Jonas nodded. “I’m taking my kids to the movies. She’s welcome to tag along and stay the night at our place if you need more time.” Though his posh voice betrayed worry, his kind, helpful energy assured her he was good people.
“Perfect.” Helen blew out a big breath.
“No, not perfect. I demand answers. Where’s Brian? You’re mixed up in that cult, aren’t you? Friends with Joe?” Under a tight white T-shirt, Jonnie’s chest rose and fell in confrontational swells.
“You know Joe?” Thom scowled at Helen.
“Just hang tight, okay? I’ll explain soon, I swear.”
Tilly joined the fray, wearing baggy sweatpants and munching potato chips from a can.
A middle-aged woman trotted behind her, huffing while schlepping a pile of textbooks.
Alongside the lady walked a tank in camouflage khakis with a gun holstered to the belt.
“What’s all this drama? This is my tutor, Karen, and my bodyguard, Brutus, by the way.”
Karen smiled thinly and adjusted the stack in her short arms.
Brutus grunted.
“Nice to meet you, Karen. Class is dismissed for the day. Tilly, go with Jonas. He’s in charge. Brutus, stick close and don’t let her out of your sight.”
“You are not the boss of me.” The teen spoke in a slow, deliberate tone. She probably imagined dropping a microphone.
Helen got in the girl’s face. “If you want to stay alive, then yes, yes I am.”
“Sounds like a threat,” Jonnie said.
Helen whipped her head in his direction. “I sympathize with your reservations, but I need you to back off. I won’t hurt anyone, but unless I can do my thing, we’re all in grave danger. Do I make myself clear?”
The bandmates exchanged looks of surprise.
Karen cringed.
Brutus issued a grunt lower in pitch than his earlier vocalization. Helen interpreted the noise as an affirmation.
Tilly rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Jonas elbowed Jonnie.
“Yes. Fine,” Jonnie said.
“Good. See you all soon, and I promise I’ll have things to say in defense of myself.” Helen’s heartbeat kicked in to a higher gear. She had her grimoire, various magical accessories on hand, and no time to lose.
Everyone left, with Tilly whining about how the various activities that Jonas proposed were “baby stuff.”
Helen unleashed a gust of relief, arms and legs loosening as cars started and drove off.
The minute engine sounds trailed into silence, she dashed up the staircase, dumped bags of arcane wares onto the floor of Brian’s bedroom, and cracked her magic book.
No point in panicking. No time to check in with Nerissa either, unfortunately. The clone was perpetrating something awful, and Helen best act with decisiveness and resolve if she wanted to even bother to hope for a fleeting chance at stopping the double’s sinister machinations.
“Okay, okay.” Her pulse rate went ape, urgency fueling her as she zipped through pages.
Acting on a combination of hunch and limited experience, she opened to the section of the book she’d landed on prior to undertaking previous trips down the astral highway. One part of the book applied to her and her unique powers, no doubt about it.
Drums thumping in her ears, Helen raked through crinkling pages until one commanded her attention. Her world collapsed to script and drawings. Into solutions.
Doppelgangers often arise when inexperienced practitioners fail in their efforts to execute psyche splitting spells.
Helen scraped a thumbnail bare, tightness cinching her midsection. On the charge of failing to execute a psyche splitting spell due to lack of experience, the defendant had been found guilty. She kicked guilt to the curb and read on. This moment was about solving a problem, not wallowing in its effects.
These inter-dimensional travelers are extraordinarily difficult to manage and overcome, as they are cunning, intelligent, and adaptable. Frequently working in service of more powerful evil energies, doppelgangers, like their masters, seek permanent residence and power on our material plane. Every human life they extinguish serves this end.
Shit.
To rid oneself of a malignant clone, practitioner must travel to and confront it, force it onto the astral highway, and seal the gap between worlds that allowed it to pass through. Using the graph below, design a circle mapping your personal element against its opposite and recite the incantation at the bottom of the page.
Helen glanced below the text. Sure enough, a detailed graphic cluttered with symbols, text, and six interlocking circles. She found her opposition element and pointed a hard gaze past the sliding doors. The blue-tinted water of Brian’s infinity pool undulated with tiny waves.
Game on, baby.
Black chalk scraped across Brian’s terra cotta deck tile as Helen drew the sixth circle, making a chain link of interlocking hoops. Why six, when there were only four elements plus the fifth for spirit? Now, though, was not the time to contemplate esoteric questions.
She popped a tiny glass jar’s cork and sprinkled salt water in one circle to represent the element water. Next came the salt jar. Helen opened it and emptied white grains in circle two, representing Earth. She lit Frankincense, jammed the stick it in a wad of clay, and set it in circle three. Cool winds carried away filmy grey smoke. Air.
Shielding a teardrop flame from breezes, she placed a candle in the middle of the fire circle. Into the spirit circle went her personal talisman, a shimmery sapphire stone bursting with iridescence.
This part of her circle construction, use of the stone symbolizing the next highest chakra in the line, was improvising. But hey, Helen had been flying by the seat of her pants since the start. And calling upon the power of the chakra representing voice seemed like an apt strategy when she had to tell a doppelganger, in no uncertain terms, to fuck off into the sun.
She stood, backed up, and eyed her handiwork. Even in dusky twilight, the blue stone glimmered like a Christmas bulb. The pool loomed large, its design creating the illusion of a sheet of water stretching to the horizon.
Helen undressed, the cool of dusk clipping her bare skin. Before she could second-guess herself, she walked to the water’s edge and, as per the spell’s instruction, slid into
