“Yes,” she says a bit snooty. “You can let my daughter go. She will not attempt leaving without us.”
I’m surprised my mother answered him. “Oh, yes, I, will if he’s wearing Jane!”
Don’t cut off your head to spite your face, child.
Mother laughs.
“Who is the doppelganger dressed in?” Gaire asks, not easing his hold on me.
Nan sighs and a bit of ectoplasmic goo wafts out her mouth. The doppelganger is dressed in the dark-haired shifter you call Vuur, and he more than mentioned your last host.
I gasp.
Mom yelps, and this surprises me more than Nan’s reveal.
“Someone tell me what the damn ghost is saying!” Gaire hisses frustration.
I try to wiggle out of Gaire’s grasp. “The doppelganger is talking about Jane—”
“And wearing Vuur,” Mother finishes.
Gaire drops his arms and turns toward Purgatory.
“You are so not going into that bar!” I grab the back of Gaire’s jeans, and watch his shoulders rise and fall with a sigh.
My voice cracks as I ask Nan, “Is Jane dead?”
No, but she might be soon enough if y’all don’t do somethin’ to stop him.
“Well?” Gaire is looking into my eyes.
“Wait!” I shush him, and turn back to Nan. “What do you mean?”
The doppelganger was knockin’ the drinks down, laughing and talking up a berserker at a corner table in the back of the bar. He told the guy he was going to kill Jane and asked if he wanted to film it. The whole bar full of patrons’ heard all that from the Vuur guy’s lips.
“We need a plan,” my mother says.
Gaire throws up his hands, slaps them against the sewer wall and growls, “What the fuck?”
I quickly answer Gaire’s frustration. “The doppelganger, wearing Vuur, told a berserker in Purgatory that he was going to kill Jane.” I ask Mother. “What do you mean ’we’?”
“Just what I said. I intend to help. We need a plan.”
Before I can rebuke her offer, Gaire says, “Have any ideas?”
I want to kiss him and slap him at the same time. It’s disconcerting.
I love when family comes together during a time of crisis. Nan’s hands are clutched in front of her flowered dress, half way into her stomach.
I swing what I know will be a useless slap in her direction. The ghost bolts straight up and plasters herself along the top of the sewer. And I can’t help but laugh.
Mother clears her throat. “Are you two going to stop playing like fledglings so I can answer the wendigo’s question?”
We both hold our own hands—only Nan’s are inside each other—and stand quietly.
Mom turns to Gaire. “As a matter of fact, I do have an idea.”
My mother looks horrid in her natural form. She is bigger, thicker, and almost solid in consistency—gel instead of smoke—and darker than me. Her eyes are large and bright red above a lippy mouth, over-filled with jagged teeth. All of this kind of roils gel-like on a lumpy, bumpy face. Two long arms with long knotty fingers hang to the bottom of her sooty form and drape over two small feet that I’ve only seen once or twice.
She stares at me for a human heartbeat before saying, “I think we should double up on Jane, quickly. Capture the original little slut, and tie her up somewhere until we kill the doppelganger dressed in Vuur.”
Chapter 22
Gracie
“If anyone is going to double up on Jane, it will be me,” I say, “because I don’t trust you, Mother.”
“Don’t be silly,” Mother says. “You can’t shed Gracie because you won’t be able to see Nan.”
“And you know this how?” I hood my eyes and glare at her.
She’s right, dear, Nan says, I can only communicate with you if you’re wearing my daughter.
“Mom can,” I challenge.
Yes, that’s true, but we would have to be sitting at my kitchen table. I can’t leave the two-story without Gracie. The real Gracie, if you’re not wearing her double, child.
I’m not ready to give up. “Maybe if we all take a big breath and blow, Mother will go away.”
“Young lady, you’re going to have to trust me,” Mother says. “Nan is indispensable at the moment. We may need her ability to warn us of human possession again. Neither you or I are capable of sensing that.” She turns to Gaire. “Are you?”
“You know I’m not,” Gaire says. “I had no idea what Luna was when I met her.”
“See,” Mom tells me, “you need my help.”
That’s what mothers are for, Nan adds.
“Meh, I don’t think so,” I tell her. “We got this. You can go hunt another ripe one.”
“Hold on,” Gaire says. “This isn’t a bad idea. Think about it.”
“I did think about it,” I sputter. Yeah, right, for all of three seconds. “Mother’s hosts always end up dead.”
Gaire rolls his eyes. “Not if your mother can double up on her, and we find a safe place to keep the real Jane hostage, until you and I help your mother kill the doppelganger wearing Vuur.