The Forest of Forever (The Soren Chase Series, Book One)

by Rob Blackwell

  “Spirits are easily startled,” Noelle said, “and so this must be conducted in complete darkness. Does anyone object to this?”

  Noelle looked at the five gathered around her table, stopping briefly to stare again at Soren. Her eyes lingered on his glasses. He realized she likely thought he had a recording device inside, maybe even a video camera. Perhaps she even thought they were infrared glasses, something that would throw her plans out of whack. They weren’t. They were just a normal pair of slightly pricey sunglasses and barely kept out the sun. But there was no reason to tell Noelle that. He rather enjoyed making her anxious.

  “Very well,” she continued. “Excuse me for one moment.”

  Noelle stood up and crossed the room to approach the light switch by the door.

  This was the moment Soren had waited for. If the creature was going to strike, it would do so in the dark. But it might need some encouragement. It would only make a move if it knew it was likely to be exposed.

  As Noelle reached the switch, Soren took one last look around the table. All eyes were on the medium, except for the blond’s. She was looking at him. When she noticed his stare, she winked. For a moment Soren was discomfited. It occurred to him that she could be the monster—and that if so, it was already playing with him. But the wink seemed more flirtatious than malicious. And suddenly he had a much better idea of who she might be.

  The lights went out and the room fell into darkness. There was a rustling sound as Noelle crossed the room and sat back down.

  “I will now call into the spirit world,” Noelle said. “Do not be alarmed by what you might hear or feel. Spirits move in mysterious ways. Please do not speak directly to any ghosts we might encounter.”

  There was a pause, and Soren could hear nothing but the excited breathing of Margaret Richardson, who hoped to speak to her son.

  “Spirits, we beseech you,” Noelle said. “Please enter my humble home and talk with us. We wish to communicate with one that is lost. Come to us. Come to us!”

  There was a loud crack, and the table seemed to lift momentarily in the air before slamming back down again. Although the room had no windows, Soren felt a cool wind against his cheek.

  In the darkness next to him, another voice spoke, one that sounded like a little girl.

  “What do you want of us? Who are you seeking?” the voice asked.

  Soren had to stop himself from laughing out loud. The voice was almost comical, it was so obvious. This was supposed to be the control spirit that could take possession of the medium. If the medium was good, she could usually fake a voice that sounded nothing like her own, preferably something creepy. Instead, Noelle’s sounded about as spooky as a puppy.

  There was the sudden flapping of wings, and Soren felt something brush past his head.

  “What the hell was that?” Trent asked.

  Soren knew what it was but didn’t say. Noelle’s partner was now in the room, having crept through the trapdoor in the bookcase. He had heard the squeak of the hinges soon after the medium turned off the light. The partner was using a fake bird attached by a string to give the illusion of an animal inside the room.

  “Shh,” Margaret said.

  Noelle spoke up in her normal voice.

  “Spirits, we beg your forgiveness,” she said. “Please bring the boy to us. We ask you to summon the spirit of Tad Richardson.”

  The flapping stopped and Soren knew what would come next. There would be a miraculous display of a “spirit light,” yet another nineteenth-century trick that Noelle appeared to have pulled from a history book on how to fake a séance. But he decided he needed to move the process along. He opened his mouth to speak, hoping he could do a better job at voicing the control spirit than Noelle could.

  But someone beat him to it.

  “We cannot come,” a female voice said, and this one sounded far older and more powerful than Noelle’s earlier attempt. “There is an unclean spirit among you that prevents our arrival.”

  “What was that?” Soren heard Noelle whisper.

  One thing was clear—the new voice wasn’t hers. And it wasn’t Soren either. In the darkness it seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

  “It is a thief,” the voice continued. “It has stolen lives. It has stolen bodies. It has stolen memories. It lurks among you. I know its masquerade.”

  Soren tensed and reached for the gun in his pocket. He heard furtive movement from somewhere in the darkness.

  “Is this supposed to happen?” Margaret whispered.

  “Show yourself, thief!” the voice said.

  Soren heard a gasp beside him and realized too late what must be happening. He pulled himself away from the table and darted across the room toward the light switch. But all he could find was wood paneling. His fingers fumbled in the darkness. He was running out of time.

  “I know you’re there, thief!” the voice said.

  Soren finally found the switch and turned it on. There was a collective groan from the people in the room as they reacted to suddenly being back in the light.

  It took Soren a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they did, he realized the gun wasn’t going to do him any good.

  Madame Noelle sat at the table, her head tilted upward and her eyes bulging from shock and pain. A stream of blood issued from her lips, dripping down the sides of her mouth.

  Behind her stood Tom Mahood, his arm buried inside her neck. His flesh seemed to have attached itself to hers, giving the impression of a puppeteer with his arm inside a dummy.

  “Oh my God,” Margaret said. “What’s happening?”

  Tom turned to look back at Soren and snarled. Even as he did so, his face was changing, his nose shifting positions as it simultaneously became smaller and narrower. His eyes became wider and moved farther apart. They changed color, too, the blue light fading to hazel. It no longer looked like Tom.

  Soren had never seen the transference before and didn’t know if he could stop it. He looked around for anything sharp, and his eyes alighted on the swords hanging above the fireplace just beside him. He reached over and yanked one off the wall.

  Without hesitation, he strode across the room and sliced down on the point where the creature’s arm dug into Noelle’s neck. The thing-that-had-been-Tom screamed and pulled its arm back, holding up a bloody stump. But then it looked at Soren and smiled.

  Soren watched in fascination as the flesh around the thing’s arm reformed, bubbling up from the stump to create a new hand. The creature waved at him, flexing delicate fingers. The face reconstituted itself into one Soren recognized. The monster who had been Tom Mahood now looked like Madame Noelle. It was dressed in the same Gypsy clothes, right down to the fake-jeweled rings she wore.

  The actual Madame Noelle’s head slumped down onto the table. Soren hoped she wasn’t dead already. He had no idea what kind of damage the transference did to people. He saw the blond woman reach over and take Noelle’s pulse.

  The fake version of the medium, meanwhile, grinned menacingly at Soren and then looked around the room.

  “See what you’ve made me do?” she asked. “Now I have to kill everyone in here.”

  The creature looked over at Margaret Richardson.

  “Except for her,” fake Noelle said. “We need to talk, Maggie. I can explain everything.”

  Everyone was out of their chairs now, and Soren noticed a new presence in the room. A woman dressed in black, apparently Noelle’s partner during the séance, was standing just beyond the table. She was staring at both versions of Noelle in shock.

  “Everyone get back,” Soren said. “Whatever you do, don’t let it touch you.”

  The monster turned back to Soren.

  “They warned me about you,” Noelle’s voice purred.

  “Did they?” Soren said, holding the sword out. “I hope they said nice things.”

  “They said you were a fool,” the creature replied. “They said you don’t even know how to kill one of us. How are you pl
anning to—?”

  Soren made his move. Leaping forward, he crossed the few feet between him and the fake medium. He swung the sword in an arc aimed at the thing’s neck, delivering the blow in a smooth motion that sliced its head clean off. The fake Noelle’s head soared through the air and landed in the dead center of the séance table. Its eyes stared blankly into the crystal ball. The creature’s torso collapsed toward the ground.

  “Yeah, but the best part of the job is trying new ways,” Soren said to the monster.

  He prodded its body with his foot, but there was no response. He felt quite pleased with himself. He had never tried decapitation before. Maybe that was all there was to it. If so, he was going to be investing in swords and fencing lessons in the very near future.

  He was smiling, but when he looked up he noticed he was the only one. The others were looking between the body and him with a mixture of fear and bewilderment.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Margaret said. “You killed Tom!”

  Soren looked down at the body and then offered Margaret a half shrug.

  “Not really,” he said. “Tom was already dead. You’ve heard the word ‘doppelgänger.’ Generally speaking, people use it to mean someone who looks very similar to someone else. But there are actual creatures out there that steal your identity and memories. They are the real doppelgängers, though some of us prefer to use the word ‘pretenders.’ That’s what killed your friend Tom.”

  Margaret’s mouth was hanging open.

  “You killed Tom,” she said a second time.

  Soren sighed.

  “Do I have to explain it again?” he asked. “I mean, you can tell it didn’t look like Tom anymore, right? It had breasts and everything.”

  “Forget it,” the blond said. “She’s in shock.”

  Her comment reminded him of the real Madame Noelle, who now sat at the table staring at her own decapitated head. She looked alive at least, and she was no longer bleeding. But a small moan issued from her lips. Whatever happened now, Soren thought, it would take years of therapy for her to recover.

  He looked down at the body, but it remained blessedly still.

  “Okay,” he said, stepping over the corpse.

  He looked at everyone else in the room.

  “We’re going to need to clean this place up,” he said, glancing at the severed head on the table. “Obviously, that can’t stay where it is, or people will naturally have questions.”

  But the head took that moment to melt before Soren’s eyes. One minute it was there, appearing every bit like a decapitated human head. The next it melted into a greenish goo. Noelle nearly fell over as she jumped up from the table and hurried to stand with the others.

  “Well, I guess that takes care of that,” Soren said. “And yuck.”

  “What just happened here?” Trent asked.

  He was holding his wife, practically clutching her. Soren frowned in annoyance.

  “I thought we covered this,” he said.

  The blond broke in.

  “This man, Soren Chase, just saved Noelle’s life,” she said. “And possibly others, given what this creature could and would have done next. The person you knew as Tom Mahood was really a doppelgänger. When the ‘spirits’ began talking about a ‘thief’ in the room, the doppelgänger became worried that someone knew its identity. So it tried to steal another one. I suspect it would have used the trapdoor over there to dump Madame Noelle’s real body before the lights came back on.”

  Soren arched an eyebrow at her quizzically. He knew for certain he had not told her his name.

  “Well put,” he said. “And I seem to be at a disadvantage. You are . . . ?”

  She gave him a bright smile and stuck out her hand.

  “Annika Taylor,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to see you work.”

  He shook it and smiled at her.

  “And how do you know me exactly?” he asked.

  “That’ll have to wait,” she said, looking past him.

  “Why?”

  “Because the doppelgänger is getting back up,” she said.

  Chapter Two

  Soren turned and saw that she was right. The headless body of the fake Madame Noelle had grasped a chair leg and was struggling to stand. The body began to sprout a new head, similar to how it regrew its hand. Flesh and greenish ooze bubbled up from the neck, slowly taking shape.

  “That’s not good,” Soren said.

  “You have a backup plan, right?” Annika said behind him. “You knew it couldn’t be that easy.”

  Soren was still watching the head form itself.

  “Not really, no,” he said. “Never been known for planning ahead.”

  He looked around the room. The other six of them were all staring at the creature as it reconstituted itself.

  “All right, we need to go,” Soren said, and pointed toward the door. “Now.”

  His words seemed to focus Trent, who turned away from the creature and pulled his wife to the exit. He tried the handle, however, and pulled fruitlessly.

  “It’s locked!” he said, and looked back at Soren. “There’s a dead bolt on it.”

  The monster raised its right arm and held up a key and jangled it. The head fully formed back into Madame Noelle and smiled.

  “Looking for this?” it asked. “Nobody’s going anywhere.”

  “Is there another way out of here?” Soren asked the real Noelle.

  But the woman was still in shock. She stood staring at the image of herself. Her black-clad partner, however, raised her hand.

  “The trapdoor leads to a passage upstairs,” she said.

  “Then get moving while I hold the thing off,” Soren said. “Now!”

  The door inside the bookcase was hanging open, and Soren pointed to it. He saw them start scrambling, but he wondered if it was already too late. The creature strode forward confidently toward Soren, who held up the sword. He swung at it, trying to slice its head off again in an effort to slow it down. But it moved too quickly, easily ducking this time.

  “Uh-uh,” it said, and slammed into Soren, pushing him backward.

  Soren clipped the séance table and fell to the ground. The sword fell out of his hand and clattered across the floor. The pretender watched it go and then leaned over to pick it up. It loomed over Soren, holding the sword and pointing it at his head. It smiled again.

  “I’m going to enjoy this,” it said.

  As it began to stab downward, Soren kicked at the pretender’s legs in a sweeping motion, knocking it off balance. The monster toppled over as Soren sprung to his feet.

  He looked over to see Margaret heading into the fake door in the bookcase. Her husband was just behind her. The real Madame Noelle and her partner had already disappeared. Only Annika and Soren were still in the room.

  “Maggie, no!” the creature said, looking in the same direction as Soren. “I won’t hurt you! We need to talk.”

  Margaret looked up in confusion, but Trent practically shoved her in the rest of the way. When Soren looked back at the fake Noelle, its face was contorted into a look of unfiltered rage.

  “You’ve ruined everything!” it said.

  It pulled itself up from the ground and glared at Soren.

  He responded by pulling the revolver out of his pocket, aiming it at the creature, and firing. He hit it three times in the chest. It took a small step backward and blood poured from its wounds, but when it looked back at Soren, it only seemed irritated.

  “If decapitating me won’t kill me, you really think a gun will?” it asked.

  Soren stuffed the gun into his pocket and grabbed the back of a chair with his left hand.

  “Not trying to kill you anymore,” Soren replied. “Just distract you.”

  He lifted the chair and flung it at the monster, which barely dodged out of the way. Before it could recover, Soren turned, grasped the crystal ball on the table, and flung it in the pretender’s direction. It was heavier than he’d anticipated, b
ut his aim was true. It grazed the pretender and smashed to pieces on the floor. The creature looked infuriated.

  Soren saw Annika disappear into the bookcase and didn’t wait. He sprinted over to the trapdoor and jumped inside. As soon as he was in, he turned to yank the trapdoor shut. But a hand stopped him at the last moment. The pretender pulled the door back and thrust its face inside.

  “You can’t stop me!” it hissed.

  Soren pulled the gun out of his pocket and fired. The shot hit the monster in the right eye. It reeled back and let go of the trapdoor. Soren slammed it shut, found the bolt that kept it locked, and rammed it into place. Within seconds he heard a scratching sound as the creature tried to open the trapdoor from the outside. But the pretender was locked out.

  Only then did Soren take the time to look around the dimly lit room. It was a closet. All around him were shelves with knickknacks and items a person would use in a séance. He found luminescent paint, a small handheld fan that could be used to move air around the room, and some incredibly creepy mannequins.

  But what interested him was the ladder at the far end of the room. It stretched to another trapdoor in the ceiling. He saw Trent disappearing through it, but Annika was standing beside him with a questioning look on her face.

  “No time,” he said. “Get up the ladder now and make sure they lock all the doors. We have to keep that thing away!”

  She followed his instructions, while Soren searched the room. But he couldn’t find an obvious weapon. Even if there was one, he didn’t know if it would work. Pretenders must have a vulnerability, but he was damned if he knew what it was.

  There was a shout above him, and Soren ran to the ladder and darted up it as fast as he could. When he got to the top, he flung open the trapdoor and crawled up into a large room on the second floor of the house.

  But as he arrived, he saw he was already too late. The fake Madame Noelle was standing near the only entrance and staring at Margaret. It was missing part of its head from when Soren had shot it in the eye, but it was already regrowing what it had lost. The rest of the party were staying as far away from the thing as possible.

  “I didn’t want it to be like this,” the pretender said. “I care very deeply for you, Maggie.”