The Shadow War

by Lindsay Smith

  “I want him to come try to save you. Hear you begging for mercy. And I want him to watch as you die.”

  Daniel closed his eyes. “I died a long time ago.” How many times had he dreamed of this moment, of telling these men exactly what he thought of them? And yet he had no words, no knife or pistol in his hand either. It had all been a waste. “You bastards killed me when you sent my family to Chełmno.”

  Pitr’s grip loosened, and he slithered back.

  “Come.” Kreutzer seized Daniel by his bound hands. “Maybe we can make your death mean something more.”

  “Welcome to the Realm of the Dead.”

  The chamber they dragged him to was a cavernous, ritualistic space, gaudily appointed like some sort of medieval sanctuary, with curving stone walls and too many candles to count. A shaft of light illuminated a sole lectern in the center of the room. Daniel’s head felt woozy; whatever they’d given him had imbued the whole space with a misty, hazy atmosphere that threw garish shadows onto the rough sandstone walls. Daniel knelt, hands bound behind him, while Pitr held a dagger under his chin. Thin rivulets of blood ran down his neck and arms, trickling with warmth.

  And then there was the machine—the two machines—

  Liam’s oscillators. The curved metal posts emitted a noise that rolled over and over at a painfully low frequency, thousands of times stronger than any radio wave. It threatened to tear open Daniel’s thoughts.

  A girl appeared in the opening to the chamber, taking in the sight with wide rabbit eyes. “Herr Doktor . . . ?”

  “Ilse, my dear, there you are. Better late than never.”

  The girl—Ilse—blinked, trying to regain her composure. Her gaze skittered toward Daniel’s, but just as soon darted away. “J-ja, mein Herr. What is it you need?”

  “This one”—Kreutzer jerked his head toward Daniel—“he’s showing remarkable resilience, isn’t he? Come. Help me make use of him yet. Prepare the oscillators.”

  Pitr chuckled. The sound was almost inhuman, rumbling deep in Daniel’s marrow.

  “Perhaps it is . . . too cruel to use a prisoner for this, Herr Doktor.” Ilse clutched her clipboard to her chest. “We have so many volunteers—”

  “Nonsense.” Kreutzer waved her off. “Now, help us prepare for the ritual.”

  Ilse clipped past him on high heels that echoed through the chamber. As she came alongside Daniel, she knelt down, studying him with a quizzical look. Daniel looked back at her with drooping eyelids.

  But then she mouthed a single word: Rebeka.

  Daniel sucked in his breath. “Here? No—”

  Ilse’s eyes flared wide as she pressed a finger to her lips, then stood once more and joined Kreutzer at the lectern in the chamber’s center. He ran his fingers along the page open before him. The illustration showed a darkened doorway, thick shadows pouring out of it in spiraling waves. As Daniel tried to focus on the waterfall of darkness pouring off the lectern, he felt even more disoriented, nauseated.

  Rebeka. Had she come after him? What about Liam and the others? He prayed that if any of them had sense left, they’d find one another, stay together, leave him to die and not risk their own lives as well—

  “You shall be a sacrifice. To fuel the transformation of our troops and the unlocking of boundless energy for the Reich,” Kreutzer crowed. All around them, the air had taken on a shimmering quality. “You remember the creature we examined from Siegen, Ilse?”

  Ilse’s smile was strained. “How could I forget?”

  “We will command an army of them. Infuse our soldiers with their powers. An army of monsters to devour our foes.”

  “And a new world to conquer,” Pitr added. His blade skipped across Daniel’s arm, making a shallow nick.

  Kreutzer waved his hand with annoyance. “But only if you hurry up.”

  “He’s fighting it,” Pitr growled, studying him. “He doesn’t feel enough pain.”

  The machines gurgled with a new sound—the frequency had changed. Daniel felt a tremor in the air like the trill of the strings section, the low rumble of timpani. He knew the sensation. It was the same feeling of teetering on the brink that he’d felt all around Liam. When they were about to kiss. When he was about to tear the world in two—

  A tremendous explosion ripped through the chamber. Not an artillery strike—something more, something primal. Something deep and vast and hungry.

  Yes, hungry—that was the word Daniel thought as he was tossed into the air, the ground beneath him bucking wildly. Hungry like a deep, deep well that could never be filled. As Kreutzer and Pitr and Ilse went flying skyward with him, he imagined they felt the hunger’s pull, too, and none of them were afraid.

  Then they landed on the shattered Black Sun mosaic at the chamber’s center. Daniel groaned, fingers stretching out along the tiles as he tried to wrench his arms around. The book skidded across the broken stone floor, pages rifling in the wind. Sulfur and smoke danced heavy on the air.

  A figure stepped out of the smoke, soot smearing his face. Dark tendrils wisped from his blond hair, his outstretched fingertips, his glowing eyes. He strode across the tile, something dark and wondrous trailing behind him like a veil.

  “Liam,” Daniel breathed.

  With a ripple of whispers, Liam stomped on Pitr’s wrist and wrenched the dagger from his hand. “Hello, Pitr.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  PHILLIP

  “We have to go in,” Rebeka said. “He’ll need us. We have to stop the ritual—”

  Simone spat on the cobbles of the alley mouth where they were watching the castle. “If the Nazis caught him, your brother is already dead.”

  Phillip shrank back into the shadows as a pair of guards goose-stepped along the castle’s entrance bridge. This was insane, this was all insane. They couldn’t barge through the front door, and if Daniel had been caught sneaking in, the castle was sure to be on high alert. He wanted to help Rebeka, but as far as he could tell, the best thing they could do was send word to Simone’s Resistance contacts—maybe they could even summon military assistance from RAF pilots off in Wherever-the-Fuck-by-the-Sea—and let them handle it.

  Let them handle it. Not our fight. His father’s words and Mr. Connolly’s rang in his skull. Just like the German kids they met, who’d gladly endure a death by a thousand smaller cuts if it spared them a larger single discomfort. It was easy to ignore any problem as long as paying attention hurt worse.

  Phillip looked at Rebeka, the tears clumped in her dark lashes, the hard set of her jaw.

  This girl was going to be the death of him.

  No. The determination she set in him was.

  “Your brother has a death wish,” Simone pointed out. Softer now. “We may already be too late.”

  “I have to fight for him.” Rebeka tilted her head. “Just as you’re fighting, I think, for the person on the radio.”

  Simone whirled on her, rifle clenched tight. “What the fuck do you know—”

  “Hey! Both of you!” Phillip shouted. “None of this helps us get inside.”

  Or that was what he mostly said, before the blast of energy kicked him in the chest like a drunk mule, sending him sprawling deep into the alley. Lightning burned through the sky; when he blinked, he saw the afterimage of Wewelsburg’s main tower split with a bolt that came from inside. He groaned, waiting for his vision to clear. Simone had landed somewhere to his right, and Rebeka landed on top of him.

  “Oh,” she said, facing him, her eyes round with shock. He imagined his own expression was something considerably dopier.

  “You all right?” he whispered.

  She smiled shyly, nodded, and tucked her hair back behind her ear. He raised his hands, overcome with the urge to tuck it back, too—

  Then the shards of stone began to rain down on them.

  “Merde! Right in my eye.” />
  Simone sat up, and Rebeka did the same, scrambling off of Phillip, delicate as a hummingbird. He sat up too, and realized he wasn’t only winded from Rebeka. His whole body ached.

  “What . . . what was that?” Phillip asked.

  Simone finished digging around in her eye and shook the rest of the dust from her hair. “I think that was our invitation inside.”

  He followed her gaze to the north tower of the castle. The bare stonework had shredded upward and split open like a trick cigar. Dark smoke spewed out of it—too dark for normal smoke. Too rank with an oily stench.

  “The ritual chamber,” Rebeka said, her voice quavering.

  “Got a feeling Liam has something to do with that,” Phillip said.

  “What tipped you off?” Simone asked with a roll of her eyes. “The explosions?”

  “Let’s hope Daniel’s with him.” Rebeka was already standing, wriggling her foot back into a loosened shoe strap, body primed to bolt.

  “Rebeka, wait.” Phillip stood too. “If you’re going to charge in there, at least tell us your plan.”

  “Okay. Liam wants to keep the portal open. But he can’t control it all—not for good. Not without the shadow devouring him, too. And especially not with Kreutzer and that . . . man.” Rebeka gripped his arm, pleading. “They need my help. Humans have ruined the shadow world enough. We can’t keep stealing their energy, just as they can’t keep drinking up ours. We’ll corrupt each other until there’s nothing left.”

  Simone and Phillip both turned toward her, assessing. “But . . . but you can control the energy,” Simone said.

  Rebeka shifted her weight, shoulders drawing up toward her ears. “No. It’s too much. There’s so many, there’s so much hatred—I’m—I’m afraid I can’t hold on.”

  Phillip tapped her wrist with his fingertips. “But I’ve seen what you can do.”

  She rocked back on her heels and wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t want to be like those monsters. The angry ones, the vengeful ones.” Her voice broke. “It doesn’t matter who started it. We’ll tear each other’s worlds apart.”

  “You’re not like them. My God, you’re not. Is that what you’re afraid of? That this connection somehow makes you . . . like them?”

  “I don’t want to be this evil, ravenous thing. I don’t want to be able to control the shadows.”

  “Hey. Hey, listen to me.” He placed his hands over her too-sharp shoulders, waited for her to give him a tentative nod. “You didn’t choose to have this affinity. And it isn’t because of something you did.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, but didn’t argue.

  “It’s a thing that happened, all right? It’s not your fault. You didn’t do this.”

  “But I could have used it. I could have used it to save our whole family. I didn’t. I’m no better than one of those things, angry and starving.”

  “You saved Daniel,” Phillip said. “And you can save him still. You understand it better now. You know what it can do, for better or worse.” His voice hitched; he felt the force of Mr. Connolly’s carefree dismissal of all the harm his invention had done. But he chose to do better. He had that choice. And so did she.

  Rebeka blinked. When her lids opened, her eyes were filled with blackness; her body felt thinner in his grip, like he could close his palms around her shoulders and move right through her. Then she blinked again and was herself. No—that wasn’t right. She’d always been herself. Darkness, grief, rage—why shouldn’t she feel those things? Why shouldn’t they all? What use was it to try to act so noble when fighting monsters who believed in no such thing?

  “You can ignore the darkness. Pretend you don’t feel it,” Phillip said. “Or you can use it to stop people who’d use it for far worse.”

  Something tugged at Rebeka’s lips: the dimmest hint of a smile. To him, it felt as warm, as real as spring.

  “You’re right. I didn’t ask for any of this to happen.” She stood up straighter. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t use it now.”

  Simone stepped toward them from the alley’s mouth. “It’s been almost an hour,” she said. “One more hour until I have to hail Magpie.”

  “When we’re done, we have to close the bridge to the other universe. For good.” Rebeka swallowed, her slender throat bobbing. “This has to be the end of it. Otherwise it could destroy both our world and theirs.”

  Phillip’s fingers moved involuntarily toward the pouch where he kept the frequency folder. It could help negate the pull of the other universe. With enough juice, he could help seal it for good. But they’d still need Liam and Rebeka to do it, too. “And you really think you can convince Liam of that?”

  She drew a slow breath, twisting her fingers in the folds of her jacket. “We have to try.”

  An air raid siren groaned to life on the streets beneath them.

  “Shit.” Simone peered around the corner. “They’re going to call for reinforcements. If our stupid American isn’t careful, he’s going to summon the entire Wehrmacht.”

  “The comms room. We’ve got to get there first. Jam their outgoing signals. Their equipment should give me the juice I need to help close the bridge, and then we can coordinate with Magpie.” Phillip gestured toward one of the triangle sides of the castle, where thorny radio antennae sprouted from it like a cruel crown. Between that and the ring of transponder towers they’d passed on their way into town, it should be more than enough.

  “Magpie,” Simone echoed, glancing away. “I’m sure she’s afraid, same as us. But it’s better than being afraid alone.”

  Amid the screaming sirens and rancid smoke, Simone led the charge toward the chaos of Wewelsburg Castle.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  LIAM

  The shadow world was no longer just around the corner. At Wewelsburg Castle, the two worlds had collided and twisted together like crumpled metal in an auto accident, and it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. They bled into each other in a nightmare of whispers and shrieks and shadow and stone.

  Pitr crawled to his feet, skin slipping over the knot of shadows beneath. He was more shadow than man now. Liam supposed a year lost in this horrible place would do that to anyone, especially someone who already nursed so much darkness in his heart. No wonder he and Kreutzer had found each other; if Pitr hadn’t chosen Princeton, he probably would’ve gladly worked his way up the SS ranks alongside his research pal. Pitr’s sunken chest puffed up with a gulp of air, and then he laughed. It sounded like the wails of the dying.

  “Thank you for the added pain.” Pitr’s smile glinted like a knife’s edge. “It’s just what I needed to begin the stabilization ritual.”

  “Let Daniel go. You don’t need him for this.”

  “Oh, but I do.” Pitr snatched Daniel up by the bindings around his wrists. Strange winds swirled around them, echoes of sorrow stitched into the gusts. “He means something to you. So he is worth everything.”

  Daniel locked eyes with Liam then, those dark pools pulling at Liam’s gut. Dammit, Daniel. Liam swallowed, throat bobbing. Why did Daniel care so little for his life, even now? Why hadn’t Liam been able to convince him to stay alive?

  “You shouldn’t have come for me.” Drying blood coated Daniel’s upper lip, cracking as he spoke. “You deserve to live.”

  Liam bit his lip to stave off a rush of tears. “So do you.”

  Daniel’s eyelids fluttered as he fought against blood loss. “You don’t need this other world. You’re strong enough without it.”

  How Liam wished that were true. He’d never been strong enough, and now he’d let his weakness ruin them all. He had to command the shadow one last time before it consumed him. If he could just be strong enough, he could keep it from the Nazis and whoever else sought to claim it. If he sacrificed—

  The castle chamber shivered and quaked, straining
to hold both worlds as they melded into one, sending him off balance. The shadow world and his world were aligning, folding together, and the ground where they stood was the hinge. The chamber’s stone walls crumbled away in a torrent of wind, exposing only the shadow realm around them and a crude altar of ceremony and sacrifice.

  Liam saw, then, what Pitr meant to do: bleed Daniel to draw out more of the monsters—monsters Pitr meant to command.

  Liam’s body felt ragged with the immense energy he’d gathered into himself. He’d unleashed plenty when he tore into the castle, but now, in this twilight plane between two worlds, he didn’t need to draw the energy into himself any longer. It was already here, spilling around them, infecting his world more and more by the second as the universes bled together. He could command it all. He could do anything.

  But so, potentially, could Pitr.

  Liam closed his eyes and reached out. A hundred thousand heartbeats hammered in the distance as dark creatures circled the confluence, weighing their options. He heard their hungry whispers, their purposeless yearning to punish the world that stole from theirs, to feast on the taste they loved most. Pressing even further into the shadow, he caressed their thoughts each in turn, teasing them with the promise of countless Nazis to devour if they’d just fall under his control. He needed them on his side—not Pitr’s.

  They raised their heads and drew nearer. They were hungry—and they would obey whoever let them feed. Whoever gave them a whole new world to conquer.

  Liam opened his thoughts to them, their energy, their wants, their ravenous cravings echoed through him. He saw glimpses of the worlds as they saw them: trickling anger and fear, sweet and cloying as perfume; the world was measured around them not in light and shadow and form, but in its raw potential for violence and decay.

  He could give them that.

  Here, this is yours. Feast. He saw what they saw; he steered them through the maze of the crumbling castle walls as it bled into the shadow world. A cluster of SS officers on that floor, foot soldiers gathering in the common rooms—let the monsters sate themselves.