The Shadow War

by Lindsay Smith

  Evangeline’s hand brushed against the frame of the large panel, and she stared into it, into the space where once they’d huddled together, legs dangling out, arms intertwined, lips like bruises as they kissed and mouths like sacrament as they did more. And then she closed it. Perhaps for the last time.

  She assembled her radio kit. Recalibrated her ciphers. Scratched out a few rough drafts of the million billion thoughts dancing around her head: the apologies, the pleas, the promises to do something meaningful. And then she sat down before her radio set and waited.

  Waited.

  It wasn’t too late. Not just yet. It wasn’t too late to pack it all away or smash the radio to bits or burn the cipher books. She was only listening in, the silence deafening now that Georges-Yves was gone. No matter how many Gestapo agents Stefan had set around the château, none could catch her if all she did was listen in. It was only when she began to transmit that her fate was sealed.

  She crawled toward her bedroom window. Peered around the thick damask curtains, careful not to let them shift. Stefan’s men were surely listening for her to give herself away.

  She dropped back down and gripped her face in her hands.

  You will never understand what it’s like to be hungry, Simone had said. You will never know what it is to truly want. And without that need, then you will never have the courage to do what must be done. We fight because we have everything to gain. But you will never fight, because no matter how righteous your purpose, how just your cause—by fighting, you will only lose.

  But she’d lost Simone all the same. Now, with one act, she would lose her country, her whole world. She did not need to be executed alongside the Resistance for France to die around her. She did not have to throw herself in front of a tank to feel the ache, that nagging tug, that told her she could have prevented all of this. She could stay locked inside this beautiful home, its bones built long ago by starving peasants and its floors swept by threadbare immigrants and its wood refurbished by a young Algerian woman that people spat on and called names—she could stay locked inside its comforts forever, but it would not take away the knowledge of the suffering and torment and hatred that continued beyond the seeded-glass windows. If she didn’t fight—there would be loss all the same.

  She might as well do whatever she could.

  The radio mumbled to life once more, beginning with the code name, long and short, as the operator identified themselves. Evangeline raised the volume just enough to hear it clearly.

  CARPENTER.

  Simone’s code name.

  She bit down hard on her finger to keep from sobbing. Her other hand closed around the thing she had slipped from the pocket of Stefan’s coat, her fingers Magpie-quick. It was not too late. It was not too late to save her own life.

  It was also not too late to save Simone’s.

  Her fingers flew over the transmitter as she parceled out her response, their back and forth, all the gaps between the letters filled with things they could not say. The static on the line was heavy; Evangeline could almost imagine Stefan breathing into it, excited, delighted that he had caught her in the act. The Magpie. The mole within the requisitions office that had chipped away at the Wehrmacht, bit by bit.

  Can arrange safe extraction after two hours, Evangeline told her. Her heart was a fist in her throat. No more.

  They signed off.

  Downstairs, so far away in the cavernous mansion she barely should have been able to hear it, Evangeline heard the front door splinter in its frame.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  LIAM

  Clear the streets for the brown battalion, clear the streets for the storm battalion! Millions gaze upon the swastika, full of hope, for the day of freedom and plenty shall dawn!

  The brownshirted thugs of the Sturmabteilun hadn’t had a good public humiliation in a while, and it showed.

  His captors parked the military transport truck on the outskirts of Wewelsburg, under autumn leaves that sparked gold and orange like embers as they frog-marched him across a stone bridge. They were joined by a handful of stormtroopers scarcely older than Liam, with lopsided haircuts and red lines on their throats from too-tight shirt collars. They hung a sign from his neck—FOREIGN AGENT—and sang the “Horst Wessel Lied” to commemorate a fellow fascist who’d been killed by Jewish agents, one of the boys claimed.

  The Nazis were killing unfathomable numbers of Jewish people, but it figured the one dead German got his own song.

  By the time they reached the town square, they’d attracted a meager crowd of off-duty soldiers and teenage boys too young and gawky to join the army just yet. Someone ran out with mugs of ale from a nearby tavern so they could drink and gossip while Wewelsburg’s residents hurried past, trying not to make eye contact with him.

  And Liam just let it happen. He felt the castle’s shadow hanging over him like an executioner’s blade. Maybe Daniel was in there now, murdering Dr. Kreutzer; maybe he’d been captured or killed himself. Maybe right this minute Pitr was tearing open a rift between the two worlds and stabilizing it with Sicarelli’s book. Could Liam even stop him if he did reach out for the shadow once more? Could Liam stop himself from being consumed?

  “Nothing to say for yourself, spy?” One of the boys, an acne-pocked kid practically swimming in his uniform, jabbed a finger into Liam’s sternum. “It’s a lot more fun if you fight back.”

  Liam hung his head. He was so tired—too tired, even, to keep himself upright against the post where he’d been tied. “What makes you so sure I’m a spy?”

  “That terrible accent, for one.” The SS officer who’d found him in the cabin smoothed out Daniel’s note against his knee. “And your girlfriend’s letter is in English.”

  Liam clamped his mouth shut.

  “‘I wish I could have spent a lifetime loving you,’” the officer read in a squeaky falsetto. “Where is she, anyway?”

  “Far away from you,” Liam growled.

  The thugs burst into laughter and clanked ale mugs together. “Maybe we should go find her. Show her a real good time.”

  Liam bared his teeth. “You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  Daniel had encouraged him to close the rift for good. Deny himself and the Nazis both the shadow’s power. What Liam hated most was how right Daniel was—how close he’d already come to succumbing to the darkness. What right did he have to criticize Daniel for doing the same?

  Maybe it was their fate to always lose, to be beaten down, to see their dreams snatched away. Daniel could try to destroy the SS High Command, but it would likely kill him. If Liam pursued the shadow world once more, it would devour him, too. Either way, he lost. Either way, men like his father, like Pitr, like Heinrich Himmler and all these smug Nazi bastards would win. He and Daniel were only two boys standing against a tide of tyranny, a civilization built on hate.

  Worse still, Liam hated that even as he felt like surrendering, the shadows called to him, his desire to tap into them again a living urge trying to break out of his skin. All but begging him to harness them one final time.

  Another soldier came to join them then with a fresh round of beer. His grin, mossy and leering, lingered on Liam for too long. “Getting thirsty, spy?”

  Liam didn’t answer. It didn’t stop the soldier from sloshing half his mug onto Liam. He sputtered as ale drenched the front of his shirt.

  “What’d you do that for?” one of the brownshirts whined. “Such a waste of good beer.”

  “It was worth it for the look on his face.” The guard drank from the rest of his mug and exhaled. “Ahh. Did you hear from the castle? They captured a Judenschwein trying to assassinate Dr. Kreutzer.”

  Liam’s heart stuttered in his chest.

  “Kreutzer? Ach, that man gives me the creeps. My brother volunteered for his trials, and he just . . . hasn’t been the same since.”

  “Your
brother was an asshole. Besides, the doctor’s project is supposed to make us even stronger, even better at fighting off enemies of the Reich . . .”

  Liam clenched his fists tight, trying to drive off the insistent hum inside his skull. Whispers of power, promises of vengeance. Just one more time—what was one more time, if it meant he could save Daniel? Save the world? What was one more time feeling the power surge through him again, until he was power, until he could devour his enemies and destroy everything, like they’d destroyed him?

  No—this was why Daniel hadn’t wanted him to do it. This was why he couldn’t let it in. Even if it would be so easy to give in, to defeat the Nazis—easier, even, than doing nothing at all—

  Liam started humming. A single note, a sustained frequency. He found the dark tendrils swirling around his bound hands like an old friend.

  Oh, Liam. There you are.

  The voice echoed across the town square as the brownshirts went hazy. Darkness shimmered across the stones, bloodied trees and burned-out ruins overlying the whitewashed tavern and stone cottages as he opened the slightest rift. Eyes blinked at him from the blackness as something slithered past his feet.

  Liiiii-aaaaaaam. I knew you couldn’t stay away . . .

  No—this was wrong. As soon as he felt the shadow, he felt its talons sinking into his flesh, shredding him. It flooded into the gaps between his thoughts, crowding out his senses.

  Don’t be shy, Liam. You are powerful. You always were.

  “I don’t want to be powerful,” Liam managed through clenched teeth. “Not if it means being anything like you, Pitr.”

  Oh, but you are like me. And you still have a great purpose to serve. I need you, Liam. I need your command of the darkness. But if you won’t do it for me . . .

  The darkness warped again, revealing a stone chamber. A figure crouched in its center, gagged and bound. Daniel, his head bowed, his body slack.

  A sacrifice.

  The darkness burned away, leaving Liam back on the square, the brownshirts still arguing around him. They barely noticed the bitter laugh that rose from Liam’s throat and the oily black that swirled in his palms.

  “You win, Pitr.” Teeth bared, Liam wrenched the ropes on his wrists apart like they were thread.

  “Hey, wait!” one of the guards shouted.

  “Which of you idiots untied him—”

  Liam stood, and a swarm of screeching insects burst out of his palms. In an instant, they surrounded the brownshirts, swallowing up their screams in a torrential buzzing as they ripped away chunks of flesh. Liam was instinct and adrenaline now; if he stopped to think, if he stopped to worry about anything beyond this moment, he would fall apart. He was the shadow’s tool.

  But for just a little longer now, the shadow would be his.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  DANIEL

  For one desperate, beautiful moment, Daniel almost thought he’d be able to pull it off.

  After returning the Mercedes-Benz to the motor pool, he slipped unnoticed through the garage bay, the morning shift’s soldiers still bleary-eyed and half asleep. He followed two men to the dining hall, and from there, found the directory for offices. Kreutzer’s was in the basement, attached to the laboratory space, which should have been ideal: fewer witnesses, thicker walls. The yawning secretaries paid him no mind as he stalked past them in a freshly stolen uniform. The office door was unlocked.

  And inside, the doctor was nowhere to be found.

  Daniel cursed, then shut the door behind himself. It was the safest place for him to hide, for now. He hadn’t done anything too rash just yet. He hadn’t fired his gun, given away his purpose. Maybe the book was here, under the stacks of lab charts, bundled-up papers. He could take it back to Liam, forget his assassination plot, leave his vengeance for another day. Maybe he could even destroy the book. Keep it from everyone’s hands. Run away with Liam and forget everything.

  But he’d burned those ships.

  Daniel stepped out of the office, his heart a heavy timpani line. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. He was here for his own ritual, one last act to balance the scales of the Eisenbergs’ deaths. The corridor was empty, but somewhere in this stone prison, Kreutzer waited. Maybe even Himmler himself. Any one of them would do.

  The drumbeat heightened as he drew closer to the end of the wing—the laboratories the Unterführer had mentioned. Where Kreutzer wove his vile magic, where his victims gasped for air but breathed in only shadows as Kreutzer and Pitr infused them with energy from another world. A bass line underpinned his heartbeat now as he moved closer, rising and falling, over and over. One hand closed around the doorknob, the other around his knife. He wrenched it open, not knowing what horrors would await him on the other side—

  Kreutzer looked up from the body spread before him. His white lab coat was thin and too starchy; it had been washed too many times, with too many blood stains leaving behind a faint yellow residue. And the body—it hurt Daniel’s eyes when he tried to focus on it. Shadow and smoke and fast-twitch muscles, a pained shudder of breath—

  “Ah. Herr Doyle’s accomplice, aren’t you?” Kreutzer asked. “A pity he didn’t come himself.”

  Daniel lunged forward, knife raised. He aimed for the doctor’s throat, mottled with puckered burn-scar scabs—

  The body lurched up from the operating table: shadow and smoke and emptied-out stare. It socked Daniel square in the gut, dropping him to his knees, then shot out a foot to kick his knife away. Kreutzer snapped his fingers, and the soldier wrenched Daniel’s arms behind his back with impossible speed.

  Kreutzer stood before him, fresh burns glistening with puffy skin along one side of his face. It was almost enough to make Daniel smile, the memory of the Kino fire Liam had set. He crouched down low, the machine behind him humming with the alternating frequency to open the rift, and regarded Daniel with a smile scalpel-sharp.

  “Don’t worry. I think I have a use for you yet.” He turned to the soldier. “Take him to the dungeons while Herr Černik and I prepare.”

  The soldier dragged him away, his failure weighing him down, heavy as shackles. His cell was tiny, closet-size; the door slammed shut with a finality that stung. He curled into the corner to wait. He could almost hear Rebeka scolding him for trying to be such a hero, such a fool. His traitor brain conjured up memories of the pale field of Liam’s throat, his muscles tensing and relaxing as Daniel’s fingertips charted them. Had he felt that passion still, when he found Daniel’s note? Had he awoken with regret and felt only relief to know Daniel would trouble him no more? For Liam’s sake, Daniel hoped so.

  And yet deep down, he supposed he’d been hoping Liam would find a way to stop him.

  No, hope was foolish and wasteful. Why should Daniel cling to hope in such a worthless world as this? Why should he fight to make it better? There was nothing to fix. At least the shadow world was more honest about what it was: darkness and blood and endless agony and rage. Humans were the real monsters who wore the skin of innocent creatures while underneath, they festered with hate.

  After very little time, the door to his cell clanged open. Daniel glanced up, squinting into the harsh burst of light as Dr. Kreutzer stepped inside. But it was the boy who followed him into the cell who gave Daniel pause. He was shorter and a few years older than Daniel. Perhaps. The sallow, haunted expression in his eyes spoke of someone far older. His dark hair was swept to one side over bottle-lens glasses. And when he moved, he—

  Daniel squinted. He didn’t know how to describe it, except as an echo, shadow trailing behind the boy’s limbs. An uneasy tide rose in Daniel’s gut, his subconscious working out something his mind hadn’t yet put into words.

  Kreutzer wrinkled his nose at the stench of hard water and molding stone and human waste that permeated the cell. “You’re certain this will work?”

  The boy’s smile was brutal, carved out of his
face with a rusty knife. “He smells of Doyle’s spells.” He stepped forward, one hand raised, and instinctively, Daniel jerked his head away. Yet this only made him laugh with a wretched, metallic scrape.

  Revulsion flushed over Daniel. “Pitr.”

  Pitr’s eyes narrowed to hot points of fire as he gripped Daniel by the chin and forced Daniel’s face upward to study him. His touch was clammy; his movements jerked awkwardly, like a marionette. And still he smiled and smiled.

  “I am so much more than Pitr now.”

  Daniel tried to shrink back, but Pitr held firm.

  “Did he love you?” Speaking low turned Pitr’s voice scratchy, and it felt like claws raking over Daniel’s skin. “Oh, I hope he did.”

  The doctor regarded Daniel like a beautifully marbled cut of meat, making Daniel’s skin crawl. “You will pay for what you did to me.” He turned his face into the grimy light, the burn scars from the fire at the movie house in Hallenberg shiny like sausage casing. “I look forward to it.”

  Pitr trailed a fingertip down Daniel’s jaw until it rested against his collarbone where it jutted from his torn-open shirt. His touch felt like venom, burning Daniel alive from the inside.

  The air around Pitr shimmered then—his touch faded away as if he was backing off. But he hadn’t moved at all—he’d only thinned. Pitr sighed like he was scolding a child. “I will need to ready him first.”

  Kreutzer narrowed his eyes, then nodded. “I’ll have my tools brought to the chamber.”

  “Yes,” Pitr said. “That would be ideal.”

  Then Pitr became solid again. His grip was now a fist clutching Daniel by the throat. His mouth stretched into a rictus, rotted teeth sharp and grinding beneath glowing eyes.

  “I want him to feel it. Each excruciating moment of your pain. I want you to cry for him. I will break him, and his power will be mine. Do you understand me?”

  Daniel said nothing, despite the cold dread filling him. Bait. They wanted to use him as bait for Liam.