Elsewhere's Twin: a novel of sex, doppelgängers, and the Collective Id (Divided Man Book 3)

by Rune Skelley

  At last! The months of effort to reprogram Rook paid off!

  This moment thrust the prophecy nearer than ever to fulfillment, the Collective Id nearer than ever to awakening.

  Kyle Tanner was healed, the Divided Man twice Completed.

  The awestruck spiders watched to see what he would do first.

  *** *** ***

  Melissa glided down the narrow attic steps. The enormous influx of power from the Elsewhere faded away to nothing, but what she’d taken from Severin was still with her. She felt bright and hard as emerald, more in command of her world than ever before.

  She went to Kyle’s room.

  The blue-eyed creature standing beside Kyle’s bed stared back at her in blind panic as Melissa opened the door. Severin’s offspring. Melissa felt a wicked grin begin to take shape, until she saw movement behind the girl.

  Kyle lifted a hand to rub his eyes, sitting up in bed. He gave his IV a disapproving look.

  Melissa’s grin stretched into a savage grimace and she swept into the room, screaming.

  “This is ALL your fault! I killed Severin because he wouldn’t shut up about you. The fucking bastard is gone! Gone! GONE!” Melissa advanced on the cowering raven-haired female. Kyle blinked. How would she keep him near, now that he’d awoken? “You won’t take my son! YOU WON’T!”

  Melissa’s arm moved so swiftly even she didn’t see it, a backhand blow sending the interloper crashing against the wall. The wicked grin invited itself back to Melissa’s face as she pivoted to keep her prey in her sights. The young woman’s arctic eyes — her father’s eyes — remained riveted to Melissa as her limbs scrabbled uselessly at the wall and floor. Melissa raised her arm and extended her index finger accusingly, feeling her rage coalesce into a weapon.

  The room turned a vivid, swirling green and the girl on the floor shrieked. Melissa saw the flames flowing over her own arm. She was bathed in green fire, and though she could feel its heat she wasn’t burned.

  Melissa threw back her head to laugh, but it never came. Pain encircled her throat, blocking her air. She staggered as the constriction increased, yanking her off balance. Blood roared in her ears and throbbed in her neck and face.

  Her vision dimmed, but she saw a hand as it wound another pass of tubing around her neck. She pitched backwards against her attacker. Against Kyle.

  The green fire vanished. Mustn’t burn Kyle. Melissa’s world grew darker. Crushing agony filled her chest. The tubing, stretched thin, dug into her flesh. Each throb in her head pushed everything else farther away, blurring and softening the sensations.

  Need to tell Kyle it’s okay to be out of bed.

  The world backs away slowly, quietly.

  Need to tell Kyle.

  Pain fades, and time softens.

  Need.

  Kyle.

  *** *** ***

  Kyle Tanner looked down at Rook, cowering on the floor with her eyes clamped shut. In his head her signal was stronger than ever, a terrified whine. He let his arms droop, but kept a grip on the tubing wound around his mother’s neck. She slumped to her knees in a puddle of urine.

  “Run,” he said, his voice hoarse and dry. Rook’s eyes opened and met Kyle’s. She glanced to Melissa’s face, and the fear in those eyes was alloyed with shock. She didn’t move.

  “Run!”

  Rook shrieked and jumped to her feet. She darted from the room, and Kyle heard her on the stairs. She took days to reach the bottom. Her mental hum faded along with her footsteps, but didn’t disappear.

  He relaxed his fingers, and the body at his feet tipped sideways with a thud as the plastic tubing slithered out of his hands. It remained embedded in the throat. There was no blood. The color of the face was dark and blotchy, and the eyes and tongue bulged from their accustomed homes.

  Kyle walked to the door and used the shirttail of his blue pajamas to polish the knobs on both sides. He looked at the numerous doors ringing the central stairs, and leaned over the railing to see how far down they went. The view confirmed his impression from listening to Rook’s flight. There were a lot of damn steps.

  Getting clear of this place had a lot to recommend it, but he couldn’t work up any interest in heading down all those stairs. He opened the door beside his room, already knowing it would lead him even higher.

  The same place in his head telling him he wanted to go up, not down, also knew things about Rook. About her chimera baby. Replaying her panicked retreat, Kyle contemplated her shape and concluded she wasn’t pregnant anymore. The bubbles were on the level. They had her baby now.

  Reaching the attic, Kyle homed in on the sheet-covered object on the far side of the cluttered space. He felt its pull like a physical force, knew that it was a gateway back to the bubbles of light.

  Kyle raised a corner of the sheet and reached under. At first his fingers groped about on the blank surface of the table, but soon he reached through and into the other place. Eyes closed, he held in his mind the image of his goal. He searched patiently for several minutes, until he felt smooth, warm skin.

  Gently, Kyle took hold of the hand and pulled its owner back into the world. In a few seconds she lay naked on the table, partially covered by the sheet. The silver chain that bound her to herself was gone, its purpose served. A faint green line winding around her torso was the only reminder of its former presence. She sat up, her movements fluid and sensuous. Her shimmering black hair spilled over her shoulder and outlined her right breast. Her fiery blue eyes raced over him.

  She pulled Kyle into a desperate kiss. He returned the passion, their tongues entwining. She ran her hands over his back, and under the waistband of his pajama pants, slipping them down. She perched herself at the edge of the table, knees parted eagerly, and Kyle entered her.

  As they crashed against one another, Kyle compared her to his memory, searching for flaws, imperfections, tell-tale signs she was not who she seemed. When he first tried to possess her he’d made the mistake of changing her hair and her clothing, as if by doing so he could tame her. This time would be different. She was physical perfection and absolute lust. Her mental purr filled his head, drowning out every trace of the other. She was as he’d always wanted her to be. His Rook.

  “I am,” she panted, eyes lidded, “I’m, I’m Brook. I am Bramble...” Her chant followed the rhythm of their coupling. “I am... Brandy... Moon... I am...”

  “Shhh,” Kyle said. “You are Rook.”

  Her eyes opened. Kyle nodded and kissed her again.

  She whispered, “I am Rook. I am Rook. I am Rook.” The mantra grew from a whisper to a throaty murmur. “I am Rook...” Her voice descended to a growling moan of delight, and her legs wound around Kyle’s waist.

  Kyle kissed her breasts and her neck, inhaled her spicy smell, tasted her silky perfection. All traces of the chain’s green echo faded away, leaving her marked only by her stark black body art. They clasped hands, interlocking fingers as her movements gained forcefulness. Kyle kissed her fingers, first on her right hand then the left. Her urgency kept building, and Kyle matched her pace as he studied the intricate tattoo on her ring finger.

  Rook’s wedding ring, signifying her bond with his brother.

  Without breaking stride, Kyle guided her hand under the sheet. He caressed her palm with his thumb. Thrusting harder, he gripped her ring finger. He held it between his own thumb and forefinger as she bucked against him. Her back arched, he pulled, and her finger parted from her hand.

  He let it go.

  As her orgasm crested, Kyle saw double, two Rooks overlapping. Their cries of pleasure harmonized eerily.

  Rook’s faces showed pain, then she became a single being once more. She smiled, and Kyle came.

  He kissed her, lifting her from the table to set her down a few feet away. He stroked her hair. She was still smiling, and breathtakingly nude.

  “Here.” Kyle took off his shirt. “Wear this.” He put his pants back on, and began searching the room.

  “What are you
doing?” Rook asked, but he didn’t answer. She would see in a minute.

  A makeshift shelf in the exposed framework held some lumpy old candles and a lighter. Kyle took them to the table. He balled up the sheet and tucked the candles in among its folds before lighting them. He applied the lighter to the fabric in several places as well.

  The candles melted and ran, the wax soaking into the sheet which became an enormous wick. The fire grew rapidly.

  Rook leaned against him. Kyle held her hand and looked at it while she admired the leaping flames. Her ring finger was absent, leaving a perfect gap between middle and pinky, with perfect unscarred skin.

  “We have to go,” Kyle told her, and they walked down the steps. By the time he shut the attic door, Kyle could hear the fire roaring.

  *** *** ***

  Mid-afternoon, the mental connection Fin shared with Rook went haywire. He tried phoning, but got no answer. Now he was hurrying to her, her anguished signal a homing beacon.

  Rounding the corner he spotted the Nissan in the carport, parked crooked. She was here. But what was wrong with her?

  He wiped tears from his cheeks. The tall narrow windows of their house looked like funhouse mirrors, distorting the sky, the trees, and Fin’s own image as he staggered up the walk and across the small courtyard to the front door.

  Fin heard Rook’s sobs the moment he turned the knob, felt her despair through their shared connection. She huddled on the sofa, her face buried in her hands. Fin got down on his knees, putting his arms around his wife. She clutched at his shirt and pulled herself against his chest, wailing. Fin embraced her and rocked back and forth.

  Thumper was gone. He knew it from the sound of Rook’s anguish, by the change in her body quaking in his arms.

  It could be wrong, somehow. Somehow! The more clear the fact became, the stronger his rejection. He didn’t know how Thumper could be okay, but he needed there to be some chance all of this was wrong. Wrong.

  Fin wept, holding Rook as she wept.

  It was true.

  Wailing gave way to sobbing. Exhaustion quieted their grief, but did not diminish it.

  Rook drew two deep, shuddering breaths and gave a keening cry. Fin squeezed her closer, and she repeated it. She was trying to speak.

  “Shh,” he said, but she shook her head and sat up.

  “I did something really stupid,” she said in a high, quavering voice. The right side of her face was swollen and pink. “Please forgive me,” she pleaded.

  Fin blinked tears away, nodding. Her words and the vicious slap mark twisted his insides. What had she done? The images that tried to fit the nauseating question were abhorrent, he shoved them away.

  “I was trying to help,” she began.

  In a fragmentary recounting she told him what happened to her at her father’s house.

  Fin pressed a cool washcloth to her cheek. He’d never liked Melissa, but never suspected her capable of such violence.

  “We can’t make Severin undo it. She killed him. We can’t make him give Thumper back.” She broke down in sobs again.

  *** *** ***

  Even though it was a beautiful spring day, it wasn’t nice enough to be shirtless. Kyle shivered and turned up the heat in the minivan he’d stolen from the TEF garage.

  In the passenger seat Rook alternately watched him, fiddled with the radio, and stared out the window. She looked sexy as hell in his pajama shirt, the blue accentuating her eyes, and the hem riding up to reveal she wore nothing underneath.

  Kyle turned on the heated seats.

  When they exited the highway and turned onto Ministry Road, Rook said, “Let’s fuck in the cathedral, right where you married me.”

  A throb of want coursed through Kyle. “Absolutely.”

  Five minutes later they reached the compound’s gate.

  Brown bouquets of desiccated flowers, waterlogged bibles, candle stubs, stuffed animals, deflated mylar balloons, and half-rotted tribute posters and cards lay in drifts against the closed barrier and empty gatehouse.

  Kyle snorted. What a ridiculous way to be memorialized. Nothing had been placed recently either, so not only did his fans have questionable taste, they also had short memories.

  The security keypad was on the side of the gatehouse. Kyle put his window down and typed his code. The wrought iron gate swung inward, causing a small avalanche of tchotchkes which Kyle happily drove over.

  He stopped and watched in the rearview mirror to make sure the gate would close again. It did, scraping most of the dilapidated tributes back into place. On the off chance anyone came around to check on things, Kyle got out to straighten up. Rook came with him.

  As Kyle shoved a mildewed bible back between the bars, Rook tossed a dead bouquet tied with a black ribbon over her shoulder into the woods, laughing. Her laughter stopped as quickly as it started, and she looked bored. She scooped up a formerly white teddy bear with a golden tinsel halo and got back into the van. With his bare feet, Kyle scooted a few things under the gate, then joined her.

  His right knee ached.

  The two-lane asphalt drive wound through the trees toward the enormous glass cathedral. The closer he got, the more disappointed Kyle became. The grounds had not been tended in months. Ratty weeds abounded, and dead branches lay where they fell. He had planned to oversee the demise of the Ministries and run it into the ground, toasting marshmallows with Rook over the flaming wreckage.

  Rounding the last bend, the road emerged from the forest. The neglect was more apparent here: overgrown lawns, litter, flowerbeds full of dead stalks, drifts of last fall’s leaves, and, most important, the cathedral.

  The last time Kyle saw it, it was intact and gleaming in the sunlight, almost too bright to look at.

  More specifically, the last time he saw it from the outside.

  Kyle recalled the spire-shattering battle fought there with his brother over their wife. Nothing he remembered, though, accounted for the cathedral’s utter destruction.

  Sure, he and Fin broke a couple of windows and maybe started a few fires, but there was nothing left at all. Someone razed the place, leaving only a gaping hole full of twisted iron and golden glass, ringed with yellow hazard tape.

  “Kyle,” Rook purred, “let’s go home.”

  Kyle tore his eyes away from the cold ruins of his empire and looked at his lover. Her attention was on the beige stone and blue glass Ministries headquarters, the remaining fingers of her left hand pressed against the van’s window.

  Apart from being dark, the building looked untouched. Kyle saw no reason they couldn’t go up to the penthouse and celebrate their wedding night all over again.

  He smiled and put the van in gear.

  *** *** ***

  At the sink in Fin’s kitchen, Willow kept glancing over to the living room at the kids, trying not to get caught at it, while Brad kept glancing at her and trying not to get caught at it. Brad chopped the carrots slowly, but Willow had no urge to hurry him. His attention wasn’t on the knife.

  Rook and Fin huddled together on the sofa. Their new house, purchased to start their family in, loomed empty around them.

  “Don’t stare,” Brad said. Willow added some freshly rinsed celery to his cutting board to keep him busy.

  Brad chopped the celery slowly. Willow gathered the carrot pieces, picking up each one individually.

  “I guess I’m happy about one thing, at least,” Brad said, frowning.

  “Kyle?”

  Brad nodded, still frowning, then his head wobbled side to side. “I mean about him waking up, sure. That’s good news.” He stopped chopping and took a few slow breaths. Willow laid her hand on his shoulder.

  “But, Melissa...” she said softly.

  Brad nodded without wobbling. “I mean, not her, per se. What happened. What he did.”

  Willow nodded. “He was protecting Rook.”

  Brad kept nodding, torment showing on his face. He grimly resumed chopping. The noise helped cover the sobs filtering in f
rom the living room.

  “I guess Severin went soft in the twelve years he had you trapped.” He chopped another stalk. “Fitting that one of his intended victims was his undoing.”

  “I wish it could have been me,” Willow said.

  “No.” Brad set the knife aside. “I wish he’d never taken you away, or I’d found you sooner, but you don’t want his blood on your hands.”

  “He was utterly evil,” Willow declared. “I hate that he had control over me. I hate that I never got to confront him.” I hate that I let this happen.

  Brad wrapped his arms around her. “It’s better to just be rid of someone like that. We should be grateful, however it came about. You don’t have to prove anything.”

  Willow returned the embrace, and whispered, “I know, I know.” She relaxed her arms, but Brad wasn’t ready to let go.

  He squeezed her and said, “You’re going to do it, aren’t you? You’re going to use Severin’s table.”

  Whatever Severin did with the baby, Willow knew it had to be related to the suspended animation he’d inflicted on her. Which meant Thumper was floating safely with the bubbles of light. All she had to do was break into Threshold House and use that table to get Thumper back.

  “I have to try.”

  “I know.” Brad sighed, still holding her. “I know you have to try, but Wil, it’s dangerous.”

  Willow hugged him. “This is all Severin’s doing. He stashed me and Zen there until you saved us, and now he’s stashed Thumper there. I have to try to rescue our grandchild. I promise I will be as careful as I can be, but I have to try.”

  “I wish I could do it instead.”

  The remainder of the cooking didn’t take long. Brad withdrew again into his own darkness.

  They set the plates on the kitchen table before calling for Rook and Fin. The meal proceeded in gloomy silence.

  Rook pushed the food around on her plate. Fin took an occasional bite, too preoccupied with Rook’s sorrow to make much progress toward feeding himself. Willow watched them, aching to make it better, and forgetting to eat. Brad was quiet, lost in thought, as he polished off his second helping.

  “Severin’s table,” Willow blurted. “I can use it, a little. I know enough to have a good idea what he did with the baby and how I could use the table to bring it back.”