Hell's Bells...Part 4

I hefted the black rucksack over my left shoulder and drew Excalibur from its sheath. I then stepped into the hall, glancing back long enough to shout out to Ravyn. “Let’s get Naomi and move to the rally point!”

Clutching Alexa in her left arm and raising her now flaming right hand to shoulder height in front of her, she nodded, her jaw set in grim determination.

Most of the noise was coming from the first floor. It was an eclectic mix of screams, grunts, breaking glass and other clashing sounds. As I pushed past a door on my right to get towards Naomi’s room, the door was wrenched off its hinges by an implosion of some sort. I glanced back to see Ravyn staggered towards the gaping maw that was now the portal before she steadied herself and sent a bolt of a flame towards a target that I was too far away to see. The stream of curses that flew from her lips was only slightly less caustic than the flame bolt that she had hurled.

I stopped to see if she needed any help, but turned back around to press forward again when she waved me off with a resigned sigh. “Keep going. There’s no one to save in there.”

As I came to Naomi’s door, I paused long enough to hear the sounds of struggle coming from inside. I glanced back to Ravyn. “Trouble.” I took one half step back and kicked the door handle with my left boot and used the moment of coming down to slam my shoulder into it, splintering it into flying wooden shards.

I shrugged off the rucksack as I turned to face whatever it was that Naomi was struggling with, only find myself facing two identically dressed Naomi’s locked in a violent embrace that was causing them to crash into the battered furniture of the small room.

“Shit!”

The Naomi’s separated as I stood there cursing. The Naomi closest to me turned and moved towards me. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here Rusty! This creature came in took my shape! Kill it!”

The other Naomi sank back against the battered desk. She looked up at me and asked a simple question. “Is Alexa safe?”

The first Naomi turned her back to me, continuing to point at the second, shouting at me to kill the intruder, but it was too late.

I lashed out with Excalibur using all of my strength. The blade lashed out blindingly fast and sliced into the neck of the unsuspecting Doppelganger.

The head of the creature went spinning as a fountain of greenish black ichor leaped into the air, spraying all over me and the rucksack as the body collapsed in a heap next to me.

Naomi’s shoulders slumped. She was clearly exhausted from her struggle with the creature. She perked up though as Ravyn pushed into the room behind me, the wriggling Alexa still held to her left hip. “Alexa!”

“Mama!” Alexa slipped from Ravyn’s grasp and bounded over to her mother in three running steps, somehow avoiding all of the pooling ichor as she did so.

Naomi held our daughter tight for a single quiet moment before the reality of the situation caused Ravyn to clear her throat.

“We need to move. Others haven’t been as lucky as you, darling.”