A short story about Miss Hound, part of the UK's Etheric Control Service, who is not very fond of her job.
Etheric is a term used for ethereal beings - spirits, monsters, etc.
I hate my job.
My gun roars, kicking brutally against my shoulder. The malformed creature lunging for me was thrown back by the heavy slug, but is already rising to its feet by the time I rack another shell into the chamber.
I shoot it in the face, sending an explosion of greyish gore splattering over the graffiti’d walls of the car park. Pseudoblood splashed over the rough concrete of the floor. I hate doppelgangers. I hate the puppets they make even more. This one hadn't bothered to make its puppets realistic, and that meant they didn’t even have proper organs to damage. They were gristly lumps of walking semi-sentient muscles, and it’d clearly told them to kill all intruders.
Another pair of shots blast hefty holes in the legs of the doppelpuppet, and it collapses. It didn’t have lungs, but it still managed to growl, the sound oozing out the ruined mess of the head. I load some more shells into the shotgun and give the arms the same treatment. That done, I skirt past the creature – now flopping unthreateningly in a pool of psuedoblood.
The Doppelganger was nearby, I was sure. The puppet I’d just dealt with – until offensively orientated members of the team could kill it – was still raw. I could smell the scent of the etherics that animated it, a trail that led up through the stairwell. It’d been pulled out a reflection somewhere on the roof, maybe. The distinctive scent of a doppelganger wasn’t fresh enough in the stairwell for it to have left already, so it must still be on the roof.
I take out my radio as I start my ascent – three floors from this level to the roof.
“Where are you guys? The damn thing’s on the roof of the car park. I’m not fighting the thing by myself.”
The reply took a while to crackle through. I continue climbing up the stairs, keeping a careful eye out for doppelpuppets coming down. If I saw anyone, I was shooting them. If they were a person, I’d apologise later.
“We’re still hunting down the doppelpuppets it left in the shopping centre. You can deal with it. You have an etheric.”
“I’m not using the bloody etheric, Tsar. It’ll burn my nose out for a month.”
Tsar chuckles, a tinny echo. “Better than being eaten, Hound.”
Damn Tsar. Damn my power. Some people can see the lines of etheric force that flow through the world, an aura left behind by the creatures commonly termed ‘monsters’ or ‘demons’. I can smell them, and like pepperspraying a scent hound in the face, a strong burst of etherics could burn me out for a while. Even worse, the Etheric spirit that had bonded to me was strong. One hundred and twenty-fifth strongest etheric in service in the country, by reckoning, out of the three thousand or so various spirits and monsters “employed” by the Lincolnshire arm of the Etheric Control Service. Why had it chosen me?
The damn thing had a cruel sense of humour. Spirits were finicky things at the best of times. It was currently sealed in a container it had wrapped an illusion around to appear like a can of air freshener.
I hated that bloody spirit.
I hear footsteps above. Something looking human comes down the stairs and halts at the sight of the gun. The young man starts to raise his hands.
“What-“, the apparent young man starts before the boom sends him tumbling on his back, gurgling. I put another one into the body before I step closer and breathe in. The ammonia-scent of etherics. A puppet. I feel slightly relieved I hadn’t just killed an innocent person. It would have been too risky to check with the thing still alive, though.
I inspect the false human for a second. Must have taken a while for the Doppelganger to produce this one. The more detailed, the longer it took. Unruly brown hair. The eyes had heterochromia when I peeled them open. A common sign. Doppelgangers rarely got everything quite right.
I continue upwards, grimly reloading. Finally, the door to the roof. I boot it open. Three things strike me. Two are visual – the mangled corpse lying in a crimson puddle, and the pair of young women sitting on a blanket, apparently having a tea party. One looks sick with fear – that’s the “Precious person”. The other looks perfectly composed, smiling as she sips tea. That would, then, be the Doppelganger herself.
The third thing is the stink of etherics, cutting through the aromas of blood and shit from ruptured bowels. I’m already swinging my gun towards the Doppel when a representation of a hand seizes the barrel and wrenches it out my grip. I dive forward, hearing the heavy thud of a primitive puppet land behind me, and yank my pistol from its holster. I twist on the roof, ignoring the rough scrapes on my bare arms. The puppet takes two rounds to the centre mass before it slaps it out my hand.
“Oh, a guest? Do bring her over here, dear.”
The voice is melodious, almost sung. I’m ignobly picked up by neck and dragged over to the tea party. The terrified woman and Doppelganger both are young women, blonde and slender, identical to the tiny scar on the left of their forehead. Compared to my own angular features, she – they - were beautiful. She was certainly more beautiful than I was going to be in a minute. Fuck.
I got disarmed like a chump. I was going to have to let the etheric deal with matters. Slowly, my left hand edges towards the canister in my pocket. I look around as the Doppelganger stares into my face, smiling slightly. I catch a glimpse of another two primitive puppets and a singular more developed once before the Doppel places a finger on my chin and moves my head to look at her. I meet her eyes. They sparkle with life and happiness. For a moment there’s silence, only the sound of distant traffic, gunshots from the shopping centre, and the whistle of the wind. It’s cold, and I shiver from either cold or fear.
“You’re an unhappy looking one, aren’t you? Like a dog chewing a wasp.” It giggled. She gently but firmly takes my hand away from my pocket. “None of that, dear,” she said, and breaks my wrist with an elegant motion.
I scream before I bite it off, catching my cheek. Blood, heavy and copper, fills my mouth and I splutter and choke, coughing red onto the immaculate cheek of the Doppelganger.
“Ah,” she says, her tone level. “Ah, ah, ah.”
Without warning I’m the air, crashing against the railings bordering the rooftop. The iron bars slam against my back, and slump to the gritty floor as I awkwardly reach across with my right hand. I had caught my left wrist against the floor and it sings a discordant note of agony.
“Fuck!” I howl and press the button on the canister.
Everything goes white. My nose ignites with agony, overwhelmed. Impossible cold bites deep into my limbs. By the time I can unscrew my eyes from the pain, the snow has settled, a fourteen foot circle. The puddles nearby are frozen over where they intersect with the neat circle. In front of me stands the spirit. My fingers and toes feel frostbitten.
I say her name, and the chill of the word numbs my tongue.
“Darling,” frost crackles in my ear. “They hurt you.”
The Doppel has paused near one of the puddles, holding a hand above the surface. The puppets it created prowl closer as I take in the sight of my “wife”, as she’s fond of calling herself.
The spirit is a swirling humanoid figure, composed of snowflakes blown frantically around in human shape, a snowstorm contained in a humanoid glass figurine. Her limbs taper to points, ending an inch or so above the ground in the case of her legs. A glass sphere the size of a marble rests where her heart would be, if she was human. Her core.
“Fuck you,” I gasp. “You hurt me. Just fuck them up and go away.”
“Of course, Darling...” ████ says.
The spirit flickers, hoar frost rushing along the ground towards the doppelganger with the sound of tinkling glass. The doppel laughs and springs aside as jagged spears of ice burst from the concrete. It’s puppet isn’t so lucky, and a dozen lances impale it before it melts into foul black sludge. With inhuman agility, the doppel slips into a puddle and springs between reflections, emerging behind my “wife.”
The doppel lunges for the core, only to be foiled by a shield of ice crackling into being. She wretches her hand away before the ice can catch her, leaving patches of skin stuck to the ice. ████ began to freeze the puddles, making the surfaces rough and non-reflective, narrowing down where the doppel could emerge from, fending off her attacks with frozen shields. Behind the combatants, I notice the doppel’s woman pulling out something the blanket had covered. I see my pistol nearby and dive for it.
A mirror.
The doppel bursts from the mirror, lunging towards the core, the ice shield forming too slowly. My pistol shot thuds wetly into the doppel’s shoulder, and the deadly hand is thrown off. A ice lance thunks through the doppel’s chest, and she drops to her knees.
“Oh, damnation. Well done.” She says and dies, her body twitching as it dissolves into the black slime.
I flop unceremoniously onto my back and radio Tsar.
“Tsar, you bastard. Doppel’s dead. Host alive. My arm’s broken and I had to use ████. You owe me a goddamn drink.”
The radio crackled with Tsar’s chuckle. “Good work, Hound. Team on their way.”
The clouds have dispersed a little. It’s almost warm enough to counter the chill of the spirit’s presence. “Hey, wifey. If the lady tries anything, give her frostbite. Enough to lose a few toes, maybe.”
“Of course, my love.”
I stare into the sky and wait for the team to arrive.
I hate my job.
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