Marsh snatched the battery and ran back to Will and Gretel. He didn’t close the vault behind him. There was no point. In a few more minutes there would be no London, no Admiralty, no vault. Nobody left to steal state secrets.
He again glanced outside on his way back. There was nothing to see. Even the dim glow of the streetlamps had disappeared. Darkness had enveloped the Admiralty building.
He returned to the storage room just as Will smeared a bloody handprint on the floor over the old bloodstain. A smear of red darkened his lower lip; he’d bitten his hand.
Gretel reached toward Marsh. He lobbed the battery into her outstretched fingers. She tried to hide the trembling of her hands as she caught it. In moments the Eidolons would see her, erase her from existence. The one thing that frightened her in all the world. But she embraced that fate so that a younger version of herself, the Gretel of the past, the Gretel of an alternative time line, could survive. Her entire plan amounted to one long, elaborate suicide. Will was right. Only a madwoman would embrace such a fate.
Even if Marsh did find a way to somehow avert this catastrophe. But first, he’d find a way to save Agnes. Save Liv, save his marriage. What point in saving the world—a world—if he couldn’t have that tiny piece of it for himself?
This world, however, was doomed. Along with everybody in it. This Liv, the Liv to whom he’d been married for so long, whom he’d loved and loathed in equal measure, had no future. She was dead already. Her entire life had been a pointless prologue to nothing. And he was abandoning her. The guilt threatened to hobble him. It grew worse when he thought of all the things he’d never get to say, all the words he’d never get to take back.…
Marsh asked, “Ready?”
Will’s nod was not entirely convincing. “Have you truly thought about this? We’re doing this at the spur of the moment. This isn’t a simple trip to Germany, Pip. You haven’t had time to prepare.”
“We don’t have time!” Marsh yelled. He pointed to the walls. “The darkness is right outside.”
Marsh clamped his teeth on the inside of his lower lip. The taste of salt and iron coated his tongue. He spit on the floor, at the spot where Will’s past and present blood mingled together. Fever and headache throbbed in his skull to the beat of his racing heart.
Will reached into a pocket of his waistcoat. He pulled out his wallet and tossed it to Marsh.
“There’s a bit of cash in there. You’ll need it.”
The gesture caught Marsh off guard. “Thank you.”
Will had tears in his eyes. “Pip, I … I’ve made so many terrible choices in my life. If … If you could find a way to prevent them…”
“We’ve all made mistakes. Me worst of all,” said Marsh. He put a hand on Will’s shoulder. “It’ll be different next time. I promise.”
“Well,” said Will. He drew a long, shuddery breath. He held it for a moment before launching into a poor rendition of Enochian.
Even Marsh could tell Will wasn’t so proficient as the children had been. He was far, far out of practice. But it didn’t matter. The Eidolons roamed free in the world; Will caught their attention instantly.
Darkness seeped through the walls. The room reverberated with a crushing sense of unbridled malice. The floor canted slightly to the left. Marsh glanced at his watch. It had stopped.
He recognized the discordant syllables of his own name. The same syllables the children had begun to chant each time they’d seen him.
The Eidolons saw him. Studied him. Looked in him, through him, from within the very particles of his body.
Gretel winked. “See you soon.”
Will panicked: “Wait! STOP!”
She plugged in her battery. The darkness pounced.
And Marsh—
* * *
Liv huddled in the garden shed, perched on the edge of her husband’s cot as the wind howled outside.
She had turned back when she glimpsed the inky sky to the north. It didn’t look like any storm she’d ever seen. It wasn’t natural, and that scared her just as much as John had. Her anger at Raybould, her disgust with his lies and secrets, hadn’t subsided. Still, she wished she hadn’t returned to an empty house. There was nobody to hold her, nobody to keep the fear at bay.
But she’d turned her back on him when he called to her. Because she’d been petty, wanted to hurt him as much as his lies hurt her. And now she was alone with only terror for company as the darkness spread.
She buried her face in his pillow and wept. It smelled like the man she’d loved long ago.
* * *
Klaus stood before the corner window of his flat, watching as impenetrable darkness descended upon Aylesbury. Madeleine trembled beside him, wrapped only in a robe. He shifted the paintbrushes to one hand then wrapped his free arm around her. It wasn’t romantic; he shared her fear.
The wind picked up. A ripple, a gust, a gale. It shredded the greengrocer’s awning. An icy draft wormed its way past the window sash.
He shivered. Madeleine hugged him.
He should have taken her into his bedroom while he’d had the chance. But it had been so comforting, so normal, simply being around a woman who wasn’t his sister.
God damn you, Gretel.
But he refused to give her his dying thoughts. He pushed her out of his mind.
He tightened his hold of Madeleine, pressed his face into her chestnut hair. “Thank you,” he whispered.
* * *
The Eidolons swarmed into Marsh, infused him, dissected him particle by particle. They peeled the thin veneer of time away from his body like the fragile and worthless skin of an onion. He was a hole, a paradox, an impossible thing within which “past” and “present” held no meaning.
He had hurled himself into the crawlspaces of the universe, and his feeble existence had no meaning beyond the whims of the Eidolons.
* * *
Gwendolyn knew something was wrong the moment William rushed from the house with that damnable Marsh. But she hadn’t realized just how terribly wrong things could go until she stepped into the garden and gazed up at a darkening sky. For that was as wrong as wrong could be.
But William was out there, somewhere, trying to stop this. She knew that as fully as she knew anything. And that gave her hope. She refused to panic.
She retreated into the house when the wind became a gale that tore at the hem of her dress. The Twins huddled together on a settee. Gwendolyn treated them with the most confident smile she could muster.
No, she wouldn’t give in to fear. But it would be easier with William at her side.
Come back soon, my love.
* * *
Aubrey jerked awake. The newspaper slipped from his fingers to land on the rug beside his chair. He’d drowsed off again. He hadn’t been able to concentrate since William’s death. The doctors called it nervous fatigue.
Viola called his name. Her voice echoed through the great house. It wasn’t like her to raise her voice.
Aubrey ran upstairs. He was panting heavily by the time he found her. She was in the largest of the guest bedrooms, standing before the window, carpet samples scattered on the floor behind her. She’d gone pale.
Viola pointed across the estate, toward the glade upstream of the manor. Or where the glade would have been, had it not been embedded in a roiling black fog.
Aubrey watched darkness spread across Bestwood. He wished, not for the first time, he’d leveled the glade and sold it to developers.
* * *
—And Marsh hit the floor with a thump.
“STOP!” Will’s dying outburst echoed in his ears.
Marsh staggered to his feet, head spinning. He doubled over and swallowed down the urge to retch. The floor lurched at random, as though an Eidolon hovered nearby.
Somewhere close, somebody bellowed, “Oy! What are you smiling at, lassie?”
The voice was vaguely familiar, but Marsh couldn’t place it.
He found his footing on the third try. The
darkness had receded, but now the room was empty.
No. It was a different room.
This room had a window.
Where am I?
A window covered with blackout curtains.
The kind they’d used during the war.
When am I?
It started coming back to him: Gretel. The Soviets. The Eidolons. John.
A muffled scream sliced through Marsh’s train of thought. A few moments later, he distinctly heard Will say, “My God. They’ve given you a name.”
A rivulet of sweat trickled down Marsh’s ribs.
“Son of a bitch,” he whispered.
More voices. And footsteps. Coming down the corridor.
Can’t fix anything if I get shot for a Jerry spy.
Marsh pushed the blackout curtains aside, praying the window wasn’t painted shut. It wasn’t. He eased it open, threw one leg over the ledge, then the other. He ducked under the sash and dropped into a hedge beneath the window. He pulled the window shut and crouched under the ledge.
The sun had set. The only light came from a faint orange glow in the western sky and the window behind him. The streetlamps were dark. Deep shadows stretched across St. James’ Park.
Marsh recognized the view. He’d seen it countless times.
The blackout.
It was 1940.
Again.
epilogue
12 May 1940
Milkweed Headquarters, London, England
“Get up.” Marsh took the girl by the elbow as Lorimer and Stephenson draped Will’s arms over their shoulders and carried him out of the room.
What a fiasco. Will had lost a finger, and for what? They hadn’t learned a damn thing about what the Jerries were doing at von Westarp’s farm.
She paused, staring into the room where earlier Marsh had adjusted the blackout curtains. They had slipped aside again. Though it felt like the negotiation had gone on for days, it had lasted only long enough for the sun to set. Light spilled through the window onto Horse Guards Parade, and that was a violation of the blackout regulations.
Marsh pulled the prisoner aside and fixed the curtains. He took her elbow again.
“Ah,” she said, smiling.
Marsh frowned. “What?”
“It worked.”
Tor Books by Ian Tregillis
Bitter Seeds
The Coldest War
The Coldest War is the second in Ian Tregillis’s alternate-history series, the first of which, Bitter Seeds, won such praise as “A combination of Alan Furst’s brand of historical espionage with the fantastical characters of graphic novelist Alan Moore”—New Mexico Magazine. Tregillis lives near Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he works as a physicist at Los Alamos Laboratory. In addition, he is a member of the George R. R. Martin Wild Cards writing collective. Visit him on the Web at www.iantregillis.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products ofthe author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE COLDEST WAR
Copyright © 2012 by Ian Tregillis
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
e-ISBN 9781429986113
First Edition: July 2012
The Coldest War Page 36