Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Vampire Affairs (The Bagsy Chronicles 4)

An Aftermath

Cold darkness pressed around Mezrielda. Her skin was suppressed in the stillness. From the mumbled conversation she'd heard through the stone, Pepsini had arrived. It had been as Mezrielda had feared; he'd realised Bagsy was a doppelganger.

Mezrielda had known for a while, of course. She wasn't an idiot. When, in their third year, Bagsy had brewed a potion that made doppelgangers die from over shifting, and then promptly negatively reacted to it herself, it hadn't been much of a stretch to consider the possibilities.

As time went by, and the evidence piled up, it became growingly difficult to deny. Her suspicions had been unquestionable confirmed when, just after becoming an Animagus, she'd actually seen Bagsy shift.

Bagsy had lunged at Primrose, trying to stop her from drinking the potion that would disfigure her. Mezrielda's obliviate spell had found its target, yet when they'd hit the floor, both had blonde curls. Mezrielda had watched as, before her eyes, the second Primrose had looked at her and shape-shifted back into Bagsy.

Mezrielda had done her own research in the UK and Australia without telling Bagsy. Doppelgangers were incredibly rare to encounter due to the vast amounts of them that had been killed or locked away. The information that could be found on them was either wildly inaccurate or incredibly vague, and almost always deeply pejorative.

She managed to piece together a rough idea of how doppelgangers worked from the literature; they had the ability to shift from one person to another and, in talented doppelgangers, could even shift into animals. They did this by 'stealing' the target's memory, as the literature called it, but it sounded more like prying to Mezrielda. Doppelgangers also possessed special eyes that could see past certain illusions and had pin-point accuracy and prediction.

Because of the powerful nature of doppelganger eyes they were believed to be the one part of the doppelganger's body that could never fully shift. No matter what form they took, their eyes would always be a clay-like grey. This grey would be hidden by a natural illusion that formed over their eyes, making them look human or animalistic or however they were supposed to look. This had the result of doppelgangers being able to see the clay-grey of other doppelganger's eyes, and so identify their own, even when they were well hidden.

At first Mezrielda had assumed Bagsy could see her own grey eyes in a mirror, and knew she was a doppelganger, but as she spoke with such hatred about them it dawned on her that Bagsy didn't know.

The idea of Bagsy not knowing was worrying, given how much distaste for doppelgangers she displayed. Mezrielda worried how she'd react if she found out she was one.

It was no wonder she didn't like doppelgangers. The hysteria surrounding them sounded reasonable and Mezrielda might have fallen for it had she not years of experience with the unfair treatment of vampires.

She had ruled out the possibility of her friend having been replaced by a doppelganger. No one, doppelganger or not, could imitate the sheer stupidity Bagsy was capable of.

Doppelgangers were classified as magical creatures, and inexcusable magical creatures at that, which was a scary thought. Mezrielda knew she couldn't tell anyone, less her friend be taken away and "dealt" with.

Unable to talk to anyone about it, Mezrielda had instead dug deeper. When she'd returned home at the end of her third year she was magicless and broken. Her parents had tried everything they could to help her so Mezrielda had asked them for one thing; free access to the manor's library.

With that granted Mezrielda had spent her holiday ignoring the need to practise spells, doing so was pointless, and instead researching about doppelgangers. She found old works that confirmed her earlier suspicions of their abilities; shape-shifting, viewing other's memories, greatly enhanced accuracy and spatial awareness. It was all there, in simple terms not demonised in the modern reports. The older works also had something the newer ones didn't; the supposed origin of doppelgangers.