“Please! Please don’t hurt my baby!” she screamed through streaming tears. Sarah inched along the building’s ledge, her vertigo forgotten in her desperation to reach her daughter, Josie.

The dopleganger hissed at her at it’s body bulged and contorted into different shapes, all the while maintaining a hold on the overhanging stone gargoyle and the baby. It was a hulking man of middle age one minute then a deformed bear-like shape with antlers and hooves the next.

The purification ritual went horribly wrong. What should have cured Josie of the Night Affliction turned on the priest and infused his body with the dopleganger’s power and malice. It grabbed Josie and jumped over the railing onto the ledge, 38 floors over New York’s 5th Avenue.

Sarah cowered against a window, giving her another 3 inches of ledge to shift position and pull the Knife of Ar’Athak from it’s sheath strapped to her leg. The power of the knife would immobilize the dopleganger but she would be risking her daughter’s life should it let go.