Enemies Mine...The Clean-up

As soon as Papa Locks’ portal closed up, a collective sigh of relief was released by my three companions.

Jim’s face turned a pale shade of green as he looked about the room for a garbage can. When he spotted it, he grabbed the thing and hobbled out of the room, mumbling something about coming back in a few minutes.

Ravyn shot a look of concern Jim’s way, but decided that he preferred to be alone, so she pulled out a chair and sat down. “I can’t believe that Papa Locks is back! How did they manage that? Cerrydwen is not going to be happy at all when she learns about this.”

I grabbed the head of the doppelganger from where I had last placed it and then walked over to where the hand was laying on the floor. I knelt down to pick that up as well. “You know, I don’t know why I didn’t think of the possibility of his return previously. He was a very powerful priest in his own right, and it just makes sense that they would have taken some sort of precautions to be able to bring themselves back from the dead if they were going to do it for the local cops like me who they had snared into the Project.”

Zenny reached down to the table and picked up the Soulscope that she had placed on it to show El Diablito. “Rusty, it seemed like you were the only one in the room who knew what was going on. This encounter didn’t go anything like we expected. How did you know they would back down like that?”

I shook my head as I dropped the head and the hand of the doppelganger next to the main carcass. “I had no idea that Papa Locks would be here, or even that Chandler was a doppelganger until he led us out of that elevator. Something about the way he moved and the way he noticed me looking at him in the Shadowland reminded me of the doppelganger on South Beach, although I don’t think this one was as strong as the other one. As to knowing that they would back down like that, I didn’t. Once I saw how shocked they were that Chandler wasn’t who he said he was, I took the bit in my mouth and bluffed like I had never bluffed before.”

Zenny cocked her head. “Bluffed? What does that mean?”

I grinned. “It is sort of like pretending to be in stronger position than you really are. It is something you do a lot in a casino like this. I used to play a lot of poker when I was alive.”

Slightly less green about the gills than he was, Jim limped back into the room, making a point of not looking at the still smoldering body on the floor. “Well from what I saw Rusty, you might have a future in playing poker again. I was pretty impressed by how you handled that after the surprise of the…creature.”

Ravyn got up impatiently and walked over to Jim, showing him to a seat where the body wasn’t in view. “So how could you tell that the butler was a doppelganger Rusty? If these things serve the An’girasii, then we are going to need to know how to spot them in the future. You won’t always be around to deal with them for us.”

“Well, first I noticed how calm the guy was down in the lobby when he was waiting for us. He seemed to be keeping himself supernaturally still, and then kind of came alive when he noticed us approaching. I’m sure Chandler was a very good butler, someone who had a cool, calm demeanor, but I don’t know too many humans who can keep themselves that calm.

“Second, in the elevator, I noticed how he moved. The first doppelganger that I met in South Beach was super fast. It moved way faster than I ever could, unless I was using magick of some sort to enhance my speed. In the elevator, the butler moved with such speed and grace that I began to have my doubts at that point. That’s when I slipped into the Shadowland to take a glance at his Spirit form. His Spirit form reflected a sense of power and calmness that I didn’t quite think was appropriate for a human. What sealed the deal though was when he gave me a slight nod of acknowledge in the Shadowland, like he sensed me looking at him there. I have yet to meet a normal human being who can sense things simultaneously in both the physical world and the Shadowland and distinguish between the two places. I knew then that he was either a very powerful Caster or something else.

“The final straw was when he exited the elevator and didn’t touch anyone as he slipped past all of us to get ahead again. That was simply inhuman. I’m betting that at least some of these creatures only have the power to fool human sight, but not the sense of touch. I think the doppelganger in South Beach was stronger, that it could fool other senses, but not this one. That’s probably why he chose to impersonate a servant who would not be required to get that close to anyone else—he had a reason to keep his distance from other people.

“It will be very hard to distinguish these creatures from the people they are trying to impersonate. Agent Wilson and her crew will be taking the body back to Quantico and conducting an autopsy of it in the hopes of discovering some of their secrets.”

Agent Jennifer Wilson walked through door to the room just as I mentioned her name. She was followed by several agents in bio-hazard suits, two of whom were carrying a stretcher sheathed in a plastic of some sort.

She glanced at the corpse on the floor, wrinkled her nose at the smell of things and started giving orders to her team to gather up the body. A second crew followed the first, this crew pushing a cart with all sorts of bottles filled with liquid and various cleaning tools. She put those folks to work cleaning up all of the droplets and puddles of liquid that I had helped to create.

“I want this room roped off until we’ve got the task done. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s get this done in good time.”

Once she had finished giving her orders and the body had been flipped onto the stretcher and the other parts collected and covered, Agent Wilson let her guard down a bit as she gave Ravyn a big hug. “It’s been too long Mistress Fyre.”

“Oh, stop that. Call me Ravyn. You aren’t my student any longer. So you’re leading a team now, I see.”

Agent Wilson stood slightly taller than the diminutive Ravyn, but it was almost like she still looked up to her. “Yeah, this team was Rusty’s idea, actually. He pulled some strings at HQ to let me form a special response team. Each of the team members has some measure of Talent that most of them were unaware of until I tested them using those techniques you had taught me back at the Coop. I’ve been bringing them along slowly, showing them evidence from our files that had been previously disregarded as unexplainable or as anomalies. I was just about to give you a call actually, before Rusty gave me the heads-up to show up here with the team.”

“Oh, what about?”

“I was wondering if we could set up a sort of intern program with you at the Coop. I’d like some of these agents to really hone the Talents they have, some of them could become decent Casters, if they had the training. It might also help you out to have a couple of agents in residence, in case more creatures like this thing come calling.”

I walked over to them. “That sounds like a good idea, actually. By the way Jennifer, what have you decided to call the team?”

She grinned and looked down at her feet sheepishly. “Zulu recommended that I call it the Omega Team.”

That brought a groan from my lips. “It figures. Well, why not use the designation for something positive?”

Jim stood up now that the body had been removed. He was close to his normal color again. “Well, that might be a good idea for the Coop. However, I would have to see whether or not we could increase the budget to allow for the extra expenses.”

Jennifer shook her head. “No worries there, Sir. If Ravyn agrees to host the agents, I’ve been given the green light to authorize a per diem expense at the going rate for the Chicago area for their living expenses, which should more than cover any expenses incurred by the extra agents in residence.”

Jim nodded. “Yeah, I think you are right. I don’t have any objection then. Do you, Ravyn?”

Ravyn shrugged. “I have no objection, so long as they know who the boss around there is! They can’t be any worse than this dumb zombie of ours is!”