The high heels of a woman dressed in business attire were click-clacking on the pavement of the hospital corridor, heading straight to a door on the left wing. The name on the door read: Anne Marie Bleue - Pediatrician.
"Marie-Rose?!!!" The woman's surprise was written in her rounded blue eyes. A hint of fear could be read in them as well, making her expression look as if she had seen a ghost.
"Hi, Anne!" Marie-Rose smiled at the familiar figure of the sorceress in her coven.
"Marie, a body carrying your features was brought this morning to the morgue!" The statement took her aback. What on earth could have happened? Emilian had agreed to guard her body he carried into the woods so that her sisters could perform the magic ritual that could ensure its preservation.
As her face fell, Anne also mentioned, "You told me you needed my help last night in the netherworld." In her dream, Anne was actually summoned by Marie in a specific location in the woods, where she was supposed to gather all the other sorceresses. "I didn't find your body there!"
"I do need your help, Anne!" she panicked. "I don't know what happened!" Marie-Rose could barely utter her words as she was heavily panting. "Before we go to check my body, I need a fake medical leave from you!"
"Right now!" she prepared to write on the papers, but Marie-Rose stopped her. "Not on my name!"
"Oh!" Anne let out her surprise.
"Her name is Zoe Noire," she told Anne, whose eyes widened despite Marie-Rose already informing her that she was going to use the body of her double.
"That's the name of a nurse working in our maternity!" she said, dismayed by the situation.
"I have no idea, Anne!" her voice trembled. "I thought recovering my body would be simple." Marie-Rose was stuck in a no-win situation.
"Guess that your guess was wrong..." Anne said, still staring at Marie-Rose.
"What will I do, Anne? I'm scared!" Seeing tears about to fall from the corner of her eyes, Anne got up from her desk to hug her. "Everything is going to be alright!"
"But how?" Anne also shrugged at the exaggeration of the scale of this retaliation. "Who ordered this murder, Anne? What did I do wrong?" Whoever did this was clearly nuts.
"The malice of people shouldn't take you by surprise!" she reminded Marie-Rose about a phrase from a sacred text. Ultimately, Marie-Rose didn't do anything wrong. Behind stood the exaggerated hatred of someone hiding from them. But they would all find out who did it.
Closely observing her, Anne had stumbled upon a startling revelation about her mental state. While she viewed it as a rejuvenated psyche, her friend regarded it as a mind trapped in its primal instincts.
Her revitalized psyche had adopted an icy demeanor toward the world. Undergoing her own demise had irreversibly transformed her, morphing her into a ruthless and frigid predator devoid of mercy for those she had previously tolerated.
"Should we go check on your body?" Anne suggested a mental break from the problems. Worries were of no help. If Marie-Rose was not calm, she could not think clearly, and she would not be able to find a solution.
They both tiptoed out of the door as if they were skipping classes in high school. The service stairs ensured their incognito route.
***
"Matthieu?" she asked when he picked up the call.
"Marie." He was happy to hear her voice; his tone made it apparent.
"Where were you calling me from the first time?" Matthieu hadn't been able to focus on the matter on such short death notice. Since Daniel had already left the apartment, she was free to talk on the phone. She had thought about calling him since the moment she woke up. This was the second phone call today.
"You wouldn't believe it. From Daniel's place!"
"What were you doing there? Is he involved in this?"
"I don't know for sure, but I suspect he is involved in the crime." The pressing question that tormented her from the moment she realized she was being brutally stabbed, was to find out who had ordered her demise. Her newfound goal.
Matthieu was speechless. Before he could gather his words to say something, Marie-Rose continued:
"We need to find out who did this; I need your help."
"Will I see you again, Marie?"
"Let's meet at the hospital. I'll be at Anne's."
"In person?" She could feel his eyes widening at the other end of the phone.
"Yes! What did you think? That I'm calling you from the netherworld?" she giggled lightly.
"But... will it be you? How will I recognize you?"
"It'll be me. You'll surely recognize me!"
***
Daniel was baffled. Just for once, he didn't pay attention to monitoring Marie-Rose, and an irreversible incident happened while he was having a great time at a reception party with his soon-to-be wife.
Things really got out of control. Now, he had to investigate what happened. His colleagues informed him that the surveillance equipment in her house recorded a murder. Her murder, to be more precise.
How was this even possible with the org permanently keeping an eye on her? He played the audio tape once more, eagerly awaiting the video release currently being processed for enhancement, as there was no light in the house when the murder took place.
He couldn't place his feelings, not knowing what he was truly feeling, but he was somewhat angry that he was taken by surprise. How could this possibly happen without the org having any prior knowledge? Was this a random criminal who just happened to target the young woman in a spontaneous decision?
Daniel had no information about the org having any plans to discard her. They depended on these witches for their secret program.
He was emotionally involved in this case due to their personal conflicts, so he went out of his way to inspect her murder today. He needed to see the body. He knew very well that Zoe looked exactly like Marie-Rose. It was part of the plan. There was no coincidence in this.
But he had to admit that he always had a weakness for Marie-Rose, ever since she was only a teenager. Before they were part of the same org. Long before the coven was given away to the gov to become the infamous org.
He was heading straight to the hospital, driving at the speed limit, as this morning, he was short of patience. If possible, he would have flown there. If only he had powers and could materialize inside the hospital ward.
The time taken to reach the parking lot seemed an eternity. He calculated his steps with anticipation until he arrived at the freezer room. He had to inspect the body by himself. There had to be no doubts for him.
He recognized the signature of the rare red hair that few people had in the area. He didn't need to check further to tell the body was hers. He was well accustomed to its size and conformation. Still, he just went with it, for the sake of the procedure. Even if it was only a personal investigation, he wanted to act professionally.
Seeing the body dead felt weird. The images of Marie-Rose and Zoe alternated inside his mind, so much so that in the end, it felt as if he was staring at his future wife's body right now. The woman seemed to be asleep if not for the pale skin and dark lips. The wounds on the back turned on the crime.
However, the soft flesh revealed an unnatural fact. Rigor mortis hadn't set in yet. "When did the crime occur?" he asked the responsible staff, avoiding attracting attention to this weird aspect. There must have been some magic interference, making it difficult for him to assess the possible scenarios that led to a killing. Was this a faked death? Was it a real cadaver?
He felt his head about to explode. There were too many unexpected news this morning. "In the early hours of this day, around 1 am," the employee informed him after reading the files.
Daniel felt like double-checking the facts written on the paper. Maybe he could tell if they were counterfeit. He couldn't put his trust in this man's hands. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary, despite the extraordinary event that brought him here early in the morning.
He had envisaged a calm day at work; he even planned on going in later today. Everything seemed to go so smoothly until his teammate alerted him about the turn of events last night.
How could he be so careless? He should have had someone else monitoring the witch in real-time.
With a somber mood, he took all the pictures he needed to have a better picture of the succession of the taped events, which he couldn't wait to clarify once he would have access to the video recording.
As he left the room, he had a weird feeling that someone was following him. He looked at the cameras on the ceiling, then let his eyes back to the ground as he passed by an emergency exit door.
***
Anne closed the emergency exit door quickly before Marie-Rose could take a step out into the hall and stayed behind the door until the danger passed. When she had opened the door, her unbelieving eyes met Daniel, thus she had to react immediately; otherwise, they would have been seen.
She pushed Marie-Rose back and whispered to her, "Daniel is here," she said, covering her lips with her index finger.
"What? What is he doing here?" Marie-Rose wondered in a loud voice as surprise got a hold of her.
As far as her gut feeling was telling her, Daniel was her prime suspect. Marie-Rose suspected that he was the one behind her monitoring, and more than likely, he had something to do with her death.
The end of the day was so far, and she was so short on answers. If only the night could come quicker so that she could have her talk with Daniel. It was crucial to her to find out the real motive behind her execution. She had a killer. She had a man in the shadows. But she couldn't completely figure out the reason for the murder and how exactly things went in this direction to end up this way.
She also felt defeated because she had no idea why Jayden didn't show up yesterday at the pub, and she still couldn't get in touch with him. His phone was turned off this morning when she frantically tried to call him.
It was so unlike him not to answer calls. Her imagination went wild, suspecting he was with another woman, and he couldn't pick up the call because of her. He might have turned off the phone last night not to have their intimacy disturbed.
She shook her head to make the images in her mind disappear. Meanwhile, Anne was chanting inaudible words. She must be casting a spell on them so they are not discovered, rendering them invisible. It only worked in times of great danger.
Then it hit her. She could have done the same last night. But the knife hit fell upon her without any prior notice. How could she have time for that, when the damage was already done, magic wouldn't work to reverse the process of death. The conjoined power of a larger number of sorceresses was required; she even believed there were too few in their newly reborn coven.
One by one, they left the old coven when the hostile takeover took place. The old coven was not what it used to be anymore. She wondered how the spiritual guide could let it escape from his hands, slipping like sand through the fingers.
With so many absurd rules, she felt no remorse when she left the coven. It was Anne who had set up the new coven. She had gathered all the lost souls that were cast away without their fault. Through their grace, the spirit of the old coven went on. But they had been extra careful with their activities. They couldn't risk anymore losing their tradition once more.
People despised them, belittling them, but little did they know that where the sorceresses held their gatherings, evil had no powers. In the country of Dachland, where they lived, peace was reigning harmoniously. Unlike one of the neighboring countries where war installed as soon as the covens over there were destroyed, and the sorceresses all killed.
Yet another witch hunt! Which would bring no good to humankind.
Anne finished her chant and took a look to assess if they had a clear way.
Marie-Rose stopped her in her tracks. "Anne, what do we know about doubles?"
"A lot, but I'd better give you some books to read." They had their knowledge written, passed down for centuries from generation to generation.
"So... If I took the body of my double... Shouldn't there be some kind of imbalance? A silent threat? Like, for example... will this not annihilate... my own existence?"
"And the others'?" Anne completed the sentence, understanding where Marie-Rose was hinting at.
Regrettably, assuming the form of her doppelgänger triggered an internal discord within Marie-Rose's body. Opposing vibrations clashed, nullifying each other momentarily only to intensify once more. The amalgamation of Marie-Rose's inherent traits underwent constant modification, entwined with the conflicting attributes of the other witch.
They rushed outside in unison to run to the ward.
'What have I done?' Marie-Rose complained on her way.