The Shadow Men (24 page)

Jenny’s long blond hair, and Holly’s … Holly’s …

Jim’s throat worked and tears came as he considered the possibility of Holly being here, a victim of those bastard wraith-things that had killed the Irish Oracle. “Too late,” he said again, and he turned to one of the living to ask what had happened.

Someone screamed. A woman stood from where she was kneeling by a body and pointed at Jim. Her cry was terrible, and it was taken up by others in the street as they started to flee.
All those people in need
, Jim thought, but for the first time he realized that none of the bodies were moving. “Wait!” he shouted, but behind him Jennifer’s voice, broken with fear, turned his blood cold.

“What the
fuck
is
that
?” she said. He looked where she was pointing.

One of them was emerging from the front door of a house back along the street. The door was closed. Another slid down the building’s façade, landing gently on the sidewalk and flexing its arms. Two more manifested from shadows as if they had only recently been a part of them.

“Shit,” Jim said. One of them appeared damaged, its arm withered and less visible than the other.

Jennifer glanced back at him, mouth open, eyes wide … and her eyes grew even wider. “Behind you,” she whispered, and Jim wished he
had
held her, just once.

Instead, he turned to face what had arrived.

Trix’s ground-floor apartment light was on. Her heart beat, and not only from the exertion. The curtains were drawn, dark and heavy with a Celtic swirl.

I’d have chosen them
. She wondered who the hell lived here in this Boston, and whether the building and area could possibly attract like-minded people. The pub on the corner was the same, and perhaps old man O’Reilly still had punk and folk bands on Saturday nights, and open-mic nights on Wednesdays.

“Someone’s home,” Sally said.

“Then let’s knock.” Trix crossed the street, thinking,
Let it be both of them, let it be Jenny and Holly
, because she could not imagine how terrible it would be if Holly was lost in this place, at this time.

Jenny would have done anything to keep her daughter safe and sound, whatever weird events had swallowed them up and spat them out in a different place.
I’d die for my daughter
, she’d said once as she, Jim, and Trix were lounging in the Bankses’ living room after a big meal. Jim had landed a huge promotional contract with a local brewery, and they were celebrating the following week with a holiday to the Bahamas with their extended family. But that night had been their real celebration, Jenny had told her—a night at home with good food, good wine, and their best friend. And Trix had nodded, looking into the ruby depths of her Merlot, and said,
I’d kill for your daughter
. The room had fallen silent for a while, as they all realized that was one step further.

Up the steps, and she scanned the four nameplates to see who lived in her apartment. But the paper slips were missing, leaving four mystery bell pushes.

“Try the door,” Sally said.

Trix tried. The handle turned and the big glass door opened inward, a waft of musty air emerging from the lobby.
I know that smell!
she thought. No one in her block had ever discovered where the smell came from, and it gave her an intense, welcome feeling of home.

She entered, with Sally close behind, then stood before her apartment door. “Whoever lives here must have taken them in,” she said.

“It’s a rough night,” Sally said. “Something I know more than most is that people are generally good, and usually want to help.”

Trix beamed as she rapped on the door. She wondered whether the handle stuck like hers, and the hinges squealed, and whether the oak flooring in the small hallway held the scratched inscription of the man who had laid it decades before. But when the door opened and she saw Jenny standing there, all such thoughts evaporated.

“Jenny!” she shouted, lurching in through the door, arms raised, sweeping the stunned woman into her embrace.

“Wha—?” Jenny said, as if in her terror and delight she could no longer speak.

“Oh, my God, I found you!” Trix said, bursting with tears of giddy relief. “Jim is desperate! Please tell me you’ve got Holly with you!” She hugged Jenny tight and looked over her shoulder into the apartment. It seemed silent, felt quiet and calm … and looked familiar.

Jenny hugged her back. Tight. One hand pulled against the small of Trix’s back, the other held her neck, and then Jenny pulled back a little so that they were face-to-face. That was when Trix knew that something was different, because Jenny looked as if she had seen a ghost.

“Whoops,” Sally said.

“I don’t care if I’m dreaming,” Jenny said, “as long as I never wake up.” And then she reached up to catch Trix’s face between her hands, and kissed her.

The Wrong Company

A
RE THEY
what caused the earthquake?” Jennifer asked. Jim nodded but then thought better of it. There was more to it than that, but now was not the time. Now they had to survive.

Jennifer drew close to him, and once again he was almost overwhelmed by her familiarity. Even catching sight of her from the corner of his eye—her stance, the determined expression, the way she filled her space—flooded him with memories of Jenny. “You’ve seen them before?” she asked.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t help us.” Four wraiths were stealing along the street, while, past the scene of ruin outside Sally’s house, three more had manifested from smoke and unseen corners. Jim’s heart galloped as he tried to think of something to do, some way to escape them. Into Sally’s house? But even if they could reach the shattered front door before being caught by the wraiths, they were obviously the cause of the death and chaos apparent in the street. Being inside, even in the Oracle’s home, would offer no protection. He’d seen that with Peter O’Brien.

“Are they going to …?” Jennifer asked, fear lowering her voice.

They didn’t find Sally!
Jim thought, which gave him hope that Trix had made it away with the Oracle. “No,” he said, “they won’t kill us. But they might take us prisoner.”

“Take us where?”

He’d seen them form and melt away again, and the idea of being pulled through with them was terrible. He was Unique, and maybe that would make it possible, but …

But Jennifer was
not
Unique. And this place was not a crossing point.

“Jim?” Jennifer asked.

But he could not speak.
What will it do to her to be dragged after them? What will it do to her body, her soul?
He glanced around at the several dead bodies splayed across the street, saw the terrible damage inflicted upon them, and he grabbed Jennifer’s hand and pulled her close. “When they come for me,” he whispered, “run as fast as you can.”

“No!” Her voice was angry and fearful.

“Jennifer,” he said, and her face was so close to his that he could smell Jenny’s breath.

The wraiths dashed at them, and Jim felt momentary surprise when he heard their footsteps slapping on the pavement. His vision blurred, and he thought that an aftershock was striking the city—buildings shimmered, his stomach lurched, and Jennifer cried out beside him. She hugged him tighter, and her body fit his as well as it always had.

But the ground did not move, and he felt enclosed, his breathing and heartbeat echoing back at him from the wall of air around them. That wall darkened and resolved itself into separate shapes, and he heard Jennifer whimper softly as she pressed her face against his neck.
She doesn’t want to see, but I have to
, he thought as the shapes became vaguely humanoid and rushed outward to meet the threat.

The wraiths seemed unconcerned at the appearance of these new things, and unsurprised. They joined in brutal battle without preamble, and the conflict seemed more violent because of its utter silence. One of Veronica’s wraiths was flipped around and crushed against the ground, rupturing the concrete paving with a loud
crack!
that gave the fight brief voice. And at last Jim saw the thing that had met the wraith and bettered it. It had a silvered, flickering blank face and long limbs, and its gray shape seemed to flex and shiver as though trying to retain a hold on reality, but that ambiguity detracted nothing from its strength. It stomped down on the floored wraith, driving its foot into the thing’s head and twisting, sending glittering shreds across the road. They shriveled and turned black before fading away, and the rest of the wraith melted to nothing.

The faceless man motioned to Jim to follow. Every fiber of his being urged him to grab Jennifer and flee, but while conflict raged around them, this creature seemed the safest ally they had. Still Jim paused, glancing around at the fighting, thrashing things that had come from thin air and belonged. He heard Jennifer gasp, turned around, and the faceless man was so close that Jim could have touched it. His hair stood on end, and his balls tingled. The shape raised an arm and pointed at the house of this Boston’s Oracle. And then it signaled once again that he should follow.

They hurried after the shape as it seemed to float across the street, away from the house and the human bodies lying close by. They passed other bodies that were fading away—wraiths and faceless men alike—and Jim wondered if they hurt, and if the shift from living to dead meant anything to them.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Jennifer said. “What are they? What is this?”

“It all has to do with the city,” Jim said, because he thought he knew where these things came from—from Sally, this Boston’s Oracle. Maybe they were constantly on guard outside her home, but he thought not. If they were, why the dead people, the smashed windows, and the sense of something momentous having happened here? The other alternative was that Sally had left them here to wait for him. That seemed more likely, as this thing was guiding them somewhere. And the only way he could figure this out was that Trix had gotten here first.

He only hoped she was all right. And he hoped and prayed that she and Sally had found his wife and child.

The thing led them quickly away from the battle, edging into an alley between buildings, headed west. It passed over a recently tumbled wall, waiting on the other side while Jim and Jennifer climbed the precarious pile. It exuded no impatience but walked on as soon as they were ready, moving unerringly through streets and alleys, across parks, and into the heart of the ruined city. They went through the theater district and kept moving west, crossing streets where buildings had collapsed or fires were raging, passing crowds of onlookers or people trying to help, and no one saw the faceless man. Jim didn’t believe for a moment that it was invisible to all but him and Jennifer—how could it be?—but perhaps it had some way of diverting attention, or seeking paths between perception.

Every few minutes the thing held up its hand and turned around, moving past them the way they had come.
It’s listening, and watching
, Jim thought. And indeed the phantom seemed to stand for a while breathing in the air and scanning their surroundings. For some reason, that did not make Jim feel safe. He believed the faceless man was just as dangerous, just as
inhuman
, as the wraiths that had killed O’Brien. He was only grateful it was on their side.

“Where’s it leading us?” Jennifer asked.

“I think toward Trix’s apartment in this Boston. And hopefully Sally.”

“Sally?”

“The Oracle. You’ve heard of her?”

Jennifer frowned, a little unsettled. “I’ve heard the name Oracle before, yes. A friend of a friend visited her once, so he claims. Helped him find a brother adopted at birth.”

“Well, she’s the only one who can help me here,” Jim said.

“Help you find your wife, Jenny,” Jennifer said.

“Yeah,” Jim said, and he had to shake himself again.
This isn’t Jenny. This is Jennifer
.

“And you believe in all that mystical stuff?”

“Days ago, no, not really. But now … if whatever it is works, then yes, I believe in it.” He pointed ahead at where the phantom shape had paused at a road junction. “And you’ve got to account for that.”

“Not today,” Jennifer said. “I don’t need to account for
anything
today. Maybe tomorrow, when all this is …” But she trailed off, because what they’d seen of the city proved that this would
never
be all over. Things might improve, people might be rescued, and the injured would recover, but Boston would never be the same again.

As they followed the phantom, Jim started to wonder just what Jennifer-not-Jenny felt about him. Because there was a spark. And however much he tried to smother it, it burned brighter with every passing minute. “Not far now,” he said, wondering what they would find upon their arrival. “We’re almost there.”

* * *

Trix leaned back against the wall of what might be her apartment, watching as Sally worked, and she knew that she should be able to control herself. She knew what this was and what it meant, and she was better placed than almost anyone in Boston today to understand what was going on. Yet she was shaking and scared, lonely and feeling shunned by the world she knew, and those worlds she did not.

And she couldn’t help feeling jealous.
I need help, too. Sally should be doing that to me
. She hated the self-pity but could not rein it in. Too much had happened for her to beat herself up about how she felt.

Sally was kneeling beside this alternate Jenny and singing a soft song. This Jenny called herself Anne—her middle name—and had been begging Trix to recognize her and love her.
It’s Anne. Don’t you know me, Trix? Don’t you know me?
It must have been Trix’s haunted expression that threw Anne into a terrified fit. That, and the fact that she was dead in Anne’s world, victim of a car crash three years before.

I’m no ghost
, Trix had said, but it was taking the Oracle’s ministrations to calm Anne down.

Sally rocked slowly back and forth on her knees, one hand running gentle circles across Anne’s stomach, the other seemingly molding the air around her. The song seemed more solid than mere words, heavier than a voice. The air around Sally and Anne danced and flickered, heat haze where there was little heat, and Trix saw distortions that twisted their faces into terrible shapes. Yet she could not look away. Not only was Anne almost identical to Jenny in every way, she had also known Trix before she died in this world.

She knew me, as I’ve always wanted to know her
, she thought.
Knew the heart of me, my deepest secrets, my
fondest desires
. Anne had not taken her eyes off Trix since stepping back from that kiss—that wonderful kiss—and she still stared at her now. But her eyes had grown lazy, and her breathing had calmed.

Trix closed her eyes to escape that stare, and found herself staring right back. In her mind’s eye she saw herself as she might have been in this world: shorter hair, perhaps heavier-boned, happy and content. And she had died young. In one world she survived, in the others she died, and she knew she should feel lucky and blessed. But she could only feel sad.

“She’ll rest for a while,” Sally said, and she continued her slow, melancholy song.

“And when do I rest?” Trix asked. But she might as well have been talking to herself. Sally ignored her, rocking and singing, and perhaps somewhere in that song was comfort for the Oracle as well.

Trix could still taste Anne’s lips on her own. She had kissed Jenny before, of course, countless friendly pecks on the cheek, and they never meant anything more than that. The real kisses happened only in her mind.

But now, what if I could stay?
she thought.
This is Boston, and this is Jenny
. She opened her eyes again and stared at the prone woman, seeing the slight differences but welcoming them. Each difference—the longer hair, the leaner physique—made her love Jenny more.
I can help Jim find Jenny and Holly, see them home, and then …

Sally stopped singing and stood up. She groaned like an old lady, and Trix went to help, thinking that perhaps she’d tired herself out. But when the Oracle turned, Trix was shocked to see tears on her cheeks, her face squeezed as she tried to hold them back.

“Hey,” Trix said, opening her arms.

Sally came to her and held her tight, sobbing into her chest. She pulled back and looked up. “Another room,” she said. “If she hears … me crying … the spell might break.”

Spell
, Trix thought, unsettled. But she nodded, holding Sally and walking her through to where she knew the kitchen would be. When she entered, the room felt so familiar that Trix paused for a moment. But already something in her mind was preparing her for such sights, and she was looking for differences instead of similarities. The wall was a deep ocher color that she would have never chosen, the crockery on a plate rack bore a gaudy pattern, and there were several smoked sausages hanging from a rack above the fridge. Trix hated smoked sausage. Anne must have made this place her own after Trix died, and that planted in her not shock, but an unbearable sadness that threatened tears.

“Anne said she ran,” Sally said, voice breaking. “After the collision, when they were both suddenly here. When my city changed. The other woman ran.”

“I can hardly blame her.” Trix nudged the kitchen door closed with her foot, and then Sally started sobbing for real. It was a shocking sight, because since first meeting her Trix had difficulty viewing the girl as a girl. She’d been an oddity, a child older than her years, wise beyond her age, performing feats that were not possible but were real, and her build and apparent age had meant little. Now she was an upset girl with tears in her eyes and Trix’s jacket clenched in her fists.

“Hey,” Trix said uncomfortably, unsure of what to do. She’d held Holly like this sometimes when the girl needed someone she regarded as a friend more than a parent—because of issues with friends in school, or sadness over the death of a pet hamster. Now things were different.