Building up to Christmas with Dusty the Demon Hunter - A Blast from the Past - Doppelgänger - Part 9

This is Dusty's 4th adventure.

I remember stories of Doppelgängers from when I was at school and they captured my imagination - much like the fairies and their changelings did.

I wrote this story with the more sinister aspects of the creatures in mind.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8

Pictures from Google free to use search

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Doppelgänger

She had decided to take the Doppelgänger to the Wraith Mountains and she dragged the fake along at the side of her.

It wasn’t used to travelling on the Astral Plane; that was clear enough to Dusty.

Before they got to the mountains, Dusty changed the colour of her mirror image’s clothing to red so as to help camouflage the creature.

If there had been anyone to watch the scene, it would have looked as though a set of identical twins dropped from the sky, both dressed in the same shade as their surroundings, but one bound up by a shining, shimmering rope, held tight by the other.

Dusty dragged the struggling Doppelgänger on foot all the way to the edge of the mountain range before she released it.

Once the rope was off, it found its voice and began berating Dusty. “You can’t leave me here!” it screeched at her.

“I can do pretty much whatever the hell I like. You were going to steal my life. I can’t kill you and put an end to yours, but I can damned-well make certain that you never bother me or mine again,” Dusty said.

The Doppelgänger laughed then. “How long do you think it will take me to get back? And as soon as I am back, I’ll come after Hunter again.”

“I thought you’d take that point of view, which is why I brought you here. These are the Wraith Mountains. I’ve done you a great favour by disguising your presence. Because you’re camouflaged, the monsters that live here won’t be able to see you so well, but as soon as they get your scent, as soon as even one of them knows that you’re here, you’ll be hunted for your Fae essence and whilst they can’t kill you, they can overpower you and drain you of that essence, just like psychic vampires. You’ll not die, but neither will you be able to call it living. You crossed the wrong half-demon this time. Perhaps you should have done a little research before choosing me as your target?”

The Doppelgänger laughed again and Dusty couldn’t see the funny side, but she did make an observation that the Doppelgänger's laugh was hollow-sounding and harsh. She hoped that her own laugh didn’t sound like that and for that matter, she hoped that her face didn’t twist into such a cruel leer either.

“Stupid demon, I didn’t choose you, I chose him.”

“Ah, even better,” Dusty said.

She nodded in her understanding, and because the Doppelgänger hadn’t made her the target, but Hunter, Dusty’s protective instincts kicked in.

She leaned back, put her weight above her back foot then pushed forward from her hips to swing her body around. Her fist shot forward and upward to hit the sneering Doppelgänger square in the mouth and sent droplets of blood up into the air as the Doppelgänger reeled on its feet from the blow.

The impostor didn’t retaliate; it lifted its fingers to its lip and saw blood on them when it brought the fingers away.

“Now why would you do that? I’m not going to fight you, not here,” it said.

“Not anywhere," Dusty said. "I was willing to give you a sporting chance when I thought that I was the target of your malevolence. You would have been able to get yourself out of here if you were careful and clever enough, and I was ok with that, but now I know that I wasn’t your objective, but Hunter was, I can’t take the chance that you’ll be back to bother him. Listen...”

Dusty paused and cocked her head in the direction of the mountains. “Can you hear them? They have your scent.”

“You’re joking! You won’t leave me here alone to face those beasts. You humans are too sensitive, too forgiving, to be so heartless.”

“Won’t I? You were prepared to steal my life, my boyfriend - everything I had. As I said, you should have chosen your target better. I’m not human; I don’t have the same humanity. I actually can leave you to your fate and not give a second’s thought to you. Just watch.”

Dusty rose up into the arid air and hovered above the mirror image of herself. It was odd to see her own image down there, helpless and on the verge of panic. The girl bore a disturbing likeness to her.

Then Dusty’s attention was drawn to the Wraith Mountains again and she called down to the Doppelgänger.

“I’d move if I were you. They’re coming.” Dusty smiled at the sneer of disbelief on the Doppelgänger's face and then she grinned as the sneer altered from disbelief to terror.

Dusty hadn’t been bluffing. There were things in the mountains, and they did have the scent of the Doppelgänger, and now they were coming.

Dusty didn’t wait. She had no wish to see what would happen, but before she turned and made her way back, she did one last thing to protect Hunter.

She made absolutely certain that the Doppelgänger would be found. Dusty turned the Doppelgänger’s clothing from camouflaged red to the brightest green. It was almost luminous and it hurt her eyes to look at it for a second.

“I hate green!” Dusty shouted to her image and she laughed as the other looked down at the change of colour to her clothes, lifted both hands in exasperation and turned towards the mountains.

It had heard something back there, but Dusty was too far away to plead to.

“I hate two-faced bitches too,” Dusty said to herself, and laughed.

When she got back to her earthly body, Dusty grabbed her clothes and dressed. She could hear voices in the hallway and she didn’t wish to cause any embarrassment to Hunter’s family by being in their kitchen, naked.

She was very confident about her own body.

She didn’t care about anyone else seeing her naked, but perhaps the relationship with his parents would alter if they saw that.

They seemed very conventional and perhaps old-fashioned in their outlook, very prudish, and she thought that perhaps they didn’t travel to the Astral Plane in the same way that she did.

She had learned from humans how to travel there. Maybe there was another way that demons knew.

Another thought occurred to her, that perhaps they would disapprove of her nakedness in front of Hunter’s brothers.

She remembered how upset Osborn had been at the recounting of the Doppelgänger’s flirting with them.

No, it was best that she didn’t show that she wasn’t bothered at the idea of anyone seeing her naked. It wasn’t ‘the done thing’.

Dusty smiled as she got dressed. Then she went into the hall where Hunter and his parents and brothers were waiting for her.

“Oh, I didn’t realise that you were all here,” she said.

“Well we weren’t going to barge into the kitchen to congratulate you, not with you sitting naked on mother’s floor!” One of Hunter’s brothers said. “What happened to the Doppelgänger? You can’t have killed it.”

“I didn’t kill it, you’re right about that. The creatures of the Wraith Mountains can’t kill it either, but they seemed to want to find out just how far they could go in trying.” Dusty smiled and made sure she put a demon glint in her eyes as she did.

“Clever, very clever. I can see you’re going to fit right into our family, Dusty,” the brother replied and he winked at her in an ‘older brother’ type of way.

Hunter punched her on the arm to get her attention. It wasn’t a hard punch, but it did the trick. “Come on you, let’s get back to your grandparents to show them that you’re ok.”

They ran all the way back to Dusty’s home, but they needn’t have bothered. Dusty’s grandparents were relaxed and not at all worried.

“Hunter’s father phoned a few minutes ago to make sure we weren’t worrying about you. I’m so glad you’ve made friends with Hunter’s family. I think your education in the demon side of your psyche will benefit from their involvement. Osborn has promised that he will help as much as he can,” Colleen said.

Dusty noticed that her grandparents were almost different people from the couple she had left when she went to go and battle the Doppelgänger. They seemed younger, less stressed, and she became saddened at the notion that she was the reason behind their stressful life. She hadn’t intended to ever worry them.

Perhaps she should think about giving them more peace of mind and staying out of trouble for a while.

Staying out of trouble... chance would be a fine thing.