The Pretender (The Soren Chase Series Book 2) (20 page)

“Modest, too,” Soren said. He wondered if the real Helen had been a particularly arrogant person. Could that be why she was quite so haughty?

“And when you get the heilwhatsit—the talisman—what happens?”

“Think of it as a key,” Friday replied. “Once you have the heiligtum, you can access their memories and take their form.”

Soren tried to process that. In a way, she was talking about an incredibly surreal scavenger hunt. He had a thousand questions, and he couldn’t decide which one to ask next. He started to wonder about Helen’s reaction when she woke up.

“Even if the real Helen didn’t know what was happening, that doesn’t explain why she didn’t recognize . . . um, herself,” he pointed out.

Friday shrugged again. “It’s like they’re on Valium, I suppose. Sometimes they even know we’re them, but they don’t really care. In case you’re wondering, that would be the moment to kill them.”

“I kinda figured that one out on my own,” Soren said.

“See, you’re learning. If you’re going to kill an aussenseiter, just make sure you do it
after
you’ve found the heiligtum,
and the transference has taken place. Never attack a target if the person is dying.”

“Why?”

“Because dying overloads the system,” Friday said. “It’s overwhelming, and it usually convinces the doppelgänger he or she is dying, too.”

“It kills us,” Soren said. “That’s what you’re saying.”

She smirked a little. “Maybe,” she said. “Just be careful. If someone is dying, they’re off limits. Got it?”

Soren nodded. He finally found a way to kill a pretender, but it wasn’t a route he could take. He’d have to kill another person in the process.

“Good,” she replied, and looked out of the alleyway across the street. “Because I’ve already picked out the next target.”

“You’re going to change again?” Soren asked.

Friday shook her head and smiled.

“No,” she said. “You are.”

Ken pulled his gun out and took a position by Wallace’s office door as there was another crash from outside. Ken peered out quickly.

“I’ve got a visual on four hostiles,” he said. “Might be more I don’t see.”

Ken ducked back in and picked up the radio that hung at his belt, calling the police. There was a scream from the lobby. Wallace yanked open a desk drawer and pulled out two handguns.

“I’ve only got one extra,” Wallace said. “Which one of you has used a gun before?”

Sara, Alice, and Glen looked at one another. Only Sara raised her hand. Wallace held out the gun to her and she took it uncertainly, trying to remember what her father and Ken had taught her about handling one. She located the safety and switched it off.

“That’s a new Smith and Wesson,” Wallace said. “It has eight shots. Make ‘em count.” He looked at Ken. “Did you see what they were?”

Before Ken could answer, a wave of thick, gray fog rolled into the office. It moved like something living, seeping into the office and blanketing it. It felt cold and clammy against Sara’s skin.

Ken ducked his head out again, but was back a second later.

“I can’t see a goddamn thing,” he said. “The fog is everywhere.”

It was so thick Sara could barely make out the others in the office with her. She heard several more screams from the hallway.

“Is this Rakev?” Ken asked. “You just said he was a man made of smoke.”

“Let’s hope not,” Glen said. “If it is, we’re fucking toast.”

“Way to think positive,” Alice said.

“How long until the police get here?” Sara asked.

“Five minutes, maybe less,” Ken replied.

There was another scream, this time much closer to them.

“We’re all going to be dead by then,” Glen said.

“You’re not helping,” Alice said.

“And meanwhile, my people are sitting ducks,” Wallace said.

He stood up and walked toward her. Sara saw the distress on his face. He was a big man, a tad overweight and out of shape, but he still cut an imposing figure. He held the gun with a practiced air, and moved to the office door. Ken grabbed his arm.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

“I’m going out there to protect my people,” Wallace said. “They’re not facing these things while I cower in here.”

Ken gave Sara an agonized look.

“Go,” she said. “We’ll stay here and wait for reinforcements.”

Ken nodded once and turned to Sara.

“Shut this door when we go out,” he said. “Put that sofa in front of it. Don’t open it even if you hear my voice. There could be a pretender out there. Wait until you’re sure the police are here.”

Ken walked out the office door, and the fog appeared to swallow him whole. She watched as Wallace disappeared after him.

Glen jumped up and slammed the door behind them. He grabbed the couch and started pulling it in front of the door. Sara felt like a coward. She held the gun in front of her and waited. There were more screams—and then several gunshots. Silence reigned afterward, and Sara heard nothing more.

“Ken?” she called, finally risking saying something. “Are you okay?”

But there was no answer. There was no more screaming, either, and Sara tried to calculate how many of Wallace’s people were still here. A dozen maybe. How many of those were now dead?

The silence was abruptly broken by a crash against the door. Both Glen and Alice visibly flinched. There was a pause, and then another crash. The wood on the door splintered inward, and all three of them shrank back as a face appeared. It was vaguely orange, and looked like an oddly shaped paper bag with two black eyeholes punched into it.

Still, Sara raised her gun and fired once at it—only to see it disappear before the shot connected.

“That was a shirken,” Glen said. “Nasty fuckers. Whatever you do, don’t let them touch you. Like, at all.”

“How do you kill them?” Alice asked.

“Holy water,” Glen said. “No, wait, that’s not right. They have a weakness, just give me a second.”

Sara kept the gun pointed at the door, which now sported a sizable hole midway up it. She tried to keep her arm steady, but it kept shaking. She waited for the creature to reappear. Instead, there was another loud crash as something collided with the lower part of the door. The blow bent the whole bottom half inward.

“We don’t have a second!” Alice screamed.

A moment later, there was another crash, and this time the door shattered. Sara could barely see the blur coming toward her, but she fired three times before something rammed into her, driving her back against the wall. It hit her hard, knocking the gun from her grasp. She was dazed, and slumped to the ground.

The monster that hit her wasn’t the same thing Sara had glimpsed through the door. This looked like a man, but taller and with a gray complexion. She recognized it as the stoneskin that had taken Alex at the school.

It only briefly looked at her, and turned its attention to Glen and Alice. Glen tried to punch it, but the stoneskin swatted him away, sending him reeling into Wallace’s desk. Alice tried to scramble around the stoneskin, as if to flee through the door, but the creature caught her with one hand and lifted her into the air by the throat. Alice kicked at it, and though the blows connected, the creature didn’t react to them.

Sara was still woozy, but she felt around on the floor for the gun, finding it a few feet away. She picked it up, aimed, and squeezed off two more rounds, praying she didn’t hit Alice instead of the stoneskin. The shots slammed into the stoneskin’s torso, but it just tossed Alice to the ground like a rag doll and turned toward Sara.

She fired again as the stoneskin stalked toward her. It grabbed her with both arms, and threw her out the ruined office doorway.

Sara’s head hit the floor so forcefully she almost passed out. She lay there for a moment, the world spinning around her, waiting for it to right itself or another monster to attack. But nothing happened.

When the spinning stopped, she sat up slowly and tried to get her bearings. The fog was even thicker out here. The office she knew had effectively vanished into gray nothingness.

There were no noises anymore, either. Sara tried to call out, but couldn’t even hear her own voice. She took a large breath and yelled, but there was no sound. The fog wasn’t just making it harder to see, it was swallowing up all noise.

She scrambled to get up, but felt a jolt of pain through her left leg as she stood. She must have been only a few feet away from Wallace’s office, but she couldn’t see it. She started limping back in what she hoped was the right direction. The gun was still in her hand, but if she couldn’t see, she couldn’t shoot. Sara stuck out her free hand and tried to feel around for the walls.

Sara’s groping hand finally touched a wall. She moved left and then right, searching for a door and ignoring the pain in her leg. But it wasn’t a doorway, and she paused, not knowing which way to go next. She had to face up to the idea that she was lost. If someone had suggested ten minutes ago that could happen in a space like this, she would have laughed out loud.

Cautiously, keeping her back to the wall, she began edging around the room, hopeful she could find some kind of landmark—a door handle, a window, anything—that would allow her to figure out where she was. She kept the gun in front of her, trying to remember how many bullets she had fired and how many shots were left.

Without warning, a person emerged in the fog in front of her, his figure only visible when he was a few feet away. It wasn’t a man, but the shirken she’d glimpsed earlier through the door. In the mist, it looked even creepier. It looked sort of like a man wearing a dark-orange hoodie, except the clothing was somehow part of his face. Its two beady, black eyes stared out at her. She could see its skin moving, appearing like insects were crawling beneath it.

Sara fired the gun, pulling the trigger over and over again until it was empty. The monster looked down at the weapon and then back up at her, its black eyes watching her intently.

The shirken suddenly reached out and grabbed Sara as she screamed soundlessly.

Soren took a large breath, and thought about the horror of what he was going to do. There was no fooling himself he wasn’t really a monster after this. No pretending he was just Soren Chase.

Friday pointed to the group of four twentysomethings walking down the street: two guys and two girls.

“There,” she said, extending a long index finger.

“I hope you mean one of the guys,” Soren replied. “Because I don’t really want to be a woman.”

“Switching genders is sometimes required, I’m afraid,” Friday replied, sounding like a high school teacher. “But yes, I meant one of the men.”

They began walking down the street after the group. As they did, Soren held up his right hand and looked at it. It appeared just like a normal hand.

“And I just, what, ram this into the back of his neck?” Soren asked. “And then what?”

“Instinct will take over,” Friday said. “The process will start. You’ll find yourself in his mind and know what to do.”

“I hope you’re right,” Soren said doubtfully. “After I take his identity, can I go back to being Soren again?”

Friday gave him a curious look.

“Do you want to?” she asked.

“It doesn’t really matter,” he said, trying to sound like he believed it. “Can I, or not?”

“No,” she said. “We can’t cycle identities. The process is too intimate for such a thing. I can no longer become Sharon, for example. If I approached her directly again it might be possible, but I can’t think of the last time one of us tried that. In your case, Soren Chase is dead, so there’s no one to test that on. If you go through with this, there’s no going back.”

Soren closed his eyes, and the image of Alex and his mother swam into view. It was possible he could use what he’d learned already to save Alex. As much as that thought appealed to him, however, the time for half measures was over. If he was going to be a pretender, then he had to truly be one.

“And if I lose Soren, will I . . . be splintered anymore?” he asked. “Will I remember who I was before?”

Friday frowned.

“I have no idea,” she said. “I’ve never taken a new identity when splintered. I just regained my memories over time. I’m not sure taking a new identity as a cure has been tried before. For your sake, I hope it does jog your memory loose. Soren Chase is unpopular within our community, for the very obvious reason that you keep trying to kill our kind.”

The thought of becoming Falk again terrified him. He dreaded to think what damage Falk could do if he was unleashed. On the other hand, what more evil could he do? If Soren couldn’t save Alex, then Sara’s life would effectively be over.

“Will I still remember why I’m doing this?” Soren asked. “This will all be for nothing if I decide to run off and take over the president or something.”

Friday nodded.

“That’s why I’m here,” she said. “We have a bargain, remember? No matter who you become, I’ll keep you on target. I’m actually quite good at that. I keep the paper running, you know. Without me, the whole place would fall apart.”

The foursome they were following stopped outside a restaurant near the center of Leesburg, laughing and talking as they looked at the menu. After a moment, they went inside.

“So how am I going to do this?” Soren asked. “I can’t just pretend to be his waiter and stick my hand in his neck.”

Friday walked briskly ahead and stopped outside the restaurant.

“There’s usually a bathroom near the back,” she said. “If one of the men goes inside, follow him in and make it happen.”

“And what happens if they don’t go to the bathroom? Or if some other dude is in the restroom at the same time?”

“Then we wait until we find another target,” Friday said crisply. “We have all night.”

“What do I do if I become him? Leave?”

“No. I’d like you to try to impersonate him for real. This is your key test. His friends must believe you’re him. They can’t see anything wrong.”

“Why? Why can’t I just become him and see what that’s like?” he asked.

“Because this is about mastering his emotions,” she said. “And standing in a bathroom will be too easy. Knock the target out when you’re finished and leave him propped in the stall. Then go back to your table and finish the meal. Understand?”