Building up to Christmas with Dusty the Demon Hunter - A Blast from the Past - Doppelgänger - Part 3

This is Dusty's 4th adventure.

I remember stories of Doppelgängers from when I was at school and they captured my imagination - much like the fairies and their changelings did.

I wrote this story with the more sinister aspects of the creatures in mind.

Part 1
Part 2

Pictures from Google free to use search

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Doppelgänger

Dusty went into the living room with a cup of tea for Hunter. She placed it on the floor at the side of the sofa and then tended to the fire. She didn’t make much noise, but it was enough to disturb Hunter’s already broken sleep, and he woke up, bleary eyed and fuzzy headed.

“Morning, did you sleep well?” Dusty asked.

She had turned to look at him as he stretched and sat up on the sofa. The quilt was bundled around him and he looked snugly. She smiled as he rubbed his eye with the heel of one hand and stretched the other hand above his head as though he was a child desperate to ask a question in class.

When he had finished stretching, Hunter grimaced as he thought on how to answer Dusty’s question.

“No, not really, I had weird dreams. I dreamed that someone was watching me but I couldn’t see who it was because they were standing with the bright sunlight - or it could have been moonlight - right behind them. I thought it was you at one point, come downstairs to sneak in with me.” Hunter smiled at her and Dusty’s heart leapt.

She stood up with the ash bucket and went across to him. She put the bucket on the floor and leaned forward with her hands behind her back.

Just as she got almost close enough to him for him to grab her and kiss her, she held out her filthy, ash grimy hands and threatened to smear his face with the dust and ash from the fire. She giggled as he lurched back out of the reach of her hands, so she took the bucket out and went to get cleaned up.

Hunter drank his tea, then went to take a shower.

He felt better for it and was wide awake when he went into the kitchen for breakfast.

Hunter loved breakfast at Dusty’s house. Her grandmother always made a fuss when he stayed and she always made far too much food, but he tried his best to eat as much as he could.

“I swear you’ve got hollow legs, young man,” she said, piling more bacon on to his plate.

Hunter smiled up at her and nodded.

Dusty’s appetite didn’t match Hunter’s for once. She didn’t have seconds, and her grandmother seemed a little concerned.

“Aren’t you well, dear? You’ve hardly eaten anything this morning.”

“I’m ok, gran, I’m just a little tired, that’s all. I don’t seem to have had a good night’s sleep either,” she said.

After breakfast Dusty and Hunter went out to practice with the Unicorn ropes and Dusty’s sword. She allowed Hunter to try it for weight and balance and he said he liked the feel of it, but he couldn’t get to grips with it somehow.

Dusty smiled, she knew the reason for that. The sword was a special gift from a very special friend and it had tailored itself to Dusty and her way of handling the weapon.

The sword didn’t glint with the blue light in practice, but she knew that if she needed it, the light would gleam along its edge and she would be all but invincible – or at least feel as though she was.

Dusty forgot her fatigue as she practiced and concentrated.

The air sang with each pass of the sword’s blade and it made her smile as she gritted her teeth in determination. If she lost concentration at the speed and resolution that she was swinging her sword with, she could do someone – probably herself – some damage.

She slowed her swings down as she ended her practice and as she whirled around, something caught her eye at the tree-line, just before the trees began to become more dense.

Dusty spotted something in the snow. She frowned and stopped swinging the sword.

She pointed to the footprints and then followed them backwards toward the house.

“That could be the reason that you felt like there was someone watching you last night,” she said to Hunter and he looked to where she was pointing.

He saw the tracks and the place where someone had stood at the window to peer into the living room. Then he followed the footprints as they moved away from the house. They went towards the woods, and the two half demons followed them.

To their astonishment, the tracks disappeared as though the person who had made them had been lifted out of the snow.

“Where did they go?” Dusty asked.

Hunter shrugged, but he also shuddered as he imagined someone watching him during the night.

“I don’t know, that’s really odd,” he said.

His mouth was turned down at the corners as though there was a horrible smell under his nose, Dusty hadn’t realised how much the lack of sleep had affected him – or how much the idea of someone watching him while he slept had freaked him out.

Over the next few days, a pattern began to emerge. If Hunter stayed over at Dusty’s house, his sleep was disturbed and fitful, as was Dusty’s, but if he stayed at his own house, his sleep was undisturbed and he stayed asleep longer too. He didn’t wake at daybreak as he did at Dusty’s house.

The same could almost be said of Dusty.

If Hunter didn’t stay over, then she needed someone to wake her in the morning because she would sleep until noon, and beyond if she was left. That point was proven when her grandparents went out for the day.

They came home to find that Dusty had been up and about for less than two hours, and it was growing dark.

Her eyes had dark circles around them and she was still falling asleep at the table.

She had a bad headache which her grandmother attributed to too much sleep, and at ten o’clock, Dusty was ready for bed again. That day, Hunter had not been around, even though he had promised to call.

Dusty said that she’d speak with him the following morning.