The Shadow War

by Lindsay Smith

  “Daniel.”

  They came together, all three of them.

  That sweet, stupid boy who never stopped striving for more. More knowledge, more power, thinking all those things could give him peace when, just like everyone else, he was at the mercy of the rest of the world. His sister, surrendering whatever had given her glimpses of their fate. One girl unafraid of what the future might bring. One man against the tide. One could never be enough.

  But two, or three, or a hundred—now he was starting to like those odds.

  “You can’t get rid of me, you know.” Liam’s voice was thick in his throat as he cut the ropes that kept Daniel suspended. Dropped him down into his arms. “I’ll follow you anywhere.”

  Daniel’s limbs were so weary, he was so weak, but he was alive. Alive, and able to live on, to be held by this boy, to live the life his family couldn’t. He didn’t have to throw himself away, too.

  Daniel pulled Liam into a kiss, and for just that moment, both universes held their breath, the moment stretching forever in time.

  Liam laughed, exhausted, as his forehead came to rest against Daniel’s. Daniel smiled and wiped away a smear of soot from Liam’s cheek. “You were right,” he said. “We both deserve to live.”

  Reluctantly, Liam pulled away from him and turned toward the rest of the world, where Kreutzer and Pitr were frantically conducting their ritual to imbue their soldiers with shadow. Creating more and more monsters, an unending wave of hatred to send out across the earth. Daniel tapped into that deep well of sorrow inside himself, the one he’d tried to seal up with vengeance and rage. He hadn’t mourned yet. He could do so now.

  He met Rebeka’s gaze, and they nodded to each other. For their parents, their brother. For their memories to be a blessing. For their neighbors and classmates and millions more they’d never met. For every yellow star, every pink triangle, every nameless soul whose voice was deemed unnecessary by a harsh and careless world. They all deserved more than his anger. They deserved better than his tears, his futile stabs.

  They deserved a real revenge.

  “I have to close the rift,” Liam said. “For good.”

  Daniel nodded, throat too dry to speak.

  Then, so shyly and innocently it sent Daniel’s pulse racing, Liam asked, “Would you help me?”

  “I’d tear down every world with you.”

  PHILLIP

  While Rebeka twisted shadows to her will, Phillip reshaped the course of electric currents. He had way more power to draw from now than his old frequency folder could have ever handled. It would have to be enough to seal off the universes for good.

  For good, Phillip thought to himself, a strange smile crossing his face. He was in control of how his device was being used. Not Mr. Connolly, not his parents, not the US Army. He got to decide.

  “Come on, Evangeline,” Simone muttered beside him, waiting for her honey-voiced operative to call back in. She was supposed to be clearing some kind of escape route. It all sounded nearly impossible, but hadn’t everything they’d done this past week? Phillip tightened a coil of copper around the final screw and sat back.

  “Monsters.”

  Simone dropped the receiver as they both turned. The soldier was crawling along the floor, blood smearing a trail behind him. Phillip should have known his rank from the flash cards they memorized in basic (and later used for target practice), but his mind went blank. The soldier’s leg dragged, mangled, behind him. And he was pointing a Walther P38 directly at Phillip.

  “Call your Allied dogs off,” he snarled. “Now.”

  Simone dove for her rifle where she’d left it on the other counter, but the soldier was too close—he batted it away. He fired a warning shot directly at Phillip’s feet.

  “Your days are done,” Phillip said. “You’re clinging to a past that never was and a future that never will be.”

  “They promised me . . . They promised me”—he coughed up blood—“power beyond imagining. That we should never again suffer the humiliation at the hands of those insidious Jews and Communists. And then—then the whispers grew louder, promising more—”

  The Resistance channel sparked to life behind them. “Simone?”

  “Your power is gone,” Phillip said, new urgency beating hard against his ribs. They needed to answer that call. “The shadow world is closing, and it’ll never hurt anyone again.”

  The soldier glowered at him, but all Phillip felt was sudden, manic laughter. He’d fought so hard to win approval from men like Mr. Connolly, from his professors and parents and friends. He’d been fighting so long to earn his place. And for what?

  He didn’t need it. He knew what he was capable of. The good he’d already done. And everything he could do still.

  “Simone, are you there, darling? Please . . . please be there . . . over.”

  The soldier’s gun wavered. “Please bring it back. Bring the shadows back . . . I can’t hear the whispers anymore.” He choked on a sob. “Kreutzer promised us . . .”

  Simone seized the transmitter and pressed the button, her glare never leaving the soldier’s face. “I’m here.”

  “Get your friends and drive to Drieborg as quick as you can. Two hours north of your position. My friends will be waiting for you there.” Evangeline’s voice trembled. “I love you, you mad, idiot girl. Over.”

  “I love you too, you imbecile.” Simone managed not to choke. “Over and out.”

  “I need it.” Tears poured from the soldier’s hollowed-out eyes. “I need the shadows. Why did you take them away?”

  The soldier turned the gun on himself and fired.

  Phillip yelped as blood and bits of brain sprayed the radio operator’s post, but then the soldier’s body slid to the floor. Simone rushed forward and kicked the pistol from his hand anyway—just to be sure. With shaking hands, she approached Phillip and leaned against the desk.

  “A-are we ready?” she asked.

  He snapped a casing into place. “Just waiting for Rebeka’s signal.”

  LIAM

  Pitr and Kreutzer turned together as the behemoth’s shadow fell across them. The behemoth stretched closer, and in its face they saw themselves.

  “Liam—” Pitr gasped. “What are you—”

  Liam stood now; the shadow beasts had shied away from him. They stepped back with low growls and plaintive whines, denied their feast.

  “You told me once I was afraid of real power,” Liam said, voice ringing out clear in the darkness. “And maybe that’s true. But I’ll face it anyway.”

  Dark tendrils wafted around Pitr—he was trying to fight back. But he was losing his grip. He was too afraid, and the behemoth fed on it, ripping away his control.

  Liam stood taller. “Because I’m no longer afraid to let it go. Even if it means losing myself.” And then he raked the blade across his palm.

  “Shit,” Liam wheezed. The blood was immediately pulled, forcibly, out of his skin—drunk up by the shadowy air all around them. If it took a sacrifice to open it, then maybe it took a sacrifice to close. If he could—Liam blinked, his mouth suddenly dry as his head went fuzzy from blood loss. If he could just hold out a little longer—

  “Stop.” Pitr lunged at him, tendrils flailing desperately. “Stop! These worlds are mine!”

  The tendril struck Liam across the face and raked deep into him, fishhook-sharp. Liam cried, his concentration breaking. His vision was blurring, sparking with red and pain—he couldn’t see from his left eye, and his hand was burning as the shadows drank more and more—

  “What are you doing?” Pitr shrieked. “Stop this! You can’t close it!”

  “I can.” Liam dropped to his knees. Blood marred his vision as the pain crackled through him. “If it takes every last drop of blood I have to give, I will.”

  “You won’t,” Pitr seethed. “You can’t surrender it. Y
ou love it too much.”

  “That’s—that’s why I have to let it go.”

  Liam’s mouth tasted cottony. Blood loss—he felt like he was swimming, like he was teetering on the edge of sleep. If he just let go—but he couldn’t, not until the rift was closed, the counterfrequency and sacrifice sealing everything—

  “I’ve got you.”

  Daniel’s arms wrapped around Liam from behind, dragging him away from the vortex, from Pitr. “No matter what happens,” Daniel said, “I’ve got you.”

  Rebeka strode forward, her eyes burning. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

  She stopped before Pitr, darkness like a cold fire around her. Shadows bending. Retreating. Slowly, the tendril released its hold on Liam, leaving a slick smear of blood in its wake. Surrendering under the force of Rebeka’s fearlessness.

  With a howl, Liam covered his left eye where the shadow had raked across it.

  Pitr fell backward, sucked into the roaring vortex of darkness—

  “Now!” Rebeka cried, her words amplified by shadow, ringing throughout the castle, all the way up to the radio tower.

  They breathed as one. United. Solid.

  And then a wave of static hit them as Phillip unleashed the counterfrequency, cutting through the opening to the other realm. The entire castle jolted like a generator coming back online. The mountain ridge grew hazy, as if viewed on a foggy day. The worlds were beginning to sever.

  “Together,” Rebeka said. “It’s the only way we go forward.”

  Liam clenched his jaw. He felt Daniel’s presence to his left, even if he could no longer see him. The throbbing pain in his left eye socket fueled him for one last act. One hand in Daniel’s, the other in Rebeka’s, the shadows pulsing in time with his agony, with his determination, as he forced the openings closed, and closed—

  And then the shadow world collapsed in a torrent of dust and howling cries. Darkness ripped out of the soldiers where they stood, leaving only empty skins that crumpled to the ground. The behemoth tottered and fell, and then everything was static and cold.

  Liam’s power—gone. The other world—fading. His eye—ruined. He was empty, as empty as those soldiers had been. Everything that was special about him, everything that gave him control—

  Nothingness.

  Daniel squeezed his hand, grounding him to their world. Reminding him.

  He was more than the power he’d stolen.

  His hands sturdy in Daniel’s and Rebeka’s, they pushed back. Together, they’d transmuted into something more, pushing against the wave of anger and fear and sorrow. The shadows melted from the beasts where they had fallen; the retreating fog revealed Kreutzer’s and Pitr’s bodies. With the shadow gone, all that remained of Pitr was a lump of discarded skin. He was nothing without his hate.

  The dusty book sparked and smoked on its pedestal, then suddenly burst into flame. Liam held tight as the wind raked at his face, stinging the empty socket of his left eye.

  And then they were standing in the wreckage of the castle tower, only a single black shadowy rift before them, dancing in the air.

  Liam looked at Daniel, the strain on his face. Liam forced himself to smile through the bloody haze.

  Then he teetered forward and collapsed onto the shattered stone floor.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  SIMONE

  An unseasonably warm wind gusted in off the Thames, dancing across their faces as they mingled along the roof of 1 Dorset Square, the home of the Free French in London. But nothing warmed Simone like Evangeline’s hand locked in hers, like the kisses they couldn’t stop stealing when the others weren’t looking. Only the occasional roar of RAF bombers punctuated the perfect peace, but even that noise was all too sweet—better them than the Luftwaffe attempting another blitz.

  It had started with a goodbye Simone had been all too hasty to make and ended with a pair of Allied planes sweeping over the beaches of Drieborg to extract them. It ended with a girl awaiting them on the military runway, one hand in a sling, a tremor in her chin as her gaze locked with Simone’s.

  It ended with the bitter ache in Simone’s belly vanishing all at once, her joints loosening, her heart pushing up into her throat as she wondered if she should forgive, could forgive, if everything that had happened made up for everything that had come before.

  It ended with Simone pulling Evangeline into her arms, tears dripping into her blond hair, her breath returning to normal, a normal she hadn’t felt in months.

  Their blow to the SS High Command had been more symbolic than they’d hoped; Heinrich Himmler had been at a secret meeting in Berlin when his castle collapsed. But Kreutzer’s mad experiments and his squadron of shadow-imbued soldiers were destroyed. Evangeline and Simone were now working directly for de Gaulle’s Alliance and the British Special Operations Executive, fighting to save the surviving members of Georges-Yves Sauvage’s dismantled network as they forged new ones. Much to Simone’s amusement, Evangeline now wore the Lorraine Cross pinned proudly to her chest.

  “And you didn’t even have to steal it,” Simone murmured into Evangeline’s shoulder.

  Evangeline tipped Simone’s face up with a finger under her chin. “The Torturer of Troyes might argue that point with you.”

  “How unfortunate for him that he cannot.”

  Their sextet fell silent, and for a long minute it was only brassy Glenn Miller on the radio and the sounds of London around them, autumn tickling brightly colored leaves and whispering a warning of rain. For a long minute, it was only Evangeline’s body warm against hers as they swayed to “Moonlight Serenade,” as Rebeka nestled in Phillip’s arms nearby, as Liam settled into Daniel’s. No one but themselves to see them dance this way, to care who or what they were. They were heroes, they were Free French, they were survivors.

  Qadar. Simone couldn’t help but wonder if there was a preordained quality to what had happened. They’d found another world only to lock it back away; they’d grasped unfathomable power only long enough to rid themselves of it for good. If this was qadar, this river that flowed back to Evangeline, to all the possibility Simone once believed in before the world had battered her down, then she would gladly put her faith in this qadar and let it lead her as it liked.

  The song faded from the radio set, and a BBC news bulletin started next. With a smile, Evangeline lowered Simone’s hand, kissed the very tip of her nose, and the six of them gazed into the stars once more.

  “Evangeline . . .” Rebeka’s voice was soft and airy, nothing like the girl she’d been. This was the girl who’d slowly emerged in place of the old Rebeka over the past few weeks, heartiness enveloping whittled-down bones and brightness returning to her face. “Evangeline, I’m very sorry about your father.”

  Evangeline tightened beside Simone, that reckless saint armoring herself for battle once more. Only Simone had ever seen the soft flesh in the gaps between those plates. “It’s what he deserved.”

  Ripped out of Vichy by the Gestapo. Awaiting questioning in Paris. And then a handsome leather belt from a shop on the Champs-Élysées, a kicked-over chair, a stench rising from the forgotten cell.

  “I can miss the man without losing sight of the monster he was,” Evangeline said, softer this time. “I can mourn his passing without being sorry that he’s gone.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Liam said. “To shitty fathers everywhere, and a world a little less shitty without them in it.”

  “To having just one world to manage,” Daniel added as he wrestled the flask back from Liam for a sip.

  Phillip raised his own flask. “Hear, hear.”

  “To an after,” Rebeka said, and smiled up at the stars.

  Tomorrow morning, a military plane would take Liam and Phillip home to America, and Rebeka and Daniel with them, sanctuary granted by Uncle Sam. Phillip couldn’t stop talking about the business he wanted t
o start, with the help of his friends from school: building digital machines like his frequency folder, at least, after he’d overseen the creation of a handful for the US Army’s use. Rebeka seemed all too happy to help him. Liam talked, hesitantly, about returning to Princeton to finish his master’s work, and Daniel had mumbled something about music—that he longed to play again.

  “I wish we could go home, too,” Simone said, shrinking down against the roof. She hadn’t even realized how much she’d wanted it until she said it out loud. “I miss the way Paris was before.” Not all of it, of course—but enough that she could call it home.

  Evangeline brought their joined hands up to her mouth and placed a gentle kiss on Simone’s knuckles. Then her fingertips, each in turn. “The tide is turning. The Russians are putting up a fierce fight on the Eastern front, too. When this war’s over, there’ll be plenty of work there for you.”

  Simone turned toward her and savored the way her eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “Is that so?”

  “The Germans are terrible guests.”

  Simone cast her gaze down. “I’m not sure anyone will give me the chance.”

  “The crack shot of Libération-Nord, one of the Wewelsburg Five? I think you might be surprised.” Evangeline arched one golden eyebrow. “And if not, I’m sure I can demand it of de Gaulle.”

  Simone snorted and leaned closer to her. “That sounds terrifying.”

  “I’m good at terrifying.”

  “I know. I love seeing it.”

  Simone caught her face in her hands and drew her in for another kiss. She wondered if Evangeline could taste the darkness on her, the forest and the demons and the blood and gunpowder. It had suited her at the time. Her time spent on the trail, the rifle in her hand. She almost hated to be dragged back into this mundane world she’d left behind.

  But there was plenty else that suited her as well.

  She kissed Evangeline, her honey and sunlight girl, and the world and its dark shadows fell away.