At the edges of a nearby park, Ashton Clark held his crossbow at eyelevel before slowly lowering it. The shot he had planned to take was interrupted by the girl’s sudden outburst. He would let the girl go for now. He would find another moment. There was nothing to worry about anymore. Her hair color may have been different from the pictures, but he was sure he had found his target.

“Hey!” called the approaching woman from his side—her long, braided ponytail slung comfortably over her shoulder. “What the fuck was that?! You had a clear shot!”

Despite her unnatural beauty, the shrillness behind her cry belied the normally sultry voice she spoke in. This was the sexy elfwin from the church he had met some nights ago. Unlike the sparkling, satin dress she had worn when they first met, she was now adorned in more casual, earthy colors. Against his wishes, she had been brought along to act as his handler.

“Where did you come from?” he asked with barely concealed annoyance.

“I was watching you from over there.” She pointed to a tree behind her. In her other hand was a bag of donuts from the café nearby. “Now answer the question.”

“I couldn’t shoot. She jumped all of a sudden and ruined the shot.”

She swallowed the food she had been chewing on. “Don’t forget your mission, Mr. Clark. You capture the girl and kill any accomplice she might be in cahoots with.”

“If you were nearby, why didn’t you do anything to help?”

“I like to watch you hunt.” She dusted the crumbs from her blouse then pulled another small pastry out from her bag and took small nibbling bites from it. “’Sides. I can’t get too involved. Otherwise, why would we have hired you? I'm just here in case you try to weasel out of it.”

“I took the job, woman. I keep my word—long as the money keeps coming.” Ashton bagged his weapon. “Thank you, by the way. During your yapping, the target got away.”

The woman closed her eyes for a moment before her body snapped in place. She looked at him and grinned. “Nuh uh! My reflection just saw them head down the street that way.”

“Your—what? You mean your twin? So they forced the both of you on me, huh?”

“That’s right. My reflection! You remember seeing her that night? You saw us become one. I guess you could call her my twin, but that’s not entirely accurate…?” She looked off to the side, still chewing on her snack.

“I don’t know what I saw that night. Everything from then is… a bit hazy.” A sudden shaking of the brush near them shocked him out of his thoughts as he scrambled to grab his pistol crossbow. “Who’s there?!”

The elfwin woman’s double popped her head out from between the leaves, pacifying the rattled Ashton.

“Calm yourself, big man,” she said as she stepped out into view. Her clothes were the same as her twin’s, except with the top and bottom colors reversed. She looked over at her double, who was onto her third small donut. “And you! Who are you calling a reflection?! You’re the copy here, sister.”

“Not this again!” the woman cried, forcing herself to stop eating. “You came from me. Not the other way around! Why is it we’re only ever in-sync when we don the uniform?”

“Both of you sisters are priestesses, right?” Ashton interrupted them. “That’s pretty incredible. You two come from a devout family? I know a couple of sisters that bicker just like that.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Both twins turned to look at him with a strange expression on their face before replying in unison, “No, stupid! This is my thaumaturgy.”

“Cute.” He eyed the both of them wearily. “Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about…?”

The first twin replied first.

“I’m not supposed to tell you this since it’s supposed to remain completely confidential, but you look so adorably confused. A thaumaturgy is a blessing granted to us Sisters by Macha.”

“Ugh, are you seriously just leaking everything to him?” The second twin scoffed. “They could put us in solitary for that, you know. It’s going to feel awful cramped stuck in a hole in the ground with you.”

“Shut up—I’m talking!” the first woman screeched. “And who’s going to tell on me? You? Anyway! Mr. Clark, since you’re working with us, it’ll make things move a lot smoother if your understanding of things is a bit closer to our level. I’m not just a priestess of the Scarlet Church. I’m a Scarlet Sister!”

The other twin groaned.

“Is that like some higher rank of priestess…? I don’t really know much about the Church than what I see on the news.”

“Yes! We’re a special sect secretly trained by the Church for missions such as these! And each one of us gets blessed with a special gift of insanity from our Mad Matron!”

“We are so dead,” complained the second woman.

“As you can see from my reflection here, my Lady Macha—in her maddening wisdom—has used her power to sever my psyche in twain. Hence, I am now able to replicate myself. I feel whatever she feels and vice-versa.” She inhaled another mouthful of donut.

“Yeah and I can taste all those hazardous snacks you stuff yourself with, so how about cutting back now?”

“I can’t help it! Losing a whole body mass always leaves me starving.”

“You expect me to believe Macha granted you some kind of magic powers?” Ashton asked incredulously. “You fucking priestesses really are all as loony as they say.”

“You flatter us, Mr. Clark,” the two replied in unison. The second twin walked over and melted into the first.

“What the fuck?! You're serious?!” Ashton quickly took aim with his crossbow, only for it to immediately be wrenched from his hand by a whip.

“You wound me. Aiming a firearm at a poor, helpless girl like me instead of the poor, helpless girl we're supposed to be hunting down.”

“Ouch. Sorry.” He stuck his injured finger into his mouth. “I just don't do good with magic. Didn't even know magic could do that or even that the Church practices it…”

“Oh, it’s not magic. But if I tried explaining it to you, then I’d have to kill you.” The elfwin woman grinned maliciously at him as she dangled his weapon right in front of him.

“You seemed a little more reasonable before.” Ashton reached over and liberated his tangled weapon from the woman’s clutches.

“Sorry. I tend to get a little… unhinged when I split myself up. But if I hold it in, I tend to get a little too in my own head.” She laughed then quickly stopped herself. “Do we really have time for further distractions?”

“Right. Which way did you say you saw them go?”

“Just down this—” She stopped mid-sentence at the sudden onset of an unnatural sound.

A strange humming pervaded the sky above them. Something that seemed to unnerve the Scarlet Sister as well as the man with her. The sound did not come all at once, but began gradually before building up progressively faster. Almost like a siren. It spread through the coldly empty streets with no clear source, as if in warning to something greater. Something ancient. A herald to the cacophonous coming of a greater impending threat.

“What… is that?” Ashton gripped his crossbow tightly.

“Nothing good.”

From the top of the street, the shape of a large, black snake could be seen marching forward. It was a procession of strange men, covered from head to toe in swaths of black. Shadowy persons in dark coats and top hats and alabaster gloves marched down the city streets with no end in sight. Their faces covered by seemingly inhuman masks. Timeworn tongues chanted a strange hymn in abstruse harmony—esoteric secrets that would make one’s blood run cold if they were ever deciphered.

Bigger threats were at play than the priestess cared for. She grit her teeth anxiously.

“They’ll get lost in the crowd at this rate,” noted Ashton. “Should we follow?”

“No. We shouldn’t get anywhere near those people,” said the elfwin woman. The Scarlet Sister’s twin slunk off of her like a shadow.

“But if they are what I think they are, I need to see where they’re marching to,” the second twin said. “I won’t be gone too long. I’m just going to tail them a bit…”

“We might even get promoted for this!” the first twin wailed excitedly.