was time for Callum to get her out of there.

  I kicked my duffel bag under the bed, telling myself that in the end it would all work out right. It would have to.

  "Help me with her," I said again, and lay my hand on Sarah's arm, fully intending to warn her she was about to be picked up and carried out of there bodily. That's when I heard Callum gasp. I looked up to see him staring at me, his mouth open enough that I could see the backs of his teeth.

  "Holy hell," he said, skirting a look back over his shoulder at where the doppelgänger was sitting in the chair, its tongue hanging out. "Is that you, Ayla?"

  I looked down at my hands, flipping them over for inspection. They certainly looked like my hands, but then hands were hands. I ran my fingers through my hair, pulling it forward into view. Black. Not my regular fiery red, but pitch black like Sarah's dye job. I couldn't help laughing. I felt giddy.

  "It worked," I said. "Holy hell, it worked."

  I looked askance at the doppelgänger and it seemed as though it had pitched up forward onto the tips of its toes as it rocked back and forth on the plastic chair. It looked like it was about to leap at me, but I knew it wasn't solid enough to do any harm. At least not yet. But it was most definitely getting antsy. I wasn't sure I could trust it to stay where it was.

  "Get her out of here," I said to Callum. "Take her back to the crypt. I'll be there as soon as I can."

  Luckily, Sarah was aware enough to let him sling his arm over her shoulder and walk her through the curtain. I jumped into the bed and pulled over the sheets just in time to see both the doppelgänger disappear and the nurse flick the curtain aside. I was still settling into place when I heard her say goodbye to Callum and tell him visiting hours the next day would be an hour later.

  Success. At least for stage one. I tried to make myself go limp and looked up at her through veiled eyelashes.

  "Time for your sedatives, young lady," she said with a note of cheeriness that made my stomach turn. "Now make sure you swallow them. We don't want any hysterical shouting again tonight."

  I tried to offer what I hoped was a drug-induced stare, complete with docile nod. She popped the pill onto my tongue and poured a mouthful of water from a paper cup between my lips. I caught the thing just in time before it washed down my throat and slipped it up between my teeth and my lip. Her finger went to the bottom of my chin and tugged my jaw open. She twisted my face back and forth, inspecting.

  "Good," she said. "Sleep well. You get through one night without hollering, and we just might let someone sign you out."

  I wished she would stop being so chatty. I was sure that every moment was ticking down like a time bomb and I needed to get out of there. It was an agonizing wait as she fluffed the pillows like a good little nurse and tidied up the bed stand. She snapped the sheets over me and tucked them in nice and tight beneath the mattress. She stood there for several moments with her hands on her hips, surveying the area and then she pulled open the drapes to the rest of the ward and rambled over the other patient in exactly the same way. It was all I could do to keep from groaning out loud and yelling at her to hurry the heck up, but finally she left the room with a flip of the light switch and closed the door.

  Finally.

  I jumped from the bed and pulled the duffel bag out from beneath it. I waited to see if the other occupant would squeal on me, but she just looked up at me with her finger to her mouth. I stripped off the hospital gown and pulled on the spare set of clothes I had packed. It was only when I was pushing the duffel bag back under the bed that I saw the small leather pouch lying next to my pillow.

  The leather pouch. Gramp had sent me that to give to Sarah. We had used it to keep the doppelgänger at bay, and now it was lying here on her bed too far away from her to be of any aid. I thought of the way the thing had disappeared as the nurse had come into the room, and my stomach lurched as I imagined Callum and Sarah finding their way to the crypt.

  I grabbed the bag from the mattress and stuffed it into my pocket.

  I didn't know if the glamour would still be on me or if I had to do something special to let it release, but I didn't have time to wait. I strode through the ward room and yanked open the door, believing I looked like me and not Sarah. I caught Faye's eye as she sat behind the desk and she nodded to me with a confused look on her face. I took that to mean she thought I had left earlier with Callum and couldn't quite figure out what was going on.

  Stage two complete. So far so good.

  I got all the way out of the hospital and onto my scooter without incident. The trip to the cathedral was an agonizingly slow one. It didn't matter that I was pushing Old Yeller to its limits, it couldn't have possibly gone fast enough for me.

  I let go a breath of relief when I saw Callum's car parked on the corner of the parking lot at the cathedral. I was already deep in the bowels of the tunnel when I thought to pull the cell phone from my pocket and send out a text. I copied both addresses into the text bar and shot out two words: I'm coming.

  A text back seconds later from Sarah's phone: too late.

  CHAPTER 17

  I raced down the short tunnel toward the crypt with my heart in my throat. I was relieved to see that the sconces in the crevices of the walls in the tunnel were lit and glowing a faint yellow. That was good. I would need to use my cell phone battery to find my way back to the cavern on the other end of the tunnel.

  I picked my way along, jumping over stones and running my hand along the side of the walls when I thought I would fall. I knew
I was close when my fingers slipped into a crevice along the way and touched on something hard and rough. Yanking my hand away, creeped out by the feel, I shone my cell phone light and had it. It was the same narrow nook housing its complete skeleton that had remained untouched by Sarah's magic the night before. The bones and its skull remained untouched from Sarah's earlier machinations.

  At least I was close. Even my stomach seem to sense it. My bladder spasmed, letting me know it was completely willing to void every bit of liquid at the first sign of danger. I dragged in a shuddering breath and pushed further down the tunnel. They needed me. I couldn't waste any time.

  I heard the chattering of what sounded like teeth long before I saw the fallen skeleton army trying to reassemble itself from the floor. The bones were shivering and shaking against each other as they tried to rise and it made the hairs on my arms prickle to attention.

  Too late, Sarah had texted. And I saw now that she must be trying to raise her army again. For whatever reason, she was having difficulty. I had hoped that getting her back to the crypt where she had left her stash might give her the tools she needed to control the doppelgänger, but if she was trying to raise the skeletons and they weren't responding, then something had to be terribly wrong.

  It took everything I had in me to push open the door. I wasn't sure what I was expecting to see; I just knew that what I wanted to see was Sarah and Callum standing victorious in the middle of the room. I wanted to see the doppelgänger lying dead on the floor. I saw neither of those things.

  I was met with the sight of Sarah cringing into a corner. Her hands were stuffed to her mouth, her eyes kept darting to the other side of the room where her cooler lay. She wanted to get to it, that was clear. Something was keeping her from doing it.

  I swung my gaze sideways and in a heartbeat saw the reason she couldn't.

  The doppelgänger had managed to find enough energy to finally become physical and it seemed intent on staying that way. It had thick daemon-like thighs covered in boils seeping sizzling fluid onto the cavern floor. Its gaping mouth showed all two rows of its razor sharp teeth as it billowed out its fury in her general direction. The long arms ended in thick talons with claws the size of knives.

  A wash of dizziness swept over me so fiercely, I only vaguely registered the ringing in my ears.

  My bladder threatened to give way.

  My first instinct was to back away and run headlong back down the tunnel, but I forced myself to stand my ground. She needed me. She needed me now. I dropped my cell phone and everything in my hands so I would be free to help.

  I shouted at the thing, trying to distract it, but it came out as nothing but a squeak. No one noticed me. Not even Sarah. She had eyes only for that thing trying to get to her.

  It was only then I realized the only thing keeping it from latching onto her was Callum. With every lunge the thing made, Callum delivered either a kick or a punch and sent it staggering, but he was growing tired. Sweat ran down his brow and his last kick seemed to have a little less energy in it.

  The thing roared and I leapt forward without taking the time to think. In seconds, I had thrown myself at its legs, wrapping my arms around its ankle and pulling at it, hoping against hope that Callum would be able to bring it down with his next kick.

  That didn't happen. The thing swung its gaze down at me and I swore I saw a recognition in the depths of its eyes. The pain in my bladder was almost enough to beg release, but I managed to hold it as I stared into those yellow eyes.

  I knew it was going to swing at me even before the arm came sailing in an arc toward me. When it clubbed me alongside the ear, it was as though it had jarred loose rational thought. What had I been thinking to believe Sarah could simply find the energy to live and disintegrate this thing? She had already empowered it, and it wasn't going to give in to the rules of its existence quite so easily.

  I still clung to its ankle, despite the blackness creeping in at the edges of my vision. I couldn't imagine how I was still holding on, even when I felt my shirt ride up and drag against the bare dirt as it lumbered its way toward Sarah.

  "Hold on," Callum shouted and I tried to answer with a feeble nod. He needed time, obviously. I desperately hoped he was setting up some massively fantastic roundhouse kick that would knock the thing halfway across the cavern because my grip was slipping and it seemed as though I was nothing but a bit of tissue stuck to its shoe at any rate.

  I heard the thud of his foot striking the creature, and I fully expected the doppelgänger to stagger backward. I even let go in anticipation, afraid the thing would fall on me. I managed to find the energy to roll sideways away from it and push myself up onto my elbows and knees. Everything hurt. My breath was nothing but a ragged sound in my ears that battled for precedence over the ringing. I had a hard time holding my head up against the black weight that wanted to take me.

  I did look up, and the thing hadn't followed. Callum was standing there, his chest heaving, sweat dripping down his brow. I watched him sway on his feet and the thing laughed at him. Laughed. It thought it had won.

  Sarah let go a squeak. She tried to jump out of the way and run toward the cooler. I imagined she thought she could control the thing by now, and whatever was inside that thing might help her. Only I knew she was wrong. Now that it was a corporeal thing, she had lost control. She just didn't realize it.

  That was when I remembered the pouch. I had dropped it. Along with my cell phone. How foolish of me. The one weapon that we had, the only thing proven to keep the doppelgänger at bay and I had dropped it like it was a piece of trash. I clambered across the floor, searching frantically with my fingers, praying hands would land on it. My cell phone came first. I pushed it aside. Sarah yelled again. I could hear Callum grunting as he tried to land another kick.

  It had to be somewhere. I ran my hands along the floor of the cavern, sideways. Back and forth.

  I thought I heard my name being shouted, but I drowned it out. I knew what to do. I just had to find the thing. I heard myself muttering the please dear God let the thing still be working. I prayed there wasn't an expiration date.

  I could've wept when my hand ran across the feel of leather. I fisted my hand over it and rolled over onto my back, yelling for Sarah.

  She was pressed as far back into the cavern as she could get, and both Callum and the doppelgänger were already peered closer than they had been. Callum was losing. He was exhausted. Even the doppelgänger seemed to know it and was advancing with a stolid and dogged purpose.

  "Catch it," I yelled at her. "And don't move."

  I tossed the thing at her. It arced high over both Callum and the doppelgänger, creating a beautiful circle in the air before it landed neatly between her hands. Both he and the creature watched it sail through the air and by the time it was descending, the doppelgänger had realized what it was and had lunged for her. She caught the pouch, and the doppelgänger lurched backward as though someone had hooked it from behind.

  "Stay there," I shouted at Sarah.

  When I yelled at her, the doppelgänger whipped around. Its gaze landed on me with enough fury to make me gasp. It snarled. Even as I caught sight of its face, it transformed subtly. It was no longer a terrifying looking troll, but something that more closely resembled a man.

  A man. I almost let go a nervous laugh until it emitted a horrible howl and flew at me, shifting each second as it ran from a man to that horrible troll. From over its shoulder, I could see Callum realizing what was going to happen and he threw himself at the creature again. As he did, the creature swiped sideways without so much as stalling, and those claws dug into Callum's chest.

  I watched, horrified, as he ran the distance with the doppelgänger for several seconds, the claws of the creature still embedded in his chest. I tried to stand, tried to launch myself at them, but my legs went to water and I fell to my knees. Sweet horror of horrors, he was down and the creature was still coming. I had only seconds before it got me.

 
I managed to squeak out Sarah's name just before its fingers closed around my throat. From the corner of my eye I could see her running for the cooler. But it was too late. There was nothing she could do now.

  The thing was inches from my face as the pressure increased around my neck. I thought it might dig those teeth into my cheek, and I found myself wincing, trying to wrench myself away from it, but instead, its face transformed again, showing me the visage of that man's face.

  It did open its mouth. It didn't hiss as I expected. It didn't roar like a beast. Instead, it spoke.

  "Die," it said.

  My bladder finally let go. I felt hot liquid running down my leg and pooling into my shoe.

  I went into full panic mode then. I didn't know what Sarah was doing on the other end of the crypt, or what Callum was suffering on its floor. Everything shrank down to that small microcosm of space with the thing's hands around my throat and the pressure that they elicited formed everything I knew.

  I was vaguely aware I was kicking and trying to scream. My vision started tunneling down to one pinprick and my chest ached with a burn so incredible, I imagined that was what it must feel like to be on fire.

  In the midst of that panic, as the moments stretched themselves out like salt water taffy, Azrael's words flitted through my mind like a butterfly on the breeze. This would be my last incarnation. I would die here. I would end up in the top of his cane because I hadn't reaped all of the things I needed to in order to find my way home.

  I knew in that moment that whether or not I wanted to be a reaper, I at least wanted to live. I thought of the very real home I had found in my grandfather's house. The love and comfort he offered me and I kicked in earnest.

  A smile slithered across the creature's face. There was evil in his eyes. Deadly intent.

  It laughed. It transformed itself fully into that man with a face as beautiful as it was evil looking and laughed right at me.