Dead Ringers by Christopher Golden Page A

passed mostly in silence, save for the African music playing through the speakers. The driver kept a clean taxi and unlike many of those in his occupation, didn’t try to engage his passengers in small talk. Occasionally, voices crackled over the radio as the dispatcher ordered other drivers to addresses where they would pick up their fares. The wipers sluiced rain off the windshield. The taxi shot through a vast puddle, tires throwing a tidal wave onto the sidewalk.
    â€œYou’re mad at me,” Lili said.
    Tess kept her breathing steady, trying to ignore the throbbing in her spine. “I’m not.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œLet’s just get there, okay?”
    Lili pressed her lips together and turned to stare out the window. After twenty seconds or so she spoke a single, quiet word. “Okay.”
    Minutes passed during which Tess reminded herself that they had been incredibly fortunate to get a cab. In retrospect they could have had the doorman at the Nepenthe call one for them, but neither of them had been thinking clearly when they had emerged from the hotel. Tess had just wanted to get away from the place. Fortunately they had passed Octavian Steak House, which was high-end enough to have a doorman all its own, and he’d had them in a taxi ninety seconds after they’d asked.
    The African music quieted and the driver gestured to the street corner ahead. “Any particular spot for you, ladies?”
    Tess bent to peer through the window and saw the bright white of the First Light Gallery’s shop window. She wanted to tell the driver to keep going, give him her address and tell him to take her home.
    â€œRight here’s fine,” Lili replied.
    â€œAll right,” he said, his accent thick. “But you’ll want those umbrellas. It’s nasty out there tonight.”
    The driver pulled up to the curb, creating a smaller, slow-motion tidal wave. Tess opened the door, not waiting while Lili paid. She popped open her umbrella and slid out, sheltered herself from the rain, and stared at the gleaming white light pouring out of the gallery. It seemed impossibly cheerful on such a dreary evening.
    â€œHey,” Lili said.
    Tess glanced at her, then blinked in surprise as she realized the cab had already pulled away—was halfway up the block—and she hadn’t even noticed.
    â€œYou okay with this?” Lili asked.
    Tess managed to nod and start walking. Lili caught up, hiding from the storm beneath her own umbrella. The wind whipped the rain sideways and Tess felt it slicking her legs, colder than before now that the temperature had dropped. Her back ached a little, but the tightness would work itself out as she moved. It always did.
    They passed a gourmet cupcake shop, empty though its lights were still on. Nobody wanted a cupcake badly enough to deal with the rain. Not tonight.
    Just beyond the shop was a narrow alley between buildings, rain pouring off the roofs. If it hadn’t turned so cold—if it had been a different night—Tess might have found it almost beautiful. Instead she hurried on, wanting to get this over with, needing to know without question that Lili believed her. What had happened in that gloomy restaurant in the back of the Nepenthe—what she had seen in the apparition box—had been like stepping across the threshold from one world and into another. Like crashing her house down on a witch and opening the door into a world of bright and frightening colors she had never known existed. She couldn’t stand the idea of being in that world alone.
    Clutching the collar of her jacket closed, she approached the steps that led up to the gallery’s entrance. A couple hurried along the sidewalk from the other direction, huddled under a single huge umbrella of the sort that infuriated people on a crowded sidewalk. Tess caught a glimpse of them as they turned to go up the steps, a leggy blonde in a scarlet dress and an