Clouds, mightier than mountains, made even the shadow of the airplane look minuscule as the black cross sailed across the heavenly white gold. I had the window seat so I could let Cory see out as we flew. He had grown bored almost immediately and then he and our companions were all asleep. I couldn't understand how anyone could sleep on the plane. The noise and confinement and the feeling of helplessness combined to make me more than uncomfortable.

I accepted a drink and sipped it slowly, focusing on the vile taste of alcohol to distract me from the unpleasantness of the journey. When Captain Kuàm announced, in her accented and perfectly calm and chivalrous English, that we were beginning our descent, I felt very relieved.

When the plane was finally landed I was eager to get outside, which proved difficult to do in the huge airport. We had to wait for hours before Detective Winters could get his weapon through. The FBI had their equipment waiting for them outside. Only Detective Winters had to have his with him. I didn't blame him, the weapon itself had come back from the dead along with him. It was his totem, his life piece. So we waited. And waited.

The FBI met up with some of their agents that were waiting for us. Cory hopped over to them and listened. I just sat with Detective Winters at the bar near the baggage claim. Cory recited something he heard the Agents discussing, while we waited:

"We met up with Agent Meroë and his team to be briefed about the 'group of scholars' that were attacked by the enthralled of the Triad Killers."

I noticed when Captain Kuàm came in for a drink. Only her uniform identified her as an airplane captain. She looked nothing like the version most people would think of. When she saw us she confidently approached me and Detective Winters.

"How was the flight?" She asked, winking at both of us.

"My Lord didn't sleep. I did, it was boring." Cory told her.

"Your bird talks." Captain Kuàm grinned, delighted.

"Yes, several languages actually." I couldn't help but smile. Captain Kuàm's charisma was warming.

We sat and listened to her compliments and boasting. She was the youngest captain in the industry and also the most remarkable, her own words. I wasn't surprised when she exchanged numbers with us and assured us she found us interesting. When Captain Kuàm was done with us, Detective Winters spoke up:

"I almost forgot what we are doing here." He smiled. I pouted, thinking of how much I missed home already.

"She seeks a variety of mates." Cory observed. "She has no nest."

"I just miss my own nest." I complained.

When we had everything, including Detective Winters's gun, we went with the FBI to where they had rooms at a ranch styled motel just outside of town. A large lobby with taxidermy animals had foldable tables set up as a field office. The other FBI team was waiting for our arrival.

When we met Agent Meroë he looked severely older. Just from hunting the ancient witches he had aged decades since the last time I had seen him. He was a determined and dangerous man with cold, calculating justice for a clockwork heart of iron.

"I am glad you arrived so quickly. We are very close now." Agent Meroë told us in a frantic and quiet manner. It was very strange to see such a tower of a man made of stone, speaking like an excited boy-genius at Christmas. He went on to explain some technical terms with Agent Saint and added, for our benefit: "...we interviewed the survivors, only to find out that they had met Detective Winters already, the leader of the enthralled."

"I was...at home." Detective Winters sat at a fold up table, reassembling a perfectly cleaned automatic shotgun. It was the same one that was destroyed when he was killed the first time. I cringed as I looked at it. Detective Winters smiled weirdly at me and lit a nicely rolled cigarette with a paper match from a gas station.

"We got a call from the police, in town." Agent Meroë explained. "We are gong there to investigate. We are very close to this thing. I know it."

"Catching them would mean your death." Agent Saint promised him. He nodded, worried.

"You can back me up, I trust you behind me, with Lord to identify if they really do look like me." Detective Winters puffed his rolly and added. " And one more thing: I'll have this."

He held up the weapon to show it was all assembled and then started loading its drums of ammunition. Agent Meroë nodded and led the rest of the agents out of the lobby of the ranch motel. I heard Detective Winters getting up behind me and I turned around halfway while he asked me: "Do you think they are close, Lord?"

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"Possibly." I guessed. We went with them in Agent Saint's car, cramped in the back with Detective Winters up front. His weapon was in the trunk. We got there and the first thing he did was retrieve it and brandish it at the crime scene. The local police were all waiting to one side, commenting on Detective Winters.

I went over to them behind Agent Saint and she asked them about the break-in. They told her that the bookstore owner was killed and a rare occult selection was rummaged and a book was stolen, a very old book. The victim's niece had hidden and watched the whole thing. She was also a talented sketch artist and drew the killer: Detective Winters.

"My team will see if we can identify which book is missing." Agent Saint told Agent Meroë. He agreed and Agent Saint assigned tasks to her agents. After some days of helping them sort books, Agent Heller theorized that it was half of a rare Book of Lilith that was taken: Winds Of The North.

Back at the motel I dreamed about Officer Sharon's memorial service and he materialized to warn me that we had made a terrible mistake by undoing the past. I watched the service lucidly. His body was never found, I recalled. Yet the service was held anyway. I had tried to warn him and yet it had done nothing to undo the events that unfolded from his death. He simply died in a different clearing of that same forest. I wondered if that was somehow related to the source of the places of time that slipped forward. Deadly places that stole years of life energies in minutes. Siphons, drains, tornadoes of time sitting and multiplying in those woods.

Agent Saint predicted that the Doppelgänger Detective Winters was the mirror opposite and the result of the conflict between life and death, the sum of the paradox and that it would try to kill him. "I have this." Detective Winters reminded her and everyone of the weapon he was carrying.

"If this person who looks like Detective Winters is after half of this book, then perhaps we should look at the man who has the other half." Agent Nomak had said. "After all, he made no secret of the fact that he owns half of the Book of Lilith."

The FBI decided to watch the home of Damien Faust because he was negotiating a price for the missing book. Then the Doppelgänger Detective Winters did show up. I was standing behind the real Detective Winters while he smoked and held his weapon ready for the Triad Killers. My bird was sitting on a branch and alerted us to the creature's presence as it crept past us. Cory spotted him and said:

"Where's you're gun, Detective Winters?" Exactly like one of the policemen telling one of their jokes. The response wasn't right:

"It's okay, I am just on my way to go buy smokes." The voice claimed, amid the sound of a crickets and frogs chorus in the swamps nearby.

We both turned around and saw nobody was there. A chill ran down my spine and Detective Winters asked Cory:

"Who was that?" With anticipation in his voice. Cory pointed with his beak the direction he had gone. We looked to the empty walkway. His lingering shadow echoed silently, the presence of another, of the other, gone.

And then up towards the house under surveillance. It promptly broke into the home of Damien Faust and attacked him, firing shots at him from several stolen handguns. Damien's security guards had guns and shot at the Doppelgänger and missed. The Doppelgänger shot back, driving them to find cover and injuring them with gunshot wounds.

We hastened to cut off his retreat, but when we got there, nobody was there. Only the smell of gunsmoke and the broken glass and the moans of wounded guards.

The crickets and frogs in the swamp resumed suddenly in the silence after the shooting. Then there was the sound of the Doppelgänger heading into the swamp with the stolen book. We waited while the police arrived and the FBI prepared for a manhunt on foot.

"We are joining all forces, deputized to bring this man to justice, he looks exactly like Detective Winters. Kill anyone who looks like Detective Winters directly on sight!" The police chief ordered. The two teams of the FBI, the local police, half of them not even in uniform all late at night, were all gathered. Some of the security guards wanted a shot at the Doppelgänger.

Armed with flashlights the manhunt in the swamp was slow and tedious. It was almost sunrise when we had gone only a couple miles. There, in the thick of the place we found the Doppelgänger had built a campfire and was warming itself after fleeing so deep into the wet landscape.

The Doppelgänger looked up at me and reached for its gun. "Relax, it's just me." I said.

"Oh, right." The Doppelgänger looked at all the approaching flashlights.

"So glad we found you. We were looking everywhere." Cory told the Doppelgänger.

"I fell into the swamp." The Doppelgänger told me. I shivered in fear, realizing that if anything went wrong, I would probably get shot, or worse.

Then Detective Winters walked out, weapon aimed at the Doppelgänger. "I am the real Winters."

"No, don't listen to him." The Doppelgänger pointed at Detective Winters. Police were surrounding us suddenly. The police chief was saying:

"Lower your weapon, Detective Winters."

I slowly backed away, out of the crossfire.

"But I am the real Detective Winters." Detective Winters lowered his weapon, reluctantly.

"No. I am. I got lost in the swamp and fell into the water. Had to make a fire to get dry. How did you stay so dry? You found that weapon. You're not the real Detective Winters." The Doppelgänger claimed.

"Actually my Winters is holding the weapon." Cory told the Doppelgänger.

The creature aimed its gun at the real Detective Winters suddenly. It anticipated that there was no beating the crow that testifies. All of the cops turned on it and their combined hail of bullets drove it into the water. The real Detective Winters just stood there getting peppered with bits of the Doppelgänger.

"This thing served the witches. They wanted this book." I said and took the translucent plastic briefcase that contained it. From beside the campfire we acquired the complete book and kept it as evidence for our own uses. I knew the Winds of the North would reveal secrets so old that even the witches had forgotten them. Otherwise they would have no use for it.

Back at the ranch motel we all sat around, exhausted. I was delicately thumbing through the ancient papyrus pages. The FBI slowly called it a night until only the two investigation leaders remained. I paid little attention to their conversation but noted the effect of it:

Agent Meroë said some nice things to Agent Saint and agreed to help her wholeheartedly from then on.