by Kat Turner
“They’ve invited me to guest teach a couple of classes while I’m here as long as I give a good audition. This could really open doors for me back in Minneapolis. Be a huge opportunity to enrich my brand and gain some name recognition.”
“Congratulations.” He stepped forward and wrapped Helen into an embrace.
The way she returned his hug, with two pats on the back and her bottom stuck out so their pelvises didn’t touch, confused him. But Helen was a bit awkward, so maybe this stiffness came with her feeling nervous about auditioning.
“Thank you. Can I ask a favor?”
“Of course.”
“I was hoping to go over there this afternoon and scope out the space. Would you mind coming along and watching me practice my sequence? Give feedback?”
Thick jumbles of questions about her request floated around his mind.
“I don’t know how much help I’d be, seeing as I’ve never done yoga. I’d snap these old bones in half.” He bent his head at a comical angle, an attempt at humor mismatched to his state of mind.
“I value your opinion, though.”
Helen didn’t know anyone in Los Angeles and therefore didn’t have anybody else to ask for help. She was reaching out to him, and he wouldn’t push her away. Not when she was trusting him to weigh in on an important part of her identity. Helen’s request represented an effort to bring them closer after she’d pushed him away in the car. So what if she hadn’t nailed the delivery.
“Sure. Give me fifteen to wrap up.”
“You got it.” She shut the door behind her.
Brian returned to the jam session, though a nagging feeling as bothersome as a rock in the shoe irritated the back of his mind.
“That was off the wall,” Jonnie said.
“She’s so hot. Let me know if you two split up.” Thom pumped a suggestive fist up and down the neck of his bass, coaxing a moan from his instrument.
Jonas slugged Thom’s arm. “How does it feel, being a stereotype of the oversexed rocker?”
“Feels like a wet dick and an empty set of balls.”
“Off the wall how?” Brian asked Jonnie, unfocused anxiety rushing over his skin.
“Never mind. Forget it.” Jonnie fiddled with the volume on his amp.
“Tell me.”
“I thought her voice sounded a tad fake,” he muttered.
“Fake in what way?”
“Don’t get pissed. You asked for my honest opinion, and I gave it. Helen gives me pause. She made a questionable first impression. I get a strange sense from her, like she’s hiding things. There, I said it. But you’re a grown man, and I don’t purport to tell you how you ought to live your life.”
“Yet you just did.”
“Can we please not bicker?” Jonas said. “I’d love it if we could get through this finale show without bungling songs we’ve been playing for thirty years due to you two fighting about a woman. After the finale we have six months before we’re back in the studio, and then you can do whatever you wish.”
“He’s right.” Thom played an early Fyre song. “Focus.”
The remainder of band practice transpired with a marked, uncharacteristic lack of socializing, and when all concerned were confident they’d shaken off the rust, Brian hung Lady S on her wall-mounted hook. “You three sticking around?”
“Yeah, figure we’ll do a bit of experimenting.” Thom rested his instrument against a chair and made his way to the sound booth in a carefree gait.
“Alright. Take care. Jon, you remember the new security code for the house, yeah?” Brian asked.
“Of course.” Jonnie grabbed Brian’s arm, his eyes darkening.
“What? You look like you have something you want to say.” Brian tensed against his best friend’s hold. The last thing he wanted was to suspect Jonnie of secrets.
Jonnie drew in a loud breath and hissed it out. “No. I don’t.” He let go.
Fighting a destabilizing, flummoxed feeling, Brian left his studio and ambled up the carpeted steps. He popped out of the door adjacent to the kitchen.
Helen stood at the island chopping produce. The sight of his chef’s blade in her hands, ten inches of sharpened Japanese steel gleaming in the remains of sunlight, caused the willies to slip down his spine. Ugh, what was wrong with him?
“Glad to see you’ve made yourself at home.” He kissed the top of her head, seeking comfort in her distinct aroma but finding little. Her hair smelled like roses and coffee. “New shampoo?”
“Huh?” She sliced a carrot, polished blade sliding through the root vegetable like it would a stick of butter.
“Nothing. Ready?”
“You bet.” She leaned on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his cheek, her lips cool and dry. He’d remembered the feel of Helen’s mouth as warmer, juicier, though perhaps the change in climate or smog affected her body chemistry.
Helen hummed a tune and crouched, pulled a tube of plastic wrap from under the island, and covered her mixing bowl. Whistling, she stuck the container of veggies in the fridge.
He recognized the tune and brightened. “‘A Thousand Suns.’ That’s when I knew I liked you, when you told me how you connected with it.”
“Yeah, totally.” She donned her messenger bag and breezed past him. “Let’s roll. The Uber’s here.”
“Off we go.” He followed, though some invisible force pulled him back. Her tone was weird. Glib, superficial. Lacking awareness.
But there wasn’t really anything for him to say short of interrogating her about some passing comment she’d made in Minnesota, which would make him look and feel like a paranoid sod. He blamed Jonnie for planting unfounded suspicions and buggering up his thought process.
She left the house, he behind her. A cheap foreign car the color of cat vomit sat in the roundabout. Pulse spiking in a succession of erratic, irrational bursts, Brian walked around to the back window. No logo advertising the ride service.
“What?” Helen chuckled. Setting sun streaked through her hair in luminous shards, imbuing her with an angelic glow. She climbed into the backseat.
He was being an idiot. Tilly was safe with her bodyguard and tutor. His bandmates would intervene in the event of any problems. Brian shook his head, got in beside her, and shut his door.
Mundane details, from the car’s stench of air freshener to the driver’s mounted cell phone showing GPS directions to their destination, failed to ease his duress.
“Are you nervous?” he asked Helen, buckling his seatbelt.
“Nah.” Her smile was a closed-mouthed wisp of a thing fit for housing a trapped canary.
The driver steered his car down the driveway, punched in the code that Brian supplied, and curved through the hills and onto an Interstate.
“Are you sure? You’re awfully quiet.”
She shrugged. “Just thinking.”
“About your audition?”
Every pause, every lull, was painful. The sobering, sinking feeling that something was not right settled into the cabin like a looming fourth rider.
“No.”
Cool, processed air teemed with solid awfulness. The car pulled off on an exit ramp and hung a quick right turn, bouncing over potholes as it passed a junkyard filled with piles of decaying car skeletons, a neon-yellow sign advertising a pest control place, and a bail bond establishment with bars protecting windows already shattered with spiderweb cracks.
Their driver turned into the parking lot of a storage locker facility. No other vehicles in sight.
“Helen.” Brian gritted his teeth. “Where is Soul Krush?” He held on to a morsel of stupid hope.
The car turned a corner, and the open metal door of one of the lockers came in to view. Inside the square of space there was no old furniture or paintings, no worthless items of sentimental value the owners couldn’t stand to part with.
No, in the center of the barren concrete floor, someone had etched a pentagram in red paint. Or at least he hoped it was red paint. Three robed fi
gures flanked the five-pointed star, laying what looked to be trinkets in various parts of the painting. Slabs the color of stainless steel covered their faces. His heart sank. This was not Helen beside him. He should have gathered that.
He was a fucking numpty, fooled by this. His pulse slammed, and sweat dampened his underarms. With a shaking hand, Brian reached for the mobile phone in his pocket.
The imposter posing as Helen opened her bag, pulled out the knife, and pointed the tip right under his chin. “Soul Krush? It’s somewhere on Venice Beach I think. But that doesn’t concern you. Your job right now is to prepare yourself for the Silver Phase.”
Eighteen
Helen unlocked Brian’s front door with the spare key, pensiveness weighing on her thoughts. She’d busied herself with quite the productive outing while he practiced in his home studio.
Her trip to the Venice beach magic shop ended with two bags full of pamphlets, various spell craft tools, and advice from the crone in charge. The woman confirmed Helen’s suspicion about the problems with her Left Hand magic and state of mind.
The front door gave way to a din of male voices engaged in subdued chat. Though tempted to forge ahead with the suggestions of the Venice witch, Helen would be remiss not to first explain to her mentor her reluctance to abandon the Left Hand path. She did some nail polish picking as she walked inside. Nerissa might balk, but she at least needed to hear Helen out. Consider her reasoning.
Jonnie Tollens approached her from across the living room, focused and serious.
“How was the audition?” he asked crisply, dark eyes assessing her with unmitigated skepticism.
Helen cocked her head. Brian’s friend’s palpable distrust swirled all around him, and his mention of this audition topic confounded her in a gruesome way.
“What audition?”
Jonnie crossed his arms over his chest and drew back as if recoiling from her physical presence. “The one you mentioned when you stopped by the studio. Where’s Brian?”
“When I stopped by the—” Her stomach iced. A dread cloud eclipsed confusion. The clone was afoot, and had escalated her meddling by duping Brian into going somewhere with her. “Oh, shit.”
“Look, Helen, I don’t know what your endgame is, but I’ll admit I don’t like you.”
“And that’s fair. I don’t blame you. But if you’ll excuse me, I need to try to help.”
He scowled. “You aren’t making sense. Is Brian safe?”
She looked Jonnie square in the eye. “No. He isn’t.”
Two more men walked up and assumed posts at Jonnie’s sides. Thom from Denver and a guy wearing a warmup suit. She put two and two together, placing the third man as Fyre’s drummer, Jonas.
“How did you get back here so fast?” Thom furrowed his brow.
“She’s dodgy as hell and full of lies.” Jonnie spoke through clenched teeth.
“Look, I get your apprehension, I really do. But I need you all to listen to me right now. I have work to do, and I need the house to myself for awhile. Can I trust someone to take Tilly for the rest of the afternoon?”
Jonas nodded. “I’m taking my kids to the movies. She’s welcome to tag along and stay the night at our place if you need more time.” Though his posh voice betrayed worry, his kind, helpful energy assured her he was good people.
“Perfect.” Helen blew out a big breath.
“No, not perfect. I demand answers. Where’s Brian? You’re mixed up in that cult, aren’t you? Friends with Joe?” Under a tight white T-shirt, Jonnie’s chest rose and fell in confrontational swells.
“You know Joe?” Thom scowled at Helen.
“Just hang tight, okay? I’ll explain soon, I swear.”
Tilly joined the fray, wearing baggy sweatpants and munching potato chips from a can.
A middle-aged woman trotted behind her, huffing while schlepping a pile of textbooks.
Alongside the lady walked a tank in camouflage khakis with a gun holstered to the belt.
“What’s all this drama? This is my tutor, Karen, and my bodyguard, Brutus, by the way.”
Karen smiled thinly and adjusted the stack in her short arms.
Brutus grunted.
“Nice to meet you, Karen. Class is dismissed for the day. Tilly, go with Jonas. He’s in charge. Brutus, stick close and don’t let her out of your sight.”
“You are not the boss of me.” The teen spoke in a slow, deliberate tone. She probably imagined dropping a microphone.
Helen got in the girl’s face. “If you want to stay alive, then yes, yes I am.”
“Sounds like a threat,” Jonnie said.
Helen whipped her head in his direction. “I sympathize with your reservations, but I need you to back off. I won’t hurt anyone, but unless I can do my thing, we’re all in grave danger. Do I make myself clear?”
The bandmates exchanged looks of surprise.
Karen cringed.
Brutus issued a grunt lower in pitch than his earlier vocalization. Helen interpreted the noise as an affirmation.
Tilly rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Jonas elbowed Jonnie.
“Yes. Fine,” Jonnie said.
“Good. See you all soon, and I promise I’ll have things to say in defense of myself.” Helen’s heartbeat kicked in to a higher gear. She had her grimoire, various magical accessories on hand, and no time to lose.
Everyone left, with Tilly whining about how the various activities that Jonas proposed were “baby stuff.”
Helen unleashed a gust of relief, arms and legs loosening as cars started and drove off.
The minute engine sounds trailed into silence, she dashed up the staircase, dumped bags of arcane wares onto the floor of Brian’s bedroom, and cracked her magic book.
No point in panicking. No time to check in with Nerissa either, unfortunately. The clone was perpetrating something awful, and Helen best act with decisiveness and resolve if she wanted to even bother to hope for a fleeting chance at stopping the double’s sinister machinations.
“Okay, okay.” Her pulse rate went ape, urgency fueling her as she zipped through pages.
Acting on a combination of hunch and limited experience, she opened to the section of the book she’d landed on prior to undertaking previous trips down the astral highway. One part of the book applied to her and her unique powers, no doubt about it.
Drums thumping in her ears, Helen raked through crinkling pages until one commanded her attention. Her world collapsed to script and drawings. Into solutions.
Doppelgangers often arise when inexperienced practitioners fail in their efforts to execute psyche splitting spells.
Helen scraped a thumbnail bare, tightness cinching her midsection. On the charge of failing to execute a psyche splitting spell due to lack of experience, the defendant had been found guilty. She kicked guilt to the curb and read on. This moment was about solving a problem, not wallowing in its effects.
These inter-dimensional travelers are extraordinarily difficult to manage and overcome, as they are cunning, intelligent, and adaptable. Frequently working in service of more powerful evil energies, doppelgangers, like their masters, seek permanent residence and power on our material plane. Every human life they extinguish serves this end.
Shit.
To rid oneself of a malignant clone, practitioner must travel to and confront it, force it onto the astral highway, and seal the gap between worlds that allowed it to pass through. Using the graph below, design a circle mapping your personal element against its opposite and recite the incantation at the bottom of the page.
Helen glanced below the text. Sure enough, a detailed graphic cluttered with symbols, text, and six interlocking circles. She found her opposition element and pointed a hard gaze past the sliding doors. The blue-tinted water of Brian’s infinity pool undulated with tiny waves.
Game on, baby.
Black chalk scraped across Brian’s terra cotta deck tile as Helen drew the sixth circle, making a chain link of inter
locking hoops. Why six, when there were only four elements plus the fifth for spirit? Now, though, was not the time to contemplate esoteric questions.
She popped a tiny glass jar’s cork and sprinkled salt water in one circle to represent the element water. Next came the salt jar. Helen opened it and emptied white grains in circle two, representing Earth. She lit Frankincense, jammed the stick it in a wad of clay, and set it in circle three. Cool winds carried away filmy grey smoke. Air.
Shielding a teardrop flame from breezes, she placed a candle in the middle of the fire circle. Into the spirit circle went her personal talisman, a shimmery sapphire stone bursting with iridescence.
This part of her circle construction, use of the stone symbolizing the next highest chakra in the line, was improvising. But hey, Helen had been flying by the seat of her pants since the start. And calling upon the power of the chakra representing voice seemed like an apt strategy when she had to tell a doppelganger, in no uncertain terms, to fuck off into the sun.
She stood, backed up, and eyed her handiwork. Even in dusky twilight, the blue stone glimmered like a Christmas bulb. The pool loomed large, its design creating the illusion of a sheet of water stretching to the horizon.
Helen undressed, the cool of dusk clipping her bare skin. Before she could second-guess herself, she walked to the water’s edge and, as per the spell’s instruction, slid into an amniotic embrace of heated liquid. Floating on her back, her hair a fan of tentacles, she looked at a random point in the sky.
Submerging oneself in water, according to the grimoire, facilitated and directed a spirit witch’s movement into the astral realm, aiding her ability to arrive at a specific location quickly.
No more wading through gray aspic. Helen would now do the teleportation the book mentioned earlier. If she got lucky. If she got unlucky, well…
She swallowed a big gulp. Cowboy up, Hell-ster.
“Hail to the four corners and the sentinels of the watchtowers.” Goddamn, saying that aloud make it sound extra hardcore. Far off in the distance, a faint rumble shook the air. Helen flinched. Probably just a car motor. Yeah.