The Shadow War

by Lindsay Smith

  “Oh, Mr. Doyle. Whoever you really are.” Junker wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “If you honestly think we would let an American spy onto our military base—”

  The gunshot silenced him. A fine mist of brain and skull splashed Liam’s face as Junker slumped forward, eyes wide.

  Liam leapt back, cards and brandy and bottle caps flying as the table tilted and dumped the Sturmbannführer onto the floor.

  “Shit—”

  “Hands in the air, Amerikaner! Hands in the air!”

  All around him, the officers jumped to their feet, fumbling drunkenly for their sidearms. Liam raised his hands, keeping one fist closed, as what sounded like thousands of pistols were cocked.

  But they were all turning on the young guard who now stood behind Junker’s chair, his sidearm still spewing smoke.

  “For my family,” he snarled, chest heaving as he glared at Junker’s corpse.

  “Arrest him!”

  “Shoot him!”

  Liam and the guard locked eyes, and the guard’s mouth twisted with unrepentant hatred, his eyes coal black.

  “You bastard,” Liam said.

  Then he opened his hand, spilling darkness all around them. Thick as tar, hungry as acid. As the officers screamed, Liam lunged forward, humming the right frequency, and dragged the guard—the assassin—with him into the roaring black.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DANIEL

  Darkness like a swarm of locusts devoured the tavern as the idiot American tackled Daniel. He tried to pull away, but the harder he thrashed, the thicker the shadows grew. It was like trying to swim through oil. At least it sounded like the Nazis were suffering even more. Their screams, sweet as a Schubert ballad, were the screams of men being eaten alive, and for a moment, Daniel felt the old hitch in his breath from when he played, finding the rhythm in their melody before remembering he might be the next course.

  The American—Liam, if that was his real name—wrenched Daniel to his feet. He glanced where Junker’s body had fallen, but instead of a corpse, there was only a seeping lump of blackness like charred flesh. The whole world was bathed in indigo, and everything in it—the tavern, the Nazis, the chairs and tables and bottles—were only echoes of themselves, like images projected onto smoke. It was as if they’d stepped through a tarnished mirror into a forgery of the room where they’d just stood. The sweat running down Daniel’s spine turned icy.

  “You can stare later,” Liam said. “We need to leave. Now.”

  Liam tried to yank him through the tavern door—actually through it, the wood evaporating around him—but Daniel tugged back, hard as he could. Bad enough he’d almost ruined Daniel’s shot at Junker. Staring at him like he knew him, that little twist of sympathy and confusion on his lips. He’d been bound to expose Daniel as a fraud at any second. But now there was this—this darkness. It had come from Liam somehow, poured out of his hand and from all around him to swallow them both in its inky net.

  Rebeka. If any Nazis survived this, they were sure to search the woods. He had to get back. He broke free from Liam’s grasp and barreled through the door.

  “Wait!” Liam shouted. “It isn’t safe—”

  Daniel stepped out of the tavern and into a world on fire.

  Deep violet embers smoldered where the buildings should have been; instead of squat Bavarian homes, there were only battered, vine-choked ruins. The air itself was burning, sparking inside his lungs and stinging his eyes. A low rumble drowned out the hungry crackle of flames. Had the Brits firebombed the town? Surely they would’ve heard it. He turned back around, only to find the tavern completely gone, a thicket of brambles and gnarled trees in its place.

  The buzzing grew louder. Closer. It sounded like their uncle’s farm when the drought hit, the fields full of swarms and rot. He staggered in the direction of the hiking trail, but the ground shifted beneath him like cinders. Stone columns jutted from the earth at odd angles, forcing him to dart around them. He pitched forward and caught himself on a low branch—it felt like a skeletal hand grabbing him back.

  The buzzing was following him. But he’d outrun a squadron of Einsatzgruppen SS—surely he could escape this. Daniel suppressed a hiccup in his chest. He couldn’t surrender to fear and panic now. He wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

  He crested the first hill and found himself in the shattered remnants of a fortress, one curved wall hinting at where a tower once stood. Daniel pressed a hand to the cool stone and risked a glance over his shoulder. If even one Nazi had survived that evil, that darkness the American wrought, then he didn’t dare head straight for safety—they’d follow him right to Rebeka. And the last thing he needed was the American tailing him. But where the village should have been were only more ruins and figures threading through the eerie flames. Not quite human, limbs too long, fingers too sharp—

  Daniel launched himself down the trail and ran. Nazis or not, he had to get back to the barn.

  The dead guard’s too-tight boots strangled his toes as he flew through the forest. Dry leaves cracked like bones; bird calls sounded like screams. Something was writhing, slithering through the underbrush, and through the leafless tree branches, he could see no stars. Nothing to guide his way but that faint wash of indigo all around. Just a few more kilometers to the barn. He could make it—

  A muffled shout somewhere close. He flattened against a tree trunk, heartbeat shrieking in his ears. Would they be coming through with their dogs? Worse, had they already found her? Light shimmered between the trees, and for a fleeting second, he saw the outline of a man—but then it evaporated, leaving only black.

  He was losing his damned mind. That had to be it. He’d been so hell-bent on his mission that he’d lost all sense of reality, just as Rebeka had warned.

  Daniel forced himself to take a steadying breath. He’d killed Sturmbannführer Junker! He couldn’t fall apart now. If he could hold it together for another week, maybe two—then he could surrender. Let the exhaustion and hunger eat him up, let the bone-deep grief swallow him whole. Until then, there were more SS officers to kill.

  The tree trunk he was pressed against moved.

  Daniel swallowed. I really have gone mad. It rose and fell beneath his back. Like a breath. Daniel pulled away from the thick sap that coated the trunk—

  No. No, that was definitely not sap—

  “GET DOWN.”

  Arms wrapped around him from behind, wrenching him away from the breathing tree, and tackled him to the ground. Daniel jammed his elbow back, directly into Liam’s sternum, and Liam wheezed. But when Daniel tried to push himself to his knees, Liam wrestled him down.

  “Damn you!” Daniel scrabbled for purchase in the ashen earth as Liam pinned him. “You almost ruined everything—”

  “Quiet!” Liam hissed. “Shut up and listen for a goddamn minute. The rules are different here.”

  That flustered Daniel enough to stop his squirming. He spat out a mouthful of bitter dirt. “What do you mean, here—”

  “Stay still!”

  The earth rumbled around them, like tanks rolling by. But those slow, ponderous footsteps were no Panzer.

  Heart lurching into his throat, Daniel went still.

  The buzzing sound was back, thickening the air into something noxious. Daniel stifled a cough. Closer now, footsteps ricocheted through the woods. Then the trees parted with a fierce snap as something massive pushed through them.

  Daniel turned his head toward the noise, but Liam, still on top of him, moved his lips toward Daniel’s ear, his breath heated. “Whatever you do, don’t look.”

  Daniel looked.

  The creature must have been the size of an elephant herd, with about as many limbs. In the dull light, its skin glistened like a raw wound. Insects swarmed around it with a buzzing as sharp as radio static, like there were fragments of words trying to break free. And then the
creature’s face—

  As soon as he saw it, the awful images sprang up in his mind, reflected at him from that blankness. Every nightmare that had dogged him across the forests of Poland and Germany. Dr. Kreutzer, pacing the muddy ghetto streets as he eyed the prisoners, measuring, assessing, the ones he studied sure to disappear overnight. Rebeka’s hand in Daniel’s as they snuck underneath the fence, guards shouting, lights sweeping through Łódź’s alleyways. An idling van, hundreds of bodies pressed inside. The smell of corpses burning as the train Daniel and Rebeka had hidden aboard rolled safely past.

  Other images seeped in as well, and it felt like claws were digging into his mind. A circular hall, the same sandstone as the ruins he’d stumbled through, filled with shadowy figures. An elongated, eyeless face speaking to him inside his mind. He was being judged, considered. His sins, his value weighed. Every failure ripped out of him, his secrets pulled out, inch by inch, like his insides were unspooling, but still the torture dragged on—

  “Let go of your fear. Push it away.” Liam’s voice, low and steady, cut through the nightmares. “The worst thing you can do is be afraid.”

  Unafraid. Wasn’t he? He’d killed Junker and dozens more. He’d carved his way down the path of vengeance and feared nothing any longer, not even death itself. Hell, maybe he was ready for it to end. He could fall to his knees, he could drop his knife—anything to fill that aching hole the Nazis had ripped in him when they’d taken his family. Once Rebeka was off to safety, there was nothing left for him to lose. Maybe then he’d have earned his survival. Maybe then he could rest.

  The images dissipated like drifting smoke; the presence in his mind retreated with a tug, a needle pulling a stitch tight. The creature issued a low, wet exhale—the noise the guard’s lung had made when Daniel’s knife went between his ribs. The reminder he needed—that he, too, could be something to fear.

  On top of him, Liam carefully let out his breath.

  “Did I do it?” Daniel whispered. “Is it gone?”

  Liam’s chest rumbled with a suppressed laugh. “I guess it doesn’t like the taste of your fear.”

  “The taste—” Daniel started, but Liam shushed him once more.

  Finally, the behemoth resumed its heavy crawl. With each thundering step, it retreated deeper and deeper into the woods. Liam waited until the earth stopped shaking and its footsteps faded, then eased off of Daniel with a groan.

  Daniel sat up hastily, his skin cooling where Liam had pressed against him. “What was that—what did you—”

  “You killed my Sturmbannführer,” Liam snapped.

  “Are you crazy? He had to die!”

  “But I needed him first! Besides, you oughta thank me for saving your ass.” Liam looked him over, his scowl deepened by thick shadows. “You didn’t have any kind of escape plan, did you?”

  Like he was one to talk. “I would’ve been fine if you hadn’t showed up. I had to act quickly before you ruined my chance.”

  Daniel tried to stand, but as soon as he was upright, his head spun. Buzzing shadows, faceless beings, soldiers dripping with darkness—he gritted his teeth and tried to clear the images away. When Liam rushed forward to catch his arm, Daniel threw him off with a snarl.

  “What was that creature? And what happened to the town?”

  Liam hoisted his bookbag onto his shoulder. For a moment, his eyes looked black, his face badly veined as if inked—but it must have been a trick of the light. “Doesn’t matter now, does it? Junker was my best chance at getting into the archives at Siegen, and you ruined it.”

  “Get out of my way. I don’t have time for Nazi sympathizers,” said Daniel.

  Shadows swirled around Liam, and the forest went still. He seemed to swell, looming over Daniel, that violet fire crackling in his eyes. “Don’t you dare call me that.”

  Daniel’s breath caught in his throat, but he stood up straight, curling his lip. “Why else were you cozying up to Junker?”

  “I’ll kill every last Nazi if I have to.” Liam’s voice thickened into a chorus. “I will tear the Third Reich apart. But I need to get into the Siegen archives to do it.”

  Daniel huffed. If the American thought he could intimidate him, he was badly mistaken. His country had barely even stumbled into the war, had only glimpsed a sliver of the horror Daniel had lived with for most of his life. Horror was a real, beating thing, bloody and raw. It was a glower nurtured into a whisper, goaded into a shout, hardened into fists and long knives. Horror was law, a way of life, an unfeeling iron cage. And becoming a horror himself was the only way to tear it down.

  “Do what you want,” Daniel said. “But stay out of my way.”

  He turned and trudged deeper into the woods, trying to snuff out the weariness and sorrow that thing had stoked in his thoughts. Nothing about the terrain was familiar; none of these shattered ruins had been here when he’d made his way to the town before. He had no idea if he was heading the right way; he was too angry and exhausted to care. So what if Liam had saved Daniel’s life? He didn’t need saving. He’d been prepared to slaughter the whole tavern, the whole village, if that’s what it took. He’d been prepared to die.

  He choked back a sob. The worst thing you can do is be afraid. What bullshit. Fighting—feeding his fears, nurturing them like parasites in his heart—that was the only thing keeping him alive. Even if it got him in the end, he’d kill every last Nazi he could along the way.

  He trudged to the top of the ridgeline—and nearly stumbled back down at the sight of the valley below.

  Fires raged, purple and blue and savage, flowing like liquid through the trees. The sky glowed with unnatural light against a swallowing gulp of darkness. And in the distance, a column of flaming stones soared skyward—a pillar. Shadows circled it like giant bats, impossibly long wings scraping against one another in their jagged dance.

  Liam appeared behind him. “As I was going to say . . .”

  Daniel shrank back, pulse racing. What had happened to his world, his life? The wings beat louder, threatening to drown out his thoughts. “What have you done to me?”

  “To you? Not a damn thing. In fact, I think we might be able to help each other.”

  Daniel turned toward him. Liam smiled so easily, as if his earlier black rage had never happened. He’d said the rules were different here, without explaining, yet, where here was—the forest should have been the one outside the tavern, but with so much wrongness, it couldn’t be the same.

  Liam appeared to be in total control. He was confident—calm, even—despite the strangeness surrounding them. He was just an ordinary college student, a little disheveled, though nothing that couldn’t be fixed by a hot bath. His tweed jacket, his satchel, his tidy leather loafers—nothing about him hinted he could unleash hell from his palm.

  But Daniel was used to monsters that wore the plainest faces.

  “If it means keeping Nazis alive,” Daniel said, “then I want nothing to do with it.”

  “Far from it. I promise you that much.”

  In the distance, something howled, slavering and cruel.

  “What is this place?” Daniel asked again, though he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know the answer.

  “This,” Liam said, “is how we’re going to win the war.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  REBEKA

  Rebeka kept company with darkness, even as she dreamed of starlight.

  Instinct, insight, a short circuit in her brain—she couldn’t explain the things she saw, or the foreboding they lodged in her throat, rusty like cheap Shabbat wine. It struck whenever it liked, and never when she asked it to: as she walked down the street, she found herself peering inside a building on the other side of town, an argument raging there, smelling of anger and pain. She could be laughing and joking with Ari when suddenly she saw the fires far away.

  Sometimes it felt like a d
ream. Always it was like peering through a burial shroud, everything blurred and washed with darkness. One night, trying to fall asleep on her lumpy pallet, she found herself standing in a graveyard, watching the brownshirts smash headstones, vandalize them—Only Jewish deaths will save Germany—and they were all wrapped in a hateful black fog. She wanted it to be a nightmare, but the next morning, she visited the cemetery and saw it was all too true.

  Sometimes she could use her sixth sense to her advantage. When the streetcar rolled toward her stop, she could sense the darkness clinging to the other riders, warning that the ride might end with her being spat on or scratched or worse. And worst of all, that night when the officers whispered. Reviewed ledgers. Drew up charts. Prepared to round them up.

  But mostly, she couldn’t control it. If she could, she would’ve used it to follow Daniel even as he left her for tonight’s strike. Instead, the only vision that taunted her was a stone tower, crumbling, shadows circling it like wolves as a coppery charge filled the air. It was nowhere she recognized, nowhere she’d seen on their long trek west. All she knew was the stench of blood and suffering that clung to it—it was nothing Daniel could resist.

  Tonight, though, she could keep it at bay. He was only going one village over—no towers in sight. He’d chosen the tavern because it was small; the cadre passing through, smaller still. Yet as he’d scrubbed the blood from the dead guard’s uniform, the stone tower loomed large in Rebeka’s mind.

  “Six officers of the SS,” Daniel had said, a curl flopping down over his brow. “And Junker—he’s near the top. We’re getting close now.”

  Close—as if there was an end in sight. As if he wouldn’t want to go after Kreutzer next, or Gerstein, or any of the countless men they’d encountered in Łódź. She hated the sight of her brother in that uniform, but said nothing as she helped him button the collar, the cuffs. What more could she say that she hadn’t screamed at him a thousand times? None of it would bring their family back. She didn’t need a vision to tell her that.