Double Trouble | Kelley Armstrong #2
Grief shadows those blue eyes. “I would prefer not to, but I will see her stopped, one way or another. When I say she is my cousin, I mean only that we are distantly related.”
“So you did not kill the young woman in that house. It was another doppelg?nger.”
“As I said.”
“Then why is there blood on your boot?”
He frowns downwards at the red droplets across the toe. “It must be pig’s blood. I was in the market, looking for my cousin—”
“The market closed hours ago.”
“Then I got the blood on there hours ago.” Frustration laces his voice. “I am not the killer you seek. Do you understand what she is doing? The deep magic she’s attempting?”
“To compile a body for a witch, whose magic will make it whole and allow the doppelg?nger to take permanent form.”
“Good. You understand. Why would I want the form of a young woman? I’m male. I like being male. If I were to attempt the magic – and I don’t see the point in it – I would be killing young men.” His chin rises, as if he’s made an indisputable point.
“Can you shift into the form of a woman?”
“Of course, but only when I need to. I like being what I am.”
“But if you can shift into the form of a woman, then you could be a female doppelg?nger currently in the form of a young man. You’re spinning stories as fast as you’re able, and this could be another one.
Telling me you’re not the killer. That the killer is your cousin.
That you’ve been following me so you can kill her.
Flip that around, and you are the female doppelg?nger. You are the killer.”
“But I’m not.”
“Prove it.”
His head tilts one way and then the other as he studies my expression. “How do you propose I do that?”
“I don’t know, as I am not a doppelg?nger.”
“What if I told you that you are seeing my natural shape, which is male?”
“Then I would know you are lying. Doppelg?ngers do not have a natural shape.”
“We do. It is just… not exactly this. If you promise not to startle and stab me, I will show you, though I would appreciate it if you moved that blade from my throat, as I would not like to accidentally stab myself shifting.”
“Oh, of course I’ll take the blade from your throat. Should I step a few feet away as well? Maybe turn my back to give you privacy?”
A deep sigh. “You do know I could—” He shakes his head. “Never mind. Move the blade off my throat. That is all.”
I do, and he lets out a long exhale, as if relaxing, and I think it’s because of the knife, but then he starts to shift.
To shift and yet… not shift, if that makes any sense.
His form stays as it is, but everything else morphs.
His eyes are a kaleidoscope of changing colors, not all of them natural.
His hair stays tied back, but it’s in the same constant state of change, from brown to white to red to the sort of startling blue I’ve only ever seen on birds.
His skin color changes from brown to pale to dark, and then the skin itself changes, sometimes human, sometimes scaled, some times feathered.
The last startles me enough that it’s a good thing I don’t still have that blade to his throat. He gives a low chuckle and holds that shape for a moment so I can get a better look. The feathers – like the scales – are tiny, leaving his body still humanoid in appearance.
Another chuckle. “I cannot fly,” he says. “Well, not looking like this. I can, of course, change into a bird.” His eyes hold mine, as if trying to convey a message, but when I do not react, he only sighs and returns to his human form.
“That is my natural shape,” he promises. “Male.” The corner of his mouth quirks up. “I could show you the positive proof, but we are not yet acquainted enough for that. The point is that—”
“You claim that is your natural shape, but how do I know it? The fact remains that I found you outside the scene of a young woman’s murder. With blood on your boots and a story about being in the market long after it closed.”
His mouth opens. Then he shuts it and eyes me again, that long and searching look. When he pulls back, he shakes his head.
“You are convinced,” he says. “I am a monster, and therefore, I am a killer.”
“There are no more killers among monsters than among humans. But the evidence—”
“I showed you my true form, and you did not accept it.”
“Because you are a doppelg?nger,” I say. “You shift forms.”
“If I show you the blood on my boots, can you tell whether it’s human?”
“No, but—”
“If I provide an alibi, can you confirm exactly when that young woman died?”
“No, but—”
“There is nothing I can say, Marielle. Except this.” He leans toward me. “I am a doppelg?nger. I can take nearly any form I wish. And yet I stayed and tried to convince you to listen to me.” He meets my eyes. “When you are ready to talk, we will talk.”
The doppelg?nger vanishes, and I jump back, only to see a tabby cat race off down the alley.
I don’t go after the tabby. I’m too uncertain, and I hate that, because I am always certain.
He should be the killer. He was outside the scene.
He has blood on his boots with a poor explanation.
He’s a doppelg?nger, and I am hunting a doppelg?nger, a species so rare that I cannot conceive of two of them in the same town at once.
Unless one is hunting the other, who is not only a killer but a threat to all doppelg?ngers.
Humans are already quick to see monsters as monstrous – it’s right there in the name we’ve given them.
Unscrupulous and greedy humans use that fear, which is what keeps me in business, because this hunt is not putting any coin in my pocket.
Of course, families and towns have offered rewards, but to claim them, I would need to unveil the killer as a doppelg?nger, cementing the belief that all monsters are dangerous and should be exterminated.
What did the doppelg?nger say?
I can take nearly any form I wish. And yet I stayed and tried to convince you to listen to me.
That’s what he had been trying to tell me during our exchange. Waiting for me to realize that he could escape at any moment. Turn into a cat and flee. Turn into a wolf and tear out my throat. Turn into a wyvern, rip me limb from limb and fly off afterward.
But I had a blade to his throat for most of the conversation, and he admitted he did not wish to risk shifting like that.
In the end, there is only one thing I know for certain. The killer has struck and will not do so again in this town. It will take the body parts and get out, moving swiftly and quietly to the next town on its list.
* * *
I catch a few hours of sleep in the room I rented. Then, at dawn, I head downstairs to eat a hearty breakfast and buy food for the road.
I hear the commotion even before I enter the dining hall, and I need to shoulder past men nearly twice my size, all gathered around a serving girl.
Now, it is not unusual to find men converged around a serving girl, like vultures circling a weak doe, and my hand instinctively grips the knife in my pocket.
I hate to cause trouble, I really do. But I hate to see anyone being menaced even more.
Which means I might not be getting that hot breakfast, because experience has taught me that innkeepers do not look kindly on anyone who stabs their patrons, even if it was in defense of the establishment’s employee.
But as I grow closer, it becomes clear that the serving girl is holding court, and she’s not a ‘girl’ but a woman of at least thirty.
I’m about to ignore them when her words reach me. “And now they have taken it to the arena. A doppelg?nger.”
I slide into the group. “What’s this?”
The men grumble at my interruption, but the woman gives a wide, gap-toothed smile, happy to restart her tale. “They caught it over the body of Ana Leon. She was dead. Murdered. And the monster had eaten her hands.”
I make the appropriate exclamation, hand flying to my mouth. “How ghastly!”
“There was blood everywhere. It was terrible,” she says, eyes shining with such glee that, if I were her husband, I would treat her well or sleep with a blade under my pillow.
“You said it was a dopp— dopp—” I pretend to struggle for the word.
Her look chastises me for thinking her pause marked the end of her story, but she allows the interruption and says, slowly, as if to a child, “Doppelg?nger. They can take on any form, which is what it did. First, it changed to one of the men who found it. They say that was a sight.” She cackles.
“The men did not know what to do, which one was their friend and which the monster, and then it attacked the man whose form it had stolen, and they really could not tell then. Imagine it, two of the same man rolling around on the floor. They settled it by grabbing both and planning to haul them off to the sheriff, but then the monster changed to a tabby cat and tried to flee. Yet Bobby – the miller’s boy – kicked it into the wall so hard that the beast was knocked out and it changed to human form. Or they thought it was human form.”
She pauses, and this time, I know to lean forward, my eyes rounded as I await the next part of the tale.
Her voice lowers, conspiratorial, and everyone moves closer. The men seem to have already heard this part, but clearly it deserves a retelling.
“It seemed human for about five heartbeats. Then its hair began to change color. It changed to every shade of the rainbow. The skin changed, too, not only its color but…” Her voice lowers more. “To scales. To feathers. To fur. Can you imagine?” She shudders, but her eyes glow brighter.
Another pause, and someone fetches her an ale.
“What happened next?” a man asks.
“They put the shackles on the creature and got it to the jail as quickly as they could, for surely, it would transform again when it woke. And it did wake. Halfway across town, in the back of a cart.”
Another pause, and she takes a long quaff of her ale as even those who’ve already heard the story shift with impatience.
“And do you know what happened?” she asks.
“It transformed into a mouse!” someone calls from across the inn.