Christopher Golden - The Shadow Men

Trix turned to see that the sign above the shattered window of O’Brien’s Bar hadn’t changed at all. Collision, she thought. It is a collision.

Jim glanced around at the shell-shocked people moving through the streets. Cries for help carried above the sirens and alarms and the sounds of grief-stricken wailing. Many people had died tonight, and many more were still in need. Peter O’Brien might be dead-murdered by those wraiths and buried in the wreckage of his bar-but hundreds, perhaps thousands of others would still be alive, trapped in the rubble.

He couldn’t help them.

Injured left arm still held against his rib cage-it wasn’t broken, just badly bruised and scraped-he slipped his right arm around Trix’s waist. “Come on,” he whispered into her ear.

She went along without argument, looking at him with wide eyes. “To where?”

Jim said nothing. He just escorted her along the broken street, survivors of disaster, and made an effort not to meet the eyes of anyone they passed. Together they crossed toward the mouth of an alley, where a wrought-iron fire escape had partially torn away from the building on their left and now leaned precariously against its twin. Trix kept glancing around, her eyes full of fear.

“What are you looking for?” Jim asked.

“Those things from the bar,” she said. “The ones that killed O’Brien.”

“Wraiths,” Jim said.

“You’ve seen them before?” she asked, misunderstanding.

“No. I just… that’s how I thought of them. They were there and not there, all at the same time.” He didn’t see any of them now, but somehow that was no comfort. He feared they might be there, whether he could see them or not.

“During the quake… they were watching us,” Trix said, a brittle edge to her voice.

“I know,” Jim said as he led her into the alley. He glanced around again, but not for the wraiths this time. What he had to say was not something he wanted anyone to overhear.

“The two Bostons,” Trix said, searching his eyes for answers. “The two that splintered off… they, like, crashed back together.”

Yeah, Jim thought. That’s the word.

From what Veronica had told them, he’d had the impression that when McGee caused the schism it had been seamless, unnoticed by the people who had been duplicated in the process. A parting of realities in an otherwise straight, orderly world, like a bubble of possibilities on a single two-dimensional string. But now that the parallel cities and their citizens had been duplicated, they couldn’t be erased. Forcing them back together had caused terrible destruction. Buildings that predated the schism-that still existed in both cities-had changed but somehow been merged. But where there were different structures in the two cities, like the cathedral and the tripod building-catastrophe. Metal merged with stone, glass with wood, in an explosive amalgamation.

“I’m afraid, Trix.”

Her eyes went wider. “No shit. What if it happens again? What if our Boston… Jesus, I can’t even think about it. How do we find Jenny and Holly now? How do we get out of here?”

She started back into the street, but he grabbed her and pulled her back. She spun around to stare at him, her face lit with anger.

“You don’t get it,” he said.

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the sealed envelope that Veronica had given them to deliver to the Oracle of the Brahmin Boston. He held his breath a second, afraid to open it.

“Wait…,” she said.

Jim stared at her, ice clutching at his insides. “We crossed over. We went to the Oracle, and then those wraiths came for him.”

Her grief contorted her face, shattering her beauty. “You don’t think…? No.” She shook her head, then threw out a hand to indicate the devastated city. “You think we caused this?”

“Not us, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence. How can it be? It’s got to be related.”

They both stared at the envelope, the name and address of the Oracle of Brahmin Boston scrawled on the front. They had promised they would not open it. Veronica had warned them that disaster could result. But they had not opened the one addressed to Peter O’Brien, and disaster had come just the same.

“Veronica,” Trix whispered.

Jim tore it open, careful to preserve the address on the envelope. He pulled out the letter inside-a single sheet of paper-and quickly unfolded it. “Shit,” he whispered.

The page was blank apart from a single deep-black spot at its center.

“Oh, no,” Trix said, snatching it from him and staring at it. She looked up at him. “It’s nothing. No message. Jesus, the wraiths were the message. She must have had them following us… and we led them right to him.”

“But she knew his address!”

“Yeah, but…” Trix trailed off.

“A message,” Jim said. “A… something else. I don’t know. I think maybe he knew the moment he opened it.”

“She used us,” Trix said. “Somehow.”

“Yeah.” Jim looked around at the crying, bleeding, broken people and the ruin of two Bostons. If they were right, it meant that not only had Veronica betrayed and used them, not only had she arranged for the murder of Peter O’Brien-and the third Oracle as well, if they hadn’t figured it out-but it meant that the old bitch had wanted this to happen. She had planned for this destruction.

He folded the envelope and almost blank page and stuffed them into his pocket. Then he took Trix’s hand. “Come on.”

“Why? We’ve got nowhere to go.”

Coughing on the dust of ruined buildings and the smoke from a hundred fires, with cries and sirens still ringing out, he pulled her close. “Jenny and Holly are still out there somewhere.”

Trix bit her lip, nodded, and wiped tears from her eyes.

As they ran, what had happened impressed itself upon Trix with every step. The dislocation she felt should have been aggravated by the earthquake-an event beyond her experience, shoving her farther away from safety and the life she knew so well-but in fact the disaster seemed to have jarred her toward sense and understanding. Maybe it was the sight of her city in ruins, though it was not quite the city she knew. But more likely it was the excruciating sight of human suffering. These people, whichever version of Boston they might have come from, were just like her.

East Broadway was in ruins. The road had been flipped like a giant sheet, coming to rest with bulges and bumps that gaped open to the night sky. Street lamps leaned drunkenly over the undulating road or back against cracked and shattered buildings. The power was out, and the only light came from the half-moon peering between intermittent clouds, car headlamps, and the occasional fires that had sprung up in the ruins. To the north the sky glowed yellow, and Trix could hear the barely audible roar of a massive fire, perhaps as far away as the airport. Already, sparking embers were drifting up from the glow, like fireflies evading the cataclysm. A breeze whispered along the street, like the city gasping in pain.

“How many do you think are dead?” she asked Jim.

“Hundreds. Maybe thousands.”

“I wish we could stop and help-”

“We can’t,” he interrupted. “I’m sorry, Trix, but you know we can’t. The only thing keeping me from breaking down here is the thought of finding Holly and Jenny. We know what’s going on-about the different Bostons-but they don’t. Imagine how terrified they must be. Christ, Trix, I’ve got to find them. I’m going to lose my mind!”

“But which Bostons collided?” she asked, gazing around.

“My guess is the Irish and Brahmin. Veronica said those were the weaker, because they were splintered from the original.”