Rosemary and Rue

Footsteps moved away, down the hall, too light for a creature the size of the Doppelganger . . . but just right to be believably mine.

I stayed where it was until the footsteps faded. Then I undid the lock and pushed the chair out of the way, opening the half-shattered door. The hall was empty. The Doppelganger had actually gone to answer the doorbell. Oh, that was smart. Why didn’t it just hang a sign on its back that said kick me?

The carpet crunched underfoot as I inched along, despite my best efforts to be quiet. Considering the beating I’d taken—and the amount of blood I was losing—I thought I was doing pretty well just by not falling down. Not that it would do me any good if the Doppelganger caught me out in the open. I might be walking into a trap, but that was a chance I had to take.

I was halfway down the hall when I heard the voices arguing from my living room. “You don’t understand!” Dare, the combination of anxiety and desperation making her voice impossible to miss, even without the affected accent. “When Devin says to come here, we come here. You can’t tell us to go. We can’t listen. He won’t let us.”

“She’s right, ma’am.” Oh, root and branch, Manuel was with her. I shuddered, unable to stop myself from imagining what the Doppelganger would do to them, and forced myself another few feet down the hall. “Devin said we had to come and help you with anything you needed.”

“I’m sorry, kids,” my voice replied. The Doppelganger was using a painfully cheerful tone that would have been a clue that something was wrong all by itself, if Manuel and Dare had known me better. I never sound that happy before sundown. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to visit right now. Maybe you can come back later? I’ll bake you some cookies . . .”

Okay, that was it. I hadn’t had a chance to use the kitchen for anything more elaborate than coffee and fried eggs, and I’d be damned if some invading monster was going to beat me to it. I stepped into the living room, bat still held in front of me like a poor man’s broadsword. “You are not using my kitchen.”

It wasn’t the best comeback ever, but considering how much blood I’d lost, I didn’t think I was doing too badly. My double turned to face me, stolen eyes narrowing. “I thought I sent you to your room.”

Manuel and Dare gaped as they looked between us. It wasn’t hard to tell us apart: the Doppelganger was fully clothed, and I was wearing nothing but a bathrobe. Also, I was the one doing all the bleeding. “You did. Unfortunately, I’m a little old to be grounded.”

“Uh . . . ma’am?” said Manuel, wide-eyed.

The Doppelganger lashed out with one hand, fingers morphing into talons, and shoved Manuel away from the door. He shrieked in pain and surprise as he fell backward, tumbling out of sight.

“Manny!” Dare shouted.

The Doppelganger turned and stalked toward me, growing taller as it abandoned the pretense of my form. “Bad girl,” it chided, grinning. “Bad, bad girl. Time to be punished.”

It was moving slowly, certain of its own strength. That was the only opening I was likely to get, and so I took it, swinging my bat as hard toward its midsection as I could. Something in my shoulder ripped free, and the world was suddenly bathed in a fresh veil of pain.

The Doppelganger reached out and caught the bat midswing, careless as a child gathering daisies. It tightened its hand, and the wood shattered into splinters, leaving me holding nothing but the bottom third of what used to be a bat.