Eileen Wilks - Death Magic

“So dopplegängers have been created before?” Lily said. “Copies of humans, that is, not bumblebees.”

“Cullen mentioned the bumblebee.” Father Michaels glanced at Cullen, a small smile briefly lightening his expression. “The Church has encouraged the idea that dopplegängers are a pipe dream, but yes, they are possible. Until shortly before the Purge, they were not considered a grave threat to anything but the souls of their makers. They lacked sufficient duration to be a real problem. But in the seventeenth century, someone discovered how to make a new type of dopplegänger that lasted much longer. Some accounts claim . . . but I’m getting ahead of myself. This new type of dopplegänger was created using death magic, just as you believe yours are. The Church called them nex in vita .”

“Death-in-life,” Rule murmured.

Father Michael’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Yes, exactly. They were different from previous dopplegängers in significant ways. For one thing, they were unsouled.”

Lily frowned. “Like demons?”

Cullen snorted. “They’re constructs, Father. Of course they lack souls. So does my computer.”

The priest shook his head. “Involving death magic in their creation changes things. I don’t know enough about it to explain. I can only repeat what Father Moretti told me. These dopplegängers lacked souls, but unlike your computer, they were capable of volition. If their presul was killed—ah, that means the director or controller of the dopplegänger. If the person directing the dopplegänger was killed, the creature didn’t disperse, as happened with the older dopplegängers. Instead it went on a killing spree. There are accounts of nex in vita lasting up to a week—and one account of one lasting an entire month, dispersing only when it had killed everyone and everything in the village.”

“A month ?” Cullen was incredulous.

“I don’t know if the story is accurate,” Father Michaels said apologetically, “and I’m afraid the medieval Church took steps to alter the historical record, so you’ll be unable to verify it on your own. But Father Moretti takes that account very seriously.”

“I’m not buying it.” Cullen looked more grim than dismissive, however. “It would take massive amounts of death magic to fuel a dopplegänger for a month. Even if a practitioner was able to channel that much power—and that’s a big if—we’re talking at least a hundred people killed in a short time in a controlled ritual. I don’t see how anyone could do that—or how the Church could keep it quiet if someone did.”

“But it wasn’t done in ritual. Not once the dopplegänger had been created, that is. Father Moretti believes that the nex in vita can feed upon death directly, without ritual, to avoid dissolution. If a dopplegänger’s creator doesn’t dispel it—or if he is killed and no one controls it—then as long as it can keep killing, it won’t cease.”

“Until someone kills it,” Rule said.

Father Michaels shook his head. “They exist in a sort of half-life. Death-in-life, as it were. Because they aren’t fully alive, they can’t be killed.”

Lily’s eyebrows shot up. “At all?”

“Perhaps with modern weapons . . . but according to the historical record, they cease when they run out of power, but they can’t be killed.”

After a moment Rule said, “Are you sure of this, Father?”

“Father Moretti is, and I believe him.”

“Then how do we stop a dopplegänger? The Church must have found a way to do so.”

“I don’t know.” Lines grooved his face as if he’d aged a decade since he arrived. “The method the Church used back then isn’t one we’d want to repeat. I don’t want to see a second Purge.”

LILYrubbed her face and thought wistfully about coffee. “For a while there, I thought you were going to tie him up.”

It was after ten. She, Rule, and Cullen were seated around the table once more. Father Michaels had just headed upstairs to the bedroom Cullen wasn’t using. Rule had been utterly insistent that the priest was in danger and should stay with them. At first Father Michaels had refused, but he had agreed to call Father Moretti from their house. That way they could answer questions—some of them, at least—and between Rule’s presence and Cullen’s debugging spell, they could be sure no one listened in on the call.

Father Moretti had spoken with Cullen and Rule, but hadn’t asked to talk to Lily. Quel surprise —there was sexism in the biggest, oldest boys’ club in the world. He’d then spoken privately with Father Michaels for nearly an hour.

The upshot of all that talking was that Father Michaels would stay with them, after all—and the Jesuits were sending specially trained priests to D.C. Lily hoped they were trained in something other than killing all the Gifted they could find. The first Purge hadn’t worked out well.

Not that Cullen had any doubts how to handle it. Mage fire, he’d pointed out, had destroyed an ancient staff created by an Old One. It could burn up some dead elf’s trinket, too.

Cullen had been known to be overconfident, but Lily was betting with him this time. At least on that score. On another subject, he was becoming a real pain.

“I’m not buying it,” Cullen said for the fifth time. “The Purge did not take place because some renegade German spellcasters managed to cobble together an evil, death-eating dopplegänger that the Church didn’t know how to deal with. I don’t care how good the Church was at hushing things up back then. There would have been rumors, speculation—something about it would have reached the magical community.”

“History is written by the winners,” Rule said. “The magical community lost that round in a big way. And Father Michaels didn’t claim that the Purge was caused only by the advent of these nex in vita. They might have been the deciding factor for the Pope, but God knows secular authorities were behind it, too.”

The priest believes what he said , a crisp mental voice announced.

Lily jolted. “Mika? You’ve been listening?”

Did you think my only function was to act as your personal e-mail service?

Rule raised his eyebrows at Lily. “I thought you knew. Mika chimed in with a suggestion about the wording when Father Michaels asked us for that promise.”

She grimaced. “He must have just spoken to you.”

Sam says that Arcan in Rome says that some priests there believe as this one does. Mostly the ones in the red robes.

“The cardinals?” The ones high enough up in the hierarchy that they were privy to most of the secrets.

In English they are so called. Were they named after the birds, or were the birds named for them?

“The birds were named for the red-robed priests,” Cullen said, still peevish. “People thought one gaudy creature resembled the other.”

English is a flexible language. Often confusing, but flexibility can be an advantage. Cullen Seabourne would do well to remember this.

Rule gave Cullen an amused glance. “That’s telling you.”

“Never mind about the Purge,” Lily said. “If the rest of what Father Michaels told us is true, our enemies have the ability to make dopplegängers that can last a hell of a lot longer than the two we know about did. Dopplegängers that want to kill so they can eat death magic and stay . . . I guess alive isn’t the right word. So they can continue. And they can’t be killed.”

A puff of feeling arrived, almost like a contemptuous mental snort. The priest is not right about everything. In the past it has taken an Old One to create any form of the undying. I do not believe abysmally ignorant spellcasters of a backwater realm succeeded in doing so.