“Too late,” Trix said, and Jim knew that she was right. Camouflaged though they might be by bearing the No-Face Men, whatever was coming for them would have seen through their subterfuge. Jennifer stood before them, a bared human soul in this inhuman world, and now the thing would destroy them all.
The thing was a storm, a riot of mist, and as it approached there were hints of something more solid at its center.
“You can go,” Jennifer said. Jim heard her voice clearly, even above the closing chaos.
“No,” he said, but she was not making a suggestion.
“You can go,” she said again, telling them all that she might be their one chance. As Jim looked from Jennifer-standing tall and straight, and as strong as he had ever seen his wife-and toward the approaching thing, he at last began to appreciate the threat it presented.
Because there was a face. And he had seen that face before.
Trix was by his side then, grabbing his left arm. “That’s…!” she said, unable to finish. To his right, Jenny hugged his arm, shaking but standing firm.
“That’s Thomas McGee,” Jim said.
“It doesn’t deserve a name,” Jenny said. Jim wondered what terrible things she had seen out here, but he could not ask her now. Perhaps he never would.
“Who is he?” Anne asked.
“The reason this place is here. He’s the ruination of Boston. The one who splintered it in the first place. I thought he was dead, but instead-”
“He’s in the In-Between,” Trix said.
“No. Can’t you feel it?” Jim said. “I think he is the In-Between.”
Jenny started shouting, because the shape that was McGee was close now, so close Jim thought perhaps it would reach out and sweep them away. As large as a man, the form at the heart of the mist-storm felt a hundred times more solid, as though its gravity was pulling them in.
“You… can… go,” Jennifer said, and she spared Jim one glance over her shoulder. The shadow stuff of the In-Between was pushing itself into her body, beginning the change that would make her a dead thing, an echo.
He would never forget the look in her eye, because it was the last thing he had expected. He’d have recognized fear, or resignation, or even sadness at the cruel tricks fate could play. But what he saw there was unbridled, uncomplicated love.
She went at McGee, and the re-forming man paused for a moment as if surprised.
“Run!” Jim said.
“We can’t just-” Trix began, but he clasped her hand and pulled her after him. There was no time to argue about it now. Later he would tell her, Jennifer did it for us, and if we’d waited there a second longer, her sacrifice would have been in vain. And later still, perhaps he and Trix would share quiet, private moments to go over those events again and again, to see what might have been different. But right then they did not have the luxury of time, and when Jim heard the angry shouts behind them-and then those long, terrible screams that would haunt him for the rest of his life-he did not turn around.
Anne and Jenny screamed as well, and for their final few moments in the In-Between they cried tears of unimaginable loss.
Bursting back through the Reflection Room and feeling the weight of reality realigning around them, Jim risked a look at his wife and the woman who could be her twin. They were reduced by what had happened; something was missing from their eyes. As he felt tears blurring his vision, he wondered whether either of them would ever feel fully alive again.
“Mommy!” Holly shouted as they opened the door. “Mommy!” The little girl ran across the bloodstained room and hugged her mother tight.
“McGee,” Sally said.
“Yes.” Jim nodded. Trix was holding Anne as she sobbed. Sally glanced around, then walked slowly across the room and closed the door. She had seen Jennifer’s absence and accepted it, and Jim couldn’t help hating her for it, just a little. Perhaps that was unfair blame, but right then he had to blame someone.
“Get these fucking things out of us,” Jim said.
“Not yet,” Sally said. She looked at Holly and Jenny hugging and smiled an unbearable smile. It was a look that said, That can never be me, and Jim’s anger at her shifted to grudging pity.
“Why?” Jim asked.
“Because it’s not over.” The Oracle looked at Trix, and Trix looked at Jim.
“Veronica,” Trix said.
“Veronica.” Sally waved them closer, and Jim realized that it was not yet time to rest.
Every Dog Has Its Day
It was daytime. Smoke hung over the city, drifting gently westward and tearing the sunlight into veils of gorgeous color. Jim remembered hearing of similar electromagnetic effects in the atmosphere after other earthquakes. He wondered what more this tragedy might have done, but for now he had his family with him, and he really did not care.
They looked like a party of refugees. Jenny wore a pair of pants and a man’s shirt they’d found in a storage room in the library, and she had taken the shoes from the dead woman’s body. Jim had been shocked at that, but Jenny had barely blinked as she sat and put them on. Life, death-their distinction was still strong, but now the space In-Between was vaster than ever before. Holly was tired and bedraggled, Trix and Anne leaned on each other for support, and Sally walked ahead of the small group. Some people recognized her and moved aside, almost as if making way for a queen, but most did not. Most of the others they passed in that blighted city had tragedy of their own to contemplate, and their attention was focused inward.
“Can we… can we get these things out of us now?” Jenny asked, shuddering with revulsion at the presence of the No-Face Man still inside her.
Jim had been wondering the same thing. They were out of the In-Between. They didn’t need the shadow creatures merged with them anymore. But Sally shook her head again, and Jim saw that old wisdom working behind her eyes. “You’ll need them a little while longer,” she said.
“But-” Trix began.
“Please,” Sally said with a tired sigh. “You’ve trusted me this long.”
Holly took her hand. To her, it was clear Sally wasn’t a child at all. At four or five years older, the Oracle was one of the “big kids”-at least in Holly’s eyes. “We trust you, Sally,” Holly told her, and Jim shuddered, because now there was some of that old wisdom in his daughter’s voice, too.
They had another walk ahead of them, in this city where traffic was mainly restricted to emergency vehicles. Not every street was blocked, but there were many more bicycles being used today, and with crowds of people traversing the city in search of something-or perhaps, in some cases, fleeing something-it was a safer bet to walk.
“McGee’s house,” Sally had said. “That’s where she’ll be waiting.”
“Why can’t we just get there through the In-Between?” Anne had asked, shocking Jim, because that was the last place in the world he’d ever want to go again. But Anne’s eyes were filled with a fury he had never before seen in his wife. In his Jenny.
“No,” Sally had replied. “What’s left of McGee-whatever he’s become-has seen you now.”
“I’d fight him.” Anne had pursed her lips, her cheeks glowing red, and even Trix’s soft touch had done little to quell her shaking.
“And you’d lose,” Sally had said. “He’s not our enemy. He’s not the threat. His crime happened more than a century ago, and he was its first victim. Whatever he is now, I don’t think there’s much of Thomas McGee left in him.”
So they walked, and Jim wished it was all over. He could not let go of his wife, and he wanted to hold his daughter to him, but it was impossible to walk holding them both. So he gave Holly a piggyback ride and got Jenny to curve her arm through his. Soon Holly was snoring gently on his right shoulder, and he felt the sting of tears at that gentle, innocent sound. “How could she be such a bitch?” he asked out loud, and Jenny shook her head because she didn’t know what he meant. But Trix did.
“I can still hardly believe it,” Trix said. “After what she did for my family. What she’s done for so many.”