Valentines Heat I

by Ally Shields, Nessie Strange, Keith Melton, CL Bledsoe

“An interesting question. I’m a better you than you are apparently.”

  “You don’t want to mess with me, sister. I will burn you.”

  Her smile tightened and twisted into a smirk. She glanced at Jake. “How do you endure this crudity? A junkyard dog is more refined.”

  Jake’s jaw muscles clenched. “You’re talking about my woman, fetch, and I don’t appreciate that.”

  “I’m no fetch. And you appreciated me well enough until now. That kiss…” She made an appreciative growl in her throat. “And let’s not forget the way you touched me in the elevator.”

  I gave Jake a sidelong look. “You naughty boy.”

  “You have a beautiful ass,” he replied straight-faced. “It deserved to be grabbed.”

  “You can grab anything you’d like after we finish with this…whatever it is.”

  “And after you take a shower,” he added quickly. I scowled at him.

  “You really do smell like a slaughterhouse,” my twin said. Her expression was so sympathetic for my plight that I wanted to punch her in the face. Luckily, the better angels of my nature prevailed. I still couldn’t get a read on her. Her expressions were so mercurial they kept me off balance. Not that they came across as false, but that they seemed too quick to be real.

  “Back on track,” I said. “If you aren’t a fetch, what are you? Shape-shifter? Fae? Death omen?”

  “First I’m going to tell you a story. Portland is perfect for a curio shop, don’t you agree? It is an odd, eclectic kind of town. It has hippies and yuppies and vegans and witches. Tourists and true believers. Microbrews. Mercenaries. Odd things.”

  “I’m already bored,” I interrupted. The waiter started over to check on us, but Jake waved him away. He seemed happy to go, though he kept looking from me to the doppelganger and back again. I was sweating and keyed up to a thousand. This restaurant was too crowded, and I had a bad feeling that innocent people would end up hurt if this confrontation went on much longer. “Why don’t we get out of here? You can regurgitate your Portland clichés all you want somewhere else.”

  “I like it here.” Now her eyes held an evil glint, and I wondered how often that look was in my eyes, because it was a little disturbing. “The atmosphere. The conversation. The scents and sounds and tastes of the corporeal. I don’t get out as often as I’d like. So the answer is no. If you’re so crass and impatient that you can’t listen to my story, then I challenge you to guess. Guess what I am. Go ahead, amuse me with how little you understand.”

  “I don’t have time for this bullshit.”

  “Cause a scene then. Your gun and flames will hurt these innocent people far more than me, so what leverage do you have?” She speared a piece of asparagus and took a delicate nibble with only her front teeth. I hated her for that because I ate like a starving shark. I hated her more for calling my bluff. I couldn’t open fire with all these civilians around, and I certainly couldn’t risk pyromancy on the thirtieth floor of a restaurant at dinner hour.

  “All right, I’ll play your damn game. You’re a classic doppelganger.”

  “Not a doppelganger and again, not a fetch.”

  Jake was readying his barrier magic—the sensation tickled across my brain like a cat whisker—and I knew he was waiting to make his move and slam down an energy field between us that would be near impervious to attack. Yet, when he spoke, his voice remained remarkably calm. “You aren’t a visual-projected image, and you’re not a trick of photons. You have mass and body heat. Your shape is exact and perfect.”

  Again she smiled at him with genuine warmth. “Thank you.”

  “He’s talking about my shape, you smug, face-stealing wannabe.” I narrowed my eyes and couldn’t help a snarl. “You’re a shifter. Or a cheap, knockoff clone.”

  “No. And no.”

  “Fae. Some fairy-world douche bag who likes to impersonate celebrities.”

  “Not even close.”

  “You’re me…from the future or alternate timeline where I obviously went insane.”

  She laughed. “No time travel or dimension hopping here. I am not you.” She smiled at Jake again. “Although I quite enjoyed our time together.”

  He didn’t return the smile. “I resent being deceived and toyed with. If you’re a threat to Andrea, I’ll kill you without hesitation.”

  The doppelganger’s smile faded, but I could’ve kissed him for that. In fact, I planned to, as soon as this was over.

  “Let’s end the shenanigans,” I said. “Stop trying to make me jealous. Stop jerking us around and enlighten us. Why do you have my face and what do you want?” I picked up a bread crust from Jake’s plate with my free hand, then concentrated as I directed the flammable vapor that held the core of my magefire and sparked it alight with my mind. The bread burst into flames, and I flipped it into her wineglass. “Because I’ll wager you can’t do that trick, so you’ll only ever be a second-rate copy. And whatever you really are, I’m betting you burn.”

  “Still desperately hiding incompetence with threats and aggression? Congratulations. You’ve proven that you’re utterly careless and self-absorbed.”

  “And yet you took her form,” Jake said. “So will you finally tell us what you’re after?”

  “I wanted to understand her, and now I suppose I do. I’d hoped I was wrong. But people are fascinating…and disappointing.”

  Snappy rejoinders usually came easy to me, but this time I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  She wiped her hands on her napkin, refolded it, and set it aside. Her movements remained graceful and precise. She projected a refinement I knew I lacked. Even the way she spoke was less chopped slang and more smooth eloquence. She was trying to psyche me out. Worse, it was working.

  “If you want to know what I am and what I’m after,” the doppelganger continued, “simply answer one question. Where did you fight today, mercenary?”

  “Downtown.” I frowned, trying to see her angle. “Exterminating mutant hagworms.”

  “And on that street, where did you fight? Where did you burn and shoot and smash and break and destroy and kill?”

  “We ended up trapped in some junk shop.”

  A vein began to pulse in the center of the doppelganger’s forehead. “Junk…shop?”

  I shrugged, feigning indifference while keeping the pistol beneath the table aimed at her. I’d finally found an edge to work against. If I played this right, I might be able to score some real answers. “Salvation Army-type place. Like a swap meet, only pricier.”

  The doppelganger sat there, her hands clenched into fists, eyeing me as if she’d love to cane me to death on live television. I sensed more than saw Jake ready himself beside me.

  Then she closed her eyes and laughed. Even forced, the laughter sounded more musical than mine, almost resonant. “You still don’t understand what I am, Captain Andrea Walker?” She spit my name as though it were a curse. “I am Dead Cat Antiques.”

  “You have less square footage than I remember,” I replied. “But you are weird, I’ll give you that.”

  Jake put a hand on my arm and kept his gaze on the doppelganger. “You’re a manifest thought-form.”

  “I am.” She appeared absurdly grateful that Jake had guessed correctly. “Thank you.”

  “I missed something. Didn’t you just claim you were a tourist trap gift shop?”

  She leaned back in her seat, staring at me through hooded eyes. “I am a materialized thought, given form and freedom. A physical projection of my own psychic force. Mostly I appear as a shopkeeper in whatever body the customer expects of an antique dealer. Meeting customer expectations always aids in a frictionless sale. However, the form is fluid. I am what I will and what I wish.”

  “Fantastic. And why did you steal my face and mess with Jake again?”

  “You hurt me,” she said, with a note of wounded surprise that threw me off my mental stride once more. I was used to scrapping with megalomaniacs and super-powered psychopaths. They bitch
ed and they threatened and they grandstanded, but they never sounded vulnerable. “I wanted you to know,” she continued. “To understand what you’d done with all your careless violence in a fight that had nothing to do with me. I’m not evil. I shouldn’t have to suffer.”

  Never had I meant to tear the antique shop apart. Things had rapidly spiraled out of control during the fighting. We’d been routed, forced to hole up inside or be overwhelmed and chewed to shreds. “We were fighting to save the street—hell, the city. That includes your shop and all the customers and tourists and everything everywhere. Look, let’s just say we’re all victims of the hagworms and call it even. It’s Valentine’s Day. I’ll buy us all margaritas—”

  She slammed her fist down on the table. “Don’t you dare. Because I also believe in a careful settling of accounts. You ruined so many of the wonderful, irreplaceable things I held inside me. Things that took hundreds of years to collect. Priceless objects, cursed and blessed. Antiques and artifacts I loved, unique, fascinating, and strange. All so a handful of mortals could continue their self-absorbed and violent and small lives.”

  “That’s hitting below the belt. We never knew the shop was sentient or that you didn’t have insurance—”

  “I was compelled to take form and find you,” she said, interrupting me again and then swinging her attention to Jake. “I pulled all your knowledge of him from your mind when you were inside me. You love him, and he’s a good person. Better than most mortals.” Her gaze shifted back to me. “Better than you. You don’t deserve him. So I know that when you lose him, we will finally understand one another.”

  I hesitated, all hair trigger and nerves, not wanting to attack her, not wanting her to attack, everything in my skull chaotic and reeling while my pulse pounded in my temples. I opened my mouth to reply without any idea of what to say. Before I could speak, a commotion broke out across the restaurant. When I glanced over, I saw something that simultaneously lifted my heart and chilled me through.

  The Zero Dogs had charged out of the elevator, spread out in fighting formation, and were headed straight for us.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sarge led them, a big, angry demon hauling an M249 light machine gun and looking ready to go evil all over someone’s day. Tiffany ran on the right flank, her body tilted low and forward with her black wings flared out behind her. Erik sprinted alongside her, battle-axe in hand, bellowing his berserker war cry and terrifying the patrons. Mai led a squadron of sleek bat-like things with blue-black scales, eyes that belonged on a chameleon, and oversize jaws filled with yellow teeth. Rafe had shifted into werewolf form. Hanzo charged with his katana still sheathed at his side, but his hand on the braided-cord grip, ready to draw the blade. Even Stefan, our slacker vampire, had bestirred himself from his coffin and was flying on the left flank, his boot tips half a foot above the ground, arms thrown wide, claws out, fangs exposed in pure vampire theatrics. And finally came Gavin bringing up the rear, zooming from the elevator on his Urban Assault Solo Segway—complete with bullet shields and bristling with weapons.

  The maître d’ stumbled over his podium in his haste to flee, bringing the whole thing crashing down with him. Rafe leaped over him without slowing as the man cringed and squealed like a pygmy squirrel.

  I jumped to my feet, holding up my arms and desperately trying to indicate that my crew should hold their fire and stand down without actually having to yell hold your fire and set off a panic. People began to scream anyway, and I remembered I was still holding a pistol. I shoved it beneath my jacket, but it was too late. The customers already heading for the exits started to run en masse, staying clear of the Zero Dogs as they fled.

  I heard Jake talking to the doppelganger. “It doesn’t have to go down like this. Nobody has to get hurt.”

  “It’s too late,” she replied. “We all lose today. But her most of all.”

  “I won’t let you touch him,” I snarled, already tapping my pyromancy, the mind-magic interconnection that let me work in fire. The exhaustion I’d been fighting all day threatened to cut my knees out from under me, but I held on with grim tenacity.

  She tossed me a look flooded with contempt, then gave me the most evil grin I’d ever seen—and I’d had a lot of malevolent chompers flashed my way throughout my mercenary career. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

  “You can’t stop this,” she said quietly. “I’m already on my way.” Then she vaulted onto the table and launched herself toward the window.

  I made a grab for her ankle, but my hand smacked the invisible force-barrier Jake had created between me and the doppelganger. I cursed, helpless to do anything but watch as she drew her fist back and smashed through the plate-glass window.

  The crash of breaking glass was deafening. She threw herself out the window and spun in midair to face me, defying physics as shards of glass fell all around her. For a moment, my doppelganger floated there, staring straight into my eyes, the Portland skyline spread behind her in a beautiful panorama of lights. Jake threw out a hand and I sensed him shift his barrier, trying to get it under her in time. Either he wasn’t fast enough or she avoided it, because she plummeted from view without a sound.

  “Damn it!” I grabbed the table and wrenched it away from the window, sending dishes in all directions and toppling chairs. Icy wind blew against my face, stinging my skin. Police sirens wailed in the distance. Jake and I leaned out far enough to peer down to the street thirty stories below.

  My broken body was not smashed open on the pavement. My doppelganger was nowhere to be seen.

  Jake and I shared a look. His face was pale, and he seemed as shaken up as I felt. I knew he was thinking the same thing. What had she meant when she’d said: I’m already on my way? And how long did we have?

  The rest of the Zero Dogs spread out in a defensive formation around us, with Gavin doing protective figure eights on the assault Segway. The few remaining rubberneckers who hadn’t yet evacuated now rushed for the stairs. That snobhole maître d’ wasn’t around anymore, but the bartender was busy taking pictures of us with his cell phone camera. When he noticed me staring at him, he took his phone and ran. The thought of the Zero Dogs winding up on the news twice in one day was enough to give me a migraine, but it wasn’t something I had time to dwell on now.

  “Captain,” Sarge said in his bass grumble. “We came as soon as we could.”

  “Quill told us everything,” Stefan added as he floated inches above the ground, as dead and debonair as only a vampire could manage. He even wore formal attire with ruby cuff links, a bloodred boutonniere, and a diamond-studded bow tie. Vampires.

  “How did you know we were here?” My voice was unsteady. The showdown with my doppelganger and her crazy last words had rattled me more than I wanted to admit.

  “I remembered,” Tiffany answered quietly. “This morning you told me where Jake planned to take you. You were so excited.”

  Now that she mentioned it, I did recall a bit of animated girl talk after I’d found out Jake was coming to visit. It seemed a hundred million years ago.

  “What was that thing, Captain?” Mai asked as her summoned bat-pets attached themselves to her fatigues and dangled there, chirping and yawning. “Your evil twin?”

  “Nah, I’m the evil twin. It was only a manifest thought-form that wanted to murder me. You can call it a doppelganger though, because German sounds more menacing.”

  “Murder you?” Gavin spun his idiotic Segway in a tight, annoying circle so he could look me over. “That’s rare. It’s been, what? Two hours since the last monster wanted to kill you?”

  Jake set a hand on my shoulder and addressed the rest of the team in his no-nonsense Special-Forces voice. “It was a physical being manifested by a powerful psychic force—a thought-form created by the sentient power in the antique shop. It wants revenge for the damage you caused today. It created a perfect physical replica of Andrea, so check your targets. We don’t want any friendly fire incidents.”

 
; “A cognizant, malevolent Shoppe de la Antiquities…” Stefan mused. “A vengeful mirror image of questionable discernment. How delightfully unusual.”

  Rafe shifted from werewolf into human form and started to flex and pose. “So why didn’t it copy this flesh fortress of awesome?”

  I resisted the urge to beat my werewolf about the head with the nearest heavy object. “Rafe. Cover yourself with a napkin or something, damn it. This is a restaurant. You’re violating every food safety code on the planet.”

  “A napkin couldn’t hope to cover my equipment.” He grabbed the nearest tablecloth and yanked, trying to pull it fast enough to leave the dinner and wineglasses standing. All the dishes smashed to the floor.

  I struggled not to have an aneurysm. The sirens were closer now. Police, fire trucks, and ambulances from the sound.

  Tiffany edged to the shattered window and peered outside. “Captain,” she said, but her voice was almost lost in the moan of wind through the hole.

  “Hold on, Tiffany. All right, everybody, listen up. We need to head back to that antique shop and find out exactly what the hell is going on—”

  “Captain,” Tiffany repeated, louder this time. She was clutching the window frame, her skin very pale, her slit-pupil eyes wide. “There’s a monster outside.”

  Beyond the window came the sound of screeching brakes and blaring horns, screams and the crunch of fender benders. Jake beat me back to the window, but I was only an instant behind. Both of us stared down at a street in chaos as cars braked and swerved while a huge flying serpentine creature corkscrewed through the air a dozen meters above the ground. It undulated and spun past another building, reflected in the mirrored windows. From this distance, the creature gave the impression of a Chinese-style dragon, but its snake-like body was irregular, full of random ridges and asymmetrical bends and angles. It flew past a streetlamp and, with a swipe of its thick tail, crushed the metal pole.

  For a moment I couldn’t move, could barely breathe as my brain struggled to process what I was seeing. The serpentine dragon-like creature was at least ten meters long. One of its eyes was glowing yellow, throwing illumination like a searchlight along the street and side of the building.