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“Fine,” she grumbled, flexing her fingers in front of her. She angled herself away from me and muttered,“Porte à la maison.”
Purple energy crackled around her fingers and a crack of lightning split through the air in front of her. The crack grew into a door, and she gestured for us to walk through.
“You first,” I said.
Ingrid shook her head. “I’m not strong enough to hold the portal from the other side. If I go through before you, it will vanish.”
“Fine.” I shrugged and walked forward through the door. Jackson called after me, but it was too late. The moment I crossed the threshold of Ingrid’s magic, I stumbled. Energy pulsed through my skull, and I fell through the portal onto the sidewalk outside Ingrid’s shop.
Jackson came through after me and immediately knelt at my side. “Rebekah, are you okay?”
“I don’t know what happened? I was fine and then…”
A dark shadow appeared in the door behind him, but it was too large to be Ingrid. Pressing my back against the brick storefront, I threw my hands out, casting a shield between us and the stranger. I was certain it would hold back anything Ingrid could throw at us, but when Viktor Devereaux stepped through, I knew it wouldn’t be strong enough.
“Jackson, run,” I gasped.
My uncle looked exactly as he had the day he died. His long white hair, however, was pulled back into a ponytail, and his black duster was immaculate, not a speck of dirt or blood on it.
Jackson turned and used his body to shield me physically. “Viktor? How are you here? You’re supposed to be dead.”
Viktor smiled. “Hello, Wolf, and Rebekah, of course. Hello, darling.”
My shield flickered between us. It was already starting to fade and crack under the weight of the black energy inside Viktor’s body. But my uncle’s power had never been black, and his eyes were just as blue as I remembered them.
The lightbulb went on over my head. “You’re not Viktor, and you were never Ingrid. Where is she? What did you do to her?”
“Turn and look.” The doppelganger smiled, gesturing limply at the window behind me.
Careful to keep hold of the shield, I slowly eased myself up the wall, using the window ledge for leverage. Jackson followed me to my feet, but his eyes were locked on the enemy in front of us. I turned slowly, grabbing the back of Jackson’s jacket with my free hand and pivoted us around so I could keep the shield up, and see inside Ingrid’s shop.
The neon sign she kept in the window was off, and the curtains pulled aside, but all I could make out in the dark was an amorphous blur sitting in the center of her waiting room.
“Oh, wait. Let me get the lights,” the doppelganger chuckled, snapping his fingers.
The sound reverberated through the air, and two dozen candles lit at once on the floor of the shop, surrounding Ingrid’s feet. She was tied to a chair, her head hanging limp against her chest.
My magic flared with my anger. Dancing in a disjointed fit of blue light flickering around the edges of the shield. “What did you do to her?”
“Nothing much. Not yet.” The doppelganger said again, and the fire leapt from about a hundred candles coating the floor. The flames licked against Ingrid’s skin and her head snapped up. Her screams were muffled by the rag in her mouth, but her terror was plain as day.
“Stop it! It’s me you’re after. Let her go!” I shouted, dropping the shield to step around Jackson. The shift in my weight sent my head reeling. My knees wobbled and then collapsed.
“Rebekah!” Jackson’s arms shot out, and he caught me before I could hit the ground.
“What the hell? What did you do…to…me?” I slurred.
The doppelganger laughed. “Didn’t you feel it? My magic latched onto your skin the moment you passed through the portal.”
In the circle of Jackson’s arms, I tried to shake the haze from my mind. “You…you poisoned me with a spell?”
“Oldest trap in the book,” the doppelganger said. “I would have thought the real Viktor taught you better than to fall for something so simple.”
“You son of a bitch.” Jackson shifted me to the ground, his chest radiating an unnatural heat.
“Down, boy. Behave and this will all be over—”
Before the doppelganger could finish his sentence, Jackson’s shoulders slammed into his gut and they went careening into the empty street.
