The Shadow Men

Holly sighed, stood up, and went to take Sally’s hand. “Okay. Hurry, then,” she said. “And Aunt Trixie …?”



“Yes?”



Holly grinned. “I like your hair.”



Jim laughed. Trix smiled and touched her hair, apparently having forgotten for a while that it was a vivid pink.



“I have a question,” Jennifer said, addressing Sally. “If this is happening to … to Jim’s Jenny … what’s to stop it from happening to us? I mean, if we go in there, won’t we start to be changed, too?”



Sally was a girl older than her years, but from time to time an even deeper wisdom seemed to light her eyes. Jim saw it there now. “There is a way,” Sally said. “You won’t be the first people to have explored the In-Between. Richard Vernon was the Oracle of Boston—my Boston—before the job landed in my hands. In the short time I knew him, he told me stories. So, yes, there’s a way. You might not like it, but if you’re careful and quick, it should keep you safe.”



“Let’s do it,” Jim said. “Come on. Time’s wasting. Every second counts.”



But he saw the troubled expression on Trix’s face and knew there was something more. “Why Jenny?” Trix asked.



“What do you mean?” Jim said.



“Why take Jenny into the In-Between and not Holly?” Trix looked at Anne and Jennifer, then at Sally. “Why hold Holly captive? Why not just kill her?”



“Bait for me,” Sally said. “When their original plan didn’t work, the Shadow Men acted under their own volition and held off killing her. Luring me into the trap. We’re here, aren’t we?”



“Maybe,” Trix said. “But we know part of Veronica’s plan, right? The Shadow Men follow our marks, we deliver those letters—hexed, cursed, whatever—and then they kill you and O’Brien so the three Bostons collide. You’ve gotta figure it’s all because she wanted to be the one and only Oracle of the one and only Boston, right?”



“Makes sense,” Jim said.



“It’s the only thing that makes sense. But I don’t get this thing with Holly. And are we supposed to go after Jenny? Is that all part of Veronica’s plan?”



“Does it matter?” Anne asked. “We’re going, aren’t we?”



“Yes, we’re going, no matter what,” Trix agreed. “But there’s something we’re missing here. Something significant. I mean, Holly and Jenny slipped through, the way everyone who’s ever gotten lost in the In-Between has. They were lucky to end up in another Boston instead of nowhere at all. So how did Veronica’s servants find them so fast?”



“You’re saying it was no accident,” Jim said, narrowing his eyes, knowing the truth when he heard it. “She made it happen. She picked them, and she picked us. She needed us because we’re Uniques.”



“It’s more than that,” Trix said. “There are tons of Uniques. You heard what that greasy-looking guy said: they were supposed to kill Holly. Why?”



A shuffling step came from the doorway, and then a soft cough. They all turned, ready for a fight, but it was only the redheaded teenager, bruised and exhausted, blood in his hair, no fight left in him at all. Whoever he had been in the Boston where Jim had come from, he was stuck in this world now, but at least the shadows of the In-Between had been ripped from him.



“I can tell you the answer to that one,” he said. “We tossed your wife into the Gray—what you’re calling the In-Between—because we didn’t need her. We threw her away like trash.”



“Son of a bitch,” Trix said, starting to rise, fists clenched.



“No,” the kid said. “Please. That’s not me. I never wanted any of that. Veronica promised she would save us … she would get that stuff out of us, give us our lives back, if we did what she wanted. And it was hard to say no anyway. They can command you, y’know? The Oracles.”



Jim stared at Sally, wondering if her No-Face Men did her bidding against their will.



“She’s all right,” the redhead said, seeing his look. “She tries to save the ones she can. That’s what someone told me, in the In-Between. But once you’re fully gone, there’s nothing anyone can do for you. Helping the Oracle, when you’re summoned, it’s the only time you can feel alive.” He turned to Sally. “Thank you. Your guys saved me.”



Sally smiled at him, nodding once.



“My wife,” Jim urged. “If they threw her away, what did they want with Holly?”



The kid looked at him, then at Holly, pity in his gaze. “Veronica never chose a successor. She doesn’t want anyone to replace her. Not ever. But when an Oracle can’t choose, or won’t, the soul of the city chooses for itself,” he said, turning back to Jim.



“Dude, Veronica wants your daughter dead because she’s the next Oracle of Boston.”



Chapter 15 - If I Ever Leave This World Alive



THEY COULD have just killed her,” Jim said, hugging his daughter to his chest. The redheaded guy had gone, sent away by Sally. The others were milling in a state of shock at the brutal fight they had just survived. Sally sat against the wall recuperating, while her motionless No-Face Men loitered in the shadows, but there was a sense of urgency in the room. They all knew that speed was of the essence. If anyone came in here and saw the bodies and blood, their troubles would have only just begun.



“I would have sensed that,” Sally said. “They needed her alive as bait.”



“Bait,” Jim echoed, and the idea of anyone using his precious little girl like that only increased his fury.



“Like in fishing, Daddy?”



“Yes, honey.” He hugged Holly and felt her familiar warmth, and could not avoid imagining that bleeding away.



“Her Shadow Men have been thinking on their own,” Sally said. “She must have imbued them with more intelligence than I thought.”



“But they didn’t figure on us,” Anne said. She was nursing her bruised and bleeding head, but her defiance was unmistakable.



“As if we made much difference,” Jennifer said. She was kneeling close to Jim and Holly but not quite close enough to touch. He knew that this must be so difficult for her.



“You made every difference,” Sally said. Her eyes were closed. She looked reduced, even smaller than the child she was.



“How?” Trix asked.



“You gave them something more to fight. Bought us time to react.”



Trix and Anne pulled several of the heavy chairs across to the wide entrance. With the doors closed and chairs propped beneath the handles, it would take a concerted effort to enter the room from that way. And today, they hoped, few people would have browsing works of art on their minds. Art was a luxury, and these were desperate times.



“Honey,” Jim whispered into his daughter’s ear, and she pulled back slightly and looked up at him.



“I know,” she said. “It’s time for you to help Mommy.”



“And you’re going to stay here, be my good little girl.” He glanced at Sally, watching him talk to his daughter. “And look after Sally for me. She’s very tired, and a little sad.”



Holly looked at the Oracle, then sighed. “Daddy,” she said, “don’t be silly. She’s like … magic. She’ll be looking after me.”



He laughed, and Jennifer smiled at him. “Clever little girl you’ve got there,” she said.



“You don’t know the half of it.” He wondered what Jennifer must think, knowing that this girl shared her DNA yet was not her daughter. And he realized that after this, nothing would ever be the same again. From this day forward, the merged city of Boston would become the focus of every media outlet, and every scientist. It would be the most famous, most heavily scrutinized place in the world, and thousands of people’s lives would be changed. Some of the changes would be obvious and immediately apparent—there would be lots of people vying for the same property, existing in the same space. But many more changes would be hidden away, perhaps forever. There were plenty of bodies in the streets and buried under collapsed buildings, but yesterday’s collision must have wiped out many people from reality. Bloodlines had ended, without ever having existed at all.



Across the world, ripples from this incredible, terrible event had changed situations beyond counting.



“You have to go now,” Sally said. Her eyes were still closed and she remained seated, but something about her had hardened. Perhaps it was her stronger voice, or the squaring of her shoulders.



Jim stood, still grasping his daughter’s hand. The idea of Jenny fading away was terrible, and the thought of her becoming one of those faceless shadow-things was beyond comprehension.



“Are you ready?” Sally asked.



“Are you?” She looked wasted to Jim; he was afraid for her, and of her.



“I can do what I need to do,” Sally said. “It’s all of you who matter. If you don’t get back and stop Veronica, what happened here will be only the beginning. This won’t be”—she stood, pushing herself up the wall and shrugging her shoulders—“pleasant.”



Jim and Jennifer stood near Holly, and Trix and Anne came to stand with them, facing away from the bodies that Trix and Anne had dragged across to one wall. Smears of blood glistened on the floor. Holly had her back resolutely to the corpses as well, and Jim’s heart broke for her. Even if this all ends well, she’s changed forever, he thought, and his little girl smiled up at him sadly.



“You know what you’ve gotta do,” Sally said, standing before them. “The only way to hide you from the In-Between is to fool it into thinking you’re already a part of it. Being turned into a shadow would weaken you pretty badly, even at the beginning. And you’ll need all your strength in there. So I’m going to lend you souls not yet born.”



“So Jenny, now?” Jim asked.



“After this time, I suspect she’s in a sort of coma,” Sally said. “Which is good, because it will protect her. A little.”



Trix exhaled loudly. “Okay. I’m ready. But I’ve gotta say, it’s freaking me out something huge.”



Jim nodded. He felt the same way. Sally wanted to merge them with her No-Face Men, masking their humanity with those wraiths’ potential existence. Hopefully like that, the In-Between would not affect them. At least, not right away. “Are you sure this is going to work?” he asked Sally.



The young Oracle shrugged. “I guess. I mean, it’s been done before, but not by me. You should be able to stay merged with them for a little while without it affecting you too much. I’m not sure for how long, but long enough for you to …” She waved at the expanse of wall through which the Shadow Men had tried to pull Anne.



“What’s ‘too much’?” Trix asked.



“I don’t know,” Sally said. “I’ve never done this before.”



“Will we be able to lose them afterward?” Jim asked.



“You will,” Sally said. “I’ll tell you how. Show you.” She was vague, and quiet.



“All right,” Trix said. She looked at Anne and they squeezed each other’s hands. “If we’re going, let’s get going. Me first.”



Sally shifted her hand by her side, and a No-Face Man came forward, a shadow floating through pools of artificial light. “Try and keep still,” Sally said. “And don’t fight it.”



Trix nodded, then let go of Anne’s hand and crossed her arms on her chest.



Jim’s first impulse was to shout out and help his friend because he could see that she was in pain. Her face screwed up—but she uttered no sound—as Sally grasped at the amorphous No-Face Man and pressed him to Trix’s side. Trix did not move or flinch, but her expression betrayed the discomfort she was feeling as Sally kneaded and pressed, clasping handfuls of shadow and pressing it against her clothing, her skin. The little girl’s face was set in concentration, and her lips moved as she muttered some unheard incantation, eyes fluttering, cheeks flushing. She grasped and pushed, and it was almost as if she was trying to mold Trix and the No-Face Man together. As the wraith reduced, so Trix’s discomfort seemed to grow.



“You’re hurting her,” Jim said, but it was Holly’s hand squeezing his that silenced him. My little girl’s giving me comfort, he thought, and a darkness opened in him because of things she had already seen. He hated the idea of Holly becoming as unnaturally precocious as Sally.



Perhaps something about what she was doing became easier, because Sally seemed to speed up. Her hands grasped and pressed, her arms windmilled, and soon she was snatching at the air to retrieve the few dregs of the No-Face Man that remained. At last she stood back, breathing heavily and yet seemingly invigorated by what she had done—eyes glinting, skin flushed and shining.



Trix opened her eyes and looked around. Her pupils were darker than Jim had ever seen them, like pits into nothing.



“Trix?” he asked. She blinked a few times, gathering her personality back to her, finding herself again.



“Fucking hell,” she said.



“Okay,” Sally said, waving her hand and calling forth another. “Who’s next?”



Trix watched Anne, Jennifer, and then Jim go through the process, and all the time she was coming to terms with what she had become. Memories flitted at her like vague recollections of long-ago dreams, and even this distant there was a terrifying alienness to them. She often could not remember what she had dreamed the night before, but a nightmare from when she was four years old—falling from a cliff with her mother, Trix flying, her mother striking the ground and dying—was etched on her memory. These memories felt like secondhand dreams remembered by someone else. They were not only memories that did not belong, but the way they were remembered was all wrong as well. She was recalling someone else’s life, long lost to the In-Between.