“Where are we going?” you ask, looking at not-Niamh. Her eyes are focused on the road ahead, not paying you too much attention. Or maybe she just wants to make you think that; your paranoia is reaching new levels just being in the car with her. Your heart thuds, your pulse buzzes and some invisible spider-sense just screams at you to escape as quickly as you can.
“My house,” not-Niamh says. “Unless you can think of somewhere better?”
“Shelly’s mom’s workshop,” you say. “Where this all began.” You take a breath an look at your phone. The lock screen is little more than a flurry of messages from Cassie, wondering what the hell happened, if she did something wrong, if you’d just tell her then she can undo whatever the problem was. It seems genuine from what you know of her, but then if someone was wearing a mask they could easily copy Cassie’s thoughts and feelings, as well as their face. There’s no one you can trust except…
You message the Shelly golem to meet you in the shed. It might have been under Niamh’s control, but at least you’re confident it was the real Niamh; the message the golem gave you and its general hesitation suggests as much. That means whatever happened to Niamh – the real one – happened in Cambridge.
Meet ur mom’s garage. IT’S NOT NIAMH. You tap out the message and send it.
“Who are you calling?” your driver asks. You thrust the phone back into your pocket.
“Cassie,” you lie. “I don’t know if she’s in on this or not, but she just sent me more messages than I can count. I thought I’d try and–”
“Will,” not-Niamh interrupts, “whatever we’re dealing with, if Cassie’s in on it anything you say to her could be a problem. You need to go radio silent, OK? Until we sort this out. Together.” She gives you Niamh’s radiant, rosy smile. It’s meant to be reassuring. It’s anything but.
***
“Hey, Will, and, uh, Niamh! Whaaaat a surprise!” Shelly meets you as you pull up, her terrible acting in evidence. “I was just taking the garbage out. How are you?”
You wince visibly, hoping the Niamh-poster doesn’t notice. If she does, she’s too good an actress. “Hey, Shelly. Will and I are just going to work on some stuff in your mom’s garage, OK? Y’know. Secret stuff.”
Shelly gives her largest, most unconvincing nod. “Oh, yeah. Secret. Stuff. Uh, but you need me for that, right? With the cameras and everything? After the break-in. Yup.” She bounds off ahead of you, while you look at fake Niamh and give her your most uncertain shrug.
“She’s not normally like this,” Niamh says, still trying to stay in character, you assume to stoke your paranoia. You nod. And that gives you all the space you need to make your move.
“Want to take off the mask of her?”
The fake Niamh looks at you, and grinds her teeth a moment in thought. Then she nods. “Yeah,” she says. “Let’s do that.”
You fall in to step behind her. You’re not entirely sure what you’re going to do, but the first step is to remove the mask she’s wearing. You’ve thought about just running home, but both the fake Niamh and the others seem to know you’re involved, and that means they can track you down. Your perpetually broke ass means you don’t have enough for a motel room, and you don’t have access to any masks. Your only hope is to find out who not-Niamh is, work against her, and ally with the Shelly golem.
At least, that’s your dumb plan. You wait for her to step inside the room. The Shelly golem isn’t going to be much help here, you figure, but it’s clearly primed for whatever action you take. So, as not-Niamh turns to speak to you, you do the obvious: recite the magic words to remove the mask, and grasp her head.
Hnnnggghhhhh… You strain at her forehead, fingers in the right place, but nothing seems to happen, just flesh slipping against flesh. You stagger back, knuckles white, as she looks at you.
But it’s not a look of surprise, or as if she’s been offended. It’s a look of pure, malicious pleasure. A look that doesn’t break as your chest erupts into a broad, burning thud of agony that reverberates through your heart and makes your ribs feel like they’re about to cave in. It takes you a half-second to process just how quickly – and how hard – not-Niamh has hit you. A half-second during which you’re already flying back into the door.
“Well, that wasn’t very nice, was it?” Niamh says mockingly, even as you hear a desperate scream of rage from somewhere behind her. You look up fast enough to see a barrel of energy and straight red hair fly furiously toward the Niamhleganger, only for her to almost casually step aside and slam Shelly’s head into a workbench. The golem reels, staggers, but somehow remains conscious.
“Get away from him!” It screams, throwing punch after feeble punch that the Niamh duplicate blocks with her elbows, stepping back and laughing in almost amusement.
“Tough little bitch, aren’t you?” she says.
“Stop using her face!”
Shelly’s onslaught continues, but with a sweep of the leg Niamh has her on the floor. “Gonna stay down? Oooh, nope, guess you’re not.” As the golem rises, Niamh grabs her and practically throws her across the room. You don’t know what she lands on, but there’s a sickening sound. For a moment, as you desperately scramble to your feet, your heartbeat pounds in your ear and courage seems to vanish as you wonder if she’s killed Shelly. Certainly the expression on the golem’s face seems shocked.
But then the mask slides off, falling idly to the floor as the creature’s body reverts to stone. And, with the inevitability of gravity, it topples and lands face down on the ground.
What the actual fuck? You pause, looking in shock at the creature collapsed on the floor. The imposter pauses too, surprise writ large on her stolen face.
The supposed Niamh blinks. “Well, that was… unexpected.” Then she turns and looks directly at you. “Round two?” She sighs, and gives an almost indifferent shrug.
“Fuck you, whoever the fuck you are!”
“I’m Niamh,” she says, almost mockingly as she sidesteps your clumsy attempt at a punch, drives a knee into your nuts and grabs you by the throat. “Or I could have been,” Niamh smirks at you, even as the pressure from her fingers squeezes your neck and makes black and blue spots crowd your vision and her words are forced out through gritted teeth. “Seriously, Will. You have any idea what a loser you are? We could have done this the fun way. All I wanted was this stupid book of yours. For that, I’d have fucked your brains out as cutey-pie here. I’d have given you an experience that would have rocked your world. And, instead… well. I guess you’re going to end up the same as lil’ Niamh, aren’t you?”
She pushes her lips against yours for the briefest of moments, then loosens her grip and you drop to the floor, throat a death rattle of gasps for breath as you roll helplessly into a ball, slurping up oxygen. From somewhere above, Niamh has pulled out a phone. The words are terrifying in their simplicity.
“This is Knotts. Skin’s compromised, moving to Plan B. I need a clean-up crew, asap.” She pauses and looks down at you on the floor. “Will and I are going to have a talk. And I think it’s going to get messy.”
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