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Back The Shadow War
Chapters (43)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. SEPTEMBER 1942
  4. CHAPTER ONE
  5. CHAPTER TWO
  6. CHAPTER THREE
  7. CHAPTER FOUR
  8. CHAPTER FIVE
  9. CHAPTER SIX
  10. CHAPTER SEVEN
  11. CHAPTER EIGHT
  12. CHAPTER NINE
  13. CHAPTER TEN
  14. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  15. CHAPTER TWELVE
  16. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  21. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  22. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  33. CHAPTER THIRTY
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  42. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  43. What’s next onyour reading list?

Pitr laughed. It was his same laugh as always, but only now did Liam hear how cruel it had always been, how superior he thought himself. “Because it’s there. I have the knowledge, the power to take it. The power Sicarelli tried to claim before the creatures on the other side beat him back for his weakness. I am not weak. And I will not be beaten.”

Footsteps in the hallway. They both dove into separate bathroom stalls as someone else entered.

Liam’s mind whirred over Pitr’s words as the intruder went into the third stall. No—he couldn’t do it. He wanted to access the shadow realm and the control it offered because he wanted to stop people from being hurt, not because he wanted to hurt them. Even monsters like his father, who was toiling away at the docks under a new name, last he’d heard; his German-American Bund pals had bailed him out after a scant few months in Riker’s. Liam had done everything needed to keep his mother safe. He kept the curtains pulled tight around their new life in New Jersey. As much as he hated the man, not even Kieran Doyle deserved to pay the price Pitr was suggesting.

So Liam tried to tell himself.

The toilet in the third stall flushed; the intruder moved toward the sink and turned the faucet on.

“Think about it,” Pitr whispered from the next stall.

Liam flew out of the bathroom and didn’t look back.

He’d thought the matter was settled, and for a few months, at least, it was. As he carefully avoided Pitr, the spring of 1942 broke over Princeton like a storm, flooding the campus with pollen, grim news from the African and European fronts, and panic as finals approached. Army recruiters set up camp outside every lecture hall, touting the fast track to officer candidate school a college boy was guaranteed—and wasn’t that better than waiting for the draft? Liam considered it, but he was set to graduate with his bachelor’s and start his master’s work immediately after. He wanted that, he was certain, yet he couldn’t muster the requisite enthusiasm or relief his classmates seemed to feel. Pitr’s unsettling presence throughout the winter had now become a heavy absence, a black hole.