I must have made some sound of surprise, because she looked up and smiled. I would have given everything I had, and more, for that smile.
“Gilly?” I whispered.
Her smile grew. “Hi, Mom.”
“Gilly,” I repeated, like I was trying to convince myself. “You’re here.”
“I hope you don’t mind?” She bit her lip, smile dying as quickly as it came. “I got your address off one of the letters you sent to Dad. I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind if I stopped by for a little while. Just to say Merry Christmas, and everything.”
“Mind? Why would I—no! I mean, no, I don’t mind a bit. You can stay just as long as you want.” The words were coming too fast, getting tangled around each other. I forced myself to slow down. “I mean, of course. Please, come in. Come in.”
Still smiling, she stepped past me into the living room. I closed the door, wanting to scream and laugh and cry and jump around. I settled for folding my hands behind my back, watching her avidly.
Gilly looked around the room, and frowned. “Mom? Are you okay?”
“What?” I followed her gaze to the couch and winced as I saw the mud and blood caked on the cushions. “Oh, that. Yeah, Gilly, I’m fine. I just got a little bit banged up at work and haven’t had a chance to call the dry cleaner, that’s all.” I hesitated. “Is it still Gilly? I mean, you’re a lot older now. Do you like Gillian better?”
She ignored my question, still studying the room. “At work? I thought you worked at a grocery store.”
“It can get pretty physical when you’re shifting crates in the stockroom.”
“Have you seen a doctor? Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, honey, I’m sure.” I nonchalantly pulled my robe a little tighter, hiding the bruises around my neck. “It was just a little scrape that bled a lot.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, craning her neck to peer down the hallway. For a moment, I thought she sounded almost disappointed. “So, you live alone, right? Big place for just one person.”
“I got a good deal, and it’s rent-controlled. It’s just me and the cats. I like it that way. It’s peaceful.” I was lying, but I was hoping she couldn’t tell. I didn’t want to scare her away.
“Any close neighbors?”
“A few. I don’t really know them very well.” My shoulder was starting to throb. I tried massaging it with the palm of my hand. It didn’t help. “Can I get you anything? Milk? Coffee?” Do human teenagers even drink coffee? I didn’t know.
She shook her head, smile turning secretive. “That’s okay. I’ll eat soon. Can I see the rest of the apartment?”
“Sure, honey.” I started toward the hall, trying not to limp, and paused. Something wasn’t right. As much as I wanted this to be real, it wasn’t ringing true. “Gilly? Does your father know you’re here?”
“Oh, totally,” she said, looking toward to the kitchen. The cats had vanished, leaving their breakfast half eaten. That wasn’t a good sign. “He said I could come.”
“So he doesn’t mind spending Christmas without you?” Why was I finding that hard to believe? Oh, yeah. Because I’m not completely stupid.
“He’ll find something to do. He always does.”
Her tone was dismissive, and I frowned. There was something she wasn’t saying. “Gillian, what’s going on here? I’m flattered that you came to me, I honestly am, but are you in some sort of trouble?”
“Trouble?” She leaned against the couch, suddenly moving with a bizarre predatory grace. “What makes you think I’m in trouble?”
“It’s just strange to see you here like this.” I reached up to push the hair out my eyes, and froze. I wasn’t wearing a human disguise. I was still too dizzied by iron poisoning to spin one, and my hair wasn’t covering my ears. She could see me for what I was, really and truly see me . . . and she hadn’t batted an eye. Combined with the way she was moving . . .
My nerves started screaming “danger, Will Robinson, danger.” Mixed with the iron poisoning and the sudden feeling that something had gone terribly wrong, it wasn’t making for a pleasant emotional cocktail. I took a step backward, stopping when my shoulders hit the wall.
Gilly smiled, displaying far too many sharp white teeth.
“Gilly?” I whispered.
“Guess again,” she said, still smiling, and lunged.
She caught me without really trying, slamming me against the wall as she wrapped her hands around my upper arms. I felt a stitch give way in my shoulder, and fought back a scream. All the humanity had leeched out of her eyes, bleaching them to a flat, pale yellow.
“Doppelganger,” I spat, forcing myself to meet those alien yellow eyes.
“Good guess, mongrel,” she said. “Want to make a guess at what happens next?” Her face was still mostly Gillian’s. She still looked like my little girl. I shook my head, not answering her, and she tightened her grip, nails scraping the surface of my skin through the bathrobe. “Come on, Daye. Guess.”
“You’re going to get out of here and leave me alone?”
She laughed. “Oh, come on. You can’t really be that stupid, can you?”
“Actually, most people seem to think I can.” That’s right, October, mouth off to the monster. That’s a good idea. No, really.
The Doppelganger snarled, face twisting into something a little less human. Good. The less she looked like my daughter, the easier this became. “I’m going to kill you. You know that, right?” She dug her nails into my shoulders, and I moaned, fighting a scream. I didn’t need to alert my neighbors: they’d just rush in and get slaughtered by something they didn’t even know existed. “You’re a brave, stupid little thief. Tell me where you put the box, and I won’t make you suffer; I’ll just tear your throat out, and you’ll die quick, you’ll die merciful. Come on, thief. Tell me.”
So that was what this was about. I should have known. I closed my eyes, trying to focus past the pain, and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sorry.”
She let go of my right shoulder. I barely had time to stiffen before she struck me, nails slicing four shallow, parallel lines down the side of my cheek. I kept my eyes closed, feeling the blood run down the curve of my jaw.
“Do you bleed sweet, little thief?” she asked, running her tongue along the cuts. Her saliva burned like acid. I whimpered, trying to pull away. She put her hand back on my shoulder, holding me in place, and said crossly, “You should have screamed by now. It doesn’t taste as good when you don’t scream. Why won’t you scream for me?”
“Sorry, but we only serve diet agony here,” I whispered through gritted teeth. “No artificial colors or flavors.” This time, she let go of both shoulders. I tensed, waiting for a blow that didn’t come, and heard her step away.
After a long moment of silence, I opened my eyes.
The Doppelganger had lost most of its resemblance to Gilly, thank Maeve. It was taller, wider and sexless, the angles of its body becoming inexplicably wrong. Its skin was mottled in shapeless patches of gray and green that shifted as I watched, picking up faint tinges of the colors around it. It was probably chameleonic, blending into the scenery until it was ready to strike. Not really something you want to invite to Christmas dinner.
“Run,” it said in a deep, grating voice before it smiled again. “Run now.”
I raised a hand to my bleeding cheek. “Run?” I echoed.
“Run. Don’t worry—you can’t run fast enough. I’m going to catch you. It’s still more fun for me if you try.”
I’ve never been very concerned with how much fun people have when they’re trying to kill me. That didn’t mean I could stand there and wait to die. The couch was between me and the Redcap’s gun, while the Doppelganger was between me and the front door. That left only one direction I could take, and I took it.
Ignoring the pain in my leg, I turned and bolted for the back of the apartment, slamming the hallway door as every late-night horror movie I’d ever seen flashed through my
mind. The windows in the bedrooms were too high and narrow to climb through, and there were no windows in the bathroom. Unfortunately, when I rented the place, I wasn’t exactly thinking in terms of how quickly could I escape a homicidal shapeshifter without using the front door.
Lacking any other options, I ran into the bedroom, locked the door, and shoved a chair under the knob. I heard the hall door slam open, hitting the wall with a crash that almost certainly took care of my security deposit. I didn’t have time to worry about that: I was too busy scrambling to get the baseball bat out from under my bed. It was more for comfort than anything else—I wasn’t dumb enough to think I could take the thing down with a piece of dime-store sports equipment—but it gave me something to hold onto and made me feel a little less naked. I spared a moment’s longing thought for the gun in my living room. There’s nothing like heavy weaponry to cure a little spiritual nudity.
The Doppelganger’s slow, patient steps echoed down the hall. It was in no hurry. The damn thing was probably having a good time. Glad somebody was.
The taste of roses was starting to rise in the back of my throat, taking advantage of my distraction, and I could feel the wounds in my shoulder and thigh beginning to bleed again. Blood loss was going to become an issue. Of course, with no way out of the apartment and a homicidal Doppelganger on my trail, that just might be the kinder way to die.
The footsteps stopped outside the door, and the Doppelganger whispered, “Found you, little thief. And you’re scared now, even if you won’t scream. You’re so scared I can taste it from here.” I took a step back, holding the bat in front of me like a sword. I didn’t bother trying to run. Why would I? There was nowhere left to go.
It hit the door hard, bowing it inward. The cheap plywood door started to give way on the second hit. It was never meant to stand up to this sort of abuse. This was it: this was the end. I was going to die wearing nothing but a bathrobe, at the hands of a Doppelganger I’d been stupid enough to invite into my home. I was never going to find the answers I was looking for. Evening and Ross would never be avenged.
The doorbell rang.
Silence reigned as the Doppelganger ceased its assault on the door. There was a long pause, both of us sorting out what to do next.
And then I heard my own voice call, cheerfully, “Coming!”
Footsteps moved away, down the hall, too light for a creature the size of the Doppelganger . . . but just right to be believably mine.
I stayed where it was until the footsteps faded. Then I undid the lock and pushed the chair out of the way, opening the half-shattered door. The hall was empty. The Doppelganger had actually gone to answer the doorbell. Oh, that was smart. Why didn’t it just hang a sign on its back that said kick me?
The carpet crunched underfoot as I inched along, despite my best efforts to be quiet. Considering the beating I’d taken—and the amount of blood I was losing—I thought I was doing pretty well just by not falling down. Not that it would do me any good if the Doppelganger caught me out in the open. I might be walking into a trap, but that was a chance I had to take.
I was halfway down the hall when I heard the voices arguing from my living room. “You don’t understand!” Dare, the combination of anxiety and desperation making her voice impossible to miss, even without the affected accent. “When Devin says to come here, we come here. You can’t tell us to go. We can’t listen. He won’t let us.”
“She’s right, ma’am.” Oh, root and branch, Manuel was with her. I shuddered, unable to stop myself from imagining what the Doppelganger would do to them, and forced myself another few feet down the hall. “Devin said we had to come and help you with anything you needed.”
“I’m sorry, kids,” my voice replied. The Doppelganger was using a painfully cheerful tone that would have been a clue that something was wrong all by itself, if Manuel and Dare had known me better. I never sound that happy before sundown. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to visit right now. Maybe you can come back later? I’ll bake you some cookies . . .”
Okay, that was it. I hadn’t had a chance to use the kitchen for anything more elaborate than coffee and fried eggs, and I’d be damned if some invading monster was going to beat me to it. I stepped into the living room, bat still held in front of me like a poor man’s broadsword. “You are not using my kitchen.”
It wasn’t the best comeback ever, but considering how much blood I’d lost, I didn’t think I was doing too badly. My double turned to face me, stolen eyes narrowing. “I thought I sent you to your room.”
Manuel and Dare gaped as they looked between us. It wasn’t hard to tell us apart: the Doppelganger was fully clothed, and I was wearing nothing but a bathrobe. Also, I was the one doing all the bleeding. “You did. Unfortunately, I’m a little old to be grounded.”
“Uh . . . ma’am?” said Manuel, wide-eyed.
The Doppelganger lashed out with one hand, fingers morphing into talons, and shoved Manuel away from the door. He shrieked in pain and surprise as he fell backward, tumbling out of sight.
“Manny!” Dare shouted.
The Doppelganger turned and stalked toward me, growing taller as it abandoned the pretense of my form. “Bad girl,” it chided, grinning. “Bad, bad girl. Time to be punished.”
It was moving slowly, certain of its own strength. That was the only opening I was likely to get, and so I took it, swinging my bat as hard toward its midsection as I could. Something in my shoulder ripped free, and the world was suddenly bathed in a fresh veil of pain.
The Doppelganger reached out and caught the bat midswing, careless as a child gathering daisies. It tightened its hand, and the wood shattered into splinters, leaving me holding nothing but the bottom third of what used to be a bat.
“Oh, crap . . .” I said, starting to back away. Aluminum. Next time, I was going to buy aluminum. Or maybe a tire iron.
Moving too fast to dodge, the Doppelganger reached out and grabbed my chin, talons cutting into my cheek. “You’re a stupid thief, but you’re scared enough now,” it said, still smiling. “You’re going to tell me everything I need to know.” Dropping the splinters of my bat, it dug its fingers under my armpit and lifted me off the ground. My heart was pounding so hard that it hurt almost as badly as my injuries. I’d seen death before, even recently, but it had never been that close.
That might have been the end, if the Doppelganger hadn’t made one small, fatal mistake: it turned its back on Dare. I didn’t know her very well, and I still could have told it that turning its back on her wasn’t a good idea. The young changeling had been given time to process all her possible responses to someone smacking her brother aside like a stray dog, and she’d settled on the one that came most naturally. Rage.
“Hey, ugly!” she shouted. The Doppelganger didn’t turn around. That’s probably why it was so surprised when the knives started slamming into its back. It bellowed, dropping me. Miraculously, I landed on the one part of my body that hadn’t previously been in pain: my ass.
Snarling, it turned toward Dare. I had to give the girl this much: she might have been an arrogant little brat, but she looked into the face of death and was sincerely unimpressed. “I’ve seen scarier things than you on blind dates,” she said. She still needed a dialogue coach, but I wasn’t in any position to judge. “You wanna piece of me?”
Apparently it did, because it stalked toward her, still snarling. She didn’t flinch, but flung another knife, this time aiming for the throat. The creature batted it aside without a pause. I think that’s when Dare realized that maybe insulting something that large when it’s close enough to catch you isn’t a good idea, because she started backing away, eyes wide.
My shoulder wasn’t just bleeding anymore, it was gushing, blood soaking my robe and running freely down my arm. I forced myself to stand, squinting past the pain that threatened to knock me down again. Four of Dare’s knives were embedded in the thing’s back. Two were stuck in the lower back, and one in the side of its arm,
but the fourth was at an angle that might put it through the rib cage if somebody grabbed hold of the hilt and shoved upward.
I’ve always made a pretty good somebody. Moving as fast as I could still manage, I wrapped my hands around the knife’s hilt, slippery with almost black blood. My left hand didn’t want to close, but I forced it, gritting my teeth as the Doppelganger’s blood started burning my skin. Dare was whimpering somewhere in front of me, blocked from sight by the bulk of the thing’s body.
That did it. My hand finally caught a good grip, and I shoved the knife up as hard as I could.The Doppelganger bellowed, whipping halfway around, but I managed to keep hold of the knife, twisting it and driving it deeper in. One clawed fist hit my right arm as the creature tried to rip me off its back, slashing through the muscle of my bicep. It didn’t matter anymore. I was committed: I couldn’t have let go of that knife if I’d wanted to.
“Dare, the front!” I shouted.
She didn’t say anything, but I heard her high heels hitting the floor as she launched herself at the thing. The Doppelganger kept bellowing, lashing out in all directions as it tried to get away. I twisted the knife harder, not letting the pain of the blood washing over my hands force me to let go. It felt like the skin was being eaten off my bones. At least if that happened, it would probably stop hurting. I heard Dare strike again, screaming and cursing, and the Doppelganger fell. It landed unmoving, with me still clinging to its back.
When I was certain it had thrashed its last, I pried my unwilling hands away from the hilt of Dare’s knife, forcing myself to my feet. Dare’s last strike had opened its throat in a ghoulish parody of Evening’s death, bathing her in a veil of acidic gore. She was clutching her last knife in one hand, eyes wide and glassy with shock.
Manuel stumbled back into the doorway, apparently having just gotten up; combats never last as long as they feel from the inside. Four parallel slashes ran down his chest, marking where the Doppelganger hit him. Con grats, kid. You’ve got your first scars. “What . . .”
The Doppelganger’s edges were starting to smoke and blur. I stepped away from it. “This is the part where it melts.” And it was doing just that, dissolving into a pool of sticky slime that was never going to come out of the carpet.
Rosemary and Rue Page 22
