by Nazri Noor
“We’re close,” he muttered.
I looked around, chewing my lip as I understood exactly where “close” was. We’d wound up on the edge of the Gridiron somehow, Valero’s industrial district, no small feat considering we’d gone the entire way on foot.
“Are you sure about this?” I gathered my jacket around myself, shuddering. I didn’t think to wear anything thicker, not imagining that we would spend so much time away from the Boneyard, but it was well past midnight by then.
“You’ve got your magic, I’ve got mine.”
I squinted. “All you’ve done is lick a piece of glass all night and we’re barely even close. I’m ninety percent sure that you’re just making shit up so we mmff – ”
Having Sterling’s hand clamped over my mouth was an odd and frankly terrifying feeling. The best way to describe it was having a dry and weirdly smooth frozen lamb chop pressed over my face. I struggled, my protestations muffled, but he gripped harder. He lifted a finger, pushed it against his lips, then pointed across the street.
Someone approximately my height and build had just ambled across the sidewalk. It was too far to make out any real features, but I could see the same ill-fitting jacket that I’d seen on the apothecary’s security footage, the same strange gait. Other-Dustin kept walking, slipping into the darkness of a warehouse. I kept my eyes glued to his back. At least we knew that the thing couldn’t shadowstep.
“That’s our man,” Sterling said.
Grunting, I slapped his hand away, wiping at my face with the sleeve of my jacket. Who knew where his fingers had been? But more importantly, I had a thumping sensation of dread in my chest. I wanted this horse shit with all these cases of mistaken identity to end.
I didn’t need vampires accosting me in dark alleys when I was just going out for a burger, and I still owed Bastion a punch in the face. Yet I knew somewhere inside me that confronting Other-Dustin was going to result in some kind of catastrophic mess.
I frowned at Sterling as he dipped the shard in his mouth again. “Will you please stop licking that damn thing?” I half-wished he’d cut himself on it, just so he would stop.
He ignored me, his eyes turned curiously up to the sky. “The blood tastes wrong. Almost – artificial. Soulless.”
“So stop licking it then.”
“Never.”
Sterling dashed across the street, his feet soundless against the asphalt. I’d long accepted that I would probably never get used to how fast he could move, just a bolt of leather and silver streaking through the darkness.
Call it cheating, but I felt more secure when the two of us were walking abreast of each other, so I shadowstepped to keep pace, emerging in the darkness of the same warehouse Other-Dustin had entered. Sterling stood there, his face raised to the shadowy walls of the structure.
“Abandoned,” he whispered. “You’d think the owners would make more of an effort. Renovate, sell it on, rent it, something.”
“What do you know about business and real estate?” I hissed. “Plus, shut up. We’re trying to be sneaky about this.”
“I know plenty. Also, no, you shut up.” He raised his nose in the air and took a slow, deliberate breath. “He’s still in there. Flank him. You creep in through the left entrance. I’ll take the right.”
The left entrance being the ramshackle remains of one of those sliding shutter doors, clinging for dear life onto the battered, chipped wall. I should point out that we weren’t working in total darkness. It was shadier there since we were technically in an alleyway between buildings, but there were still streetlights. The moon was out, and for whatever you could see over the glare of a city’s lights, so were the stars.
Yet as I crept all I could think of was how Sterling had once told me that we worked best in darkness, him, myself, and Gil. They used their superior senses, and maybe through some affinity with the shadows, I had better than average vision in gloomy situations myself.
And in that darkness I saw him. Traces of movement came from among the splintered crates and pallets sitting like capsized ships in the shadows. Other-Dustin, this thing that was wearing my face, was rocking on his feet, his hands cupped close to his lips, so close that his cheeks glowed with the same jade-green of the artifact nestled in his palms.
I began the slow, arduous duck walk I knew I needed to use to creep up on him. En route I picked up a loose plank, careful to dislodge it soundlessly from its brethren, weighing it in my hand. One sound smack and I could probably knock the thing out with a Sneaky Dustin Special. But as I approached, I became more and more consumed with the notion that all this stealth, and the pincer attack Sterling suggested, weren’t all that necessary.
The creature wasn’t very bright. Madam Chien’s apothecary was only three blocks away. Other-Dustin was clearly in a rush to spend time with the peach, a fact only supported by how he started petting it like a mouse in the palm of his hand. And when I thought things couldn’t get weirder, Other-Dustin brought the peach to his face, nuzzling it against his cheek. I gripped the board tighter, splinters pushing into my palm. This was going to be easy.
But then his eyes flew open.
Have you ever seen one of those horror movies where the hero’s just brushing his teeth, or flossing, maybe, minding his own business, when out of nowhere his reflection’s mouth curves into a sinister, demonic smile?
That’s what this was. That’s what happened. My heart was punching against the inside of my body, thumping at the sight of my own fucking face grinning at me with too-wide lips and far too much unfriendly intent. And in the jade light of the peach it was easy to see that his eyes were black. Jet black.
Mine were supposed to be blue. His eyes darted at me, like he always knew I was there. He wasn’t supposed to see me coming. He wasn’t supposed to hear me.
He wasn’t supposed to move so fast.
Chapter 8
In only two quick bounds the creature had closed the distance between us, his free arm winding up to strike. No time to panic, or for the yelp to move past my lips. I sank into the shadows, stepping into the Dark Room, the air displacing over my head as the creature missed its blow.
My lungs fought for breath as I shuffled through the tunnel of the Dark Room, board still in hand. It was hard enough to breathe there, and I didn’t need the uncertainty of what I was fighting to complicate things further. But tell me, how would you react to finding a near-perfect copy of yourself that wanted to kill you?
I clenched my fingers tighter over the plank as I reemerged in reality, crouched in a section of the warehouse at least a couple dozen feet away from where I had left Other-Dustin. Sweat slid in trickles down my nape as I surveyed the darkness for the beacon of green light that should have given him away, but he was missing.
Did he escape? Unlikely. The look on his face was thick with malice. No. Not his. It. This thing wasn’t me, wasn’t a man. I refused to accept that it was human. It knew who I was, and it drew pleasure from knowing that I was so disconcerted by its existence.
Something scraped against the ground. The thing was behind me, its leer grotesque, its teeth a sickly green in the light of the peach still clutched in its hand. I spun on my heel and swung the board with all my might. Other-Dustin raised its other hand to intercept the board, making a fist – and punched clear through the wood.
Fuck.
Broken splinters of wood clattered to the ground. Other-Dustin shook its fist back into an open hand, knuckles specked with blood, then aimed another blow at my face. I dodged, scampering backwards into the darkness, my eyes glued to the creature even as it trundled and bore down on me.
No way. There was no chance in hell that it could have been Thea. She was prone to speeches, the big damn villain that she was, and to shows of bravado. Brilliant spears of light, spells meant to destroy. But this thing was coming at me with everything its body could give, every swipe and surge of its extremities another attempt to kill and to maim.
Other-Dustin rushed me agai
n, reaching for my collar, tugging at me with an infernal strength. I wasn’t that strong. Shit, no human should be that strong. My eyes darted around the darkness of the warehouse, scoping out Sterling’s position.
Where the fuck was he? I wasn’t going to out him. If there was one tactic we stuck to at the Boneyard, it was never letting the enemy know how many of us were present. It made them overconfident, and ultimately, easier to overwhelm and subdue. But if Sterling didn’t come soon –
Stall. That was the best I could do. If shit got real, I could slip away into the Dark Room. That would work, wouldn’t it? It only had me by my collar. Fuck, why didn’t I test this with someone from the Boneyard?
I already knew the answer, though: they liked me well enough, but not enough to risk getting dragged to an alternate dimension full of shadows and blades that would rip them to pieces, with or without my command.
“What do you want?” I croaked, the gathered fabric of my shirt and jacket cutting into my throat.
“What do you want?” the thing said, in my voice, with my mouth. But its eyes, God, its eyes were all wrong.
“Who are you?”
The thing’s grin dropped, and it tilted its head. Its hair fell away from its eyes, gleaming and black.
“Who are you?” it said, the words cold, and coarse. Could it only repeat things? It brought its face closer to mine. Other-Dustin was panting, as if the contact was exhilarating, as if excited by the imminent promise of violence. Its breath misted on my cheek. It was colder than the night air. My skin prickled.
Fuck. Fuck. “What are you?”
The thing grimaced. Evidently, that was the wrong thing to say.
“What are you?” it parroted, its voice high and short as it grabbed my clothing tighter, beginning to shake me. “What are you?” it demanded, its voice – my voice – shrill and breaking, spittle forming at the corner of its mouth. “What are you?”
I didn’t know. On some level I understood that the creature could only repeat what I said, but it cut me to hear those same horrible words from my own mouth. What was I? Hecate said so: I was an abomination. A beautiful monster. And what was it that monsters did?
I lifted my hand to the thing’s shirt, to the tattered assortment of clothes it had put on its body, searching for a spot of material that wasn’t drenched in its ice-cold sweat. It followed my hands with wild, black eyes. The fire I lit with my hands reflected in those eyes, turning them into coals, black and orange and smoldering.
Other-Dustin shrieked, beating at its clothes, doing a horrible dance as it stamped and flailed, one hand thrashing at the flames licking at its body, the other still cradling the Leung family’s artifact.
It flailed and screamed, body ablaze, slamming itself against the walls to smother the fire. For whatever reason its desperate bid to survive was working. Maybe it was the sweat soaked through its clothing that helped, or maybe it was some bizarre, inhuman instinct to live on.
It came at me again, burnt skin exposed through incinerated patches of its shirt, no more dead, but a whole lot angrier. I thought I had time to shadowstep, but it lunged, leaping for my throat. The two of us crashed to the ground, my back slamming painfully across the concrete. It straddled me, thighs locking around my chest and my ribcage. The thing clasped one too-strong hand around my throat, then started to press.
“What are you?” it croaked, pushing down on my neck so hard that my head ground into the cement. I groaned in pain, except that there wasn’t much air left to groan with. Wheezing, choking, I grabbed at Other-Dustin’s wrist, but nothing. It was far too strong.
Nothing for it, then. I had to shadowstep, whether or not it meant taking the thing with me. I willed myself to melt into the earth, to pass through my own shadow into the Dark Room, and my heart thumped ever faster when I realized I couldn’t.
I simply fucking couldn’t. The lining between that reality and this one held fast, the first time since I’d awakened to my talent that the membrane between worlds was impenetrable. I couldn’t take Other-Dustin with me. I couldn’t shadowstep, and with cold, stark dread, I realized what was worse – I was going to die.
Then a crack, and a faint exhalation of air. Other-Dustin grunted, the gleam in its eyes fading, the strength in its grip fading even faster as it wavered, then collapsed backward. I gasped, sucking at the world for air, relishing its sweetness as it came rushing back into my lungs. I clutched at my throat, breathing deeply, deeper still. I was alive. At least one of us was.
Sterling stood over the both of us, dusting his hands off, already reaching into his pocket for a cigarette. I stared down at Other-Dustin’s corpse, at how its neck was positioned at a completely unnatural angle.
“You killed it. You snapped its neck.”
Sterling took a long draw of his cigarette, then exhaled a stream that vanished into the high ceiling of the warehouse. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
Death wasn’t the result I had wanted. I had no intention of killing the thing. It might have known something. But even as I watched its limp body, studied the grim lifelessness of its black eyes, I knew that this creature wasn’t anything normal, not some human mage in disguise, not a magical thing hiding under a glamour. Then what was it? Had an entity sent it to cause trouble for me via impersonation? Worse, had the entity sent it to kill me?
“You should have acted more decisively,” Sterling huffed. “That could have gone so much more badly for you.”
“But we could have captured it. We could have questioned it.”
“You could have died, you idiot.”
I bit my lip, my eyes focused on the ground. “Yeah. Okay.”
Sterling sighed, an irritated, long-suffering sound. “Thank you for saving my life, Sterling. Thank you for disposing of the thing that was trying to kill me. You’re so strong, and brave, and handsome.”
I rubbed at the soreness on my neck, already sure it was developing into a bruise. “Thanks,” I muttered.
He grunted, sifting through his pockets. I frowned when I realized what he had retrieved from inside his jacket.
“A syringe?” And a pair of phials.
“I might get hungry.”
“Sterling. That’s disgusting, even for you.”
He rolled his eyes again. “It was a joke. We might be able to use this thing’s blood. Just trust me on this for once.” He kicked the corpse, as if to test whether it was truly dead, then bent low to begin his extraction. “I’m sure it won’t mind.”
I turned away, suddenly squeamish at the sight of Sterling very nearly desecrating what very well could have been my corpse. I should have had the balls to do it myself – to kill it – but I hesitated. Maybe I was afraid. But I didn’t need the flames, nor did I need to shadowstep to escape.
All I needed to do was hone my connection to the Dark Room, to open just enough of a gap between it and our reality, and I could call a blade of gleaming shadow to kill it in one strike. But I didn’t. Fuck it, I couldn’t. How do you kill something that has its own face? Hell. How do you kill something that wears your face?
Sterling rose from the floor, pocketing his effects, then nudging the corpse with his boot once more. It almost felt like he was getting a kick out of it because it looked so much like me.
Then the corpse moved.
Sterling sprang towards me, hauling me by the back of my jacket with his horrific vampire strength until we were safely away from Other-Dustin’s twitching, convulsing remains.
But it wasn’t coming back to life. Smoke rose from the thing’s body, hissing and churning, and I bit back my revulsion when I realized that the corpse was melting, disassembling into its fluid components right before our eyes.
The smell of burning meat filled my nostrils, and I fought the urge to retch. The last of its organic matter bubbled and burbled on the cement, and the smoke cleared. All that was left of the creature was a puddle of gore.
“Holy shit,” I muttered.
Sterling tugged on my collar, p
ulling my face uncomfortably close to his. He thrust one hand out at the puddle. “This won’t be the last of this, Graves, and the next time you run into one of those things, you need to be ready to end the fight quickly.”
“I set it on fire,” I mumbled. “What more do you want from me? What more do you want me to do?”
“Show that you’re not afraid of some magic trick. Show that you can handle your clones.” Sterling stabbed a finger at Other-Dustin’s remains, then released me roughly, his eyes twin points of steel, his voice like the edge of a blade. “It’s simple. The next time this happens? Kill yourself.”
Chapter 9
God but I couldn’t get the stench of burning meat out of my nose. The walk back to Madam Chien’s apothecary had done its work of replenishing the air in my lungs with something almost fresher, but it stuck to me still, lingering like a terrible memory. Barbecued flesh, simmering fat and skin, hair scorched to cinders. Worst of all was not knowing whether it was human.
And Sterling was no help at all. He’d taken up the task of describing Other-Dustin’s death to Prudence and the others with a little too much excitement. Madam Chien’s face screwed into something very much like a dried plum as Sterling went on, gesticulating wildly and placing emphasis on how he very much enjoyed killing my mirror image.
Even Gil was cringing at the retelling, as if I needed further evidence to signify how utterly fucked up this all was. I’d watched someone with my own face die right before me. It made me wonder if I would look like that when I died, with my mouth half open, drool at the corner of my lips, my eyes unfocused and glazed. Those terrible black eyes.
“A doppelganger,” Madam Chien said. “That does not bode well for you, shadow boy.” She pushed her fists into her waist, surveying her shop. The broken glass had been cleaned up, at least.