The Shadow Men (14 page)

“You’re Uniques,” Veronica said, as though it was the simplest thing in the world. “You can guide her through.”

As she spoke, Jim and Trix continued to turn. When he’d made it three-quarters of the way around, he could see a badly blurred Veronica in his peripheral vision … but there was only one of her. She existed in only one of the variations his strained vision could see.

Veronica grinned, talking again, wishing them luck, cautioning them not to forget to deliver her letters, reminding them that the fate of the city might well be at stake … but by then Jim found it difficult to focus on her voice. She seemed to be fading. He kept turning until he and Trix had rotated 360 degrees. The strain on his eyes was great, though he had allowed himself to focus on only one variation of the room around him, with the exception of the distraction of seeing Veronica.

“Do we stop now?” Trix asked.

Jim paused, feeling Trix do the same. They waited for a reply, but none came.

“Veronica?” Jim said. “I need to close my eyes a second.”

Still no reply.

Jim ground his teeth together. The need to close his eyes made him grip Trix’s hand tighter. Tears began to slide down his face.

“What do we do?” Trix asked him, and from the groan in her voice he knew she was having the same difficulty.

“Veronica?” Jim asked again, but the room felt empty now, except for Trix beside him. He squeezed her hand. “Fuck it.” Closing his eyes, he held his free hand over them for a minute. Then he swore again and dropped his hand, blinking.

“Jim, look,” Trix said.

He forced himself to focus, wiping the moisture from his eyes. For a second, the room seemed to spin around him. What the hell had happened? The lights were off, the only light coming from behind them. But even in the dim illumination that slipped through the partially open door—which had been closed just moments ago—he saw that the floor and the walls beside them were charred black from fire. The metal light fixture above was twisted and blackened from heat.

“How the hell …,” Jim began, trying to make sense of it.

Somehow they had traded places with Veronica. They were on the scorched side of the room, though they had only turned in a circle where they stood.

“It’s backward,” Trix said.

Jim retreated toward the door, hitting the lightswitch beside it. The far side of the room was bathed in light from the single intact fixture. On the floor, practically melted into the wood, was half of a desk chair. Jim saw immediately that something was different about it, though it took him a moment to realize precisely what: it was the opposite half of the chair he’d seen before. The missing half.

He turned back to the door. It was narrower than the one on the other side of the room, and he knew where it led. Beside the door, against the wall, was the same writing desk, but now it had been reduced to a charred ruin, the front of it eaten away by fire and the rest blasted black.

“We’re here,” Trix said quietly.

Jim glanced at her and saw fear and wonder filling her gaze in equal measure. He knew she must see the same in him.

Thomas McGee’s spell had gone badly awry. It had scorched the room, scouring the interior with some kind of ritual magic, an enchanted fire that had spared the rest of the house. McGee had vanished. Incinerated? Perhaps. But the room had been just as splintered as the city. In the original Boston, one half of the room had been ravaged and the other remained pristine, as though it had been snapped into place moments after the damage had been done. But in this parallel Boston, the damage was reversed, the opposite side of the room having sustained the fire damage.

Here, the other side of the room—where Veronica had been standing inside the door—was abandoned, the wallpaper badly peeling. Boxes were stacked in both of those far corners, but otherwise the room had been abandoned in this world, just as it had been in their own. Whoever owned this house had left this place alone, perhaps driven by some urge they did not understand.

“Which one are we in?” Trix asked.

“Which what?” Jim said, and then he got it. “Which Boston, you mean?” Trix nodded. “Damn good question.”

Jim led the way, pushing the narrow door fully open and stepping into the small bedroom he had entered once before, in another city, in another world. Other than the fact that it still contained a bed, the room was entirely different. The walls were a bright yellow, with hand-painted flowers stretching in a curving line across three of them. The bed had a modern brass frame, with a wooden box at the foot and a handmade lace spread. The photos tucked around the frame of the mirror suggested an older girl or young woman, and the clothes that hung from the open closet door reinforced that impression.

“Shit,” Trix said.

“What?”

She looked at him. “We’re in someone’s house. We’ve got to get out of here.”

Jim laughed softly, more in disbelief than amusement. She was right. He’d been so astonished, his mind full of questions and trying to jump ahead and figure out how they were going to find Jenny and Holly, that he hadn’t even thought to worry about what they might say to whoever might live here.

He moved to the opposite door and cracked it open, peering down the narrow steps that he had presumed led to the kitchen or pantry. The bedside lamp was still on, so whoever occupied it was probably at home. But he neither saw nor heard any sign of the residents. “All right,” he whispered, turning back toward Trix. “We just have to …”

Staring at her, he let his words trail off. Trix had gone to the window and drawn the lace curtain aside. “Jim,” she said without turning, “come here.”

With a nervous glance down the stairs, he closed the door partway and hurried to her, aware now of the tiny creaks that his footfalls eked from the floorboards. Trix stepped back from the window and turned to him. She tilted her head, urging him to look, holding the curtain back for him.

Hesitating only a moment, he bent and peered out the window. For a few seconds, the view of Hanover Street only looked
off
, as though he’d been away for a while and some enterprising developer had come along and gentrified something, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on what. Then he realized that nearly all the shops and restaurants were different, that the Italian flavor of the street had been erased.

But he couldn’t keep his focus on the street below. His eyes were drawn higher, to the cityscape rising to the west, to a towering stone cathedral he had never seen before, and to modern skyscrapers with fluid lines and unfamiliar spires.

Not my Boston
, he thought. But the cityscape
was
familiar.

Trix leaned in beside him, staring out the window as well, so close that he could feel her breath on his cheek.

“I’ve painted this,” he said, his throat strangely dry. “One of those two
other
Bostons.”

“I know,” she said. “And I’ve been here before.”

“In dreams,” Jim added.

“Nightmares,” Trix said, standing up, the motion drawing his gaze. “But this is real.”

Jim took one last glance through the window and then let the curtain fall back into place. He hurried quietly back to the door and opened it a crack, checking again to make sure the coast was clear.

He glanced at Trix and said, “Let’s go find them.”

Within a Mile of Home

O
NCE
, T
RIX
had woken in the middle of the night to find someone standing at the foot of her bed. It was the most terrifying moment of her adult life. Lured up from dreams by a sense she could not identify, she’d lain awake for a while with her eyes still closed, certain that someone was there. Swimming in that just-woken state, which had the feel of a dream and yet seemed so real, she’d wanted to open her eyes to prove that she was wrong but also to confirm that what she sensed was true.
There’s someone waiting for me to wake
, she’d thought,
and I can’t open my eyes
.

And then the movement—a shuffling of feet, a rustle of clothing—and she’d opened her eyes and sat up at the same time. Her scream had been one of terror and rage, and the shadowy shape had fled the room, crashing into the door frame and leaving a dent that she had never gotten around to sanding away.
Tooth
, one of the policemen who’d come later that morning had said, examining the indentation.
With any luck it’s knocked loose and the asshole will lose it
. She’d slept at Jenny and Jim’s for three nights afterward, then mustered the courage to return home. A hundred “what if” scenarios had played through her mind, and sometimes they still did.
In another
world you were raped and murdered
, one of her friends had said in the pub one night. That comment had given her three days of nightmares, but even in those she succeeded in chasing the intruder away. It came back to her now as she crept onto the landing of a stranger’s house. She knew it was not true. She had woken and scared the intruder away, and that was the
only
truth. Because she was unique.

And now she was the intruder.

She followed Jim out onto the landing and wondered if this was how that unknown man had felt as he’d worked his way through her house—breath held, feet settling lightly in case of creaking floorboards, heart thumping. But she thought not. She had not chosen to be an intruder, and she took no delight in it at all.

The layout of this house was different from Veronica’s home. Something about it felt the same—occupying the same space, perhaps, or maybe the general shape and substance echoed the building back in the world they’d just left. But if it
had
once been the same building, someone had spent a lot of time and effort expanding and enlarging it.

The landing cornered around the gallery staircase, and as they reached the head of the stairs Trix paused, listening. She touched Jim’s shoulder and he stopped, too, glancing back at her, then down into the hallway below once again. She could see the silvery flicker of a TV screen spilling from one of the rooms down there, and she heard the gentle laughter of someone relaxed at home.

She leaned to her right and looked through a partially open doorway, then froze when she saw the girl—a teenager, maybe fifteen years old, lying back on her bed with one hand behind her head, the other resting on her stomach, fingers tapping gently. Trix saw the wire snaking across the bed to the small device on the table. In the halflight, she could not make out the headphones.

Jim put his finger to his lips and started down the stairs. Trix followed, and as they descended she felt a curious weight growing around them. At first she thought it was caused by her shallow breathing and thumping heart, or the darkness, or the reality of where they were—somewhere different. But as Jim stepped down into the hallway and the girl upstairs started shouting, she realized what it was. The fear of impending discovery was solidifying all around them.

“I’ll never … see the likes … of you … again!” the girl screamed from behind them, and as Trix glanced back and up she thought for a surreal moment that the girl meant them.
She sees our strangeness, the fact that we’re from somewhere else and don’t belong here, and
—But the landing was empty. The teenager was singing.

Jim clasped Trix’s arm and squeezed, calling her attention. She looked back at him. He was nodding to the front door, five paces away across the oak-floored hallway. His eyes were wide open, pupils dilated, and she could almost smell the fear coming off him.
Not scared of being caught
, she thought,
but frightened of what that would mean for Jenny and Holly
.

At that moment, Trix vowed that they would
not
be caught here. Whether or not they slipped out without being seen, they would not be caught. She clenched her fists and pressed her lips tight together, and then a voice came from the TV room. “What’s the point of a personal stereo if you don’t keep your voice to yourself?” the man said, not unkindly. It sounded as if he was smiling as he spoke.

“They call them iPods now, dear.”

“Well, forgive me for—”

The girl shouted again, tone-deaf and enjoying every line of whatever she was listening to.

“Go,” Jim whispered.

“Jim, we could”—Trix pointed back beneath the gallery staircase. It was dark back there, two doors half-closed on shadowy rooms.

“No,” he interrupted. “We need to get out of here.”

Somewhere in one of those rooms, a dog growled.
Oh, fuck
, Trix thought,
that’s just what we need
.

“Go and ask her to turn it down, sweetness,” the man’s voice said.

“You go! Lazy bastard.”

“I’m watching the game!”

More shouting from upstairs. It was so out of tune that Trix smiled to herself, but then Jim pulled at her, taking his first step across the hallway.

The dog’s growls became louder. Soon it would start barking.

Come on!
Jim mouthed, taking another step.

The dog barked, the teenager shouted the first line of a new song, and a woman appeared in the living room doorway before them, smiling softly.

Trix wanted to say something to her. Tell her they weren’t a threat, they didn’t mean any harm, they’d just come through and only wanted to leave the family in peace. But she felt her own jaw drop open in stunned shock, and these words lived only in her mind. Jim’s fingers closed tighter on her arm, and she leaned forward, ready to dash to the front door and escape out onto the street.

“Conor!” the woman shouted. “There’s someone in the house.” Her eyes flickered to the left, and Trix followed her gaze. A dog was emerging from one of the back rooms, still in shadows but glittering eyes and wet, bared teeth visible. It was a terrier, compact and coiled, and she knew she should not let its size deceive her.

The woman looked back at Trix, caught her attention. Trix smiled.

“Otis, sic!” the woman shouted, and the dog came for them.

Jim ran for the door and flipped the catch, and Trix went with him. As he was hauling on the door she turned and lifted her foot, an unconscious defensive gesture, because in her mind’s eye the dog was already leaping through the air, teeth bared and ready to sink into her shin.

“What the fuck are you doing in here!” a man shouted, and a shadow suddenly filled the doorway behind the woman.
Holy shit, he’s seven feet tall!
Trix thought, and though perhaps panic made him seem taller than he actually was, he was certainly big enough to do them both a lot of damage.

The dog had not pounced. It was hunkered down, hackles bristling, teeth still bared.

“We’re not here to cause a problem!” Trix said, and behind her Jim opened the door at last.

The man was stepping past the woman, moving her gently to one side with a protective arm pressed across her chest. His other arm hung at his side, hand fisted into something resembling the head of a sledgehammer.

“Trix,” Jim said softly.

“What?” another voice said. The girl stood at the head of the stairs, headphones still on and the music player clasped in her hand. Her mouth hung open in surprise, eyes flickering from Trix and Jim to the dog to her parents, then back again.

“We’re leaving,” Jim said.

“Damn right you are!” the man shouted, and he darted across the hallway. The dog leapt then, tangling in the man’s feet and sending him stumbling toward them, hands outstretched, eyebrows rising in surprise as momentum threw him forward.

Jim tugged Trix through the doorway, and the man’s left hand closed around its edge, clasping tight to prevent himself from falling over. Trix saw the dog cowering back against the lowest stair, ears flat against its head, head lowered, eyes staring up at the big man. Behind and above them, the teenager seemed frozen in place.

“Trix,
run
!” Jim said, and he pulled her out into the dark. She turned her attention from the shocked and angry family behind them to the ground beneath her feet, startled by the three steps down to the street that had not been there before. Jim’s Mercedes was no longer parked at the curb—of course not—and in its place stood a big station wagon, glittering with droplets of rain.

They hit the sidewalk and turned right, running along the street, listening for sounds of pursuit, and Trix wondered whether Jim was feeling as dislocated as she. There were no obvious differences around them, at least not immediately. But she felt not only that she had not been here before, but never
could
have been. She glanced back at the home they had just left—Veronica’s house, in another world—and it was nowhere near the same. The front door still stood open but no one looked out, and she wondered at the scene taking place in there right now. The wife calling the police, perhaps, husband bristling, dog slinking back into one of those dark rooms, the teenager watching from above with a kind of detached surprise. At least they weren’t following. At least—

A shadow appeared at the open doorway, big enough to be the man. And he had something in his hand.

“Jim, gun!” Trix said, and they ran faster. Surely he wouldn’t fire at them in the street? Would he really shoot at all, even though they’d actually done nothing? With every step she expected to hear the sharp report of a pistol and feel the bullet’s impact, and by the time they rounded a corner she was panting hard, fear running cold down her back.

“Keep running,” Jim said. “Just in case.”

“In case he’s following?”

“It’s not as if we can explain,” he said, and it was as close to humor as either of them could find right now.

They ran on, side by side now, and Trix realized what an unlikely pair of joggers they would make. Jim was wearing jeans and a dark button-fronted shirt, having left his jacket in Veronica’s living room. And she wore tight black trousers stitched with several zips, a vest top, and a light jacket. Running, they were so obviously fleeing something that they might as well have painted “guilty” on their foreheads.

At the next road junction she grabbed Jim’s hand and pulled him left, then leaned against a high timber fence and tried to catch her breath. “Can’t keep running,” she said, and he nodded his understanding.

“We’d know by now if he was coming after us,” Jim said, glancing nervously back the way they had come. He was panting, as was Trix, but she thought it was more out of surprise and fear than exertion.

“So what now?” she asked, though she had already figured where Jim’s first instincts would take him. He’d promised to deliver those letters, yes, and they’d both sworn not to open them. But Jim had
not
promised to go directly to this Boston’s Oracle. Veronica must have known that he never would, and had not burdened him with the need to break that promise. In Trix’s eyes, that gave the old woman more of a human aspect than anything else she’d said or done.

“Now we find Jenny and Holly,” Jim said. “My apartment, your place, Jenny’s parents’. The first thing she’d do is go somewhere familiar. If this is even the Boston they slipped into.”

“If
anywhere’s
familiar,” Trix said. “Don’t you feel …?” She shrugged, because exactly what she felt was difficult to express.

“Yeah,” he said, glancing around at the buildings surrounding them. There was nothing too unusual about them, no unique construction methods or materials. But Trix felt totally out of place here. Perhaps it was a combination of many smaller factors—the air carrying an unusual taint, the sky hazed with a different level of pollution, the echoes of unknown voices singing on the breeze—that made her shiver. It was as if they were being watched, and it was not the last time she would imagine that.

That cityscape
, she thought, able to dwell on it for the first time.
It’s one of those I’ve had nightmares about—one of those Bostons where I’m now dead—and Jim has painted it, and it’s almost like …

As they turned from Prince Street onto Hanover—the smells of the North End’s restaurants almost inescapably tempting—a car cruised by, three teenagers inside singing along cheerfully to a song pumping out of the radio speakers. One of the girls looked at Trix and smiled. They sang in English. It surprised Trix, though it shouldn’t have. This city might be some kind of parallel world, but it was still Boston.

“We need to get a cab,” Jim said.

“Yeah. Carless now.” She watched the teens’ car drift along the street.