He stumbles out of the house and falls to his knees, wiping his hands over and over on his bloody jeans. Smoke’s pouring out of the basement. It smells of hickory, myrrh and scorched wiring.
“Jesus, Lawrence,” says Marti, hollow around the eyes. “Tell me what happened, give me some reason I don’t have to arrest you…”
“You don’t understand!” says Lawrence. “The spell went all wrong–those aren’t them in there. Those aren’t my girls!”
“Not anymore,” says Marti sadly, and pulls out his cuffs.
From the house across the street, the doppelgang watches, hair in pigtails, eyes like wounds.
Yesterday a man was arrested for murdering his stepdaughters in some kind of ritual. It’s a horrible story. It also sounds way too much like a Clive Barker ripoff novel.