The Shadow Men

The Wrong Company

Are they what caused the earthquake?” Jennifer asked. Jim nodded but then thought better of it. There was more to it than that, but now was not the time. Now they had to survive.

Jennifer drew close to him, and once again he was almost overwhelmed by her familiarity. Even catching sight of her from the corner of his eye-her stance, the determined expression, the way she filled her space-flooded him with memories of Jenny. “You’ve seen them before?” she asked.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t help us.” Four wraiths were stealing along the street, while, past the scene of ruin outside Sally’s house, three more had manifested from smoke and unseen corners. Jim’s heart galloped as he tried to think of something to do, some way to escape them. Into Sally’s house? But even if they could reach the shattered front door before being caught by the wraiths, they were obviously the cause of the death and chaos apparent in the street. Being inside, even in the Oracle’s home, would offer no protection. He’d seen that with Peter O’Brien.

“Are they going to…?” Jennifer asked, fear lowering her voice.

They didn’t find Sally! Jim thought, which gave him hope that Trix had made it away with the Oracle. “No,” he said, “they won’t kill us. But they might take us prisoner.”

“Take us where?”

He’d seen them form and melt away again, and the idea of being pulled through with them was terrible. He was Unique, and maybe that would make it possible, but…

But Jennifer was not Unique. And this place was not a crossing point.

“Jim?” Jennifer asked.

But he could not speak. What will it do to her to be dragged after them? What will it do to her body, her soul? He glanced around at the several dead bodies splayed across the street, saw the terrible damage inflicted upon them, and he grabbed Jennifer’s hand and pulled her close. “When they come for me,” he whispered, “run as fast as you can.”

“No!” Her voice was angry and fearful.

“Jennifer,” he said, and her face was so close to his that he could smell Jenny’s breath.

The wraiths dashed at them, and Jim felt momentary surprise when he heard their footsteps slapping on the pavement. His vision blurred, and he thought that an aftershock was striking the city-buildings shimmered, his stomach lurched, and Jennifer cried out beside him. She hugged him tighter, and her body fit his as well as it always had.

But the ground did not move, and he felt enclosed, his breathing and heartbeat echoing back at him from the wall of air around them. That wall darkened and resolved itself into separate shapes, and he heard Jennifer whimper softly as she pressed her face against his neck. She doesn’t want to see, but I have to, he thought as the shapes became vaguely humanoid and rushed outward to meet the threat.

The wraiths seemed unconcerned at the appearance of these new things, and unsurprised. They joined in brutal battle without preamble, and the conflict seemed more violent because of its utter silence. One of Veronica’s wraiths was flipped around and crushed against the ground, rupturing the concrete paving with a loud crack! that gave the fight brief voice. And at last Jim saw the thing that had met the wraith and bettered it. It had a silvered, flickering blank face and long limbs, and its gray shape seemed to flex and shiver as though trying to retain a hold on reality, but that ambiguity detracted nothing from its strength. It stomped down on the floored wraith, driving its foot into the thing’s head and twisting, sending glittering shreds across the road. They shriveled and turned black before fading away, and the rest of the wraith melted to nothing.

The faceless man motioned to Jim to follow. Every fiber of his being urged him to grab Jennifer and flee, but while conflict raged around them, this creature seemed the safest ally they had. Still Jim paused, glancing around at the fighting, thrashing things that had come from thin air and belonged. He heard Jennifer gasp, turned around, and the faceless man was so close that Jim could have touched it. His hair stood on end, and his balls tingled. The shape raised an arm and pointed at the house of this Boston’s Oracle. And then it signaled once again that he should follow.

They hurried after the shape as it seemed to float across the street, away from the house and the human bodies lying close by. They passed other bodies that were fading away-wraiths and faceless men alike-and Jim wondered if they hurt, and if the shift from living to dead meant anything to them.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Jennifer said. “What are they? What is this?”

“It all has to do with the city,” Jim said, because he thought he knew where these things came from-from Sally, this Boston’s Oracle. Maybe they were constantly on guard outside her home, but he thought not. If they were, why the dead people, the smashed windows, and the sense of something momentous having happened here? The other alternative was that Sally had left them here to wait for him. That seemed more likely, as this thing was guiding them somewhere. And the only way he could figure this out was that Trix had gotten here first.

He only hoped she was all right. And he hoped and prayed that she and Sally had found his wife and child.

The thing led them quickly away from the battle, edging into an alley between buildings, headed west. It passed over a recently tumbled wall, waiting on the other side while Jim and Jennifer climbed the precarious pile. It exuded no impatience but walked on as soon as they were ready, moving unerringly through streets and alleys, across parks, and into the heart of the ruined city. They went through the theater district and kept moving west, crossing streets where buildings had collapsed or fires were raging, passing crowds of onlookers or people trying to help, and no one saw the faceless man. Jim didn’t believe for a moment that it was invisible to all but him and Jennifer-how could it be?-but perhaps it had some way of diverting attention, or seeking paths between perception.

Every few minutes the thing held up its hand and turned around, moving past them the way they had come. It’s listening, and watching, Jim thought. And indeed the phantom seemed to stand for a while breathing in the air and scanning their surroundings. For some reason, that did not make Jim feel safe. He believed the faceless man was just as dangerous, just as inhuman, as the wraiths that had killed O’Brien. He was only grateful it was on their side.

“Where’s it leading us?” Jennifer asked.

“I think toward Trix’s apartment in this Boston. And hopefully Sally.”

“Sally?”

“The Oracle. You’ve heard of her?”

Jennifer frowned, a little unsettled. “I’ve heard the name Oracle before, yes. A friend of a friend visited her once, so he claims. Helped him find a brother adopted at birth.”

“Well, she’s the only one who can help me here,” Jim said.

“Help you find your wife, Jenny,” Jennifer said.

“Yeah,” Jim said, and he had to shake himself again. This isn’t Jenny. This is Jennifer.

“And you believe in all that mystical stuff?”

“Days ago, no, not really. But now… if whatever it is works, then yes, I believe in it.” He pointed ahead at where the phantom shape had paused at a road junction. “And you’ve got to account for that.”

“Not today,” Jennifer said. “I don’t need to account for anything today. Maybe tomorrow, when all this is…” But she trailed off, because what they’d seen of the city proved that this would never be all over. Things might improve, people might be rescued, and the injured would recover, but Boston would never be the same again.

As they followed the phantom, Jim started to wonder just what Jennifer-not-Jenny felt about him. Because there was a spark. And however much he tried to smother it, it burned brighter with every passing minute. “Not far now,” he said, wondering what they would find upon their arrival. “We’re almost there.”***

Trix leaned back against the wall of what might be her apartment, watching as Sally worked, and she knew that she should be able to control herself. She knew what this was and what it meant, and she was better placed than almost anyone in Boston today to understand what was going on. Yet she was shaking and scared, lonely and feeling shunned by the world she knew, and those worlds she did not.

And she couldn’t help feeling jealous. I need help, too. Sally should be doing that to me. She hated the self-pity but could not rein it in. Too much had happened for her to beat herself up about how she felt.

Sally was kneeling beside this alternate Jenny and singing a soft song. This Jenny called herself Anne-her middle name-and had been begging Trix to recognize her and love her. It’s Anne. Don’t you know me, Trix? Don’t you know me? It must have been Trix’s haunted expression that threw Anne into a terrified fit. That, and the fact that she was dead in Anne’s world, victim of a car crash three years before.

I’m no ghost, Trix had said, but it was taking the Oracle’s ministrations to calm Anne down.

Sally rocked slowly back and forth on her knees, one hand running gentle circles across Anne’s stomach, the other seemingly molding the air around her. The song seemed more solid than mere words, heavier than a voice. The air around Sally and Anne danced and flickered, heat haze where there was little heat, and Trix saw distortions that twisted their faces into terrible shapes. Yet she could not look away. Not only was Anne almost identical to Jenny in every way, she had also known Trix before she died in this world.

She knew me, as I’ve always wanted to know her, she thought. Knew the heart of me, my deepest secrets, my fondest desires. Anne had not taken her eyes off Trix since stepping back from that kiss-that wonderful kiss-and she still stared at her now. But her eyes had grown lazy, and her breathing had calmed.

Trix closed her eyes to escape that stare, and found herself staring right back. In her mind’s eye she saw herself as she might have been in this world: shorter hair, perhaps heavier-boned, happy and content. And she had died young. In one world she survived, in the others she died, and she knew she should feel lucky and blessed. But she could only feel sad.

“She’ll rest for a while,” Sally said, and she continued her slow, melancholy song.

“And when do I rest?” Trix asked. But she might as well have been talking to herself. Sally ignored her, rocking and singing, and perhaps somewhere in that song was comfort for the Oracle as well.

Trix could still taste Anne’s lips on her own. She had kissed Jenny before, of course, countless friendly pecks on the cheek, and they never meant anything more than that. The real kisses happened only in her mind.

But now, what if I could stay? she thought. This is Boston, and this is Jenny. She opened her eyes again and stared at the prone woman, seeing the slight differences but welcoming them. Each difference-the longer hair, the leaner physique-made her love Jenny more. I can help Jim find Jenny and Holly, see them home, and then…

Sally stopped singing and stood up. She groaned like an old lady, and Trix went to help, thinking that perhaps she’d tired herself out. But when the Oracle turned, Trix was shocked to see tears on her cheeks, her face squeezed as she tried to hold them back.

“Hey,” Trix said, opening her arms.

Sally came to her and held her tight, sobbing into her chest. She pulled back and looked up. “Another room,” she said. “If she hears… me crying… the spell might break.”

Spell, Trix thought, unsettled. But she nodded, holding Sally and walking her through to where she knew the kitchen would be. When she entered, the room felt so familiar that Trix paused for a moment. But already something in her mind was preparing her for such sights, and she was looking for differences instead of similarities. The wall was a deep ocher color that she would have never chosen, the crockery on a plate rack bore a gaudy pattern, and there were several smoked sausages hanging from a rack above the fridge. Trix hated smoked sausage. Anne must have made this place her own after Trix died, and that planted in her not shock, but an unbearable sadness that threatened tears.

“Anne said she ran,” Sally said, voice breaking. “After the collision, when they were both suddenly here. When my city changed. The other woman ran.”

“I can hardly blame her.” Trix nudged the kitchen door closed with her foot, and then Sally started sobbing for real. It was a shocking sight, because since first meeting her Trix had difficulty viewing the girl as a girl. She’d been an oddity, a child older than her years, wise beyond her age, performing feats that were not possible but were real, and her build and apparent age had meant little. Now she was an upset girl with tears in her eyes and Trix’s jacket clenched in her fists.

“Hey,” Trix said uncomfortably, unsure of what to do. She’d held Holly like this sometimes when the girl needed someone she regarded as a friend more than a parent-because of issues with friends in school, or sadness over the death of a pet hamster. Now things were different.

“I’m just a kid,” Sally said, her tone of voice denying the truth of that. There was no “just” about it. “A kid, and I have to do this all the time, and I can, I can, because that’s what the Oracle does. I’m still learning. Always learning. But I started… started off knowing more than anyone.” She leaned back and looked up at Trix with red-rimmed, wet eyes. “Much more than you.”

“I know,” Trix said.

“But sometimes it’s just not fair,” she said. “Sometimes I wish it had never happened…”

“What did happen?” Trix asked, but Sally was saying her own thing. Though she clung to Trix and rested her head against her, she seemed to be talking to herself.

“If it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here now, and there’s so much responsibility. I can do it, normally. You know? Normally, when there’s only magic to make and people to find, and the soul of the city to keep safe. Normally. But not now. The collision, the damage, those Shadow Men, and the things, the terrible things I had to bring across to fight them…” She sniffed, then exhaled another heavy sob. “It’s all too much!”

“You’re doing fine,” Trix said, smoothing her hair.

“I’m just getting by,” Sally said. She pulled away from Trix and sat back on the small kitchen table, looking around the room as if she could learn something from that place. “But the soul of the city is bruised, and I’m making mistakes.” She looked directly at Trix then, and Trix knew what she meant.

“Maybe finding her wasn’t a mistake,” she said.

“No,” Sally said, shaking her head. “She’s not Jenny.”

“No, but-”

“I know all about adult stuff,” the Oracle said. “I’m too young to know, but I do. I have to. And I can see into you, Trix. See into your heart.” She wiped her eyes and seemed to gather herself, shrugging strength back into her shoulders. Perhaps having something else to talk about-someone else’s problem-was shielding her from her own.

“I’m not really thinking anything,” Trix said. It was a cruel denial to herself, a stale-tasting lie.

“You’ve had your time in this world,” Sally said. “Do I really have to show you your own grave?”

“I want you to find my friends,” Trix said.

Sally nodded, wiped at her eyes again, and then offered a tentative smile. “And if I don’t find them, you’ll still go back through?”

“No,” Trix said. “I won’t. I’ll stay here until they’re found.” I’m her safety net, she thought. If she doesn’t find them, at least I can go back to Veronica bearing her mark. She might not have believed a little girl like Sally could scheme like that… but she was not really a little girl. The last few minutes had shown that.

“I’ve promised to find them,” Sally said.

“And I thank you for that.”

The Oracle sat heavily in a kitchen chair and rested her forehead on her hand, a very adult gesture. She rubbed her head gently, as if to ease away a headache.

“The city is in such pain,” Sally whispered. “I feel its pain. Every fallen building is an ache in my bones and a fire beneath my skin.”

“That’s a big burden for such a little girl,” Trix said, and the Oracle looked up at her with such gratitude that Trix felt the burn of tears. She wondered when Sally had last been called a little girl, and how she would grow up, never having experienced a childhood. “What happened to you?”

“I was eight,” Sally said. “My momma and dadda were killed in a house fire. A black man came and pulled me from the basement window, and carried me away. I wasn’t scared, not for a minute. The man was ill. He was my friend.”

“Was he…?”

“The last Oracle. I never even knew his name. He took me to the house where you found me, his house.”

“And no one missed you? No family, no friends?”

“I think they did,” she said, frowning as if confused at a nebulous memory. “But the man kept me safe, and I never once feared for myself. Something was happening to me, something wonderful, and it kept everything at bay. The grief over my parents, the weirdness of what was happening. One night I went to sleep with the man singing me songs, and the next morning I woke up as I am now. He was dead, and I buried him in the basement. And that afternoon, the first person came.”

“He made you the Oracle?”

“The man? No.” She smiled and shook her head. “He just helped me along.” She sighed heavily, then sat back in her chair.

Trix blinked at the sudden, shocking change. The tears were gone, Sally’s eyes dry as though they had never been wet, and her face was stern once again. Hard, grim, an expression that only an adult should ever wear.

“We should go,” Sally said. “I’ve been wrong once; I won’t be again. I’ll be precise this time.”

“Go where?”

“Just outside, down to the road. I’ll find Holly and Jenny, and take you to them.”

“What about…?” Trix walked to the kitchen door and looked through the gap into the room beyond. Anne lay where Sally had sung her down, one hand waving slowly at the air before her face, orchestrating her dreams.

“She’s under a calming spell, for now. I can strengthen it, leave her so that she wakes up in the morning. That’ll be for the best.”

“No!” Trix said, remembering Anne’s lips against hers. “That’s not for the best.”

“Trix,” Sally said, painfully adult, “you’re a ghost to her.”

“Jenny’s stronger than that. She wouldn’t want us to leave, not after this. She’d want to understand. ”

“That’s not Jenny.”

“Yes,” Trix said. “Yes, it is.” And she meant it. It might not be the Jenny she knew, not quite, and she might be using her middle name. But Anne was a facet of Jenny, and Trix could not bear treating her as anything else.

“You don’t want to leave her.”

“I think she’ll want to come.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s strong. Imagine if we leave, and she wakes, and for the rest of her life she’ll doubt her own sanity. I can’t curse her with that. She’s had a glimpse of what’s going on, and I couldn’t live with myself if we didn’t show her everything else.”

“And she kissed you.”

“That’s got nothing to do with it,” Trix said, but she glanced away. Maybe it’s me who needs to understand as well.

“Come on, then,” the girl said. “I’ve wasted enough time.”

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Trix asked.

“Of course,” Sally said. Her tone was dismissive, but Trix saw that flicker of gratitude once again.

They went back out to Anne, and Trix knelt by her side. Sally started singing softly again, stroking the woman’s hair and touching her cheek, and Trix began to explain. Anne did not look at her until she had finished. And then she sat up, holding on to Trix’s proffered hand and looking back and forth between her and Sally.

“My bedroom,” Anne said. “You’re in there.” She nodded to what Trix knew was the bedroom door. “You are. Go and see.”

Trix went to see. She saw herself right away, because the photograph was large, the centerpiece of a wall display of at least fifty other framed photos of all shapes and sizes. She smiled back at the camera, this face that was hers, and she and Anne sat close together on a park bench, comfortable with each other and so obviously together. In the photo she was wearing a T-shirt that said, WHO THE HELL IS MICHAEL JACKSON? and she laughed. She might not be quite herself, but so much was the same.

The other photos weren’t all of her. She saw her mother in a couple, and her cousins, but it was so obvious who was missing-Jim and Jenny. Of course. Because in this world, Trix and Jenny had been a couple, and Jim was long gone.

“I’m so sorry I died,” she whispered, staring back at herself for so long that she forgot for a moment which Trix she was, and on which side of the glass she stood.

Back in the living room, shaken and sad, she found Anne sitting on the sofa. She sat beside her.

“I’ve seen some things since the quake,” Anne said. “And maybe they explain this. But it’s still…”

“Unbelievable,” Trix said.

“Yeah. Fucking unbelievable.” Anne grinned, and Trix fell in love just a little bit more.

“Jenny!” Jim said, but of course this was not Jenny, either, and he was attuned now to the differences.

“Okay,” Jennifer said beside him. “Okay… okay…” She was looking at the woman who had emerged from the apartment building with Trix and the girl, and Jim saw her legs shaking.

“Jennifer?”

“That’s me,” she said. “Oh, wait till my folks hear about this.”

The strange non-man had slipped from view a block away. Even so, Jim felt them still around, those phantoms following out of sight. He supposed they were still protecting him, though they only made him feel unsettled.

“Trix!” Jim called. Trix saw him and grinned, waiting for a car to pass then dashing across the street. She slowed when she saw Jennifer, blinked a few times, and then her face fell a little.

She hugged him tight. Jim felt her fear and excitement, and something else-a burgeoning sadness. She was still determined, but something subtle had changed.

“Trix, meet Jennifer.”

“Hi.” Trix shook Jennifer’s hand. “And that’s Anne,” she said, nodding toward where the girl and woman stood on the sidewalk.

“The little girl’s the Oracle?” Jim asked.

“Don’t let her size and age deceive you,” Trix said, chuckling softly. “She’s mean as they come when she wants to be, and when the Shadow Men came she conjured up her own version-she calls them No-Face Men-and they fought and-”

“Men with no faces,” Jennifer said.

“You’ve seen them?”

“One of them led us here,” Jim said. “And they saved us at the Oracle’s house. We got there, some of those wraiths-the Shadow Men-were waiting.”

“Just weird,” Jennifer said, shivering.

“Sally will need to remove your mark,” Trix said. “She’s a little… strained at the moment, but she’s strong as hell.”

“Mark?”

“Veronica. As well as what she sent in the envelopes, she sent something with us, too. So those things of hers could follow.”

“How?” Jim asked.

“Cookies.”

“Damn. Cookies.”

“Oh, I don’t like the sound of that,” Jennifer said.

Trix smiled and hugged Jim again. It felt good to Jim-she was someone he knew, something he could understand, while everyone else around them right now was either a child Oracle or a facsimile of his lost wife. He needed Trix-brash, dependable, wild Trix. She was his rock, and his connection to the Boston they had left behind. “Oh, this is just all so fucking weird,” she said into his neck.

“Tell me about it.”

“I don’t know where to start!” She pulled back and tried to laugh, but it came out strained and tense.

“Trix?” Something had happened. He waited for her to tell him, but she glanced at Jennifer and turned around.

“Come on. Sally’s sure she can find them now.”

“Has she said anything about them?” Jim was desperate for news, and his anxiety had been growing by the minute since losing touch with Trix.

“She’s promised to find them, that’s all,” Trix said. And again, there was something she wanted to tell him.

“Trix, I’m here,” Jim said. She nodded, her eyes haunted by ghosts he had yet to meet.

They crossed the street, and Jennifer and Anne stood facing each other a dozen steps apart. Trix introduced Jim to Sally, and the girl nodded and looked him up and down. Her gaze was shockingly adult, aged and knowing, and he felt distinctly uncomfortable.

“You can find my wife and daughter?” he asked.

“I can,” she said. A shadow passed across her face-exhaustion, he thought, and perhaps a glimmer of fear. But she gathered herself quickly, then looked at the two women who might have been Jenny. “No time for hanging around. We need to get to the street junction, and there I’ll trace them. But I’m not so sure it’ll be that easy.”

“Veronica,” Jim said.

The girl nodded. “The bitch had this planned.”

“But according to her plan, you should be dead now,” Trix said.

“I should. But she’ll have backup plans, and other ways to do the deed. You can bet on it.”

“How can you know that?” Jim asked.

“Because I would.” The girl set off along the street, leading the four adults behind her. They walked in a loaded silence, and people parted to let them through. Perhaps some of them knew Sally, or felt the power carried by the girl. But Jim thought it more likely that they were picking up on the strange tension between the two women. Jennifer and Anne, Jenny and Jenny, they walked with Trix and Jim between them but stole frequent glances at each other. They were not the only two people in this tragic city meeting like this, Jim knew. There would be hundreds more, maybe thousands, doppelgangers thrown together through geography, circumstance, or tragedy. But for Jim, these were the only ones who mattered.

They reached the intersection, and Sally paused at the corner, leaning against a garbage can and watching vehicles rumble past. Traffic lights above the road were out of action, and the building on the opposite corner had sustained damage, one wall slumping to the ground to display the tumbled wreck of the rooms within. A man sat on the rubble, drinking steadily from a bottle of whiskey.

A fire engine powered through the intersection, barely pausing. Two ambulances quickly followed. There are a thousand tragedies today , Jim thought, but he knew that his own was linked inextricably to what was happening to this city. The more he saw and the less he understood, the more determined he became to fix it all.

Sally stepped into the road. Jim gasped and reached for her, but Trix held his arm and shook her head. “She knows what she’s doing.”

Jim heard whispering behind him, and he snapped around, terrified that those things had arrived again. But the whispering came from Anne and Jennifer, still maintaining a distance yet starting to communicate in tentative tones.

“It must be so strange,” Trix said.

“And yet we’re Uniques,” Jim said. “ We’re the strange ones here.”

Sally had reached the center of the intersection and placed her hands flat against the road. Cars and trucks, emergency vehicles and media vans, they all passed without lifting a strand of her hair or causing a single ripple in her loose dress. It was as if Sally was somewhere else, yet still visible to them all.

“You said I still have the mark?” Jim asked Trix.

“I have a feeling we’re being watched,” she said. Jim nodded, because he had that feeling as well, stronger than what people commonly called the sixth sense. He not only felt eyes on him, but he could sense the breeze harden across his skin, almost as if holding him in place in this world.

After a couple of minutes Sally stood and walked back to them, passing between lines of traffic that seemed not to slow or notice her at all. And she looked worried. “Need to get that mark from you,” she said.

“Tell me you’ve found them,” Jim said as she mounted the sidewalk.

“I could tell you that.”

“But?” Trix asked.

“I’ve found Holly.” She looked at Anne and Jennifer, and even this Oracle’s eyes seemed to glimmer with wonder. “The other Jenny… your Jenny… not so much.”

“No!” Jim gasped. Sally held up one hand.

“I have a sense of her, like an echo around Holly, but nothing solid. She may be with Holly and the collision of the cities is just giving me some kind of interference.” She smiled, trying to impart hope.

“What else?” Jim asked.

“Holly is afraid. She’s trapped, somehow, but I can’t sense her captors at all.”

Jim shook his head, frustrated and growing frantic. “What does that mean?”

“Only one possibility that I can think of. Veronica’s Shadow Men have her.”

“Oh, no!” Trix said. “How did they catch her?”

“I think they may have had her all along,” Sally said, and she performed a slow full circle, looking up at the broken windows surrounding them. “These aren’t the same Shadow Men who attacked us. They’re still out there, kept at bay by the No-Face Men who serve me.”

“So where is she?” Jim asked. “Where’s my little girl?”

Sally told them. And then she reached out to Jim, and he cried as she removed his mark.