Necessary Evil (Milkweed Triptych) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Tommies agree to deal with Hitler. The Foreign Office agrees it won’t send you away again. And Agnes agrees to go to Williton if she absolutely must.”

 
    two
    12–13 May 1940
    Westminster, London, England
    The coppers chivvied me into their car. It had been modified per the blackout regs. The slitted headlamps provided meager illumination for Francis, who drove.
    I’d forgotten just how effective the blackout had been. It was one thing to stand in pastoral St. James’ surrounded by a dark city, but the effect was altogether different when speeding through Trafalgar Square and realizing the night had swallowed Nelson’s Column whole. London was a giant trying to hide in plain sight. It had seemed logical and effective the first time I lived through it. But the passage of time had changed my perspective; now I could see the ostrich for what it was. I knew, as nobody else could, that in the long run the blackout was ultimately pointless.
    There was no hiding from the Eidolons. Even Gretel had managed to throw them off her trail just long enough to get what she wanted out of me.
    But I hadn’t spent a full hour back in 1940 before getting nabbed by the coppers. Did that mean I’d just tossed her entire scheme into a cocked hat?
    Good. Fuck her.
    All I cared about was saving my family. Agnes’s death had been the thin end of the wedge that broke our marriage. But she wouldn’t die this time around. I’d see to that if it was the only thing I did. None of this mattered a good goddamn if I couldn’t save my girl. What point in saving the world if I couldn’t save Agnes?
    I’d lived with loneliness for so long that I didn’t realize its extent until I returned to a world where my wife didn’t despise me. All my failures of the past twenty-three years had been erased. The prospect of recovering my self-respect made me want to weep.
    Things would change once I saved Agnes. But I’d have to keep a watchful eye. Make certain the Eidolons didn’t steal John’s soul again, leaving us with another hollow, howling monster. If there was a John this time around. Perhaps it wasn’t fair, but I didn’t know if I wanted a son after what had happened the last time.
    One of the worst things I’d ever seen was my son’s body put to use as a vessel for the Eidolons. His sightless eyes … their legion voice … Ill and exhausted as I was, I found myself dreading sleep because it would leave me defenseless against the memories seared into my mind.
    I’d save Agnes. Everything would be right again. And Gretel could fend for herself.
    That’s what I told myself while the coppers motored carefully through the dark streets of Westminster. But I didn’t share Will’s capacity for self-delusion, meaning Nelson wasn’t more than two or three streets behind us before the glaring flaw in my plan grew too large to ignore.
    If I saved Agnes, but did nothing more, I’d be leaving her at the mercy of the Eidolons. Best case? She’d die as a young woman in her twenties. Gretel couldn’t postpone the apocalypse beyond the early 1960s. When she’d laid it all out for me and Will, there at the end of the world, she’d told us that most of the time lines she’d studied had ended with the Eidolons much sooner. Meaning I could save Agnes from the Luftwaffe, but she’d still die as an infant.
    I had to face the facts. Saving my family wasn’t simply a matter of keeping Agnes out of Williton. Truly saving my family meant sealing off the Eidolons. And that meant eradicating the warlocks. But I wouldn’t let Agnes grow up with Hitler’s boot on her neck. Meaning I couldn’t deal with the warlocks as long as Doctor von Westarp was merrily churning out Übermenschen for the SS.
    The world was caught between Scylla and Charybdis: twin perils poised to devour those who veered too closely. Milkweed on one side, the Reichsbehörde für die Erweiterung germanischen Potenzials on the other. Or perhaps it was better to say they were the