Sylas stepped back as adrenaline pumping through him; he broke out in a cold sweat. The man's body began to disappear, replaced by a skeletal frame with skin that look like ash. Its fingers elongated into points, and its feet followed. The last thing to change was its face. Sylas watched as the visage of his father disappeared. His hazel eyes mutated into pools of black, with long, hazy white slits for irises. The skin paled and hair disappeared. Teeth sharpened and grew to the point that they spilled out of its mouth. The last thing he heard come out of his father's disintegrating face chilled him.
“Die, son.”
Sylas stepped forward and smashed his good hand into the underside of the creature's jaw. It rocked back but didn't seem to feel any pain. The creature gurgled again and Sylas quickly leapt back as one of its claws reached out for him. It missed him but caught his jacket, tearing through the fabric and almost dragging him back towards it. He quickly removed the jacket, not wanting to risk getting caught, and stepped back.
He was afraid. He knew it in his gut, and from the sweat that now cascaded down his face. He didn't know what this unnatural thing was or why it was after him. But more than that, he could feel an unbelievable amount of anger.
He should have been losing his mind, seeing something so terrifying look at him like it was ready to feast. Instead, the hate that he felt towards it for tricking him, for using the image of his father to try and lure him, made the fear practically disappear in favor of blind rage.
The creature began to twist its body more, its head almost rotating entirely, arms shooting back. It quickly leapt at Sylas. He ducked and balled his fists to try and lash back, only to feel a white-hot searing on his chest.
In an instant, he saw a bright light spread through the room and was flung back, crashing into the desk as he heard the creature howl and land into the fireplace. The flames licked at it, but it didn't seem to burn it at all. Then monster rolled out to lie on the floor, unmoving but making a sickening rasp.
Sylas sat up, feeling a sharp pain in his back from the impact. He tried to stand, wavering for a moment as the pain he was ignoring made itself evident. As he finally recovered, he looked to his chest to try and see what that heat was. His heart skipped and he could feel a ball of ice form in his stomach. His father's medallion had shattered.
Somehow it had saved him for the time being, but the last real memento he had from his father was gone. He could see the remnants littering the ground: pieces of silver dusted across the striped rug on the floor, and the red crystal slightly shimmered in the firelight. He reached for it and picked it up, holding it in his hand for a brief moment in silence.
That silence was broken as he heard the creature start to move. It raised itself up and turned to him, moving with a shaky walk and clicking its fangs together. Sylas leaned against the wall. He couldn't run, if this thing followed him, it could potentially attack everyone else. Right now it seemed to want him and only him. It had set everything up to toy with him, to trap him. He didn't know why, but he wasn't going to risk the others.
Fighting it seemed pointless; it didn't seem to feel pain. So he took a ragged breath, clenched the fist that was holding the crystal, and, with an arm holding his side and his lips wearing a wicked smile, looked at the beast. “Go on and try, you ugly motherfucker.” He saw the monster leap once again and closed his eyes, waiting for fangs to pierce his flesh and claws to tear sinew and muscle; for the pain to come all at once, then leave with death.
Nothing happened. He could hear both his heart hammering and the low, throaty croak of the monster, but he didn't feel it clawing at him or even touching him at all. He opened his eyes only to see the beast's ghostly white irises mere inches away, but it wasn't moving. Then, from the doorway he heard a loud whistle.
“I am very impressed, Sy. Most people would freak when confronted with a doppel, but you just look at it straight in its dead-ass eyes and see if you can beat the thing harder than the ugly stick did!” Roux exclaimed jubilantly.
“Roux? What the hell is...” A small flash caught Sylas' eye. He saw long, dark strings ensnaring the creature, wrapping around his hands, arms, legs, chest, and neck. The strings were attached to Roux's outstretched arm, which was now encased in some sort of long, black glove, that seemed to be made of the same string, woven together.
“Now, don't get mad, but I was kind of watching for a minute. Wanted to see how you would take on an evil-eyed beast like this. Plus, with all your goings on about the supernatural, and all those abandoned sites you dragged me to, I figured you would actually like to see one of these monstrosities in person, yeah?” Roux asked as he moved over to him, the strings remaining taut and appearing to weave back together the closer he got to the 'doppel.'
Sylas sidestepped away to get closer to Roux, and watched as the monster, unable to move, simply followed him with its eyes. “Roux, what is this and what is going on?” he asked, as he made it to his friend’s side, looking between him and the doppel.
“Well, like I said, this is a doppel, as in ‘doppelganger’. It is a creature of Quintessence— get to that after a bit—and is a copycat that can manipulate not only it's physical form but a small space around it,” he explained, pointing to the fireplace and chairs. “Doesn't that look familiar to you?” Sylas looked at the fire and realized that it looked just like the fireplace at his father's home. Then he remembered the sketch he saw earlier, and again glanced at the figure responsible.
“Did that thing... Did it get that from...?”
“Your mind? Yes and no. It can manipulate you to see things or objects you remember, and mentally speak to you about past events. But it cannot use little details, lucky for you, or speak for itself. As for the ‘what is going on?’ First, we shall go with extermination.” With that he quickly closed his hand and the strings holding the monster in place snapped, cutting clean through. The creature fell to pieces, limbs beneath chest beneath head, and the white in its eyes faded to black.
“What happens next is up to you, Sy. But before all that, you all right?”
Sylas looked from the pile of body parts over to his friend. His tired eyes closed and a small smile emerged on his face. Then, with as much remaining energy as he could muster, he socked Roux in the stomach. Roux grabbed his stomach and bent over, making a noise oddly similar to the doppel's.
“Thanks for saving me.” Sylas said graciously as he leaned against the desk.
“Then what the hell was that for?!” Roux grimaced as he tried regaining his composure.
“You said you watched for a while. Did you seriously not see any other opportunity to help me out with something that seems to be made of nightmares and teeth?” Sylas asked, deadpan.
“Fair enough,” Roux confessed, as he leaned against the wall with one arm, as the other tried to smooth out his shirt. “You do put on quite a show though; I was thoroughly enraptured till the last act. Didn't want to stop the show so soon.”
“Kind of hard to give an encore when you’re fucking mincemeat,” Sylas countered, doing his best to dust himself off and check for bleeding.
“I had your back. Trust me, if this thing was a fully realized doppel I would have done something sooner. Might have been no help at all though, to be honest,” he said with a shrug. Then, with a flick of the wrist, the strings strewn across the floor flowed back onto his glove, weaving together until it was one seamless piece.
“The hell is a ‘fully realized doppel?’” Sylas inquired, looking from Roux's glove to his face.
“Oh, right. You were handling all this so well, I guess I'm not doing enough explaining. Most of the time in these situations I'm trying to stop the screaming,” he mused, placing his hands back into his pockets. “Look, I'm guessing you've got a ton of questions. Honestly, if it was up to me, you would have been told all this a long time ago. However, your dad, in a show of compassion or sweet stupidity, tried to hide you from our reality for as long as he could.”
“My old man? What's he got to
do with this?” Sylas asked crossing his arms and meeting his friend’s gaze intently. “You gonna tell me he was moonlighting as a werewolf hunter or something?”
“Of a sort, yeah.” Roux pushed his hair back with one hand as he took a phone from his pocket with the other, and began scrolling through messages. “Honestly, I'm not the best person to fill you in. The person I wanted you to meet is here, and is waiting for us outside in the forest. She'll tell you everything, and then we can deal with disposing of this bod—” Roux stopped short, looking around the room then back to Sylas. “Hey, Sylas...”
“What's wrong, Roux?”
“Where's the body?” Sylas looked over and saw that the doppel's corpse was gone. Only bits of white dust remained.
“What, do they vanish or something when you kill them? You are the only one in this room who's an expert on the copycat nightmare fuel guy in the room.”
“Not a good time for jokes, Sy!” Roux yelled. Just then a loud, trembling shriek echoed around them. Sylas could feel it to his core. Roux looked around, eyes wide behind his shades, “Sylas...” he whispered.
“What?”
“Run, Sylas. Run very fast.”
CHAPTER THREE
A black liquid began to drip from the ceiling. First steadily and then in large waves, as the sickening roar continued.
“Sy, we need to leave out the window!” Roux yelled, as Sylas stood transfixed. He snapped out of his daze and looked at the redhead.
“What window? There is no…” Sylas faltered as a large, previously absent window appeared behind the desk.
“Doppels can warp the immediate vicinity remember? When I killed it, the room went back to its original form,” Roux explained, as he cast his hand forward and shot strings out, whipping the window open.
“If you killed it, then what is that thing!?” Sylas asked, as the black liquid on the floor began to rise. It hung in the air as a large, swirling pool before seeming to shrink then enlarge again, taking a more humanoid shape. He could see the form of the beast from before taking shape, now black and aqueous.
“Not the time for a cryptozoology lesson!” Roux had already leapt through the window. Turning, he once again cast out the strings formed on his glove and encircled Sylas. He grabbed one end of the strings with his free hand and pulled hard, dragging his friend from the room into the autumn field. “We need to get into the forest. Let’s put some distance between us and it,” he advised, as the strings began climbing his arm.
“What? Can’t you do your little hack and slash magic trick again?” Sylas interjected.
“That thing is a fully realized doppel; that means several very bad things. Right now, the problem is that its body is basically a mixture of shadows and liquid,” Roux cautioned as he took a few steps back. “Manipulirn can’t cut that,” he huffed.
“Who is Mani?!” Sylas asked, backing away from the pool of nightmares forming in front of him.
“My malef…my glove, just get out of here!” Roux commanded.
The dark doppel finally seemed to restore itself. Its white eyes peered at them from inside the room, and it was gurgling in short bursts which almost sounded like disturbed laughter.
“Gotta say, Roux, you seem like a shitty exterminator,” Sylas muttered. The doppel knelt, then leapt, screaming as it pounced through the window. The two men turned and ran at full sprint, rushing into the tree line of Eventide Forest. They ducked and maneuvered around branches and flora, hearing the repeated snapping of wood and shifting of leaves as they raced through the trees. Their hitched breathing mixed with the predatory growls of the doppel in the quiet forest.
“So…care to…fill in…where we are going? Or is the plan…just to make it…to the lake…so we can…drown ourselves…instead?” Sylas panted, as he leapt over a small ravine.
“Nah, Sy, we ain’t gonna give that thing the pleasure of scaring us off,” Roux retorted.
“Bit late…for that.”
“In fact, if we can make it to my friend, you are going to be the one to take the doppel out!” Roux declared. Sylas almost stumbled in response.
“Excuse me, what?! You expect me…to do what, exactly? Fist…that thing…to death?”
“Phrasing!”
“You are just…full of quips, aren’t you? Also, for the…last damn time, where the hell…is this chick you keep—” Suddenly, a flash of yellow and black passed Sylas.
He looked ahead of him and saw a figure in a black and yellow coat and long black baggy pants. She had shoulder-length dark hair with a streak of gold dyed from the roots to the ends. She was speeding in front of the two effortlessly. She turned back and Sylas got a good look at her face; angular, with heart-shaped lips and a piercing over her right eyebrow. She was adorned with glasses almost identical to Roux’s tea-shades.
“Think we…found her.”
“Indeed, we have! How are you, Izzy?” Roux’s tone changed from cautious humor to honest optimism.
“Well, considering this was supposed to be a simple meeting in the woods, and now I’ve had to track you down, leave my car with that lecherous valet, and deal with—” She was cut off as the doppel shrieked, seemingly excited by the new prey. It liquefied to bypass a group of trees and then reformed closer to the runners. “…that asshole, I’m fine. Peeved, but honestly not shocked. You do love to make the simple things into an extravagant affair, Valen.”
“Guess I owe you another favor, eh?” came his reply as he leapt to the side to dodge debris the monster kicked up from behind them.
“You owe me something like twenty by now,” came her reply, tone mirthful but pointed.
“Oh, that’s crap. That thing I did for you in Vegas had to be worth at least five!” Valen retorted.
“I already considered that.”
“Ah, well then, I’ll get back to you,” Valen mused, speaking slightly softer in admission.
Curiously, Sylas felt as if he had his second wind.
“Hello, my name is Sylas; I’m the peanut gallery here. Nice to meet you, but can we do something about him?” he inquired as the beast extended its arms to cut down two large branches in their way. They came crashing down as Izzy fell back and pulled Sylas out of the way, narrowly avoiding the nearly a thousand pounds of stakes and splinters.
“Nice to meet you, too. Been meaning to for a while, actually,” Izzy said as she once again ran ahead. “As exciting as a nice chat would be with a monster made of literal black abyss nipping at our heels, I’d rather not have it potentially cut short with blood splatter; new coat, and all!” she joked, as she moved next to Roux, “You two, follow me! Let’s get to a clearing so we have some room to maneuver.” Then with inhuman speed she raced away.
“I don’t know how she did that, but how does she expect us to keep up?!” Sylas asked as Roux, perplexingly, began to laugh.
“You must be swept up in the moment! Understandable, really, but take a quick look around, Sy! You really think we could be naturally outrunning that thing? It’s made of tenacity and fangs!”
Sylas did look around; everything was a blur. The forest was merely a swirl of earthy colors. Not only was Izzy running at an unnatural pace, so were they, yet he could perceive it all. A good thing, otherwise he may have already crashed into something by this point. “Death by impaling his skull on a tree” was a less interesting epitaph than “murder by demon-changeling,” after all. Before he had a chance to question how this was happening, Roux popped in again.
“Wicked, yeah? I’ll explain the ‘how’ after we kill this thing, but first, tuck and roll!” he shouted.
Sylas looked ahead and saw Izzy standing still in their path and facing them. He could just make out some sort of metallic object wrapped around her hand as it began to glow a spellbinding purple.
“Slow down and dive, Sy!” Roux instructed, as he began to slide across the forest floor. Sylas followed, skimming right past Izzy as he slowed and dropped. He got up and looked back to see the doppel coming closer, its a
rms outstretched and solidifying into claws. Izzy did not falter; the purple energy exploded from her gauntlet and created a wall in front of her. The doppel slammed into it, crying out as it lost its shape and once again became a pool of viscous black liquid.
“That won’t keep it down for long,” she huffed as she took off her jacket, revealing a gold shirt underneath. More uniquely, she had what looked to be a sheathed blade on her back. She carefully folded her jacket and put it down. Taking the sword off her back, she turned and threw it to Sylas. He caught it and looked from it to her in confusion.
“So, is this thing killable or not? What is this?” He looked down at the blade. It had a cracked, dark leather grip with a swirling white pattern. Its hand guard seemed dulled with age and was comprised of three intertwining strips of metal: gold, black, and silver. Sylas slid the blade slightly from the sheath. Both it and the sheath appeared rusted.
“What do you want me to do? Give it tetanus?” he mulled as he inspected the sword. From the slight curve to the sheath he guessed it was a saber, his preferred choice while he fenced at school. However, he assumed the beast wouldn’t concede after three clean strikes.
“I could potentially deal with the doppel, but I doubt all of us would come out unscathed,” Izzy said as she approached him. “Take out the sword. You are the only one who can use it. It is tied to you like it was tied to your father and those before him.”
“My father?” Sylas inquired as he once again looked at the saber. His father had used this? For what? To battle things like this doppel? What the hell had he done in his free time?
The doppel gasped and its liquid body swirled towards the sky.
“Valen! Do you want to make up one of those favors? Distract that thing for a minute!” Izzy bellowed. Roux stood up and walked towards the creature. With one hand in his pocket, he raised the other as strings began to detach and float beside him.
Sevanouir: Rebirth (The Strange Tales of the Malefic Book 1) Page 2
