CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

LIAM

Clear the streets for the brown battalion, clear the streets for the storm battalion! Millions gaze upon the swastika, full of hope, for the day of freedom and plenty shall dawn!

The brownshirted thugs of the Sturmabteilun hadn’t had a good public humiliation in a while, and it showed.

His captors parked the military transport truck on the outskirts of Wewelsburg, under autumn leaves that sparked gold and orange like embers as they frog-marched him across a stone bridge. They were joined by a handful of stormtroopers scarcely older than Liam, with lopsided haircuts and red lines on their throats from too-tight shirt collars. They hung a sign from his neck—FOREIGN AGENT—and sang the “Horst Wessel Lied” to commemorate a fellow fascist who’d been killed by Jewish agents, one of the boys claimed.

The Nazis were killing unfathomable numbers of Jewish people, but it figured the one dead German got his own song.

By the time they reached the town square, they’d attracted a meager crowd of off-duty soldiers and teenage boys too young and gawky to join the army just yet. Someone ran out with mugs of ale from a nearby tavern so they could drink and gossip while Wewelsburg’s residents hurried past, trying not to make eye contact with him.

And Liam just let it happen. He felt the castle’s shadow hanging over him like an executioner’s blade. Maybe Daniel was in there now, murdering Dr. Kreutzer; maybe he’d been captured or killed himself. Maybe right this minute Pitr was tearing open a rift between the two worlds and stabilizing it with Sicarelli’s book. Could Liam even stop him if he did reach out for the shadow once more? Could Liam stop himself from being consumed?

“Nothing to say for yourself, spy?” One of the boys, an acne-pocked kid practically swimming in his uniform, jabbed a finger into Liam’s sternum. “It’s a lot more fun if you fight back.”

Liam hung his head. He was so tired—too tired, even, to keep himself upright against the post where he’d been tied. “What makes you so sure I’m a spy?”

“That terrible accent, for one.” The SS officer who’d found him in the cabin smoothed out Daniel’s note against his knee. “And your girlfriend’s letter is in English.”

Liam clamped his mouth shut.

“‘I wish I could have spent a lifetime loving you,’” the officer read in a squeaky falsetto. “Where is she, anyway?”

“Far away from you,” Liam growled.

The thugs burst into laughter and clanked ale mugs together. “Maybe we should go find her. Show her a real good time.”

Liam bared his teeth. “You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Daniel had encouraged him to close the rift for good. Deny himself and the Nazis both the shadow’s power. What Liam hated most was how right Daniel was—how close he’d already come to succumbing to the darkness. What right did he have to criticize Daniel for doing the same?

Maybe it was their fate to always lose, to be beaten down, to see their dreams snatched away. Daniel could try to destroy the SS High Command, but it would likely kill him. If Liam pursued the shadow world once more, it would devour him, too. Either way, he lost. Either way, men like his father, like Pitr, like Heinrich Himmler and all these smug Nazi bastards would win. He and Daniel were only two boys standing against a tide of tyranny, a civilization built on hate.

Worse still, Liam hated that even as he felt like surrendering, the shadows called to him, his desire to tap into them again a living urge trying to break out of his skin. All but begging him to harness them one final time.

Another soldier came to join them then with a fresh round of beer. His grin, mossy and leering, lingered on Liam for too long. “Getting thirsty, spy?”

Liam didn’t answer. It didn’t stop the soldier from sloshing half his mug onto Liam. He sputtered as ale drenched the front of his shirt.

“What’d you do that for?” one of the brownshirts whined. “Such a waste of good beer.”

“It was worth it for the look on his face.” The guard drank from the rest of his mug and exhaled. “Ahh. Did you hear from the castle? They captured a Judenschwein trying to assassinate Dr. Kreutzer.”

Liam’s heart stuttered in his chest.

“Kreutzer? Ach, that man gives me the creeps. My brother volunteered for his trials, and he just . . . hasn’t been the same since.”

“Your brother was an asshole. Besides, the doctor’s project is supposed to make us even stronger, even better at fighting off enemies of the Reich . . .”

Liam clenched his fists tight, trying to drive off the insistent hum inside his skull. Whispers of power, promises of vengeance. Just one more time—what was one more time, if it meant he could save Daniel? Save the world? What was one more time feeling the power surge through him again, until he was power, until he could devour his enemies and destroy everything, like they’d destroyed him?

No—this was why Daniel hadn’t wanted him to do it. This was why he couldn’t let it in. Even if it would be so easy to give in, to defeat the Nazis—easier, even, than doing nothing at all—

Liam started humming. A single note, a sustained frequency. He found the dark tendrils swirling around his bound hands like an old friend.

Oh, Liam. There you are.

The voice echoed across the town square as the brownshirts went hazy. Darkness shimmered across the stones, bloodied trees and burned-out ruins overlying the whitewashed tavern and stone cottages as he opened the slightest rift. Eyes blinked at him from the blackness as something slithered past his feet.

Liiiii-aaaaaaam. I knew you couldn’t stay away . . .

No—this was wrong. As soon as he felt the shadow, he felt its talons sinking into his flesh, shredding him. It flooded into the gaps between his thoughts, crowding out his senses.

Don’t be shy, Liam. You are powerful. You always were.

“I don’t want to be powerful,” Liam managed through clenched teeth. “Not if it means being anything like you, Pitr.”

Oh, but you are like me. And you still have a great purpose to serve. I need you, Liam. I need your command of the darkness. But if you won’t do it for me . . .

The darkness warped again, revealing a stone chamber. A figure crouched in its center, gagged and bound. Daniel, his head bowed, his body slack.

A sacrifice.

The darkness burned away, leaving Liam back on the square, the brownshirts still arguing around him. They barely noticed the bitter laugh that rose from Liam’s throat and the oily black that swirled in his palms.

“You win, Pitr.” Teeth bared, Liam wrenched the ropes on his wrists apart like they were thread.

“Hey, wait!” one of the guards shouted.

“Which of you idiots untied him—”

Liam stood, and a swarm of screeching insects burst out of his palms. In an instant, they surrounded the brownshirts, swallowing up their screams in a torrential buzzing as they ripped away chunks of flesh. Liam was instinct and adrenaline now; if he stopped to think, if he stopped to worry about anything beyond this moment, he would fall apart. He was the shadow’s tool.

But for just a little longer now, the shadow would be his.