Christopher Golden - The Shadow Men

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.”

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.