“There was an ocean in the tree?”
“Yes! I almost drowned!”
“I see that.” He frowned and pointed behind me. “Hey, what’s that?”
I turned in concern. “What?” As I turned, he put his hand on my back and suddenly I couldn’t breathe and felt like I had to vomit. I did; an alarming amount of water splashed to the ground as I stood over it, gasping.
“Better?” Danio asked.
“Yeah,” I coughed. “Next time warn me!”
“Mm, I find it’s easier to draw water out of someone’s lungs when they aren’t expecting it. So, an ocean?”
“It’s hard to explain…” Inspiration struck. “Hey! Can you taste it and tell what ocean it was?”
“Are you… serious?”
“Yes!” I quickly added, “Without licking me or something.”
He chuckled and instead held one hand near my shoulder. A small ball of water, no bigger than a marble, formed in his palm and he regarded it for a moment, then popped it in his mouth. Hardly a second later he spat it back out.
“Ew! What the hell were you swimming in, sewage?” He spit again and wrinkled his nose.
“Like I said, it was an ocean. I came out of the tree and it was there! You don’t recognize the taste?”
“I mean, it has an oceany…” He whistled something in Panth. “But in a really gross sort of sense. I’ve tasted most of the major bodies of water, several pretty isolated seas included, and that is nothing like any of them. How did…”
He listened in growing alarm as I recounted my harrowing experience in the ocean and the cliffs.
“Holy shit,” Danio said when I was done. “That sounds wild.”
“It was terrifying,” I corrected honestly.
“Yeah, I guess it would have been if you can’t breathe underwater. It also explains why you’re such an attractive shade of fire elemental red.” His chuckle died as his eyes widened in alarm. “So, you’re saying that could happen to Char?!”
My stomach twisted. “God, I hope not.”
He spun and kicked the tree in aggravation. “What do we do now?”
“Well, the tunnel I used to get back in – or is it out? – wasn’t the same one I took when I got there. Either we wait here and try our luck or we see if there’s another way out.”
Danio sighed. “There’s some water up that way, feels like a river. We could always try to follow it and hope there’s a town or something.” I nodded along as he looked at his palm; I knew he was checking the compass tattooed there. “What the hell?!” He lifted his palm for me to see, eyes wide.
It was blank.
“Has your compass ever stopped working?” I asked.
“No! Never.” He studied it again, brows furrowed. “I guess we’re not in New York.”
I shook my head. “Then, it seems like the river is our best bet.”
After he dried me off, we started walking in the direction of the river. As we walked, he filled me in on what happened after our phone call. I was still having trouble with the fact I couldn’t sense Tethys and now Jen was possibly in danger… Not to mention Charlie could be on that beach at this very moment; the others might survive but that much water would kill him in minutes, even with Mariana there. In spite of it all though, having Danio with me certainly lifted my spirits. Even his tasteless stress-induced jokes were making me laugh.
The river looked normal enough and we started walking alongside it, but not too close. I caught a faint whiff of smoke and spotted a small plume of it through the trees in the distance.
“Look.”
Danio followed my gaze, then veered toward the water. “Let’s go!”
A small knot formed in my throat as I realized he intended to swim across and I thought of the ocean. “Why don’t we find a bridge?”
“It’s not that wide, come on.” Danio started wading in and stopped about halfway up his legs. “This tastes gross,” he commented. “Hurry up, Tom.”
“I… sort of…” I cleared my throat.
“Please don’t develop a fear of water.”
“I’m not! But this whole place is… I don’t know.”
“Come on. I’ll get you across in no time.”
I reluctantly started down the bank to him. With a sudden cry, he vanished under the water. The water splashed a few times, then stilled.
“Very funny, Danio!” I snapped. “You’re such an asshole.”
I crossed my arms and waited in annoyance, but he didn’t surface. I shifted my weight nervously, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of panicking but also worried that maybe he wasn’t trying to mess with me.
“Danio?” I called hesitantly, taking a step closer to the water.
There was another splash and a strange shadow moved near the surface. I couldn’t see it well, but it did not look like a water elemental. That strange foul stench filled my nose again, faint but unmistakable.
“Danio!” I rushed to the edge of the river and nearly fell backward as he shot out of the water, landing next to me.
“Shit!” he gasped as he hit solid ground, spinning back to face the water. He trained wide, churning eyes on the water and readied a knife. “What the fuck was that?!”
“I don’t know! Did you see it?”
“No! It was too murky.” His eyes narrowed as he studied the water. “Unusually murky for this kind of water…”
I could smell his blood and spotted several dark blue trickles running down his arm. “You’re hurt.”
“Yeah, it got me,” he spat. With one last nervous look at the water, he tucked away his knife and rolled up his sleeve to reveal a series of puncture marks that formed an oval.
“Whoa… that’s…” I gasped. I bent quickly and rolled up my pantleg to reveal the same wound.
“What the hell?” he breathed.
“It’s the same thing that attacked me in the ocean. I smelled here too…”
“Did it follow you?”
“I don’t know.”
Danio frowned as he examined his arm. “Why is this weirding me out?”
“It’s a… bite?” I offered gently.
“No, it’s not freaking me out like that. It’s like… like I feel as though I’ve been warned about this sort of bite before… I think there’s a specific kind of magic that leaves it, but I can’t remember…”
I shook my head. “Yeah…”
“Let’s uh, let’s not cross the river though,” Danio chuckled.
“Good plan.”
We kept going, staying near the river until the underbrush got so dense it forced us back into the trees. I was just starting to think that this wasn’t so bad, compared to the ocean… then the trees opened into a clearing and I heard the sound of someone else walking.
“Someone’s over there!” I whispered to Danio, just as we broke out of the tree line.
Before we could jump back, the source of the sound walked into the clearing too.
“What the—” Danio cried.
“—fuck?!” finished the identical Danio across the clearing.
Chapter Nine
Thomas
For a long moment we just stood there staring at us, as the Thomas and the Danio across the clearing stared back.
At almost the exact same moment, the other Thomas and I snarled, “Doppelgangers!”
“Hey,” Danio said, gesturing to his arm. “I remember what leaves a bite mark like this.”
“That would have been very helpful five minutes ago,” I said.
The truth was though, just knowing we had been bitten by doppelgangers would not have been very useful. We would still have to find them and deal with them.
“I don’t suppose it’s too much to hope they don’t have bite marks,” the other Danio said.
“They’re exact copies of us, they have them too,” the other me replied.
“This is going to suck,” the Danio beside me groaned.
I nodded in agreement. My double was right, the doppel
gangers were exact copies of us. Not only did they have our memories, but doppelgangers actually believed they were the real ones. That explained why the bites hadn’t healed, they wouldn’t until the doppelganger or the original was dead.
I was about to suggest to Danio that we mark ourselves somehow so we’d know we were the real ones, when I realized in horror I couldn’t be sure he was! For all I knew the doppelganger had subdued the real Danio underwater and replaced him. The one I saw swimming could have been mine, waiting until the two of us were out of sight. Then, all it would have to do was take my form and wait on the shore until the real Danio jumped back out. Doppelgangers were supposed to absorb our memories even after biting us, right up until they took our forms. If I was right about the river, whether or not I was with the real Danio, both sets of us would remember the water with no way to prove which of us were real.
“I don’t suppose you can prove you’re the real one?” Danio asked me.
“We were together the whole time,” I pointed out, unable to come up with a better defense.
“You were bitten before I got here,” he said grimly.
Our eyes met and we studied each other wordlessly for a moment. I swallowed nervously as I realized I didn’t – couldn’t – trust my best friend right now. Nevertheless, the most immediate threat was the other me. The real Danio, and thus his doppelganger, wouldn’t attack me. Yet. But as long as my doppelganger was alive and in my form it was draining me. If I didn’t kill it, I would die. Unfortunately, I had no idea just how long that took or what would happen. Would I start to feel weaker, giving the doppelganger an advantage? Or would I just suddenly drop dead if I couldn’t take out my double fast enough?
Either way, the clock was ticking and there was no choice. If I couldn’t kill my doppelganger it would take my place, living as me for a couple of weeks – believing it was the real me – until it got hungry again. Then, it would bite someone else, likely someone close to me, and start the whole thing over again.
Since the doppelganger had all of my memories and abilities the fight would be evenly matched; the only way to beat a doppelganger was sheer luck. All I could do was hope that my copy would make a mistake. As we fought, Danio would have the same problem with his doppelganger. Even if I could kill mine, I’d have to trust that the real Danio could handle his.
The bite on my leg started to sting and I swallowed hard. There was no time.
With a sick sense of foreboding, I took a deep breath and focused on my double. Hearts pounding in my chest, I braced myself to run. Get in fast, hit hard, and hope I could get some small advantage.
“We don’t have a choice,” I said softly.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Danio’s shoulders tense. “Guess I’m my own worst enemy,” he chuckled darkly.
I could hear an eerily similar conversation on the other side of the clearing; if I wanted an advantage, I was out of time.
I lunged.
My double met me almost exactly in the middle. I was hoping that everything I knew about doppelgangers was an exaggeration, but it was immediately clear it wasn’t. The doppelganger was just as fast and strong as I was and he clearly had all of my MES training for fighting vampires. I hadn’t studied any martial arts extensively with Danio, but he had shown me a thing or two over the years. I tried a move, just to see, and my double easily countered it with another trick from Danio.
Damn. It really was me.
We twisted and turned and I caught a glimpse of Danio and his doppelganger, fists and feet flying. I didn’t often see him evenly matched and watched in awe as they flew at each other. It was a really stupid time to get distracted. I barely dodged a blow from my double, ducked frantically and nearly tripped. Not smart. This was one fight where any mistake could be fatal. Luckily, missing me put him off balance too. I slammed a shoulder into him and flipped him over my back, a move courtesy of Danio. He hit the ground hard and I realized belatedly that I didn’t have a stake or any weapon in fact.
How was I supposed to kill a vampire without a stake? I supposed asking for a time-out so I could find a suitable tree branch would not be well received. Not only was it going to be that much harder, I felt like being forced to kill my own double would have been easier and a lot less personal with a stake. My indecision cost me precious seconds and he was up and back in the fight.
I tried to grab him by the neck as we struggled and he caught my wrist, twisting it away. As I wrestled to free myself, he lunged forward and sank his fangs into my forearm. White-hot pain shot up my arm and for a second I felt like I couldn’t even breathe. God, it hurt! Through blurred vision I leaned forward and tried to bite him on the neck. He ripped his fangs out with another blinding flash of pain and jumped back with a hiss.
We circled each other slowly, staring each other down. I wondered what he was thinking; did he truly believe he was me or deep down did he know he was the doppelganger?
There was a sudden cry of pain and we both turned in alarm. One of the Danios had gotten the other on the ground and stabbed him! He yanked out the knife, coated with blue blood, and raised it for another blow.
For just a moment, my doppelganger and I were on the same side. We couldn’t let one Danio kill the other without knowing for sure which was real.
The two of us rushed forward at the same moment. I caught one Danio’s wrist before he could bring the knife down and, as if we were reading each other’s minds, my double grabbed the other and yanked him away to safety. I sighed in relief as I noticed the knife wound was in his shoulder. Not fatal. But if it was the real Danio he was at a serious disadvantage now.
What we didn’t plan though, was that neither Danio was grateful for the interruption and both tried to defend themselves.
For a minute, I just stuck to dodging, but knew I had to end it fast. If my doppelganger was fighting the real Danio and lacked any of my restraint… Maybe I could just knock him out and then try to convince my double to do the same and we could deal with each other, leaving the survivor – hopefully me – to figure out which Danio was which.
But when I stepped it up, Danio did too. Even though the sun was down, he was a force to be reckoned with. As we fought, it occurred to me that he was really fast and agile. Granted, we didn’t fight often and hadn’t had a good spar in a few years, but I didn’t remember him being able to keep up with me like this. Maybe there was a difference between us and the doppelgangers after all.
I leaned away from a punch and barely dodged a sneaky, impressively fast kick. He swung at me again and this time I caught his fist and, using a trick the real Danio taught me, pulled him toward me and flipped him over my back. In theory, I was supposed to break his arm as he went behind me, but thanks to a combination of him knowing how to avoid it and the fact I didn’t really want to hurt him badly, I only succeeded in dislocating his shoulder. Good enough.
He hit the ground with a grunt of pain and a curse. I hesitated, hoping he was done fighting, but his hand snapped out toward me. I tried to dodge what I assumed was a poorly aimed punch, but instead took a small throwing knife to the side. I sucked in a sharp breath, but fortunately the blade only scratched me.
I got a little bit of distance between us and converted my saliva into a sedative. It wouldn’t work on a vampire, but it would drop a water elemental. I couldn’t be sure it would work on a doppelganger, but so far everything else seemed identical. I was positive the foul smell from before was the scent of a doppelganger, but couldn’t smell even a hint of it now; they both smelled exactly like us. If they really were that similar the sedative should work too.
Danio took a swing with his other knife – a little too close for comfort – and I dodged to the side, giving myself the chance to get behind him, knowing his dislocated shoulder would slow any defense. I spat the sedative into my palm as I did, caught him around the chest with the other arm and started to clamp my hand over his nose and mouth.
He quickly realized what I was doing, but I had him. At le
ast, I thought I did. He slashed the knife back toward my face; I didn’t think my grip loosened at all as I leaned away from the knife, but he kicked the ground and shoved his entire body back toward me. I just barely lost my balance as he did, but he was quite a bit taller than me; the extra leverage and the surprise gave him an advantage and as soon as he had me leaning back he somehow slipped down and under my arm. I would have thought it was impossible if he hadn’t done it, but he flipped up and back, twisted in the air, and hooked a knee around my neck, then very nearly swung me to the ground. If I hadn’t had vampire strength on my side, he would have succeeded. As it was, I almost went down. In the same smooth motion, he released me, hit the ground in a dive, and rolled out of my immediate reach.
I gasped as I regained my footing; Danio wasn’t this good. It was the doppelganger! He sprang back to his feet, but swayed a little and shook his head, blinking rapidly. Had I gotten him with the sedative after all? No. He recovered and backed away, raising his knife and watching me warily. Did he manage to not breathe enough in or were doppelgangers resistant after all?
I risked a glance at our doubles, who thankfully were facing off as well. The other Danio was obviously favoring his injured shoulder, which was not good. If our doppelgangers really were better than us, any injury was the end.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, trying a different approach. “Can I just sedate you, go take care of my doppelganger, and then figure out which one of you is the real one?”
“I am the real one,” he said indignantly, “and I’d prefer to be conscious, thanks.”
“Well, we aren’t going to get anywhere fighting each other,” I said.
“No,” he agreed. “Well, if you’re the real one, good luck.”
He turned and sprinted toward our doubles. I rushed after him so it didn’t turn into two-against-one, but as I did I wondered if I should have tried harder to stop and possibly sedate him. If I was right and he was the doppelganger, letting him go head-to-head again with the injured Danio was probably not a good idea. It was too late either way, our doubles saw us coming and willingly backed away from each other. Real or doppelganger, we all knew that we needed to fight our own copy – at least until we could figure out for sure who was real.
Rise of the Arcanist Series: Books 1 - 6 Page 26