Aidan shook his head. “You know how I feel about your ‘friendship’ with an SFPD inspector. You’re courting trouble.”
“Yeah, I know. Sailor said the same thing.”
Aidan looked surprised that he and Sailor would agree on anything.
“But Carlos has been a good friend to me, and he has been keeping me informed of what’s going on with Sailor. I think the more salient point, at the moment, is that Patience and I were chased by someone who looks exactly like Sailor. I meanexactly. Dresses like him, sounds like him, carries himself the same as Sailor. Except his eyes are empty, he was chasing us, and—according to Patience—he wanted to kill us.”
I shivered at the memory of those vacant eyes on the face of someone so familiar, so beloved.
“Have a seat, Lily,” Aidan said, as he sat behind his desk. “Tell me the whole story.”
“I thought you didn’t have the time.”
“I’ll make the time.”
After glancing at Oscar, who was now snoozing, I sat down in the chair facing Aidan and told him what had happened earlier with Patience.
“So you escaped with the aid of a shop owner in Chinatown,” Aidan mused. “Aren’t you the clever thing?”
“Lucky, not clever. If that shop owner hadn’t been so gutsy, we might have been in big trouble.”
“I think you may be dealing with a doppelgänger.”
He stood up and stepped over to his bookshelves, tilting his head to one side as though reading the spines.
“That’s... that’s really a thing?” I asked. “Doppelgängers are real? Actual doppelgängers?”
“How do you mean?”
“As you know, I’m not exactly clear on what’s real and what’s just folklore. I sort of assumed doppelgängers might be fictional, like vampires.”
“This would be one reason—”
“You keep urging me to finish my training. I know that. And I’ve been trying to play catch-up, but I keep getting derailed.”
“Chasing after murderers?”
“And dealing with whatever supernatural havoc comes my way, yes. So, seriously? Why would Sailor have a doppelgänger? And a homicidal one, at that?”
“I’m not saying he does, but it’s a possibility to consider.”
He started to read from the splayed book in his hands.
“The application of the German word is relatively recent; it might also be called a ‘fetch,’ or a ‘double walker,’ but all refer to the ‘apparition of a person living.’Blah blah blah... The concept of alter egos and double spirits has appeared in the folklore of many cultures throughout human history. Most often they are considered harbingers of bad luck.”
“Oh, yay,” I said. “How come I’m never assaulted by harbingers ofgoodluck?”
Aidan ignored me and kept reading. “The Norsevardøgerprecedes a living person and performs that person’s actions ahead of time. The Finns call theirsetiänen, or ‘firstcomer.’ In ancient Egyptian mythologyakakawas a spirit double with the same memories and feelings as the person to whom the counterpart belongs. But in most traditions, the doppelgänger is a version of the Ankou, or the personification of death.”
“You’re saying... Wait,” I said. “Are you saying that this is a sign that Sailor... that Sailor is going todie?”
“We all die, Lily,” Aidan said in a gentle voice.
“Yes, thank you. I realize that. But no time soon is what I was hoping. Is this doppelgänger a harbinger of Sailor’s death?”
He shrugged. “I’m not even saying itisa doppelgänger. Just that it’s a possibility. And if it is true, then it’s a sign.”
“Abadsign.”
