Monster Hunter Vendetta

Chapter 17

My eyes no longer hurt. I couldn't feel the aches, injuries, or fatigue. I was standing on bright white sand while powerful waves crashed ashore at my feet. A brilliant blue ocean stretched for what seemed like forever. It was gorgeous, a veritable tropical paradise. For whatever reason, it really wasn't what I had pictured the inside of Harbinger's head to be like.

"What's going on?" Earl asked from behind me. I turned. He was standing there, looking pained and confused. Behind him was a black rock cliff, and atop it was a rough shack of some kind. "Marty knocked me out and now I'm here."

"We're inside your memories," I responded. "Hood put a demon inside your brain to devour them. We have to stop it before it kills you."

He didn't seem surprised, as if my explanation made perfect sense, flexible minds, and all that. "Did you get the ward activated?"

"Milo did, but why isn't it chasing this thing off?" I asked.

"Maybe it's safe as long as it's in somebody's head?" Earl shrugged. "You got any idea what you're doing?"

"No. The last time I did this, the monster killed the host, then animated the body and tried to eat Doctor Nelson. But if we attack it before you get too weak, we might be able to throw it out and step on it."

"Well, that sounds like a hell of a plan," Earl replied sarcastically. "Remember when I told you not to screw around with this Old Ones' magic bullshit?" I nodded. "Belay that order. Let's go kill this little fucker." He suddenly grimaced, raising his hands to his temple. "Oh damn. That hurts."

I looked around for a giant earwig. "Where is it? Show me."

"Near," Earl said through gritted teeth, glancing from side to side. "I know this place. It's attacking where I'm most vulnerable."

Obnoxious seagulls were wheeling overhead. "Where are we?"

"This island is where I learned to finally control the beast. This was my exile."

"Nice exile," I exclaimed.

"It wasn't my first choice," he muttered, swaying a little, as he put his face in his hands. "I can feel it… in my head…" The sky was darkening rapidly. I could no longer tell where the horizon ended, as it all turned to an ugly shade of purple, like a spreading bruise. Earl cried out and went to his knees. I moved to his side to help. He gasped and shoved me away. "No. This was where I became a man again… I came here, where there was no one to hurt. I can't let him have this."

Werewolves were normally borderline psychotics. Earl was an exception. He exercised unbelievable mental control over his state and had done so for the better part of a century. If you were an evil force intent on destroying his mind, you would go right for where he had learned that control. With that iron will broken, the demon would be sure to win.

"It's here," Earl growled.

A purple dome appeared, rising over the horizon, dwarfing the cliffs, the shack, then the sky, and finally the entire world. "You've got to be kidding." It was far bigger than Feeder had been. It made the other creature look like a pathetic bug by comparison. A single giant eye opened in the center of the dome. It blinked once, the lid slamming back and forth with a concussion like a hundred sonic booms. A shockwave traveled down the beach. The seagulls exploded.

The unspeakable entity of the Old Ones, summoned by Hood, and dumped into Earl Harbinger's skull to devour his mind addressed us solemnly. Greetings. I am Rok'hasna'wrath, reaper of souls, devourer of worlds.

The thought hit our minds like a battering ram.

"Aw hell," Earl muttered.

There was a terrible screeching noise as the creature said its master's true name. - ordered me to this world long ago to serve its mortal priesthood. The High Priest has commanded me to rend this mind to pulp. Already I can see that this is a strong mind, hardened through strife and honed in conflict. I shall consume your memories one by one, growing stronger with each victory. You will attempt to defeat me. I welcome this challenge. This will continue until your spirit departs this shell or the Dread Overlord's servant no longer requires my services and I return to my home plane. Only one of us can survive.

"Aw hell," Earl repeated himself. The sky began to spin violently, a maelstrom centered on this one place in his memory.

"How the hell are we supposed to fight that?" I shouted.

This is not your fight.

It was addressing me.

BEGONE.

A wave of force struck me, bludgeoning my con-sciousness. The world dimmed as the pressure increased. He was banishing me. In this realm, the thing was unstoppable. I could feel my connection slipping. "Earl! He's too strong. He's kicking me out!"

Harbinger nodded into the wind. "I've seen weirder." He turned to me, deadly serious. "I'll hold out as long as I can, but if he wins here, then the beast might end up in control. If I start to change and anyone else is in danger, shoot me. You have to find Hood and kill him to stop this."

I was sucked upward into the vortex.

Let the battle commence.

My hand burned as I took it from his chest. Earl was convulsing violently, icy sweat pouring from his face.

"What's going on?" somebody shouted in my ear.

"He's fighting… something," I responded. My eyes had recovered from Milo's lights sufficiently that I could see who I was talking to. Esmeralda was at my side, holding a large syringe. She was using it to pull some liquid out of a vial. "Wait, what're you doing?"

"Horse tranquilizer. If Earl transforms out here, we're all in danger." Her forehead had been bandaged and she appeared absolutely exhausted. "I've already lost too many kids tonight. We can't risk it. I have to knock him out."

"You can't." I put my bloody hand on hers. Esmeralda stared at me in disbelief, but she didn't plunge the needle in. "He has to be focused if he's going to have any chance at all. We have to get him back to his cell."

Esmeralda hesitated. She had ten times my experience. If I was wrong, and he started to turn, then we'd have to shoot him or risk all of our lives. "You better be right, Z. Let's get him out of here fast."

Hunters were scurrying in all directions, securing the compound. A hairy shape lumbered up to us, red eyes glowing. A giant red tongue flopped out as it panted. It was a warg. "Need ride?" Skippy asked from the giant wolf's back. The orc's goggled face swiveled to indicate the others behind him. "See dead things. Clan help."

"We've got to get him back to his cell," I said. Esmeralda and I lifted Earl's shaking body and put him over Skip's legs. The orc was fearless, despite the twitching man on his lap who might quickly turn into a ball of teeth, claws, and fury. "Do you know where that is?" Skippy nodded. The warg immediately launched itself forward, moving with unbelievable speed for the main building.

More warg riders were arriving. Esmeralda turned to me. "Owen, go with him. You need to get back right away."

I didn't know what she was talking about. "Why?"

"Julie was hurt during the attack."

My heart lurched into my throat. "How bad?" Oh no. Please no. I grabbed Esmeralda by the shoulders. I towered over the tiny woman. "What happened?"

She hesitated, not wanting to answer. "Just go. Hurry."

A second warg and rider padded up to us and stopped. I had never ridden a giant wolf before. The orc extended his hand. The beast tilted its head and examined me quizzically. Hell, I didn't even know how to ride a horse, and this thing had jaws that could bite the head off a cow, but I needed to get to Julie fast. I grabbed the orc's gloved hand. With my other hand I got a handful of fur and pulled myself onto the wolf's back. It yipped as my weight settled and then immediately took off at a run. I hugged my arm around the orc so hard that I probably cracked his ribs, but I was frightened that I was going to bounce off.

She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. I kept repeating that mantra to myself, too scared to think. The ride was surprisingly smooth as the warg ran across the compound. Shocked Newbies raised their guns as we passed but the more experienced Hunters shouted them down. I kept my face pressed against the warg's fur the whole time. It smelled like coconut shampoo. We reached the main building in a matter of seconds.

I slid off and landed, wincing, on my injured ankle. Skippy was already pulling Harbinger off his warg. "Help Skip," he grumbled at the Hunters that came running down the steps. I recognized the shortest one as the team lead, VanZant. Two Newbies were behind him, obviously frightened by the snorting warg. "Take Harb Anger… safe place."

Skip knew right where to go and the Newbies took Earl's convulsing arms and legs and followed. I grabbed VanZant by his sleeve. "Where's Julie?"

He was a stocky man: the other team leads jokingly referred to him as the Hobbit. He was also a no-nonsense, former Army mortar man and a welterweight champion fighter. He seemed surprised to see me. "How'd you get… Never mind. You better come with me, Z," he responded, then hurried up the stairs. I followed him in a daze. The injured Hunters had been moved into the cafeteria. Those with medical training were tending to the worst hurt. Three female orcs had arrived and were lending their supernatural healing skills to the cause.

There were too many wounded, moaning… This was my fault, all my fault. "Where is she?" I asked.

"She was right here." He pointed at an empty spot on the floor. All that was there now was a bloody towel. "We were on the roof when one of those flyers attacked. I was setting up an 81mm and she was directing fire and then it was right on top of us. It clawed through her armor." He ran his fingers across his stomach quickly. "She was hit… bad. I carried her down here myself." He started to choke up. "There's no way she walked off."

I picked up the towel. It was sodden, dripping.

VanZant was an experienced Hunter. He knew a severe injury when he saw one. "Julie!" I shouted, panicking. But everyone else down here had their own concerns right now. The nearest Newbies were utterly shell-shocked and didn't even look up to see who was yelling. This assault had cost us dearly.

There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned and stared down into Gretchen's reflective shades. Her manner was inscrutable as usual, but she jerked her head for me to follow. I did so. She led me to the nearest women's bathroom and held the door open. I was confused. She nodded that this was where I was supposed to go.

I entered to the sound of running water. Julie's green armor vest was discarded on the floor. It was soaked in blood and there were three vertical slash marks on the front, each one an inch wide, right through the Kevlar.

"Julie?" I asked hesitantly, knees weak, voice trembling, as I stumbled around the corner.

She's alive!

Julie was standing in front of the sink, back toward me. Her head was down, long dark hair covering her face, and her hands were flat on the tile, as if holding herself up. She had taken her shirt off and was only wearing her bra. The tile around her was stained pink with blood.

She was sobbing.

"Are you okay?"

She lifted her head slowly. "I shouldn't be." My fiancee turned, lifting her head and revealing her tear-stained face. "Look." She pointed at her stomach. Julie had abs of steel. Currently those abs were pink from half-washed blood. There were three dark horizontal lines down her stomach, but other than that, she looked fine. There was no wound at all.

"I don't get it." I said quickly. "Esmeralda made it sound like you were dying. VanZant was freaked out."

"Look," she ordered again. Puzzled, I bent down. The three lines were black, like a smudge from a piece of charcoal. The skin around the lines was healthy. The lines looked… familiar.

"No way!" I leapt back in shock. "No way!"

She pulled her hair away from her neck. The line from last summer had more than doubled in size. Now it was a thick black streak. The tattooed man had saved her life with that gift but we didn't understand a thing about it. "I should be dead. I never saw it coming. The claws went right through me."

"This is impossible."

"Impossible?" Julie screamed. "I shoved my own guts back inside while they carried me away. Fifteen minutes ago I was disemboweled and now I'm fine." I went to put my hands on her shoulders, but she jerked back. "Don't touch me!"

"It's okay," I said soothingly.

"I don't know what I am!" she cried. Julie turned away, unconsciously touching her neck, then realizing what she was doing, snapped her hand down in disgust. With a shout of pure anger she slammed her fist into the mirror, shattering it. She realized what she'd done and stepped back, quivering, blood tricking down her knuckles. She stared at the fresh cut in terror, waiting for something awful to happen.

I stood there, useless, helpless. The pain seemed to calm her down. The blood just kept trickling from her hand. Nothing happened. It was just a normal cut. She slowly unclenched her fist and sighed. Her fingers were shaking badly as blood dribbled down them to splatter the tile.

"Oh, Owen, what's happening? What's inside of me?"

I couldn't answer that. I grabbed her and pulled her close. She struggled at first as I kept saying that it would be okay. Finally she relaxed and just sobbed into my chest. "It's all going to be okay."

But all I could think of was what Susan had told me in Mexico. You know that it'll eventually kill her, don't you? It's from the other side, where everything comes with a price. I stroked my filthy hand across her cheek. "Everything will be fine."

Finally she quit sobbing. Her voice cracked. My heart cracked. "I've got to get out there. They need me." I wanted nothing in the world more than to disagree with her, and tell her that she just needed to rest, but she was right. We did need her. She pushed away. "I need a shirt. Can't rally the troops like this…"

I pulled a bunch of paper towels from the dispenser and passed them to her. She took them and pressed them against her injured hand. It was then that she stopped to look at me. She seemed surprised. "What happened to your face?"

I hadn't looked at it yet, but I knew the silver-haired chick had cut me good. I could feel the flap of skin dangling wetly. I pushed it back into place and held it there with the rest of the paper towels. "Werewolf in the barracks clawed me."

"Barracks?" she asked, confused. "When? How'd you get there?"

"Franks, Grant, and I went after the ward stone," I explained.

Her brown eyes went hard behind her glasses. I'd seen that look before. The sadness, the shock, the fear, it was all gone, replaced with hard determination. Usually when Julie got that look, something was about to get killed. "Hand me my armor. We've got to go."

"Where?"

She threw the blood-soaked vest on, not even bothering to buckle it closed. "To have a talk with somebody." She pulled the door to the hall open. "You coming?"

We almost collided with a very excited Cooper entering the cafeteria. "Oh man," the young Hunter sputtered when he saw me. "I was supposed to find both of you. Holly says you need to come quick."

"Where?" Julie asked.

"Basement." He hoisted his FAL and ran. Julie was right behind him. I had no idea what was going on, but followed. Cooper was headed for the stairs. Several Hunters stopped to point at Julie, surprised to see her alive, let alone running through the halls. Everyone who tried to talk to her was dismissed with a wave. She was too focused on whatever it was that we were doing. We went down two stairs at a time and found Holly Newcastle waiting for us at the base.

"He went that way"-she pointed-"looking nonchalant."

"Heading for the tunnels probably, trying to get away," Julie replied. "Come on."

The four of us moved quickly. There was a massive hole punched in the wall next to the archives. Broken cinder blocks were scattered everywhere and piles of loose dirt had spilled onto the floor. "What happened?" I asked.

"The shoggoth dug right up to the basement. Then undead crashed through. They were under us, above us, and outside. It was nuts," Holly said. "Lee held them at this one. He wasn't going to let anything hurt his precious books. Trip stopped them at another breach by Earl's room. We tossed some explosives down each and collapsed the walls."

"And you were with the group that stopped the breach next to the control room," Julie said.

"What?" Then it hit me. "The doppelganger!"

"So that's what it is," she replied. "After Dawn stood up in the meeting and shot Earl, the lights went out, and she vanished in the confusion."

"Why would she take my form?"

"I intend to find that out right now," Julie responded as she jerked open the janitorial closet door. She held up one hand for the rest of us to stop. "Owen, honey, where are you going?"

I heard my own voice reply. "Oh, hey, Julie. I was just checking to make sure this door was secure. What's with the gun?"

"Don't move!" Julie shouted. "Take them both."

Cooper leapt through the door after her. I froze as a cold steel muzzle was jammed into the base of my neck. Holly's voice was totally calm. "Z, I'm pretty sure that you're the real you, so this is nothing personal, but if you so much as twitch, I'm going to blow your head off, got it?"

"Got it," I responded. I knew better than to argue with Holly, and I had taught her to shoot that. 45 currently aimed at my medulla. Holly would not hesitate.

A large man stumbled into the hallway, thick arms raised, hands placed on top of his short hair, the muzzle of Cooper's FAL covering him. Except for the fact that he was wearing my armor, carrying my weapons, and was far cleaner, it was like looking in a mirror. "Against the wall," the young Hunter ordered.

"Watch it, kid," the duplicate replied.

"Do I actually sound like that?" I asked. "Man, I sound goofy."

The doppelganger looked up, seemingly surprised to see me. "What the hell is this?"

"Cut the crap, Dawn," I responded.

My beady eyes squinted back at me. "No way. This is some Condition trick. Blast it, Holly."

"Both of you, shut up," Julie ordered as she came out. Her 1911 was at her side. "One of you is my boyfriend, the other one's dog food."

"See you in hell, dog food," the doppelganger said. Dang, that was a good impression.

"So, how do you want to figure this out?" Holly asked slowly.

"We could get Earl to sniff them both, see if they smell different," Julie said. Cooper looked confused at that. Apparently he wasn't part of the in-the-know clique.

"Yeah, go get Earl. He'll know," my double said.

"Except your stupid boss put a demon in his head and Earl's busy fighting for his life right now," I said. Julie frowned. "I didn't get the chance to tell you. I tried to help, but he's on his own for now."

"Personally, I'm thinking this one's the real one," Holly tapped me on the back of the head.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because the real Z's strategy is always to get right in front and let the monsters beat on him until they get tired. The other one's too clean."

Julie nodded. "Valid point… but…" She turned back to me. "How'd you know to say that it was a doppelganger?"

"I found G-Nome stuffed into one of the toilets in the barracks. He saw Dawn cleaning up from murdering whoever was on guard duty in the control room. I read his mind before he died."

"You what?" Cooper was really confused now.

I heard approaching footsteps, and turning slowly, so Holly wouldn't get jumpy, tried to see who it was. Trip was leading the way with a massive, hulking shape loping along right behind him. It was the troll, Melvin. "What the hell?" the doppelganger and I said in perfect unison. What was that monstrosity doing loose? And armed? He had a sawed-off, 10-gauge Browning BPS in one hand.

"Hey, guys," Trip said. "Z… and Z." He was unperturbed. "So I guess one of these two is Dawn." He must have witnessed the shooting during graduation. He stopped and looked between us, trying to guess. "You know, that is some creepy stuff right there."

"Oh! Oh! Melvin help," the troll wheezed eagerly. "Trolls have good senses. We can smell evil Fey."

"You can't trust that thing," the doppelganger said.

"Okay, I've got to agree with the shape-changing monster on that one," I pointed out. "I missed the part where he joined our side."

Trip smiled and jerked a thumb at the troll. "The undead were breaking into the basement. I was outnumbered and desperate, so I made Melvin a fast job offer. He saved my butt. Say what you will, trolls are mighty handy in a fight."

"Melvin Monster Hunter now!" the troll said proudly. "Old clan all dead, because stupid. Melvin have nowhere else to go. MHI is my clan tag now."

Julie pushed her glasses back on her nose. "Trip, we're really going to have to have a discussion about this."

"He's agreed to certain terms of employment," Trip responded. "No eating people."

"Melvin not like eating people anyway. Like snacky cakes better." He smiled, showing off rows of rotting teeth. MHI did at least have a good dental plan. "Melvin will make badass IT department for you. You can pay Melvin in Red Bull and internet connection."

"No spam or fraud," Trip continued.

"Aaahhh…" Melvin whined. "Fine. Whatever."

Julie just shook her head in resignation. She'd had a very long day. "All right then, which one is the real Owen?"

The giant troll stood between us, swiveling his head back and forth. Melvin's nostrils flared. He pointed one clawed finger at me. "That one."

"Julie!" the fake cried. "You can't believe that thing! It's a monster."

"Keep your hands on your head. Coop, take his guns," Julie said.

"I can't believe you'd fall for this," it grumbled, as Cooper lifted Abomination's sling. "This is such a crock of-" The doppelganger moved suddenly, slamming his armored elbow back into Cooper's face, smashing his glasses. The Hunter crashed back into the wall. The doppelganger reached across his chest and yanked out my kukri. Julie calmly shot it in both legs. The bullets didn't penetrate the Kevlar weave, but struck like hammer blows. My duplicate dropped to its knees.

"Ha! Melvin just guess! Monster go all dumb! Ha ha!" The troll bellowed, then looked stupidly down at his hand as it separated from his arm. The rubbery appendage hit the floor. "Hey!"

My double had swung the heavy blade right through Melvin's arm. Julie shot the doppelganger in the hand and it dropped my knife. She shot it in the other hand just to be sure. Two fingers flew down the hall. It was kind of unnerving how little hesitation Julie had to shoot something that looked exactly like me. The creature tumbled to the floor and glared up at her with four injured limbs.

I was closest and grabbed Melvin. His rubbery skin squished under my hands as I caught him. "Are you okay?"

"Stupid monster. How can Melvin type now with one hand? Poor Melvin!" It sobbed as it sank to its knees. "How can play video games? Life is ruined. Noooo!"

"Somebody get me a tourniquet!" I shouted.

The troll emitted a strained wheezy noise. He was laughing at me. "I kid. I kid. Melvin grow new arm by tomorrow. Trolls very resilient."

My duplicate struggled to rise. It still spoke with my voice. "Fools. You can't stop the Condition. The time of man is done."

Julie strode over and snap-kicked it in the face, putting it solidly down. "Drag it inside. Let's see what it knows."

I used the opportunity while we taped the doppelganger to a chair to strip it of my gear. It felt good to have my armor back on. I used a bandage from my first aid kit and patched my cheek. I needed to have Gretchen look at that, but she had serious injuries to deal with upstairs, and I didn't want to bug her about my cosmetic boo-boo. It would probably leave a terrible scar. I had gotten used to having werewolf scars once before. No big deal. I had more important things weighing on my mind.

Cooper was in over his head and had a broken nose to boot, so he went back to join up with his team. Melvin got put back in the cell while he regenerated a new arm. We didn't really know what to do with him yet anyway, but Trip was a man of his word, which in the best case meant that we couldn't just shoot him, and worst case meant we probably owed him a job.

We stuck the doppelganger in the next room where it couldn't hear us while I caught the others up on Earl's state and what had transpired during the fight for the ward stone. We were using Earl's office, and just on the other side of the vault door, he lay alone and twitching, fighting an improbable battle against some shade of the Old Ones. With the possibility of him losing control and reverting to his werewolf state, we didn't even dare leave anyone inside with him. This shape-shifter could hold the keys to finding Hood, and if I could find him quickly enough, we might still be able to save Earl.

I debriefed them as fast as I could. Julie patted me on the shoulder when I was done. "Doppelgangers can read minds a bit. That's why they're such effective mimics, so it'll know exactly how far you're willing to go to find the truth. It'll play with us, mess with our minds. This is a job for somebody who knows what they're doing."

"Earl doesn't have time." Every second we waited put him one step closer to ending up like Carlos.

"I know," she said. "Do what you can. I'll find Sam, Boone, or Cody. All of those guys have had to get information out of actual human beings back when they were military. This won't be a problem for any of them."

Or my dad, I thought to myself. The will to do awful things was never something that he had lacked. And right now I just prayed that I could live up to what he'd tried to teach me.

Julie hadn't spoken any more about the marks on her stomach, not even to Trip or Holly, though the two of them had surely noticed the ruined state of her vest. "I've got to get a sit rep and headcount. I'll be back as soon as I can." Her voice was strong, the fear compartmentalized and shoved away to be dealt with later. With Earl down, and her Grandpa too old, Julie had to run the nuts and bolts of this show. Her people needed her. She left the room without another word.

God, I was terrified for her. I watched her leave, wanting nothing more than to never let her out of my sight, but Earl was counting on us, and our only lead was this doppelganger. She'd find us some experienced help from the chaos above, but in the meantime, that left Trip, Holly and me to deal with the doppelganger duct-taped to a chair in the next room.

"We should interrogate Torres too," I said as I unrolled the hose that we used to spray down Earl's cell. I had no idea what I was doing but beating the monster with a hose had definite possibilities. "Where's he at?"

They looked at each other in confusion. "We stopped the undead in the basement, but we never saw him," Trip said. "I'm assuming that other Fed, Archer, picked him up."

"The place has got to be swarming with Feds up there by now," Holly said. "I hope they've got the jerk in custody and they're about to put the screws to him. You know, I never liked him."

I hoped they were right. If he'd escaped, then Myers' stupid escapade had been for nothing. I hadn't had time to consider what I was going to do about that yet, but Myers deserved a shallow grave for what he'd brought into our house. "We better hurry. When the Feds hear we've caught this thing, they're going to haul it off."

"You guys ever done anything like this before?" Trip asked slowly. We all knew that this had the potential to get real ugly.

"Dude, I was an exotic dancer. How often do you think we had to torture information out of shapechangers?" Holly responded.

"Weekly?" I answered. I held up the hose, immediately felt stupid, so dropped it. "Don't look at me like that. I was an accountant. We didn't go over water-boarding in school either, okay?"

Trip looked a little queasy. "Maybe we should wait for Sam or one of those guys."

"We don't have the luxury." I could tell that this was really not something that Trip was mentally prepared to do. He was just too kind-hearted to contemplate torture, even against something like this. I, on the other hand, had just shot a few actual human beings, and it didn't seem to bother me at all. In fact, I felt strangely justified. I could handle this. "Get your game face on. Earl's counting on us. There's a literal demon inside his head, and it's going to rip him apart until we stop it. We can't let him down. You with us, man?"

Trip nodded with more vigor than he felt. "Yeah, let's do this."

"Holly?"

She snorted. "I'm tougher than you are."

No disagreement there. "It can read minds, so don't think weak. Think mean." I jerked the door open and we went in to question the creature.

We had used an entire roll of tape to secure the shape-shifter to a heavy wooden chair. The three of us stood in a row. If I was smart, I probably would have brought a big lamp or something to shine in its face like in the movies.

"You're out of your league," it responded, still wearing my face. "None of you children have the guts. My master holds the keys to life and death and walks in the shadows between worlds. How could you possibly expect me to betray him? My god is a wrathful god!"

"So is mine," Trip answered.

"You're Baptist," I pointed out.

"Exactly." Trip surprised me. He stepped forward and backhanded the creature in the face. "Where's the Condition?" my friend shouted.

The head rocked back, but slowly returned, laughing. I have an evil laugh when I'm angry. No wonder people consider me intimidating. "Come on, Trip, you can do better than that!" Trip hit him again, harder this time. He cocked his fist back for another shot.

Suddenly the doppelganger blurred and re-formed. The transformation was nearly instantaneous. Now it was Holly that Trip's fist collided with. She squealed in pain. Trip jerked back, shocked. The fake Holly cried, hot tears pouring down her bruised cheek. "Don't hurt me, please!"

Trip raised his hand again, but he was shaking. The doppelganger shifted again, and now it was an older black woman with white hair. "John, how dare you raise your hand to me!" She had a Jamaican accent.

Trip closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. "Where's the Condition?"

When he reopened his eyes, his mother had been replaced with a teenage girl with red hair and freckles. She batted big sad eyes at him. "You promised you'd protect us, Mr. Jones. But you let those zombies get to us anyway. You got scared. You lied! You couldn't protect us! Sure, you came back and saved the others, but you were too scared to save me. I hate you!"

"I… I'm sorry…" Trip stepped back from the creature.

"Enough," I said. "Dude, it's okay."

"Sorry." Trip was wiping his eyes as he left the room. He closed the door behind him. I glanced over at Holly. She was leaning against the wall, impassive and cool. The doppelganger turned its teenage girl face and spoke, only using my deep voice. "Your friend has a soft heart. I'm sure it'll be delicious."

"Your turn," Holly stated.

The doppelganger studied me for just a moment. Its changes were almost so quick that it was hard to believe my own eyes. For just a moment, the face would be slack, almost squishy, then it was somebody else entirely. Mannerisms, speech patterns, even size. It would have been impressive if it wasn't so disgusting.

Julie Shackleford looked up at me, fearfully, as I approached. "Don't hurt me, Owen, please," she pleaded. No. Not she. It. I kept walking.

"I'm going to figure out how to hurt you. Then I'm going to hurt you until you tell us exactly what we want to know," I stated. I repeated those words in my mind. I could afford no weakness.

"Very good, Hunter. Harden your heart," the fake Julie said. Then my girlfriend was gone and it was my father. "You always were weak, soft; it's good to see you man up and take care of business. Come on, fatty, show me what you've got."

I balled up my hand into a fist and slugged the doppelganger in the face. My whole body shook with the impact. "That's the spirit, boy!" It laughed with my father's voice. Then he was gone and it was Mordechai Byreika, old and frail. "Boy, what are you doing! Why do you hurt me?"

It's not him. He's dead.

"Smart you are, boy. But proud, and proud will hurt everyone you love."

"It won't work!" I spat.

Then it was Julie again. "It doesn't have to. I just want to enjoy the damage you're doing to your soul," it hissed. "Beat your wife, Hunter. Come on. This is what I do for fun." Then it shifted into the form of a little girl. "Owen, don't let them hurt me! Don't let them take me away. Not again!"

I paused. I had no idea who this was. She was probably seven or eight years old, with dark hair in a ponytail and blue eyes. "So, is this like a test to see if I'm willing to beat little kids or something?"

The little girl stopped her crying. "You don't remember me?" she asked incredulously.

It had to be a trick. I had never seen this kid before.

The girl giggled. "You really don't. You, the Chosen with the ability to see everyone else's memories has his own locked away… How ironic. So much power but too stupid to use it," the little girl said. "Past, future, it is all so linear to you pathetic mammals."

"Who are you supposed to be then?" I asked.

It read my hesitation. "Apparently that's a secret. Too bad for you. It's really a sad story."

"Z," Holly spoke. "It's messing with you. Step back."

"I've got this!" I shouted.

"Step back," she said again.

"Fine!" I stomped away, seething. This stupid monster was pissing me off.

Holly stopped in front of the doppelganger. The little girl face studied her. "Now you… you're dangerous," it said. "Your edge, it is not an act. There are two sides to you, human. Burning hot or freezing cold and somewhere in the middle innocence dies. Delicious."

"You can read minds?" Holly asked.

"Sure can, kiddo," it replied. Now the doppelganger was an older man with wispy hair and the flushed face of a terminal alcoholic. "You're never gonna amount to nothing. You're just like your mom, the tramp. No good slut-"

Holly cut it off by slamming the ridge of her hand into its throat. The creature coughed and wheezed, writhing against the duct tape, like the old man was having a heart attack. "You gotta try harder than that," Holly replied. "I've watched episodes of Doctor Phil that were more emotionally wrenching."

It changed again. Now it was a young woman. It was hard to tell what she looked like because every inch of her was coated in dried blood, dirt, and filth. "Holly, you bitch. You left me alone in the pit. I'm dead because of you."

My teammate snorted. "Worked through that, chief. Cindy died because she gave up. Vampires killed her. I didn't do it. Is this supposed to make me feel guilty?"

"Guilty? You should. You could have taken me with you! Whore!"

The doppelganger began to thrash, swearing and crying hysterically. Holly turned to me and shrugged. She went back to the creature, walking a slow circle around the chair, studying the mirror image of somebody who had apparently been a fellow prisoner in the vampire feeding hole. "I think that we're going about this all wrong," she said slowly.

The creature continued to curse her. I couldn't tell if the fear was genuine or fake at this point. Holly paused in front of it and pulled out her folding knife. The Benchmade flicked open with a snap. "Let me test this theory." The creature flinched and thrashed away. "Hold still, or I'll really screw this up." She slowly poked her blade into the creature's face. A clear fluid began to bleed from the cut. The woman screamed. I turned away involuntarily.

The screaming stopped. I risked a peek. Holly was holding up the dripping knife. "Yep, just like I figured. The tissue is all soft underneath, malleable. Like the fingers Julie blew off."

Holly had carved a chunk out of the thing's face. The flesh underneath had the consistency of raw dough and was leaking a viscous juice down its neck. "Oh, gross."

The doppelganger hissed. "You think you're so clever."

"Yes. Yes, I do," Holly responded. "See, I don't know how your biology works, but I'm sorta like what passes for a medical professional around here now, so I'm just going to keep cutting pieces off until I find something important."

It had reverted back to the form that it had been in most of its stay at the compound: the Newbie, Dawn. The young woman looked terrified. "Please… please don't hurt me. Owen, don't let her hurt me."

"Hurt you? You killed Billy Tanner in the control room. Slashed his throat wide open. You set up an attack that cost us I don't know how many more Hunters dead and injured. You tried to assassinate my boss." Holly smiled maliciously. "Hurt you? Dawn, you can read minds, so I want you to read what I'm thinking about doing right now." Holly closed her eyes.

The creature flinched.

Holly's smile was terrifying. "Think that'll hurt?"

"Okay, okay." Dawn blinked, and her eyes were suddenly clear orbs. Her entire face went slack, the color seemed to fade, the features just sloughed away, leaving a blank mass of goo where the head had been. The hair retracted as those ice cube eyes watched us. There wasn't even a mouth, just an indentation in the doughy mass. It puckered inward as it spoke with Dawn's voice. "So, you want to see what I really am?"

"What the hell?" I muttered.

It was some sort of… well… I didn't know, doughy asexual humanoid blob, utterly pale and damp. It seemed to shrink inward, as if it had been artificially inflating itself to reach correct human proportions. The fingers exposed from the end of the tape were stubby little white sausages that wiggled like hooked nightcrawlers, except the end of each one terminated in a hard yellow point. "Happy now?" Its voice was utterly bland, toneless, accentless, neither masculine nor feminine.

"Yeah, that's much better," Holly gagged.

"Maybe you should go back to the beauty queen," I suggested. How had this… alien made it through the warding? Damn, the Pillsbury Doughboy had come on to me.

"Shove it, human," the doppelganger said, hissing bubbles through its face. One crystal eyeball swiveled to study me, bulging out of the lumpy head, independent of the other. Apparently it had read my thoughts. "Your ward meant nothing to me. I was born on Earth. There are more of us here than you expect. We're everywhere, preparing the way for the great and inevitable return of-"

"Shut up, Gumby." Holly silenced it by shoving her knife against the creature's chest. "Where's the real Dawn?"

"Dead," it answered. "Replaced not long after Harbinger and Shackleford made her a job offer. We did not even know of this one at the time." It twitched one eye at me. "I was just to observe. The High Priest believed that MHI might pose a future threat to his plans."

I stepped forward. "Where is this High Priest? Where's Hood?"

The creature shook as it laughed. The sound was utterly emotionless. "He's with your brother."

What? Holly and I exchanged glances.

"I hid during the initial assault. My attempt on Harbinger had failed and I waited for an opportunity to redeem myself rather than return to the Exalted Order in shame. I sensed the presence of the acolyte known as Torres. So I freed him. In his wisdom, he suggested that I take your form so we could get close to one of your loved ones. Torres will go far in the Order. I found your brother and asked him to follow me to the basement. Torres led him into the tunnels. They are gone now, surely reunited with the High Priest by now."

I stumbled back in shock. Mosh? Gone. I could envision this creature leading him away. Mosh would have trusted what he thought was me. He would never have even guessed. It had to be lying. Mosh had to still be upstairs. "You bastard. I don't believe you!"

"Believe it, hairless monkey. I'm sure he will be contacting you soon. I returned here to try and finish my assignment. I was to neutralize Harbinger. When I found that the High Priest had already dealt with him, I fled. That's when you caught me."

It was telling the truth. Mosh was gone. They'd taken my brother. Rage darkened my vision. My boot collided with the doppelganger's chest. It flew back, crashing violently into the floor. The creature emitted a high-pitched squeal. I kicked it again, shattering the back of the chair against the concrete. "Where?" I put the boot to it, stomping the monster over and over. It felt spongy, but something hard cracked on the inside. "Where's my brother?"

"Z!" Holly shouted. "Calm down. We don't know what kind of abuse this thing can take."

"Where's Hood?" The impact of my steel-toed boot slid the doppelganger across the floor. I kicked it again.

Holly grabbed one of the straps on my vest and tried in vain to pull me back. "Stop it!"

I paused, fists clenched tight, breathing hard, seeing red, stomping back and forth, hot air blowing through my nostrils. This thing had my brother.

Slumped on the floor, it laughed at us one final time. "Go suckle your warm-blooded young, filthy mammal," it hissed. "My work is done." It made a rattling noise and the protruding eyes flopped limp.

Unclenching my fists, I glanced at Holly. She looked back at me, shocked. "Did I kill it?" She shrugged. It was more like it had just given up the ghost after taunting me. "Oh crap… what do we do now?"

There was no time to contemplate that question. The door flew open with a bang. It was Sam Haven. Trip was right behind him. "We've got a problem," the burly Hunter said quickly. He didn't even seem to notice the doughy monster lying dead on the floor.

"Sorry, Sam, I think I killed it," I responded.

"No. Some of the cultists survived. They've regrouped the remaining undead."

But that didn't make any sense… with the ward in place they couldn't touch us.

Trip was panicked. "They're burning the orc village!"