Rosemary and Rue

“Oh, crap . . .” I said, starting to back away. Aluminum. Next time, I was going to buy aluminum. Or maybe a tire iron.

Moving too fast to dodge, the Doppelganger reached out and grabbed my chin, talons cutting into my cheek. “You’re a stupid thief, but you’re scared enough now,” it said, still smiling. “You’re going to tell me everything I need to know.” Dropping the splinters of my bat, it dug its fingers under my armpit and lifted me off the ground. My heart was pounding so hard that it hurt almost as badly as my injuries. I’d seen death before, even recently, but it had never been that close.

That might have been the end, if the Doppelganger hadn’t made one small, fatal mistake: it turned its back on Dare. I didn’t know her very well, and I still could have told it that turning its back on her wasn’t a good idea. The young changeling had been given time to process all her possible responses to someone smacking her brother aside like a stray dog, and she’d settled on the one that came most naturally. Rage.

“Hey, ugly!” she shouted. The Doppelganger didn’t turn around. That’s probably why it was so surprised when the knives started slamming into its back. It bellowed, dropping me. Miraculously, I landed on the one part of my body that hadn’t previously been in pain: my ass.

Snarling, it turned toward Dare. I had to give the girl this much: she might have been an arrogant little brat, but she looked into the face of death and was sincerely unimpressed. “I’ve seen scarier things than you on blind dates,” she said. She still needed a dialogue coach, but I wasn’t in any position to judge. “You wanna piece of me?”

Apparently it did, because it stalked toward her, still snarling. She didn’t flinch, but flung another knife, this time aiming for the throat. The creature batted it aside without a pause. I think that’s when Dare realized that maybe insulting something that large when it’s close enough to catch you isn’t a good idea, because she started backing away, eyes wide.

My shoulder wasn’t just bleeding anymore, it was gushing, blood soaking my robe and running freely down my arm. I forced myself to stand, squinting past the pain that threatened to knock me down again. Four of Dare’s knives were embedded in the thing’s back. Two were stuck in the lower back, and one in the side of its arm, but the fourth was at an angle that might put it through the rib cage if somebody grabbed hold of the hilt and shoved upward.

I’ve always made a pretty good somebody. Moving as fast as I could still manage, I wrapped my hands around the knife’s hilt, slippery with almost black blood. My left hand didn’t want to close, but I forced it, gritting my teeth as the Doppelganger’s blood started burning my skin. Dare was whimpering somewhere in front of me, blocked from sight by the bulk of the thing’s body.

That did it. My hand finally caught a good grip, and I shoved the knife up as hard as I could.The Doppelganger bellowed, whipping halfway around, but I managed to keep hold of the knife, twisting it and driving it deeper in. One clawed fist hit my right arm as the creature tried to rip me off its back, slashing through the muscle of my bicep. It didn’t matter anymore. I was committed: I couldn’t have let go of that knife if I’d wanted to.

“Dare, the front!” I shouted.