The Shadow War

by Lindsay Smith

  Well. She could hardly blame it. Friend or foe? Wasn’t she making the same calculation now?

  It swept a meaty arm before it, and the air shimmered and warped.

  Rebeka staggered back as the ruins seemed to repair themselves around her, building into what she could only describe as a temple. Intricate designs had been painted over the granite, geometric shapes that might have been some kind of text. The creature swept its hand again, and more creatures flourished around her, standing in the circle of the chamber, and she got the distinct sense they were passing some sort of judgment.

  The presence in her mind grew more insistent. Memories of her own life mixed in with images she didn’t recognize. She saw herself watching from the window of her uncle’s farmhouse as her crush, Joachim, worked in the garden next door; he’d been killed by Einsatzgruppen during the seizure of Luxembourg. She saw the creatures arranged in a circle once more, only they were recognizable now, their faces almost human, their expressions guarded, as an oddly dressed human man—breeches and livery—bargained before them. The man looked through Rebeka, and she tasted a name on her lips: Tomasi Sicarelli.

  His bargaining concluded, he turned from the creatures with a cruel smile, and they collapsed, screaming and writhing, as their features were torn away.

  Fire. The fire consuming their synagogue in Berlin. The fire and ravage of human hands tearing through the shadowed forest. The creatures aching as Sicarelli pillaged their world, the color and life gone from the lands, their muscles and faces shriveled.

  Rebeka closed her eyes, shaking. This world . . . it had suffered, too.

  Then the presence retreated from her mind. The creature drew itself up, cartilage snapping as it straightened high. Was she going to be punished for what had been done? For being another intruder and conqueror, like Sicarelli, like whoever this other man was?

  But with a flicker of violet, that world disintegrated—the shadows lifted like veils parting wide.

  And then it wasn’t the ruins at all, but a narrow stone path. Buildings pressing in on either side. The buzzing was gone, the current was gone. She felt nothing now, heard and saw nothing except the dull twilight muffling the town of Hallenberg.

  Rebeka gulped down stale autumn air. She wasn’t in the bell tower anymore, but looking at the church head-on from the other side of the town square. Her mouth hung open as she tried to piece together what had happened the past few minutes. The soldiers, the shadow, the forest, the ruins—and threading it all together, her.

  The shadows were inside her—and she had a home in them.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  LIAM

  They detained him in the projection room. Through the window onto the sanctuary, the images of Die Große Liebe flickered across the screen draped in front of the altar. The Nazi and his singer embracing. The Nazi heading off to drop bombs on London. The singer tearfully but patriotically being one with the Völkisch, surrounded by other sturdy Aryan women who kept the Nazi war machinery churning. The Nazi and the singer reuniting once more as the Third Reich celebrated victory.

  “We just want a brief look around,” the officer assured him. “We won’t interfere with your work.”

  His work. They thought he was the projectionist, just a village boy earning a wage until he was old enough to join their ranks. Liam kept to one-word answers as the officer questioned him about comings and goings, about Helene’s patriotism, about whether he’d ever been to Siegen. He did his best to look distracted, occasionally ignoring them completely to rack and queue up the next film reel the way Helene had showed him, then drop the completed reel onto the heap of tangled-up footage at his feet.

  “It is good work you are doing here,” the officer said. “Keeping morale high.”

  Liam had plenty of things to say to that, but only nodded in response. Better they thought him simple, unable to offer more than a few words in reply.

  “It is easy to become complacent out here,” the officer said, “away from Berlin. To allow unsavory elements to fester. To forget why we fight.” He gestured toward the sanctuary and his soldiers below. “But it is this. The heartland, the good hardworking Germans like you and my men, that we are fighting for. Don’t you agree?”

  Liam hummed. He kept himself at the right frequency to hover on the edge of the shadow world, enough that he could draw on the energy in a trickle, but not a flood. He didn’t dare press any deeper. The longer he held on to it, the deeper he drew from it, then the more likely he’d attract the monsters again.

  They had known him, in Siegen. They’d been waiting for him to dip too deeply into their world, to become greedy and overeager. He’d opened a rift too wide, and they’d seen their chance.

  They’d known him. Everything he’d done. And they would punish him for taking from their world.

  Perhaps he deserved to be punished.

  Another soldier entered the room, clicked his heels in salute, and reported in hushed tones. The officer bobbed his head, a smile crossing his slimy lips. “Excellent. Bring him to me.”

  Liam’s pulse ratcheted up. He adjusted the film ratio with ice flooding his veins.

  “Now, you were telling me, friend . . . that you had never been to Siegen?” He spoke the words in English, clipped as neatly as his nails. “I’m afraid we both know that’s not true.”

  Liam’s nostrils flared. Something hung heavy in the air—the stench of the other world. Rot and blood and pain. He looked past the officer to the pair of guards who flanked him. Darkness clung to the corners of their eyes. They held themselves unnaturally, dangling as if from puppet strings, their joints sharp and raw.

  They weren’t shadow-consumed. Not completely. But the shadow had gotten its hooks in them and was eating them from the inside out. The warning trill in the back of Liam’s mind was blaring now.

  “My name is Jozef Kreutzer. But I believe you already knew that, yes?”

  Liam’s tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth. “I . . .”

  “Liam Doyle.” Kreutzer tucked his hands behind his back with a smirk. “Graduated from Princeton just short of your eighteenth birthday. Pursuing a master’s in theoretical physics . . . A real shame about your mother, though. And they never did find your father to bring him to justice? So tragic.”

  A commotion in the doorway—more soldiers were joining them. Wrestling someone into the room. Liam swallowed down a cry. Daniel.

  “I owe you some thanks, I believe, for your astounding work revealing the path to the shadow world. But your research was limited by a pitiful lack of imagination, Herr Doyle. You fling the shadows around like a child with paint. But I . . . I have the power to create a masterpiece.”

  Kreutzer approached one of the soldiers and caressed the man’s cheek. Wisps of darkness followed his gloved fingertips as the man stared straight ahead, unblinking, his body rigid and strained.

  “I can merge the shadows with man to create the perfect soldier. Perfectly obedient. Empowered with a raw, limitless energy that can devastate and destroy far beyond what any single soldier should be capable of. It took a great deal of trial and error to reach this point, but finally, I’ve perfected my technique.” Kreutzer narrowed his eyes at Daniel. “Shall I give you a demonstration?”

  Daniel met Liam’s gaze with those dark, storm-cloud eyes of his, mouth opening. Liam squared his shoulders and dug his nails deeper into his palm, let the salty warmth build there, let the pain in his shoulder, his hand, his heart take root. Damn whatever waited on the other side—he had no choice. He faced Daniel and tried to convey meaning in a single look: Do you trust me?

  Daniel tipped his head forward in a nod.

  “Your methods of harnessing the energy are way too sloppy,” continued Kreutzer. “You can barely keep control of yourself, much less the creatures you try to command.”

  Liam started to stand up, fists clenched. But Kreutzer rush
ed forward and shoved him back into the chair with a firm grip on his bad shoulder. Kreutzer’s smirk deepened as he drove his thumb right into Liam’s wound.

  “Your shadows won’t help you. They are no longer yours.” His lips curled back as he bent forward, hissing right into Liam’s ear. “They belong to the Third Reich now. And with them, we shall be victorious. Ruling this world—and the next.”

  Another soldier rushed into the room with the same dead eyes as the rest. “We’ve completed our search of the building, Herr Doktor. The proprietor is in custody now.”

  Kreutzer leaned away from him with a frown. “There were no others in the building? You are sure?”

  “Only these two and the proprietor.” The soldier spoke in a flat, rusty monotone. “But she will give us whatever information we need.”

  Kreutzer whirled back to Liam. “I know there were more than just you two at Siegen. Where are they? Who else knows how to access the shadow world?”

  “Dunno.” Liam shrugged, deliberately letting his bad shoulder drive into Kreutzer’s thumb. The pain spiraled through him, sparking behind his eyes. He welcomed it, letting it feed the darkness in him. He’d kept the rift open for far too long already, but he needed just a minute more . . . “But I know something else you don’t.”

  Kreutzer’s smile didn’t touch his beady eyes. “And what is that?”

  Liam focused on Daniel, calculating the distance between them. He had mere moments to act. Would it be enough? It had to be. The soldiers had said it themselves—no one was left in the church but Nazis now. Dozens of them down in the pews, watching their false gospel of triumph and tyranny. A handful here in this room.

  Liam smiled at Kreutzer, then dove forward, freeing himself from Kreutzer’s grip and catching the switch on the projector with his free hand. The switch Helene explicitly told them not to touch.

  An exposed wire sparked along the side of the projector and crackled, and the scent of ozone surrounded him.

  Everything happened at once. Kreutzer jumping back, Liam leaping forward, the shadows unfurling around him like a cloak. The spark catching on the highly flammable film strips and their silver nitrate base. Helene certainly knew what she was doing, Liam had to give her that. She’d known this moment might come. Only he suspected she’d been prepared to burn herself down with the Nazis, if that was what it took.

  The rush of flame whooshed around them as it leapt from reel to reel, the whole mess of film tangled all over the projection floor. And then the shadow closed around him and Daniel in a tight embrace.

  Kreutzer’s face wrenched into a scream as he dissolved into a blur of fire and shadow when their world faded from view.

  Liam and Daniel crashed into a muddy swamp inside the shadow realm. Only a dull outline of the church was visible around them, the soldiers screaming as the fire spread hungrily, eagerly from reel to reel.

  A moment later, Kreutzer emerged beside them, wreathed in flame.

  “You think you are the only one with tricks?” he growled.

  The flames sputtered and congealed on Liam’s skin, rolling away from his face and down his arms until he held them in a single ball of fire in his palm. Kreutzer glowed, furious, as he concentrated to keep the flames contained.

  Liam pulled himself up out of the mud. The shadows were all around, waiting for him to command. But as he pulled at them—

  Nothing happened.

  Kreutzer smirked at Liam. “This world is ours now. Enjoy it while you can.” He flung the flames at Liam’s feet.

  “Stay back!” Daniel cried, catching hold of Liam’s ankle. Kreutzer was already vanishing, slithering off into the darkness beyond the fire wall he’d left behind. Liam strained forward, raw fury powering him. He couldn’t lose Kreutzer now. Kreutzer had the book, he was using the shadows to further his own horrific purpose—

  But he’d escaped. Liam dropped back into the mud with a groan. Once again, he’d been too late.

  Daniel pushed to his feet in the slurping mud and helped Liam stand. “We’ll find him. He must be headed back to Wewelsburg. We can stop him there.”

  Liam nodded, too exhausted to argue. It was the best they could hope for now.

  As they trudged out of the mud and into the darkened forest, the ghostly image of the church continued to burn through the shimmering veil of the opened rift. Fires with silver nitrate burned brutally hot and fast, with such a fervor they could even burn underwater. Had it been anyone else, Liam might have felt some sliver of remorse for just how painfully the soldiers inside were dying right now. He and Daniel were safer on this side.

  “Thank you.” Daniel took a step closer toward him. Liam’s heart was racing, but the shadowed woods were oddly quiet and calm compared to the chaos back in their world. As Daniel came nearer, his pulse ratcheted higher. “For saving me. For . . . everything you’ve done. You didn’t have to do any of it, and I—”

  “Of course I did,” Liam said. In the darkness, Daniel’s eyes were no longer stormy: they glittered, fathomless like stars. “It’s the least you deserve.”

  Daniel’s lips parted as they held each other’s gaze. Had Liam only imagined it earlier, when he felt Daniel’s fingers running through his hair? When Liam admitted who he was—who he really was, not the boy on whatever dossier Dr. Kreutzer had been fed. The darkness inside Liam’s heart, his desperate need for control, his brutal search for more and more power. And his fragile truths too: his vulnerabilities, the wounds inflicted on him by his father, by his schoolboy infatuation, by every step of his life. Liam had told and shown him all those things in just the few days they’d known each other, and still Daniel stood at his side.

  Still Daniel looked at him like he was a mystery worth unraveling.

  Still Daniel’s breath quivered between them as Liam moved closer, bringing them nose to nose, heart to heart.

  “Daniel,” Liam exhaled. He was at once a churning sea and deathly calm. “I—”

  Liam . . .

  Liam jolted back as the whisper rattled through the trees.

  “What was that?” Daniel asked. The trunks shifted around them, crowding in. Insects shrieked in the foliage. The mud gurgled beneath them, growing warmer and warmer.

  “We have to get back to our world before the rift closes.” Liam reached for Daniel’s hand. “Now.”

  The outline of their world was growing fainter by the second. Liam steered them east, out of the muddy banks of the shadow world and the stream east of Hallenberg, into the thickened heart of the forest. The woods drew closer around them, the tree trunks like bars.

  Oh, Liam. There’s no point in running anymore. The words echoed all around them.

  “I’m not running from you,” Liam muttered under his breath. Not that either of them believed that.

  We have the manuscript. We have the power. And soon, all the world will see.

  They wove through dense, bristling vines. Up ahead, Liam spotted a patch of bushes with razor-sharp leaves tangled together, and jerked Daniel away from them just in time. A tendril of thorns stretched out for them, then snapped back, disappointed.

  Will you help us usher in a new age of darkness?

  The earth rumbled under their feet. To their right, tree branches split and shredded apart—a massive shadow loomed overhead. The behemoth was nearby, the behemoth that had descended on them the first time he brought Daniel through the gates. “Don’t look,” Liam hissed back to him.

  Oh, yes, run! We already know how much they like Doyle blood.

  Laughter rose all around them like sulfurous stink. Through the trees, red eyes drew closer. Unblinking. The tree branches rattled as darkness slithered and coiled around them, poised itself, readied for a strike.

  Liam reached out to seize control of the creatures surrounding them. Left to their own devices, they’d gladly devour him or anyone else who crossed their paths, b
ut if he could seize on their energy, he could manipulate them. But there were so many—and the figure was fighting back, trying to control them for himself.

  Liam’s grasp slipped, and the roars and hisses rose around him. Wings thrummed overhead as a shadow fell across them. The fear-eater’s senses tickled at the back of his mind, trying to probe his thoughts for new horrors to feast on. If he looked at it, it wouldn’t have to dig far at all.

  He couldn’t fight this. Their only option was to run—head back to their world—even if it was full of Nazis, fire, worse. But the silvery outlines of their world’s shapes were almost gone. He could barely make out the ghostly wisps of soldiers, the military trucks, the fire. He had no choice. He had to trust that they were far enough away from the church. He had to trust—

  Something swooped down from above with a brittle shriek. Talons sank into the collar of his shirt and wrenched him forward, his feet dragging through mud, until he was brought face-to-face with darkness, with eyes deep as hell, with teeth turned needly and long. You will pay, the figure seethed. The words were all around them, in his lungs and in his blood. You will pay for everything you’ve done to me.

  “What I’ve done to you?” Liam cried. “How is this my doing—”

  “Liam!” Daniel called, then stumbled forward, dagger drawn. Liam tried to twist toward him and opened his mouth to cry out, but the talons dug in deeper as a fist of mud reached up to clench around Daniel. His mouth rounded with fear, but only for a second; then he was the boy that Liam knew once more. Fierce. Fighting back, even as the mud squeezed around him.

  “Let him go,” Liam said. He pushed back, grasped for more and more darkness to control. But every time he thought he’d grabbed enough, it was ripped from him again.

  The figure snarled, This world obeys me. They are mine to command now. Violet flames licked up the figure’s palms and wrapped around his arm. And when the darkness consumes you, I’ll command you, too.

  “You can’t have me just yet.”