Strangers and Shadows
Read Strangers and Shadows Online
Authors: John Kowalsky
Contents
After The End, Before The Beginning
In the MultiVerse of Strangers and Shadows, people are anything but ordinary. Whether born with telepathic abilities, or granted them by advanced technology, the agents of the Sixth and Seventh Verses find themselves locked in conflict over a young boy.
On one side, a powerful father and daughter seek to discover the plans of a scheming and estranged mother.
On the other side, the mother pursues her cause to unite both Verses and forge a new path for all of humanity.
Meanwhile, two secret lovers from a backwater world are thrust into the middle of the muddy conflict along with a stranded time traveler. Unsure who is in the right and who can be trusted, they must all choose their allegiances in the struggle between Strangers and Shadows.
Strangers
and
Shadows
by
John Kowalsky
To my big sister, who never got to read the ending.
Prologue
The Stranger walked out of the dark alley. He was already late delivering the keys, having been held up in New York in the Fifth. He’d run into a few complications before making it to a clean jump spot.
Given that they so often worked and traveled in foreign worlds, the agents of the Seventh referred to themselves as Strangers. Having been one for the last seventeen years, Mikhail knew better than most what would happen if he didn’t complete this mission. He didn’t fancy the idea of being permanently posted to some back water Verse far from the comforts of home.
He pulled out a folded paper map, as his tech had no central database to connect to here.
Old school,
he thought, and checked the directions to the drop point again.
He was presently in the Third, in Chicago. He’d been to Chicago before, but there was more than one, and Mikhail hadn’t had the time to acclimate to this one yet.
It was cold, the sun had gone down, it was beginning to rain, and the wind was blowing like a madman.
Good
, he thought, checking the map,
I’m only a few miles east of where I need to be
.
Banks, his handler, had told him nothing about the keys or who they were for, but that was procedure—though, there did seem to be a big fuss about this particular delivery. He had overheard the handler speaking with a few senators that had come to visit the office.
He couldn’t make out all of the conversation, but he had managed to piece together a few facts—the keys were coded to a young man and woman, and they were
very
important to the prime minister. He found the entire situation supremely odd. The keys were out of date, relics from the Seventh’s past. No one used this tech anymore. It was ancient, bulky, and it caused erratic patterns in the grid, sometimes even affecting the weather.
His thoughts were interrupted by a muffled thud coming from the rooftop on his right, then another on his left. The sound of Shadows.
So they finally caught up to me
. The Stranger ran.
He had thought he’d given them the slip back in the Fifth, but now that they were here, his chances of completing his mission and surviving had dropped dramatically. Still, it would take them a few minutes to hone in on his exact position. He just might have enough time to make the drop and jump out before they found him.
He took the next street to the left and dodged a series of cars that were driving down the avenue. In spite of the seriousness of his situation, he found the time to laugh at the reactions of some of the people watching him on the sidewalks.
They must think I’m a crazy person
, he thought as he ran. Dressed in a suit, overcoat, and hat that were manufactured in a parallel universe, maybe they were right.
He changed streets a few more times and then jumped into a cab. He gave the driver the address, and paid him in advance, to which the driver muttered something under his breath.
The Stranger hoped that they had given him the correct currency. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone had overlooked that little detail at the office.
The driver seemed pleased enough with the money, and pulled out into traffic, nearly hitting another vehicle in the process.
When the Stranger arrived at the address, he was surprised by the building’s appearance. It was run down and unimpressive.
Well, no matter
, he thought,
the sooner I finish this and leave, the sooner I’ll get back to Jenni and the babies.
He had just recently had twins. They were his first children from his second wife, and he was looking forward to seeing all of them again.
He’d been on assignment for the last three weeks. First tracking down two working versions of the keys from the Fifth and then dropping them to another agent who took them back to the Seventh to be coded. From the Seventh the keys came back to Mikhail in the Fifth, and then he’d brought them here. The attempt at compartmentalization and secrecy seemed a little over the top to Mikhail, but, then again, that was the information game.
He took the stairs, several flights up, to the roof. The location was supposed to be clean, checked by his people just hours before, but with the arrival of the Shadows, nothing was certain.
He stepped through the door to the roof and removed the keys from their casings. When he reached the ledge, he activated the jump gate over the street below. He was about to drop the keys in when he felt the knife enter his back.
Damn
, he thought as he fell to his knees,
I must be getting slow
. He thought for sure he would have more time before they caught up to him.
He tossed the keys as hard as he could in the direction of the drop point, but the poison was already setting in, his arm went limp, and only one of the keys managed to make it over the ledge. The other made a sick clank as it bounced backwards and began to roll.
Mikhail had just enough motor control left to turn and see his attacker. Sort of.
There were two of them, though it was hard to be sure. His vision had gone blurry and was starting to fade.
The taller one picked up the key that hadn’t quite made it over the side and turned. “One of the keys made it through.” He tilted his head as he listened to the reply on the other end.
“No, it was
his
key...”
“Yes, it’s unfortunate, but we can—” He nodded. “It’ll look like it was them…”
“Alright, we’re on our way back now.” The taller one ended the conversation and turned to the shorter blurry figure. “Poor bastard…”
The Stranger saw a flash of anti-light and then the curtain fell.
Darkness And Light
The mist is back today. The bells are sounding. This marks the start of the third week without sunlight.
I haven’t slept well in days. Asher is continually bringing new problems to my attention that must be addressed immediately. We are running low on food. Medical supplies have to be re-used, boiled in hot water to clean them as best we can. The children have started falling asleep. They do not die, but neither do they wake. It’s as if the darkness is a disease that is slowly infecting us all. Some of the adults have grown sick as well. The old ones first, like a common cold.
We ran out of firewood three days ago. We’ve had to start tearing down homes and businesses to keep the light of the fire alive. The light is all we have to keep us going. I pray that mother returns soon. She’s gone off to the south, searching for a cure to this ever-night. I don’t know how much longer we can hold out. Some of the guards have succumbed to madness and thrown themselves off of the wall and into the darkness. We can still hear their screams long after they’ve vanished from the torch light. They echo in our heads, calling out to us.
I have asked the priestesses to hold services round the clock that it may lighten the people’s despair. I fear it will not be enough.
Great Mother, where are you? If you can hear my prayers, send my mother, our queen, back to us with the answers we seek.
— Entry from the Royal Journal of Princess Avialle, found in the Palace at New Britain.
Asher began his day just as he had for the last three weeks—he opened his eyes expecting to see the sunlight pouring in through the windows. As on every other day for the last three weeks, nothing but darkness greeted him. Not a pitch black darkness, but still one dark enough that a torch or light of some kind was needed. He likened it to the kind of darkness found on a clear starry night, but there were no stars here. In fact, no heavenly body was in sight—no moon, no sun, and no stars.
He reached out and found the lamp on the night stand next to his bed and lit it, careful not to waste the match.
The newspaper had stayed in business, despite all the recent upheaval, and he went in search of the morning edition. Asher’s father always used to tell him that the best news was bad news, at least for selling papers, not necessarily for hearing.
Asher’s father had been in charge of the treasury, overseeing the economy of the entire realm. He had taken over his father’s office, in addition to his other duties, after his death a little over a year ago. Sometimes he could still hear his father’s footsteps in the hall, spaced out in such a way and of such a weight, that they could only belong to him, but when he turned to look, no one was there—tricks of an afflicted mind.
The economy had ground to a halt under the darkness that surrounded everything these days. The newspaper, in addition to the food markets and the hospitals, was one of the only businesses still up and running. Although without any sunlight, the crops would soon be all but ruined. The grocer’s had little more than bread, oats, eggs, and milk to offer these days, and their supplies would dwindle to nothing within the week.
Panicked citizens robbed the food carts coming in from the countryside, but little could be done, as the princess thought that the city guard should stay within the city in order to protect its inhabitants. And if Asher had learned one thing in his twenty years, it was never hope to change a woman’s mind.
As Asher approached the newstand, he was greeted by the paper’s owner and sole operator these days, Bill McGrath, a gruff old man with wire-rimmed glasses and a large mustache that he wore curled up at the ends.
“How are you, young Asher?” Bill asked.
“The same as yesterday, I suppose,” Asher said. “Anything good today?”
“No, sir. Three more children slipped into the sleep, and two more guards took their final leave from the wall.”