by Stec, Susan
I carefully approach.
CeCe stares right through me, as she mumbles, "He tried to . . . he took off my..." She wails an emotional sob and knuckles tear-drowned snot off her upper lip. "He choked me with my own shirt." Rubbing her hands vigorously on her jeans, she says, "Then all these guys showed up. One jumped on the man's back and one broke my door in . . . and . . . and..." CeCe sinks to the ground in tears and wraps her hands around her knees. "And I ran away."
"All right," Jane says, arms swinging in an arch. "I get it. You're freaked. Now can you put that shit behind you for a few seconds? I'm tryin' ta orchestrate a damn rescue here!"
I close the remainder of the distance.
Dappled sprinkles of light fall on us through a huge black walnut tree as the wind dances with its branches. I reach out to help CeCe up. The girl curls into a fetal position and covers her head.
"C'mon, kid. The guy tried to attack me, too. Not like he killed either of us," Jane says, and a rush of fear pumps adrenalin through our body. "Shake it off chickie, and let's get the hell outta here before the bastard finds us."
As Jane's arm circles CeCe's waist and we move toward Vuur's jeep, pounding feet rush toward us. I'm thinking Gaire as I turn. But the momentary thrill of excitement that runs Jane's spine goes cold. Dick is running toward us, a knife clutched in his hand.
"You won't get away from me this time!" Dick screams as he approaches the hedge between us and leaps. "You got too close, too personal." Midair, a savage grin on his face, he shouts, "I was always going to kill you!"
Jane drops, tucks, rolls, and pulls the 9mm out like she does this at least once a day. Shoulder to the grass, arms outstretched, she aims and fires before Dick lands on both feet, a red spot spreading across his chest.
I'm staring in awe as Dick's knees buckle. He flips the knife so the blade rests in his fingertips, and with a flick of his wrist, the knife is headed our way before his shoulder hits the ground and his hip bounces on the grass.
The weight of cold metal is heavy in Jane's hand as we both watch Dick's knife head for Jane's chest.
Gaire yells, "No!" as the knife slides effortlessly through Jane's ribcage.
"I'll be back for you," Dick says through a bloody smile.
As the body Dick's wearing crumbles and flakes around a cloud of pitch smoke, and carbon-copy Jane begins to slough off me in sparkly colored sprinkles, Dick and I both register who we are, what we mean to each other—brethren—we are both doppelgangers. My mind goes back to the hotel in Orlando. I had snagged his host, yet had no clue the doppelganger was part of the killer. I felt something dark, horrid, but chalked it up to the man's psychopathic nature.
Flames flicker and push wafting smoke our way from the white house with purple trim. I wonder if the dragon is trapped inside.
Dick's red eyes and garish smile are not the last things I see through my host's eyes. With an echo of laughter, the other doppelganger's smoky image turns to ash, and rides a gust of wind through me and up into colorful branches hanging over us, laden with maple leaves.
Gaire
CeCe is weeping ten feet from me—merely human—the shell of a creature I can't live without.
I'm still panting after I watch a Smith & Wesson float onto the ground below a cloud of smoke forming where a woman who saved my life once lay. The blade of a knife, not a drop of blood on it, catches intense light as a sun of gold, pink, and magenta dips on the horizon behind the roof of the house we are gathered in front of.
My eyes find another puff of smoke. I watch it flake to ashes, before I turn back to where CeCe cowers.
The remaining doppelganger locks eyes with me and I know; I know this is the creature that wore CeCe, wore the busty chick that came to find me, and I know . . . that I love her.
The doppelganger is sooty, with pulsing red eyes and a mouth straight out of a nightmare. It slowly floats backward off the grass and onto a cement driveway still warming in the early evening sunlight. And as I watch the creature turn to dust, like the other did, and as it floats to the cement in a pile of ashes, I know it loves me too.
Doppie
It is still day time. I can feel it. But I recognize the smell of the sewers Down Under. When I open my eyes, Gaire is staring down at me, still blond and tan.
"Don't speak," he says. "Don't move. Just listen."
My red eyes blink away the happenings of the day while my mind grasps the realization that Gaire had to gather my ashes and bring them below ground so I could regain my cloudy form before dark. I cannot roam in daylight without a human shroud. I'm a creature of the night. That thought makes me think of Jane. I miss her already, but I feel the spunk she's left me and hold it close as Gaire goes on.
"I don't care who that other doppelganger was, or what you two meant to each other. I love you," Gaire says.
Shocked, Dick's last words circle in my head, I'll be back for you . . . but Gaire's words whisk them away like an eraser on a blackboard.
"I was moved by you the moment I met you," he says, "but, oh, what a surprise to find out you're everything I cannot have with a human or any other of our kind."
I start to object, but he raises a hand.
"I'm everyone's nightmare but yours, sweetheart. My lust for blood destroyed any hope for a relationship, until I met you. Killing CeCe did not harm her. I am hoping that getting the other woman killed did not harm her, either."
He raises a brow.
My forehead wrinkles. His lips tighten, but hopeful eyes hold mine.
I understand he's waiting to see if I have accepted this, if I get it.
I get it, alright. I'm even weighing the opportunities. It's not like I kill my hosts; I always double up, shed, and leave the original none the wiser. It's not like he could hurt them, either. They'd never know.
And hell, chickie, you can't even hurt yourselves, an echo of Jane's voice circles in my head, and I wish she were still with me. She's right. I can have what I've wished for. No! We could have what we've wished for.
All the possibilities flood me: someone to share my hopes and dreams with, to go body shopping with, to laugh with, cry with . . . and love. We could share humanity one human at a time. Roam the world as partners, share everything above ground and Down Under. The thought is overwhelming—a dream-come-true. But...
"I love you, not the clothes you wear," he tells me again.
As my smoky body rolls and roils into shapeless silhouettes, I realize I'm shuddering. Not a human form I'm wearing, but me, doppelganger. Gaire has totally taken me off guard. As much as he's shocked me, he's given me hope, but not without fear.
I look into his loving eyes and I'm filled with excitement over the possibility of a long term, almost human relationship. But as I smile up at the beautiful man standing above me, waves of reality roll across my boneless spine. I can't exactly take Gaire home to dinner. We can't even go Down Under without him being recognized. And I do need to check in with my guardian . . . often. For a couple of years anyway . . . but...
"We can make this work," Gaire says.
I ponder the thought, make mental notes, and generate countermeasures for all the simple issues.
Then Gaire opens his mouth, again. This time he pops the colorful bubble I'm trying to form around us.
"Do I have to be worried about the other doppelganger? And did you know the dragon-shifter was a paid assassin?"
SIXTEEN
WHY ME Gracie Jean
Moonlight silhouettes a row of cypress trees growing at the edge of Lake Eustis; Spanish moss sways from their branches in a soft breeze.
I left Gaire in a storm drain, not far from here, and told him to wait while I find another host. Being the doppelganger again is restricting. I can't leave the sewer in daylight, like Gaire, and there is no safe place to hide below. We would have to keep moving, staying in the shadows. There are always places above ground, even if it is a bus station, an abandoned building, or a homeless shelter. Below ground we are accessible to all that i
s Down Under.
Like a cloud of smoke whipped by the wind, I circle a small group of humans sitting around a campfire a hundred yards from an old two-story. I listen, observe, and search for the perfect host.
"Give me a break, Jake!" a teenager with brunette hair and a heart-shaped ass snaps. She and another guy walk right through me, lugging a cooler closer to the fire. "You know you hate the whole Ivan thing." She drops the cooler and pushes her hair over her shoulder, bossy and saucy like—too saucy.
I slither by, riding the shadows closer to the ground.
"Ah, but I don't hate him," a short haired, doughy guy wearing glasses shouts back from the other side of the campfire.
"You do, too!" a warm-skinned girl with hair so black it draws flames and frames her face in rich blue light. She stands up, dark eyes on Jake. "You said—" Her index finger point's credibility into her words. "—and I quote, 'If he touches Hope, I'll kick his ass'."
She's tall, aggressive, naturally tanned by her Indian heritage, reed-thin with a waist the size of a grown man's upper arm, and her budding breasts peer over a low cut tee—too aggressive.
I don't know what I'm doing here. What purpose do I have for donning a teenager to start a relationship with Gaire?
Eh, come on, you know why, Jane's street mentality enters my thoughts and forces clarity.
I miss her. I think Gaire misses her, too. Too much. Maybe that's it. It would be hard to make the beginning of our relationship all about sex wearing a fifteen year old.
But sex gets you what you want, Jane would say.
See, thing is, I go back to him, all . . . well, Jane, and I'll be out shopping tomorrow for another host. It could get really old, really quick. Besides, what I want is to know the creature under the man with riotous sandy hair and seductive blue eyes.
Across the pit a small female voice, beside Jake, draws my attention.
"Jake wouldn't do that," she says, as the Indian girl sits down and snuggles up to a guy with bleached out swimmer's hair.
"Why?" a creamy-skinned redhead asks. Her green eyes sparkle. Ringlets of curls cascade over her shoulders and almost reach her waist.
Her white skin pops in the darkness outside the circle of firelight. She's beautiful, delicate, as surrealistic as a fairy—too dreamlike.
I ripple over the grass behind her like a smoke shadow billowing through a ray of firelight. Circling, I'm making my way toward that soft meek voice.
I'm rewarded when, barely heard over the crackle of the fire, she whispers, "Because we're just friends."
"Wake up, Hope!" says the guy who'd helped saucy-chick carry the cooler. "You're going to be spending your birthday with Jake at a cabin in Ocala, with no electricity. That means no gaming. Satellite sucks and most of Ocala's in a friggin' dead zone, so no phones." He looks at Jake. "And no phone means you can't Hot Spot your iPad, bro." He turns back to Hope. "So, tell me he doesn't have it bad for you. No guy spends a week with a girl in a mosquito-infested forest in Florida, in August, even with electricity, unless they think they're gettin' some."
Titters of excitement-driven tension erupt from the girls around the fire, and the guys beam with inexperienced knowledge. Their antics amuse me, but Hope entices me, and I move closer.
"Well, he's not," Hope softly says and blinks at Jake who pulls the collar of his tee up and into his mouth. "No one is, Jake. Not until I'm old enough to decide who I want to marry."
"Hey, don't look at me." Jake's words are muffled by his tee. "I get it."
But the look in his eyes says he clearly does not. I feel my doppelganger mouth grin all the way up and into my horrid red eyes.
Everyone around the campfire snickers, hoots, or laughs, and comments fly.
"She's the last virgin in tenth grade!" a kid with freckles and dark auburn hair says.
"Nobody waits until they get married, not even our parents did," says a large boy with black hair and a small shadow of peach fuzz above his upper lip.
"How do you know?" the girl with dark hair asks.
"Gimmie a break," the auburn-haired kid answers.
"I bet Jake is a virgin too!" a boy guffaws, and tosses a stick into the fire.
"Well, I'm not!" Jake howls, damp collar hanging limp around his neck.
I'm so close I can see the blush on Hope's cheeks before she lowers her head and sandy hair falls across her face.
Hope whispers, "Jake, you know we're only going together because our parents are taking us, right?"
"Sure," Jake says as the circle of kids watch. "We've always just been friends, Hope. Always."
"All right you guys, I'm going to pretend I did not just hear the word virgin . . . several times," a woman says from the shadows.
Every teenager around the fire pit jumps at least two inches.
The woman with the motherly voice is standing just outside of the campfire's light. As she moves closer, the natural beauty she carries reflects health and fitness. Her waist-length brown hair bounces over her dark tank top and reaches the waistline of a pair of jean shorts. They are fitted well, not skin tight, but short enough to show off a set of long firm legs and bare feet.
The woman looks pointedly at Jake, and says, "Or who professes to be, or not to be, a virgin."
"Mom!" Hope croaks.
Hope's mother doesn't acknowledge her and, instead, turns to the large boy with the black hair and twelve o'clock shadow above his upper lip. "And just to clarify, Chester, I waited until I was married to Hope's father, and should I ever find someone as special as he was, I would do the same."
Her brown hair and green eyes catch firelight when Hope's mom smiles down at Jake. She steps by him to enter the center of the circle.
She strolls casually in the direction of the cooler. "It's nine o'clock. I promised your mothers I'd break this up early enough to give all of you plenty of time to walk home before the eleven o'clock curfew, and—" She bounces a finger at the group as she moves closer to the ice chest. "—I will be calling to let each of them know you will be on your way home at ten-thirty." She glides over the grass, firelight shadowing her calf and thigh muscles, and stops directly beside the cooler. Leaning down, she flips opens the lid.
I am enthralled by the pheromones this woman projects: honesty, kindness, love, and good old Mother Earth beauty.
Only the crackle of the fire disturbs the silence as Hope's mother closes the lid, and her eyes scan the circle of kids. "Okay, I'll let you get back to your conversation, and I will be back when it's time to put out the fire." With a big smile, she cuts through the circle and, as she jogs out of the firelight, her hair dances on her back.
"Hope Ann Harmony, you know your mother just rolled us looking for alcohol, Right?" the brunette with a heart-shaped ass snaps.
"Yeah, and Heather Alexis Stephens, you better tell me there's none in that cooler," Hope answers in a hissy whisper.
"You think I want your mother to put a spell on me?" Heather asks.
"She has never spelled anyone!" Hope says, and then snickers. "But you may become the first."
If I could breathe, I would be holding my breath as I ride the grass and follow the woman I will be wearing home to meet Gaire before the night is over.
SEVENTEEN
Gracie
Hope's mother climbs the stairs to the two-story home and I glide behind her, a shadow under a blanket of night. The outside screen creaks as she pulls it open and it smack's shut before she can close the heavy wooden door on the humid evening. Inside it's cool, moody and dark. Candles dance under paddle fans circling above.
The house smells of wood, augmented by heat and humidity; the generations of human residents spice the air with memories. Its structure has stretched and retracted over the years, giving the home character. The screen door and wooden floors creak, the front-door sticks, and the walls have small imperfections. All of this gives the home a soul.
There is an underlying damp, moldy smell, almost acrid. It carries an odor of old books and antique fur
niture stuffed with cotton batting instead of polyester filler.
We move through a great room with a worn fireplace, and then under an arch into a dining room where darkness swallows the candlelight. But the other side of the room draws a soft glow from a kitchen. It is larger than the dining room, cheerful with big windows on the south wall and a smaller one on the west side over a double sink.
Everything in the kitchen is dated, but pleasantly worn. The floor is black and white tile with counters that match. Everything else is wood, except for stainless steel appliances. A vase full of daisies drips petals on the center of a rough, wooden farm table with six straight back chairs tucked underneath.
Hope's mother crosses to the sink, fills a clear drinking glass with tap water, and takes a long sip. She turns suddenly, glass still touching her lips, and gazes at an old sepia picture mounted on the wall behind the table. Its oval shaped, wood framed, and displays a woman holding two girls by the hand. They look to be about five or six. The woman is round, wearing a pale cotton shift belted around her ample waistline.
"Nan, I think our little Hope has an admirer," she tells the picture. "Maybe I'll bring my tarot cards to the cabin and read his future."
She stares intently at the picture, laughs, and then raises a hand and firmly says, "And before you say, 'Gracie Jean, girl, you better not be spellin' that boy!' I'm gonna tell you, I have no inclination to do so." Gracie laughs again before saying, "Not yet, anyway."
Shaking her head with a grin on her face, she sighs. "Let's see if Hope comes around before they graduate. And if not, I may be putting a spell on her."
I hug the cabinet-trim on the floor and tuck my smoky shadow underneath appliances as I circle the room and make my way closer to Gracie Jean, my next host.
When I ripple over the tile on the floor and up the back of Gracie's legs, she still stares at the picture of who appears to be her grandmother. I wonder if the girls are Gracie's mother and aunt.
