The Shadow Men

by Christopher Golden

  His daughter sat in that chair, her hair a tangled mess, her dirty face streaked with tear stains. “Daddy!” Holly shouted as she spotted him.

  She tried to rise, but the Half Shadow who knelt beside the chair held her back. A weasel of a man with oily hair and tiny eyes, he forced her to remain in the chair, his grip on her arm making her wince with pain. Jim wanted to kill him … would kill him, he vowed.

  But there was the other Half Shadow to worry about, the grandmotherly woman with her pearl necklace and wide hips and eyeglasses. She held a knife to Holly’s throat.

  “Let her go,” Jim said, a terrible chill racing through him. “You can’t think you’ll get away from us.” He gestured toward Sally and the three No-Face Men who hovered just behind her as the Oracle came through the door.

  The weasel sneered. “This isn’t about getting away. The job isn’t to beat you. That’s not how Veronica wins.”

  “So, how does she win?” Trix demanded, coming into the dimly lit room with Jennifer and Anne trailing behind her.

  “The little girl dies, and Veronica wins,” the weasel said.

  Then why haven’t you killed her already? Jim wanted to ask, but didn’t dare for fear of spurring them on.

  “Mommy?” Holly shouted, bucking against the weasel’s grip. The old woman pressed the knife closer to her throat, and the little girl—his daughter!—whimpered as it drew blood. “Mommy, where did you go?” Holly demanded.

  Confused, Jim glanced around to see that Jennifer had come up behind him, stepping into enough light that Holly could make out her face. She thought Jennifer was her mother, but Jim knew that now wasn’t the time to explain anything. “Sally,” Jim whispered. “Help my daughter.”

  The young Oracle, not even twice Holly’s age, nodded once, gently.

  “Let her go, now,” Jim said to the two Half Shadows who had been left to guard her—to kill her.

  The grandmother pointed her free hand at Sally. “Take the Oracle. Break her neck. Finish that job and we’ll give you your daughter.”

  “She’s lying,” Trix whispered, coming up beside him. “They just said killing Holly was their job.”

  Jim took a deep breath to steady himself. His face and body ached from the beating the Half Shadows had given him in the other room. His fists opened and closed, wishing for a weapon, for something to attack them with, though he could not risk Holly’s life. Powerless and full of fury, he knew there was nothing he could do.

  Holly’s eyes went wide, then narrowed in confusion and suspicion. “Mommy?” she said again, and he didn’t have to turn to realize that she had just gotten a good look at Anne.

  Jim had a lot of explaining to do.

  “Hollybaby,” he said, focusing only on his daughter. “What do you want for breakfast tomorrow?”

  Holly began to cry.

  “Listen to me,” Jim said firmly. “What do you want for breakfast tomorrow?”

  “Pancakes with butter and lots of syrup,” she said quickly, as though the words had been pushing to be set free.

  “You got it, kid,” Jim said. “Now, this is important, Holly. Listen closely. I want you to close your eyes and imagine those pancakes, the taste of the syrup, the smell of the bacon I’m going to make to go with them—”

  “I don’t want bacon.”

  “Just the smell,” Jim went on. “Picture us at the kitchen table. I’ll have the newspaper. You can put the Disney Channel on while I’m flipping pancakes and making coffee for your mom.”

  The weasel looked entirely befuddled. He turned toward the grandmother. “What the fuck is he talking about?”

  The grandmother did not reply. Instead, she stared at Jim, head cocked. Her Shadow Twin had partially emerged from her body, and it cocked its head as well, trying to figure out what to make of him, what he might be up to. “He’s snapped,” the grandmother said. Something in her appeared to soften, and Jim thought he could see the woman she had been before being swept away by a wave that had washed into her world and sucked her into the In-Between.

  The knife at Holly’s throat dipped slightly.

  Jim shot a sidelong glance at Sally, who made the tiniest of gestures with her right hand, as though grabbing a fistful of the air. The No-Face Men who had come in behind her drifted back slightly, as though wishing to be less imposing to the Half Shadows holding Holly. Even more confused, the grandmother and the weasel stared at them.

  They didn’t even see the ghost hands that thrust up through the floor and pulled them down. The grandmother’s eyes went wide, her arms flailing back, and then panic set in and she reached for Holly’s chair, but too late. The weasel held on, fighting furiously, spitting and snarling. The hands of his Shadow Twin thrust out, helping as he tried to take hold of something solid, something of this world. One of his smoky gray nothing hands slapped the stones of the raised Zen rock garden. But he could not hold on, and Sally’s No-Face Men dragged them both down through the floor and back to the In-Between.

  Veronica’s creatures had failed.

  “Holly!” Jim said, rushing to his daughter.

  He ran right through the rock garden, stones shifting underfoot, and nearly toppled into the fountain pond. Holly looked around in confusion, not sure yet that she was actually safe. But then Jim pulled her out of the chair and into his arms. He tried to speak and could not, because emotion had overwhelmed him. He laughed, but every time he tried to speak, tears sprang to his eyes and the words caught in his throat.

  “You came, Daddy,” Holly said. “I love that you came, crazy Daddy.”

  “Of course I came,” he said, sitting back, holding his little girl in his lap even though she was getting too big for that, pushing her hair away from her eyes and wiping tears from her face, smearing dirt.

  “Mommy said you would,” Holly said proudly. She frowned and reached up to touch the blood trickling from the slice on her neck. “I’m cut.”

  “It’s okay, honey. It’s going to be okay.”

  “It stings,” Holly informed him. And then she turned to look at the others. Her eyes widened as she got her first good look at Jennifer, and then she frowned in confusion when she saw Anne.

  “Mommy?” Holly said, hopeful but unsure.

  “No, honey,” Jim said. “These ladies are … they’re relatives of Mommy’s.”

  Holly’s disappointment seemed mixed with a sort of relief, as if instinct had told her neither of the women was her mother.

  Holly studied Sally for a second, and then beckoned to Trix. “Aunt Trixie, c’mere.”

  Trix went over and knelt down beside them. She hugged them both, and Jim felt such love for her then that he sobbed again. Trix kissed Holly on the top of the head and then, seemingly on impulse, kissed Jim’s cheek.

  “Aunt Trixie,” Holly whispered, looking suspiciously beyond her, toward Jennifer and Anne. “Those ladies who look like my mom are staring at me.”

  Trix laughed and Jim chuckled softly, shaking his head. He let out a long breath.

  “They can see how amazing you are,” Trix told Holly.

  “Why do you look like my mom?” Holly asked, bending over to peer at them more closely. “She doesn’t have any twin sisters or anything, ’cause she would have told me. Unless she didn’t know, like that movie with the two girls whose parents never told them they were twins. I can’t remember the name.”

  “Holly, listen to me, baby girl,” Jim said, holding her cheeks and forcing her to focus. Sweet and funny as she was, she was definitely in shock. “You need to tell me what happened to your mom. When did you see her last?”

  Pain creased his daughter’s face, and Jim hated being the cause of that. But they needed to know. “A long time ago,” Holly said. “Like, hours. I slept for a while, and then there was the earthquake—did you feel that earthquake, Daddy? I was totally freaked out! After the earthquake, they took Mommy away.”

  “Where?” Trix asked, gripping Jim’s arm to steady him. “Where’d they take her, Holly?”<
br />
  Holly pointed at the wall. “Right there. Right through the wall, like Mommy was a ghost or something.”

  Jim felt his insides turn to lead. He turned to look at Sally. “Into the In-Between?”

  Sally nodded.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Jim whispered. He kissed Holly’s forehead and then looked up at the Oracle again. “How long? How much time are we talking about for this transformation?”

  Trix looked at him. “What transformation?”

  Jim stroked Holly’s hair, wishing she didn’t have to be here for this. “Into one of them,” he said. “If she’s in there long enough, she’s going to turn into one of the Shadow Men.”

  Jennifer covered her mouth in horror. Trix sank back on her haunches, then sat down hard on the floor.

  “So we go in after her,” Anne said. “How long do we have?”

  They all looked at Sally. The Oracle seemed to have drifted far away in her mind, but now her eyes focused again and she nodded. “It may not be too late,” the girl said, looking at Jim and Trix. “But if you’re going into the In-Between, you’ll have to have an anchor to lead you back, and it must be someone to whom you all have a connection. Someone to stay behind with me.”

  Jim looked at Jennifer and Anne. “You two … you don’t even know her. You don’t have to—”

  Jennifer laughed. “Don’t know her? We are her!”

  Anne stared at him. “It would be like letting myself die.”

  “Jim,” Trix said. “It should be Holly.”

  “Me?” Holly perked up. “I can help get Mommy back?”

  “No,” Jim said quickly. “I’m not going to leave her behind now. No way.”

  “Leave me behind?” Holly said, her eyes going wide. “I don’t want to be alone again. Those bad guys might come back!”

  But Jim knew, even as she spoke, that there was no other choice. Jennifer and Anne might not be anchor enough to guide them back here.

  “Holly, sweetie, I think we need to,” he said, and she stared at him, her eyes welling again. “No, no, don’t cry. You’ve been so brave, but you need to be brave a little while longer so we can get Mommy back. We’re going to go where they took her, and you’re going to stay right here with our friend Sally. She’ll protect you.”

  Dubious, Holly glanced sidelong at Sally. “But she looks like a kid, Daddy. How’s she going to protect me if those guys come back?”

  Sally smiled. “Holly, do you see those tall ghost guys over there?” she asked, pointing to the No-Face Men lingering in the corner of the room, awaiting her orders. “They take their orders from me. They’ll make sure nobody can hurt us.”

  Holly looked warily at the No-Face Men, as afraid of them as she was of the ones who had held her prisoner. Their faces flickered, fleeting images of a thousand faces they might one day be. “Dad,” she said, sounding very grown-up, “this is a terrible idea.”

  Jim took a breath, sinking down onto his knees in the stones of the Zen garden. He wasn’t going to force Holly to do this, but every passing second might mean there would be less and less of Jenny to bring home. Even now, she might be only a shadow of herself. An echo.

  Then, in a small voice, Holly spoke up again. “Can you really bring Mommy back, Aunt Trixie?”

  Trix nodded. “I think we can. If we hurry.”

  Holly sighed, stood up, and went to take Sally’s hand. “Okay. Hurry, then,” she said. “And Aunt Trixie …?”

  “Yes?”

  Holly grinned. “I like your hair.”

  Jim laughed. Trix smiled and touched her hair, apparently having forgotten for a while that it was a vivid pink.

  “I have a question,” Jennifer said, addressing Sally. “If this is happening to … to Jim’s Jenny … what’s to stop it from happening to us? I mean, if we go in there, won’t we start to be changed, too?”

  Sally was a girl older than her years, but from time to time an even deeper wisdom seemed to light her eyes. Jim saw it there now. “There is a way,” Sally said. “You won’t be the first people to have explored the In-Between. Richard Vernon was the Oracle of Boston—my Boston—before the job landed in my hands. In the short time I knew him, he told me stories. So, yes, there’s a way. You might not like it, but if you’re careful and quick, it should keep you safe.”

  “Let’s do it,” Jim said. “Come on. Time’s wasting. Every second counts.”

  But he saw the troubled expression on Trix’s face and knew there was something more. “Why Jenny?” Trix asked.

  “What do you mean?” Jim said.

  “Why take Jenny into the In-Between and not Holly?” Trix looked at Anne and Jennifer, then at Sally. “Why hold Holly captive? Why not just kill her?”

  “Bait for me,” Sally said. “When their original plan didn’t work, the Shadow Men acted under their own volition and held off killing her. Luring me into the trap. We’re here, aren’t we?”

  “Maybe,” Trix said. “But we know part of Veronica’s plan, right? The Shadow Men follow our marks, we deliver those letters—hexed, cursed, whatever—and then they kill you and O’Brien so the three Bostons collide. You’ve gotta figure it’s all because she wanted to be the one and only Oracle of the one and only Boston, right?”

  “Makes sense,” Jim said.

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense. But I don’t get this thing with Holly. And are we supposed to go after Jenny? Is that all part of Veronica’s plan?”

  “Does it matter?” Anne asked. “We’re going, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, we’re going, no matter what,” Trix agreed. “But there’s something we’re missing here. Something significant. I mean, Holly and Jenny slipped through, the way everyone who’s ever gotten lost in the In-Between has. They were lucky to end up in another Boston instead of nowhere at all. So how did Veronica’s servants find them so fast?”

  “You’re saying it was no accident,” Jim said, narrowing his eyes, knowing the truth when he heard it. “She made it happen. She picked them, and she picked us. She needed us because we’re Uniques.”

  “It’s more than that,” Trix said. “There are tons of Uniques. You heard what that greasy-looking guy said: they were supposed to kill Holly. Why?”

  A shuffling step came from the doorway, and then a soft cough. They all turned, ready for a fight, but it was only the redheaded teenager, bruised and exhausted, blood in his hair, no fight left in him at all. Whoever he had been in the Boston where Jim had come from, he was stuck in this world now, but at least the shadows of the In-Between had been ripped from him.

  “I can tell you the answer to that one,” he said. “We tossed your wife into the Gray—what you’re calling the In-Between—because we didn’t need her. We threw her away like trash.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Trix said, starting to rise, fists clenched.

  “No,” the kid said. “Please. That’s not me. I never wanted any of that. Veronica promised she would save us … she would get that stuff out of us, give us our lives back, if we did what she wanted. And it was hard to say no anyway. They can command you, y’know? The Oracles.”

  Jim stared at Sally, wondering if her No-Face Men did her bidding against their will.

  “She’s all right,” the redhead said, seeing his look. “She tries to save the ones she can. That’s what someone told me, in the In-Between. But once you’re fully gone, there’s nothing anyone can do for you. Helping the Oracle, when you’re summoned, it’s the only time you can feel alive.” He turned to Sally. “Thank you. Your guys saved me.”

  Sally smiled at him, nodding once.

  “My wife,” Jim urged. “If they threw her away, what did they want with Holly?”

  The kid looked at him, then at Holly, pity in his gaze. “Veronica never chose a successor. She doesn’t want anyone to replace her. Not ever. But when an Oracle can’t choose, or won’t, the soul of the city chooses for itself,” he said, turning back to Jim.

  “Dude, Veronica wants your daughter dead because she’s the
next Oracle of Boston.”

  If I Ever Leave This World Alive

  THEY COULD have just killed her,” Jim said, hugging his daughter to his chest. The redheaded guy had gone, sent away by Sally. The others were milling in a state of shock at the brutal fight they had just survived. Sally sat against the wall recuperating, while her motionless No-Face Men loitered in the shadows, but there was a sense of urgency in the room. They all knew that speed was of the essence. If anyone came in here and saw the bodies and blood, their troubles would have only just begun.

  “I would have sensed that,” Sally said. “They needed her alive as bait.”

  “Bait,” Jim echoed, and the idea of anyone using his precious little girl like that only increased his fury.

  “Like in fishing, Daddy?”

  “Yes, honey.” He hugged Holly and felt her familiar warmth, and could not avoid imagining that bleeding away.

  “Her Shadow Men have been thinking on their own,” Sally said. “She must have imbued them with more intelligence than I thought.”

  “But they didn’t figure on us,” Anne said. She was nursing her bruised and bleeding head, but her defiance was unmistakable.

  “As if we made much difference,” Jennifer said. She was kneeling close to Jim and Holly but not quite close enough to touch. He knew that this must be so difficult for her.

  “You made every difference,” Sally said. Her eyes were closed. She looked reduced, even smaller than the child she was.

  “How?” Trix asked.

  “You gave them something more to fight. Bought us time to react.”

  Trix and Anne pulled several of the heavy chairs across to the wide entrance. With the doors closed and chairs propped beneath the handles, it would take a concerted effort to enter the room from that way. And today, they hoped, few people would have browsing works of art on their minds. Art was a luxury, and these were desperate times.