"Merde," I said as I recovered.
I'd been completely wrong about the creature. It didn't possess people, it became them completely. I knew what it was called, too. In Prussia, they called these creatures doppelgangers, which meant double walker.
Doppelgangers could take the likeness of a person, impersonating them. They were thought of as bad omens, harbingers of an impending death.
I recalled a story Empress Catherine had told me about walking into the throne room and seeing a double of herself sitting in the gilded chair. I'd thought she'd been sleepwalking, or drinking too much. She'd died a few weeks later, and I never thought of the doppelganger again.
My hand went to my mouth in a moment of horror. I'd shot the real Alden Bridgewater, letting the doppelganger get away. It must have thrust him into the hallway, knowing I would fire my pistol, and used his body to make me think I'd killed the murderer.
The pieces clicked into place. That's what had happened to Sally Hemings. The doppelganger had been impersonating her. But for what reason? And why keep her alive?
It needed them for information. It wasn't enough to look like them, it had to know what they knew. Sally must have died from dehydration. And the arcane symbols were meant to confuse, though they led me to Alden.
Who else was the doppelganger impersonating? Enoch Tasker, the President's assistant, for one. But it didn't matter what it wanted. I'd just given it a formidable weapon and had no way to retrieve it.
Windows of gray reveal the misdeed.
Gray eyes. The prophecy had warned me. Doppelgangers have gray eyes. I should have seen the connection.
I climbed to my feet and left the building. The idyllic afternoon hid an ominous fate as somewhere to the east, moving quickly towards Philadelphia, was the Mother's Hammer—an airship that could destroy the city.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The completeness of the deception left me shaken to the core. We'd performed our deeds so well that we'd given the doppelganger the perfect weapon and removed any chance of it being stopped by sending the American fleet over the ocean.
The realization that anyone could be my enemy left me conflicted as to my next action. The Franklin Estate would be a prime target for the spectral cannon, wiping out the leadership of the American government in one blast.
I considered rushing to the estate to warn the guests, but that would do little to save the city. The doppelganger could fire repeatedly, wiping out whole blocks one section at a time. There would be little chance of saving anyone, if the destruction on the hilltop was any measure of what it could do.
Plus, I couldn't be sure how many other doppelgangers there were. What if there was more than one of these creatures? If Enoch Tasker was a doppelganger as I suspected, he would rally the soldiers in attendance to subdue me. I couldn't go to the estate.
My only chance was to get to the airship to stop the doppelganger. But how to reach the Mother's Hammer without the gauntlet? My first thought was the cauldron, but my house was almost ten blocks away. The airship would reach the city before I made it to the cauldron.
I only knew one way to reach the Mother's Hammer in time.
"I hope you haven't left yet," I said to the empty air.
Facing to the north, I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted, "Zentrii! Zentrii! Zentrii!"
A horse-drawn wagon with a family of Quakers was coming up the street at that moment. They stared, open-mouthed in horror, at my display, probably sensing it for the occult that it was.
I turned to the east.
"Zentrii! Zentrii! Zentrii!"
Then to the south.
"Zentrii! Zentrii! Zentrii!"
Then finally to the west.
"Zentrii! Zentrii! Zentrii!"
As the Quakers passed me, the mother, in her peasant dress and bonnet, covered the eyes of her two girls while the father made signs of the cross. I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at them.
When a powerful wind came gusting down the street, knocking the bonnet from the woman's head, the man snapped his reins, urging his horses to move faster. An angry black cloud formed in the street as blasts of air made me squint.
Out of the dark mist dropped the seductive form of the storm-kin. Zentrii landed in stride, faint purplish sorceries billowing around her.
The Quaker woman wailed and the horses broke into a full gallop, the wagon bouncing dangerously as they fled across the cobblestone street.
"I wasn't expecting you to call so ssssoon," said Zentrii.
"I need your help," I said. "I need to get somewhere, fast."
The storm-kin wrinkled her nose. "I agreed to be your teacher, not a ferry or a flying mule. This wasn't part of the agreement."
"You have to help," I said. "The city's in danger. Hell, the whole world is in danger."
Zentrii's eyes flashed with mischievousness. "What does that have to do with me? I wasn't helping you out of the goodness of my heart, I was doing it so you owed me a favor. You understand so little."
Her admonishment stung, but I could only blame myself. She was acting in her nature. I needed to find a way to align our interests.
"The storm! You need the energy from the storm," I said.
She went cold, arms crossing and chin jutting. "What do you know of this? Do not interfere, the conditions are just right."
I didn't know why Zentrii needed the storm, but it was enough for me to know she needed it.
"You remember the day the Brave Eagle fired its weapon on the hilltop?" I asked.
Her nostrils flared and her eyes turned reddish. "Why do you provoke me?"
"I'm not provoking. That's the thing I need to stop. It's the same weapon, except it's on a new airship, the Mother's Hammer, and it's coming this way," I said.
She screeched, the hellish wail blasting from her lips. My ears rang long after she'd stopped.
"Not again," she said. "I will not allow it. Tell me and I will stop it."
Djata. I couldn't let her kill the creature in the airship. Djata was alive somewhere. If she killed the doppelganger, I'd probably never find him. Plus we needed the spectral cannon to fire on our sacrificial target if we were to stop the war.
"It's not that simple. You need to take me to the ship, and I'll stop it," I said.
She bared her teeth at me, hissing. "You're lying."
"It's the only way. You have to take me. I can remove the stone from the cannon. If you destroy it, it'll cause a huge explosion, doing more damage than if it were fired."
She squinted, trying to determine if I was telling the truth. I might have been, but what I'd said was mostly a guess.
"Fine," she hissed. "I will take you."
I didn't want to leave without warning Franklin. The doppelganger had to pilot the ship into the sky still, which gave us time. Not a lot, but enough.
"First to my house," I said.
"I'm not a carriage service," she said.
"Do you want to save your storm?"
She scowled and wrapped her arms around me. The launch always left my stomach in knots, as I was sure I would fall. Then, like flying in a dream, I relaxed.
It didn't take long before we landed at my house. A couple of young boys stick fighting in the street froze when we landed out of the sky. I heard the cry of “witch” as I ran inside to find Aught.
The golden pangolin had been sleeping in a patch of sunlight on the wooden floor. Her scales shone like a gleaming pile of gold coins.
"Aught," I said, rousing her. "I need you to go to the Franklin Estate."
Aught stretched and stood on her hind legs. "Danger, what?"
"You need to find Ben or Brassy and speak to them in private." I paused. "Hell, if you have to, run through the middle of the party to get Ben's attention. Then tell him..."
I wasn't sure what to say that would let him know about the danger without giving away the intended deception. "Tell him that Russian airships are coming and the main craft must be destroyed before it fires its weapon because the de
fense has been compromised."
"Careful, no see?" asked Aught.
"It doesn't matter. Get there as fast as you can," I said.
Without another word said, Aught wrapped herself into a scaly ball and rolled out the door, heading north along the sidewalk.
Zentrii was waiting for me. We flew into the air, and I was certain another half-dozen people saw us. The repercussions of the day would be far-reaching, but it would be worse if we delayed.
Normally on the way to the broken hilltop, I was mentally preparing myself for the pain I would endure during training. This time I was trying to figure out how I was going to stop the doppelganger without killing it, if that was even possible.
The horizon approached faster than I expected, a trick of perception. Storm clouds billowed into castles, streaking long fingers across the sky. In the distance, beneath dark patches, lightning shocked the ground.
Zentrii's arms vibrated around me in anticipation. Craning my head, I got a good look at her face. She was enraptured by the view. Her slender, wet tongue danced across her lips. Something about the storm made her quiver with excitement.
I worried that we'd gone too far north or south and had missed the fleet of flashpaper airships, but then I saw the flash of the Mother's Hammer's blimp reflecting off the setting sun as it glided through the sky. Brass struts held the inflated leather bags and caught the sun's reflection. Powering the Mother's Hammer were two steam engines, and hanging from the front was the spectral cannon. The ship wasn't as large as the Brave Eagle, but its weapon would still punch a block-sized hole in the city.
Behind it, pulled on a lattice of engineered strings, were dozens of flashpaper airships. They flew in formation with the Mother's Hammer like a flock of geese. The engine was large enough to drag the others through the sky since they had no locomotion of their own.
"Can you come upon it from behind?" I shouted to Zentrii over the wind.
She made a growling hiss, but veered south, coming upon the Mother's Hammer from an angle that prevented Djata from seeing us.
Unlike the Brave Eagle's gondola, which had similarities in design to an oceangoing vessel, the Mother's Hammer was as boxlike as they came, with two turbines sticking out the sides to propel the craft through the sky. Besides the front, the only other entry point was a row of windows along the top of the engine room.
Hovering in midair behind ship, Zentrii squeezed my arms. Philadelphia was within sight of the airship. Once I entered, I wouldn't have long to stop the doppelganger before the city was in danger.
"Use your sorcery. Knock a hole in those windows so we can fly through," she said.
Reluctantly, I sent a geyser from my outstretched hand. Glass blew inward, leaving a gap wide enough for us to pass through. Unfortunately, the creature had to have heard the blast, so it would know we were coming.
Zentrii landed us in the engine room. The double engine design was ear-shattering, the pain in my skull made worse by the recent use of magic. The pistons had been tweaked for power rather than silence. I revised my assessment that Djata had heard our entrance.
I motioned for Zentrii to stay in the engine room while I went forward to deal with the doppelganger. The storm-kin didn't like being given commands and crossed her arms in defiance. When I left her, that she didn't follow was a minor victory. I hoped the rest of the assault on the Mother's Hammer would be as easy.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The raucous thuds of the steam engines, like a thousand blacksmiths at the anvil, faded behind me as I crept through the lone hallway that went through the center of the gondola. There were no doors on either side. The spectral cannon's cooling tanks had replaced what normally would have been the crew's quarters.
Without a need for subtlety, I removed the hilt from my belt and slapped my hand against the pommel. The blade extended from the guard faster than my eyes could adjust. In the other hand, I readied my pistol.
The floor vibrated excessively, putting an uneasy feeling into my feet. I imagined the structural supports in the gondola wouldn't sustain an extended journey.
As carefully as I could, I pushed the door open. Djata Mahmud stood at the controls of the airship, looking down upon the approaching city. The gauntlet sat on a ledge near the window, while the stone had been placed at the center of a metal lattice connected to the cannon.
It tugged at my heart that I was looking at a Djata with working legs, even though I knew it wasn't him. That was the power of the double, I realized. That perception trumped even the knowledge that it wasn't the real person.
"I won't let you fire the cannon," I said.
The double kept working, pulling levers that adjusted the turbines. The ship shifted to the starboard side, and the silvery gauntlet slid across the control ledge to rest against a strut. I had to shift my weight to stay upright.
In the distance, far to the east of Philadelphia, flashes of storm crackled across the sky. The front had curled around the city, leaving a small patch of naked sky.
"I said stop."
When it didn't, I pointed the pistol at the back wall and fired. The gunshot rang long after it was over.
The double of Djata turned its head slightly. "You won't kill me, Princess, or you'll never find your friend alive."
"I'll kill you if it means saving the city," I said.
The creature that looked like Djata turned around to face me. It was odd to see him standing. The doppelganger had copied Djata in every way, including the slight legs beneath the bulky upper body.
"Save the city? Why, Princess. You were going to fire on it anyway," said Djata's double with a smirk. "Which would have come with ironic consequences."
A rumble of thunder intruded on the conversation. The storm had caught up to the airship.
"What we were doing—" I began.
"Was treason," said the doppelganger, turning back around to adjust a brass dial with both hands. Somewhere beneath the deck, the cooling tanks pumped water through the spectral cannon. It was ready to fire.
The Mother's Hammer wasn't yet over the city, but I was running out of time. What I needed was to knock the doppelganger out using my sorcery without destroying the control panel.
But I recalled my recent failures on the hilltop. My last attempt at sculpting the impact had left a sizable oak tree in splinters. If I hit the doppelganger like that, not only would he die, but the ship would go down with me in it.
The Djata double pulled back on the engines, letting the airship coast. Looking out the side windows, I watched the flashpaper ships surge forward and spread out in formation. Moving slower through the sky would allow him to fire more accurately.
I was sure Ben had spotted the airships, but had Aught relayed the message? Was he evacuating the estate, or had he misinterpreted the message?
I lifted my pistol, taking aim at the doppelganger.
"I wouldn't touch another button," I said. "While I'm sure you've hidden my friend someplace difficult to find, I won't risk the city. If you value your life, shapeshifter, I would step away."
The Djata double turned with his hands spread wide. His handsome, dark face broke into a smile. Then he reached out and grabbed the gauntlet.
When I waved my pistol, he shrugged. "You didn't say I couldn't touch this."
I didn't know what game he was playing. The stone was in the cannon. If he removed the stone, the weapon couldn't fire. Why would he grab the gauntlet?
At that moment, a flashpaper airship exploded with a burst of light, confetti falling to the earth afterwards, which meant that far beneath us, Franklin had rallied the defense of the city.
"Step away from the control panel," I commanded.
He sidestepped and moved again, keeping me perpendicular to him. I sensed he was planning something and almost checked behind me to make sure he didn't have an accomplice.
"Fine, Princess, you win," he said. "I won't fire the cannon."
Without warning, he tossed the gauntlet. I reflexively ca
ught it, grabbing one of the bulky fingers, while keeping the pistol leveled at his chest.
"And stop looking like my friend," I said.
He shrugged again and then his form rippled.
It was like someone had shuffled a deck of cards. I could see the alternating cards of Djata and then another form. At first I didn't recognize who it was, but then I had no choice.
I was looking at myself.
It was unsettling. I'd always thought I was rather plain. Seeing my double only reinforced it. Especially as I stared back at myself with a flat, serious stare.
"How are you feeling, Princess?" the double of myself asked. "You know, it was quite lovely of you to build this weapon and then hand it over to me. My task was to guide the leadership of the American government towards war, taking the place of a key member if I could—never a practical thing with chaff always hanging about—but if I can wipe them out with one blast, why not take that chance? Of course, if I fail at my task, whichever method I choose, the Winged One will make me suffer for a long time."
I shook my head. Staring at myself was giving me vertigo. The pistol in my hand felt so heavy.
"You won't get to do that now," I said. "Move away from the front."
As I stepped to the side to let the doppelganger move into the hallway, I almost fell, stumbling against the control panel. It was a herculean effort to keep my eyes open.
"What did you do to me?" I asked, as a crackle of lightning slammed into one of the flashpaper airships in my line of sight, turning it to vapor.
The other version of me grinned. A part of my intellect, way in the back, remarked that I looked much better when I smiled. It was a strange time to be thinking of such unimportant things.
"Djata was working on a contact poison in the Thornveld. When I captured him, he had a jar of it in his pocket. I was going to use it on you below, and had spread it over the outside of the gauntlet, but it didn't work out that way," said my doppelganger.
I dropped the gauntlet, but it was too late. I'd been poisoned. A knee buckled beneath me, sending me to the floor.
My double was upon me, knocking the pistol out of my hand. I dropped the oestium rapier, to clatter against the wooden floor. The doppelganger pushed me onto my back into the corner of the room. I was as helpless as an overturned tortoise.
The Franklin Deception (The Dashkova Memoirs Book 4) Page 18
