The Shadow Men (31 page)

Jim nodded, took hold of Jenny’s hand with his left hand and Jennifer’s with his right, and the five of them ran.

Holly pulled them in, Jim’s love for his daughter strong and warm in the distance. And with his wife next to him again, Jim thought perhaps he would find the strength for anything. He felt no tiredness, though he ran faster than he ever had before. Even his fear was slight and remote, though they were crossing an ocean of nothing, a place between worlds where souls were torn apart. Love had brought him this far, and would take him farther.

But the In-Between was no longer passive.

Whatever had seen Jennifer saw her still, and there were stirrings in the mist. The ground rumbled beneath Jim’s feet whenever he took a step. The air vibrated, as though something huge was moving in the distance. The mist swirled in patterns he did not know, and complex shapes that no mere mist could make.

“Faster!” Jim said, and somehow they increased their speed. Jenny was gasping and panting beside him. She looked exhausted and terrified, but she was taking strength from these people who had come to find her. He knew that expression of grim determination set on her face—she was hiding her discomfort to do what needed to be done. Physically, she was triumphing, but he had no idea how this would scar her.

Together, that’s all that matters
, he thought, and the sense of Holly drawing them back was wonderful. But just when he believed it was all going to be all right and that they’d stumble upon the solid Reflection Room at any moment, the ground shook and sent them sprawling.

As he fell, Jim’s instinct took over—he had to reach out to shield his fall, and without thinking he unclasped his left hand and held it out before him. He grunted, rolled, and when he came to a stop he and Jenny were still holding hands.

Six feet away, Jennifer slowly stood and faced what was bearing down upon them.

“Keep still!” Anne said. She and Trix were also still holding hands, standing quickly and backing slowly from the shape in the mist.

“Too late,” Trix said, and Jim knew that she was right. Camouflaged though they might be by bearing the No-Face Men, whatever was coming for them would have seen through their subterfuge. Jennifer stood before them, a bared human soul in this inhuman world, and now the thing would destroy them all.

The thing was a storm, a riot of mist, and as it approached there were hints of something more solid at its center.

“You can go,” Jennifer said. Jim heard her voice clearly, even above the closing chaos.

“No,” he said, but she was not making a suggestion.

“You can go,” she said again, telling them all that she might be their one chance. As Jim looked from Jennifer—standing tall and straight, and as strong as he had ever seen his wife—and toward the approaching thing, he at last began to appreciate the threat it presented.

Because there was a face. And he had seen that face before.

Trix was by his side then, grabbing his left arm. “That’s …!” she said, unable to finish. To his right, Jenny hugged his arm, shaking but standing firm.

“That’s Thomas McGee,” Jim said.

“It doesn’t deserve a name,” Jenny said. Jim wondered what terrible things she had seen out here, but he could not ask her now. Perhaps he never would.

“Who is he?” Anne asked.

“The reason this place is here. He’s the ruination of Boston. The one who splintered it in the first place. I thought he was dead, but instead—”

“He’s in the In-Between,” Trix said.

“No. Can’t you feel it?” Jim said. “I think he
is
the In-Between.”

Jenny started shouting, because the shape that was McGee was close now, so close Jim thought perhaps it would reach out and sweep them away. As large as a man, the form at the heart of the mist-storm felt a hundred times more solid, as though its gravity was pulling them in.

“You … can … go,” Jennifer said, and she spared Jim one glance over her shoulder. The shadow stuff of the In-Between was pushing itself into her body, beginning the change that would make her a dead thing, an echo.

He would never forget the look in her eye, because it was the last thing he had expected. He’d have recognized fear, or resignation, or even sadness at the cruel tricks fate could play. But what he saw there was unbridled, uncomplicated love.

She went at McGee, and the re-forming man paused for a moment as if surprised.

“Run!” Jim said.

“We can’t just—” Trix began, but he clasped her hand and pulled her after him. There was no time to argue about it now. Later he would tell her,
Jennifer did it for us, and if we’d waited there a second longer, her sacrifice would have been in vain
. And later still, perhaps he and Trix would share quiet, private moments to go over those events again and again, to see what might have been different. But right then they did not have the luxury of time, and when Jim heard the angry shouts behind them—and then those long, terrible screams that would haunt him for the rest of his life—he did not turn around.

Anne and Jenny screamed as well, and for their final few moments in the In-Between they cried tears of unimaginable loss.

Bursting back through the Reflection Room and feeling the weight of reality realigning around them, Jim risked a look at his wife and the woman who could be her twin. They were reduced by what had happened; something was missing from their eyes. As he felt tears blurring his vision, he wondered whether either of them would ever feel fully alive again.

“Mommy!” Holly shouted as they opened the door.
“Mommy!”
The little girl ran across the bloodstained room and hugged her mother tight.

“McGee,” Sally said.

“Yes.” Jim nodded. Trix was holding Anne as she sobbed. Sally glanced around, then walked slowly across the room and closed the door. She had seen Jennifer’s absence and accepted it, and Jim couldn’t help hating her for it, just a little. Perhaps that was unfair blame, but right then he had to blame someone.

“Get these fucking things out of us,” Jim said.

“Not yet,” Sally said. She looked at Holly and Jenny hugging and smiled an unbearable smile. It was a look that said,
That can never be me
, and Jim’s anger at her shifted to grudging pity.

“Why?” Jim asked.

“Because it’s not over.” The Oracle looked at Trix, and Trix looked at Jim.

“Veronica,” Trix said.

“Veronica.” Sally waved them closer, and Jim realized that it was not yet time to rest.

Every Dog Has Its Day

I
T WAS
daytime. Smoke hung over the city, drifting gently westward and tearing the sunlight into veils of gorgeous color. Jim remembered hearing of similar electromagnetic effects in the atmosphere after other earthquakes. He wondered what more this tragedy might have done, but for now he had his family with him, and he really did not care.

They looked like a party of refugees. Jenny wore a pair of pants and a man’s shirt they’d found in a storage room in the library, and she had taken the shoes from the dead woman’s body. Jim had been shocked at that, but Jenny had barely blinked as she sat and put them on. Life, death—their distinction was still strong, but now the space In-Between was vaster than ever before. Holly was tired and bedraggled, Trix and Anne leaned on each other for support, and Sally walked ahead of the small group. Some people recognized her and moved aside, almost as if making way for a queen, but most did not. Most of the others they passed in that blighted city had tragedy of their own to contemplate, and their attention was focused inward.

“Can we … can we get these things out of us now?” Jenny asked, shuddering with revulsion at the presence of the No-Face Man still inside her.

Jim had been wondering the same thing. They were out of the In-Between. They didn’t need the shadow creatures merged with them anymore. But Sally shook her head again, and Jim saw that old wisdom working behind her eyes. “You’ll need them a little while longer,” she said.

“But—” Trix began.

“Please,” Sally said with a tired sigh. “You’ve trusted me this long.”

Holly took her hand. To her, it was clear Sally wasn’t a child at all. At four or five years older, the Oracle was one of the “big kids”—at least in Holly’s eyes. “We trust you, Sally,” Holly told her, and Jim shuddered, because now there was some of that old wisdom in his daughter’s voice, too.

They had another walk ahead of them, in this city where traffic was mainly restricted to emergency vehicles. Not every street was blocked, but there were many more bicycles being used today, and with crowds of people traversing the city in search of something—or perhaps, in some cases, fleeing something—it was a safer bet to walk.

“McGee’s house,” Sally had said. “That’s where she’ll be waiting.”

“Why can’t we just get there through the In-Between?” Anne had asked, shocking Jim, because that was the last place in the world he’d ever want to go again. But Anne’s eyes were filled with a fury he had never before seen in his wife. In
his
Jenny.

“No,” Sally had replied. “What’s left of McGee—whatever he’s become—has seen you now.”

“I’d fight him.” Anne had pursed her lips, her cheeks glowing red, and even Trix’s soft touch had done little to quell her shaking.

“And you’d lose,” Sally had said. “He’s not our enemy. He’s not the threat. His crime happened more than a century ago, and he was its first victim. Whatever he is now, I don’t think there’s much of Thomas McGee left in him.”

So they walked, and Jim wished it was all over. He could not let go of his wife, and he wanted to hold his daughter to him, but it was impossible to walk holding them both. So he gave Holly a piggyback ride and got Jenny to curve her arm through his. Soon Holly was snoring gently on his right shoulder, and he felt the sting of tears at that gentle, innocent sound. “How could she be such a bitch?” he asked out loud, and Jenny shook her head because she didn’t know what he meant. But Trix did.

“I can still hardly believe it,” Trix said. “After what she did for my family. What she’s done for so many.”

“You can’t purge your sins with good deeds,” Sally said.

“So what are we going to do to her?” Jim asked. Before, his desire had been for revenge, payback for what Veronica had done to Jenny and Holly—using them as objects, disregarding their humanity, and causing the disaster he walked through even now. But now, with his family back, gentler emotions had swallowed his rage. He still hated her for what she had done, but the thought of perpetrating violence on the old woman—whoever and whatever she might be—was horrible.

Still, he wasn’t the only person here. And Anne’s anger glowed like a beacon.

“What happens to her will be her choice as much as my own,” Sally said. “But you know I can’t go through with you, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Jim said. “But you Oracles … you don’t need to be there to get things done.”

As they crossed Boston, the closeness of his family—he included Trix in that circle now, and Anne as well—inspired conflicting thoughts. He felt stronger than ever before, and able to face any and all dangers that could be thrown their way. But he also felt incredibly vulnerable. He had gone through so much to save his family, the idea of something happening to them now …

He heard Jennifer’s screams, and knew he always would.
She knew we were running, knew she was doing it to make time for us, and she’d have done her very best not to scream. How terrible it must have been
.

It took them almost two hours to walk the two miles to Hanover Street. They crossed Boston Common, where thousands of displaced people had set up temporary shelters, and relief agencies were busy erecting tents and treatment areas. There were tears, but there were also children running between the tents playing hide-and-seek, teens playing soccer, and many groups of people had joined forces to prepare and hand out food and water. Spirits were generally high, but Jim knew that would not last longer than a couple of days.

None of them had any true idea about the level of destruction wrought on the city, or the death toll. That was for afterward. For now, they still had more than one world to consider.

Holly snored, and Jim wondered what was going on in her mind.
Veronica wants your daughter dead because she’s the next Oracle of Boston
, the redheaded kid had told them. That gave Jim and his family’s future a whole new landscape—but it was something else he was desperate not to think about right now.

When they finally found themselves closing on Veronica’s house, Sally called a halt and gathered them together in front of a tall townhouse. “Right,” she said, and told them what to do.

“I won’t let you go. I can’t lose you again.”

Trix and Anne faced each other. They had spoken at the same time. On any other occasion that might have made them smile, but not now.

“No,” Trix said. “Just … no. If anything happens to me through there, you’ll be stuck, and it’s a different world, and—”

“Is it?” Anne asked.

“Yes,” Trix said. And it
was
a different world. One where she and Jenny were best friends, but nothing more, except in her own guilty dreams. A world where Anne had never existed and could never live. Over there—back where Trix had come from—she hoped to find that everything was still normal, hoped that bringing Jenny and Holly back would weave them into the fabric of that world again.

And yet …

“I’ll see you again,” Trix said.

Anne’s eyes opened wider, and she swallowed hard.

“I’m coming back,” Trix said. “I promise you that.”

“A promise isn’t enough,” Anne said. “
Nothing’s
enough. I’ve lost you once already, Trix. I buried you and buried myself in grief, and I can’t go through that again.”

The others were milling, speaking in low voices while Trix said her good-byes. She caught Sally’s gaze over Anne’s shoulder, and the little girl nodded.
Maybe she really can read my mind
, Trix thought. Sally crossed the sidewalk and held Anne’s hand. “She’s right,” Sally said, not quite able to sound like a little girl. “You can’t go. But Trix is Unique. She can come back.”

Anne lowered her gaze, muttering something.

“What’s that?” Trix asked.

Anne lifted her eyes and Trix saw the tears streaming down her face. “Will you want to? Once you’re back to your old life and everything is normal again, maybe you’ll forget all about me. Maybe you’ll just be happy things are the way they’re supposed to be, and—”

Trix silenced her with a kiss, her own tears falling as she twined her fingers in Anne’s hair. Then she broke the kiss, reluctantly. She pressed her forehead against Anne’s and looked into her eyes. “You don’t get it, do you?” Trix whispered. “This … in my heart, this is the way things were always supposed to be.”

Anne smiled, wiping her tears. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

Trix could have made a joke out of it, but she didn’t even return Anne’s smile. “No,” she promised. “Never.”

Anne took a shuddering breath, then nodded. She would go along with Sally’s plan. “You make this work,” she told Trix. Then she looked at the others. “All of you. Take care of each other.”

Jim put his arms around his wife and daughter. “We always have.”

Trix kissed Anne’s forehead. “We’ll try our best not to die.”

Anne hit her. “That’s not funny.”

“No,” Sally agreed. “It’s not.”

The young Oracle closed her eyes and muttered something, words lost beneath the roar of a police cruiser passing by. Anne’s eyes widened in surprise as her No-Face Man slipped from her and flickered in the sunlight, fading quickly to nothing as it obeyed Sally’s careful orders. “You won’t need him anymore,” Sally said.

Trix held Anne as she slumped slightly. Anne sighed as she realized she was only herself again.

“I love you,” Trix whispered. And Anne relaxed before letting her go, because that seemed to have made everything all right.

It should have been impossible for her to fall in love so fast—in a single day, only hours, really—but in a fundamental way, she had been in love with this woman for many years. Thomas McGee might have done something monstrous, and become a monster in the process, but the splintering of the city had also given both Trix and Anne second chances at the love they’d always wanted.

“Remember,” Sally said, “the only way is to fool her. Holly goes forward. You’re offering her.”

“She’ll never believe that,” Jim said.

“It’ll confuse her long enough for you to tackle her.”

“And then?”

“And then kill her.”

They shuffled their feet, none of them wanting to catch another’s eye.

“That’s just nasty,” Holly said at last.

Trix sighed and looked around. The street was relatively undamaged other than smashed glass and a few fallen tiles. People walked here and there with shopping bags, panic-buying food and drink. Others stood on their stoops and watched the world go by, perhaps counting their blessings. What would they think of this strange group of scruffy, serious people?

“Gotta be done,” Trix said softly. Though her voice was strong, she had no idea if she could do what Sally asked.

“So these things in us?” Jim asked.

“I’ve already instructed them,” Sally said. “When it’s over, they leave. One way or another.”

“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” Jim said. But Sally’s awkward smile made him realize something—she was socially inept, even for a girl of her age. She might be the Oracle, but that meant she would never be normal. Relationships were her work, in many ways, but she could never have one of her own. She was doomed to a life alone. It made him fear for Holly, and wonder whether there had been Oracles in the past who had managed to have love in their lives.

“Good luck,” Sally said, and she turned and walked away.

“Sally,” Jim said. The girl paused and turned around, and Trix had a sudden, shattering sense of déjà vu. She remembered watching a program once with Jim and Jenny about the discovery of the concentration camps in Germany and Poland. It had been a moment of pure immersion, when the camera had focused on a young girl walking behind a wire fence. She had paused and turned to look at the camera, and even that seventy-year-old footage had done nothing to lessen that girl’s haunting, hopeless expression.
Who is she where is she now is she still alive?
Trix had thought, and it had become a preoccupation of hers to find out. She never had, and she often dreamed of that little girl, still standing there staring through a fence, waiting to be discovered. Sally reminded her of that little girl now—eyes deepened by exhaustion, mouth slack, her skin wan and ashy.

“It’ll be okay!” Trix said. Sally glanced at her and smiled, and Trix thought perhaps she’d found that little girl at last.

“I’ll be watching from here,” Sally said, “but you’ll be a world away. I don’t have to stand
here
and watch.” She tapped her foot on the sidewalk and looked down at the tinkle of broken glass. “Besides, I’ve got plenty to keep me occupied now. So many who need my help.”

They watched her leave.

“So, what’re you waiting for?” Anne asked. She sat on a fire hydrant, arms crossed, head tilted to one side. “Get it done, and get your cute ass back here.”

Holly giggled. Even Jenny managed a soft laugh and said, “That’s not something I ever thought I’d say.”

“Don’t know what you’re missing,” Anne said, and winked at her. The two women, facets of each other, smiled conspiratorially.

“So?” Trix said. She looked from Jim to Jenny to Holly and felt a rush of love.